When I was watching Zack Snyder’s Justice League, I had an epiphany.
See, when it comes to the argument around whether or not Snyder's batman is a good
incarnation of the character, the argument has truly gone around in circles.
Um, Here’s how the average conversation’s gone so far.
If someone wants to explain why this version of batman is a bad incarnation of the character, their main point, and quite often
their only point boils down to ‘Snyder’s batman is a ruthless killer, therefore this
version of batman sucks’,
and when the disgruntled fan uses that attack in an argument against a Snyder fan...
it almost always turns out to not be very effective, and it was when I was watching the Snyder
cut that I finally realised exactly why that is.
It’s because in this film, Batman kills absolutely nobody.
Snyder fixed the number one complaint people had about his character, so…
why is it that in this film he still comes across as…
I don’t want to say boring because that’s overly cruel, but just such a thoroughly un-entertaining
character to follow relative to the other depictions we’ve seen?
It’s because, while other incarnations like Nolan’s trilogy,
or the animated movies, or the animated series, or the batman arkham games, or the elderly
version of him from the dark knight returns, while all of those incarnations have delved
deep into the batman mythos, truly understood what makes him as a character great, and using
that understanding have allowed his character shine to his fullest potential,
the simple truth is, Zack Snyder hasn’t just not captured that potential,
He's barely captured a per cent of it,
and that’s exactly what the last part of this video is about where just like I did
with my star wars and last of us 2 videos, I’m going to be giving a batman focused rewrite of the whole DCEU.
But ok, let’s cut to it.
Does this batman look badass? Yes, he looks incredibly badass, is his voice modulator
the single coolest sounding batman voice ever put to film? Undeniably.
If there were a fight between all of the batman incarnations, would this batman easily win?
Of course he would, partly because the other incarnations don’t have guns.
Ok, that was low hanging fruit, that was a joke... kind of, but when it comes to those three things
this Batman easily wins.
However, when it comes to everything else, this batman easily loses.
This is the heart of why so many fans have been disgruntled with this depiction of the
character, it’s not because batman's a killer, or at least that’s just a smaller part of
a larger problem, it’s because Batman is so much more than what we’ve seen so far in
the DCEU, and Snyder has failed to realise the majority of batman's potential
and this isn’t gonna be a controversial thing for me to say at all
It's because fundamentally Zack Snyder doesn’t understand Batman's character.
Boo
Why are you booing me? I’m right
I made a video trying to convince you guys that the end of avengers endgame was bad,
alright, I’m no stranger to getting drowned with dislikes, but give me your time,
reserve your judgement, and I will convince you that this incarnation of Batman truly
was subpar and if I somehow don’t….
Your money back I guess.
I’ll give you a refund on the cost of watching today's video!
But, in order for me to explain why Snyder’s batman was bad, I have no choice but to make this next part of the video a breakdown of why batman to
begin with truly is a fantastic character,
and why when his character is done right, the entertainment value he brings to the table
is truly through the roof.
So I’ve spent an unhealthy amount of my life consuming batman related fiction, and
after giving it years of thought, I think I’ve distilled exactly how batman's character works.
And the truth is, I don't think there's one reason why Batman works.
There are, in fact, 4.
Resolve, Intellect, Integrity, and Physical Prowess.
I will be elaborating a lot on this later on, I’m just laying out the barebones of
it here, but fundamentally, every good Batman story attacks and tests these four cornerstones
of his character, and when they do so, his character is at his most entertaining.
What really sells this is the fact that batman is the kind of character who you can pit against
any foe, absolutely any foe, and yet convincingly write him into the position of the underdog,
yet also an underdog with a believable chance of winning.
As Batman is a natural underdog character, it’s easy to put him in a desperate situation,
to push him to his absolute limits, and in doing so, you provide a trove of wonderful
opportunities to test the four cornerstones of his character: resolve, intellect, integrity,
and physical prowess.
Like that is the formula for creating good batman fiction.
Think of your favourite batman focused story, and the odds are it does exactly this.
And what’s absolutely worth mentioning here, what supports this theory of mine, and this
is just a theory feel free to modify it or shoot it down in the comments, is that most of batman’s
villains actually play into this whole idea because almost all of his villains are fundamentally
designed to attack one of these four qualities.
Bane, killer croc, and deathstroke all attack Batman’s physical prowess, they all challenge
his fighting skill.
Riddler challenges intellect.
Poison Ivy And Scarecrow challenge his resolve, Batman needs a strong willpower in order to
resist those two, and finally, Joker, and ra's al ghul challenge his integrity, and
frankly that’s why if you ask me, that’s why Joker and Ra’s are batman's two most
compelling villains because they're such good foils for him, because they challenge what I think is not the only
one, but what I think is the most important pillar of what defines batman, his integrity.
That’s the barebones of how I think Batman's character works so well.
So let’s flesh this out, let’s take a deep dive into each of these four cornerstones,
see how well other batman fiction handles them, and then compare that to the Snyderverse
and see how well they compare.
So, I often get asked by aspiring writers what’s the supposed secret to how I break
down stories they way I do.
And the secret is, there is no secret, you just need to do two things.
A, write a ton of fiction yourself, and b, fill your head with as much knowledge on the
craft as you can.
If you want to be a good writer, you have to do both, and today I’ve got to tell you
about something you’ll find quite useful here, because roses are red, Snyder’s batman
is deplorable, you’re in for a treat, because today’s video is sponsored by audible.
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good place to start, anyway, back to the video
Trying to pin down exactly why Batman is such an entertaining character is really hard,
but one thing that’s for sure, some of his best moments and some of his best
stories revolve around this right. They’re about his mind.
Some of Batman’s best moments are often when he's fighting an enemy far more powerful than
him, but by using his mind, not his fists, he outsmarts them and wins because of it.
For example, in justice league crisis on two earths, batman goes up against this woman
who's essentially an evil version of wonder woman, he stands no chance against her in
a fistfight, but she’s vain, she’s toying with him rather than finishing him quickly,
she beats him around a bunch, and he deploys a smoke bomb as cover to escape, and then she’s all like
“smoke, gah, how quaint,”
but then she inhales it all as a part of her toying with him with her incredible powers, but then after doing it, she sees that batman’s
wearing a gas mask, and he says
“it’s anesthetic gas”
and he capitalised on the fact that she was toying with him and used that to make her breath in the
gas whick took her out, mmm, that’s peak Batman right there, and it’s such a fun scene.
But I think what’s one of Batman's best stories in this regard is a whole episode
of the justice league anime.
In that episode, he gets captured by a gang of villains, and yes
I did just call it the justice league anime because I knew that would piss some of you off
but in that episode, he gets captured, and he spends the whole time manipulating the villains while tied up.
He brings up the fact they’re getting paid different amounts of money to make them fight
each other, and he seduces Cheetah, then one of the group betrays the cabal and sabotages
their plans, and they check their security recordings and sure enough, they see cheetah kissing batman.
So then they’re like
“Uh yeah guys, cheetah’s acting kind of sus. I think she’s the imposter,”
then they vote her out
but then it turns out that she wasn’t the imposter, and that Batman had already convinced ultra
humanite to betray them for a hefty fee, and he only seduced cheetah because he knew they’d
find out about it, and he did it all to shift the suspicion onto her so the real traitor
among them that was on that was on batman’s side could maintain their cover, and then it turns out
that batman could have escaped any time he liked, but he knew if he broke that they would have
all runaway, so he stayed pretending to be helpless so he could keep an eye on them and
see what their plan was,
and batman obliterated this group by outsmarting the absolute **** out of them, and it
makes for a brilliant showcase of his character and a thoroughly entertaining story.
this right here, this is what I’m talking about.
Batman being a genuine genius and outsmarting people far more powerful than him, it’s
one of the foundational pillars of his character
It's one of the reasons why he is so entertaining to follow
But look at Snyder's incarnation.
Name one moment where this he has deployed his cunning to truly outwit his foe.
You can’t, can you?
Because there hasn’t been one.
The most clever thing he’s ever done was hack into Luthor's network, discover that
he has kryptonite that can hurt Superman, stole it, and then used that to make weapons with it in the climax
of like the movie.
That isn’t exactly a moment of idiocy from batman, it doesn’t make him look stupid,
but compared to the others moments where we've seen Batman's character shine in other fiction right? Where he has done
some true 4D chess plays, where he has been an absolute genius, that is nothing,
that is a parody of how clever batman can really be.
Like seriously, Batman in bvs is moderately intelligent.
He doesn’t make any rookie mistakes, he's not an outright idiot, but he’s barely shown to
be more clever than your average guy, but Batman in Snyder’s justice league… he is an outright
idiot.
He makes some truly, truly stupid decisions.
Take this scene for example.
The scene where superman is trying to kill the justice league
and so then batman walks out onto the field and stares superman down.
Seriously, what was going through Batman's head when he made that decision?
But actually, you don't need to answer that question, because Zack Snyder gave me some exclusive footage
that ended up on the cutting room floor that answers that very question. I hope you enjoy!
Oh bloody hell
Superman’s completely lost his mind, he has become the monster I was always afraid
he’d become.
Now he’s trying to kill the flash, and flash never gave Clark a reason to hate him.
