The Justice League Blu-ray is a bizarre exercise in hiding the truth about moviemaking

Of course, if you just buy the Blu-ray of Justice League, you would have no idea any of this happened. It’s not surprising Warner Bros. would have zero interest in publicly acknowledging such a troubled production history, let alone delving into the messy closed-doors process that may have led to Snyder’s ouster. Even without the fact that any discussion of the creative shake-up could easily look like lurid cruelty given the death of Snyder’s daughter, there’s a very loud online contingent of Snyder defenders already pissed the studio refused to give them the director’s version of the film. Something as simple as an interview featurette with Whedon, discussing his role on the movie, would likely do little more than fan the flames of frustration expressed by some of the DCEU’s biggest supporters, which is to say, the target market for the Blu-ray.

So instead, the studio has chosen to sweep the entire production of the film under the rug, leading to a collection of bonus content for the home-video release that is little more than hollow blandishments trying to ignore the fact that anything untoward might have taken place. To watch these featurettes is to enter a sanitized alternate reality in which Zack Snyder made a movie, and everything is fine. The big tease on the cover is a bonus scene, which turns out to be barely 20 seconds of Superman meeting Batman’s butler, Alfred. Instead, we mostly get perfunctory nonsense. There are “scene studies”—essentially promotional shorts giving a closer look at several set pieces from the film. There’s a brief spot showcasing the villain, Steppenwolf, played by Ciarán Hinds. We get a quick look at the costumes; several minutes spent cooing over the fancy technology employed by the characters; a brief history/introduction of the characters; and so on. Each one is usually punctuated by a quick shot of Snyder on set, and a talking head referencing the director’s vision for whatever aspect of the film the current featurette highlights.

To watch these is to get the impression of someone tap-dancing to distract you from a car wreck—there’s a vague air of fakery to the whole thing, though it’s impossible to say how much of that impression comes from forehand knowledge of what went down. Normal bonus features usually go out of their way to reference difficulties faced by production, unusual challenges or other such elements that might be of interest to the viewer. The Justice League bonus features ring false because they’re so bluntly the opposite: all smiles and efficiency, the “It’s A Small World After All” of behind-the-scenes content.

No one expected Warner Bros. to air its dirty laundry in public with some tell-all documentary about what really went down on Justice League. That would be weird (though let’s be honest, it would probably generate a lot more revenue in sales from curious rubberneckers eager for the salacious details). But it’s even weirder to see just how far a studio will bend over backwards to pretend everything went smoothly and there’s nothing to report. In this case, it’s not just a matter of sweeping it under the rug; the bonus features create a false narrative in which Zack Snyder delivered this finished film into your home, which isn’t fair to anyone, most of all Snyder himself, who would probably rather not be blamed for the milquetoast final product. Rather than even acknowledge the messy realities of making a giant mega-budget superhero movie—and surely there are ways it could have been done with empathy, that would be respectful of Snyder’s personal tragedy—this home-video release will stand as a bizarre curio, a collection of making-of features that awkwardly ignore, or outright deny, the true making of Justice League.