BvS The Unabashed SPOILER Thread. ENTER AT OWN RISK. - Part 5

[4thWallBreaker]

Thank you. BvS in no way is a difficult movie to understand, it isn't particularly complex or nuanced. It's a movie with way too many ideas and no real bearing on how to execute most of them. It's incoherency may be mistaken by complexity for some, but to say that one "fears for the species" because people "aren't getting" BvS is one of the funniest thing I've read on this site.

Haha! Snyder himself said people might not get it, but I think that was a safety net to what he was about to release. He also said you might need to see it more than once. Which is apparently someone trying to sell more tickets, but yeah, funny.

I honestly thought the film was easy to follow. I didn't miss any stones. It was all very linear, just poorly paced with crappy transitions. The R-rated version will be the only other time I watch this movie. It's sadly memorable because of how painfully simple it is.

 

[Bruce Malone]

I understand the movie just fine, and that's precisely why I'm able to say I dislike it.

This.

 

[Robin91939]

And yet people keep asking "where was that?" About simple story points and things characters actually say.

I've heard people ask:

Q: If Batman brands people, why hasn't he branded the Joker?

A: In the film, they mention that this is only the second criminal he's branded and the branding is extremely new.

Q: How would Batman know that whoever was in the red suit and lightning was from the future?

A: Because says things like: You WERE right about him. Lois is the KEY. Am I too soon?
Whether Bruce knows if this is REALLY happening or if it's a dream, it's unmistakable that this is a message from the future.

Q: That was a cool parademon that jumped out of Martha's grave.

A: No. Just no. Watch the film. It was a bat.

Q: Bruce calls "Metropolis" a "beautiful lie" in the opening.

A: No. He says that the bats lifting him to the light, to peace, is a lie. That he is really forever in darkness and buried with the grief of his parents' murder. "Metropolis" is literally just the "where" the next scene's title card.

Q: How did Alfred and Bruce know where to find Martha?

A: Bruce clones KGBeast's phone to track the White Portuguese and knows that KGBeast is the head of Lex's security team. If Lex kidnapped Martha, it's a sure bet that his mercs were the ones to do it. They have the location of the phone that they cloned. This is not hard.

Q: How did Lois know that Doomsday was even Kryptonian and that the spear would kill him?

A: Lois sees Batman cut Clark with the spear. She sees that it can harm him. Lois is a smart woman. She is the one that TELLS Clark and Bruce that Lex is doing something with the scout ship. Doomsday comes FROM the scout ship. The scout ship is Kryptonian. So Lois, again a very smart woman, can deduce that Doomsday IS Kryptonian and what would hurt one Kryptonian (Clark) would hurt Doomsday as well.

Q: What happened to the dirty bomb?

A: There was never a dirty bomb. Bruce only told Alfred that the Russians were smuggling one so that Alfred wouldn't know about the Kryptonite and try to convince Bruce that a pre-emptive war with Superman was wrong.

Questions like these and MORE have been raised. A lot. And people are literally complaining about things that are expressly said IN the film.


-R

 

[Flint Marko]

And yet people keep asking "where was that?" About simple story points and things characters actually say.

Again, this appears to be a running theme with Snyder.

I believe the film does have nuance, but it just doesn't just isn't effective in it's execution and falls short of saying something meaningful about the ideas it's playing with.

Key word "particularly" - I agree that there are big ideas and some interesting concepts at play, but unfortunately they don't know how to communicate or execute them.

 

[Bruce Malone]

Snyder is all about big ideas but he doesn't know how to execute them.

It's probably not a coincidence my favorite Snyder film is about a small group of people confined in a shopping mall. When he keeps things simple he can make it work.

 

[The Guard]

Again, this appears to be a running theme with Snyder.

Way to deflect and move the goalpost instead of addressing the statement. This was also an issue with many of Nolans films as well as other filmmakers. Not every film is immediately digestible.

 

[Robin91939]

Snyder is all about big ideas but he doesn't know how to execute them.

It's probably not a coincidence my favorite Snyder film is about a small group of people confined in a shopping mall. When he keeps things simple he can make it work.

Again -- people realize that Snyder didn't write the film, right?

He is the funnel that the creative departments run through to meet his overall vision.

Props, production designers, actors, composers, DP, FX departments -- they all go through him.

And yes, he shapes the story and works with the writer for the broad strokes and beats of what the story will be.

But by-and-large, the dialogue, character motivations, nuance and subtext is in the script and created by the writer.

So, while I know the hipster "in" thing to do is call Snyder a hack and slam his directing -- if these are your complaints, Chris Terrio is your guy. If you think you could do it better, then maybe you'd have atop your fireplace what he has atop of his.

But Snyder is a very capable director.