I'm the one that nearly beat him to death that one time, and from Clark’s perspective
that was only like half an hour ago.
If he so much as sees me, there’s an incredible chance that he’ll just kill me.
It’s a shame I don’t have something like a kryptonite knuckle duster, not enough
to kill superman obviously, but enough to weaken him so the other leaguers can restrain
him and we can control the situation.
You know that would have actually been a really good idea.
It’s just a shame I’m absolutely terrible at having contingencies for eventualities
like this, which totally isn’t something my character is famous for.
Also I’m compltly out of my element here. I have No powers and there is nothing I can contribute towards that fight.
and on top of that, superman doesn't seem to understand language right now,
so I can't talk any sense into him.
Truly, me walking out on that field.
Will only aggravate him more, therefore I should stay put and let everything play out with me not a part of it
Right?
Nah, what’s the worst that can happen.
Hey Clark, Clark, Clark
How have you been mate?
So much has happened since that time I tried to murder you
How’s the home planet?
Still blown up I trust?
Ow, stop lasering me, it hurts.
Timeout!
Time out!
Who could have seen this one coming?
Certainly not me!
Everything about the way Batman handled Superman’s resurrection was such a non-batman way to
do things.
Batman has always been a genius tactician, even in the adaptions of him
that deviate massively from the base character, and he is infamous for
having contingencies for every eventually no matter how unlikely or absurd.
Does this batman have any contingencies in case this superman turns out to
have lost his mind and he just starts trying to kill people, which as it turns out is a
perfectly rational fear because that’s what happens?
No.
Also, in other adaptiopns and depictions, Batman does a good job at leading the justice league
in the heat of battle and helping them enact an overall plan.
In the superman resurrection scene, does Bamtan do any of that?
No. he doesn't lead at all. He doesn't even have a plan.
All he does is walk out onto a field, hope for the best, and then get lasered.
Alright, so in the film superman/batman: apocalypse, in the climax, Bruce confronts Darkseid, and
he defeats him by revealing that he’s done the impossible, he’s hacked all of Darkseid’s
un-hackable WMDs and has set them to go off simultaneously.
If Darkseid doesn’t back down and abandon his plans, his entire planet gets destroyed.
And darkseid is like all 0:16:07.879,0:16:12.129 "You dare, you dare!"
and then he beats him around a bunch, but then after he lets out his temper tantrum, Darkseid
is like
"Well played."
And Batman faces down Darkseid, one of the most powerful villains in the whole DC multiverse,
and he wins, because he uses his genius intellect.
While other depictioms of the character push batman's wits to their absolute limits, and in doing so, have him
outwit some of his universe's most powerful villains, Snyder's justice league ends with batman
driving around in his car, effectively going.
“haha, car with miniguns go brrrr!”
In the climax of Justice league, Batman doesn’t use his brain at all, the only thing he uses
are his fists, and it’s such a total waste of the character.
And I know what some of you might be thinking, Batman's just not powerful enough to go toe to toe
with steppenwolf, there was nothing he could do to contribute towards that fight, therefor the fact he contrinbuted almost nothing
Is perfectly fine, and to those people, I’d say that it's not just possible to keep that
big old punch up with steppenwolf where the league fights him, yet also on top of that to give batman
a chance to really shine, to realise the full potential of his character
and as a result, to have made the climax of this movie so much more entertaining to follow.
And I say that, because that’s exactly what I’ve done, do stick around towards the end of
the video to see my rewrite of the justice league, because I want your watchtime.
I mean you could just skip ahead now, and there’s nothing stopping you from doing that, I guess, and...
Wait, don’t!
But alright, Batman's genius intellect is just 1 of the 4 things that makes him such a great character,
so let’s look at another one.
Let’s look at physical prowess…
yeah Snyder’s got that one down. Did an incredible job.
Knocked it out of the park.
What more is there to say?
So, when it comes to Batman’s resolve, there was one moment, one moment where Snyder hit
the nail on the head and perfectly captured this aspect of the character, and it was this.
This was in the batman v superman trailer, and at the time, the world collectively reacted
by thinking
"Oh my god that is so badass, and it’s such a batman thing to do."
And personally, when I saw this in the trailer, it got me hyped as hell because it implied
that Snyder just got batman’s character, it hinted that this was going to be a great
depiction of him.
But whether or not it was, let’s break this down, why is this such a great batman moment?
It’s because Batman on top of his fighting skill and intellect, his character also shines
when an obstacle comes along that defeats everyone else because they’re not mentally
strong enough, or not determined enough, but he manages to overcome it purely because of
his strength of will, because he is so goddamned tenacious.
The fact that bruce runs towards this terrifying threat while everyone else is running away from, it gives
us a lovely glimpse into that aspect of his character. It is a brilliant moment, but there are two
issues with it: for one, it’s just a moment, it’s not a plot arc or a big meaty chunk
of a story where this aspect of him is rigorously tested, it’s just one moment, and the other
issue, the fact that this is the only time in the entire DCEU that batman’s resolve
has been properly showcased.
So let’s look at other batman stories now and see how well they compare, a fantastic example
of this in other media would be when batman ascends Bane’s pit in the dark knight rises.
It’s the basis for a whole subplot of the movie.
A big deal is made out of the fact that no one has ever managed to make the climb, but
Bruce tries again and again, and is shown to be a cut above the rest when he becomes
the first person to ever succeed in escaping, and it makes for a brilliant display of his resolve,
and also his physical prowess at the same time.
Another example, in the DC comics, there’s a character called deadman, and he’s a disembodied
spirit who possesses people, he does it to ordinary civilians, and even superman at one point, and
when he does it, he has total control over them, but when he tries to possess batman,
this happens,
wow this guys mind is tough
he gets kicked out almost immediately because batman’s will is so strong.
When anyone else in the justice league gets possessed, you call an exorcist, but
when Batman gets possessed?
Don’t sweat it because he can exorcise himself.
God dammit that’s peak batman right there, but admittedly it is just one moment just
like him running into the dust cloud was.
But if you really want the perfect example, just the best depiction of Batman's resolve,
for me, it has to be in Arkham knight.
In that game, the joker has infected several people with his blood, and because of reasons
that make no scientific sense whatsoever, but we’ll give them a pass, it’s a superhero
story, everyone who’s been infected by the joker’s blood has had their consciousness
gradually altered into the joker’s.
We see that Batman is holding on a lot longer than everyone else, his willpower is letting
him stave off the insanity for far longer than anyone else could, and that alone is
a great display of his character, but it’s still gradually progressing, and he can’t
hold it off indefinitely.
So in the climax, god this is such a good climax, Batman is losing control, so he surrenders
himself to scarecrow just before the joker takes full control of his body, and then all
looks lost, right, not only scarecrow have batman captured but also the joker’s finally the one in control, what a sad ending, how very tragic, but plot twist,
scarecrow then injects his fear toxin into batman, but now as Joker’s the one in control
of his body, it’s affecting the Joker’s mind, not batman’s, so there’s this whole
sequence where we see the joker’s fears being realised.
The idea of everyone forgetting about him and him having no legacy, it terrifies him, so the joker starts to lose
control and acting erratically, the fear getting the better of him, and then batman uses the
opportunity to absolutely dominate the joker, and he bursts into the nightmare like.
“I am vengeance, I am the night, I am batman”
and then he throws Joker into a cage in his mind, and represses the joker’s psyche into
a place where he’ll never bother him again and he takes control of his body back in just
this wonderful display of his mental strength.
Arkham knight is a flawed game, but at the same time, it's one of the best depictions
of Batman’s resolve I’ve ever seen, it plays a major role in the story and it culminates
in a really fun climax, and at the same time it does a great job at showing how intelligent Batman is for coming
up with that plan to beat joker, but we’ve already covered that point.
But anywho, Bruce’s taciturn willpower is a fundamental pillar of why he’s so
fun to follow in other depictions, but in the DCEU, this batman has never gone up against a
foe that wiped everyone else out because they, weren't mentally strong enough, but when they went against batman, he persevered, soldiered through it when no one else could,
and save the day.
Yes, that dust cloud moment was nice and all, but it’s just one moment in a series of
films.
When have we seen this batman's resolve ever get tested. When have we seen it displayed?
I mean he hates superman enough to lay out a plan to kill him, and then he follows through
with it. So... I guess he can stay focused on a task?
At least we know he doesn’t have ADHD?
And he also has an excersive routine, i guess, so I guess that counts as a kind
of willpower, but that’s all we get in terms of his resolve, and simply, it’s nowhere
close to being enough.
But here’s the thing, and this is leading towards the topic I’m sure you’ve been
dying for me to cover, god knows most of the criminals batman fights have.
When it comes to intellect and resolve, Snyder failed to depict those
those not just important,
but vital aspects of batman's character, and him doing that hugely compromises the
entertainment value he brings to the table, that's all true, but the problem with this final
one is how Snyder didn’t just neglect this quality, unlike the others, he willfully disregarded it.
That’s right, buckle up boys, because Henry’s finally talking about batman’s
no kill rule.
This isn’t going to be controversial even slightly.
So, when it comes to the argument around batman being a killer, it will almost always
flow like this.
Firstly, the critic will say
“You see, Batman never kills people, therefore this version of Batman sucks,”
And then the critic of that critic will say.
