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Ever since Zack Snyder’s Justice League became available on HBO Max, DCEU fans have been comparing and contrasting the two versions. Which moments in the film were Snyder’s and which ones Warner Bros and Joss Whedon added and subtracted from the theatrical cut after the Man of Steel director stepped away from the film due to a personal tragedy? While there are some obvious scenes that were changed or removed to look out for, such as a lot more screen time for The Flash and Cyborg, according to one of the film’s editors, even Snyder almost let a Whedon line remain in his film.
When the editors of Zack Snyder’s Justice League broke down putting together the 4-hour-cut on The Rough Cut podcast, Carlos Castillón remembered a moment when a Joss Whedon line almost sneaked itself in. In his words:
There was an ADR that our mixer accidentally cut in. He was having a hard time understanding what Amy Adams said when she lands with Superman in the field. And he looked for ADR, he didn’t ask anybody, he just pulled up some ADR that was there, and she said, ‘You smell good,’ which is a holdover from the theatrical.
Yeah… that was the line. “You smell good.” The scene between Amy Adams and Henry Cavill’s Lois and Clark happens once the pair reunite after Superman is killed at the end of Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. Castillón continued to share how they caught the line:
And so we’re in the final mix and we’re watching this scene… we hear this, ‘You smell good,’ and we’re like ‘Wait a minute! What’s that, where’d that come from?’ I think Zack [Snyder] didn’t even pick it up. Debbie, his wife, is the one that noticed it. And then we played it back to her three times, and a lot of people were like, ‘What’s the problem?’ And it’s like, ‘She shouldn’t say that, it doesn’t matter how he smells!’
Apparently, since much of the same team worked on Joss Whedon’s cut and Snyder’s, there was a bit of overlap on the sound side of things. It would have been an incredible amount of work for the sound team to throw away everything they worked on in Whedon’s version, so some sound layers were used, but often altered. That’s how “You smell good” almost made it in the film, but Snyder’s wife and producer, Debbie Snyder, caught the line, and it was changed to what Lois was supposed to say, which was “You spoke.” In both films, Cavill replies with “Did I not before?”
As the Snyder Cut editor pointed out, it doesn’t make sense for Lois Lane to be so concerned with Clark’s smell after thinking him to be dead. It’s just unnatural and odd. However, it does make some sense for Lois to be shocked to hear Cavill’s voice after she watched him get buried and then fight off the Justice League like a killing machine once they resurrect him with the Mother Box. The line has been made fun of since it came out in 2017 and, thankfully, the particular stench of that moment didn’t stick around for Snyder’s version.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League is currently streaming on HBO Max. You can sign up for the service using this link and check out what’s coming down the pipeline for the DCEU with the upcoming lineup here on CinemaBlend.
