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Not everything that has ever appeared in a Batman comic should be transformed to the big screen. Snyder/Goyer simply don't get the big picture. They decided to write/show a fragment of one version of Bruce, without giving any character depth, reason or origin from where the motivation of Bruce comes. The Robin "thing" is the best example of how carelessly Snyder handles the characters.
Just imagine in one of Nolan's Batman, there would be a scene where this glass cabinet would have been seen for some seconds. You can't? Of course not, because Nolan would never do such a thing without explaining it properly.
I really fear what Snyder might do to The Flash and Cyborg. While I love it that Cyborg is in JL I'm pretty sure, Snyder will ruin the cinematic version of him as well.
At least The Flash exists already as a perfect version in the fabulously fantastic TV-Show. Snyder cannot undo him with one movie luckily.
No of course not in a Nolan batman film we would have 2 hours of exposistion and the worst most convoluted revenge plot ever
So for those who are upset about Batman killing people in BvS, you're equally upset when he is the cause of death throughout the vast history of the comic books, I take it? Or are you only okay with it when Batman seems to be disgusted and upset about having to kill someone?
I grew up to the Timm/Dini-verse. If I look at the 700+ comics and the several hundred episodes of Batman animated and the 7 Batman movies, Batman is not a killer, nor ruthless or cold. It just happens to be this way in a handful of comics really and never in the animated series.
That might be the main reason why so many people have a problem with this. The killing version of Batman may even be totally unknown to a vast number of people.
Actually I reckon the vast majority of people would think you were insane if you said Batman 'doesn't' kill. It's a subtlety lost on most.
But anyway when a character is around this long people have the right to complain if the character doesn't fit their vision of what it should be, regardless of how that character started out. Just like how some Moore fans despise the Dalton and Craig eras.
@Risico I haven't seen Batman v Superman so forgive me if I'm wrong, but the issue there seems to be that he killed random goons. Nolan's Batman only killed when he had to. Like when he killed Dent it was because he was backed into a corner with no other way out, and that was a big deal because Joker had won, he made him break his one rule. There's a difference between that and gunning down henchmen.
The Batman Begins incident on the train isn't really killing either I don't think. Leaving a mass murdering terrorist to die as a result of their own actions isn't really the same as outright taking a life. It's morally ambiguous sure but I wouldn't say it's murder.
Saying that I don't have a problem with Batman killing myself. Mainly because with all the people he beats up it's hard to believe none of them have died of some sort of head trauma or something anyway. He's at the very least paralysed a couple of people.
I really liked BvS and also love dozens of different takes on Kal and Bruce.
What that man said.
This is probably the best assessment of the situation I've read so far.
In that case I didn't like the interpretation of Lex Luthor, Supes, Lane and especially Pa Kent.
@Master_Dahark, I've been so ungodly busy lately, it just doesn't seem likely at this point. I've had award ceremonies I've attended for the past two-three weeks each weekend, and graduation and other college related events that'll be happening until May. With so many screens killing BvS, and likely all the local theaters in my area, it doesn't seem like it'll happen, as time is a big issue. To be honest, I just don't want to give any more money than I already have to this film. I can't even bring myself to buy a BvS t-shirt, for crying out loud. I feel like a massive ass if I wear a Batman shirt with Affleck's bat symbol on it. Yeah, it's that bad.
@Creasy47, yes, it has everything to do with how Batman reacts to killing, whenever he does it. As I said above, in BvS Batman doesn't seem to care at all about who he kills, and doesn't think it harms his soul at all. He doesn't need to kill most of the men he faces, yet he does it anyway, and somehow, Gordon and the GCPD haven't shot him dead yet for truly being a vigilante. It just doesn't make sense, you see.
The reason why I and many others are okay with instances outside of BvS where Batman is forced to kill is because he always (outside of Kane's work, again) debates the issue and it torments him to no end. He hates that he has to do it, but knows there's no other way. As far as Batman is concerned, every life he takes should tarnish his soul more and more every time. Killing should never be any easy step for him, because it goes against everything he stands for. He's not the Machiavellian, cynical madman he is in BvS. In the comics and countless other films and TV shows, Batman cares for humanity and wants to rehabilitate criminals the right way, through treatment and commitment, not with a bullet to the head. Him killing makes him no better than Joe Chill or Joker, and if he crossed that line, that's it. The Batman I know and love would turn in his cape and cowl for good if he was driven to such desperate measures as the Batman of BvS is.