“but batman killed in other incarnations, and you loved those, therefore you’re a
hypocrite and your criticism is invalid, sir!”
and they’ll be all like
“You lose, good day sir.”
What’s the issue here?
Well, the problem is that first critic failed to understand the heart of this problem, and because of that
what he says is really easy to shoot down because it wasn’t really the truth.
And what is the heart of this problem?
Well, its something that the joker put really quite well.
“You truly are incorruptible, aren’t you?”
People claim they hate this batman because he kills people. But that's not precise enough and it's not really the truth.
A better way of putting it, right, is saying that batman being someone of integrity is the final fundamental pillar
of his character, it is a defining trait that makes him the man he is, and this batman is
completely and utterly lacks that trait.
But what’s really worth addressing here before we continue, is that you 100% can alter
a classic character's makeup, when making some kind of adaptation about them.
Snyder could have conceivably thrown Batman’s integrity out of the window and it could have worked
well.
A fantastic example of another peice of work that does something like this and it works quite well is in the injustice series.
In injustice, superman becomes a fully fledged murderer, he becomes completely evil, but
don't you think it's curious that superman in injustice is warped far more than batman
in the snyderverse, it’s actually more of a deviation from the original character, yet
almost no one complains about that depiction of superman, while what feels like millions
of comic book fans have been complaining about Snyder's depiction of batman?
Isn’t that interesting.
And there’s a very good answer for it.
It's because in injustice, the core thesis of the story is posing the question "What
would happen if Superman became a tyrant?" the justification for warping the source material
is pretty much as good as it gets because the story is about Superman's descent.
It’s not just in the elevator pitch, it is the elevator pitch.
With injustice, it would be truly impossible to not warp the character and still tell the
same story because the character being warped is the premise of that story, and as
a result, it’s a great reason for the deviation, as a result, the fans were happy with it.
But what is Snyder's justification for warping Batman’s integrity, from how he has no qualms
about using guns, to how he shows no regard for the lives of his enemies and doesn’t
just kill people who are in his way, he flat out murders people who he could have easily
spared.
Oh sorry, what’s that criminal, you’re weaponless, defencless, and I could easily
knock you out with a single strike, or sweep your feet out from under you?
Nah, lemme do this instead,
What was Snyder’s reasoning for erasing Batman's integrity?
Well, Snyder’s thought process when he made this decision, it looked a lot like this.
“You know, I like movies with a dark, grim tone.
I should make my superhero movies with a dark, grim tone.
What could be more grim than killing people?
Therefore all of my superheros need to be killers.
Oh my god, that’s it. I'm a genius!”
That’s it.
That is the entirety of the reasoning behind Snyder's creative choices.
That is why superman snapped Zod’s neck, and it’s why batman seems to be perfectly
fine with murdering the criminals he comes across.
And i know what some of you are typing in the comments right now,
“But Henry, this batman has had a really tough life.
His robin’s died. Theforefore,
it’s fine for him to say such comedy gems as
I will fudging kill you
and for him to generally be a depraved murderer.”
To those people, that is a fundamentally flawed argument, because as the joker again says
“You truly are incorruptible, aren’t you.”
Integrity is one of the key traits that defines Batman's character, in the same way him being
a genius is, in the same way him wearing a bat suit is.
And over the years so, so many incarnations have thrown so much at him, have really put him through
hell, but throughout all of those, Batman still stays true to the man he is.
Let’s not forget that in basically every modern batman story, the joker killing Jason
Todd is canon, the joker paralysing barbara gordon is canon, so in pretty much every modern
batman story not only is robin already dead, but also a laundry list of other horrible
stuff has happened to Bruce, yet depsite that, he maintains his integrity, but now in the DCEU
under the exact same conditions, he’s suddenly has no integrity?
What explains the disparity?
Well, there is only one possible conclusion.
The disparity is incontrovertible proof that on a fundamental level, Snyder's batman and the classic batman
Are completly different characters because when presented with the
exact same scenario in their backstory, they have both reacted in the entirely opposite way.
And so much so it’s not much of a stretch from that to make a ship of theseus argument
and say that because this Batman is just so completly different from this batman
you might be able to say that he shouldn't be called the ship of theseus anymore, to not called batman
because so much has been changed about him.
But a fantastic example of batman really being put through the wringer and having his integrity
tested is again from injustice.
In that series, it’s been made public that his name is bruce wayne.
His assets and company have been taken away from him.
Every single one of his old friends, every single member of the justice league has either
died, or turned against him.
Alfred is dead.
Dick Greyson is dead.
His son, Damian Wayne has betrayed him and joined Superman’s regime.
Absolutely everything, absolutely everything that could go wrong with batman’s life save
for physical mutilation has gone wrong… but despite all that, he stays completely
true to his values and that series is a wonderful showcase of his character, it does a wonderful
job at adhering to that four cornerstone theory I mentioned earlier.
And again, as a caveat, in some situations you can alter a character’s key traits and
it can work in an adaptation, but, just like injustice did you need a
really good reason for breaking the mould.
You can’t just rip out one of his most defining traits on a whim, for no other reason than you feel like it,
Ok, that's not actually fair because the real reason why Snyder did this to batman the only reason, was because he wanted to achieve a certain tone,
and I know some of you are thinking right now,
"but Henry, that’s just speculation, you don’t know that’s what was going through
Snyder’s head at the time"
well unfortunately it’s not, because Snyder confessed to it.
There is a pretty infamous clip of him on a panel from a while back where he said this.
"Someone says to me like oh, batman killed a guy.
I’m like wake the fudge up.
And then you come and say my superhero wouldn't do that.
I’m like, are you serious?
It’s a cool point of view to be like my heroes are still innocent… they didn’t commit any atrocities. (ngl I'm manually doing captions for this and I'm losing my sanity)
I'm like That’s cool, but you’re living in a fudging dream world.”
Snyder rambles a lot in that clip, so that’s why it’s got so many cuts, but Snyder's defence
on why he made Batman a murderer, it isn’t like injustice where he says he had a very specific
story in mind that regretably required batman being corrupted in order to tell that story,
which would have been a far better thing for him to say.
Instead, his argument boils down, to that the source material he is adapting
is fundamentally stupid, which isn’t a worrying thing for someone adapting something to say
at all.
But alight, it's really bad form when you're making these kinds of videos to just say hey, that's a stupid thing to say, and not actually address his argument, so let's address his argumet. Snydeer's main point boils down to that Batman
as we know him… is not realistic enough for his world, and that is a tremendously flawed
belief.
Partly because of this
so Snyder is indirectly saying that Nolan's trilogy felt like it was in a dream
world, that it just wasn’t realistic enough.
No.
But also it’s because he mistakenly thinks that Batman simply must be a man without integrity
in order to tell a dark story around him.
And here’s the thing, yes, forgetting the corruption of the character, Snyder undeniably
achieved what he set out to achieve, he has Batman calling in precision airstrikes on
criminals like he’s playing call of duty, and it effectively gives his story the grim
tone he was going for.
But the real problem here, is what Snyder did in order to achieve his tonal goals was
completely unnecessary, and this is a major controversial point, right?
Many a heated conversation has been had in many a twitter thread and youtube comment
section about this, where people have said that Snyder fundamentally doesn’t understand
what makes Batman Batman, and others have vehemently disagreed, but truthfully, this
is some solid proof that Snyder doesn’t understand the character, because if he had,
he would have known that Batman, in terms of the major superheroes, is both the most
realistic, the least innocent, and also the single darkest one around already, unless
you count spawn and the punisher maybe.
But somehow Snyder’s got it into his head that a man having integrity, that a man simply
having a moral code equals them being not a dark character, and that is nonsensical,
because so many wonderful Batman stories have been told where he sticks religiously to his
no killing rule, yet the story still has a very bleak tone, and his character still comes
across as totally believable.
Out of the many examples, the game Arkham origins pulls this off really quite well.
Simply put, Snyder doing what he did was caused by one of two things.
He either A, didn’t have a proper understanding of Batman’s character, or B he was just
being lazy, those are the only possibilities, and I say all of this because you can easily,
so very easily bring out the darkness of batman, do a fantastic job at fulfilling Snyder’s
creative vision of grim, gritty realism without altering anything about the base character,
because batman is already a character that inherently lends himself to that kind of story.
Honestly, it’s almost like the classic batman character is tailor made to fit inside the
Snyderverse already.
As a metaphor to get across what I’m saying, this is like putting up a shelving unit.
The shelves are the grim tone that needs to be set up, the screws are batman, and the
builder is Zack Snyder.
Now what is worth saying here is that these screws are perfect for this job, The classic
batman character truly is perfect for this job.
You couldn’t ask for a better screw.
And all Snyder had to do was deftly and delicately screw them in, all he had to do was take batman’s
existing mental trauma, or the various moral dilemmas around his character like is it eve
ethical for him to arrest criminals putting them in prison, knowing he’ll break out
and kill someone again.
Batman through his innactions is indirectly killing people.
Is that ethical?
There are a ton of potential angles snyder could have taken with this.
Snyder could have easily given us the best of both worlds, where the shelving unit is
nice and sturdily put up, and the integrity of the screw, the integrity of Batman's integrity
is perfectly maintained.
