Soderbergh decided to omit the post-revolution execution sentences of "suspected war criminals, traitors and informants" that Guevara reviewed at La Cabana Fortress because "there is no amount of accumulated barbarity that would have satisfied the people who hate him". Soderbergh addressed the criticism for this omission in a post release interview where he stated: "I don't think anybody now, even in Cuba, is going to sit with a straight face and defend the events. La Cabana was really turned into a Roman circus, where I think even the people in power look back on that as excessive. However, every regime, in order to retain power when it feels threatened, acts excessively ... This is what people do when they feel they need to act in an extreme way to secure themselves". The filmmaker noted as well that, "with a character this complicated, you're going to have a very polarized reaction". Furthermore, he was not interested in depicting Guevara's life as "a bureaucrat", stating that he was making a diptych about two military campaigns, declaring the pictures "war films". Soderbergh said, "I'm sure some people will say, 'That's convenient because that's when he was at his worst.' Yeah, maybe—it just wasn't interesting to me. I was interested in making a procedural about guerrilla warfare".