Because Snyder.
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Batman v Superman Ultimate Cut |OT| - Men are still good (out now)
- Thread starter Ahasverus
- Start date
MegaManTrigger
Banned
The Bat Brand isn't really a good catalyst. I would argue that just the stark contrast between Batman and Superman's methodologies is enough to have Superman be interested in Batman. After all, Superman is coming into this with no idea what Gotham is really like (corruption at level legal level from police to courts) compared to Metropolis. Same goes for Batman when all he sees is a superpowered alien.
As for the Kryptonite subplot, is it really needed when Lex managed to find a way to bend Superman to his will without weakening him? Batman in the comics, is a smart enough character to take advantage of Superman's mental weaknesses. If you only focus on the physical aspect, then yeah, but a fight is much more than simply exchanging blows.
I also dislike Doomsday, but mostly because of how Snyder expects people to buy into Superman's death when it wasn't earned.
"Earned" God I hate that word.
Yautja_Warrior
Member
And I would highly recommended you don't watch the Theatrical Cut first on the dvd / blu-ray either, skip right to the extended version, as it sounds like it does fix some of the movies flaws and is a better movie.
Watching the TC first might put you off watching it again if you don't enjoy it and its long enough without the extended cut.
Doing the death of Superman in movie #2 is a bit premature isn't it?
Bruce was already pretty anti-Superman before then. Upping the aggressiveness of his position because of a dream he had is incredibly flimsy and would make him look actually insane.
Of course, maybe that's the kind of bold, deconstructed Batman that Snyder was going for...
This only matters if this was the point of the film. The point of the film is Batman's redemption, which happens despite Batman, so yes it is earned.
formasymphonic
Member
The amount of extra context the extended cut has benefits the film significantly.
But i still think it was dragged down by scenes like this, the random flash dream sequence/premonition
btw, In darkest timeline, is it just me or was it implied that Bruce killed Lois/was responsible for her death?
For the record though: I have no problem with a batman who kills people — they just have to do enough to help viewers understand how he got to that place. I know why. but I don't know if they did a good enough job of conveying it
Inferno313
Banned
There's no reason to care about Superman's death when they've made two films and have yet to make this take on the character into a compelling figure. The Iron Giant did this same exact ending, in one film, with a character that barely talks and it's significantly more affective.
Solid SOAP
Member
I don't believe he means the death itself, but for the audience to feel... anything from the death itself. Superman dying is shocking in itself, so those with years of history with the character likely felt something, but from a thematic point of view it just doesn't make sense for this to be tragic or for anyone to have learned anything from his death. From the theatrical cut at least.
That's what most mean by "earned." If Andy Dufrense escaped Shawshank after being a poorly developed character with questionable ideologies and plot holes regarding the character, no one would have cared. It would not have been an "earned" victory.
I still say that the best BvS fight is the one from Hush. It has him use Kryptonite in only one, relatively minor engagement. Everything else, he was using the resources around him creatively. He used all the electricity in the city to shock him, he used lois as bait to get him to snap out of the mind control, etc. There was genuine inventiveness done in that fight.
When you get down to it, I think one of the biggest shocks of the movie is how poorly the film delivered on the spectacle aspect of the fight. When it was announced was I was immediately weary that all Batman would do is use kryptonite to beat down superman, especially since they used TDKR as the direct inspiration. "Use kryptonite -> win", is such a tired formula of the fights now. Unfortunately, not only is that the only thing Batman had of use, it was emphasized even more than in the comics version, where Batman held his own for quite a bit before the Kryptonite was finally used. It's so bizarre how limited the fight was. The fight started off on the roof of one building, Batman is pushed through to the roof of another, then the fight goes inside that building, through some walls, then down to that gigantic hallway place. And the two guys fighting didn't use any interesting techniques or anything, they just rough housed it.
It's just weird. For a fight built up to be a battle of the gods, it's so small and limited and uninteresting, using the most uncreative fight choreography and tactics. And it's narrative connections are a mess, but you'd have thought that if snyder knew how to do anything, he'd know how to give us a grand battle.
SlimySnake
Flashless at the Golden Globes
I guess it varies then, because I felt it just fine and thought it was an "earned" death after 2 movies.