But unfortunately Snyder didn’t use a screwdriver for this job, perhaps because he didn’t
understand the nature of the screw well enough to know a screwdriver was the tool of choice,
or perhaps because it was out of reach, or it was just too much effort to do, we can
only speculate about his reasoning, we can only guess, but what we do know for a fact
is that it was at this point that Snyder instead grabbed the hammer, and mercilessly beat that
screw into the wall, warping the absolute shit out of it in the process.
Now, yes, in the end, he did successfully succeed in putting up the shelves, but at
the same time he caused a tremendous amount of pointless collateral damage to the nail,
to batman.
When an artist adapts a story they should have the freedom to alter things when they
get in the way of their creative vision.
However, in Snyder’s case, Batman’s no kill rule was not remotely in the way of said
creative vision as per what I just said, it would be easy to rewrite batman v superman
so the same story could play out, but batman still has his integrity, and I’ll show you
how in a second.
But he changed an incredibly important thing about the source material unnecessarily, and
because of that, what Snyder did to Batman was therefore a bad creative decision.
Injustice is a story that warps its character, and it has a flawless excuse for doing so.
The Snyderverse warps it’s character, and it has a flimsy excuse for doing so, and that
is why the DC fandom has almost collectively loved the injustice series, and that’s why
they were far, far less inclined to love the depiction of Batman in the snyderverse.
And what makes this worse is even if Snyder had an injustice level excuse for doing what
he did to batman, even then, because Snyder failed to depict batman’s intelligence and
resolve on top of failing to depict his integrity… he fails to depict 3 of the 4 qualities that
makes batman the man he is, and so even with a top tier justification, he would have never
come across as batman, the genius detective who has a superhuman willpower and an incorruptible
integrity.
He instead comes across as a brute who has a lot of fancy gadgets and is very good at
punching things.
Now those are all things batman is, but this is ultimately why Snyder’s batman was such
a waste of potential, and such a sub-par incarnation, because while he did tick some of the boxes
in the criteria, he did get some of the things right, he failed to tick the majority of the
boxes that actually mattered.
Let’s also not forget that Batman being someone of integrity doesn’t make him a
less entertaining character, it actually makes him more of an entertaining character.
Batman having his code provides an extra layer of depth to him, it makes him more likable,
it is another way for the writer to give him compelling conflict internally as he debates
whether he’s right or wrong, and externally as him choosing to spare those he fights only
makes him more of an underdog with the odds even more stacked against him because of the
lines he refuses to cross.
Batman’s integrity is a quality of his character that is nothing but an asset to any prospective
writer looking to write his story, and that just makes Snyder depriving this incarnation
of that quality all the more inexcusable.
Simply, in the DCEU, but especially in the justice league, Batman’s character screams
untapped potential, and speaking of which, the time has finally come.
Here is my vision of what a better batman could have looked like.
So, in this section I’ll be rewriting Batman in both BvS and Justice league.
The thing is, I had an idea for a wholly new movie for BvS with a completely different
plot, it keeps the fact superman and batman are main characters, but changes everything
else, but I chose to be far less ambitious and just rewrite Batman's role in the original
bvs and nothing more.
So one simple change that entirely fixes his character is this, this batman has never killed
anyone before in his life, and the film is about batman contemplating breaking that rule
for superman.
There is nowhere on earth where Clark could be imprisoned if he went rogue, killing him
truly is the only way to take him out, and the film is about Batman dealing with the
dilemma that something has to be compromised, the safety of the world, or himself and his
integrity, one of those things has to go, and he has to decide… alright, I’m just
pulling your leg, it’s impossible to fix batman v superman with one change like that,
and you guys know by now that I have no self control when it comes to these kinds of things.
Here is my pitch for a fundamentally different batman vs superman in which I do my best to
not just fix batman in that movie, but also everything else while I’m at it.
So, in this new story, I want to turn this batman into not just a loyal incarnation of
the character, but also a compelling character in his own right with his own functional arc.
Here’s the problem, Batman's arc in bvs for lack of a better term is big donkey doo
doo, it sucks basically, and it does an awful job at setting him up for justice league.
If we tracked Batman’s arc from start to finish of that film it would look like this.
I hate superman.
I still hate superman.
Oh I hate that man so much.
Big climactic fight.
“Martha!” “huh, I guess I don’t hate superman anymore”.
Ten minutes of brainless action later.
“You know what, I think I’m going to start a team.”
Don’t get me wrong, Batman saying I want to start a team at the end to set up the justice
league is something he absolutely had to say, but this is weak sauce, this is nowhere close
to the best way Batman’s character could have reached this end point, and here is what
I think is a far better approach.
This film shouldn’t have been called batman v superman, but something more along the lines
of batman and superman.
And hear me out, hear me out, this film should have been… a buddy cop movie.
I know, get your laughing out of the way, but I seriously think giving this movie the
same formula as a buddy cop movie such as lethal weapon would have been the best possible
way to tell a joint batman superman story, and lay the foundation for the justice league.
But ok, what would such a story have looked like, well, we start following a van rushing
through the street in the dead of night, everyone inside’s wearing a mask and they’re all
acting terrified, they’re asking each other if they lost him, and after looking out of
the back, making sure to look up at the rooftops as well as on the street level, they say that
no one’s following them, so they stop outside the docks and go to meet a small ship that’s
just arrived.
It’s at this point the criminals start getting taken out one by one, the whole thing is filmed
as if it’s a horror film with criminals vanishing all over the place, imagine a fight
scene from the arkham games except you don’t follow batman, you follow the criminals trying
to survive, then there’s a grand explosion, and batman leaps forth and we have a grand
action scene on the same level as that warehouse fight where he beats the hell out all of them,
we see batman’s fighting prowess as our introduction to him, but soon enough a second
boat arrives with a mounted machine gun, it gives Bruce a lot of trouble.
He calls in the batwing, but just before it can do anything, before the fight can be resolved,
Superman suddenly comes along and takes them all out for him.
Once all of the criminals are tied up, Batman is on his own brooding as he’s sifting through
the shipping crates looking for what they were smuggling when Superman walks up to him
and says “you must be the batman.”
Silence.
“It’s good to finally meet you,” he reaches out his hand to shake.
Batman just looks at his hand, then goes back to sifting through the crates.
Batman grabs one of the boxes from inside and turns to superman saying “Stay out of
Gotham.
It already has one protector, it doesn’t need another.”
It’s at this point superman starts wincing, he’s looking sick, he’s sweating.
The police finally arrive, Superman looks at them, and by the time he turns back Batman's
already grapelled up to his batwing and he flies off.
In the first act, we set up that superman’s getting serious with Lois and he’s still
as supermany as ever doing noble deeds and saving cats from trees and the like, in this
scene he says to her he met batman the other day, and that Batman wasn’t remotely interesting
in speaking to him, and we introduce the idea that superman really wants batman as an ally,
maybe even friend because outside of Lois, clark doesn’t have anyone to work with or
confide in.
We also see that Lex luthor, forget jesse eisenberg, just imagine him as the animated
series luthor, is orchestrating a campaign to slander superman’s name, he’s bought
several newspapers, numerous billboard ads, and is using every resource he has to convince
the public that superman is a menace with too much unchecked power, why, he could kill
every person in the world if he wanted to, and he’s really starting to convince people.
Generally we see that lex just really, really hates superman’s guts but we don’t quite
know why yet.
I love the idea that our first scene with Lex is in a charity ball in gotham entirely
paid for by Lexcorp, Clark and lois are there covering it, which explains why Superman is
visiting Gotham, and lex is hosting the thing with a big smile and generally putting on
a face of being a lovable, kindhearted philanthropist who cares tremendously for the children, he
makes a ten million dollar donation in the middle of a speech on stage, and everyone
gives him a standing ovation, to which he looks down embarrassed and says he’s just
doing the right thing.
He leaves the event to be bombarded with journalists, but Lois Lane corners him and asks why he
has such an irrational hatred for superman.
It’s then that Lex pulls out an odd black device from his pocket, activates it, and
all of the microphones and cameras held by the reporters break, he’s created an EMP,
and while everyone’s trying to fix their cameras, Lex’s whole demeanor shifts, it’s
like he becomes a completely different person as he leans in to Lois and says something
cold blooded.
Something like “You should be more polite to your new boss, Ms Lane.”
She looks confused, and he says “Haven’t you heard?
The negotiations for my purchase of the daily planet concluded this morning.
You'll be under my employ from tomorrow.
But, with you asking such… impolite questions as that, I think it’s safe so say I won’t
be your employer for much longer.”
He walks off, and we get a shot of Lois just looking pale faced and ill.
So yeah, this lex luthor isn’t some socially awkward mark zuckerberg-esc character, he’s
a sociopathic manipulator, he’s far more true to the comics, and someone who could
be a great foil for batman.
But now we see Batman in his cave along with alfred.
Bruce says he met superman tonight, and Alfred's happy for him, he insists that Bruce needs
friends, that this superman could be a valuable ally, but Bruce ignores him and opens the
box he pulled from the shipment.
The second he does, the cave’s radiological alarm goes off.
