BvS The BvS Ultimate Cut Thread - Part 3

[Flint Marko]

I 100% understand the "deeper layers" of that scene and still find it laughable.

 

[JimThompson]

I don't understand how those Internet "bro's" fail to get that simple scene and the meaning behind it. All they retained from that was that Bruce stopped because Superman said Martha. You have to be extremely daft to completely miss the point and then blame it on bad storyline/filmmaking because you didn't get the deeper layers of that scene.

Maybe just willfully ignorant. Lot of folk seem to have gone into that movie having already decided they were not going to like it, and then just looked for things to justify the opinion.

 

[gdw]

I 100% understand the "deeper layers" of that scene and still find it laughable.

Is this, in your opinion, because of execution?

I would agree it was not the best executed moment in the film. I've commented on the overly heavy handed nature of the execution before.

However, I do not find it to be anywhere near as egregious as people who mock it try to make it out to be.

 

[Flint Marko]

Is this, in your opinion, because of execution?

I would agree it was not the best executed moment in the film. I've commented on the overly heavy handed nature of the execution before.

However, I do not find it to be anywhere near as egregious as people who mock it try to make it out to be.

The execution is the most glaring reason why it doesn't work, but what no one ever talks about is how the Martha moment does nothing to usurp Bruce's previous motivation's to kill Superman. Let me know if I'm missing something here, but Bruce has just spent the entire movie hellbent on killing Superman based on the stupid "1%" idea, has a vision of a post-apocalyptic future wherein Superman is evil, and is visited by a time-traveler who tells him that he's right... and yet all of this is abandoned because Superman says "Save Martha".

 

[souperman]

I 100% understand the "deeper layers" of that scene and still find it laughable.

maybe not 100% then?

I felt it was well acted and touching. My assumption, knowing Superman as I do, it that he knew, from his research that Bruce's mother was named Martha and used that knowledge to get thru to him.

Affleck's realization reaction and Adams "it's his mother's name" line was very powerful and well acted as was Cavil's chocking on boot...

 

[Erzengel]

The execution is the most glaring reason why it doesn't work, but what no one ever talks about is how the Martha moment does nothing to usurp Bruce's previous motivation's to kill Superman. Let me know if I'm missing something here, but Bruce has just spent the entire movie hellbent on killing Superman based on the stupid "1%" idea, has a vision of a post-apocalyptic future wherein Superman is evil, and is visited by a time-traveler who tells him that he's right... and yet all of this is abandoned because Superman says "Save Martha".

The whole Batman v. Superman angle just never started off on the right foot for me personally.

Batman isn't stupid. He can understand that Superman in the 18 months since the Battle of Metropolis that he has performed multiple acts of heroism.

If you're going to go the path that he destroyed Wayne Tower in Metropolis which shows how powerful Superman is, allow that to be what sets him off on being prepared for an eventual showdown not the whole 1% thing.

 

[souperman]

straightened out the poster for a better look while we wait for a better image...

 

[FlawlessVictory]

^Awesome, thanks Souperman!

 

[Broseph44]

I would love that poster framed on my wall

 

[souperman]

The whole Batman v. Superman angle just never started off on the right foot for me personally.

Batman isn't stupid. He can understand that Superman in the 18 months since the Battle of Metropolis that he has performed multiple acts of heroism.

If you're going to go the path that he destroyed Wayne Tower in Metropolis which shows how powerful Superman is, allow that to be what sets him off on being prepared for an eventual showdown not the whole 1% thing.

I think the line: How many stayed that way" is the key. He is worried that even tho Superman is good now...he "could" change. Many wars are started from the belief that the enemy "might" do something. The "side of right then becomes the side of wrong which is the very heart and bases of the film. Nobody stays good in this world...

At least that's how I read it.

 

[Flint Marko]

The whole Batman v. Superman angle just never started off on the right foot for me personally.

Batman isn't stupid. He can understand that Superman in the 18 months since the Battle of Metropolis that he has performed multiple acts of heroism.

If you're going to go the path that he destroyed Wayne Tower in Metropolis which shows how powerful Superman is, allow that to be what sets him off on being prepared for an eventual showdown not the whole 1% thing.

To make this movie work, Batman, and a good deal of the other principal characters, have to be stupid.

