Jut like Batman v Superman before it, Justice League is unfortunately packed full of material that it doesn’t need. And it’s all this odd bloat that prevent the story from becoming a cohesive, fully enjoyable film. (As it stands, it’s a confusing film with some very enjoyable bits in it.) Here are several items that could have been cut or reworked to that end.
Spoilers for Justice League.
The State of the World Post-Death of Superman
Zack Snyder loves to throw in odd montages at the start of his movies, and Justice League has this really weird setup where we see how the world has changed in Superman’s absence. Specifically, we see how hate crimes are on the rise? It’s explicit enough that we’re shown a skinhead harassing a Muslim family; the skinhead is then subdued by the police. There is anger and fear all around, people panicking crying and laying roses down at memorials for Superman all across the globe. There is a striking oddness to this setup if you’ve seen Batman v Superman, however, a film that made it clear that the world’s standing on Superman is mixed at best and outright hostile in many places. So it’s weird to suggest that Supes being gone leads to this “death of hope” that has worldwide consequences.
This culminates in Diana rushing to a stop a terrorist attack at the British Museum. And while there should be something meaningful—at least in a meta sense—in watching Diana stop a mass shooter from killing a bunch of kids, the scene ultimately undercuts her main arc in the film. Batman later gives her a hard time for shying away from the world, but the audience has already seen Diana working. It muddies an already very muddy story.
The Amazons Try to Keep Their Mother Box
Part of the reason why this segment should be cut is down to how the Amazons are shot on film this time around. Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins knew how to place the camera to make it clear that the women she was filming were powerful forces of nature that no one should mess with. The Snyder version is mostly showcasing that Amazons are hot. Which we know without strategic camera angles that focus on their posteriors and (suddenly not-armored) abs.
But moreover? This section is just a waste of time. It goes on forever, and it feels like an attempt to make fans of Wonder Woman happy by reintegrating the Amazons into the modern-day story. All we really needed was Steppenwolf breaking out of the box and Hippolyta going to light the beacon to warn Diana. It would have serviced the film better and prevented the plot from being so incredibly disjointed.
Arthur Takes a Trip to Atlantis
It turns out that a lot of Aquaman’s backstory was purged in the reshoots of the film, and that makes his whole sojourn to Atlantis a mess of a sequence. We see Amber Heard as Mera (spoiler: eventual Queen of Atlantis, the woman who Aquaman marries in the comics), working to stop Steppenwolf from obtaining the second Mother Box, which obviously doesn’t work. Arthur shows up to fight and gets his butt handed to him. Mera decides it’s time to tell Arthur off for his absence in a baffling monologue about how sad Arthur’s mother must have been to abandon him. You know, even though it’s really important for him to get back to the surface and figure out where Steppenwolf has gone.
This scene need double the context, or to be erased completely. It offers very little to fans who don’t already have some idea of the Aquaman mythos, and makes even less sense when Arthur suddenly shows up in Atlantean scale mail a few minutes later. Did Mera give that to him after chewing him out? Wouldn’t Aquaman’s journey in the film be better helped by understanding why he decides to help tiny fishing villages in the winter, instead of getting yelled at about his place under the sea?
Meeting Jim Gordon
We get it, this film really wants to be the superhero version of “The Gang’s All Here,” and as tickling as it is to see J.K. Simmons playing Jim Gordon, this scene is completely unnecessary. Batman is a detective who spends all of his time keeping an eye on what’s happening in Gotham. Alfred probably could have done some Googling and figured the kidnapping situation out without the team responding to the Bat Signal and heading to the roof of the police station. The exchanges on the roof are cute and all, but it just helps the movie continue to drag.
And it’s really there to get the stock “Batman vanishes when you’re talking to him” joke in there anyhow.
Superman Wakes Up Angry
For the most part, Henry Cavill finally gets to play Superman in Justice League. That is, a character who finally behaves like Superman. But what’s a teamup film without making everyone fight each other, right? So when Superman is revived, he’s very pissed off for some reason, and everyone in the League has to punch him to try and subdue him. Which leads to the only good part of the scene, where the Flash runs to get behind him and everyone else is attacking from the front, and Barry sees Superman turn in Speedforce to look at him and then take him out. Eventually Bruce joins the party (he’s Batman—he had to run all the way over from the other building after calling Alfred), and Superman finally gets to echo Bruce’s words from Batman v Superman at him: “Do you bleed?”
