Zack Snyder's DC Trilogy: A Retrospective
Introduction:
My thoughts on Zack Snyder are...mixed, to say the least.
I’ve only seen a few of his movies: Watchmen, Guardians of Ga’Hoole, Man of Steel, BVS and Justice League. My thoughts on them have fluctuated wildly. Some, I really enjoyed, like Man of Steel and Watchmen. But I think others, like BVS, have deep-seated flaws that hinder my enjoyment.
I’ll touch on all of these later, but for now, I just want to make it clear that I’m not in any particular “camp.” I don’t hate the guy, but I’m not a rabid fanboy either. His movies aren’t the worst things I’ve seen, but I certainly wouldn’t uphold them as cinematic masterpieces.
All of that being said, I was positively pumped for his cut of Justice League on HBO Max. I spent weeks watching the trailers, reading interviews, researching the development of the film, and just generally getting pumped. The Justice League is one of my favorite superhero team of all time (with the animated show still being one of my favorite shows ever), and I was greatly disappointed by Joss Whedon’s cut of the film. It wasn’t some kind of unholy abomination among men, but it was just...meh.
And I don’t want a Justice League movie to be “meh.” These are my favorite superheroes in the world. I want to get my socks knocked off, not be bored and wondering when the flick’s gonna end!
I was excited for the Snyder Cut, not because I thought it was going to be the Holy Grail of the superhero genre, and not because I thought Snyder’s take of the JL was anything resembling my ideal story (far from it). No, I was excited because of him.
Snyder has been through hell and back. I can only imagine how much it stings to have your passion project torn apart and respliced like the original 2017 Justice League, but that pain is nothing compared to the loss of your own child.
I was grateful that he could make this movie, because after pouring years into DC, he deserved it. He deserved to make his movie the way he wanted to.
I went into this intending to make an essay about just Justice League, but before I knew it, the script evolved. I realized my thoughts on Justice League, Zack Snyder, his themes and his politics are too entrenched in his previous work, especially Man of Steel and Batman v Superman. As such, here is my essay on the themes of Zack Snyder’s entire DC trilogy, and how they influenced DC’s outing into superhero films overall.
My thoughts on Man of Steel:
I think I stand in the minority when I saw that I really, really enjoyed Man of Steel on the first viewing and I’ve continued to love it ever since.
In many ways, it’s a lot different from the rest of Zack Snyder’s filmography, and it marked a changing point in his career. After movies like Sucker Punch, Watchmen and 300, Man of Steel marked a radically different tone, and adapting one of the most beloved pop culture icons in the world certainly put Snyder on the map. A lot of his movies before Man of Steel adapted critically-acclaimed but more niche stories, OR were original stories of his own invention. Tackling Superman was a big, big step for Snyder, and I think he pulled it off quite well.
To start, I enjoy the depiction of Clark as a vagabond, a wanderer looking for a purpose during his adult years. It feels like a refreshing take on the character. This is a Clark who didn’t immediately know what he wanted to do with his life. He needed to figure himself out before he could cement himself as the world’s hero, and that’s inspiring. We don’t all know what we’re going to do with our lives, and Snyder tells us that’s alright.
The depiction of Clark--and, if I’m being honest, the entire aesthetic of the movie--feels like a natural evolution from Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Trilogy. I rarely see people discussing this, and perhaps it’s because this movie only came out a year after The Dark Knight Rises, but in many ways, Man of Steel feels like the logical next step from Nolan’s epic trilogy.
Allow me to explain what I mean:
Bruce in the first act of Batman Begins and Clark in the first half of Man of Steel are both raw, emotional men at a crossroads in their life, and that’s what makes the beginning of their stories compelling to me. Bruce doesn’t jump at the opportunity to become a vigilante, it takes time and years of growth for him to take his grief and transform it into something more positive and constructive. Similarly, Clark spends years figuring out his purpose in the universe and processing the death (and conflicting messages) of his father. I see this as a positive to the film. When Clark puts on the costume, it feels earned. It feels like he’s doing it because he wants to.
Unlike other DC movies of its era, I don’t really classify Man of Steel as “dark.” Rather, I classify it and Nolan’s movies as “grounded.” Both movies go to great lengths with their worldbuilding to justify the characters as we know them. Batman Begins spends a lot of time focusing on Bruce’s training, how he acquired his equipment, and how he built the Batcave (which is even given an in-universe justification as part of the Underground Railroad). Seemingly learning from this lesson that it takes time, patience and worldbuilding to create a character this legendary, Snyder dedicates a large portion of Man of Steel to Clark learning how to control his powers. It’s for this reason that the flight sequence is one of the best scenes in the history of superhero cinema, and one that puts a smile on my face to this day.
To this end, we even have similar naming conventions in both series. The Dark Knight and Man of Steel are both films named not after their characters, but after their epithets. It makes Bruce in the Dark Knight Trilogy and Clark in Man of Steel feel more mythic, as if they are legends among men.
And in a way, that’s Zack Snyder’s forte. He loves depicting the DC characters as larger-than-life beings, as if they’re a sort of modern mythology akin to the Greek or Norse Gods. (He did something similar in 300, depicting King Leonidas and his soldiers as these powerful warriors transcending the feats of normal men. It’s no wonder that he made Diana, Themyscira and Darkseid such big parts of his DC metaplot: he loves the concept of divinity.)