-R

 

[TripleJ]

Haha! Snyder himself said people might not get it, but I think that was a safety net to what he was about to release. He also said you might need to see it more than once. Which is apparently someone trying to sell more tickets, but yeah, funny.

I honestly thought the film was easy to follow. I didn't miss any stones. It was all very linear, just poorly paced with crappy transitions. The R-rated version will be the only other time I watch this movie. It's sadly memorable because of how painfully simple it is.

I still believe that was intentional - it's like a comic book.

Perhaps he shouldn't have done that, considering what this movie is supposed to achieve.

 

[The Guard]

Much of it is pretty clearly intentional. certain sequences are meant to be jarring.

 

[jmc]

I still believe that was intentional - it's like a comic book.

Perhaps he shouldn't have done that, considering what this movie is supposed to achieve.

That's the problem. The medium doesn't lend itself to comic style pacing. It's a movie, just make a bloody movie.

 

[YJ1]

I'm sorry but I found this film to be the definition of awful.

2/10

Here's some random thoughts as to why...

The Good:
Affleck’s Batman, Alfred and the one lone scene where they let the two shine.
(Batman’s rescue of Martha Kent)

Amy Adams in a bathtub to start the film.

That IS IT.

Just Bad/Awful:
Lex Luthor being the most annoying and nonsensical villain possible.

Why on earth would Lex need a Senator to authorize an import visa for a rock the size of a football? There are literally a thousand ways a billionaire can get a rock in to the country (which he ends up doing anyway). Some would say he didn’t care he just wanted to set up the Senator to explode but who cares who the chairman is for the hearings if he’s going to blow it up anyway??? Why the interaction at all between Lex and the Senator?

The worst CGI action imaginable and you have to wait an hour just to see even that much. Why was some of the CGI so bad? (The space rocket save, the pulling of the ice-bound freighter, the grounded Kryptonian ship where they dove and found the Kryptonite, etc.)

The first real action scene is a silly Batmobile chase where Batman is trying to steal Lex’s Kryptonite. Batman pinballs around smashing everything in the most cartoon way possible. He even shears off the top of the truck they are chasing but the guys in the truck are magically fine and somehow his tracers still sticks in place. At one point, they have a henchmen pop up out of the back of a SUV firing a mounted mega gun at the Batmobile like some video game segment. That scene was very Shumacher! It’s like Snyder planned the whole scene using matchbox cars and making mouth noises like a ten year old would do imaging Batman action.

Out of the blue, the bad “Rocky” training montage showing Affleck hammering a tire and working out to show he’s serious about taking on Superman. They place that in between scenes where it first makes the viewer wonder, “why is Bruce Wayne suddenly hammering a tire?”


The most incoherently edited movie of all-time. Everything for the firs two acts is a jumbled mess that jumps around with no warning or intelligence. There are dreams sequences that appear out of nowhere that add nothing to story but do confuse the viewer. Amazingly bad.

Trench-coat action figure Batman’s dream fight in the desert (message from smarmy Latin Flash?) was as badly choreographed as a Kit Ramsey movie fight from Bowfinger. Watch it closely, it’s that laughably bad. Punches don’t land and guys with guns kneel down to pose for their hit. Hilarious!

Wonder Woman getting about three lines before they jam this immensely powerful woman no one knows anything about in to the final video game fight.

Lois Lane throwing the spear in to a pond for some reason then changing her mind and going after it (even though she could have no idea that Lex created a video game monster) thus getting herself trapped. Then, in the middle of a brawl that’s taking all his effort, Superman somehow hears Lois pounding faintly on cement that can’t convey any real sound and leaves the fight to save her. OY.

Snyder and company doubled down on the carnage. Batman did mumble something about that part of the city being abandoned but that was another large chunk of a city where another superbrawl killed thousands of people.

Even the star of the movie was odd and ridiculous. Young Bruce falling then ending up literally floating in a tornado of bats turns out to be a dream because the voice over states as much but that note should have been a clue as to how incoherent the rest of the movie was going to be. I also love that Bruce had to phone his executive named Jack and tell him to get people to safety. Smart guy you got working for you, Bruce. Buildings are falling and chaos is everywhere and Jack needs his boss to call and tell him to run. LOL.

The slo-mo Superman fire rescue where he saves the girl and lands to get worshipped by the “day of the dead” people with face paint made me laugh at loud at its blatantly silly imagery. Again, that’s Joel Schumacher type stuff.

Batman went from trying to kill Superman to being “a friend of your son’s” in all of ten seconds. It’s a good thing her name wasn’t Alice Kent instead of Martha.

 

[Mjölnir]

Much of it is pretty clearly intentional. certain sequences are meant to be jarring.