Whatever’s in that box, it’s highly radioactive, so batman puts the box inside one of those
chemistry cases with the gloves built into the glass, and he opens it in there, until
soon he’s holding a dagger with glowing green stone as the blade.
They deduce that that whole shipment had to have been full of this stuff, but why would
anyone want so many weapons made out of radioactive rock?
Alfred says he’ll run a spectral analysis to see what it’s made of, and while he does
that, Batman walks around the cave and sees robin’s suit set up in a glass box.
And this is the thing, this is batman’s whole deal in this film, this is his wound.
Robin is dead, but it hasn’t affected him in the same way as the original BvS.
Batman truly, completely despises the idea of working with anyone, it’s not superman
that’s the issue, it's how many years ago, batman sent robin out alone to do a mission
he wasn’t ready for, and as a result, robin died.
He’s been guilt ridden ever since that day, he’s carried on as batman, the mission must
go on, but Jason’s death has affected him not by turning him into a psychotic killer,
but instead by making him terrified at the idea of ever having another teammate, or even
a friend, otherwise he’ll let them down too.
He’s convinced that if anyone is ever left to rely on him, he’ll fail them when push
comes to shove.
But anyway, Alfred says that this is unlike anything he’s ever seen, it’s not natural,
that’s for sure, it was synthesised in a lab, but something about the sheer fantastic
complexity of the chemical structure leads alfred and bruce to conclude that whatever
this thing is… it’s not of earthly origin.
That’s when Batman puts 2 and 2 together, and he realises that this is a weapon made
for killing superman, an alien weapon to kill an alien, and someone’s been supplying all
of gotham’s criminals with them.
Bruce hates the idea of working with anyone, but he’s not a monster, he has to warn superman
about this.
But then inciting incident time, a building is burning down with tons of civilians trapped
inside.
Clark’s still at that charity event, but he hears the screams, sneaks away, and arrives
as superman to start saving people, he bursts into the burning building when he starts to
feel weak, then he falls to one knee, and that’s when someone appears through the
flames wielding a sword with a green glow, his suit is back and orange, and his helmet
only has one eye.
It’s deathstroke, superman tries to stop him, but all of his strength has mysteriously
vanished, and there’s a very one sided battle as deathstroke slices and stabs superman with
his kryptonite laced sword and just kicks his ass.
Just before the fight can end in deathstroke’s favour, Batman arrives and saves superman
in a grand action scene, scaring deathstroke off, but not before deathstroke manages to
shoot Superman twice in the gut, and his bullets pierce superman’s skin, making him scream
in agony.
Batman then rushes Clark to hospital with his batwing, but by then clark’s wounds
have actually healed over, but the bullets are still inside.
The doctors go to inject morphine, and the needle breaks on his skin, they use scalpels
to try and get at the bullets, but it’s like slicing steel, they can’t even scratch
him, superman’s dying, all the while batman is on the balcony observing the operating
theatre, speaking with alfred, and alfred is demanding that bruce take him to the cave,
they have the kryptonite dagger, they can use it to get at the bullet, and batman says
alright, he’ll go retrieve it and give it to the doctors, and alfred says no, it would
be 40 minutes by the time he got back to the hospital, but it’ll be 20 if he brings superman
to the cave.
That difference could mean his life.
“Don’t condemn a man to die because of your own pigheadedness!” it’s at this
point that superman stops groaning, Batman looks and sees it’s because he’s lost
consciousness, and batman, with huge reluctance goes in, confronts the doctors and grabs superman’s
body, one of the doctors holds the scalpel up to fight him the last of us style, but
batman just gives him a look, and the doctor drops the scalpel and raises his hands in
surrender.
He then brings superman back to the cave, and Alfred uses the dagger to take the kryptonite
tipped bullets out.
After this, Batman says “right, let’s get him out of here before he wakes up, he
can’t know who I am,” and speak of the devil, it’s at that moment superman wakes
up, feeling considerably better, his wounds completely healed.
There’s a fairly awkward conversation, clark thanks bruce profusely, Alfred is very polite
back saying he’s been following his work and he’s a big fan, but Batman’s grouchy
and doesn’t want to speak to him, he does however tell superman all about slade and
that he’s an assassin, one of the best in the world.
Someone obviously paid him to take you out, someone with a lot of cash to burn, slade
isn’t cheap.
It’s at this point that we see a phone call from Deathstroke, he calls up a man and says
he came within an inch from killing the target, but Batman got in the way.
He needs more time.
Then we see a shot of a mouth on the other side say “You’ve had your chance, Slade,
and you’ll have another.
But your request for an extension is denied.
Consider the exclusivity period on your contract expired.”
he hangs up, and of course, who else could it be on the other end but lex luthor.
So I’ll level with you guys, sometimes these plots come fully formed to me in a matter
of hours, sometimes a matter of days, but I’ve been sitting on this one for over a
week now and I haven’t solved it yet.
My justice league rewrite I’ll give in a minute is clear as day to me, but with this
BvS one, while I have the jist of where it all goes and the overall direction of the
film, I haven’t yet pierced together every plot point, but from here on, the movie is
essentially a buddy cop film following superman and batman, they’re working on solving a
grand mystery, ideally the seeds for this mystery have been planted before this point
in the story, and this is the first live action batman film where batman truly embraces his
detective side, where the whole film is a showcase of his intelligence as he pieces
together the clues as to where all of this kryptonite is coming from, and who wants superman
dead, with superman being the watson to his sherlock, albeit a watson who can bench press
an oil tanker.
But Superman keenly works with batman, perhaps even too keen, he’s incredibly enthusiastic
that he finally has a partner because he’s operated alone this whole time, and batman
begrudgingly works with superman, not happy about it, grouchy all the way.
We’d start off by showing Superman constantly joking and teasing batman, and he isn’t
having any of it, but over time, batman slowly warms up to him and reciprocates the banter.
Slowly, superman is being a positive influence on batman, they’re not just developing a
friendship, but he’s gradually convincing batman that working alone is a weakness.
As for some scenes that would come along the way, firstly I like the idea that Lex has
made Superman’s bounty public, and now there’s a 50 millions dollar reward for his head,
and all of the DC universes best assassins, bane, deadshot, and the league of shadows
are coming to claim it, and kill him, and these people constantly interrupt the detective
side of the story as bruce and clark work together.
I’m in love with the idea of there being a scene where they lure one of these assassins
into a trap, try to interrogate them, and superman is all like “I’m warning you,
you tell me what you know or else” and the criminal’s like “or else what, boy scout?
You’ll help an old lady cross the street?
Ooh, I’m so scared.” and superman just has no idea how to squeeze the answers out
of him, he’s nowhere near dark or experienced enough to pull that off, then batman says
“allow me,” and then he’s all like “This is how you interrogate someone.” and then
it just cuts to the assassin telling them everything he knows.
That would be a fun scene that shows off their characters.
But at one point, clark’s in the cave looking at the robin suit, Alfred walks up and Clark
says Batman used to have an assistant, then one day he vanished.
What happened to him?
And Alfred tells him, and thus the audience all about what happened, that the joker murdered
Jason, and Bruce doesn’t blame the joker, he instead blames himself for sending Jason
in when he wasn’t ready.
But as a part of the mystery, Bruce somehow gets a lead that the kryptonite could have
come from Superman’s ship, so he goes to the compound, meets cyborg’s dad, Silas,
and Batman tells him about the kryptonite, and that he needs access to that ship, superman’s
life depends on it.
But Silas says those kryptonite weapons simply can’t have come from here because they’ve
never managed to access the ship at all.
The security software is unhackable, and the door is impossibly hard to get through by
physical means, they tried blasting it open but the ship’s defences ended up killing
two men, his people have spent months trying and failing to get inside.
Silas says Lexcorp got the contract initially, but they yielded no results so the job was
given to star labs, who still haven’t managed to crack it, so then batman spends about half
an hour trying to hack it when superman comes along with a smug grin saying let me help
you with that, he places his hand on the ID pad, but it doesn’t work, it doesn’t recognise
him.
Batman says he’s nearly got the hang of how this works, just give me a few more minutes,
but then superman sighs and tears the door open like its made of paper.
Superman walks in with an aura of smugness about him, batman follows him with far less
glee, and that’s when they both get attacked by the ships defence drones, they take them
out, and superman sees that all of his suits, they’re all gone, he accesses the computer,
and finds out that all of the files, every last piece of data the ship had on Krypton’s
people, it’s been deleted.
Superman’s understandably upset because this was the only record left of his heritage,
and now it’s gone.
But they deduce that because lexcorp is the company that got the government’s contract
to study the ship, but was kicked off the project, it makes sense that Lex Luthor secretly
achieved something, he at least has to know what happened to all of this missing data,
so they both go to Lex’s office to confront him about the ship’s missing data, Lex smiles,
hits his emp device, disabling any potential recording devices they brought with them,
and lex confesses the horrible truth.
Yes, he did figure out how to open the alien ship, he says it only took him a few hours,
and once he accessed the ship’s systems, he memorised every blueprint, every technological
advancement, the workings of every mechanical marvel the kryptonians had ever created…
and then he deleted everything, now the only place in the whole world where that data exists
is in here.
He says pointing at his head.
“I’ll be cautious about it of course, and I’ll be generous, developing genetically
engineered super crops to solve world hunger over here, introducing the cure for cancer
over there… getting filthy rich in the process of course.
