BvS questions on BvS (spoilers)

[jfurioso]

Not sure if he had been manipulating him for two years, he only acknowledged "pushing him over the edge". The manipulation of both Superman and Batman probably started in this film or shortly before it.

But yeah, he wanted the Kryptonite to end up with Batman.

The manipulation started since the moment he paid off some Wayne accountant to block payments to his crippled employee, so it was several months at the least. Clark probably much later, perhaps after his access of the ship data.

But really, people keep asking me how could Lex know. With his interest and smarts and resources, it seems pretty likely.

It is quite difficult Bruce could operate for years without leaving a trail someone determined could find. Even Diana was found in these days of data mining and surveilance. Nolan addressed it well in his movies. Gordon did NOT want to know, and the accountant guy did not dare speak.

 

[jfurioso]

I'm going to say from Mercy during the dinner party scene (she's shown noticing Bruce walking down the steps. She then confronts him through the glass doors, so she followed him) and with Bruce snooping around his pad. Lex got the Meta Human program in his Encrypted system and he had survelience on every member of the JL, so knowing Bruce was Batman was probably an easy one for him.Lex knows who they all were in advance.

Lex has already been blocking the salary of the crippled Wayne employee.

Lex explicitly invited Bruce precisely to temp him into getting the information, so he could become his "weapon". The info on other metahumans was probably meant to further concern Bruce about those dangerous metahumans living among us.

 

[jfurioso]

Why did Lex want Batman dead? Just because...?

Even if Bats failed to kill Superman, Superman killing Batman would have tarnished the purity of his heroic image, which Lex wanted to tarnish.

If Superman died, how did he mail the ring to Lois at the end? When did he have time to do that?

He had done it some time before everything went down. It was a surprise he was saving for a special moment, perhaps an anniversary or such. If it was delivered to the apartment they shared Lois could have received it and she is too curious not to want to find out and ruin the surprise. Martha implied as much in her words.

Please explain why Lex had a server room that was right across from the kitchen in his house. And if he had access to such vital information, why did he have ZERO security on it? No guards, no locks, no cameras, nothing. It doesn't take the world's greatest detective to walk into an open room with access to all of the information and plug something in.

It was a setup. Lex invited Bruce. Bruce was probably just thinking of "casing" first and took advantage of the poor security. Mercy followed precisely to make sure he did get the info. She did not try to check the place after he left, did she? It was all part of the plan.
Also, as someone who works in design and construction, I can tell you that public service rooms, like party-capable kitchens and utility rooms are often placed in the same areas that are given maintenance by employees. Keeps them away from the private living areas.

Diana gets off the plane to go help Batman and Superman fight Doomsday. Practically speaking, her luggage was already in the cargo area of the plane and all she had was her carry on. I'm making a couple of assumptions here, but I don't think she would leave her sword and shield behind. So she must have gotten them through security at the airport in her carry on. I am both impressed and scared.

The weaponry is probably magical as several other of her items are. Themyscira is all about being undetectable. Invisible materials are part of the WW mythos. This would be fun to explore in her movie.

 

[jfurioso]

Then Batman would kill Superman. The end.
He wasn't fast enough? They were relocating it. So he put a tracker on it.
He couldn't know where they're relocating in. So how does he know it will be a cakewalk or even possible? It's easier to get it now, than count chances later.

They could have also changed vehicles. That is common procedure for criminal dealings.
The tracker was to be able to keep with it without losing it during transit before he could intercept. He first had to know where it was being moved in, he marked it, then went for it.

 

[jfurioso]

I've seen it twice and was still confused about a number of things.
2. What did the returned checks actually accomplish? Bruce steals the kryptonite after getting them so I was confused why Lex was sending those. Was he egging him on to steal the Kryptonite?

The checks were blocked from reaching the crippled employee to make him more desperate and furious. He is identified as a former Wayne employee, which baffles Bruce as he KNOWS he still has him in the payroll. Lex must have bribed someone at Wayne accounting. The returned checks were goading Bruce into action.

 

[jfurioso]

This is discussed in all those interviews. His presence triggered the killings, he's not blamed for being the one who killed them, I mean, all that village was obviously shot, Superman doesn't kill people with bullets, the matter in discussion was his mere presence which cause the killings. They were discussing if Superman should be allowed to intervene in foreign affairs. If he should be allowed to work on his own.
In that specific case it lead to an entire village getting killed. This is why that interviewer asked senator Finch if the next time a girl needed to be rescued they should tell her parents "sorry, we have laws that won't allow him to intervene, she's gonna die" or something along those lines.

This is surely an intentional parallel with the real world problems of modern interventionism. A great western power went into a middle eastern country that had a volatile political situation, and despite all the power deployed, the situation just became more unstable and people died in great numbers. The movie tries to make a larger argument than just Lex's jealous metaphysical concerns, it asks us to wonder if power can solve every problem, what are the consequences of taking responsibility for the world, both ethical and practical, in the larger scale, and in the personal.

 

[jfurioso]

Lex said they found it when they were rebuilding Metropolis, souvenir from World Engine. Maybe he lied and smuggled it in... Who knows... Not explained (like many-many other things in the film). He wanted to import it legally just to save trouble smuggling it in, I suppose.

