2019 has proven to be a huge year for the much-debated and increasingly hyped “Snyder Cut” of Justice League, with much of the credit for that belonging to how much Zack Snyder himself has revealed about his version of the film this year. By now, the changes that were implemented on Justice League during the film’s infamous reshoots are well-known to anyone following the situation, with the stark differences between Snyder’s version of the film and the one released into theaters in 2017 being one of the major driving forces behind the campaign for the Snyder Cut’s release. Owing to a series of developments that have occurred over the past year, interest in Snyder’s cut of the movie has gradually risen among the general public, with the past few months especially seeing that growing interest simply explode.

Media coverage of the Snyder Cut has also seen a commensurate rise, with a major snowball effect being set off after Jason Momoa confirmed to have seen it. A growing number of cast and crew members would subsequently jump into the fray and give their support for the Snyder Cut’s release, culminating in Gal Gadot and Ben Affleck adding their voices to the chorus on the movie’s two-year anniversary. Calls for the Snyder Cut’s release have reached such a fever pitch that everyone from CNN correspondents to MCU stars have taken to social media to publicly support its release.

While the ongoing grassroots campaign to persuade Warner Bros. to release the Snyder Cut has kept the issue in the public eye for the past two years, Zack Snyder has continued to post teases of his version of Justice League to his Vero True Social account. As Snyder’s teases and interactions with fans have grown increasingly detailed in what they’ve revealed, more is now known conclusively about the content of his version of the movie than ever before, and as the demand for the Snyder Cut to be released continues to steadily rise, it is clear that Snyder’s reveals over the past year are among the most significant reasons for that. Here is everything that Zack Snyder has revealed about his version of Justice League over the course of 2019.

Zack Snyder Proved The Snyder Cut Exists

The very existence of the Snyder Cut itself has been a major sticking point in the discourse surrounding it. Zack Snyder departed Justice League in May 2017, approximately six months before the movie’s theatrical debut in November of that year. Although Snyder had completed principal photography, the point at which Snyder had left during the movie’s post-production phase indicated that that the film still had a long way to go before reaching the finish line. As such, for roughly the first year of the campaign for the Snyder Cut, the prevailing narrative was that whatever footage Snyder had assembled was in far too raw a condition to be releasable, despite evidence to the contrary.

While Snyder’s social media teases did a great deal to erode the consensus of the non-existence of his version of the movie, Snyder confirmed that wasn’t the case during a director’s cut event hosted by Snyder in March of this year. Held at the Ahmanson Auditorium at the ArtCenter College of Design, the event screened Snyder’s director’s cuts of Dawn of the Dead, Watchmen, and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, with a Q&A session held after each. Following the event’s conclusion, Snyder would make his first on-camera confirmation of the existence of his cut of Justice League. Additionally, posters for the event included the number 214 to point to his cut having a running time of 214 minutes (with Snyder later revealing his initial assembly cut ran nearly five hours.)

This would mark a fundamental turning point for talk about the Snyder Cut, and while some debate would still linger in the ensuing months, Snyder even more definitively put the matter to bed with an image of the cut itself on social media. With the debate over the Snyder Cut’s existence having lasted nearly as long as the campaign for it has, the confirmation that Snyder would offer for it would move the topic into a whole new realm of media coverage and popular demand for its release.

The Plot of Zack Snyder’s Cut Was Way Different

With 2019 marking the point where the existence of the Snyder Cut would become an established fact, much has also come to light about how drastically different it was from the theatrical version of Justice League, with a great deal of that new information again coming from Snyder himself. One notable revelation Snyder would make at his director’s cut event would be that the Justice League script underwent a rewrite following the backlash to the dark tone of Batman v Superman, resulting in elements such as Darkseid murdering Lois Lane in the Batcave being jettisoned.

Beyond that, one of the most significant differences from the theatrical version was just how central Cyborg was to Snyder’s version of the movie. Having previously been described as the “heart” of Justice League by Snyder, his version of the movie served as a complete origin story for the character. To that end, Snyder has revealed that his cut included Silas Stone being killed off, while Victor was to enter the Mother Boxes in the climax to prevent the Unity, and face the temptation of joining forces with Apokolips with a vision of himself in his restored human body alongside his mother and father.

Snyder would also make other major reveals about the climactic battle, which was to include The Flash running back in time to give the League another shot after their initial loss to Steppenwolf, along with the villain being beheaded by Wonder Woman (Snyder would also offer details of the role Superman played in Steppenwolf’s defeat alongside other reveals being made by cast and crew members.) More recent teases Snyder has made have also pointed to a battle in S.T.A.R. Labs, while the Man of Steel himself has also been a major focal point of what Snyder has unveiled about his cut of the movie. These include an image pointing to the movie beginning with a recap of Kal-El’s death in Batman v Superman, a new image showing the retrieval of his body (with Aquaman and Wonder Woman alongside The Flash and Cyborg, the theatrical version having only featured the latter two doing so), and a still of his reconnecting with Lois Lane after his revival.

Additionally, Snyder would also confirm his intention for Superman to appear in his famed black suit post-resurrection in his version, the latter of which proved to be among the biggest Snyder Cut bombs to date. However, there would still be plenty more where that came from.

Lots of Characters Were Cut From Zack Snyder’s Justice League

In addition to story differences between the two versions of Justice League, the theatrical cut also excised a great number of characters featured in Snyder’s version. Though many were known about in some capacity before 2019, Snyder has offered more context for what their roles entailed, most notably that of Darkseid, played by Ray Porter. While Snyder had already revealed the presence of Darkseid in his version of the film, much more is now known about how significant his appearance was going to be. Among Snyder’s reveals this year was the presence of Darkseid, known at this point in the movie by the name “Uxas”, in the history lesson, with this role being filled by Steppenwolf in the theatrical version. Additionally, Snyder has also released images of characters previously known to have appeared in his version, such as an image of Iris West with Barry Allen, along with Mera and Vulko.

Arguably the most game-changing of any of Snyder’s reveals this year, however, is his revelation that General Swanwick, played by Harry Lennix, was to be unveiled as a disguised Martian Manhunter in his version of Justice League. This reveal would carry with it a far more retroactive impact on the DCEU than Snyder’s other teases, given Swanwick’s prior appearances in Man of Steel and Batman v Superman. Martian Manhunter’s emblem would also be seen alongside the other members of the League seen in the movie, along with that of Green Lantern, on a newly released T-shirt that gives the Snyder Cut the official title of “Zack Snyder’s Justice League”, further alluding to the characters’ role in the film while offering a hint that Hal Jordan or John Stewart may have also appeared in some capacity. Snyder had also released a similar T-shirt earlier this year, which offered a cryptic outline of his planned five-movie arc for the DCEU.

Although Warner Bros. has yet to announce any plans to release the Snyder Cut, the events of the past year make clear beyond a shadow of a doubt that the matter is now in a fundamentally different sphere that was the case when the push for its release first began. Interest in Snyder’s original version of the superhero ensemble is seemingly rising by the day, with chatter for it becoming so omnipresent as to lead Subway to pledge a 15,000 sandwich donation to Feeding America while tweeting the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut hashtag. Where the whole topic heads in 2020 remains to be seen, but the sheer amount that Zack Snyder has revealed about his version of Justice League throughout this calendar year has ensured that it will be anything but forgotten in the New Year.

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