On the topic of larger-than-life: I can’t discuss Man of Steel without looking at the fight scenes. The action scenes are some of the best I’ve ever seen in a superhero film. They feel almost anime-esque at times, and I can’t help but feel reminded of Dragon Ball everytime I watch the final battle. Other movies, like The Matrix Revolutions, have attempted such action, but only Man of Steel really succeeded in my eyes.
As a child, Man of Steel was one of the pieces of media that really got me to care about Superman. Watching it as a 12-year old boy in theaters, I felt like for the first time, I really understood what people liked so much about him. His powers had never been portrayed with this sort of gravity before: every punch caused an earthquake, every flight a sonic boom. It was all so dramatic and larger-than-life in the best way possible, which--like I said--is Snyder’s forte.
(However, with all that praise in mind for the action, the fight scenes bring their own problems: the emphasis on collateral damage. While I see no problem with the massive property damage at the end of Man of Steel, as it clearly sets up the narrative of the next film, I don’t have as much forgiveness for the Smallville fight scene. Obviously, Clark doesn’t want to fight here, but it still sits wrong with me watching his hometown torn to shreds, not because of any sentimental attachment I have to the location, but more so because unlike Metropolis, the damage here is never given any real meaning.)
However, I also can’t truly get into Man of Steel without discussion the politics behind its creation. To do that, we need to dive into Zack Snyder himself and his fascination with Ayn Rand’s objectivism.
Ayn Rand vs the Man of Steel:
In a nutshell, Objectivism was devised by Russian-American author Ayn Rand, author of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Objectivism, or at least Rand’s version, believes that people should be able to pursue their passions; that they should be able to take whatever steps needed to achieve their goals. It is consequentialist, meaning that people who believe in objectivism do not take into consideration the actions, only the results. In objectivism, the ends justify the means.
Objectivism believes in laissez-faire capitalism, libertarianism, small government, self-determination and individual rights. Hell, they believe in individual rights so much they outright reject anything else, like collective and animal rights.
Furthermore, objectivism states that altruism is morally wrong; it takes away from your own goals and prevents other people from achieving theirs by themselves. Objectivism takes “live and let live” to an extreme. According to Rand, to live altruistically is to forfeit life itself, because we are selfish people.
...my own personal thoughts on this aside, I don’t think I need to tell you why this would be counterintuitive to a superhero narrative.
Snyder is a huge Ayn Rand fan, and he was even hoping to direct an adaptation of The Fountainhead for many years before cancelling the project in 2021. This fact should be no secret, but somehow I only just found out about this myself. When I heard the words “Ayn Rand'' in a video essay about Zack Snyer’s career, it flipped a switch I didn’t even know was off. His movies suddenly made sense.
I don’t know if Snyder is a genuine believer in Randian philosophy, or if he just thinks it’s an interesting idea to implement in his movies. (For what it’s worth, Snyder does live very altruistically, seeing as he’s raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for suicide awareness and he’s adopted several children.)
Regardless, many of Zack’s movies either have themes of Randian objectivism, or they feature other ideologies that go hand-in-hand with it. This is especially (and bizarrely) true of his superhero films, often to a point where it dilutes the themes of the source material. In all fairness, we’re not always supposed to root for these Randian beliefs (I touch on this and Bruce’s character arc below), but the very fact that they’re in Man of Steel at all feels unnecessary. The entire movie is an origin story about the world’s greatest superhero, Superman! Yet both Man of Steel and the follow-up, Batman v Superman, have Clark’s parents encouraging him NOT to save people, NOT to use his powers, NOT to be altruistic. Sound familiar? It should, because it’s essentially what Ayn Rand herself would say about the character if she were still alive.
His mother telling him “You don’t owe this world a thing” in BVS feels especially strange, considering that Man of Steel takes heavy inspiration from Superman Birthright, a 2003 limited series by Mark Waid where Martha is the one who encourages Clark to be Superman, not Jonathan. It’d be like if Ben Parker, in his dying moments, kept telling Peter “With great power comes great irresponsibility!” It’s completely out of character, and I can’t see much of a reason for it to exist in Man of Steel besides the fact that it’s Zack Snyder’s own philosophy (or, at the very least, a philosophy he is fascinated with).
As I already made clear earlier, I like Henry Cavill and Zack Snyder’s take on Superman, and I like Man of Steel as a film. I think a lot of problems people have with Superman aren’t even with Clark himself, but more just Ma and Pa Kent, who seem to actively discourage his superheroes. That’s the problem. It’s a rewiring of the Superman mythos’ DNA in a way that feels unnecessary, but now I can’t un-flip-that-switch.
By the way, I’m aware that there’s a whole subgenre of YouTube video essays debating about this very topic, so I want to make it clear: I am not saying this is a Randian movie, and as I made clear above, it’s possible that he’s only interested in Randian ideas in the context of cinema. I’m just saying, regardless of what he believes or doesn’t, he clearly has a fascination with Randian ideology and elements of it are in both Man of Steel and its sequels, and if you’re paying attention, you can really notice them.