If you know why, then isn't that a good enough job? We already had an entire conversation explaining to us why he is who he is, do we really need more? People complain there's too much exposition as it is. We don't need the movie to explain how Robin died and what happened to Bruce.
No, this just a mixup because of the time traveler(not flash to Batman). The time traveler specifically asks if he came at the wrong time, which the answer is yes. But to Batman, it's confirmation of his dream being a coming reality. This further pushes him to the edge, knowing other red capes are coming. "I thought she was with you."
Aggelos
Member
Yes, that's my plan. I never watched it back in March, since I would have exposed myself (and my brain) to the theatrical cut of the film that was panned and slated by the critics (back then it wasn't clear whether there was an extended cut coming).
So, now I will sit back and watch this 180-minute long Ultimate Edition and see what it has to offer without the imbeciles from Warner Bros interfering and telling Zack Snyder to cut parts of the plot out....
broncobuster
Banned
The fight is dirty and personal as to not glorify the conflict and violence. There's no glory or heroism in the fight. Batman wants to kill Superman. That alone separates it from nearly every encounter in other media with few exception like Red Son.
I swear to god, if part of the movie was literally throwing poop at the audience, people would reframe and rationalize it so as to say the movie was just making a point about how it shitty the audience is for wanting to see two heroes fight.
But he doesn't want to kill Superman.
He wants to torture him, then kill him. And the torture part, getting a kick out of pummeling Superman, was a big part of TDKR
Batman wanting to kill Superman would involve a sniper rifle and a kryptonite bullet.
Zack just takes the TDKR fight, sans context, and ends it with
'and now I have to kill you'
EDIT:
I'm not sure what we're considering spoilers in this thread.
So you are allowed to interpret the fight your way and criticize it but he can't defend it with how he interpreted it?
Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. /s
No, but I see people reframing literally every possible criticism into something positive, to the point where it is ridiculous.
Especially since the movie itself doesn't sell it like he describes. The movie was sold as an epic battle of epicness. I don't just mean the promotional material, I mean by the characters themselves. Lex had his whole "Day vs Night!" shpeel and Batman was a complete drama queen by setting up the whole Bat signal, had a speech prepared, and even dragged him to a specific kill room just to maximize the symbolism of it all. And there is nothing to indicate the movie is self aware of how small and pathetic the fight its depicting is, it just promised epicness and delivered a small battle.
And besides, my fundamental complaint wasn't just that it wasn't large in scale, but that it was badly depicted. At the end of CW, Cap and Iron man also had a small, intimate battle that was not used to promote heroism or grandiosity, but it still had good fight and interesting choreography. Small and dirty is not supposed to mean dull and uncreative.
broncobuster
Banned
Friend, people read you lengthy post in hopes of opening a dialogue. If you're not interested in showing others the same courtesy they've shown you, that's fine. But please be forthright about it. It's a discussion forum.
Anything from the theatrical cut is fair game. I agree Snyder's insistence of cribbing TDKReturns is a burden.
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Lord Virgin
Unconfirmed Member
I liked how once they were equal in strength, Clark had no chance against Bruce. The latter being an expert in pretty much every fighting style out there. While Clark barely knows how to throw a punch or defend himself. At one point Bruce straight up punched him in the throat and continued to attack him from all angles, Clark not knowing what hit him.
formasymphonic
Member
I got it and its fine for me I got it when I saw TC, but as we all know - the types of people who post on GAF aren't representative of the majority. I meant in the sense of conveying so a mainstream audience "gets it".
Sorry, I should have been clearer.
In the Knightmare, when Batman is chained up, Supes literally says to him "She was my world. And you took her from me" though
Offcourse. Bruce is just a way better fighter. But loved the fight when he is gonna save Martha. He kicks ass. But also shows he lost it also abit now he is older. He still gets some good punches, cuts and even shot in the head. Wouldnt have happened with a younger Bruce.
No I got that. What I meant was, at what point do we trust the audience to understand it for themselves?
Well then you should have replied with a post like this instead of the post I quoted which just makes you come across as a jackass.
There is nothing ridiculous with him interpreting the fight a different way. Not every fight has to be a spectacle. It was a gritty, no holds bar fight of two guys at equal power (sometimes) going all out and actually trying to kill each other. I'm not sure what symbolism the kill room had though. He just wanted to hide the Kryptonite spear I thought.
