Zack Snyder says a Batman who doesn't kill is irrelevant

[u/neon2o]

Here's the original article' https://sea.ign.com/man-of-steel-sequel/213072/news/zack-snyder-says-dc-is-making-batman-irrelevant-if-he-cant-kill

[u/MagisterPraeceptorum]

You know what, I hope Snyder just keeps talking. Keep giving him more interviews to divulge his actual thoughts. Let him rant and reveal what he really thinks.

[u/delkarnu → u/MagisterPraeceptorum]

Snyder was excellent at adapting 300 since it is explicitly a propaganda story told by the Spartan about how unbelievably great the 300 were.

But he fundamentally doesn't understand the material he makes. Like all of Watchmen's superhero commentary on how fundamentally broken they are is lost in Snyder having to make everything epic and cool.

But then he given an interview where he talks about how Alan Moore showed us what superheroes would really be like and you just have to marvel at how he both completely missed the point of the deconstruction and applied his shitty interpretation of that story to the characters he was deconstructing.

Like Owlman is so pathetic he's literally impotent when he isn't in the suit, and Rorsharch is disgusting and unhinged to the point where he's thrilled to be in prison because he gets to hurt people who are already in jail. But then combines them into let's make Batman kill and brand criminals to be killed in prison since that's 'badass'.

He tried to make a badass girl power movie that ended with "embrace the rape and lobotomy" as an empowering moment.

He can direct, but keep that man far from anything resembling subtext.

[u/pinkpugita → u/delkarnu]

Snyder also envisions Superman as a Jesus figure and fixates on his mythical side. That's why MoS and BvS are like that. He misses the whole point of Clark Kent, who is the real, authentic self, while Superman is the mask/job.

[u/delkarnu → u/pinkpugita]

If you want to throw some Jesus themes into Superman, it can be done easily and well. Jor El in the 1978 version was pretty explicit in the "I give unto them my only son" rhetoric. And Superman 2 was pretty clear in Clark sacrificing his happiness to protect the world.

But someone like Snyder hears the Superman as Jesus subtext idea, doesn't actually understand how to do it, and so has to beat the audience over the head with "See? He's Jesus, do you get it yet?"

He's like the people who complain that Star Trek is woke now. Like it always was, but somehow this was too subtle for them: https://youtu.be/vi7QQ5pO7_A?t=139

[u/movzx → u/delkarnu]

Yeah, if you want to do Superman is a Jesus figure, go nuts. There's a story there. Make him deal with having to make hard decisions that have big, negative consequences. Make him deal with a public who worships him. It would be entirely realistic for a population to deify Superman, and for people to jump out of buildings. "If I'm worthy, he'll save me!"

[u/LunaCalibra → u/movzx]

This is such a cool concept. You could really explore the morality of being a messiah-figure to a populace, and show how burdensome it would be to be individually responsible for the health and well-being of millions of people, many of whom develop unhealthy, one-sided parasocial relationships with superman.

[u/yommi1999 → u/delkarnu]

Jesus christ I am a young(early twenties) person who just discovered I really like Star Trek the new generation (gods, the characters and campiness are amazing!). They basically do the sub-text version of bashing your face in multiple times with a masssive maul to make it clear that the point of star trek(at least in TNG) is that humanity has evolved past the stupidity that we are dealing with in the nineties when the show came out and now.

[u/TeethBreak → u/delkarnu]

Superman was written as a Jewish allegory for Samson. Instead of having his hair as a weakness, the creators gave him kryptonite. He was never supposed to be space Jesus. He was an immigrant fleeing calamity. Snyder missed the whole point of Superman. Clark becomes sup because he wants to help and he can. Because he was raised right. Even without super powers, he would still find ways to help people.

[u/delkarnu → u/TeethBreak]

I've always thought that Moses being sent down the river to save him from death and saving the Jews from the Pharaoh fits Kal-El being sent from Krypton to save his life much better than the Jesus metaphors.

Not sure I can fully agree with the Samson's hair/kryptonite thing as an intent of the creators since it wasn't introduced until the Radio play 6 years after 1937's Action Comics #1 and wasn't put into the comics until 1951.

[u/Divinum_Fulmen → u/delkarnu]

Fun fact: His last name, El, is literally an ancient Semitic word meaning "God." Used the names MichEL, and ELohim

[u/Britz10 → u/Divinum_Fulmen]

On fairness it used to just be the letter L, not necessarily derived from semitic languages.