Superman doesn't like Batman because he's operating "outside of the law" (as if Superman doesn't operate outside of the law), but only fights him because Lex Luthor manipulated him (by kidnapping Lois so he could tell him that he kidnapped his mom, so clunky), thereby rendering all his previous motivations (most of which, I believe we find out in the UC, are manipulated by Lex) moot.

Batman doesn't like Superman because he thinks that if he turns evil no one would be able to stop him, despite the fact that, as you mention, Superman has been regularly flying all over the planet and doing heroic things for the better part of two years. Okay, stupid logic, then we see two separate visions confirming Bruce's suspicions.... and then all of this is abandoned because Superman says Martha.

This screenplay gets an F.

I think the line: How many stayed that way" is the key. He is worried that even tho Superman is good now...he "could" change. Many wars are started from the belief that the enemy "might" do something. The "side of right then becomes the side of wrong which is the very heart and bases of the film. Nobody stays good in this world...

At least that's how I read it.

That's exactly how I read it as well.
How does the Martha moment change that? Everything he's saying there is still true. The fact that the character does an immediate 180 after hearing the name "Martha" shows how stupid that motivation was to begin with.

 

[FlawlessVictory]

That's exactly how I read it as well.
How does the Martha moment change that? Everything he's saying there is still true. The fact that the character does an immediate 180 after hearing the name "Martha" shows how stupid that motivation was to begin with.

Because it brought him to a point he was unable to cross. Killing in cold blood, even if he thinks the 1% still exists. He just wasn't able to do it because deep down that's not the person he is. It took that moment for him to realize that.

 

[idiot09]

The execution is the most glaring reason why it doesn't work, but what no one ever talks about is how the Martha moment does nothing to usurp Bruce's previous motivation's to kill Superman. Let me know if I'm missing something here, but Bruce has just spent the entire movie hellbent on killing Superman based on the stupid "1%" idea, has a vision of a post-apocalyptic future wherein Superman is evil, and is visited by a time-traveler who tells him that he's right... and yet all of this is abandoned because Superman says "Save Martha".

You have to understand the reasoning behind why he has said the "one percent" thing.Dont just take it as face value and go "oh thats why he hates superman,because he thinks superman can go rogue".

Thats not it.Bruce's psyche after 20 years as Batman has made him jaded,cynical and borderline mad.He feels so powerless at not being able to stop crime(criminals are like weed),save his allies,and finally(The last straw) not being able to do anything at the Battle of Metropolis...which made him feels so powerless that he projected his feelings of ineptness,at Superman.He blames Superman for everything,and takes it as his mission,his last good thing he can do,his legacy,to take him down.Is he wrong and his reasoning flawed?Yes.Thats the point exactly.

He has this idea about Superman,as this cold/emotion less ALIEN....but when this alien's last dying breath was pleading to save the life of another plain mortal...when he realises that mortal is his adopted human mother,this snaps Bruce out of his frenzy...he realises how misguided he was,how much he had fallen.This common ground of feeling powerless to save their mothers(who coincidentally share the same name) even furthers Bruce's sympathy towards Clark(not an alien/superman).

 

[Flint Marko]

Because it brought him to a point he was unable to cross. Killing in cold blood, even if he thinks the 1% still exists. He just wasn't able to do it because deep down that's not the person he is. It took that moment for him to realize that.

Except we see Batman kill numerous people in this movie.

You have to understand the reasoning behind why he has said the "one percent" thing.Dont just take it as face value and go "oh thats why he hates superman,because he thinks superman can go rogue".

Thats not it.Bruce's psyche after 20 years as Batman has made him jaded,cynical and borderline mad.He feels so powerless at not being able to stop crime(criminals are like weed),save his allies,and finally(The last straw) not being able to do anything at the Battle of Metropolis...which made him feels so powerless that he projected his feelings of ineptness,at Superman.He blames Superman for everything,and takes it as his mission,his last good thing he can do,his legacy,to take him down.Is he wrong and his reasoning flawed?Yes.Thats the point exactly.

He has this idea about Superman,as this cold/emotion less ALIEN....but when this alien's last dying breath was pleading to save the life of another plain mortal...when he realises that mortal is his adopted human mother,this snaps Bruce out of his frenzy...he realises how misguided he was,how much he had fallen.This common ground of feeling powerless to save their mothers(who coincidentally share the same name) even furthers Bruce's sympathy towards Clark(not an alien/superman).