It made absolutely no sense leaving Batarang there. Whatsoever. Unless Batman wanted Lex and stupid audience to know - he's ready to take down Superman. Otherwise the plot would collapse.

Batman had already played his hand openly when chasing the truck taking the smuggled kryptonite to Lex. His thugs must have mentioned the Batmobile kinda crashed into them along the way. So Batman leaving a calling card is no biggie. It is a statement that HE is going to do what needs to be done.

 

[jfurioso]

what was the purpose of batman grappling on to the car after he rammed it and dragging it behind him for a while?

He uses the enemy's own tools as weapons against them. He threw the dragged car at another of the Russian's goon rides.

 

[jfurioso]

I think he learnt from the AI that the blood was necessary to create Doomsday.

Kryptonians are genetically "locked" to prevent use of the genesis chambers without the codex which only Superman now has. Lex added some unlocked DNA to bypass this.

 

[jfurioso]

I believe it's just part of Lex's characterisation- he inherited this company from his father, he wants to carry on his father's name. He describes himself as an "orphan boy", seeming to miss his father and yet talks about being beaten up by him. He talks about his father's "abominations" towards him as a boy. So Lex is this sheltered rich kid, who had it easy in some ways, but who was also mistreated and has father issues. He has a lot to live up to with his father's name and company, while also being unhinged and traumatised.

There are many ways in which both MOS and BvS try to unify elements from different previous Superman takes. I feel this take on Luthor is a more extreme take on the dynamic between the Rosenbaum Lex with Lionel Luthor from Smallville.

 

[jfurioso]

I was going to bring this up too. Lex was so cool with telling Mercy to go on ahead into the senate hearing Why did he need to kill her in the first place? Tie up loose ends I guess? We don't really see her in on his shady business. But that was cold. That whole senate hearing thing is depressing as hell anyways when you look at all the people in there the 2nd time around.

Mercy is a sacrificial pawn for Lex to deflect suspicion from himself, as his own close aide died there, too, and to get rid of the only other person who could testify he gave the wheelchair himself.

 

[kalelvis]

Diana is probably crashing the party because she is investigating whether Lex was behind the gathering of physical evidence about her identity, so she is probably wary and "on guard" even while doing the glamorous mingling pretense. She probably noticed Bruce being someone equally alert and with a martial bearing in his movements, as a trained fighter has, and took him in just in case he was security for Lex. When Bruce did his clandestine moves, she indentified him as another person investigating Lex's dealings, thus "the enemy of my enemy..." She may have not known he was Batman at all. Later she probably investigated who Bruce Wayne was, thus how she was able to return the data, and followed the logic when later Batman publicly broke into a Lexcorp facility.

Given she is meta human she likely could also hear chatter from Alfred and Bruce. It wouldn't tell he he was batman but it would clue her in that he was up to something just as it did Clark. I really like that moment when they are all so close to each other.

 

[Jaxon]

There are many ways in which both MOS and BvS try to unify elements from different previous Superman takes. I feel this take on Luthor is a more extreme take on the dynamic between the Rosenbaum Lex with Lionel Luthor from Smallville.

Now that I've seen it 3 times you can basically see in every scene Lex has control of everything that happens right until Bruce decides that he can't kill Superman, at that point Lex's plan is shattered and Doomsday is created as a response. Even though he started on Doomsday, earlier I get the feeling that the Genesis Chamber may have been able to terminate its creation at Lex's command.

 

[JaD]

Saw the movie again for the 3rd and probably final time tonight and a couple other things I thought about.

Did Wonder Woman know Bruce Wayne was Batman at the point she first saw him at the party? I knew they all knew each other by the end at the funeral but I'm curious on how she may have already had a hint on him. I wouldn't see how her stealing his drive would be a dead giveaway on him either.

Lois in the end is saying something along he lines of "No, no you can't! No!" when Supes tells her he loves her and is implying he's gonna go in for the kill with spear. Why the hell is she saying that? Of course he has to, look around, lady. There's a giant monster that will probably destroy everything if he doesn't help. Heh. Not really a question but I don't see why she was telling him not to do it when it's very clear he has to. She should have encouraged him and given him strength to and he should have just told her to trust him and that he'll be back. Not send out a huge red flag of incoming death.

This might be another edit problem I think but Bruce Wayne in the very beginning of the movie speaks to Alfred about the White Portuguese but Lex has yet to put his plans forward in smuggling the Kryptonite into the States. I think that might be a major plot issue if that's correct unless Batman's detective skills had him thinking ahead on what Lex was planning.

 

[Jaxon]

Lois in the end is saying something along he lines of "No, no you can't! No!" when Supes tells her he loves her and is implying he's gonna go in for the kill with spear. Why the hell is she saying that?

Lois loves him, and doesn't want to die, that's a pretty reasonable way to react in those circumstances.

This might be another edit problem I think but Bruce Wayne in the very beginning of the movie speaks to Alfred about the White Portuguese but Lex has yet to put his plans forward in smuggling the Kryptonite into the States.