Batman v Superman: A Movie Doing Too Much:
This brings me to Zack Snyder’s next DC outing, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
(Before I get into this film, I need to say this: I have the advantage of writing this in light of Chris Terrio’s recent expose, where he cleared the air about how involved the studio was in the writing of both this film and Justice League. The knowledge that the studio interfered so much in the creation of this film makes a lot of sense given the haphazard final product, and I’ll try my best to be as objective as possible when dissecting this film.)
When I first stepped out of the theater in 2016 after seeing Batman v Superman, I found myself entertained, but a little confused. I enjoyed the fighting, sure, and I loved all the little cameos and easter eggs, but there was something a bit...off about the movie. It was partially the pacing, partially the plot holes (which were filled in the Ultimate Edition), but I think above all else, it was the fact that BVS didn’t feel like its own movie. It felt like it was just a step in the road towards the larger picture that was “Justice League,” not a movie in its own right.
Taken as the sum of its parts, Dawn of Justice doesn’t work. It’s a film that’s trying to do too much. Like its characters, Dawn of Justice is clashing with itself on an ideological level. It doesn’t know what it wants to be.
From the get-go, Dawn of Justice was always going to be a rough hurdle for the DCEU. It’s been said before, but I need to say it again: DC rushed their cinematic universe, and it shows in this movie, which, under pressure from short-sighted executives, needed to fulfill several key roles.
It had to act as a sequel to Man of Steel, showing the immediate aftermath of Zod and Clark’s battle
It had to introduce Bruce Wayne to the cinematic universe, AND give him a convincing reason to fight Clark
It had to introduce Lex Luthor as an overarching villain, both for this movie and future films
It served as both the first live-action outing of Wonder Woman (setting up her solo movie), and, by extension, the first time the DC Trinity all appeared on screen
Plus, it had to be a prequel to the Justice League as a whole
...all while adapting The Death of Superman
...and hinting at Final Crisis and Injustice-inspired world that Zack Snyder had planned for Justice League 2
That is simply way, way too much, enough for 2 or 3 separate films. How on Earth was a single movie supposed to fulfill all of these roles?
The short answer is that it didn’t. Several of these “roles” would have been better off never appearing in the first place, because they got so little screen time. All plot elements from The Death of Superman only appear in the final act of the film, and the “Knightmare” world comes completely out of nowhere. (Even if it was meant to add more fuel to Bruce’s hatred for Superman, it just comes off as weird and unnecessary; the movie already had plenty of reasons for this specific version of Bruce to hate Clark.)
As a result, BVS’s pacing is all over the place; that’s what I meant when I said it “doesn’t work.” The final act of the movie--a massive, three-on-one battle against Doomsday, culminating in Superman’s sacrifice--feels divorced from the political melodrama of Superman’s trial earlier in the film, or Bruce’s detective work earlier than that.
I gotta say, I think it’s a huge bummer that the Death of Superman elements appeared like they did. As a huge fan of that story, I feel like Doomsday and Clark’s sacrifice come out of nowhere. That really deserved its own movie years down the road, long after the fans had become acquainted with Henry Cavill’s take on the character. For an adaptation of that story I enjoyed a lot more, I keep coming back to the two-part Death of Superman and Reign of Supermen animated movies, which slowly build up Doomsday and create this horrible, all-consuming feeling of dread because you know something bad is about to happen. BVS doesn’t have that same dread, simply because Doomsday doesn’t appear until the very end.
But in committing to this movie, DC locked themselves onto a particular course. They couldn’t make a Death of Superman movie down the road with more breathing room and less characters, because that ship had already sailed. And they’d already set up the Knightmare world, even though it was probably foreshadowed a bit too soon.
All of that being said, while there are obvious flaws of Batman v Superman when viewing it as part of the larger DCEU, I’m more interested in analyzing the themes of the film in a vacuum.
Dawn of Justice’s 9/11 Allegory:
I discussed earlier how objectivism alters the Kents in Man of Steel. Objectivism lends itself to Bruce Wayne’s character arc, though in a much different way.
Bruce Wayne in Dawn of Justice is, naturally, a Randian objectivist. His ultimate goal is to eradicate Superman and kill him. He doesn’t care about the morals of it all or what lines he has to cross, he genuinely believes that Superman is a threat, and he needs to deal with him. Though, different from some of Snyder’s other works, Dawn of Justice at least tries to show how destructive, harmful and bigoted this worldview can make someone.
Dawn of Justice is, in many ways, an allegory for the post-9/11 fear that Americans had under the Bush administration. To this end, politics play a much larger role in this movie than the other DC films, and as a cherry on top, the film opens in the Middle East, with much of Clark’s story dealing with the fallout of a terrorist kidnapping Lois Lane.
Throughout the movie, Superman has to constantly prove his worth to the world over and over again, and he’s still not trusted. Still, he is treated with scorn and hate. He is framed for crimes he did not commit by people like Lex Luthor, and he is antagonized and hunted by Bruce. People debate his very existence, and why he is on Earth at all.
Superman is an immigrant, for all intents and purposes. An alien from another world, trying to get used to a new culture. He is emblematic of the hatred that many immigrants face from intolerant people who don’t know better. In the context of the post-9/11 allegory, Superman is similar to Muslim Americans and immigrants, who suddenly found themselves on the receiving end of hate crimes, violence, xenophobia and Islamphobia.