It's quite obvious that the cutting is intentional. No one is suggesting that Snyder closed his eyes and just randomly selected the cuts and order of scenes.

The issue people have is that they feel the aesthetic didn't work for this different medium. At least the way he did it.

 

[Tony Gunk]

Snyder is all about big ideas but he doesn't know how to execute them.

It's probably not a coincidence my favorite Snyder film is about a small group of people confined in a shopping mall. When he keeps things simple he can make it work.

Have the entire JL film set inside the mall. Problem solved

 

[joem4077]

Again -- people realize that Snyder didn't write the film, right?

He is the funnel that the creative departments run through to meet his overall vision.

Props, production designers, actors, composers, DP, FX departments -- they all go through him.

And yes, he shapes the story and works with the writer for the broad strokes and beats of what the story will be.

But by-and-large, the dialogue, character motivations, nuance and subtext is in the script and created by the writer.

So, while I know the hipster "in" thing to do is call Snyder a hack and slam his directing -- if these are your complaints, Chris Terrio is your guy. If you think you could do it better, then maybe you'd have atop your fireplace what he has atop of his.

But Snyder is a very capable director.

-R

It's like in sports- the head coach is the one that takes all the blame even if the players or assistant coaches are the wink links.

Snyder is the head coach

 

[4thWallBreaker]

I still believe that was intentional - it's like a comic book.

Perhaps he shouldn't have done that, considering what this movie is supposed to achieve.

I considered that. A lot of people didn't like Ang Lee's Hulk because of the paneling he did. But I thought that was one of the few cool touches to Hulk. So, I guess, to each their own. I just feel... In this scenario it doesn't make sense. There's no narrative boxes or narration at all during the Darkseid nightmare sequence. I still knew what was going on, given, but it felt flat with that Segway. Like, "Why are we doing this? Why are we here?" I'm normally not critical, but the movie whipped its **** out on the screen and acted all blasé about it.

 

[samsnee]

Ah the classic "if you don't like it you didn't get it" excuse.

 

[jokesonm3]

Ah the classic "if you don't like it you didn't get it" excuse.

It's been thrown around about 5 times this past hour.

 

[BatofGotham]

What bothered me about that part is that he called her Martha. Why the hell would Clark refer to his mother by name? The only reason: the filmmakers needed him to say it so Bruce would do a 180.

Probably because simply calling her 'mom' would be unspecific since Superman intended to send Batman on a rescue mission. Then again it would have made more sense for Superman to call his mom 'Martha Kent'.

 

[Andreth]

When I take a cab I don't say "Take me home"

I say "Take me to -----street name -----"

Can't believe Clark saying "Save Martha" is such a big issue

 

[Bruce Malone]

Have the entire JL film set inside the mall. Problem solved

Forget the 7 samurais comparison, it could be more Hateful 8 with that idea.

 

[The Guard]

Probably because simply calling her 'mom' would be unspecific since Superman intended to send Batman on a rescue mission. Then again it would have made more sense for Superman to call his mom 'Martha Kent'.

He starts to say "Kent".

 

[Kanon]

Probably because simply calling her 'mom' would be unspecific since Superman intended to send Batman on a rescue mission. Then again it would have made more sense for Superman to call his mom 'Martha Kent'.

I was about to say that he could have said "mom" anyway, Batman could have get the message that he was just trying to save his mom (like it happened), and at least if that didnt happen, Batman would figure out that it was Martha Kent since everyone knows the secret identities...

Then I remembered that in this movie, the only one not aware of others identities is the world's greates detective

 

[LEVITIKUZ]

No clue if brought up but I thought of something.

Why did Superman go fight Batman? I mean Lex said he had his mom you know. Why didn't Supers go and find her. I mean in Man of Steel, Martha says "focus on my voice, pretend it's an ocean." He heard her in trouble miles away in Man of Steel when he attacked Zod and YOU THINK YOU CAN THREATEN MY MOTHER!!!"

He didn't even need to go to Gotham and fight Batman. Batman would literally be waiting there all night for Superman not to come lol.

Him not saving his mom makes even less sense considering the amount of times he saved Lois from God only knows how far away.

But he couldn't locate his own mom?

 

[antoineflemming]

I watched the movie finally. It wasn't bad. 7.5/10 for me. Only because:

1) There wasn't a major editing issue. It's that the music didn't properly transition some of the scenes and was therefore out of place. Zimmer and Junkie obviously scored the scenes before seeing the final product. This issue is also only apparent between some scenes in the first half.

2) The Wonder Woman metahuman file scene is also jarring and unnecessary. Bruce should've just seen them all, and they should've just showed his face and his reaction to the videos (the videos being off screen). That's all they needed to do. Seeing them wasn't necessary at all.