I’ll most likely drip feed the more boring innovations out through the years, saving
the more exciting ones for myself.
But imagine what the history books will look like.
Lex Luthor, the man who invented faster than light travel, Lex Luthor, the man who solved
global warming and saved a hundred million lives, they’ll be singing songs in my honour
for thousands of years to come.”
Then superman just snaps and grabs Lex, his eyes burning red, but Lex smiles back at him.
“Now really, superman?
We both know you won’t do it, you don’t have it in you.
And even if you did, remember I’m the only person on earth who knows how to cure cancer,
I’m the only man capable of leading humanity into the stars.
If you were to kill me, which you never would, you’d be setting humanities advancement
back by centuries.”
“What did you do with my people’s history?
My culture?”
Lex guffaws “What care could I have for the history of a dead race?
I didn’t see any point in memorising those files.”
And then Superman is just boiling with rage, and Lex just smiles back at him, there’s
a tense build up, but Clark drops him, crushes a priceless metal art piece on his desk, and
flies out of the room.
The next day Alfred comes up to Clark and Bruce, and with shakiness, says they better
look at the news, they turn it on, and every news station is running the story that Superman
just gave Lex Luthor a death threat.
Lex is giving an interview, doing a great job of looking shaken, saying that Superman
came to his office and threatened him to stop his PR campaign against him, or he’d take
his life, and then he shows the reporters his crushed priceless art piece as proof,
this is unquestionably superman who crushed it because only he’s that strong, you can
even see the shape of his hand from where he squeezed it, and Lex uses that as another
way to ruin superman’s image.
Like I’m just saying that right there is the lex luthor we should have had, not a whining
mark zuckerbergy teenager with daddy issues.
So, Bruce ends up figuring out that Lex used all of this knowledge to synthesize the kryptonite
in a lab somewhere, but there’s a problem, they have yet to find any hard evidence that
Lex has been trying to kill Superman, they both suspect it, the writings on the walls,
but Lex has just covered his tracks too well, there’s no paper trail, and certainly not
enough evidence to make any kind of charge stick in court.
At one point just before the climax, Clark says to Bruce that he knows about Jason.
And Batman growls “You have no right to say his name.” and they have a heart to
heart.
Clark’s endless goodness has been wearing Bruce's defences down, and in this conversation,
Clark really gets through to him.
He says “I’m responsible for my own father’s death.
There was a tornado, it was about to kill him, and I was about to save him… but he
told me no.
He told me to let him die because there were too many witnesses.
He didn’t want the world so see who I was.
I could have saved him, and I didn’t, and not a second goes by that I don’t regret
it.
I know what that kind of guilt is like, Bruce, I know that you’ve spent every day of your
life since then wondering what you could have done differently.
And I’ll tell you right now you’ll never stop doing that, you’ll always carry that
weight, but at the same time, you also have to know that the last thing they would want
would be for that weight to break you.
Now, that’s not a free license to feel nothing, but it’s an obligation to soldier on.
You can’t stop putting yourself out into the world, you just can’t, otherwise the
world loses two people over their death, not one.
Bruce, you’ve been hiding in your cave for nine years now, I’m not sure anyone’s
seen the real bruce wayne attend a charity event in all that time, but before all of
this I understand you were the one who usually hosted them.
Think of the amount of good you could have done, all of the injustices you could have
stopped if you had the right allies to help you, but you were powerless because you were
too afraid to reach out for help.
And this is just the truth, and I’m sorry to say it Bruce, but if Jason could see you
now... he’d be disappointed in you.”
Bruce gives him a glare half between hate and heartbreak, but then he just gives up
on it, looks away and mumbles “I know.”
And Clark really instills the idea in Bruce that he needs to stop isolating himself from
others.
But alright, it goes along, and I love the idea that lex, using all of this knowledge
he’s got from the kryptonian ship, takes a sample of superman’s blood and uses it
to clone superman, except he edits his genome just like the kryptonians did to themselves.
This clone has all of superman’s powers and looks identical to him, he just has no
free will, is compelled to do whatever Lex asks, and has no care for the value of life,
and he also wears a black suit because why not.
And lex’s plan is that once superman is killed by the assassins, he’ll replace superman
with this clone, but he’ll be a superman completely under lex’s thumb, and why exactly
does lex does this, well, we’ll get to that later.
Now, if I were telling this story, I would absolutely detest the idea of superman dying
here.
I think him dying is very, very, very stupid, it was completly uncessary and everyone knew
the second he died that he’d come back in justice league.
I mean he was on the original posters of the film for christ sake.
But, for continuity's sake, we’ll have this clone fight superman, not doomsday, and the
clone kills superman, he wins the fight.
Once that’s done, once we’ve had a grand fight and Superman's dead halfway through
the climax, Lex orders the clone to do one final task before he takes up superman’s
mantle.
“Batman knows too much.
Kill him for me.”
So then we have the final fight where bizarro comes after batman and it all looks lost,
Bizaro just managed to kill Superman, and now he’s coming after Batman?
Jesus Christ, that’s going to be a one sided fight, but here’s the thing, Batman's the
ultimate underdog, he’s a genius, he has big brain, and as I said earlier, he’s at
his most entertaining when he’s outwitting enemies far more powerful than him.
So, naturally batman knows lex is going to send his clone to kill him, so to prepare
for the fight, Batman calls of all people… deathstroke and says “We have a mutual enemy.
Tomorrow, it’s business as usual, but tonight, we need to bury the hatchet.
I have a proposition that will benefit both of us.”
We cut outside as the batwing flies around so we miss what batman says, but we cut back
in to catch the last of it, and Slade says “Fine, this once.
But if this is some trick, if you’re so stupid as to lie to me, I won’t be needing
a contract to end you, Batman, I’ll be doing you for free.”
So, the fight comes, and Batman stares Bizarro down, he has a full body armoured suit just
like he did in the original film, except this one covers every inch of his body including
his face, but he’s staring bizarro down as the fight’s about to kick off, then…
deathstroke appears from the shadows, then bane, then a whole myriad of the DC universe’s
best assassins.
And Batman used the fact that there was a 50 million dollar bounty on superman, and
got the whole of gotham’s criminal underworld to help him win this fight, because he looks
identical to superman, it’s an easy enough lie to believe.
So then we have a grand fight where all of these assassins take on bizarro, in the middle
of it deathstroke “Accidentally” misses bizarro and slices his sword at Batman, Bruce
barely blocks it, and then deathstroke is like “whoops, that was clumsy of me, wasn’t
it?” and they stare at each other for a long moment with the sword locked in bruce’s
gauntlets before slade breaks it off and continues the fight against the clone, during this fight
several of the assassins die, and everyone else gets their ass absolutely kicked until
it’s just batman and deathstroke left standing, we have a civil war like scene as Deathstroke
and Batman double team the clone, they best him, and Deathstroke stands over the clone’s
wounded, writhing body, puts a pistol to his head and is about to pull the trigger when
batman says “Slade, our deal.”
Deathstroke gives superman’s clone an intense, long glare, his grip on the gun still tight,
then he says, “Of course, he’s all yours.” and with that deathstroke walks away.
Batman slaps some heavy duty handcuffs onto the clone encrusted with kryptonite, and he
lifts him away with the batwing.
Deathstroke says over the radio “I’ve kept my side of the bargain.
If you don’t deliver on yours—” “Relax slade.
I’m taking his body straight to Luthor.
And I’ll let him know you were the one who took him down.
You have my word,” says Bruce as a smile creeps over his face.
This whole part of the story also does a pretty good job at laying the foundation for a potential
standalone batman movie down the line as deathstroke has a vendetta against Batman for tricking
him the way he did here.
But then Bruce calls Commissioner Gordon, he picks up and Gordon’s hysterical, saying
“I’ve had two dozen reports of gangs of ninjas having sword fights on the rooftops,
are these friends of yours?” and Bruce says, “Jim, it’s about that.
Something’s come up.
I need a favour.”
So the next scene, the batwing lands on the helipad of lexcorp’s HQ, and Bruce arrives
at Lex’s office still in his combat suit, and Superman’s clone is in front of him,
weakly stumbling along with the kryptonite handcuffs still clamped to his wrists.
Batman drops him to the floor and says “I believe this is yours.”
“I have no idea what you're talking about,” says Lex.
“You murdered superman, you tried to murder me.”
“I dare you to prove it.”
“You have plenty of motive.
Anyone who watches the news knows you have a pathological hatred for superman.
I have your motive, and the murder weapon.”
“You have nothing.”
says Lex as he pulls a device out of his pocket and presses it.
Suddenly, superman’s clone starts screaming, he’s squirming in complete agony, and batman
staggers back in terror.
That’s when Lex pulls out the other device, the handheld EMP and triggers it.
The lights go out, and Lex says “Did you seriously think I wouldn’t have a contingency
in case this was how it all ended?
And did you seriously think you could stride into my office and record my confession?
You aren’t half as bright as your reputation suggests, detective.”
“What did you do?” asks Batman, his voice warbling and more distorted than normal.
“Kryptonian technology.
I just sent out a command to denature his DNA.
A kill switch if you will.”