The CW fight was cool at times, but IMO at times it looked like they were just dancing around. It was interesting but lacked realism, which is fine because it's a superhero movie. I had no problem with that. Just like I had no problem with BvS doing it their way.
It's great. He's so clearly frustrated at letting punks get lucky.
I'd love to see this universe's prime condition Batman on the big screen at some point.
Fair enough. I apologize if it was rude. But I honestly do feel that is the general rhetoric, that it doesn't matter what the complaint is, no matter how well supported, that someone just repurposes it for how it is actually a positive of the movie. It gets tiring, because it feels there isn't any point where both detractors and supporters of the film can agree "Yeah, the fucked up there". This isn't the case for other movies. I like Dark Knight Rises, but neither I nor any fan of it I've seen tries to support stuff like Talia's death scene or some of the more nonsensical bits of that film. With this, you have to fight tooth and nail to be able to call out every flaw as being an actual flaw.
Anyway, I really disagree with your proposition of the fight for the reasons I stated in the other post. Nothing about the movie suggests it's aware of how small the fight is in comparison to what it promised and in any case my criticism extended beyond "it was smaller than I wanted".
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Lord Virgin
Unconfirmed Member
This Batman at 25 years old...I need it in my life.
But I also like how it portrays the goons as more than punching bags. They don't hold back and wait for their turn*cough*TDKR*cough*, they go all in.
MegaManTrigger
Banned
You act like this is only a Batman movie when it's juggling multiple perspectives and plot points. Just because you feel Batman's redemption arc was earned, doesn't mean it's the same case for Superman's arc/plot point(s).
Precisely. You hit the nail on the head. And to add onto your points; Superman wasn't exactly Superman in Man of Steel (in terms of character development), but the implication was that they were going to develop him in the sequel. My issue with the death of Superman in this context is that they doubled down on the polarizing views that the public has of Superman. In that regard, how can I buy that the public views Superman's death as a tragic thing when there's nothing to show how they changed their mind?
In regards to Superman's lack of development, another issue I have is that Superman was very much a reactive hero with no sense of personality. We don't see how he thinks, and reacts simply based on what people tell him (Ma Kent's retarded quote, Lois's hopeful quote, etc). For a hero based on the idea of hope, he sure seems to lack it in BvS. Which is why I can't understand why I should care about him dying. Superman dying is a shocking thing in and of itself, and the death should feel like Earth is vulnerable for having lost such a significant being. Simply put, it was too early and underdeveloped.
To be fair to those of us that enjoyed this movie and defend it at times, there are a lot, A LOT, of asinine complaints for this movie. It's hard to weed out the genuine flaws from the stupid ones.
I had a coworker just today, make this complaint: How did Bruce just conveniently find a police Jeep in Metropolis.
Are you kidding me? I said, he helicoptered in and had a car waiting for him because he's Bruce fucking Wayne. He replies, "exactly, he's Bruce Wayne, why didn't he drive his Lambo around Metropolis"
It's hard to go from shit like that to real flaws without being a bit skeptical.
Human Trashcan
Banned
I kinda feel you but does it really matter? The much bigger sin that scene committed was that it was not visually interesting or fun to watch, at least in my opinion. It was extremely anti-climactic and felt baaaaarely justified. It's that thing of "the only reason these characters are fighting is because they don't take 30 seconds to talk to eachother", which you can handwave away with "Batman is out of his fucking gourd in this movie", but that in itself wasn't really explored in an interesting way. He just came off as Very Angry (and really, really uncharacteristically stupid) throughout most of the film.
I thought the whole thing was tremendously boring and pretentious. It asks "what if Superman was actually bad??" but... Superman isn't bad. He's not even morally dubious, like Batman is, not by a long shot. The story would've made more sense if people wanted to hang Batman out to dry, rather than Supes, from a thematic standpoint. It asks all these questions about the nature of power but doesn't answer them in any interesting way. Batman's "redemption" is him hearing his mother's name, which is incredibly lame. So he was straight murdering fools and pretty much torturing them with his brand but now he's just a good guy at the end? It was a ramshackle mess. It wasn't even coherent - the editing was so shitty. It's a 3 hour movie that barely uses any establishing shots. Scenes just collide into eachother with a dream-like logic (fitting in some cases). Despite its length, not one character felt properly fleshed out or coherent.
