BvS What Went Wrong w/ Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice (SPOILERS) - Part 2

[mightiest_mortal]

Well maybe it wasn't the "real" Lex Luthor.

I for one am anticipating the release of a DCEU One Shot that explains that his dad is actually still alive.

And he comes back with the real Joker too who's pissed off at the mess Jason Todds been making in his absence?

 

[TheScarecrow]

I'm getting really sick of this argument that BvS is somehow too complicated for audiences to understand.

The correct words are inaccessible and confusing.

Yes, the narrative strands are present in the film but they're so clumsily handled they go nowhere. They had the idea but failed completely in the execution.

 

[Joeyjojo72]

And he comes back with the real Joker too who's pissed off at the mess Jason Todds been making in his absence?

Wait, is that like a real thing? JT might have become the Joker?

 

[FunkMiller]

I'm getting really sick of this argument that BvS is somehow too complicated for audiences to understand.

The correct words are inaccessible and confusing.

Yes, the narrative strands are present in the film but they're so clumsily handled they go nowhere. They had the idea but failed completely in the execution.

I do find it incredible that I am seemingly able to understand the plots of Memento, Jacob's Ladder, Inception, Primer, 12 Monkeys & 2001, and yet I am clearly too stupid to comprehend the genius of Batman V Superman.

 

[jrmtz543]

Wait, is that like a real thing? JT might have become the Joker?

Grayson became the Joker in DKSA and Drake became the Joker in Beyond. Always hated that idea, as they tarnished the original characters.

Will Todd be the Joker in SS? I'm starting to think it's a real possibility.

 

[Joeyjojo72]

Wow, in that case the question of whether Batman has been a benefit to Gotham and society as a whole has been answered. Total cluster****. They were better off with the mob running things.

 

[Boy Scout]

Grayson became the Joker in DKSA and Drake became the Joker in Beyond. Always hated that idea, as they tarnished the original characters.

Will Todd be the Joker in SS? I'm starting to think it's a real possibility.

I thought ROTJ handled it very, very well. But I've hated the "Jason Todd is The Joker" rumor since its inception, and I don't believe that it's true.

 

[jmc]

How is Superman's emergence, existence and impact on the world and the world's reaction to him not a core narrative plot? The entire film revolves around it.

I thought that was MoS.

 

[The Guard]

MAN OF STEEL was about Clark learning his heritage and finding his place in the world by becoming Superman, not about the actual ongoing role Superman played in the world and the world's reaction to him and his power. Or MOS would have explored the public's reaction to him, as BVS did.

 

[FunkMiller]

MAN OF STEEL was about Clark learning his heritage and finding his place in the world by becoming Superman, not about the actual ongoing role Superman played in the world and the world's reaction to him and his power. Or MOS would have explored the public's reaction to him, as BVS did.

And we should have had a proper MoS 2 to investigate this properly. Instead we get a half-assed, botched version, mixed up in an incoherent attempt to catch up with another comics company.

 

[chaseter]

Different stories, one is about the end of a long friendship, one is about the journey to becoming human and regaining of lost humanity.

They are built on a very different premise, but people will only analyse on a surface level. That's why Marvel does well, it's very surface level, so easy to understand for the masses. Bit like saying Cadbury is the best chocolate in the world.

The only depth this movie has is about six feet in the ground.

 

[Martha]

In hindsight, I don't like how they made Lex Luthor almost god-like in the amount of knowledge he had of all characters.

He figured out who Superman was and at one point in the movie kidnaps his mother.
He figured out who Batman was and spends the whole movie trying to goad Batman into fighting Superman.
And he apparently knows everything about the future members of the Justice League.

How does Lex Luthor outsmart Bruce Wayne enough that he can manipulate his actions? Batman getting fooled once might happen, but he's also a genius; he would figure out pretty quick that he was being manipulated.

The whole thing was just flimsy.

 

[Flint Marko]

Lex kidnapping Lois to get Superman's attention after already kidnapping his mom is just clunky story-telling. And the fact that the whole underlying motivation was to get Superman to fight someone he was already going to fight? Yowza. This should have been cleaned up big time along with the whole Africa/bullet conspiracy. Good thing Lois caught that experimental bullet (what?) in her notebook (what?) or else she'd have nothing to do here beyond getting kidnapped.

