Most DC fans will realize that the Justice League character who underwent the most revisions in Zack Snyder-turned-Joss Whedon's blockbuster was Cyborg (Ray Fisher). Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman were well established, but Cyborg's subplots seemed to have shifted, so Fisher is now clarifying Snyder's initial take on the character, and it sounds awesome. Fisher says:
When Zack [Snyder] told me, 'I got this idea for Cyborg, you know because he's born from the motherbox technology. He's gonna have sort of this twisted, apocalyptic look to him, you know?' And people are going to be like, 'Is this guy on the good side, on the bad side. We don't know.' And even he won't know. Because the technology sort of has a mind of its own. And I was like, 'Man, that's really cool.'
Cyborg, more than any of the other Justice League heroes, appears to have been affected by the concept of the Motherboxes, which Zack Snyder was heavily influenced by, but fans didn't embrace. The Motherboxes were catalysts to bring Steppenwolf to our planet in Justice League, and it would have opened the door to Darkseid, in time.
But, as Ray Fisher was telling fans at the Heroes & Villains Fan Fest, Cyborg's twisted side was sacrificed in the final product. There really should have been a give-and-take angle to Cyborg where the League doesn't really know if this metal man can be trusted. But the script was changed so that Diana (Gal Gadot) instantly deciphers that he's on their side, and the Motherbox tech that gave Victor Stone his powers didn't create any sort of indifference or uncertainty that would have provided an interesting shade to the new hero.
Even Ray Fisher understands that these wrinkles would have been very important to his development of Cyborg in Justice League, telling fans at the convention:
To leave that little bit of doubt as to what side this guy's going to go on, where he's going to end up. I was like, this is storytelling. Like I like that.
But that doubt was scrubbed from Justice League before it reached movie theaters, and that's a shame. Perhaps Joss Whedon thought that it would have taken too much time to show Cyborg wrestling with these complicated feelings, rebelling against the alien technology that was supposed to save him, but ultimately turned him into a hero.
Maybe some of that give-and-take was being saved for a Cyborg movie, that might never happen?
In general, Justice League had a lot of origins to serve, giving significant screen time for the first time to Aquaman (Jason Momoa), The Flash (Ezra Miller) and Cyborg (Ray Fisher), and with the Motherbox history being truncated, Cyborg got shafted in the process.
This development can be seen in this extended scene:
Hopefully Ray Fisher will get an opportunity to explore more of what makes Cyborg interesting in a future Cyborg movie. Is that something you want to see? Or should we just keep lobbying for the #SnyderCut?