The reason Affleck's Batman bugs me is because he shows no remorse, goes out of his way to kill often, and worse yet, Snyder gives us no real context for why he's like this, when a huge chunk of the film should've been devoted to that big issue. As he is a vast and well-known pop culture symbol, the entire moviegoing, media consuming public would say Batman never kills, so to give us a Batman like that with no real time spent dealing with why he is suddenly like this is beyond erroneous.
To the fans of the comics: you do realize that Jason's death has never, ever, driven Batman to go off on a killing spree of the criminal classes, right? Jason's death haunts him and he's tempted by that darkness, but he never lets that futile decision take him over and eat at him like it does in BvS. In this way, that Batman isn't like any Batman of the comics, which is one of the biggest issues. The Batman of BvS is a failure; he's a man who is no better than the chump who took his parents from him.
The issue here is that Batman doesn't fit a Machiavellian profile like Snyder seems to think he does, though I sincerely doubt that Snyder has ever read into Machiavelli since he never wrote about explosions or fistfights in his many literary works. Now, Batman's world, the world of Gotham, is very Machiavellian; it's full of men and women acting duplicitously for their own gain, with corruption and greed running rampant. Good men turn evil on the dime, and life goes on. However, Batman has always been the exception that that idea. Machiavellianism will tell you that it's essentially impossible to be a good person when the world's bad outweighs your deeds and deems them futile. Batman is and always has been the exception to that rule. He always stays dedicated to his principles and his mission, even as good men like Dent fall from grace around him. No matter how much Joker tries to break him, tries to get him to kill and be just like him, he never gives in, not for a second. Because of this, the Batman of BvS is a false idol of the Batman name, a disgrace to the title.
Another thing I've continually brought up: Snyder claims that his Batman is based off of The Dark Knight Returns Batman, and that's simply not true. The only thing he managed to copy is the suit, because that's all he can do. He has only talents for mimicking visuals, from suits to comics panels. He always fails when it comes to using those visuals to tell a compelling and sensical tale. The very definition of style over substance.
You can tell what Snyder's favorite parts of the Dark Knight Returns are: the one time Batman is forced to shoot a Mutant member who is going to kill an infant, and the big fight with Superman. In the first case, the decision to shoot the Mutant member isn't one Batman takes lightly, and he only does so because he has no choice; the infant would've died without him acting. The moment is tragic and beautiful, heart-breaking and unforgettable. When Snyder copied the scene for BvS, however, he chose to erase all that meaning and replace Ma Kent with the baby, having Batman shoot a tank that very well could've killed her if he shot incorrectly or failed to get to her in time. Bad form. He again stripped the moment of meaning and only kept the visceral, visual parts of it. Because Batman happily kills the entire movie, a moment where he truly has no choice but to kill loses all meaning and gravitas. Snyder pulled such a moment off beautifully with a true adaptation of Superman in the Zod fight at the end of MoS, but not here.
In the case of the latter, the fight between Batman and Superman in TDKR is entirely different than what we get in BvS. Superman is only doing it because he's a government lapdog (you'd think Snyder would like that idea since Dr. Manhattan of Watchmen is the same way and he thinks every hero has to be like a Watchmen character), and Bruce is acting out and standing up for his principles to continue to do his work, not content with being told to stop (like Rorschach). In BvS, instead we've got a pissy Batman and a hot-head and thick Superman who really have no reason to fight whatsoever. The conflict and wrap-up is such that Superman could've just held Bruce down with his pinkie and told him what Lex was doing so that they could team up together and fight him. Bruce, the great detective he's supposed to be, somehow doesn't think Luthor is secretly planning anything, despite the fact that he mysteriously left the Congressional hearing before the explosion after making a big deal about speaking there or that he had such big ties to those who had Zod's body, not to mention all that Kryptonite (which Batman steals, leaving behind a batarang so everyone knows he took it, the imbecile).
All these moments belittle the characters, make the story even more nonsensical than it already is, and serve only to look cool. That isn't enough, folks. Snyder and his team can't win me over like he's won over many by showing me Batman and Superman fight for the first time onscreen. I've seen countless onscreen Batmans and Supermans, so giving me this in such a shoddy package does nothing. You can pack a film full of massive DC characters doing live action battle, and I won't so much as smile if it isn't being done the proper way, with characters that are true to their comic counterparts as everyone knows them. Which is why Snyder's Justice League movie many only continue to spell disaster for me and my kin, as well as for the bean counters over at Warner Bros.