So I'm supposed to ignore the 1% speech now?
By the way, saying that Bruce is "jaded" is incorrect - he's stupid. Saying that the reasoning is "flawed" is an understatement - it's flawed because it doesn't make any sense for someone to feel this way towards Superman, and it makes even less sense for him to go back on it after the Martha moment, so it's on the film makers for giving the character a stupid motivation.
And how does any of this negate the two visions he has of a post-apocalyptic future?

 

[Erzengel]

Because it brought him to a point he was unable to cross. Killing in cold blood, even if he thinks the 1% still exists. He just wasn't able to do it because deep down that's not the person he is. It took that moment for him to realize that.

Unless you mean actually thrusting a spear into Superman with his own hands, it's evident that Snyder has no issues saying Batman is a killer whether it's killing using the Batmobile or using a rifle on Knyazev's flame thrower. That just seems like a matter of semantics. He continues to kill even after sparing Clark's life.

 

[FlawlessVictory]

Except we see Batman kill numerous people in this movie.

Unless you mean actually thrusting a spear into Superman with his own hands, it's evident that Snyder has no issues saying Batman is a killer whether it's killing using the Batmobile or using a rifle on Knyazev's flame thrower. That just seems like a matter of semantics. He continues to kill even after sparing Clark's life.

In cold blood. Killing someone that was innocent.

 

[Flint Marko]

In cold blood. Killing someone that was innocent.

But if there's even a 1% chance that this man is our enemy, then it must be taken as an absolute certainty.... unless this man has a mom named Martha, in which case, bring it in bro.

 

[Erzengel]

But Clark was always "innocent", the only difference was the mention of his mother's name. There's still the 1% regardless of that which was reinforced by the knightmares.

 

[FlawlessVictory]

But if there's even a 1% chance that this man is our enemy, then it must be taken as an absolute certainty.... unless this man has a mom named Martha, in which case, bring it in bro.

He thought he could go through with it initially and in the end he realized he couldn't because he saw the monster he had become.

 

[FlawlessVictory]

But Clark was always "innocent", the only difference was the mention of his mother's name. There's still the 1% regardless of that which was reinforced by the knightmares.

Right, but he hadn't realized the monster he had become until he heard Martha. Once he realized the monster he had become and saw the innocent person in front of him he realized he couldn't go through with it.

 

[gdw]

The execution is the most glaring reason why it doesn't work, but what no one ever talks about is how the Martha moment does nothing to usurp Bruce's previous motivation's to kill Superman. Let me know if I'm missing something here, but Bruce has just spent the entire movie hellbent on killing Superman based on the stupid "1%" idea, has a vision of a post-apocalyptic future wherein Superman is evil, and is visited by a time-traveler who tells him that he's right... and yet all of this is abandoned because Superman says "Save Martha".

I think what you're missing, or neglecting in your consideration of this moment, is that those things were not Bruce's motivation, but rather his rationalization.

Bruce is motivated by his feeling of helplessness, and ineptitude, and ultimate futility. Hence why he thinks this one "big" thing, killing Superman, will be the one thing he does that makes a difference, because he's CONVINCING himself that he's right with all the "1%" crap.

So, the Martha moment wakes him up to the fact that, in his fear, he has become the very monster that created him. It is in seeing that truth about himself, and what was REALLY motivating him, that allows him to realize that he has been wrong about everything else he was using to "justify" his choices and actions.

You're right, this does not negate the Knightmare vision, or whomever he saw telling him he was "right about him." It does, however, allow him to re-contextualize them. He still doesn't know what exactly they were about, nor about WHOM he was right.
Or even what, exactly, he was right about. While Flash could have been referring to Darkseid, and the Lois stuff was referring to her being the key to what allows Darkseid to corrupt Superman perhaps. Even in that, it could be said Bruce was still right about Superman, as he's what Darkseid USES as a threat.
Long story short, Bruce was making a lot of assumptions about what he saw, and those assumptions were informed by his fear. He was also presented very disjointed imagery, right along side the time-traveling warning, and Bruce, and the audience, are meant to make several incorrect assumptions about them, and their connections to each other, and the current events of the film.

