Of all the characters affected by Joss Whedon and Warner Bros.’ slimmed-down theatrical cut of Justice League, Ray Fisher’s Cyborg got the worst of it. Zack Snyder had envisioned a fascinating dramatic arc for the hero that positioned him as the heart of the movie. This was severely truncated in the released version, though, with the best bits of Fisher’s performance ending up on the cutting room floor. Since then, we’ve seen glimpses of what we missed out on, but now Zack Snyder has released (and Ray Fisher has retweeted) a picture of a scene showing Cyborg defending STAR Labs from Steppenwolf.
Snyder captioned the picture “Defending the father” and the scene presumably shows Cyborg making a last-ditch attempt to prevent the Apokalyptian villain from seizing the Mother Box. It looks like a really interesting sequence, too, and if Cyborg suffered a beatdown from Steppenwolf earlier in the film, it’d have given him a crisis of confidence when it came to the final moments.
The release of this picture comes from yet another targeted campaign against Warner Bros. to officially release the Snyder cut. This week has seen “one-hour tweet events” on certain days focused on members of the league and so far, these have been Wonder Woman on Monday, the Flash on Tuesday, Cyborg today, Aquaman tomorrow and Batman on Friday. This is all adding up to one big push on Sunday, which is the two year anniversary of Justice League‘s theatrical cut.
I can’t help but admire the dedication and organization of these fans. Most would have assumed that a lost cut of a poorly received superhero movie would be very far down the priority list, but the community (with the support of the cast and Zack Snyder) have kept this a going concern. Can you imagine the goodwill that the studio would receive if they, for example, decided to release the Snyder cut on HBO Max? C’mon Warner Bros., do the right thing!