Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice - Ultimate Edition

The theatrical release of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice didn't have scenes in the traditional sense. Information was rationed out in condensed, discordant blips that sat awkwardly in the assembly. Story didn't develop naturally, people and identities came and went as the action demanded, and no-one but Ben Affleck's Batman was allowed a distinct point-of-view. This had the cumulative effect of saddling the caped crusader with the role of the protagonist, a job that the character, as presented here, couldn't shoulder without seriously unbalancing the film.

Dawn of Justice's Batman is reactionary and paranoid, a man dealing with survivor's guilt by putting himself on a collision course with an alien who dwells in the sky. The cinema release did such a poor job of communicating the virtues of Henry Cavill's Superman that the film couldn't help but fall in line with Bruce Wayne's blinkered world view. There was no alternative. Worse still, his mission, the film's backbone, is founded on misinformation planted by Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor. Batman wasn't even the master of his own destiny.

Action films demand heroes that express individuality, it's their defining trait. They're going against the grain, betting everything they have on their ability to succeed. Action films, and the hero myths they are descended from, are a way in which human culture expresses the desire to be special, to be unique and lauded amongst your peers. By founding Batman's goal on a willingness to be manipulated so thoroughly, the filmmakers abdicated Wayne's prime positioning. They'd made him appear weak just to twist the knife. Power does not reside with this Batman. He's old and misguided, tragic even.

Lex Luthor then is crowbarred into an authority role that the film doesn't account for. Lex is a cipher, a colourful Google era recontextualisation of Superman's stock, big business bad guy. He isn't supposed to drive the film, he's an irritant. In the theatrical cut of Batman v Superman, Luthor gloating is the most powerful moment in the whole piece, it up-ends assumptions and throws everything into chaos. In this Ultimate Edition it's nothing. The weight of the revelation matters less because we already have another character bearing narrative weight - Superman.

The seismic shift in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice - Ultimate Edition is that it embraces a perspective other than Batman's. The snipped, unforgiving progression of the theatrical cut framed everything through the prism of Bruce Wayne. His ideas and opinions stood unopposed. The Ultimate Edition corrects this mania by apportioning credible dramatic space to Clark Kent. We watch Kent running down inconclusive leads in the rain, we see him ringing his mother at some ungodly hour just to hear the voice of another person who loved his father.

Theatrical Superman plays solely into his omnipotent powers - he was everywhere he needed to be, armed with an opinion. He wasn't a person, he was an obstacle. Ultimate Superman we discover isn't really Superman at all, he's a different expression of Clark Kent. Ultimate's biggest addition is the clarification that the Kent persona isn't just a disguise or a hobby for this stranded God (think Hellenic, rather than just Judeo-Christian), it's the true expression of the man. He wants to be good, to make his Dad proud. He also cares about journalism as something beyond access and the opportunity to hang out with his girlfriend.

This new context works two-fold, it reveals Clark Kent's character and clarifies the abject horror of the news media he navigates. Clark is presented as a man out of time, a reporter chasing a genuine scoop in era of cut-and-paste copy. He's also a Superman coping with a 24 hour news cycle that is happy to skew spiteful when it finds itself starving for content. Toxic talking heads were all over the big screen release, but it's the contrast that Kent's scenes now provide that makes plain their presence beyond a glib The Dark Knight Returns callback.

In Zack Snyder's longer cut Superman is pitted relentlessly against apathy and outright bigotry. Mankind is portrayed as teetering on the edge of damnation, a people motivated by small, petty emotions that appeal to their inherent hate. Personal prejudice rules; facts and data a distant consideration. In this milieu, Affleck's Batman is finally allowed to assume the position he was always designed for - he's the antagonist, the ultimate, mechanised expression of reactionary political posturing. Removed from the responsibilities of the leading man, it's fun to watch a Batman so damaged that he's happy to move on convenient truths and outright lies. Simply, he's scared.

Although the theatrical cut's laser focus on Batman hobbled the film, you can understand the intention - Affleck and Jeremy Irons both give magnetic performances, not to mention The Dark Knight's proven, recent, track record on film - but it's Superman's story that has a satisfying, evolving arc. We discover the person behind the divine image. Comparatively, Batman is stationary, simmering in his juices. The cinema release masked David S Goyer and Chris Terrio's rehabilitation of a character that, in Man of Steel, registered as acutely selfish. This Ultimate Edition leaves us in no doubt that Clark Kent is this being's core identity. He wants to hold down a job and spend his life loving and looking after Amy Adams' Lois Lane.

The Superman persona then is something truly distinct, and perhaps even unwanted. It's a role that Kent assumes not out of joy or even necessity, but out of guilt. He knows he can help. The confrontation with Batman isn't motivated by the hypocritical urge to tidy away the human vigilante, the greater detail here points to a Superman that is alarmed by a man who doesn't even try to understand the consequences of his actions. In that respect, Batman becomes a personification of all this film's oozing, capricious humanity. Bruce Wayne is oblivious and indulgent, filled with certainty and acting without any thought or consideration for what Superman brings to the world.

When Lex cajoles Superman into confronting Batman, the Man of Steel is being given the opportunity to pummel an avatar for a society that wilfully misunderstands and rejects him. Clark has been given every reason in the world to cut loose and obliterate this fallen Batman, his decision not to is critical. In this moment we understand the two distinct headspaces that have tracked naturally to this crisis point. Goyer and Terrio have worked hard to place these two American icons in a situation that demands they try to murder each other. Thanks to the Ultimate Edition's additions though, the context has changed completely.

