Batman V. Superman: Dawn Of Justice

[Leo656]

Which is funny, because a buddy of mine who's also a huge Superman fan said the same thing - didn't bother to see MoS because he "heard from people" that it was bad. So we watched it two weekends ago, and he liked it a lot. Wasn't in love with it, in particular thought the fight scenes were a little overdone, but didn't see anything wrong with it and definitely agreed that a huge chunk of the negativity was entirely overblown. When pretty much the biggest "complaint" anyone has about a movie is, "It was too different from something someone did 40 years ago", that's pretty silly.

So, again, once in a while it pays not to let the internet write all your opinions for you. Everybody gets their own, but it weighs a little more when it's really your own.

42, you're definitely right that MoS was a completely different approach to the story. That should be fine, honestly. Superman '76 was a fairy tale. It was a good one, but that was the entire angle they were going for. You hit the nail on the head, MoS focused on it as an "alien invasion" story... because when stripped of the "flight of fancy" aspect, that's exactly what Superman's story is! It's realistic! It's okay if that's not your preference but it doesn't make it "BAD". It's a perfectly valid approach to the material.

In continuing along that point, I'll partially answer one of your many questions about "What is it they're taking from the source that makes MoS so comics-faithful?" Anyone else can read along if they want to. There's several particular important arcs and plotlines that have shown up in almost every version of the comics, from he Golden Age up through a couple years ago. For example:

- Kryptonian villains, usually led by Zod, arrive on Earth some time after Superman does and try to take over. Their stated goal is to wipe out all humanity, terraform the planet, and repopulate it as New Krypton. That storyline goes back to as long as Zod's existed, and sort of even before. It's a little different every time they tell it. Sometimes the alien invasion happens years after Superman's been around, sometimes it's very shortly after. Sometimes it's not Zod and they all have different names (there were stories of Evil Kryptonians invading Earth many years before they made Zod the regular recurring one). Sometimes it's two or three Kryptonians, sometimes it's an army. In "Birthright", they were fake Kryptonians and the entire invasion was staged by Luthor (and I'm SO glad we did NOT get THAT take in this universe, because "Birthright" was terrible on the whole, despite a few neat moments). Also in "Birthright", this was an example where the "alien invasion" angle was, like MoS, pretty much the first Big Event they had Clark get involved with, and stopping the "alien" invaders was what led to him becoming Superman and the world embracing him as a hero. I didn't love that take on the story, but mostly because as I was reading it, it seemed like having it be Zod and the real Kryptonians instead of Luthor's drones would have made a ton more sense. I'm not sure if Waid was told specifically not to use Zod in that story, or what, but it was a mistake not to.

All MoS did, was borrow from "Birthright" and have the Kryptonian Invasion happen early on, and furthermore fixed what the comic did wrong by actually using Zod and his army instead of fakes. A case can certainly made for not using Zod as soon as they did, but hey, it's been done before. And if MoS was a reboot, why not Go Big if you want to get people's attention right away? I really can't find any problem whatsoever with making the Invasion the first story. You have to tell that story eventually. And they did a good job with it. It was definitely "big on action", but you do have to establish the destructive potential of these beings and their powers. It was an excessive amount of destruction, yes, but it was still par for the course in what I'm used to seeing when these things happen in the books. When Superman and Zod fight in the comics, it's a Big Deal. Cities fall. There's repercussions for years. Again, one can argue it was Too Soon, but that's a debatable point at best.

- Superman killing Zod. This was something a lot of people hated, too, but again, it's always bound to happen sooner or later. I don't think they did their best at making it seem like Clark truly had no other choice in the moment, honestly. But it's always pretty inevitable. So, again, I don't have a problem with getting it out of the way early. In the Byrne comic, his execution of Zod, Faora and Quex-Ul was directly what led to his steadfast code against killing, and it was an event he never fully got over, so I'm frankly happy to see it put to film.

- This one's more of a combination of things, but in addition to "Turn Earth Into Krypton" being a standard Zod angle, MoS also borrows heavily in several places from "Day of the Krypton Man" by Dan Jurgens. It's different in a ton of places, but what they borrowed most specifically was in the comic a Kryptonian artifact creates the Fortress of Solitude, then immediately begins trying to terraform Earth into Krypton. Clark in turn is caught between saving Earth and preserving what's left of his Kryptonian heritage. Again, it's more of a thematic homage than a literal translation, but the scenario is very similar in broad strokes. The slave/servant robots like Kel-Ex and Kel-Or are directly from those comics, also. I always loved those guys, so it was neat seeing them get into the movie.

- The theme of Superman not being a sunshine-y "symbol of hope" or "everyone's favorite Good Guy" right out of the box. This is controversial for some reason, and I'm not sure why. Because yes, there's a few versions, particularly the Reeve film, where Superman shows up and he's perfect and everyone immediately loves him. BUT, just as often they tell the story from the other side! Starting all the way back in Action Comics #1, Superman was an adventurer and a do-gooder, but he was by NO means the "Shining Knight" character we all think about when we generally think of Superman. He was aggressive, arrogant, careless with his powers, recklessly caused a lot of property damage, and was considered equally to be a hero or a public menace depending on which character was talking about him. For several years he was little more than a vigilante, and while he was on the side of good he wasn't on particularly good terms with the government, the military, or the police. THAT character evolved over several years through several events to become the more straightforward, purely heroic character. When Byrne did his revamp, he borrowed a little bit from this as well. Not everyone jumped on the Superman Bandwagon just because the guy could fly. People thought he was dangerous. Not everyone trusted him right away. Everyone, on some level, questioned who the hell gave this guy in the cape the authority to do whatever he felt like, and who was going to ever STOP him from doing, potentially, whatever he felt like.

In those versions of the story, it takes a couple years for planet Earth to fully embrace Superman. It's fine that the Reeve movies and a couple other versions simplified things. BUT, that's not to say it's the "right" or "only" way to do it, because half the time, they do it the other way where he has to earn everyone's trust and it works out fine. These particular movies are just telling the story the way the comics have told it, several times, and in this case, "different" doesn't by default mean "worse". I'm not sure why some people have a huge problem with them taking the "slow burn" approach. It's just a different way of doing it, but it's fine.

Spoiler:

By the end of BvS, he's officially "SUPERMAN" in all caps and everyone loves the guy, just like everyone wants. I mean, is that soon enough for everyone? He gets to be Earth's "Beacon Of Hope", but he had to earn it once and for all by publicly saving the world from an impossible threat like Doomsday. That's what finally proves he's a hero and not a menace, and why everyone who doubted him at the beginning of the movie loves him at the end. That's good! That makes sense to me and it's a good way of telling the story.

There's a hundred other things I like that I can and will go into in detail later on, but this is long enough for now. But again, it seems like most of people's "problems" with MoS are fundamentally rooted in how "different" they are from what they themselves expect, and I'm pointing out how "different" in this case doesn't by default mean "bad", because in this case "different" is simply updating and condensing what came before many, many times.

Once more, a lot of these are being represented in broader strokes, rather than literally re-created, but I think I've adequately explained some of what they've borrowed, how they've streamlined it, and why it fits together. Meanwhile, I'll further point out that "Tone" is largely a matter of personal taste, and wishing a movie had a different tone is more a matter of opinion and hardly reflects upon the quality of the film itself. It's neither right or wrong; I'd personally argue that the tone they're going with so far, is appropriate for the particular stories they're telling.