Messages

Yes, under the right circumstances. Batman is a control freak and that component needs to be satisfied for him to be of a sound mind. The arrival of Superman pushed Batman's buttons.

He can be referred to as the most dangerous man alive for good reason. Doubting his judgement only makes him more interesting as a tortured loner, so I don't see much of a downside there.

I think the movies weren't going to deal with that idea. And that the end of BvS didn't deal with it. Maybe they would've, but I thought the end of BvS was painting it as he's reformed and trusted now.

Yep, okay, we're done here, thanks.

Batman dislikes Superman for it and there's that guy. The government and society doesn't seem to have an issue with it. Clark I think doesn't express any guilt or issues about it, or about killing Zod. And I think MOS doesn't do that either. Clark yells out and cries and is fine in the next scene.

Putting aside the completeness of Batman's character arc in BVS, sometimes I wonder if you grasp the difference between writing for television and writing for film.

My perspective on something like that is that if a movie is trying to present a story, I think that it shouldn't expect me to trust it when when I think it doesn't complete that story. I don't think MOS or BvS really dealt with the consequences of the destruction of metropolis in a strong way. Why should I trust it to do something other than that with Batman from movie to movie? I want the movie to give me an idea in where we're headed. Maybe Bruce's line at the end instead is: " You were right. Men aren't good. But that's not the point. Fighting in spite of that is. I lost sight of it. He showed me that." I remember hearing how Batman was going die or something in Snyder's ideas, which while it does put it into perspective what Snyder did with him, I think is more going there to try and get an easy out for the character. A speech about men being good I came to the impression that the story's not gonna hold Batman's actions against him and have him have consequences for those, outside his guilt anyway and what he does to himself.

I found this great rebuttal by a fan in response to the clickbait hack media taking Zack Snyder's words out of context on the subject of Batman killing recently at a fan convention, even going so far to post the full transcript of what he said.

Source: https://www.hypable.com/zack-snyder-does-not-think-killing-makes-batman-cool-or-heroic/

I don't get why him doing that with Watchman means he should do it with other characters.

I get it. Batman is supposed to go through a situation. But I think, and this guy seems to think so too, Batman's made to be a villain. And I think doing that asks questions the movie doesn't answer. The situation isn't dealt with to me. It's bears that idea, but doesn't resolve it to me. Does this mean this Batman can go back to that? Why should others trust his judgement if he can? The movie paints over those questions to me about how men are good. Men aren't good. That shouldn't be the point. Why does believing in humanity mean you don't kill? What are the consequences for this? Not just for Bruce personally, but also for others? Would Gordon have turned him away or tried to arrest him him? Would he have turned himself over to the cops? Truly repented and found God? Would Alfred have been angry and hurt by his fall? Other batfamily members be unwilling to trust him? I don't think all these questions would be answered because they weren't or at least personally explored for Clark in MOS or BvS in regards to the destruction of Metropolis and to killing Zod to me.

Realistically, I get it, Batman would fall short, but what else? I don't think the movie showcases those consequences. I think the situations feel to me like Batman's put in them for the sake of it, not dealing with it.

[war zone]

Over the years, I've seen willfully ignorant fanboy morons making up excuses to justify why Batman's kills in previous movies aren't as deplorable as BvS. The most common excuse I've seen is Batman didn't "actively kill" in previous incidents.

Well, going by their logic, you can easily make the argument that Batman didn't "actively kill" in BvS either. Let's go through it together:

-Branding the sexual predator Santos: Batman caught the man who had enslaved these women in a dungeon. He's not responsible if the deviants he brands get killed in prison.

-The Knightmare scene: Batman was double-crossed and saw his army violently gunned down in the middle of a war zone. Focusing only whatever he does next overlooks the fact he'd be taken in as a prisoner of war, or worse, become the next one to be eliminated.

I haven't so much seen branding listed as him killing them by those who don't like the movie.

I've seen those who are against the Knightmare scene. But it's not something I think much about. It's a dark future dream or something.

-The Batmobile chase scene: the crooks were the ones who opened fire at Batman first. If you can say Batman kills in self-defence in other movies, you can easily apply that logic to see this scene too.

-LexCorp raid: we only see people who were seriously injured or put in a coma after Batman stole the Kryptonite. Nobody died.

-The Warehouse scene: again, the crooks were the ones who opened fire at Batman first, and he retaliated by firing back while flying in the Batwing. Actually, if you have a look at how Batman first erupted from the floor during that warehouse scene, Batman could've been more brutal when he blew up some of the mercernaries' guns by getting them killed instantly. Instead, the bombs he set off disarmed those crooks and put them in a temporary state of shock.

I don't think that necessarily plays when Batman comes at them and I don't think we have much to say he needs defense in that.

I think we see paramedics seemingly trying to save someone's life. Though I can't be certain. Though I focus more on him just attacking and hurting what I guess are security guards enough for them to need that.

I think we don't have much to say he was in danger in the batwing. Though I think it's more needlessly reckless and violent than anything and puts Martha's life at risk in doing it.

-Killing Anatoli Knyazev: Batman had no choice but to stop Knyazev from burning Martha Kent alive. He had two options: either shoot Knyazev right in the head (as Zack Snyder was considering when he envisioned this scene), or shoot at the flamethrower tank. Batman chose the latter option, which would've given Knayzev a chance to survive if he had the sense to take his gear off immediately. If you look at that scene carefully, Knyazev looked as if he tried to pull trigger at Batman and Martha instead. Like the idiot unleashing the grenade, Knyazev was responsible for his own demise. Batman's goal was saving the hostage, not necessarily trying to kill the culprit.

I'm not even sure he died.