It’s at this point that the clone stops looking like Henry Cavill and begins to change
into a horrible grey skinned monster, that’s right, it turns out that he was bizarro all
along, and Batman is still acting completely terrified, stepping away from bizarro.
Meanwhile Lex is just looking at the body as it reaches out to Luthor, groaning, begging
for help from his father.
But Lex just looks at him with dead eyes, his hands behind his back and continues by
saying “In theory anyway” the conversation goes along for a while, and Lex is being tight
lipped giving away nothing, Batman’s trying to squeeze a confession out of him, but Lex
isn’t giving away a thing.
“Why did you want him dead, I wonder?” says batman.
“Did you want to save the world from him?
Or are you jealous?
Did you see how loved he was by the public, and that just ticked you off because that
meant fewer people were loving you?”
Lex’s hands form into fists, he glares at batman.
“Oh, no.
That’s not it at all.
It was never about saving the world.
You wanted to see him dead because behind all that pretend intelligence, that fake personality
you present to the world, you're just afraid that someone out there might see you for what
you really are, a pathetic little man, a man so pathetic that he can’t stand the idea
that someone out there has more power than him.”
And Lex’s composure snaps like a twig, he leaps forward and says “You dare?!
My father was a penniless immigrant, and from that baseline I’ve come to own half of Gotham,
and most of Metropolis.
Most of this city's population works for me, whether they know it or not.
I have a net worth of 53 billion dollars.
I achieved all of that, and I did it alone.
So don’t you dare question my intelligence.”
“No, I’m not biting,” says batman.
“You might fool them, but not me.
Cloning superman?
Hacking an alien ship?
You’re not clever enough to have pulled that off.
Who really hacked that ship?
Who’s the real brains behind this?”
“There was no one else.”
growls Luthor through gritted teeth.
“Don’t lie.
It couldn’t have been just you, not you alone.
I bet you covertly tricked some scientists more clever than you into doing the lion’s
share of the work, not that finding someone more clever than you is a challenge.”
Oh of course it was me, who else could?
Who else could kill superman but lex?
Lex laughs bitterly, “You simple, simple man, you don’t understand.
I never had to worry about being covert with finding help, because I never needed help.
Anyone else would have just slowed me down.
I was the first ever man to hack an alien ship, and I did it on my own, I mastered Kryptonian
cloning, and I did it on my own, and I used my genius to kill superman on—” Suddenly,
Lex’s seething rage dies, replaced by fear, he staggers back, then stands tall trying
to regain his composure.
“You’ve done it now,” says batman.
“Done what?”
Lex laughs nervously, then scoffs.
He looks around the room checking for anything irregular, he sees nothing and laughs with
more confidence.
“Nothing’s changed.
You couldn’t have recorded that.”
he says reaching into his pocket and pulling out the EMP device, “This made sure of that.
It’s still nothing more than your word against mine, and something makes me think the big
bad batman won’t make his appearance on the witness stand.”
“Wrong, because it wouldn’t be me who took the stand.”
Luthor’s eyes tremble with confusion, fear, then rage, but then something out of the window
catches his eye, he looks at it, and his face pales.
Batman is outside on the helipad.
He’s in the middle of leaving the batwing and storming towards Lex’s office.
“Then who—” says Lex as he turns to look at Batman, what he thought was Batman,
but now that he’s taken off his helmet, he can finally see that the person under the
suit was none other than commissioner gordon.
“It’s over Luthor,” Gordon says.
Batman finally walks through the door, his voice coming in twice, once from him, once
from Gordon's suit.
Gordon and Batman walk towards Lex, Lex staggers back, “But how did you—” “Overcome
the EMP?” says Batman, “That suit has a vacuum tube radio, one specifically designed
to resist EMPs.
I put it in there just for you, Lex.” and Lex blurts out “this is entrapment, this
is illegal, his confession will never hold up in court.”
And Commissioner Gordan says “Lex Luthor, I’m arresting you under suspicion of murder
and attempted murder.
You have the right to remain silent, god knows you don’t seem interested in exercising
it.
Anything you say can be used against you in a—” “I know my rights!”
Blurts Luthor, a silence follows, and we see his eyes shifting, just from the look on his
face we can see Lex’s mind moving at a million miles a minute considering and reconsidering
every possible option he has.
Batman steps closer, Lex locks eyes with him, stops, sighs, and puts his hands out in front
of him, surrendering as Gordon cuffs him.
Then we cut to later as Gordon's out of the suit on the street, Lex is being put in a
patrol car, and he looks at batman.
“You know, that suit of yours stinks like the communal vests the GCPD soccer team uses,”
says Gordon.
“I never noticed.”
“Just please, promise me you won’t ask a favour from me again.”
“I’m afraid I can't do that.
The suit's recordings were corrupted, but the ones on the batwing weren’t,” says
Batman, handing over a USB drive.
“In case the reliability of your testimony comes into question.
Who knows?
Luthor might make the case that the smell of soccer vests is hallucinogenic” “Are
you alright?”
“What?”
“It's just… you made a joke.”
Batman smiles, “First time for everything.”
Gordon looks away and mumbles “It wasn’t a very good one if that helps.”
They see Luthor getting driven away, and Gordon sighs, “Superman’s gone, and apparently
my people have stopped receiving calls about ninjas reenacting the middle ages on the rooftops.
I guess everything’s going back to normal, or as normal as it gets in Gotham.”
“No.
No it isn’t,” says Batman, an aura of hope about him.
Gordon looks at him, but before he can ask how so, Batman grapples up to the batwing
and flies off.
Then Gordon looks at one of the patrol officers standing next to him and says, “You know,
must’ve been the first time he’s done that while my back wasn’t turned.”
So now we have clark’s funeral, except no wonder woman and bruce is hanging out on his
own near the back, Lois comes up to him and she’s just a wreck, she’s barely holding
it together, and she says he died for nothing, but Bruce puts his hand on her shoulder and
says you’re wrong.
His death did mean something.”
She gives him a look and he says “I can’t tell you yet, it’s too early, but give it
a year, maybe two, and you’ll see what I’m talking about.
Just know that whenever you see us on the news, whenever you hear about the good we
do… know it’s all going to be in his name.
Clark’s not dead, because his ideals, everything he stood for, defending the innocent, taking
down the guilty, justice, it’s going to live on through us.
“Who’s us?” asks Lois, and to that Batman smiles, and just as he opens his mouth to
speak, the credits roll.
So there are two post credit scenes, the final one is Bruce tracking down wonder woman and
introducing himself to her and effectively starting the league, but the first one is
similar to the one we had in the original movie.
Batman visits Lex in prison.
He walks past the now grey skinned bizarro trapped in a cell illuminated with red sunlight,
and reaches the end to see Luthor.
Lex immediately monologues, saying Superman wasn’t human, therefore killing him never
classified as murder, so all that’s left is attempted.
I have the best lawyers in the world.
I’ll be out on parole in 6 months, tops.
You’ve lost.
I’ve won,” says lex, desperately.
Batman just stands there, saying nothing.
“Well say something, damn you!” barks Lex.
“I came here to tell you one thing.
Even if I was a killer, I’d still have spared you.”
“Is that it?” scoffs lex.
“You murdered superman, but in killing him, you’ve started something that’s impossible
to stop.
You forced the two of us together, you planted an idea in my head, and thanks to you, I’m
finding others like him.”
Lex looks confused, and Bruce says, “And you’ll be powerless to stop us.” with
that, the hate on Lex’s face grows.
“Even if I was a killer, I’d still have spared you, because now… you get to watch,
you get to be humiliated, to feel powerless every day for the rest of your life by the
mere fact my league exists.
That, for a narcissist like you?
That’s worse than a life sentence, that's worse than death.”
“Fine,” says lex, barely keeping it together, “Fine, I’ll just send the assassins after
you this time, just you, and there’s nothing you can—” “After being convicted of
trying to kill me, your plan is to try again?
You aren’t half as bright as you think you are, Luthor.
You do that, you’ll never see the other side of these bars.
And besides, if you’d have done your research, you’d know,” he says turning around, readying
to walk away “Know what?
Know what?!”
screams lex.
“That if you were to track down every world-class assassin, and ask them all if they have what
it takes to kill me, only the insane would say yes, the rest, no, because every last
one of them,” he says glancing back, “They’ve already tried, and despite never asking it
myself, I know only the insane say yes to that question, you know how?
Because only the insane make the mistake of trying to kill me twice.
I wonder which one you’ll turn out to be,” And Batman walks away, a smile on his face
and Luthor screams at him through the bars, saying he hasn’t heard the last of Lex Luthor,
and with that, the film ends.
Now that, that is the batman v superman we should have got.
Why did Snyder have to cast Mark Zuckerberg as Lex luthor?
Anyway, moving on to the justice league.
So, there are rumours that ben affleck’s batman will reprise his role for the flash,
also going back to that rewrite I just suggested where batman’s deciding to work with others
again, let’s run with that and alter justice league so batman is acting as barry’s mentor,
almost like he’s treating him as the next robin, and seeing as this barry has no experience
as a crime fighter, this feels like a natural direction to go.
For the sake of time, I’ll be focusing just on the fight scenes in this rewrite.