That’s one of the major reasons that I never understood the specific argument that Superman is “depressed” in BVS. It feels like such an oversimplification of the situation, and criticism aimed at misunderstanding. Superman is depressed, because he’s treated like an immigrant, with all the hate and distrust that comes with that.
If Superman is symbolic of Muslim Americans, Batman represents the right-wing war hawks that flooded American politics after the attack. 9/11 was a time of immense fear and uncertainty, and from that fear came anger and hatred. This hatred led to America getting involved in the Iraq War under the false pretense of nuclear weapons and secret relations with al-Qaeda, both of which proved to be false.
Dawn of Justice’s main theme is fear and what it does to men. Fear is what Bruce used as a weapon against criminals for years. But fear also what drove Bruce into conflict with Clark, and fear of “the other” is what twisted Lex. Fear made them both into monsters, but at least Bruce saw the light.
The “No Killing Rule”:
It’s no secret in the movie that Batman kills enemies freely in Dawn of Justice, and this is one of the biggest problems I have with the film.
I want to start off by saying: I’m well aware that in his earliest depictions, Batman used guns and lethal force, and I’ve heard that used as justification, but that’s simply not enough. Characters change and evolve over time, and it’s stupid to dismiss decades of Batman’s “No Kill Policy” just because of his first appearences. Besides, if we acknowledge Bruce as someone who uses lethal force in 1939, we also have to acknowledge that in 1940, Bruce uttered the words to Dick Grayson: “We never kill with weapons of any kind.”
(I’ve also heard the argument that Batman kills the Joker in the 1989 Tim Burton film, but that says more about Tim Burton’s understanding of the character than it does anything else. Two wrongs don't make a right.)
All of the richest Batman stories from the past 30 years have the “No Kill Policy” as a pivotal plot point. Entire stories like Under the Red Hood exist because of it. To dismiss it is to dismiss countless pages of history and character development as if it were nothing.
To create a story where Batman kills is to ignore a pivotal part of Bruce’s character. It makes Bruce no different from Frank Castle or Rorschach. Not killing is what defines Bruce, what sets him apart. It’s his one rule, a rule that he will never, under any circumstances, cross. (In fact, crossing that line creates more problems than it solves. For example, if the Robin suit is to be taken at face value, that would mean Bruce started killing after Joker killed his adoptive son...but if that’s the case, why is the Joker still around?)
I should clarify that a large part of my opinions on the matter are due to Snyder’s response. He said that people upset over Superman and Batman killing people needed to “grow up” and “stop living in a dream world.”
Such a stance spectacularly misses the point. The success of the MCU is indicative of this. Characters like Captain America kill enemy soldiers all the time in Marvel movies, but audiences don’t make a fuss about it if “no killing” was never a part of their history.
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Of course, what frustrates me the most is not that Bruce kills (though that’s obviously part of it), it’s that the movie backtracks on his redemption arc. If that’s a confusing statement, let me explain.
Zack Snyder’s depiction of Bruce in Dawn of Justice is one that seems to have taken up lethal force rather recently. Alfred is visibly disturbed by some of Bruce’s more brutal tendencies, and it’s hard to imagine that Bruce had been this way all 20 years he was Batman. Eventually, Bruce realizes the error of his ways. It dawns on him that he’s become a monster. When he teams up with Clark, it indicates that Bruce is turning over a new leaf, that his optimism is restored and his faith in humanity renewed. Justice League continues this, showing Bruce attempting to redeem himself by assembling the League.
The problem with this is, of course, the warehouse scene. One of the most well-choreographed scenes in the movie, and probably the best scene of the movie, the warehouse fight scene depicts Batman killing several people to save Martha Kent.
If Zack Snyder really wanted to show that Bruce changed after his fight with Superman, he would’ve used nonlethal force in this fight, similar to Oliver Queen’s switch from lethal to nonlethal arrows in-between seasons 1 and 2 of Arrow. Such a change would indicate that Bruce has abandoned his objectivist mindset and that he’s thinking more clearly about the situation around him.
Instead, any weight to Batman’s redemption is blunted when he continues grossly violating his “one rule.” It’s especially jarring, because Zack Snyder can’t seem to make up his mind on whether or not Batman killing is a bad thing or not. For example, why double down on the idea that Batman kills in post-release interviews if the final scene shows Bruce sparing Lex. What’s the point in Bruce regaining his “No Killing Rule” if it only applies to the people that can actually do damage?
Lex Luthor and Bruce Wayne: Two Sides of a Coin:
Dawn of Justice, as I’m sure anyone who’s seen the film can attest to, is a film that deals heavily with theology and how the American people view God in the modern day.
Each of the main characters have a special relationship with God:
Clark acts as a messiah figure.
Lois is his wife, and one of the only people who sees Clark not as a God, but as a man.
Bruce’s paranoia, trauma and anger lead him to take out his anger on “God”.
Lex believes the idea of a God is inherently paradoxical.
And Diana is the daughter of a God (as explained further in Wonder Woman) who has a natural kinship with Bruce and Clark.