This whole impetus could have been served just a easily and far more expediently if Supes had simply woken up disoriented. It’s not hard to believe that his powers could fritz a little if he were suddenly brought back from the dead, and having a group of people trying to calm you down would probably freak you out even more. Eventually he could recognize that these people are not trying to hurt him and hurry off to part unknown to try and collect himself. Shorter scene that doesn’t require Randomly Evil Superman. Because not remembering everything about your life doesn’t fundamentally change who you are.
Save This Family
We get repeated scenes where we return to a Russian family who are right at the center of Steppenwolf’s Mother Box Unity Concert with the parademons swooping all over. And while we are clearly getting to know this family in order to worry about them by the end of the film with the Justice League swoops in to save the day, we don’t actually learn anything about them. Except for the fact that they are a family. And their home is surrounded by parademons. And they are very scared. Which makes sense, but we don’t need five scenes showcasing just how very scared they are.
This does eventually lead to Barry Allen rushing them to safety, but this could have easily been achieved without showing us the family every twenty minutes. It doesn’t give the film a sense of urgency, but rather make it confusing that they aren’t more important to overall story. You keep expecting the daughter to help out one of the heroes or something, but no. They were just there. In peril. Like ya do.
Superman Goes Home With Lois
It should be noted that I’m saying this as a fan of this particular version of Lois and Clark, as I think that their relationship is one of the best things this Superman incarnation has going for it—but nearly every scene with Lois in it could be scrapped. It pulls focus away from what’s happening in the film, and it’s mostly just there to show Lois being sad that Clark is dead and then Lois being sad that she didn’t tough out the death of her near-fiancé by throwing herself into work. We get a couple of cute lines out of it, but it ultimately distracts. All of these things could easily be dumped into the next film with Superman, which is where they belong.
Plus, there’s nothing so baffling as watching Superman wake up furious, go home confused and amnesiac, then be ready to fight alongside Batman a hour later. If we’re meant to see Clark move through the reboot of his brain, we need more of an explanation as to what he’s going through, not just a blank stare here and a smile there.
The Team Saves Batman Before He Can Martyr Himself
Sad, tired Batman is maybe the best thing to come out of the DC Cinematic Universe. After countless versions of Batman who spend their time telling everyone in earshot that they can either get with his program or leave, watching a Batman who truly wants to work with others, who feels a bit unequal to the task, who is trying his darnedest to build a new family, is far more interesting to watch. Batman who grins when Superman suddenly shows up to the fight is way more fun than Batman who has no interest in ever working with anyone ever because he is The Night and The Night is a loner, thank you very much.
But the final fight is the final fight, and we need to be focused on that. Not on how Bruce Wayne thought maybe he’d let the parademons kill him because that’s all he’s good for in the big boss battle. Fine, we get it, Batman needs to learn how it works when you’ve got a team backing you up, but he could learn that while actually, you know, fighting with the team. To be fair, at least they all give him hell for it, but it’s another place where the movie claws forward when it needs to be sprinting toward the finish line.
Those are just a few of the places where the film could be reworked. What would you have done with the editing scissors?
Emmet Asher-Perrin would like to allocate a lot of these scenes to different movies. You can bug her on Twitter and Tumblr, and read more of her work here and elsewhere.
Well, you have definitely convinced me not to see the movie. I was on the fence but you pushed me right off!
The scene with WW and the terrorists felt like it should have been at the end of the movie where there are scenes of the heroes doing stuff after the big fight. Fits much better, showing WW out in the world.
You could really tell where Whedon shot scenes versus Snyder. Tonal shifts like that are jarring and IMHO ruined the movie.
I wanted Superman to say whether he could beat up a hippopotamus.
In all seriousness, he seemed a little standoffish with those budding journalists.
Agreed on most points. My editing scissors would have cut out all of Flash. I hated that version of the character.
Haven’t seen the movie. Don’t plan to. Just want to say I saw the trailer for it last night on TV and was halfway through it before I realized it was for a movie and not a video game. Anyone else experienced this phenomena lately? I’d say it’s good for games and graphics. Not sure about movies.