All this leads to one thing: the vast majority of Snyder's decisions seem to come down to what would look coolest on screen, and not what makes the most sense for the plot or what characterizes the "heroes" best. When he's asked to explain his process, he can barely say anything sensical or lucid, not to mention intelligent, deep or informed. You quickly get the sense that this guy didn't labor his thinking over much anything related to story and characters of this film, and spent most of his time with the art directors looking at "cool" costume designs.
This is why I want to maim everyone who has the gall to call Snyder's work in BvS a Kubrickian level of auteurism. To use Kubricks' sacred name or the term "auteur" in the same breath as Snyder is beyond cinematic sacrilege. I can hear old Stanley rolling in his grave as we speak.
I mean, what's next, people? "Michael Bay commands a shot like Orson Welles at his best during the shooting of Citizen Kane. Just as Kane and his friends both past and present face dramatic changes in their character, values, and perceptions as that film goes on, so too do Bay's Autobots and Decepticons in the Transformers series as both factions rally equally for that sacred source of their life, the AllSpark. The AllSpark is, without a doubt, Bay's central visual and thematic motif in the cinematic paradigm-altering Transformers series, and Optimus Prime and Megatron's Rosebud."
Let's get real here.
But see I am a huge batman fan. I still read the comics I even know who was under the cowl for most of 2015 (it wasn't Bruce Wayne) but I love the way he is presented in Batman v superman again a more brutal batman killing bad guys is in line with a bunch of stories and before you say "the 40's and Miller don't count" who said anything about them read batman 10,000 nights of the beast I think it's called it was cannon in the mid 80's and batman just leaves the KGBeast trapped and basically ready to die. I can also discuss Blind justice from around the same time where he is more worried about his latest fling revealing his secret rather then the blood on his hands from sending his brother to die. Again in cannon and yet no one bats an eye. Like I said I like the darker batman and I am fine with it if others aren't so be it it will change soon enough.
People have strong opinions, believes, preferences when it comes to the comic heroes.
I do too, some of my opinions would probably unleash hell here.
It's not like Bond where you have 24 movies and a dozen novels. That's quite limited.
I think we all have to accept that each of us has his view of the DC universe.
Not saying a discussion is futile, just saying.
It is very much like religion or politics, @BondJasonBond006, you are certainly right there. Funnily enough, I tell people all the time who don't get my fascination with Batman that he is my "Christ figure." And that's very much true. Just as the religious read the Bible and study the teachings of Jesus, I read comics and learn from Batman. It may sound corny to some, but it's 100% true, and always has been.
It's shaken ground, though, if you start treating a fictional character as a deity. That's pretty much why we're at war.
I have primarily read the original comics and a few into the 80's. I really didn't have a problem with Batman in BvS - he fit the Synder'verse' and the somewhat fantastical environment where he is taking on Supes. This is a far cry from my preferred iteration of the character (Nolan's take) however he is tolerable. As I said before, the whole premise of Bat/Supes requires some suspension of disbelief to begin with from the audience's standpoint, since the last time we saw Batman he was firmly entrenched in Chris Nolan's pseudo realistic universe and this is a far cry from that.
BvS was out Friday the 25th of March. The next Monday, when the figures came in, Time Warner's stock was up 4% , and since then the stock has overperformed the Dow Jones index by 7%.
But people on the forums know better than those who actually put their money at stakes it seems :) Frankly, people should read the Sony leaks to see how they really talk about money in studios, it has nothing to do with how one deals with his own money !
I think it is too often forgotten that on the 5th week, the share of the studio for the movie theather gross is far inferior to the share they have in the first week : hence all the frontloading management of the marketing, and the fact you don't see much promotion once a movie is out. For the same amount of viewers, they prefer a frontloaded movie than a sleeper hit. And the sequels to sleeper hits become frontloaded movies !
It's not the Batman of my comic reading days, but also not quite the indiscriminate killer he would sometimes be characterized as in later comics/movies.
Good points, @Suivez_ce_parachute. :-) I didn't know about the stock. Can I find those figures somewhere?
Watching this is embarrassingly laughable.
No competition whatsoever for weeks.
That saved BvS from becoming the biggest flop in cinematic history.
JL though might become just that. I'm not sure if the people at DC/Warner realise how much in danger JL now is.
About fans predicting a flop, well, we had "Blonde Bond's going to flop" once :)
What has Warner stock to do with BvS. Absolutely nothing. Do you even know about the company and what their business models are.
BvS is a hurtful missed opportunity for Warner to make an insane amount of money.
At the end it will not be in the red ink, but that's about it.