Out of everyone I just mentioned, Lex and Bruce take these themes of theology to their limit.
There’s a philosophical puzzle known as the “Idea of Evil,” which states that the monotheist God worshipped across the world has three main characteristics: omnipotence, omniscience, and being all-loving. According to the “Idea of Evil,” the existence of evil implies one of three main things:
Either God does not have the power to solve evil, and he is not omnipotent
God does not have the knowledge of evil’s existence, and he is not omniscience
Or God does not care about evil and the harm it inflicts to innocent men, and he is not all-loving
Lex touches on the first and third ideas. Lex is a staunch atheist who is fully aware that the general public views Clark as a messiac figure, so he pits him up against Batman. Lex hopes to destroy the idea that Clark is “God” by proving one of two things: if Clark kills Bruce, it proves he is not all-loving, and if Bruce kills Clark, it proves he is not all-powerful.
For what it’s worth, Lex seems to prefer the second outcome, hence why he allows Bruce to steal his kryptonite; but he’s really okay with either option, as long as he proves to the public, Clark and himself that Clark is not a God.
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This brings me to Bruce. A pawn in Lex’s plan and a fallen hero, Bruce is arguably the antagonist for the first two acts of the film, and Lex’s foil in many ways. Both are angry playboy billionaires tormented by trauma they endured as young boys, and both seek to use Clark as an outlet for their trauma by killing him, thus proving he’s not “all-powerful” (and, therefore, not a god) in the process.
Both go to extreme lengths in their plans to defeat Clark, but the manner in which they utilize them is different. Bruce spends weeks training his body, turning himself into a living weapon in his showdown with Clark; but Lex spends the same amount of time training his mind, stacking the deck in his favor, setting up lies and pushing Bruce to do the deed for him.
There’s also a difference in how the two perceive Clark. Bruce believes that Clark is a god (in a sense), and he sees him as a threat to humanity. Lex knows that Clark isn’t a god, but he wants to destroy the public’s perception of Clark anyways just to validate his own twisted ideology. They're both fighting for selfish reasons, but Lex doesn't even try to justify it to himself, because he knows he's acting out of his own self-interest.
In the final battle, Bruce doesn’t initially know about Superman’s alter ego. He genuinely believes Clark is a strange, dangerous alien visitor that needs to be put down. In the end, he has Clark pinned, and he prepares to impale him with his spear, much like Jesus was pierced by a spear while on the cross. When Christ was killed, two of the people that mourned the most were his mother Mary and the similarly-named Mary Magdalene, who many historians believe was Jesus' wife. It's fitting that Bruce only becomes aware of Clark's humanity after learning of Clark's mother and partner; when confronted with the knowledge that Clark is just a man, Bruce didn’t double-down on his beliefs like Lex did. His bloodlust evaporated instantly, and he realized that he was the villain all along.
This is the fundamental difference between Bruce and Lex. They are traumatized, paranoid men trying to validate their worldviews through violence, but Bruce is capable of stepping back and analyzing his own actions. Bruce is capable of remorse, regret and change in a way that Lex isn’t.
Frank Miller’s Influence on BVS:
As I mentioned earlier, this depiction of Bruce Wayne is, at his core, an objectivist. While other versions of the character have dabbled with this philosophy in the past, the BVS version of Bruce takes it to a new level.
Related to this, Bruce Wayne in Dawn of Justice clearly takes inspiration from Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns. This is a bit of a chicken-or-the-egg situation: did Snyder intend to write an objectivist Batman, and he looked to objectivist depictions of the character for inspiration; or was Frank Miller’s storyline so inspiring it prompted Snyder to write the character differently?
In any event, Batman v Superman is a work that owes itself to Frank Miller. It was Miller who took Batman and Superman and turned them against one-another in the pulse-pounding finale of The Dark Knight Returns, forever changing how fans of the superhero genre perceived these two titans. One can easily claim that, without Miller, Dawn of Justice would not exist.
That being said, there are obvious differences from the two, as well as core similarities, and I want to examine how all of these play into Snyder’s depiction of the two most popular superheroes of all time.
Let’s start with the similarities:
The actual clash between the characters is the focal point of the movie, and the climax of the original graphic novel. The fight itself even plays out similarly, with Superman gaining the upper hand on multiple occasions, only for Batman to use Kryptonite weapons and a mechanical suit of armor to turn the tides.
In both versions, Bruce Wayne is a grizzled, older man. He’s cynical and bitter, a stark contrast to the younger Kent. Both versions of Bruce believe that the ends justify the means, that they are the only ones in the world who can provide justice to an unjust world, and both truly believe that they are right in their brutal crusades.
Fitting with this, Gotham City has become a total dystopia in both versions, ruled by criminals.
The Joker and Batman have a long history, either shown on screen or implied, and Joker has killed Jason Todd in both continuities.
Finally, Zack Snyder confirmed that Carrie Kelley was to appear in his future Justice League movies, further tying his world to The Dark Knight Returns.
All of that being said, it’s not fair to call BVS an “adaptation” of TDKR, because that simply isn’t true. It’s also not enough to simply say Snyder was inspired by Miller, because that downplays just how much the latter affected the DCEU.