@3
I thought it was more that Superman just doesn’t know how to act around kids. He’s a bit of a stiff when it comes to handling people in general, too.
That seems more like a Whedon part than a Snyder part. Although, in fairness, he generally prefers it to be slight and waifish women in that position rather than Amazons.
Quite frankly, the whole movie didn’t need to happen.
They should have waited to do JL until after all the characters had been introduced in their own movies.
It’s not terrible. But it feels like a whole bunch of (mostly) good scenes and a few great scenes that don’t really fit together as a whole.
I think there’s a lot of good stuff to build sequels and movies for the specific characters. And the cast is solid. So that helps. But they need to get rid of Snyder and start with new writers and directors.
Having Superman flatten the entire League single-handed after his resurrection was awful. Way to undermine the whole concept of a team, movie. Not to mention contradict your own tag-line.
“You can’t save the world alone.” Apparently you can…if you’re Superman.
There’s also something rather tone-deaf about following Wonder Woman‘s success with a film in which she is easily overpowered by Superman.
“Hey kids, did you love how empowering and inspirational Wonder Woman was in her movie? Well enjoy watching her get smashed into the ground by Superman because pecking order.”
I’m mostly in agreement with what you’d want to cut. Mostly.
1. The point was belabored too much, but I feel like due to how they ended the movie (the parademons feeding on fear), they had to show that Earth was more fear-filled than ever before. You’re right though – it doesn’t fit with BvS and the way the world seemed to feel about Supes. Though there WERE some who worshipped him as a god (or nearly so), so I suppose Earth post-Supes is filled with people who either didn’t like Supes and are still in despair anyway, or people who did and now are despairing? But yeah, we didn’t need the bit with the kid reporters.
2. This is the only one I kinda disagree with. I feel like if they hadn’t shown the Amazons attempting to defend the Mother Box, there would have been an outcry about the Amazons being this amazing fighting force in WW but being absolutely nothing in JL. With the attempted defense (including the reserves coming in en masse looking fairly intimidating), we at least get shown that yes, they are still badasses. It sorta ups the badass-rating of Steppenwulfe.
3. While the whole Atlantis thing was indeed choppy (it doesn’t surprise me to learn a lot ended up on the cutting room floor), I feel like we got the one thing out of it that I needed most – Arthur didn’t grow up in Atlantis, and that’s why he talks like a surfer. I guess.
4. Yeah the whole Jim Gordon thing seemed unnecessary. I really wish he’d demanded photos of Spider-man.
5. Angry Superman was annoying, cliche and 100% predictable. And as one other commenter noted, this scene plus the final battle really make it seem like the only thing the JL was necessary for was to revive Superman, who could have just taken care of the rest if he wasn’t busy in the cornfield with Lois and Ma Kent.
6. Ugh the Russian family. I almost wonder if the ending where the Flash saves that family while Superman saves an entire apartment complex wasn’t a tongue-in-cheek jab at the whole “focus on one group of normals and how they are affected by the things going on” tendency. Whether on purpose or not, it seemed to be an almost meta moment of commentary, but poking fun at the movie it was in rather than other movies.
7. I agree most of the Lois stuff could’ve been left out of this. We didn’t need Superman to be angry and then become “ok” when Lois showed up. He could have woken up and been without power from being out of the sun for so long and needed to “recharge” if you really needed him to come in at the last moment to save Our Heroes. Get rid of the lame Angry Supes conflict and the Lois scenes and give that time to more backstory for Aquaman, Cyborg and the Flash.
8. This is the thing I’m probably the most OK with. Batman wasn’t just sacrificing himself because he felt useless or anything – he knew the rest of them had to get close enough to Steppenwulfe to make a difference and he had a way to draw the parademons away. It worked well with his desire for WW to lead them only to have that pseudo-bite-him-in-the-ass (while saving his life) when she discards his original plan and they all save him. It is also one of the few times Batman gets to do Batman things other than assembling the team.
“Sad, tired Batman is maybe the best thing to come out of the DC Cinematic Universe. After countless versions of Batman who spend their time telling everyone in earshot that they can either get with his program or leave, watching a Batman who truly wants to work with others, who feels a bit unequal to the task, who is trying his darnedest to build a new family, is far more interesting to watch. Batman who grins when Superman suddenly shows up to the fight is way more fun than Batman who has no interest in ever working with anyone ever because he is The Night and The Night is a loner, thank you very much.”
