The Best Scenes That Weren't In Zack Snyder's Justice League

For years, fans wondered exactly how much of Joss Whedon's Justice League was original to his vision, and how much he took from Zack Snyder. Now that the Snyder Cut of the film is available on HBO Max, we have a much better idea of exactly how much came from each director — and the difference between the two is striking.

In addition to numerous changes in the narrative structure and character development in Zack Snyder's Justice League, the tone and feel of the two films is much different overall. You can see each director's signature style, and it seems pretty clear that in this case, most fans and critics agree Zack Snyder's was a better fit to tell the story.

Although the Snyder Cut is making a lot of DC fans happy, there were some scenes in 2017's Justice League that were entertaining, and honestly kind of missed in the unrelentingly bleak 2021 version.

For example, while Barry Allen remains the primary source of comic relief in the Snyder Cut, fans definitely noticed that many of his most memorable moments from Whedon's version were left on the cutting room floor. In some cases, that was very much a good thing — did anyone really miss the cringey moment when The Flash face-planted into Wonder Woman's chest?

However, some of his throwaway lines did add a bit of fun to Justice League — like when he first saw the resurrected Superman.

The reference to Stephen King's classic novel didn't need much more than a name drop, because anyone who's read it or seen the movie adaptations knows it makes it very clear that when you bring things back from the dead, sometimes they come back wrong.

Barry's reference, while not exactly helpful in the moment, was both apt and amusing.

There are so many stark differences between the Whedon Cut and the Snyder Cut that it's hard to keep track of them — but the ones that significantly change the personality of the characters are pretty hard to miss. One of these personality tweaks was on display when the superheroes headed into the tunnels.

In the Snyder Cut, The Flash leaves a lot of his dorkiness behind and shows himself to be a more confident fighter. In Whedon's Justice League, he has a panicky moment when he confesses to Batman that he's not ready to fight Steppenwolf.

It's funny, sure, but it's also one of the few times that his role as a tension-breaker was used to reveal a bit more about his vulnerabilities. We don't get to see a whole lot of metahumans acting vulnerable in Snyder's take. Another downside to the change in Barry's trajectory here is that we missed out on Bruce advising him to focus on saving one person, which marked a poignant moment of mentorship between the two.

Speaking of the Dark Knight, in many ways, the Batman we meet in the Snyder Cut is different from the one we saw in the original theatrical version of Justice League. From beginning to end, his story takes different turns — both subtle and not-so-subtle — and the end result is a character who is even more stoic than he was in the original Justice League.

That means many of Batman's jokes from the Whedon Cut were not present in the Snyder Cut. Snyder's Batman doesn't really do comedy. In some cases, that's for the better — but his sense of humor was missed in the scene where he takes the Knightcrawler out to dispatch some Parademons.

Of all the members of the Justice League, Aquaman definitely casts the most intimidating shadow. That's why the moment in the Whedon Cut when he's accidentally touching Wonder Woman's infamous Lasso of Truth, and begins to confess that he's afraid of dying, was especially funny. Momoa pulled the moment off with gusto, too, switching quickly from soft and mushy to grumpy and threatening after he handed the lasso back to Diana.

So, it's a bit regrettable that this moment didn't make it into the Snyder Cut, though that's likely because the director stuck to a hard rule about removing all traces of the Whedonesque. Luckily, we got to see plenty of Aquaman in the Snyder Cut, so it more than made up for this missing moment.

And finally, if anything highlights the difference between the two directors' styles perfectly, it's the difference between those two epilogue scenes. Arguably one of the more lighthearted highlights from Joss Whedon's Justice League was the post-credits scene that saw Barry Allen and Clark Kent preparing for a friendly race to the Pacific Coast. Does it add anything to the overall story? No, not really — but it does give us a chance to see these two characters banter, and bond.

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