@BOZEA I’m sorry, I don’t mean for my criticism of Snyder to reflect on you or any of his fans! Lord knows I’m in no position to judge anybody for their tastes. I’ll admit it, I’M the guy I mentioned in Random who bought 2 copies of the same Limp Bizkit album! It was me!
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@cbplanets
If BvS and JL are elseworlds, than DC really needs to step up and make that statement clear. I don’t buy the argument, since DC has really taken WW, A-man & Shazam as coming from some part of canonical sources. I think post-fact there have been claims that they were elseworlds to try and take some of the heat off and to not be stuck with Snyder’s choices getting into canon.
DiDio has stated that having different media is a strategy and that DCAU, arrowverse, and Elseworlds are different continuities. If DC stands up and officially states there is a “Snyderverse” which is not canonical, great. I’ll chalk this up as a cr@p Batman version. (And not the only one)
I having watched BvS and JL multiple times, I think they fail in what they allegedly attempt to do.
I think DC and Marvel fail (to different degrees) or at least are less well served by bringing in “big name” directors. The movies become more about the characters being beholden to the director than the director beholden to the characters.
Look at what the BBC did with Sherlock. A completely new take but left “the bones” in tact. It is still about his detective abilities, his scorn for those less intelligent as he, The glee at an interesting case. His psychology, his motivations, and his drive are still the same. It is an “elseworld” Holmes but by keeping the bones can fit as a conical source.
The Batman is, like SH, a timeless and malleable character. However, one must “keep the bones” otherwise it is just a different character shoved into the clothes of an iconic character. It does a disservice to the character and runs a great risk at diminishing the character.
Deconstructing characters is fine, as Marowitz did with “Shrew”. But it is not attempting to be Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew, even though it uses a specific cut and rework of Shakespeare’s actual language. Marowitz clearly acknowledges this.
Let DC (cuz we all know Snyder’s ego will never allow him to do it. That is the psychology of his character) publicly acknowledge the same about “the Snyderverse”. It would serve everyone who cares to debate such topics a great topic.
One can love, hate or somewhere in between, Snyder’s DC films. It is the conical implications that I am personally concerned about.
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@MattMcNeilly I believe the problem comes from assuming that Batman is merely a character. He is also a symbol. A legend. In some ways our relationship to him is akin to a god. When’s the last time everyone agreed on the defining features of a god? Never. But you can still recognize the gods in their different iterations, just as we can recognize Batman, when we see him. If we were discussing the fact that Ben Affleck was the Green Lantern in BvS, then we would know he wasn’t Batman. But we aren’t discussing that, because everyone knows he was Batman. Some of us just don’t like that he did some things.
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@BatmanOfZur-En-Arrh Batman’s status as a symbol crumbles if it isn’t consistent. What is Batman a symbol of? Good? Justice? If 99% of modern Batman adaptations constantly drill it into our heads that “Batman does not kill. Batman does not use guns,” what am I supposed to think when a director makes a movie where Batman does both of those things? It either means that Zack Snyder simply doesn’t get Batman, or it means that Batman is a terrible symbol, because he fails to represent the same moral values he preaches depending on the interpretation. Is he a “stop the villain by any means necessary” or a “stop the villain by the means at hand” kind of character? If we can’t agree on which, I think Batman needs to stop trying to be a symbol, because he doesn’t know what kind of symbol he even wants to be.
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Why do people hate Zack Snyder so much? I really don’t get it. Don’t say B v S the Snyder hate was rampant long before M o S. I just don’t get it. Ya don’t like a film maker so you all run right out to the movie made by the guy that only makes bad movies. Then complain that the movie was bad. Then you follow the bad film maker to every interview and complain about the comments he makes at the interview.
Maybe if you read interviews with people you do like and go to movies that are made by people you like you won’t notice the things the bad film maker is doing. I just don’t understand following Zack around then complaining about what he dose or says.