I disagree with a lot of what you’ve written, but I’m absolutely in agreement with this point. Affleck’s older, world-weary Batman is note-perfect, and I’m mystified as to why so many have dismissed this take on him (could just be that people just don’t like Ben Affleck, I guess, though I don’t understand that either). In fact, this take on Batman is arguably even better than the “pissed-off loner” version of Batman we’ve been stuck with in the comic books since the late Eighties.
12. Calli Beecher Grey: “could just be that people just don’t like Ben Affleck…”
Yeah, some viewers let the actor’s baggage blind them to the performance. Can’t get past “Look, it’s Affleck!”
I’ve never understood it either. I’m trying at the moment and can’t think of a single instance where an actor/actress irritates me as a person. I don’t know them and always find it weird when people express such antipathy.
I liked this movie a lot. One thing that is weird, though, is that we are getting movies for Flash and Aquaman, but the characterization made me want to learn more about Flash and Cyborg. If you aren’t going to give Cyborg a movie, then swapping his beats with Aquaman’s would make more sense.
I thought that the resurrection of Superman should have failed. We had Cyborg talking earlier in the film about how he didn’t feel fully human, and we had Batman talking about how he felt he was less human than Superman. Why not have these two dialogues meet later? How about the resurrection fails, Batman sinks into depression, Cyborg snaps him out of it by talking about how “I don’t even know how much of me is still human, but enough is that I’m going to continue to fight. If you’re as human as I think you are, you’ll join us.” Then the JL saves the world without the Kryptonian, proving that humans can defend Earth all on their own.
Then in the post-credits scene, we see Supes rise from the dead in his interstellar pool-from-The-Cocoon. He’ll be back, but to help humanity protect itself, not lead it.
This movie perfectly highlighted the problem they were always going to have with Superman in a team-up movie. Not only does he single-handedly beat up all four other super-powered team members, but when everybody but Barry is fighting Steppenwolf, they lose handily, then Superman shows up, punches him twice, rescues an apartment building full of people, then hits him again and the fight is over. There’s literally no need for anyone other than Cyborg to even be there.
On a totally unrelated note, someone pointed out to me that, she’s been in Three movies now, and not one person has actually said the name “Wonder Woman”. The same goes for “Justice League” in this move, and also “The Flash” and “Cyborg”, unless I missed them. It’s like DC is terrified of reminding the audience that they’re watching a movie based on a comic book…
In spite of the flaws, I find I enjoyed myself.
The scenes in Atlantis were, indeed, confusing. (Maybe there is a three-hour version of this film somewhere out there!)
When people (or mer-people) were thrown around, in the typical way of stylized comic book combat, the filmmakers forgot that water resists motion much more than air does. So when the cliché horned villain throws people against the wall, they would never reach the wall.
Most reviews of the film have focused on how truncated the narrative feels, and I agree that the picture might have been more coherent had Warner Brothers allowed it to run about two and a half hours or so. But a day after I saw it, I realized it likely also could have worked as a 90-minute feature if further material were cut — and a lot of the sequences I thought of immediately are ones identified in this essay.
I’m not sure why the studio settled on 2 hours, but the “finished” film we got retains just enough backstory to be confusing. I’ve been familiar with these characters on a basic level for close to 50 years now, and I had no idea what Aquaman and Mera were talking about. Elsewhere, Cyborg has one too many conversations with his dad, but his origin remains somewhat vague — some audience members at the showing I attended came away thinking that the accident Victor Stone experienced was entirely caused by Silas. And I’m not sure why we need to know about Barry Allen’s relationship with his dad but nothing about how he got his actual powers beyond Cyborg’s fleeting mention that it had to do with a bolt of lightning.
I kind of would have preferred a movie that admitted to itself that the life stories of the lesser characters aren’t that important, and that the only real interest we could be expected to have in them is limited to watching them do their cool stuff. That’s why, no matter how interested I might be in seeing a director’s cut with all the stuff Snyder shot but which landed on the cutting room floor, I bet I’d be even more satisfied by a streamlined version that omits much of the material identified here.