Lex doesn't need the import license, the smuggling on the White Portuguese was always the plan to get it, he was testing the senators to see who he could get on his side to gain access to Zod and the Scout Ship. He found an enemy in Senator Finch and an ally in the other Senator.

 

[NeoRanger]

This might be another edit problem I think but Bruce Wayne in the very beginning of the movie speaks to Alfred about the White Portuguese but Lex has yet to put his plans forward in smuggling the Kryptonite into the States. I think that might be a major plot issue if that's correct unless Batman's detective skills had him thinking ahead on what Lex was planning.

It's an edit problem, we talked about it a few pages back. The movie is edited so that it jumps between Batman and Superman a lot, which causes their plotlines and arcs to feel disjointed and causes continuity errors like this one. Batman shouldn't have been introduced until after Finch turns Lex down.

 

[JaD]

Lois loves him, and doesn't want to die, that's a pretty reasonable way to react in those circumstances.

Yeah, I was only being half-serious with this part. I just think they should have improved it. It's not like using the Kryptonite spear is an automatic death sentence at this point, all her talk about him giving people hope before and now she seemed to just want him to not do his job.

Lex doesn't need the import license, the smuggling on the White Portuguese was always the plan to get it, he was testing the senators to see who he could get on his side to gain access to Zod and the Scout Ship. He found an enemy in Senator Finch and an ally in the other Senator.

Hmm, I don't know. Alfred says in their first scene 'So the White Portuguese is a Russian? That's the theory?" like they've been discussing it for a while at that point. I think if anything we might be missing a scene somewhere of Bruce finding out about the White Portuguese and looking further into it. His mentioning of it is so abrupt that it feels out of place now.

 

[gdw]

Well, my general feeling is that most of the people close to Clark already know he is Superman, so it is no biggie.

Lois surely told [BLACKOUT]the government that his body would be taken care of by his loved ones, and the burial was only for those in the know, mostly.[/BLACKOUT]

This is what I'm assuming, [BLACKOUT]should they choose to bring Clark back.

Also, Clark isn't the most well known person on the planet, only IN the (Daily) Planet.

So, unless there was a swarm of DP staff at the Kent farm for the funeral, I don't see "resurrecting" Clark to be much more of a problem than it was in the comics.[/BLACKOUT]

 

[gdw]

Yeah, I was only being half-serious with this part. I just think they should have improved it. It's not like using the Kryptonite spear is an automatic death sentence at this point, all her talk about him giving people hope before and now she seemed to just want him to not do his job. Hmm, I don't know. Alfred says in their first scene 'So the White Portuguese is a Russian? That's the theory?" like they've been discussing it for a while at that point. I think if anything we might be missing a scene somewhere of Bruce finding out about the White Portuguese and looking further into it. His mentioning of it is so abrupt that it feels out of place now.

Well, considering he had passed out from being near it in the time it took him to swim down and get the spear, the extent of the effects on him are pretty apparent to her.
It's perfectly reasonable for her to be concerned he could die if he were to attempt to wield the spear long enough to kill DD. Even if carrying the spear didn't kill him, it would have weakened him enough that DD could easily kill him.
Kinda exactly like what ends up happening.

As for the White Portuguese, and Bruce and Luthor, Luthor had MULTIPLE plans and back up plans going at all times. We see this with him having DD as a back up, should Batman not finish off Superman.

So it makes sense he would already have things ready to go to smuggle the Kryptonite in advance, just in case he was denied by the Senator.

At first I didn't know if we are meant to assume Bruce always knew about the Kryptonite, however upon my second viewing, I caught that it's made clear he knew from the start, and implied he knows the same way that he knows the WP is planning to smuggle something in the first place.

He tells Alfred early in the film it's a dirty bomb they intend to smuggle.
Alfred later makes clear that, not only was this a lie, he KNEW Bruce was lying to him.
If Bruce was able to learn that the WP intended to smuggle a dirty bomb, he would have been able to learn the same about the Kryptonite, and we learn this IS what he did when he explains to Alfred after he confronts him about lying about the dirty bomb.

So, Bruce always knew about the Kryptonite, probably learned in the same investigation that lead him to the WP in the first place, we just don't find out about it til he tells the truth to Alfred.

Back to Luthor, more and more I'm convinced he wanted Bruce to steal it from the start.

The first time we see Bruce and Lex meet, at the party, we learn Lex has been trying to get Bruce to meet him for a while, and he even throws out the line about his R&D being up to all kinds of no good.

He wants Bruce to "partner" with him so that Bruce can learn about the Kryptonite, and ultimately steal it.

Yet another of Lex's multiple back up plans for accomplishing the same thing.

 

[sf2]

Some said Jesse is playing lex luthor junior/ son???

 

[Longshot777]

His father is always senior I think. In Smallville tv series, Lex's dad is also named Lex.

So this Lex is the real evil genius in the DC movieverse.

 

[Jaxon]

Some said Jesse is playing lex luthor junior/ son???

Nope, it's clear this is somewhat of an origin story for Lex. Jeff Johns on that CW special said they took inspiration from earlier adaptations of Lex as a young scientist and blended that with the more well known status of himas the successful billionaire.