The only moment where Batman comes close to actively killing anybody was his intention to kill Superman; which of course, he didn't go through with it. Other than that, I don't see how any of the kills would classify as "murder", as a lot of detractors claim. Despite how brutal his responses were, to call Batman in BvS "a pure cold-blooded murderer" is a stretch, in retrospect. Never mind the fact his decision to spare Lex from the branding in the end signals the end of his reactive approach to crime-fighting.

I think him planning it like he did and even nearly doing it, only to be stopped by seeing Clark as a person, could be an issue. I don't know if this is brought up much though, but I don't think having a character that I'm supposed to see as a heroic figure at some point be trying to kill another heroic character based on his existence is something some want and asks questions about whether he can be trusted.

But I guess as long as a movie depicts Batman killing people either for laughs or have him paying lip service against taking lives but does it anyway, that gives the movie a pass, right? What a load of hypocritical, phony garbage.

I think it's more to show that it's something he struggles with and doesn't want to do. Maybe he'll break it (Nolan), or maybe it'll never say something either way for the most part (Burton). But I think having it and showing the character struggle with it works more for me, than the character just being that way due to events that we haven't seen and the movie not showing people react to killing, but to the branding.

It would be understandable if he said he was disappointed how the moment cuts off to the next and the flood survivors' rescue happened off-screen. I think that would be fair criticism, but he's not saying that. Instead, he's using that scene to dismiss every moment we see Superman saving people in the movies. It's shamelessly obtuse.

I don't what scene with Reeve's Clark you're referring, but I think it may be likely that we don't pan over and just hold on Clark for a couple seconds watching from someone elses perspective as Clark just floats there. While I don't care about this personally, I don't necessarily think that complaint is based on that idea that he doesn't save people, more how the movie depicts the saving.

As for the courthouse comment, I have a hunch that even if the theatrical cut of the movie had included the scene where Lois discovered Keefe's wheelchair was covered in lead, it wouldn't have made a difference to this person. He'd likely move the goalposts and say "Superman should've been quick enough to save all of those people as soon as the bomb exploded".

I have more issue with the scene happening at all with the wheelchair blowing up. I don't care that he couldn't see it nowadays, more that, again, we just hold on him surrounded by burning bodies as he looks sad (Killing Zod elicited a stronger reaction) and more than that, the movie took away the opportunity to get inside Clark's head and have him voice his emotions specifically, in a situation that I think ultimately doesn't have much of a point (Clark gets sad and blames himself, leaves, walks somewhere in the snow, talks to his dad somehow who gives him advice that I don't think is helpful or really works and Clark comes back). Arguably for the fight to play to me, having Clark not have a bouncing back moment only for Clark to suddenly revert, and having be made to fight Batman at his hardest moment, I think would help the emotion of the scene from his end.

Are you sure you've even seen BVS???

Yes, and I didn't get the impression I was supposed to be anti-Finch.

If offering aid to people outside your country is somehow against the law, we need to imprison just about every religious missionary, Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders, the International Red Cross and probably zillions of other NGO's too.

In case I'm not being clear, no, it's not against the law.

Why this is a challenging idea for you, I have no idea. But it's not against the law.

More than anything I think I'm trying to work out how the movie's conflict works now. I thought the movie positioned Finch as someone to root for in the story. I guess if I'm not supposed to, was that why we had that peach tea thing? I also wonder why that issue is a big deal for Clark.

I'm not sure myself, but wouldn't those people need permission to do those things on some levels? I still think that Superman doesn't have the right to pass judgement on Bruce.

You mischaracterize my argument. As with so many things you post, I can't be sure if it's done intentionally or not.

In any case, my point in the post which you cannibalized was that Batman encounters condemnation from others because of his objectively criminal behavior. Superman encounters condemnation from performing humanitarian acts. A significant amount of the criticism to which Superman is subjected in BVS is due to his errands of mercy, rescues and so forth. My example for this condemnation was Senator Finch... who, it should be noted, did not condemn Superman for "violating international law" but for acting outside the auspices of the United States government.

I went on to imply that the condemnation Batman experiences is well justified while the condemnation Superman experiences is not justified.

In the future, if you choose to paraphrase any of my posts, please do so accurately. I resent being misquoted and I resent even more my intended meaning being so heavily mangled.

I wasn't trying to belittle you for your argument. I'm sorry if I came off that way.

I don't necessarily agree that Batman's behavior is any more criminal than Superman's, if he did violate any kind of law. I don't think his rescues are really criticized. I think there's more or less concerns about Superman being there in general. I think that acting outside the auspices of the government could be argued to be violate that law. Isn't there a law for that? I maintain not really understanding the movie's issues then, if the concern is about Superman just going to another country over them thinking he's burned people.

Of course. What I'm saying, Dagen, is that some people are going to be blamed no matter what course of action they take. The fact you state his search led Zod to Earth confirms that.

I don't blame Clark for the destruction of metropolis, because I think his actions led to Zod finding earth. Isn't that what happened in the movie? But, while that may be the case in regards to some being blamed no matter what, the actions Clark take have consequences. Though in the movie, I think the main issue is (if what thecolorsblend says is true) about Clark I think breaking international law and/or him being framed for those people being burned.

I'm not sure if the reason your post completely ignores my point is intentional or accidental.

The fact remains, however, that your post ignores my point. Finch is an example of someone who took issue with Superman over reasons that have precisely nothing to do with faked desert attacks. Address this point or else don't reply to this post.

Thanks.

I think I don't understand what you're talking about. I was talking about the reasons I think some people are against him. And how I think his actions in the terrorist situation by human law standards aren't that different from Batman's in regards to the human traffickers. I would say the movie doesn't depict Finch as criticizing Superman, so much as I think pointing out that I think he violated human international law. Either way I think if the movie is saying that she's more concerned with that than the fried people, I don't get that.