Pattinson/Reeves Batman Movie (Formerly Affleck Stand-Alone Film)

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by Redeemer

In the Nolan films they explicitly say Batman refuses to kill. I cannot recall an incident where he killed someone directly. The closest thing was him not saving Ra's Al'ghul. Thats all I can think of.

As far as the comment I must admit that you are more knowledgeable from the sounds of it. From what I read Batman only used guns during his golden age and I believe in infinite crises ounce as well. Correct me if I am wrong with a specific issue please.

As far as Batman v Superman I thought/ believed it was a loose adaptation of Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller. Is there a specific arc that the movie is based off besides this or are you simply saying the tone of character is simply being used from this period??

Also I actually have no problem with Snyder's Superman. I thought MoS was an interesting movie, but I am simply not a super-man fan.
Also I was not born in the 80's so yeah I didn't read that run of Batman

My sole point was that I thought Batman v Superman was suppose to be adaptation of Dark Knight returns, but I didn't think it was a good adaptation.

Kappa and I have been thoroughly discussing the many, MANY people who died at Bruce's hands in the Nolan films. Scroll up for greater details.

- Re: Batman's use of guns, it varies with the writer, but it happens (although he never actually pulls the trigger anymore). One pretty big example was the "Year Two: Night of the Reaper" storyline from the 1980s, where Batman not only kept the gun Joe Chill used to kill his parents, but had every intention of using it to kill the murderous Reaper vigilante who was terrorizing Gotham City. He'd failed to beat Reaper in a "fair" fight, and had decided to kill him as the only means of ending his reign of terror and stop the bloodshed. He didn't get the chance in the end, but he had every intention. Its status as "canon" comes and goes, but it was Definitely Canon for over ten years before anyone at Editorial ever challenged it.

- I wouldn't claim that anything Snyder did with his DC movies was a straight "adaptation"; more like "An Amalgamation, Heavily Inspired By Certain Works." Obviously DKR is the most direct influence, but even there, they really only kept the armored costume and some of the fight scene. Which I thought was wise, because as I've said, I don't think DKR is actually a very good story, but PARTS of it are good.

As a "straight" adaptation, it falls way short, but again, like with the other, "Death of Superman" angle, they weren't so much trying to "adapt" as much as tie threads from several stories into one different story. As far as what bits came from where in MoS and BvS, here's a few:

- Violent Nihilist Batman was borrowed from "A Lonely Place Of Dying", which illustrated that after the death of Robin, Bruce Wayne was a bit of a loose cannon who'd devolved into hurting "bad guys" for kicks and abandoned any pretense of making the world a better place. He just wanted to Hurt People.

- Batman and Superman having a confrontational relationship was taken from an issue of Byrne's "Man Of Steel" mini-series, where upon their first meeting Superman views Batman as a dangerous vigilante who needs to be brought to justice, and Batman views Superman as a dangerous alien who could end up doing more harm than good. This was the status of their relationship in the comics from 1986 through Superman's death in 1992; along the way, although they'd worked together often, they didn't really get along and Batman never fully trusted Superman. Batman also occasionally slurs Superman as "Alien" or "The Alien" if he's annoyed with him. Batman's kind of a jerk.

- It wasn't until Superman's death that Batman fully came to appreciate what he'd meant to the world, and also, that he'd somehow become his Best Friend along the way.

- The Death Of Superman happened entirely differently in the comics, so again, not much of an "adaptation", but the film was essentially furthering the narrative of Kal-El as "Space Jesus" and used his death as the crux of that: To wit, it took Jesus dying on the cross as "proof" that even if he wasn't "divine", he was a Good Guy who really did just want to help people. The film framed Superman's sacrifice in the same way; the world hated and feared him SO much (after seeing Zod and how dangerous Kryptonians can be, who could blame them?), that the only way for him to truly become a hero in their eyes was if he was willing to selflessly die for them. So it had a different framing, but it got the point across. In the comics, everyone already loved him, so aside from everyone being kinda sad for a little while when he died, not a whole lot was impacted.

- Like the film, in the comics Bruce used Superman's sacrifice as inspiration to become a better human being. He went and got his back broken by Bane 5 minutes later, but it still counts.

- Superman has killed Zod at least twice in the comics, although it's different every time they tell it. It's generally always the same, though: Zod promises to murder the entire world, and Superman kills him because what else is he gonna do? Once it was Kryptonite, once he "accidentally" broke Zod's neck. Either way, "Superman kills Zod because he's Just Too Dangerous" is consistently canon even when the details change.

- The Krypton of MoS was actually a very smooth amalgamation of the "classic, Silver Age" Krypton of the 1950s and 60s comics, updated with the costuming of Mike Turner's 2004 run on the Superman books. Specifically the "armor" that some of the characters wear.

- The Darkseid foreshadowing, and the fact that the world was a "dark" one with no "heroes" was cribbed from much of the New Gods stuff, including "Final Crisis". Specifically, Darkseid can only manifest on a world without Light or Hope, which is why MoS and BvS were so "dark"; Darkseid was supposed to be the next Big Bad (Steppenwolf being only his herald), and that's why Superman's death was the Siren Song that led him to Earth, which was now unprotected.

There's lots of other things that went into the "soup", but again, these weren't story ideas that Snyder pulled out of the ether. Every single thing in MoS and BvS has its origin on the printed page, and much of peoples' criticism simply comes from the fact that they haven't read those stories. No, none of them were word-for-word, note-for-note "adaptations" of those stories, but they did keep all of the important thematic parts, making them faithful in what some refer to as "the spiritual sense".

I don't expect people to be familiar with things they haven't read, but I WOULD expect them to maybe factor that kind of thing in when they form an opinion. As you said, you felt that BvS was not a good "adaptation" of DKR, and on that I would agree with you, because it only used tiny slivers of DKR in service to a completely different story. It wasn't a good "adaptation" of Death of Superman, either. BUT, I would argue that it did a good job of weaving several disparate threads into an altogether unique story, which IS what it was trying to do.

And that's the thing. Judging things for what they ARE trying to do, rather than what they WEREN'T trying to do, is an important distinction to make when passing judgment. But in any case, anyone saying "Zack Snyder doesn't understand the material" is lying, and those people simply haven't read the comics that were used as inspiration for the films. It'd be like me saying the MCU "Captain Marvel" movie "misunderstands" or "gets wrong" the character. I've never read a single comic of hers, so all I can say is whether or not the movie entertained me (and I haven't seen it, I'm just making a point). That's ALL I would be qualified to say. I'd be punching way above my weight class to say things like they "didn't get" the character, and to be willing to fight people for that opinion.

If you'd like to discuss more I'd happily chat more about it in private, as these at-length conversations don't really have much to do with the specific thread topic. But yeah, in summation, those movies might not resonate with people who are primarily fans of, I don't know, other Superman or Batman films, or the Justice League cartoons... but if you read comics between 1985 and 1995 (or even 2005!), there's nothing foreign, improper, or "incorrect" about any of it. But if someone didn't read the books, then how would they know? I get that. I'm just saying, there's a lot of projection and presumption happening on the part of the audience, and a lot of it is annoyingly selective.

Anyways, feel free to hit me up if you want to talk about this stuff in greater detail.
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Kappa: Ohhhhh, THAT game. I have it, but haven't played it yet. I have heard nothing but terrible, terrible things.