The teaser trailer for the upcoming Zack Snyder director’s cut of Justice League reveals that a callback to the end of Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, which was removed from the theatrical cut, has been restored. Though it only features a small handful of shots from the movie, the teaser offers a look at how the confrontation between the Justice League and Superman could be radically different.
The Snyder Cut of Justice League is the result of a years-long campaign by fans who were disappointed by the 2017 release of the team-up movie. Snyder departed Justice League after principal photography, and director Joss Whedon was brought in to do heavy rewrites and reshoots to lighten up the tone of the movie and trim down the story. The result was a movie that got marginally better reviews than Snyder’s previous entry, Batman V Superman, but was criticized for its inconsistent tone, unimpressive visuals, and a sense that it was striving to be as safe and generic as possible.
Coming to HBO Max in 2021, Zack Snyder’s Justice League will only use footage originally shot by Snyder, and none of the reshoot footage filmed by Whedon. This is evident in a scene from the teaser trailer in which Superman, having been resurrected by members of the Justice League, visits the memorial in Metropolis where a statue of him once stood, before being destroyed in the final battle of Batman V Superman. The ending of that movie saw tributes places around the remains of the memorial along with the graffitied message, “If you seek his monument, look around you,” and it’s those words that Superman sees immediately after waking. In the theatrical cut of Justice League this graffiti was not present – perhaps because the studio wanted to avoid too many connections to the critically-maligned Batman V Superman.
Superman’s “monument” memorial is based on the epitaph of Sir Christopher Wren, the architect of St Paul’s Cathedral in London. Wren’s epitaph – “Lector, si monumentum requiris circumspice” – is approximately translated as, “Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you.” In Wren’s case the epitaph is rather literal, since the reader who looks around will see the interior of the grand cathedral that Wren built. But when Superman looks around after reading the words on his own memorial, what he’ll see are the assembled members of the Justice League – metahumans who were inspired by him to work together to save the world.
There’s no guarantee that Snyder’s Justice League will be a better movie than the one released in 2017, but for fans who campaigned relentlessly for its release, the value of it lies simply in seeing the director’s original vision. Though Snyder’s gloomier take on the world of DC heroes has been divisive, the director clearly has a great deal of passion for his visions of Superman, Batman, and the rest of the Justice League. We can look forward to learning more about what to expect from the Snyder Cut (and seeing a full trailer) this weekend during the DC FanDome panel.