Oof that turned into a bit of a rant. Glad some of you really liked it, there should be something else than Marvel out there doing superheroes. I just didn't like this at all.
formasymphonic
Member
Normally I'd agree with you on this. I don't think you should always pander too heavily to the audience. But BvS had to do the job of reintroducing people to "Batman" and letting them know that this is a different continuity than Nolan Batman.
I don't want to get into a whole Mavel CU / DCCU thing, but Marvel has the benefit of having several of their characters getting solo flicks to give you insight into them. By the time you get to the ensemble movies, people already have knowledge about the characters and whats going on with them etc.
BvS doesn't have that luxury because DC wanted to jumpstart DCCU asap. So it has more weight to carry. While we know what's going on with Clark (from MoS), the same isn't as true for Bruce.
People like us know it, but for mainstream, they turn up to the film and all of a sudden they have a Batman who has no qualms about killing people.
I think you and Veelk are saying the same thing here.
And I'm guessing you haven't seen the Ultimate Cut, because NOW it's a 3 hour movie and apparently has establishing shots, with scenes fitting into each other, and more fleshed out characters. But I understand if you don't want to give the UC a shot
Discotheque
Banned
Apologists will always come with the territory. Marvel movies have plenty on this forum as well.
I'm just glad the cut seems to apparently fix the editing and story telling flaws of the film. There are meh action sequences and certain story decisions in the movie that will keep me from ever loving it but maybe I'll like this cut at least.
I left the theater not liking it much but really admiring it's ambition. At least with this ultimate cut it seems to have met those lofty goals it had.
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Lord Virgin
Unconfirmed Member
Point of BvS is that Amy Ad....euh Lois Lane is single. Wonder if Bruce will hit that...
Is it really "mainstream" people complaining about Batman killing people? Why weren't these people complaining about his kills in previous movies?
I feel like it's the outspoken minority here, the geeks online who DO know what is going on with Bruce but hate it anyway.
I can agree that an extra minute of dialogue or something to show the state of Batman could have helped though. Maybe if they had flashbacks of Robin dying or something to really show how fucked up he was.
broncobuster
Banned
Broadly speaking, this film, and Snyder's work overall, have a problem of scenes contradicting each other. So I absolutely see where you're coming from. There are scenes that contradict my interpretation. But for me, I excuse it to make because it makes the scenes I like more powerful.
Wait, am I basically saying BvS only makes sense if I force it to?
Watch it. If you somewhat enjoyed the TC you will like this.
It's sprawling and more epic in scope, as well as more unapologetic about the tone the stuff added is all real good.
Kid Kamikaze10
Member
The UC is definitely superior. Still didn't like it.
They really shouldn't have made all those cuts, but the movie is still too bloated.
And it provides a much better explanation about character motivations, plot details, etc. Still not my tempo.
I think I'm just gonna avoid the Snyder parts of the DCMU. Great cinematography, lackluster everything else.
Hopefully the other directors pick up his slack.
They really shouldn't have made all those cuts, but the movie is still too bloated.
And it provides a much better explanation about character motivations, plot details, etc. Still not my tempo.
I think I'm just gonna avoid the Snyder parts of the DCMU. Great cinematography, lackluster everything else.
Hopefully the other directors pick up his slack.
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Lord Virgin
Unconfirmed Member
That is how it starts...
Well tbf, glad that after the Nolan movies we still get quotable movies from DC. Let's see how SS will do in that regard.
roflwaffles
Member
Watched the UC, it was definitely better than the TC but still not a good movie. It still suffers from a bad script and characterization.
I can't take one of the guys in the Collider review seriously - a 10/10 for this? Really? This isn't even near as good as Civil War and that movie is like an 8/10.
For me, the TC was a 4/10 and the UC is about a 5.5/10.
I can't take one of the guys in the Collider review seriously - a 10/10 for this? Really? This isn't even near as good as Civil War and that movie is like an 8/10.
For me, the TC was a 4/10 and the UC is about a 5.5/10.
Discotheque
Banned
Yeah Ill check it out later tonight.
Umberto was too hyped up from the extra Batman scenes to be thinking straight.