More accurately, Batman v Superman is an inversion of The Dark Knight Returns. Familiar imagery, plot elements and motivations appear in both works, but Snyder has taken them and flipped them, particularly with regards to our titular leads.
Let me explain what I mean:
For starters, Batman is the antagonist of the movie, not the protagonist like in The Dark Knight Returns. In Miller’s comic, we are meant to root for Batman, to believe that he is right in fighting Clark. Miller leads us to believe that, even at his most brutal, cold and totalitarian, Bruce is in the right. Snyder, on the other hand, depicts Bruce as in the wrong, an amoral man distant from his once-noble goals.
In the movie, Superman is the outsider to the status quo, and Batman is the one who has been a hero for years. In the comic, Batman’s return made him an outsider, and Superman upheld the status quo.
Superman in The Dark Knight Returns is a government lackey, a shell of his former self. He’s become a living weapon for the President of the United States. This is the exact opposite of Batman v Superman, where he’s more comparable to an immigrant, distrusted and accused of crimes he never committed.
Building on this, Snyder’s Batman instigates the fight. While their rivalry goes both ways, Bruce is primarily antagonizing and baiting Clark for most of the movie. In The Dark Knight Returns, Bruce is more reactive, and it’s Superman who challenges him.
The characters have similar messiac imagery, but reversed. After returning to the cowl, Bruce narrates that the rain feels “like a baptism” on his chest. Batman is made into a savior of Gotham, dying and being metaphorically reborn. Such imagery is absent from Snyder’s depiction of Bruce, but more than present in his version of Superman, who, again, dies and is literally reborn.
Finally, the movie is set before the founding of the Justice League, not years after, as in TDKR. While both movies have a similar gritty, dreary aesthetic (with Miller taking it to almost dystopian levels), this gives Snyder’s movie a much different flavor, particularly with the ending, which is almost optimistic in contrast to the rest of the film.
I think a lot of these elements add new depth to BVS. Snyder is clearly acknowledging the works of the people who inspired him, but not letting it dominate his story. He’s doing his own thing, but he wants to pay tribute.
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With that in mind, it’s probably not too surprising that Batman’s objectivism, brutality, and outright murder in some cases are so divisive. A lot of the same people who dislike these things dislike similar elements in Miller’s depiction of the character. Miller’s version of Bruce is hyperbolic by design because he's literally an Elseworld version of the character! Yet Snyder still used him as a base to create his more mainstream version of Bruce, which is probably why his character arc feels so jarring to so many people.
There’s a body of thought online that Frank Miller’s Bruce Wayne is a fascist. I don’t know that I entirely agree with that, but some evidence does exist for it:
Miller’s Batman blatantly ignores the rights of criminals and consistently treats them as second-class citizens. They are not people, they are the “other,” merciless monsters who commit violence for violence’s sake. Bruce displays contempt for anyone who calls him out on this, whether it be the new Commissioner, or a beat cop just trying to do his job.
The underlying theme of the story is that compassion is pointless. Science and empathy cannot help criminals reform, and violence is necessary. Anyone who tries to help criminals or shows empathy to criminals is a pothead, a liberal whack job, and/or just plain wrong.
The Dark Knight Returns eventually concludes that the only way to achieve peace and prosperity is by uniting the state under a single, strong leader, as seen when Bruce wrangles the criminals and common folk together during the Nuclear Winter.
Finally, some fans have noted similarities between the idea of a “master race” seen in fascism, and Gordon’s comment that some men (like Bruce and Franklin Roosevelt) are simply “above” other men and should not be held to moral or legal guidelines.
In many ways, Bruce’s ideology in The Dark Knight Returns runs counterintuitive to his outlook in other Batman stories. Take, for example, the lack of empathy he has for the villains he fights. This is an absurd notion for many kids (like myself) who grew up in the 90s and 2000s watching Batman: The Animated Series, where Bruce’s compassion for his Rogues Gallery is a defining trait. Even in more modern works, like Batman: Arkham, Bruce is desperately trying to save lots of villains from themselves.
To be clear: I enjoy The Dark Knight Returns. I think it’s an iconic story that helped to reshape the character for the modern era. But to reiterate: it's an Elseworlds story. It’s intentionally exaggerated and hyperbolic. It should not be used as a baseline for the character.
As I’ve made clear, BVS was the glue for the DCEU (a role forced onto it by executives.) All other movies, from Wonder Woman to Justice League to any future Batman spin-offs, were going to be rooted in this movie. For the writers and executives to model Bruce’s character after such a hyperbolic version seemed like a strange choice. All that being said, many of these problems were only in BVS; the Snyder Cut depicts Bruce at the tail-end of a redemption arc, no longer taking lives unnecessarily and inspired by Superman to unite humanity together.
This, of course, brings me to the Snyder Cut itself.
The Snyder Cut: Good or Bad?
The Snyder Cut of JL might be my favorite of Snyder’s movies.
I heard my fair share of doubts about the project from friends and peers, and I remember reading the first positive reviews. But I also know that opinions about superhero films (and films in general) are a dime-a-dozen on the Internet, so I decided not to let anything sway me. I went in blind and ready to experience it.
And...I liked it.
