Justice For the Justice League

Well that’s one actor who truly doesn’t care for the handling of Justice League. Cyborg’s actor, Ray Fisher, who defended Joss Whedon in the past, has thoroughly gone back on his statements. He’s not a fan at all turns out, so there is that.

I’d like to take a moment to forcefully retract every bit of this statement: pic.twitter.com/1ECwwu6TG1

— Ray Fisher (@ray8fisher) June 29, 2020

To give him some credit, Joss Whedon’s cut of Justice League was not too well received by just about anyone. Even to casual audiences the film was edited to hell and completely different from initial trailers that Sndyer showed off. 

Characters felt completely rewritten, the tone was completely changed, the color palette was all sorts of wacky etc. Despite all of the drastic changes, there were still some people that defended the movie regardless.

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Matter of fact, Ray Fisher was one of the few people that actively defended the film, including the interview at Comic Con. He publicly made statements that Joss Whedon did the best that he could, and that fans would like it.

If you are somehow one of the few who do not know what the drama is behind the Snyder Cut, here’s the short version:

Zack Snyder, primarily known for grittier films like Watchmen, Batman V Superman and Man of Steel. Joss Whedon, primarily known for more colorful and fun films like Buffy The Vampire Slayer as well as Avengers. Two polar opposite filmmakers, with two completely different forms of storytelling.

When Zack Snyder set up the DCEU via MoS and BVS, it was divisive. They were released around the time that the MCU films Winter Soldier and Civil War were releasing. Pretty stiff competition overall, especially for a fledgling universe trying to get its sea legs. 

However, fans of Snyder’s work loved the gritty, shades of grey storytelling that he implemented in his films. Especially praising the casting of Gal Gadot, Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill. So when Zack Snyder released the teaser for Justice League, hopes were rather high. Many people were looking forward to the anti-Avengers style of filmmaking with an ensemble cast.

Things Took a Turn for the Worse

Then, about two thirds of the way through production, Zack Snyder had a personal tragedy and had to leave the film. Enter Joss Whedon, the aforementioned titan of the MCU who was fresh off of the success of Age of Ultron. When he was assigned the film and came on to do reshoots, he assured fans that Snyder’s influence would be felt.

The news started to trickle out that Whedon was doing a lot more than just a few reshoots. And by the time that fans saw the second trailer, they knew that something was wrong and that Justice League was in trouble. 

Eventually, Justice League released, but most (as stated above) found the film pretty lacking. Soon afterwards, we started hearing about behind the scenes trouble with Whedon’s treatment of the script. More and more reshoots, missing footage, color grading issues etc. Joss Whedon had essentially remade the whole movie, and disguised it as a reshoot passion project.

Fans were pretty furious, for pretty good reason. Fast forward about two years and the stars of Justice League started voicing their desire for the Snyder Cut to come out. It started with Jason Momoa who claimed he had seen the Snyder Cut. Ben Affleck joined in soon afterwards. Gal Gadot very quickly after Affleck. Henry Cavill was always sort of passive about the whole thing, but agreed that fans should see it.

Joss: *Instrumental in removing Ray Fisher’s original breakout performance and replacing it with footage that very few enjoyed. Affecting his career.*

Ray: “I’m not about this.”

Them: “wHy iS rAy BeInG sO rUdE?!?”

— DC Connections (@dc_connections) June 29, 2020

Ray Fisher however, he was nothing but vocal about the Snyder Cut needing to be released. Easy to understand when you consider that most of Fisher’s footage never even made it into Whedon’s cut. Several of his scenes were cut, discarded or straight up ignored despite being finished.

You can even see it in the differences between the trailers, Cyborg’s scenes become drastically less included. Some may call that a professional vendetta, we just call it being shafted out of your scenes. It wasn’t fair of Whedon to do that to anyone, so we understand where Fisher is coming from.

As filmmakers ourselves (albeit not Hollywood level), it’s hard to grasp not being angry with Whedon for those decisions. Imagining that basically an entire movie getting remade despite being about 75% completed, blows our minds.

Who knows, perhaps the Snyder Cut will do Ray Fisher justice. We certainly hope so!

 

For more updates, news and articles on The Snyder Cut, stay tuned right here at Scoophash!