 

[Timebomb]

Lex kidnapping Lois to get Superman's attention after already kidnapping his mom is just clunky story-telling. And the fact that the whole underlying motivation was to get Superman to fight someone he was already going to fight? Yowza. This should have been cleaned up big time along with the whole Africa/bullet conspiracy. Good thing Lois caught that experimental bullet (what?) in her notebook (what?) or else she'd have nothing to do here beyond getting kidnapped.

I am sure this will all make sense in the extended "R" rated cut.
Or the ultra "NC-17" rated cut.
If not by then, then it must be cleared up in the deluxe "X" rated cut.

 

[Lily Adler]

Lex kidnapping Lois to get Superman's attention after already kidnapping his mom is just clunky story-telling. And the fact that the whole underlying motivation was to get Superman to fight someone he was already going to fight? Yowza. This should have been cleaned up big time along with the whole Africa/bullet conspiracy. Good thing Lois caught that experimental bullet (what?) in her notebook (what?) or else she'd have nothing to do here beyond getting kidnapped.

Yep it's redundant, highly coincidental, and unnecessary.

 

[Batmannerism]

Its not just writers he is insulting. Its the audience. I love this new narrative that BvS apologists are running with. "Its too deep for audiences to get." No. It isn't. I get every theme of BvS. I get every heavy handed, melodramatic, double-entendre that comes out of Lex Luthor's mouth. There is nothing deep or intellectual about it. The themes are not hidden beneath the surface. They are all surface level and beaten over the viewer's head with the subtlety of a high school student who is preaching about philosophy. There is nothing complex about this movie. Its not 2001. There aren't hundreds of little, hidden messages, themes, etc. I got everything. The problem isn't that the audience is missing Snyder's point. Its that Snyder's delivery of the point just isn't that good.

As a hard-core DC fan I can't bring myself to apologize for B v S, at first I kind of liked it, but the more I thought about it the more upset I got.

I agree with what you're saying about B v S, really the whole "it's too deep for audiences" isn't the problem. It tries to be meaningful, but really is just a mess !

Anyway, the real problem is that it's not entertaining.

It certainly is possible to be deep and still be entertaining. The Dark Knight is deep, dark and deliciously complex (well except the not-so-subtle foreshadowing) but anyway it's SUPER entertaining. Snyder's execution was awful on B v S, and that's why it's so lacking in entertainment value.

While there are bits where Batman comes off looking cool, I suspect that has a lot to do with Affleck and those on-set re-writes.

If Snyder had cut down the mess, chucked out a couple of subplots and focused on solid character interaction and development, punctuated with well-choreographed and exciting action sequences.....well then he couldn't have gone wrong.

To be honest, B v S may not be as bad as the critics make out. But, it's not that much better. For me, it is a far greater failure than Spider Man 3 - because it promises so much and delivers so little. Henry Cavill's workout videos on facebook are better shot than his scenes as Superman - will he become a great Superman ( thought he was good in MOS) ? We might never find out because ****ing Snyder won't give him any lines or any decent interactions with other characters that last more than about 10 seconds - the only exception being the bathtub scene.

Anyway, if it had been done in an entertaining way I could have forgiven a lot of the rubbish in it.

 

[Batmannerism]

And we should have had a proper MoS 2 to investigate this properly. Instead we get a half-assed, botched version, mixed up in an incoherent attempt to catch up with another comics company.

Agreed ! I can live with having B v S before MOS 2 but only if it's a decent film....which it wasn't !

 

[Jaxon]

In hindsight, I don't like how they made Lex Luthor almost god-like in the amount of knowledge he had of all characters.

He figured out who Superman was and at one point in the movie kidnaps his mother.
He figured out who Batman was and spends the whole movie trying to goad Batman into fighting Superman.
And he apparently knows everything about the future members of the Justice League.

How does Lex Luthor outsmart Bruce Wayne enough that he can manipulate his actions? Batman getting fooled once might happen, but he's also a genius; he would figure out pretty quick that he was being manipulated.

The whole thing was just flimsy.