3) For the first half, they should've added two scenes to break up the dialogue-heavy scenes. a) They should've added a Superman scene that actually had him being a hero in Metropolis. b) They should've had a Batman scene with him fighting crime. Maybe a longer version of his intro scene (with the trafficker).

4) Superman should've been given more dialogue.

5) The scene with Martha should've showed Superman flying down, just to serve as a transition.

6) I don't think Doomsday was necessary for this movie. Instead, they should've drawn out the Batman v Superman confrontation. They should've had another confrontation before the fight. That would've placed much more emphasis on Batman v Superman and would've made for a natural build up to their confrontation.

7) Cutting out Doomsday, they could've also cut out Martha needing to be saved, and that warehouse takedown could've been an earlier Batman scene. He could've recovered the Kryptonite from there, or he could've learned about the Kryptonite from there, or he could've learned about the White Portuguese from there.

9) Man of Steel is a shorter movie with a much simpler story that focuses on one character and one thread, so of course some people will like it better. But I do think Batman v Superman is a more sophisticated, dialogue-heavy film that deals with certain themes. Those themes come together into a physical confrontation. The problem is that the movie doesn't deliver on the Superman controversy. It never rests that question.

8) The movie wasn't Batman v Superman. Maybe it should've been called Batman/Superman or something, but it shouldn't have been called Batman v Superman. The story itself is not Batman v Superman. It's Superman dealing with the world's conflicted reaction to him, and it's Batman and Lois and Wonder Woman tracking down Lex Luthor. Batman and Superman's paths cross and that's where the conflict comes from. They should've marketed the movie to reflect this. They should not have marketed the movie to focus on the fight. That was not the story they were telling. I think a whole lot of fans and critics went into this movie expecting the movie to focus on that, and I think they were disappointed in that regard.

In all, the movie wasn't perfect, but it wasn't the travesty that the critics or diehard Superman fans or the DCEU detractors or the Snyder detractors make it out to be. It's also not a mess of a film. This is all my opinion, of course, but I don't believe that this movie is trash. So, based on all that, I say the movie is a 7.5/10.

For comparison, I think Man of Steel is an 8/10. For me, Man of Steel's only problem was that it was a little bit too action heavy. I don't think the Smallville fight was that necessary. I would've had him fight the Kryptonians in Metropolis. And I think I would've had him start being a hero for Metropolis before Zod arrives. I think that would've made BvS better by not having to go through him being a hero, which the movie should've done.

So, I understand some people being against the film for not living up to certain expectations, but honestly, I only expect that from the fans. I think the critics are just not liking the film because it doesn't share the tone of Marvel films, which I think they collectively think is the right tone for a superhero film. And I think that's why much of their complaints are that the movie takes itself too seriously and that it's not fun. And let's be honest: They were ALWAYS going to say that. They didn't like the seriousness of Man of Steel. I don't think the film is too serious. I don't find it boring. I had fun. The audience I was with had fun. They even clapped and cheered - a bit too much, honestly (they literally clapped every time Batman or Superman showed up on the screen. It was overboard imo). I also think that the critics are by-and-large saying the film wasn't fun because their critic peers are doing so. It's one thing to point out why you don't think the film was fun, but many aren't even doing that and are using very similar language. When you end up doing that, it's clear that you're writing your review after you've read someone else's. I noticed this especially with IGN's review.

Anyway, I know people didn't like this film and were utterly disappointed, but I enjoyed the film immensely. If I was the kind of person to do repeat viewings, I would, but I'm not that kind of person. I can't wait for the movie to release, and I can't wait for the Ultimate edition, and I can't wait for Justice League.

Also, I don't think Snyder needs to be replaced. But Geoff Johns needs to do his job and check Snyder. His Justice League comments do worry me. Superman should be the leader. Batman should be his 2IC. Their leadership of the JL should be like an officer/NCO relationship (where Superman is the officer and Batman is the NCO). Batman's got some actual leadership experience, but Superman is the leader. Batman should not be THE leader of the Justice League. And I hope JL doesn't waste time bringing Superman back.

Also, Clark saying Save Martha wasn't a problem to me. He's telling Batman to go save her. So he's calling her Martha because he's telling Batman, so that's why he's not saying save my mom. But what was jarring was Batman's dialogue there, and Lois's dialogue there. That could've been executed better imo.

 

[antoineflemming]

I was about to say that he could have said "mom" anyway, Batman could have get the message that he was just trying to save his mom (like it happened), and at least if that didnt happen, Batman would figure out that it was Martha Kent since everyone knows the secret identities...

Then I remembered that in this movie, the only one not aware of others identities is the world's greates detective

1) Not everyone knows their secret identities

2) There is no context or situation in which Batman would know who Superman is or who Martha is.