So, Bruce is piecing these bits together, and letting his fear dictate the narrative, leading to the clearly flawed "1%" rationalizing.
The Martha moment opens his eyes to the reality of his fear based motivation, and that, in turn, allows the "logic" of his rationalizing to crumble away.

 

[souperman]

To make this movie work, Batman, and a good deal of the other principal characters, have to be stupid.

Superman doesn't like Batman because he's operating "outside of the law" (as if Superman doesn't operate outside of the law), but only fights him because Lex Luthor manipulated him (by kidnapping Lois so he could tell him that he kidnapped his mom, so clunky), thereby rendering all his previous motivations (most of which, I believe we find out in the UC, are manipulated by Lex) moot.

Batman doesn't like Superman because he thinks that if he turns evil no one would be able to stop him, despite the fact that, as you mention, Superman has been regularly flying all over the planet and doing heroic things for the better part of two years. Okay, stupid logic, then we see two separate visions confirming Bruce's suspicions.... and then all of this is abandoned because Superman says Martha.

This screenplay gets an F.



That's exactly how I read it as well.
How does the Martha moment change that? Everything he's saying there is still true. The fact that the character does an immediate 180 after hearing the name "Martha" shows how stupid that motivation was to begin with.

Because there is doubt.

Bruce has been driven to this point by fear and a desire to feel like he is living up to his warped perception of what his parents wanted him to be. All this time, in Bruce mind, he has been ineffective and now feels like he has failed his parents. ("this may be the only important thing I ever do" ) Sort of parallels the Superman scene sentiments: "Superman was never real"

Bruce has convinced himself that he must remove the potential threat "before" it becomes a real threat. This flies in the face of his parents teachings as we know them to be very kind and loving and trusting.

At the Martha moment, Bruce realizes that he has abandoned his original purpose to fight crime and injustice and has now become the very thing he was warning Alfred about. He wakes to the fact that he has gone too far and that the solution he thought was right is not truly acceptable to his moral and ethical being. In the branding of Lex scene, they show that he wanted to do it so bad, but he restrains himself and shows again, the strength of his will to overcome the bloodthirsty desire for revenge.

Because he realizes that he could be wrong...that's why.

 

[Erzengel]

Right, but he hadn't realized the monster he had become until he heard Martha. Once he realized the monster he had become and saw the innocent person in front of him he realized he couldn't go through with it.

If Alfred said to him, if you kill Superman you're no better than the man who took your parents life. That would have been a better execution to the whole Martha scene and bring it back to the beginning. A scene on it's own isn't 100% bad BUT, they reinforced way too much in Bruce's decision throughout the movie with the knightmares.

 

[Sleiek]

I would love that poster framed on my wall

I don't like to have posters on my wall.... Until Now.

Something about that poster. So hopeful.

 

[idiot09]

So I'm supposed to ignore the 1% speech now?
By the way, saying that Bruce is "jaded" is incorrect - he's stupid. Saying that the reasoning is "flawed" is an understatement - it's flawed because it doesn't make any sense for someone to feel this way towards Superman, and it makes even less sense for him to go back on it after the Martha moment, so it's on the film makers for giving the character a stupid motivation.
And how does any of this negate the two visions he has of a post-apocalyptic future?

No you are not supposed to ignore it,you are supposed to understand its context.Its context being,Bruce is not at the right state of mind while saying it,and he understands that later.Deep down he always knew.Thats why he went from "How many good guys are left..how many stayed that way" to "Men are still good" and from "What are promises worth?" to "I'll make you a promise...".You are not supposed to ignore it,you are supposed to understand his state of mind,which has been made clear.

You might think his reasoning is stupid,but these were decisions/actions made out of paranoia/fear/emotions and not out of logic.Maybe you always behave logically in life and never make inexplicable decisions based on emotions but I do,and many of us do.

And I the one post apocalyptic dream furthered Bruce's paranoia/fear,which are again emotions.He was not thinking straight.

To give a ****** example,its like when you develop a crush on a girl out of emotion and not logic,and you convince yourself how she is perfect for you....but when you realize and stop thinking with your D....you realize that she is not perfect for you...so all the things you thought about her,and you rationalized become just meaningless.Hope I got my point across.