Lex has a $200b company and uses his resources. Bruce just has himself and Alfred. Lex is also smarter than Bruce.

 

[Jaxon]

Lex kidnapping Lois to get Superman's attention after already kidnapping his mom is just clunky story-telling. And the fact that the whole underlying motivation was to get Superman to fight someone he was already going to fight? Yowza. This should have been cleaned up big time along with the whole Africa/bullet conspiracy. Good thing Lois caught that experimental bullet (what?) in her notebook (what?) or else she'd have nothing to do here beyond getting kidnapped.

He kidnaps Lois in order to distract Superman from going to the scout ship to give the time for Doomsday to cook up.

He also wants to confront Lois and enforce his view on her that Superman can't be all good and all powerful, the same way his dad was all powerful but not all good.

 

[Spiderdevil]

MAN OF STEEL was about Clark learning his heritage and finding his place in the world by becoming Superman, not about the actual ongoing role Superman played in the world and the world's reaction to him and his power. Or MOS would have explored the public's reaction to him, as BVS did.

You know what? After the two movies we can safely say that the earth would have been a better place without Superman, had baby Kal-el not been sent to planet earth, no crashed ship, no Zod arriving, no world engine, no huge fight, destroyed Metropolis, thousands of deaths avoided, no doomsday either

Does this send a good message about Superman?

 

[Spiderdevil]

Lex kidnapping Lois to get Superman's attention after already kidnapping his mom is just clunky story-telling. And the fact that the whole underlying motivation was to get Superman to fight someone he was already going to fight? Yowza. This should have been cleaned up big time along with the whole Africa/bullet conspiracy. Good thing Lois caught that experimental bullet (what?) in her notebook (what?) or else she'd have nothing to do here beyond getting kidnapped.

It's Snyder's ridiculous compulsion to give Lois irrelevant screentime and something to do just because they cast a big actress in the role

 

[djsunyc]

this movie reminds me alot of godzilla.

just boring inbetween stuff and then when we're supposed to get action, it cuts away and leaves you hanging.

 

[djsunyc]

You know what? After the two movies we can safely say that the earth would have been a better place without Superman, had baby Kal-el not been sent to planet earth, no crashed ship, no Zod arriving, no world engine, no huge fight, destroyed Metropolis, thousands of deaths avoided, no doomsday either

Does this send a good message about Superman?

that's why i have no idea why they constructed a statue of him in metropolis. there was no explanation or anything. we are supposed to already understand what people in metropolis felt about superman and what happened. that, in itself, is an entire movie or at least 1/2 a movie.

 

[Visualiza]

He kidnaps Lois in order to distract Superman from going to the scout ship to give the time for Doomsday to cook up.

When does the movie establish this?

He also wants to confront Lois and enforce his view on her that Superman can't be all good and all powerful, the same way his dad was all powerful but not all good.

Why is it important that Lois be made aware of this, and as with the above, when is it brought to the audience's attention that this is his motivation?

 

[RoryTate]

Is it perhaps time to conclude that what went wrong is actually a fundamental issue: the people involved at WB? And I don't mean Snyder alone. Consider that this WB/DC team is responsible now for the Dark Knight trilogy, GL, MoS, and BvS. With a streak of three mediocre/awful films in a row, could it be that Nolan was just a lucky hire?

Wrong ideas can be learned from and fixed reasonably fast. But wrong people will take a long time -- if ever -- to change, unless you clean house. By way of example, the "talk to the hand" death of Pa Kent, the ignored body count at the end of MoS, the use of the "Martha" coincidence to create a jarring conflict resolution, the killing (but obviously not really death) of Superman right at the beginning of the extended universe...all of these (and more) are definitely poor decisions, and clearly so early on during the writing/editing process. But what if these choices were given the green light because of nepotism, studio politics, or a "yes" culture established by people who can't say "no"?

What then? I doubt anyone will quit such lucrative positions because they realize they aren't the right people for the job at hand, so it's up to someone else to fire them and bring in better talent at all levels. If the people involved are the issue, as it is appearing more and more to be the case, then focusing on the creative decisions themselves won't help. The reasons behind how such poor decisions were made are what is important, and unfortunately no one here has that information to perhaps really get to the heart of what went wrong.