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@MattMcNielly I wasn’t referring to the symbol Batman is trying to be. Any time a writer writes Batman as trying to be a symbol, I roll my eyes. Batman is a symbol to us. He does not need to attempt to be one in the text of the story. Semiotics has many different ways of breaking up how symbols work, but the most common is into signifier and signified. Batman as signifier has been used to connote many different ideas (signified). No-killing is only one idea. He has connotations around orphanage, family, perserverence, excellence, altruism, Gothic imagery, vigilance, sacrifice, detecting, etc. The list goes on and on. Many of the things on that list take much higher priority for me, and others, as to who Batman is than the no-killing rule. One of the reasons Batman has worked for so long is that he is an incredibly flexible signifier. He has a large cloud of signified that add up to who he is. You can take one out and he remains. You can take several out and he remains. Denny O’Neil spoke about this in the yesterday’s episode of DC Daily. Ask a hundred people what Batman means to them and you will get many different answers. This flexibility isn’t a weakness; it is maybe the symbol of Batman’s greatest strength. Signifiers take up new connotations. You are arguing against a connotation that has been given to Bats many times and will be given to him again. It doesn’t define him. No single connotation does.
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All I know is if there is a one percent chance that someone could make a bad Batman movie we have to take it as an absolute certainty. 30 years of Batman movies Alfred, how many of them have been good? How many of them stayed that way and weren’t ruined by a dumb follow ups?
Zack Snyder doesn’t understand superheroes and should direct a superhero movie ever again unless it’s some edgy anti hero like Lobo. He should focus on his strengths as a horror director.
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If a hero refuses to kill and allows those villains to repeatedly hurt and kill innocent people then is that hero really a hero. Can’t all those deaths be blamed as much on the hero as it is the villain? Batman may not be physically taking a life by his own hand but the blood of many are on his hands because of his code. I enjoyed Synders take because his heros had to make the hard choice to save innocents. One life to save many. I seen the pain and felt the pain that Superman was feeling when he had to kill Zod. To pull me in and make me feel that deeply for a character is great filmmaking in my opinion.
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If a drunk driver is arrested and convicted and their license revoked for a year. If they drive drunk a year and a half later and kill somebody. Is the legal system or the cop that arrested them the first time to blame?
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Is the police officer Batman and the drunk driver the Joker?
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Does it matter?
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In the case of The Joker, we all know he’s supposed to be in Arkham for life. In your description, they are FAR more culpable than The Batman.
I won’t put stock in any concept of heroism that mandates the taking of human life. If the Joker kills someone, that’s on the Joker. If that warrants death, it’s up to the legal system to administer it, not some cowboy vigilante with no accountability. And I think Batman knows he’s a cowboy vigilante with no accountability. He has to limit himself. And in fact, the only reason the Joker hasn’t been put to death is because then writers wouldn’t get to tell Joker stories (the insanity defense would not avail him in the slightest; even if Gotham were in a state without the death penalty - it’s not - he’s committed enough federal crimes and crimes in other states that he’d be long dead in real life). Ultimately, there’s a certain conceit inherent to the genre, which, by the way, is a lot harder to sustain if Batman is actively killing villains but just happens to never permanently take down any of his major rogues. So, from a strictly functional perspective, the no-kill rule enables Batman to repeatedly win and look competent without draining his rogues gallery or looking like a serial killer.
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…and the GCPD and the Gotham Justice system is just as much at fault because apparently they dont have the death penalty. They must have a code not to kill as well. In my opinion Batman holds the most blame. He knows that as soon he hands the villain over to the authorities that it wont be long until they are back on the streets killing again. Since he knows this he must not have a problem with it since he keeps repeating the pattern instead of ending the pattern. If your dog finds a way to get out of the yard everyday and bites someone no matter how hard you try to keep him locked up. You dont want to put the dog down so you take him to a no kill shelter and pat yourself on the back for not killing the dog. The dog gets out of the shelter just like he always managed to get out of your yard but this time instead of just biting someone he attacks and kills someone. Are your hands clean because you gave the dog to the shelter or are you just as much to blame because you didn’t end the pattern when you had a chance.
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So nobody is going to point out that Batman kills in every film since 1989
Batman proudly murdering citizens of Gotham for over 25 years.
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@Dr. Doom I did several posts ago.
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What are the specific kill in Batman 89? Batman returns, Batman forever, and Batman & Robin?
What about the investors in Wayne Enterprise? They get swindled and their portfolios wont see a profit with out some book manipulation. If a crime is a crime, would Batman go after Bruce Wayne for hurting peoples retirements and investments? I would hope that he is not only interested in the right now but the future.
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