25 Things We Want To See in The Snyder Cut

With only days remaining until Zack Snyder’s Justice League, aka The Snyder Cut, is finally unleashed upon the world, we’ve gone through almost all the trailers, interviews, sneak peaks, and rewatched the previous cut of the film to get an idea of what we think will be in The Snyder Cut and pick out the 25 things we most want to see in Zack Snyder’s Justice League. With a reported two and a half hours of unseen footage added to this new version when it arrives on HBO Max – and HBO Go here in Asia – here’s what we’d most like to see.

1. Number one with a bullet, aka “Bahir’s Choice,” has to be a more on the Green Lanterns. We only see one member of DC’s space corps in the original cut, in the flashback to the first battle between the forces of Apokolips and the heroes of Earth. Where did Yalan Gur’s ring go after they fell in battle? It’s long been rumoured that Alfred was talking to a Lantern at the end of the “Justice League – Comic-Con Sneak Peek” when he says: “He said you’d come? Now let’s hope you’re not too late.” It might be hard to make this work considering the lack of any other mention of modern day Lanterns, but we can hope can’t we? “No protectors here. No lanterns?” Don’t let it be a case of “no follow up?”
2. Speaking of that flashback to the “Age of Heroes,” in his breakdown of the teaser he released in November, Snyder pointed out that it was always planned that Darkseid, not Steppenwolf, would lead the forces of Apokolips in their first assault on Earth. We have a feeling that the majority of the new footage of Darkseid will be contained in this section of the film, but we hope that Uxas (as Snyder insists on calling him) lives up to the hype, and to the performance by Michael Ironside in the excellent Justice League Unlimited (FYI: THIS is going to come up a lot!) and Superman: The Animated Series. Please don’t give us a brutish screaming monster.

3. In the above trailer breakdown, Snyder also revealed that Darkseid finds his life’s goal, the anti-life equation, here on Earth. With such callbacks to his comics background, can we at least get a few proclamations of “DARKSEID IS” in the movie?
4. It’s been all but confirmed that any battle between the League and Darkseid would have been confined to a Justice League sequel, but we’d still love to see him go up against Superman and the League in a scene as powerful as his clash with Superman from the Justice League Unlimited cartoon. (Can you tell I like this show?)

5. It’s already been confirmed that Jared Leto’s take on the Joker is back for some more “Knightmare” visions of a Darkseid dominated future, but can we please keep him to a minimum?
6. It would also be great if these “Knightmare” sections, and the unexplained time travel elements from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, could make just a little damn sense? We have a rough idea of what Snyder was aiming for – somehow Lois’ death leads to Superman falling under Darkseid’s control – but how and when? With Snyder’s follow up movies off the cards, we’ll probably never get to see that storyline fulfilled, but can we at least get a hint of how it was supposed to work? How was this supposed tie into future Barry’s visitation with Bruce from BvS? Was this supposed to tie into Superman’s resurrection somehow? From what’s been revealed, Superman’s return will be different in The Snyder Cut.

7. Will we find out why this news anchor’s desk is so high? Or is his seat too low? (We’re guessing not as this seems like one of the more “humourous” additions to Snyder’s original cut.)
8. The consistent presence of footage of a pre-Cyborg Vic Stone playing American football, amongst other scenes in the trailers released both before Snyder left the film, and after his return, seems to indicate that JL would have acted as much more of a Cyborg origin story than what we got. Snyder has hinted in interviews that he needed the additional 2+ hours over the length of BvS to introduce all the new characters. Here’s hoping we get to know Cyborg more than just a walking tech MacGuffin. The new trailers also sketch out a very different and SPOILERY relationship with his father, Silas Stone, so we hope to get more than the mopey teen we got in the original. Oh and that footage of Cyborg knocking a falling Humvee out of the way of a cop still needs explaining too.
9. How did Silas Stone get his hands on the Mother Box anyway?

10. It already looks like we’ll get more on Aquaman picking up his armour and trident (quindent?) from Mera and Vulko, but will The Snyder Cut answer the biggest Aquaman mystery from the original cut; What did Aquaman steal from Wayne Aeronautics… and did Batman catch him? (Despite what Barry says in the previous scene, Snyder has stated this is not the batcave. The batcave doesn’t have windows!)
11. It also looks like we’ll get more of Ezra Miller’s Barry Allen, whether we want it or not, including that scene where he goes through a window to save Iris West. We’d also love to see Barry actually evolve as a hero over the course of the movie. From being someone who only pushes people out of trouble to one who is ready to “do battle” by the film’s climax. He takes out multiple parademons at the end of the existing version. When did he learn to do that? New footage of the Flash running in an abstract landscape in recent trailers, along with Snyder’s reluctance to comment on them, may indicate a much bigger role for Barry in the final fight.

