Cyborg Takes Center Stage in The Snyder Cut, Highlighting Heroic Care – Hot

Before I sat down to watch Zack Snyder’s version of Justice League, I was convinced that it wouldn’t be much of an improvement on the original 2017 version. I was glad to be proven wrong, and to feel some measure of connection to these heroes by the end of the movie. Mind you, some critics feel that there isn’t much change (which is an absurd perspective because it is very much a different film), but I guess if you aren’t a fan of Snyder’s style in general, you aren’t going to be complimentary either way.

What impressed me most, besides the upgrade to Steppenwolf’s design (which gave him more opportunity to emote), was the greater depth and characterisation given to our heroes. Ben Affleck’s Batman became less jokey and infinitely more capable, Wonder Woman’s (Gal Gadot) guilt and separation from the Amazons is given more attention (instead of us listening about Steve Trevor for the umpteenth time), Aquaman’s struggle with his identity and whether he wants to be a part of the fight ties in very nicely with the conflicts faced in his own solo movie, while Ezra Miller’s Flash is less annoying (Snyder still can’t handle the quippy dialogue of Barry Allen) and his relationship with his father is more fleshed out, despite there being only two scenes between the pair.

However, the biggest change and development goes to Victor/Cyborg (Ray Fisher), whose anger was never properly contextualised in the first version of Justice League. If there is anyone who is the heart of the film, it is Victor, whom we follow from broken man – in both body and soul – to a sense of healing. Snyder takes great pains with his story, weaving moments of his past into the flowing narrative, where we are given insight into the kind of man he was before the accident changed everything.

Victor was a good man, the kind of man who hacked into the school system to change his classmate’s grades in her time of need. Victor’s mom is presented as his champion, always present, ever encouraging. On the day of the accident, Snyder paints a day of beautiful snowfall and a victorious football game, all before the shift to pain – the pain of an absent father, before the loss of a mother. We can immediately imagine Victor’s devastation, to wake up not only a different man but also having to deal with a loss that feels insurmountable.

But Victor never loses attachment to who he is, which we see when he helps a stranger with her finances. Highlighting these acts of kindness is something I really enjoyed in this iteration of Justice League (don’t forget Bruce helping Clark’s mom buy back their family farm). These heroes aren’t just preoccupied with fighting the next villain, but are all in their own ways contributing members of society, doing their part to affect some measure of change.

Victor’s complicated relationship with his father also has more layers. In the previous film, it feels like he is angry that his father brought him back and made him like this. In this version, Victor is bitter about his father’s role in their accident that day – if his mother hadn’t needed to comfort him, maybe they would have both seen the oncoming car. She died because his father never showed up – that’s the narrative Victor clings to. While there is a compulsion to push his father away, there is nonetheless an immense desire for his love, and this is clearly seen through his protective behaviour around his father.

It was the most heartbreaking thing to see Victor lose not just his mother, but father as well in the span of one movie. In both moments, we see Victor reach towards each parent with the same hand, only to grasp nothing as both are lost to him forever. Not only that, he isn’t accorded the space to grief – the villain needs to be stopped, and he needs to play his part, otherwise its the end for everyone.

As he hacks into the motherboxes at the end, and they seduce him with a family reunion and a chance to escape the pain, Victor is able to see past his image of himself as a broken man. It would be so easy to embrace the athletic, whole-bodied man he used to be, and give in to the darkness of his despair. But he doesn’t.

This is true for each member of the Justice League, who have experienced such extensive losses, yet persevere on as heroes, fighting for the world. Interestingly, the dream sequence at the end, where Batman envisions a horrifying apocalypse created due to Clark’s loss of Lois Lane, has a similar overlap to the recent themes explored in WandaVision. When will the loss feel so gaping and cutting that our heroes will willingly dive into the abyss? Which loss will tip the balance, turning superhero into supervillain?

So, I was glad that I spent four hours on the Snyder Cut. Even Jared Leto’s Joker came off so much better in this than in the travesty that was Suicide Squad. It is a little sad that Ben Affleck’s Batman is now more or less retired (I mean, he’s showing up in The Flash solo movie, but that’s about it) and will never get a solo movie. But hey, who knows what possibilities are on the table now with the Snyder Cut out in the world? Maybe the world is big enough for both a Batfleck and Robert Pattinson’s version of the caped crusader.

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