I’ve heard people say that this movie is the best of its genre, and while I cannot disagree fast enough (not while we have amazing superhero movies like Logan, The Dark Knight, Spider-Man 2 and Infinity War), I also can’t bring myself to find anything I really dislike about the movie. The action was phenomenal, the character moments were emotional and well-written, even the jokes landed shockingly well. All of my hopes for this movie had paid off and then some.
I don’t want this to sound like some kind of fanboy rant. Again, I’ve enjoyed some Zack Snyder films, but I’m certainly not his #1 Fan. I’ve given him the benefit of the doubt in the past, but this time--here and now--I can say, he’s actually earned my praise. (In part because he’s really toned down a lot of the Randian ideas I mentioned above.)
With movies like BVS or the 2017 JL, I would come out going “Hey, that’s not nearly as bad as everyone said! I really liked that!” and then, within a couple hours, I’ll find myself going “Wait, a bunch of stuff didn’t make any sense,” and then I’ll slowly pick the movie apart and poke all sorts of holes in it.
But, surprisingly, that didn’t happen for the Snyder Cut. The movie actually has really good internal logic, something I didn’t expect given its predecessor. The 4-hour runtime really helped this movie. Everyone and everything feels so well-rounded and fleshed out, that I can’t think of anything I would cut if I were in charge of editing it.
It seems just about every problem I had with Dawn of Justice and the Whedon cut had been amended.
The action was the most kinetic and fast-paced of the DCEU compared to the slog of Whedon’s JL and the slow-paced drama of BVS.
Steppenwolf was genuinely intimidating and well-developed, a far cry from the nonsensical Lex of BVS and the watered-down Steppenwolf of Josstice League.
There was a much larger focus on team-building and character dynamics, something that felt much appreciated after the underdeveloped cast of the 2017 cut.
Bruce’s character arc amended so many of my problems I mentioned earlier in this essay. He’s clearly remorseful about his actions, he no longer kills criminals, and a lot of his stranger, Miller-inspired traits have been cast away in favor of a more optimistic leadership role.
There was a much greater emphasis on lore and worldbuilding. It felt like a Lord of the Rings film at time, with a rich history about Apokolips that was clearly building up to a grander conflict.
And, above all else, this finally found the right tone for a DCEU movie. Zack Snyder’s Justice League does away with the grimdark tone of Dawn of Justice and the overly-comedic tone of Josstice League, and finds something much more natural for the universe.
That’s not to say this movie is perfect. There are things about this movie I find strange, for lack of a better term. The Knightmare sequence at the end feels tacked on, Martian Manhunter’s reasons for impersonating Martha Kent are never quite explained, and Amber Heard is still there. Plus, there are a couple of moments of continuity snarl with the rest of the DCEU.
In Aquaman, Arthur hasn’t seen Vulko in years, despite just saying goodbye to him in the Snyder Cut. Arthur in Aquaman also worships his mother despite holding resentment for her in this flick.
The Snyder Cut gels well with the 2017 Wonder Woman, but not so much 1984. Notably, Diana wistfully expresses that she wishes Steve could’ve seen modern aircrafts, despite being in a jet with him about 30 years ago.
But that’s all just nitpicking and it had no real effect on my movie watching experience. And at the end of the day, when I’m engaged with a piece of media like Justice League and I’m enjoying myself, that’s all that matters.
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I came out of this movie having a ton of fun. I was maybe a bit exhausted from watching the 4-hour epic in a single sitting, but I was definitely having a great time. While there were a million small details I enjoyed that made the experience better, I think most of my love for the Snyder Cut can be boiled down to three main characters: Victor, Clark and Barry.
Everything that’s been said about Cyborg has been said, so I’ll keep it quick. He’s essentially the main character of the movie, which is brilliant. I love his character, I love Silas, I love everything about their story. In particular, Ray is, to me, an example of healthy, emotional masculinity that we need more often in superhero movies. He’s a huge, 6’3” cyborg who could rip me in half like a Kit Kat bar, but Victor also isn’t afraid to cry and show emotions to his teammates. The scene where his mom comforts him as he cries, only for their car to crash...man, that gets me.
Superman was the next star. As someone who always found Superman boring as a kid, this movie feels like the character done right. This movie highlights that, above all else, Clark is a good human being. The scene with him hugging Lois and Martha gives me chills just thinking about it.
Zack was right: the version of Clark that appears in his film is more in-line with the comics Superman, a “true” version of the character. I’m so glad that after two movies of Clark struggling with Randian philosophy and objectivism, Justice League shows him as a hero, plain and simple. Clark isn’t doubting his every move, questioning the nature of his existence, or debating his internal compass. He’s just a guy trying to do the right thing.
At the same time, Superman doesn’t dominate the film once he appears. He gives Steppenwolf a good beating, but Diana and Arthur are the ones who deal the killing blow. He separates the Mother Boxes so they can’t combine, but he and Victor are working together to do it. In essence, he feels like a valuable member of the team, but not the entire team.
The Flash is the best part of the movie, which is strange, because I actually didn’t enjoy a lot of his earlier scenes. I was surprised to find the scene with Bruce recruiting him was filmed by Snyder, because the awkward humor and jokes feel so snarky and Whedonesque. I didn’t particularly enjoy it at all.