In the superman resurrection fight, batman basically does nothing but walk into a field
with absolutely no plan, and then get his ass kicked by superman.
Let’s fix that.
So Barry suggests he can resurrect superman by building up an electric charge for the
motherbox, but he needs to go faster than light to do it, he’s worried, he’s afraid
of what might happen, then batman gives him support, and says he has faith in barry, and
Bruce gives him the final nudge of encouragement to go through with his idea.
Then barry does the thing
Superman bursts through the ceiling, and batman puts his finger to his ear.
“Alfred, what’s your ETA?”
“About seven minutes, master wayne.”
“Get here sooner.”
“Is that wise?
I’m already pushing the speed limit.”
“I’ll pay the ticket.
Just get here, now.”
Batman looks at everyone and says “I have a plan.
I have a weapon inbound that will pacify superman, buy me time until it arrives.
No matter what, Superman has to stay in the field.”
Everyone nods and they head out, goes up to superman and it plays out pretty much the
same way.
As the league fights Superman, Batman is covertly observing it all play out, and constantly
checking a GPS device, seeing the red dot grow closer.
Then the fight takes a turn, superman bests flash and is about to kill him when batman
sees what’s going on and presses a button on a device, a high, terrible whine goes off
and superman winces, yet no one else seems to react.
It’s at a frequency only superman can hear.
Superman turns and glares at Bruce, and Bruce says “Alfred, I need the contingency, now.”
“I’m doing my best,” says Alfred as we get a shot of him racing down the street.
As the whine continues, the league tries to stop superman as he moves for batman, they
do nothing but stall him, and once he’s taken everyone out, superman goes straight
for batman who’s in the middle of running towards the red dot.
Superman grabs him, crushes the sound device, and glares at Batman, his eyes glowing red.
We get a shot of the GPS on the ground, the red dot finally on top of them, just as Superman
readies to kill Batman, just as Batman reaches into his pocket.
A car door closes, and both men turn to see Lois Lane running towards them from a car,
and Alfred then stepping out of the driver’s seat.
The rage leave’s Clark's face, big smooshy romance moment as he remembers who she is
and the two of them fly off.
The league catches up with Batman, and Wonder woman gets a glimpse of a green glow coming
from one of Batman's pouches.
She asks what it is, and he pulls out a kryptonite knuckle duster, saying it was his last resort
in case Lois never arrived.
He thanks everyone and says they all did good work, he gives special attention to Barry
saying that if what he saw was anything to go by, with a little more training and confidence,
Barry might actually be able to beat superman toe to toe, and Barry blushes.
So then we go along, we have a scene where Alfred mumbles about being given a $1,000
speeding ticket, and we approach the climax, and I had an idea of how to make the end of
justice league so much more fun, and to improve batman’s character in the process.
So in the climax as is, all Batman does is drive around in the batmobile and shoot parademons,
it’s a complete waste of his character because any member of the justice league could have
more or less done the same thing.
As a fix, I want to add back in the idea of civilians being in the area, don’t worry,
flash isn’t going to be saving them, but it’s important to include and you’ll see
why.
So, in the planning scene before the climax, Batman lays out what they need to do, he’s
acting as the leader and saying flash needs to build his charge and zap the mother boxes
while everyone else takes on Steppenwolf.
Cyborg says because they’re dealing with 3 fused mother boxes now, the amount of electricity
he needs is orders of magnitude larger, so much so that Flash would have to run for ten
minutes straight just to build up that charge.
So Batman says, “Fine, I’ll cover Barry with the ship and keep the parademons off
his back.
Everyone else takes on steppenwolf.
They all agree, and just that happens, once it all kicks off, flash starts running and
Bruce is flying around with the transport ship, firing missiles and taking down all
of the parademons that get close to Barry.
But here is where things really start to diverge, Darkseid has been observing the battle through
the parademon’s eyes, and he’s noticed the flash.
In the comics, Darkseif has a habit of finding powerful and talented people, then brainwashing
them into being his elite soldiers, let’s play off that, and Darkseid says to steppenwolf
that he wants the flash so he can do exactly this to him, he doesn’t care what it takes.
If it takes losing ten thousand parademons to capture him, so be it.
In thousands of years, Darkseid has never seen someone so attuned to the speedforce.
The powers of everyone else in that battlefield are inconsequential compared to him, so then
Steppen wolf obeys and sends every single last parademon he has after flash, and it’s
too much for batman to handle, he runs out of rockets, his ship gets crippled, batman
makes a crash landing, and without Batman’s cover barry gets overwhelmed himself, he trips,
gets knocked unconscious, and then the parademons grab barry and take him through a boomtube
away from earth, and into apocalypse.
Batman crawls out of the wreckage and tells them all that Barry's gone.
Naturally everyone else freaks out, and Cyborg says it’s over, without Barry he’ll never
get the charge he needs to separate the mother boxes, they’re all as good as dead.
But batman is like “I’m on it.
Take care of steppenwolf.
I’m going after Barry” This is why there needs to be civilians in the area, because
before this point we’ve sporadically seen civilians being taken by parademons and, just
like Barry, taken to apocalypse for an unknown reason.
Bruce has seen this, so this is what makes him pull his cowl down, put over a big coat
concealing his batsuit, and step out into the open surrendering himself to be picked
up by the parademons, they grab him and take him to apocalypse.
All the while as this plays out, the rest of the league is fighting steppenwolf.
So we follow Bruce as he’s being lifted by a parademon over what looks like hell,
and it’s here we have a whole subplot where we follow batman being taken to apocalypse,
trying to make sense of it and rescue the flash.
Eventually, they put batman in a regular cell, but they put flash in this super advanced
cage where he’s hovering in midair syndrome style without any physical restraints, so
Batman breaks out, because of course he does, he’s batman, takes out a few of the parademon
guards, and has a brief dialogue with barry, something about because batman had no powers,
so thought they could put him in a regular cage, their mistake, Barry asks, “so how
long did it take you to break out,” “eleven seconds” says Bruce nonchalantly, and Barry
says it’s not like it would have made a difference if they’d put you in one of these,
if they had, iit might have taken you what?
At least twenty seconds to break out, I’d bet.”
Batman humms, opens the panel, looks at the circuitry and just stares at it stone faced
for ages, Barry is like what’s wrong, and Batman says from what I can tell, it’s programmed
to release the contents of that gas can behind you if someone tries to break the lock.
It’s reasonable to assume it would kill us instantly.
The camera shows what looks like a gas can on the wall behind barry, and Bruce then kneels
and starts tinkering with it immediately, and the last shot we see is of Barry’s face
looking absolutely terrified, then we cut away to the fight back on earth, but that’s
boring, we know how that goes so let’s cut buck to Batman and Flash a bit later, and
Flash says “You can leave.
Just leave me.
If more guards come— ”, “I’m not leaving you behind.”
Batman says.
He tinkers a bit more and says “This lock is incredibly complex.”
“Is that a problem?”
“No.
A lock is a lock, no matter which galaxy it’s from,” just then a parademon comes around
the corner, batman reacts instantly by throwing a batarang straight into his face, then he
touches the lock just a few more times, there’s a clunk, barry drops to the floor, and they
both have a grand escape scene where they fight as a team trying to find a portal to
go back home, they finally find one, and they’re about to get inside it working when the worst
happens, Darkseid appears around a corner, his hands behind his back, and with just complete
ease he backhands barry and sends him flying, batman doesn’t even try to fight Darkseid,
he’s not that stupid, his first instinct is to leap into the portal, grapple hook the
concuseed, stunned barry and heave his body at lighting speed through the portal after
him, just as barry comes through the portal, Darkside looks at him and simply says “If
I can’t have you, no one can.” and this next bit plays out in a classic bit of Zack
Snyder slo mo.
Darkseid’s eyes burn red, and out comes an omega beam zig zagging through the air,
right at Barry, and Barry just watches, completely stunned as he’s about to die.
Then Bruce sees what’s happening, and pauses for just a moment before he leaps in between
them to take the hit for Barry, and as the blast closes in headed straight for Bruce’s
chest, him resigns to die, the portal closes.
Bruce feels his perfectly intact chest, lets out a weary sigh, and Barry looks up to him
in awe saying thank you and wanting to have some kind of heart to heart, but Batman is
immediately over it and says “what are you doing lying around? you’ve got a job to
do.
Start running.”
And Barry is just about to when the worst happens, the mother boxes go off, the entire
rest of the league is killed, and Bruce and Barry look on from outside the blast radius
in complete shock, they’re mortified, and as the dust cloud comes close, Bruce raises
his arm to shield his eyes, Barry reaches out his hand, then everything freezes, and
that’s when barry reverses time and the climax pretty much plays out the same from
then on.
There we go, as simple as that.
We’ve barely changed anything plotwise about justice league, yet batman’s character is
showing off his intelligence, is far more active, and is overall a much more entertaining
character to follow in this version, not to mention by fleshing out batman acting as a
mentor to barry, that does a lovely job at setting him up for being a mentor in the standalone
flash movie.
But anyway, i hope you liked my rewrites, please consider supporting me on patreon if
you want to help me make more videos just like this, subscribe or I’ll make my next
video on why the room is secretly a masterpiece, I swear to god I’ll do it, and I will see
you guys next time on the closer look.