And none of this matters yet again all the people saying we understood the movie are once again proving they didn't. Batman killed in this because it was a batman who was very close to being too far gone.
Uh, no, if Batman kills, then he's not "very close to being too far gone"; he IS too far gone. That's always been the ENTIRE POINT of Batman's no kill rule, once he crosses that line, he's no better than them.
It wasn't about being cool it was about creating a Batman who after years has finally cracked, he's very close to becoming one of the psychopaths he fights which is a reoccurring theme of Batman.
Yes, it absolutely has been a reoccurring theme, and in every single case that it's been thematically used, Batman does NOT kill, because, again, at that point he's no longer CLOSE to becoming one of them, he IS one of them.
That is the entire point you seem to be missing, or refusing to acknowledge, and that everyone else here is trying to get through to you.
Batman was not meant to be a hero anymore, Bruce became one of the good guys who didn't stay that way. . . .
Yes, very true, Bruce is absolutely meant to be wrong in this film.
A BETTER story teller would have made his turmoil about whether or not he's finally willing to cross that line to take out Superman.
Having Batman already a killer completely neuters his entire character arc, and fundamentally misunderstands the point of that line, and how close Bruce is to it.
You can't claim it's about how "close" he is to becoming just like the criminals, if he already DID cross the line.
That is why Snyder, and you, clearly do not understand this aspect of the character.
Batman killing doesn't matter because he's not meant to be a hero he's meant to be very close to everything Gotham feared he would be. He was meant to be a monster who through Superman's sacrifice decides to rise from the darkness and be better. So this debate is pointless, if he's meant to be nearly too far gone, him killing makes sense and fits the idea of his character at the times, and clearly you missed the point much like you missed the point of everything else.
This is why people who like the movie don't take you seriously because you endlessly prove that you didn't get it, the purpose of the characters, stories and arcs what the meaning behind countless scenes were, and even the overall message of it. You didn't get it as your reasoning for Batman killing show, just like dang near everything else in BVS you didn't get this version of Batman.
Man, this post was just saying the same thing over and over again. Yet again, yes, Bruce's story IS meant to show how
CLOSE he is to everything he's been fighting. This culminates in the final moments of the titular fight, when, after learning Superman's mother is about to die, and Bruce realizes he HAS become EXACTLY what he's sworn to prevent, but only IF he goes through with it and kills Superman, or at least doesn't stop the fight.
In doing so, he would become the monster that took someone's parents from them.
It's beautifully poetic, and the perfect way to resolve that conflict, however it's completely undermined by the fact that Bruce has ALREADY crossed that line about a half dozen times by this point int the movie.
So no, it's NOT about us not understanding what they were attempting to do with Batman in the movie. It's the fact that we see exactly what they were TRYING to do, and they completely shat all over their own intentions by having him kill countless faceless thugs throughout the film.
A lot of people who ACTUALLY don't get what they were going for mock this by saying 'those thugs must not have had a mother named Martha.'
The actual truth about how much they screwed up with having Batman kill is when you ask "how many of those criminals had children?"
Bruce almost undeniably created more than a few orphans in this film, then stops just short of letting Clark become one again. Well, and killing Clark himself, but any way.
Long story short, not only could they have cut every single Bat-kill from the movie, and it would have taken, literally NOTHING from the story (definition of gratuitous?), but it actually would have made the story they were TRYING to tell ACTUALLY work, and told the same arc a HELL of a lot better.
We would have actually cared that Bruce was seriously considering killing Superman, and it would have ACTUALLY shown that he was about to become everything he hated.
Also, let's not forget that even AFTER Bruce realizes he's been wrong at the end of the titular fight, what's the very next thing he does?
Guns down a ****load of criminals outside the warehouse on his way to rescue Martha.
The very first thing he does in his act of "redemption" is kill a bunch of criminals.
It's not just KGBeast (who arguably could have survived, especially considering the character's story in the books), it's not just that he's backed into a "no win" situation (Snyder cited the Kobayashi Maru which further shows, not only his misunderstanding of Batman, but of Star Trek), as he had no problem killing all the guys out side just moments before.
So much for his character's "redemption." The fact that he continues to kill after snapping out of it with Superman kinda makes your whole point dead in the water.