And also every single shot of FrankenCavill that isn’t absolutely essential to the story, because my God, that face.
@19 2 hours for the same reason the DC is always pushing Event comics. If they just told a short fun story then people might dare to say it wasn’t a piece of *epic* true art. People who make comicbook properties (and DC/WB in particular) are terrified that they might be seen as just a bit of fun. You see the hardcore nerd cringe all over them when it is suggested something is just for fun and not super grown up respectable art. But any longer and people start noticing all the goofy comicbook conventions that no amount of grimdarking things up (or in in Whedonesqe works, quippy banter and sexualised women fighting, which Whedon and his coterie pass off as Feminism) can cover up.
I mostly enjoyed the film but was not at all blind to the aspects the article pointed out, and some others.
For instance the scene where batman is standing on a ledge in the cooling tower popping off parademons with one of their guns was SO lame. It was at least three camera-shots, centered solely on him and with nothing indicating whether or not he was hitting his targets. Must have run out of either budget or imagination on that one. (Unless it was a too-subtle poke at how unsuited he was to that particular fight).
The other confusing thing was seeing Steppenwolf so suddenly, without any build-up. Like, wait, is this maybe some lieutenant of the big bad guy who is yet to appear? Oh, this is the big bad guy? What, in broad daylight?! And all he has going for him is some demons and a f**k-off big axe? Just weird.
Then brief flash of excitement when Darkseid gets mentioned, but he’s also going on about his beloved Queen. Gah!
Anyway, I don’t want to hate because I’ve never been super invested in JL in their group format, but I would like to see it grow into something more cohesive in the next few movies.
@17. Jade Phoenix, that’s so funny!
I think I had noticed that in the back of my mind about Wonder Woman
The superman arc in this film was really lacking in imagination. I really got excited during the discussion of whether or not to resurrect Superman, particularly the way WW was apprehensive and Batman was all for it. It could have been far more ominous of a moment if linked to the dark Superman who Batman sees in his vision during BvS.
You raise some good points but I doubt if any of them get at the core issue with the movie which is a lackluster villain and a paint by numbers 3rd act.Most of the stuff you want trimmed down actually draw us in to the world of these individual League members.
And they are very scared. Which makes sense, but we don’t need five scenes showcasing just how very scared they are.
About this Russian family, I really don’t think that they were scared otherwise why weren’t they attacked by the parademons? They did seem pretty concerned, but they were so pragmatic about the whole situation especially the girl who had my favourite sight gag in the entire movie. I assumed that their lack of fear was the point and that it was commentary on the post-trauma psyche of refugees (from dialogue in the movie …who would live here?….people who’ve been kicked out of everywhere else.)
Angry! Superman being calmed down by Lois is somewhat reminiscent of the Hulk being calmed down by Black Widow, not to mention angry Hulk being cocooned by the rest of the Avengers during a hissy. People do go to both kinds of movies, and perhaps some attention could have been paid to the parallels?
the movie is awesome . You just like to talk a lot, or to write should I say .
If they cut all the scenes you’re mentioning. it’d be a 15min short movie .
@24 – Lina: I guess that the Parademons were not allowed to feed now that they had all three boxes.
@25 – excessivelyperky: But Superman being calmed by Lois makes a lot more sense (comics-wise) than Hulk being calmed by the Black Widow.
Superman nearly killing Batman with definite intent was troubling in the fact that that sort of thing isn’t what he does – unless he still thought he was trying to save Martha, in which case -why not just yell that out again … it gave a good setup for some good post “Sorry I nearly killed you” dialog which never happened – so I’d have had more post-end-bonding stuff. No way that Batman should have survived Superman’s attack, and when you hold someone in the air like that, gravity doesn’t work like that…
I really liked the brief moments with Cyborg and Flash (in that order), but adding more to that would have been a good addition of time to the movie.
My biggest complaint in all 3 superman movies – Lois keeps calling him Clark in front of people who don’t know who he is. In Smallville when she finds Superman with Martha – and then in this movie – when the cop is near her, trying to intervene. Then, at the end, Clark’s on the farm with Bruce – NO GLASSES. Are they just humoring the alien with frightening powers with pretending to believe he has a secret identity?