It’s been just over year since the release of the divisive Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Personally, I enjoyed it for what it was. The movie brought some extremely cool, cheer-worthy moments with the best live-action Batman in Ben Affleck. However, the flick was bogged down with an extremely overambitious goal of building a universe. In the end, it felt like it was trying to do too much.
I remember having a conversation with fellow fans and feeling the movie would have benefitted from cutting the entire duel between Bats and Supes. That way, the movie will do the job that it was intended by building the DC Extended Universe and lose an entire plot thread that it didn’t need.
Someone had a similar idea, but went the opposite direction. Editor Reese Evans decided to re-cut the Ultimate Edition of the film and removed all the elements of the Justice League, aptly titled, Batman v Superman: No Justice. (Get it?)
No Justice League in Batman v Superman
The Justice League cameos have been removed. Wonder Woman has been removed. Nearly the entire third act with Doomsday has been removed. And except for one brief hint, all plot threads leading to the Apokolips have been removed. The movie is cut to focus on the main title, which is Batman v Superman. Therefore, the third act focuses solely on the fight between Supes and Bats, ending in the rescue of Martha, and the incarceration of Lex Luthor. This also means that Supes is alive. By moving a scene that had originally occurred earlier and placing it towards the end, we are shown Supes’ happy life with Lois.
Approximately 69 minutes of the original movie have been cut, bringing the runtime down to 1 hour and 46 minutes. It has been uploaded online in 5 installments. The disclaimer asks that you own home media version in some format before viewing the re-cut.
Check out Part One of Five below:
If you are intrigued, you can find the remaining parts here.
It’s a very interesting experiment and one wonders if the script was originally written to be more similar to this version of Batman v Superman, what would be the result?
What do you think? Does it work? Or does it somehow make the flick less watchable? Let me know.