I’m used to seeing Barry in roles like The Flash TV show, where he’s a bit more confident in himself, so this more neurotic, awkward Barry didn’t initially grab me. But Snyder’s depiction of him is something I grew to enjoy, because it led to an interesting character arc where Barry is looking for approval in others but discovers that the real power was within him all along. And, of course, this leads into the climactic scene where he travels through time.
This is probably the greatest scene Zack Snyder has filmed. After an entire movie of searching for validation (in Bruce, in his father, in the team) and trying to live down or up to their expectations, Barry just lets loose and saves the entire world.
It’s a glorious moment, and really, the entire climax is one of the best I’ve seen in a superhero film. From Superman in his black suit beating the life out of Steppenwolf, Darkseid appearing in the flesh, Diana and Arthur finishing off the man who attacked their people, and Victor going in the Mother Boxes, it’s truly a sight to behold.
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For me, the biggest problem I have with the Snyder Cut has absolutely nothing to do with Zack Snyder’s direction or writing, but with something the executives insisted on.
Though I loved this movie and its characters, I can’t deny that this 4-hour long movie feels incomplete without the presence of a Green Lantern.
I know that is such small fry to say, given all the other amazing things the movie does, but it just feels wrong having all of these heroes assemble to stop a world-ending threat, and for one of DC’s biggest heroes (a founding member of the team!) to not be there. Again, this is not Snyder’s fault (at least, not to my knowledge), as he wanted John Stewart to appear at the end of the film. That honestly would’ve been perfect for me, as I always liked Stewart the best, and I just wanted the DCEU to acknowledge modern-day Green Lanterns in some way.
The 2011 Green Lantern film with Ryan Reynolds was ridiculously bad, yes, but it seems strange that a decade later, it’s still affecting the character’s public image to such an extent that executives won’t let him appear in a team he helped found. Though, if nothing else, we got a great cameo from Martian Manhunter to make up for it, which was pretty sick.
The Fundamental Flaw of the DCEU:
I think everyone and their mother can agree with me when I saw that the fundamental flaw of the DCEU was studio intervention.
Yes, studio intervention can be a good thing, a great thing, even. I know it’s taboo to compare the DCEU to the MCU, but I think it’s worth noting that the studio’s consistent but gentle presence in the MCU is a huge factor in what made it most successful. With that franchise, executives, directors and writers alike all worked to iron out the series timeline, connect each story and make sure all references were accurate; all while giving directors and writers the space to create the story they wanted.
That kind of respectful space to create, while still maintaining internal continuity, was not present in the DCEU. Their timeline of releases was nonsensical at best, and having the standalone movies come out after the team-up movies was a terrible choice, as it put the bulk of character introduction on just two films: Dawn of Justice and Justice League.
And, as time goes on, we’re just seeing more and more problems emerge as a result of studio intervention. Movies are getting reshot late into development. Projects are getting announced, worked on discreetly for years, then cancelled abruptly. After the movies were initially criticized for their grittiness, the studio course-corrected way too hard; some of the results were great (Wonder Woman, Shazam, Aquaman) and some were abysmal (Suicide Squad). And, as I just touched on above, iconic characters are being left behind in favor of pursuing more and more obscure projects.
I don’t want to put the blame all on the studio, because that’s a bit too easy. I still don’t really understand the point of Snyder having such heavy-handed objectivist themes in his movies, and I highly doubt that was a demand of the studio. But I cannot emphasize that almost every writer-director for the DCEU has had their vision altered in some sort of major way, if not outright butchered. It resulted in a hodgepodge of movies that vary wildly in tone, quality and story, and though this is supposed to be a cinematic shared universe, it’s clear that not even DC thinks of it as that anymore.
I’d recommend reading the interview with Terrio. Sure, I don’t have the highest opinion of his work after The Rise of Skywalker (though that might also be a product of studio interference), but it’s incredibly insightful into the sort of power people who know nothing about storytelling have over these writers. It’s the Achilles Heel of this entire universe, and it’s the X-factor that separates the DCEU from the MCU.
Closing Thoughts:
This essay became ridiculously long in the process of writing it. I realized I had so, so, so much to say, and I feel like I barely even touched on half of it. I was constantly learning new things about Snyder, his politics, his influences and the studio executives as I was writing this. Not helping things is that more and more news about the DCEU comes out every day, some good, some very concerning.
I obviously have my gripes about this trilogy, as I’ve made clear: Batman killing and his Miller-inspired characterization, the Randian politics, Jesse Eisenberg’s casting, Green Lantern’s absence in the Snyder Cut is sorely felt, and the atrocious pacing of Dawn of Justice. Even stuff I initially liked, such as Clark agonizing about his place in the world, grew tiring after a while.
These movies aren’t perfect, and it feels weird to even call them a trilogy, because we’re obviously looking at only three-fifths of a bigger picture.
But I also think these movies have a lot to say. Man of Steel, Batman v Superman and the Snyder Cut ask interesting questions about redemption, forgiveness, trauma, the nature of God and America’s misguided bloodlust in a post-9/11 world.
If nothing else, I can say this. No matter what happens next, we will never, ever get a superhero story quite like these films.
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