THE SNYDER CUT’S REDEMPTION OF CYBORG MAKES IT WORTHWHILE
AGAINST ALL THE odds, the fervent #Releasethesnydercut fan campaign has made Zack Snyder’s Justice League a reality. Love it or hate it, there’s one thing about the four-hour behemoth that is undeniably true: its best feature is the renewed focus on Victor Stone, aka Cyborg (Ray Fisher).
With no solo movie of his own preceding the big team-up with Batman, Wonder Woman, and more of DC’S finest, Cyborg was always going to need an additional amount of attention in Justice League. But in the original 2017 cut, that was sorely lacking. Cyborg barely had a complete emotional arc, and many of his scenes in the promo footage were nowhere to be seen in the full movie.
The Snyder Cut goes a different route. Victor Stone isn’t just a fully developed character: he’s the movie’s chief protagonist. In addition to getting a proper look at Cyborg’s origins — complete with a heartbreaking flashback of his former life, and the immediate aftermath of his body-altering accident — Snyder devotes an ample amount of screen time to the complex father-son dynamic between Victor and Silas (Joe Morton). Victor’s pain and anger towards his absent dad is something which especially hit home for me.
In a superhero movie with multiple God-like beings who don’t tend to emote all that often, Cyborg is easily the most human member of the ensemble, despite being half-machine. The best example of this comes in what is arguably the film’s best scene: after getting to grips with his new skillset, Victor helps a single working mother out of poverty by rerouting some funds. It’s an understated yet immensely resonant act of heroism.
At the start of the DCEU experiment, the thought of Cyborg leading a movie which features Batman, Superman, and more would have seemed unlikely. But the decision to centre a superhero film of this size on its lone Black hero is a significant one, and it paid off dividends. This is due in no small part to Fisher’s compelling performance, which sees him more than hold his own opposite his more seasoned co-stars.
With any luck, this won’t be the last time we get to see Fisher as Cyborg, especially now that he’s become a fully fledged hero. But with Black DC heroes like John Stewart and Static Shock yet to get their due on the big screen, perhaps Zack Snyder’s Justice League can pave the way for similar treatment.