12. The new trailers have shown us plenty of New Gods of Apokolips, including Granny Goodness and DeSaad. Reports indicate that DeSaad and Steppenwolf will work together, so we hope some of this this will fill in Steppenwolf’s reasons for coming to Earth when he did and just clear up the Mother Box storyline altogether. Steppenwolf should have known that the Mother Boxes were here on Earth for millennia, so what stopped him from looking for them before Kal-el arrived? Will we get more on Luthor’s notes that Bruce refers to? Why did the Mother Boxes wake up when Superman died? Why did the Parademons leave a handy image of the Mother Boxes behind when they died for Bruce to later recognize? Did Luthor call Steppenwolf in that deleted “Communion” scene from BvS?
13. Does only Barry see the lighting of the speed force or does everyone? Is he constantly giving everyone static shocks?
14. “I lost someone I loved once.” Twice Diana. Twice!
15. We understand the “comic logic” in bringing Superman back to life but how about some “movie logic?” Bruce mentions using the power of a Mother Box to awaken Superman’s “cells lying dormant but – incapable of decay.” When was this established? Has this got anything to do with the soil on Clark’s coffin starting to float at the very end of BvS?
16. Speaking of resurrections, seeing as almost everyone Clark knows turned up for his funeral, how does he explain his return?

17. There’s a throwaway line in the flashback to the first battle for Earth about people turning into Parademons, how exactly does that work? Why was this established and then never mentioned again? Were the League fighting (and killing?) converted humans? Eww?
18. Junkie XL may be replacing Danny Elfman’s score with one of his own, but can we please keep some of those musical flourishes from Elfman’s Batman ’89 score when Bruce is on screen? Those moments were some of the few in the film that made the hearts of us aging Burton fans soar. 

19. Can we get a Mother Box going “ping, ping, ping?” Just once?
20. By all accounts it seems the climax of The Snyder Cut won’t be too far removed from the original, with a blue sky instead of a red one, and no pesky Russian families to make things more #relatable. The new trailers have also featured Bruce using some fancy new gauntlets to deflect Parademon blasts. Is it too much to ask that Batman doesn’t just pick up a gun and start shooting? It’s kind of the antithesis of his character. Actually, while we’re at it, can you do anything about making Batman suck less against the Parademons. As Supes says in my favorite clip from Justice League Unlimited: “That man won’t quit as long as he can still draw breath.” In that clip Batman becomes the only one to ever escape Darkseid’s omega beams. Sure, Bruce is getting on a bit in years, but at can we at least show him holding his own against Steppenwolf’s minons, if not getting in a few licks on the bad guy himself?
21. Where is Steppenwolf boom tubing to all the time? Isn’t he suppose to be in exile?
22. As well as ending on a cliffhanger, which we guess will be the League boom tubing to Apokolips to take on Darkseid, it’s also been confirmed that the film features a “big cameo.” As we mentioned above, we’d love this to be a Green Lantern, but what if it was someone else? Zachary Levi’s Shazam? When talking about this Snyder did cryptically highlight the open hibernation chamber on the Kryptonian scout ship from Man of Steel. Could we maybe see a Supergirl?

23. Give us the more epic “Aquaman walking into the waves” shot from the early trailers and not the weaksauce shot from the original cut.
24. We never got an answer to the question posed to superman at the very start of the movie by those podcast kids. What does Superman think the best thing about planet earth is? Lois? French fries? The Office? LISTS!?
25. After MILLIONS of dollars have been spent on updated special effects and reshoots… will there be any remnant of Henry Cavill’s Mission: Impossible mustache?

I’ll admit, I’ve been sniffy about the whole “release the Snyder Cut” campaign, mostly due to the toxicity of many of the fans clamoring for it, but after looking at all the new (and old!) footage, and interviews with Zack Snyder, I’m more interested now in his vision than I ever have been.

We’ll finally find out if all the hubbub was worth it come March 18th.

Zack Snyder’s Justice League will be released on Thursday, 18 March, on HBO Max and on HBO Go in Asia.