Aside from the big six, Zack Snyder’s Justice League featured or referenced a whole bunch of other DC comic icons, including Martian Manhunter, the Atom, the Spectre, Green Lantern Yalan Gur, Deathstroke, Joker, Zeus, Ares and Artemis. But one of the more developed secondary characters was Amber Heard’s Atlantean princess Mera, who went toe-to-toe with Steppenwolf and was on Batman’s team in the Knightmare future.
Justice League was Mera’s debut in the DCEU, with the character going on to play a major role in 2018’s Aquaman. But many noticed an interesting difference in the Snyder Cut from Joss Whedon’s version and her subsequent appearances. In the newly released film, she speaks in an English accent, while elsewhere she sounds American. So, what gives?
Well, credit to Amber Heard because her accent is spot on, but my thinking is that they originally went with the English accent to emphasize her royal status but backtracked a little on reconsideration. This may have been because if Mera has this accent, it implies that all Atlanteans do and James Wan didn’t want to have the Aquaman cast doing accents with varying degrees of accuracy. This also likely means that all her dialogue in the theatrical cut of Justice League was ADR’d or that her scenes were entirely reshot to accommodate the change.
As ScreenRant explains:
It’s evident that when Whedon was reshaping the film, Heard had to either do ADR in post-production or she had to reshoot her scenes with Momoa. Based on what was seen in Zack Snyder’s Justice League when comparing to the theatrical cut, it seems more likely that Heard did ADR. In Aquaman, the British accent is nowhere to be heard, meaning that perhaps Wan (or even Warner Bros.) didn’t want to go in that direction for Mera in the Aquaman movie, and since Snyder’s version of the character wasn’t going to appear in the theatrical cut, changing the accent was an easy decision to avoid future conflict. The addition of a British dialect doesn’t change the character’s arc, though, but it certainly does affect viewers’ perception especially after having already seen Mera in Aquaman.
Mera is set to return in Aquaman 2 next year and will be almost certainly be speaking in her accent from the first Aquaman. That’s set to begin filming fairly soon and the current word is that we’re going to see her hydrokinetic powers utilized to the fullest, potentially against some creepy and disgusting undersea monsters. The sequel is expected to start shooting shortly, so let’s hope for some pictures from the set that hint at where they’re going with the story.
In the meantime, Zack Snyder’s Justice League is now available on HBO Max.