I can't repeat this enough: whether this film does gangbusters at the BO or not, is not a powerful argument with which to make your case against BvS. If anything, it's a weak one. From many of your previous posts, I get the idea that if Warner had devised a more deviously seductive promotional campaign, more money might have flown in and you would have had a lot less vitriol to spew over this film. Every once in a while, you and other members drop purely financial updates concerning BvS, trying to prove "how bad" the film is because its numbers are in steep decline and other, less blockbuster-level projects have dominated yet another weekend. Some notorious box office flops are amongst the most cherished films today, so what are you trying to prove? IMDB's all time favourite, The Shawshank Redemption, was practically ignored upon its release, despite having some interesting names attached to it. Then there's Blade Runner, Citizen Kane, Fight Club, ... I'm not saying BvS belongs among these - heaven forbid - but whether Warner picks up a lot of cash or not, has very little to do with how good the film is, so perhaps you should stop trying to demonstrate anything at all with it.
You're not the only fan of the Timm / Dini Batman here. I keep the animated series in heavy rotation, I have read all the Animated Series' spin-off comics, I keep Shirley Walker's music on my mp3-player like it's a religious things and I have listened countless times to Kevin Smith's excellent podcasts with Hamill, Timm, Dini, Conroy, Sorkin, Strong, ... I absolutely adore Mask Of The Phantasm, yet that film grabbed a mere 5.6 million against a 6 million budget.
I'm also a huge fan of Batman Begins, which may very well be the one film in Nolan's trilogy to be most aimed at the fans. That film barely broke even, clearing just a little more than twice its production budget. It led to a peak in Warner's successes, however.
I'm also getting a little sick of the Superman argument. I applaud Warner for giving Supes a try in the first place, seeing how difficult it is to get most people out there to be even remotely interested in the demi-God with hardly any weaknesses. The only time Superman truly worked, was is one and a half Donner film. Now, judging by what I have read in some of the posts above, I'm glad none of us are in charge, because the boyscout Superman who cuddles children and gives them good paternal advice, won't bring any money in at all! Singer tried a PC Superman and got a lot of backlash. Naturally, Warner responds by giving us an angry Superman, the Superman from Earth One. And still people aren't happy. You don't like Pepsi, nor Coca Cola. My guess is you don't like soda drinks. Same with Supes. I will say, the best Supes I've ever seen is in the Fleisher studios animations from the 40s.
And the Batman kills argument has to go too. Sure, he "kills". Some thugs die. But it's not like Batman kills someone we care about. I agree about the very principles Batman has stuck by since the 70s. I can also point out how many thugs die at the hand of Bats' supervillains as Batman got them upset, and how much collateral damage the fights between Batman and his foes cause. In The Dark Knight Rises, he allows a nuke to detonate close to Gotham. Sure, he had no other choice, but I promise you this, the smart people head to Venice and never return the first couple of decades. If Batman had jumped up in front of Luthor and snapped his neck, I would have sent a goon squad after Snyder myself. But those couple of thugs, mostly in that dream sequence, are not going to upset me, quite frankly. Batman being indirectly responsible for Rachel's death in The Dark Knight, on two levels in fact, could be seen as much worse than him taking out a few heavies from Blackgate prison or wherever.
If I came across as bashing the movie then I'm sorry.
BvS after two viewings at the cinema gets a 69% from me. B&R is at 65% for comparison, MoS at 55%, Batman Begins at 95%.
Do we know if Civil War or BvS had that May 6th first?
It's a polarizing film; I'm leaning towards the green light, others are leaning towards the red light. Fine with that. But there's this dark aura here that because I did enjoy watching BvS I neither have good taste, nor understand a single thing about Batman; that I pay to see a turd dropped by evil, moustache twirling WB execs out to drain hard-earned money from my wallet and that's I'm a complete moron for allowing them. As an avid Batman comics reader, cartoon and film watcher and video game player, I find the part about not understanding Batman particularly insulting and so I want to defend myself a little since things are getting really personal. Just to be clear, I don't think this film is up there with the Nolans or anything, but I went to see BvS twice, and twice I got some pretty good thrills out of it and in "a" Batman film, that's good enough for me - as long as it's not just that in every Batman film from now on.
Imagine I'd visit every SPECTRE thread here and say, "yeah yeah, look, SP stopped making money some 200 mill below SF so it's utter BS, a bad film, clearly not living up to expectations and every 'true' Bond fan will agree with me." So much for making friends here, I'd think. ;-)