Spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
For the 2017 theatrical version, see here.
Fridge Brilliance
- Why does Darkseid personally kill Wonder Woman and Aquaman in Cyborg's vision of the future? Because Aquaman impaled Steppenwolf with his trident and Wonder Woman cut off his head. Those were the two members of the League that had a direct hand in killing Steppenwolf.
- There's also a bit of poetry regarding Darkseid invading Atlantis and impaling Aquaman on his trident. Darkseid witnessed Aquaman impaling his uncle, so this is clearly a case of tit-for-tat, despite not showing any emotional attachment to Steppenwolf. In other words, Darkseid shows his Hidden Depths while hidden in the depths.
- To supplement this, they also both managed to pull Steppenwolf back using the Lasso of Truth from killing Cyborg. Had they not had done this, there would be no way to pull the Motherboxes apart, even if Superman had shown up a few seconds later to beat down on Steppenwolf, and the New Gods' plan of conquest would have succeeded. While the portal from Apokolips only opens up just before the Unity completes for real, Darkseid likely heard about this feat through some other means, such as interrogation. And it would have made him even more determined to have revenge as a result.
- Steppenwolf gains information on the Anti-Life Equation via communing with the Motherbox he took from Atlantis. Atlantis had at least one king who could command all sea life, which is essentially what Darkseid wants to do on a universal scale.
- Darkseid tries to steal the ring of the Green Lantern he just killed, but it evades him. A tyrant can't grasp the physical embodiment of free will.
- What’s Darkseid ultimately defeated by, in that same sequence? A blow from the axe of Ares, the God of War. Almost as if to say that the concepts of war and violence will always be bigger than any individual tyrant trying to control them.
- After Darkseid/Uxas takes a few arrows to the chest that left him open for Ares to drive an axe into his shoulder, he begins wearing heavier armor on his torso that evokes his classic comic appearance.
- Diana/Wonder Woman calls Superman by his birth name, Kal-El. As her Diana Prince alter-ego, she's an archaeologist and art restorer/curator by trade, she has worked to preserve human cultures for at least decades (extinct/lost ones especially), so it's out of respect for Clark/Superman's lost Kryptonian culture that she does this.
- Of all people who shows sympathy to Cyborg after his father's death, why Aquaman? Because he has the most normal relationship with his father among the rest of the team. Bruce was orphaned at a young age, Diana's father Zeus died ages ago and before her birth, and Barry's father is jailed.
- Cyborg's system reacts to Superman examining him by immediately shifting to its defensive system. While it's handwaved as it sensing a threat, you also have to take into consideration that Cyborg is formed from a Mother Box that didn't activate when Superman was still alive. The box is scared shitless of Kal-El. Another point to consider is that moments prior to that, Cyborg's system has just witnessed (and probably memorized) the bad future and how Superman is the one to bring that future, so much so that the Kryptonian ship stated that the future has taken course. With that in mind, Cyborg's system is practically kicking into overdrive seeing what it thinks is the bringer of the apocalypse.
- After the foiled terrorist attack early in the film, when the little girl asks Diana "Can I be like you someday?", there's a brief moment where Diana looks upset before she replies "You can be whatever you want to be". Assuming that Wonder Woman 1984 is canon to the Snyderverse, Diana was momentarily remembering the last time someone wanted to be like her, and how that turned out...
- Everything Barry's father said to his son practically foreshadows the final battle, more specifically Barry's own Big Damn Hero moment. He was told to stop running around in circles and make his own future. What happens in the climax of the movie? He runs around in a giant circle (to build up energy to zap Cyborg), and after failing that, finally makes his own future (by going faster than the speed of light to reverse time after the team failed to stop the Unity).
- Whether by coincidence or by design, Steppenwolf's character arc has shades of mirroring his own real-life journey, once being a relatively respected being who quickly fell out of favor and became a pariah (in the film for helping those responsible try to overthrow Darkseid, in real life for having generic motivations or no personality in Whedon's cut of the film), and is trying to redeem himself (in both Darkseid and the fan's eyes), but is being put down constantly due to his past transgressions (with DeSaad treating him like dirt for what he had done, while in real life his character in Whedon's cut was seen as one of the biggest flaws of the film, pushing fans to launch the movement to allow Snyder to finish his cut of the film). The key difference is that he does redeem himself—in the eyes of the fans, as reaction to him has been far more positive, but did not manage to do so In-Universe, for his failure to enact The Unity has halted Darkseid's plans, only being rewarded with getting decapitated by the League and having his head squished by his master.
- Likewise, it's hard to say if the subtext between Superman's outfits in this film is intentional or not - upon returning, he embraces his second chance by donning a darker suit with muted colors, and flies into space; sure, on the surface he seems Darker and Edgier but in the end he's still good, and free to do whatever he wants. In the Bad Future, he wears a brightly colored suit but is just a puppet for Darkseid, willing to do whatever his owners wants.
- Barry and Victor get stuck with exhuming Clark's body while Arthur and Diana look on. If you pay close attention to the establishing shot, you can see that the latter two just got out of their van while Barry and Victor were almost done with the digging. Barry's speed and Victor's flight meant they could reach their destination quicker.
- Batman's tough-talking gives the Joker pause. Not because he mentioned Harley Quinn dying, not because he said Harley wants her ex-lover dead, not even because Batman used the F-word. It's because Batman's opening line was "funny you should say that". Sardonic as it was, the Joker finally got to hear the Batman say he was funny.
- The Atlantean Mother-box was kept in a guarded temple on a high pedestal, much like the Amazonian one. The pillar has carved steps leading up to the platform where it was kept. Why? Because when the temple was built, Atlantis hadn't yet fallen, so the chamber wasn't filled with water yet.
- Look at the way the six team members are arranged as they stare down Darkseid and his entourage. The three who finally vanquished his uncle and returned the carcass to Apokalips are in front (Aquaman, Superman and Wonder Woman). They happen to be the strongest and most durable of the six, and also are all at least partially non-human in genetic makeup. Making up the rear are Cyborg, (eventually when he speed-rushes back) The Flash and Batman. These three are all flesh-and-blood humans (despite Cyborg's augmentation) and have good reason to be cautious when faced with this embodiment of evil. Victor could fear that Darkseid could find another Motherbox and remove his augmentations just as easily as they were made, Barry already implicitly gave voice to the fear that Steppenwolf and his kind could have taken down other speedsters, and Batman would have no real chance without a gamechanging upgrade along the lines of the Hellbat armour. Therefore it makes sense that the three heroes in front, just established to each be capable of taking down a New God, would be (even subconsciously) positioning themselves protectively in front of three humans who have unknown (but presumably limited) probabilities of success against other New Gods. It also figures in to how Darkseid made sure to proactively take out the Atlantean and Amazonian and corrupted the Kryptonian, but did not rate the other three all-human Justice League members as being necessary to kill prior to his conquest of Earth.
- Diana is the one to actually kill Steppenwolf, despite all the damage done to him by the others. Why? As stated in her first solo movie, "Only a God can kill another God."
Fridge Horror
- Cyborg explains that the Nazis managed to discover the Mother Box gifted to mankind, but were defeated by the Allies before they could use it. What would have happened if they figured out its power before then?
- Steppenwolf may be dead, but Darkseid still has the body. And we've already seen that Apokoliptian technology can resurrect the dead...
- During their conversation in the Knightmare vision from the epilogue, Joker asks Batman how many other timelines he's going to screw up in trying to Set Right What Once Went Wrong to defeat Darkseid. Now Future-Barry's line about going too far back while delivering his Ominous Message from the Future to Bruce back in Dawn of Justice becomes a lot more unsettling...
- Upon resurrection, Clark went berserk and nearly killed some soldiers and policemen. His heroic reputation would have taken a hit from that. Now that Lex Luthor is out of Arkham, he could easily take advantage of any public concerns all over again.
- Now that The Flash (2023) is released, it begs to question if Barry unlocking Speed Force to reverse time created a second verse out there. The one we got is, obviously, this one where the League defeats Steppenwolf and saves the world, but there could be another timeline where the Unity did happen, with the Justice League dead and Darkseid effortlessly conquering the entire universe in the aftermath. Ouch.