Batman v Superman is no longer a pro wrestling dream match, it's a misanthropic suicide pact between two broken idols, disgusted by the world that surrounds them (see also - Optimus Prime in Transformers: Age of Extinction). This viewing, when Batman intones "You were never a God, you were never even a man." he might as well be talking to himself. He knows he's gone too far, he's working against his mission, betraying his vow to Gotham and his dead parents to appease his bruised ego. By apportioning equal time and motivation to Superman we get a fresh perspective on a Batman desperate to be swept up and saved.

The film now naturally acquires the despairing emotional sweep that the theatrical edition merely assumed. The much derided Martha moment plays less like a grinding gear change and more like a moment of divine inspiration striking at the core of Bruce. We've just watched Superman pull his punches. He didn't burn Batman down or twist his head off, Clark instead fought to halt. These actions clearly demonstrate Superman's capacity for selflessness and decency, any lingering doubts about Man of Steel's man-child are erased. We absolutely do not want to see this Superman killed by a Batman so lost that he has convinced himself that pulling the sun out of the sky is the right thing to do.

The deletion of Superman's path to this fight robbed Batman v Superman of its sense of tragedy. Martha Kent's rescue is not only the film's emotional climax now, it's the moment a bitter enemy redeems himself, finding purpose working alongside an altruistic superhuman whose last thoughts were of his mother. The chivalrous, Arthurian imagery present in the superfluous CG crescendo that closes the film has been given purchase in something other than an Excalibur poster outside the Wayne family's death cinema. They're the model for future films - Knights without countries finding common cause fighting for the ideals of a God that died for his adopted planet. Batman's promised Justice League seems less like an economic imperative and more like a logical progression from the moment an alien made Bruce Wayne feel small then ashamed.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice proposes confrontation. Given the title you might expect an extended, ideological clash between a God that has fallen to Earth and a man who has transformed himself into a monster. The tension between the two is crystal clear. One combatant has spent decades honing his mind and body, burning down every connection and relationship that didn't track into his all-consuming mission. The other is all-powerful simply because of a yellow battery that hangs above him.

Frank Miller, Lynn Varley and Klaus Janson's The Dark Knight Returns should be the key text here. It's alluded to incessantly. Panels are reproduced, lines from the comic and its sequel The Dark Knight Strikes Again are quoted verbatim, but it's all lip-service. Screenwriters Chris Terrio and David S Goyer ignore either comics' nihilistic principles, arriving at a scenario about two corporate properties that have stumbled into each other's realms leaden with excuses. Neither Batman nor Superman is allowed to be truly insane, their passions are incessantly explained and organised until there is no room for a real conceptual leap.

This obsessive micro-management unbalances any sense of dramatic drive and weakens both characters. They aren't allowed to conceive their own motors, both of the superheroes are explicitly being manipulated. Ben Affleck's seething Batman does at least play with the aesthetics of damage, he looms silently like the Alien and sears his mark into sex criminals. We're given a taste of Frank Miller and Darren Aronofsky's abandoned Batman: Year One film project - a psychotic Bruce Wayne completely lost in his misery, lashing out - before everybody gets cold feet and we're treated to successive instances of the fantastical reaching out to Batman, condoning his holy crusade against the sky.

It's too much. Zack Snyder's film is choked with this kind of exposition, the same points reiterated over and over until we're all assured that everybody is acting in a way that will do no permanent harm to the brand. Dawn of Justice is a roadshow length hand wave, it reeks of compromise. It's clear Snyder wants to wring maximum violence out of his toys, the director using an Avengers moment to hurl DC's Trinity into their very own apocalypse. Snyder is reaching for sturm und drang - Batman armed with M60 machine-guns, exterminating lawbreakers - but ends up with something that isn't even as venomous as either Tim Burton's Batman or Batman Returns.

Dawn of Justice mishandles its own central conceit to such a degree that all the accumulated animosity is instantly washed away once the two sad little boys learn their mothers share common ground. It's like they were never even at odds. The film can't wait to race away from the truly wonderful idea of a puny human sealing himself inside a metal coffin to collide with a bullet proof deity just so it can segue into another impersonal animatic featuring a pug-faced troll.

Zack Snyder's film wants so very badly to be the vulgar, all-consuming nightmare at the end of the superhero trend, the third Miracleman trade plucked apart and reassembled alongside stray pages from Walter Simonson's contribution to Batman Black and White; Frank Miller in tow, punching up the dialogue. Unfortunately, it's stuck being the launch platform for all of Warner Bros' future summers. Dawn of Justice then is an uneven product perched upon shaky architecture that thinks it can wash itself in a hundred million dollars worth of pulverised concrete and come up smelling important.

Is it a Birdy?

 Zack Snyder talking about the anime series that informed Man of Steel.

"I've seen a few episodes of Dragon Ball. I know it's a major work of anime, and that it has suitably huge-scale battles depicted beautifully. (However) there's another anime I've forgotten the name of, where loads of city buildings gets destroyed. I know there are loads of such scenes in anime, but this one in particular is possibly like Man of Steel. I'm sure it's a TV series. In the US it's called Birdy the Mighty. The city battles scenes in it are so good, they have a huge impact. Also, because in Man of Steel the fighting is mostly one-on-one hand-to-hand stuff, rather than in, say, The Avengers where they're fighting a huge force, the movie's much more like the fantastic style of anime than other movies."

 Article extract and video via NeoGaf.

Man of Steel

As a character conceived during the Great Depression you would think it notable, perhaps even timely, to reconsider Superman during a double-dip recession. The Golden Age mint of the character was a social equaliser, his early strips focused on kitchen sink scenarios in which the hero featured as an avatar for justice and basic human decency. In contrast Man of Steel presents Superman as a couch surfing millennial, an unactualised ditherer who uses his abilities in passive aggressive explosions.

David S Goyer attempts to recontextualise Superman as a lonely drifter scared to use his powers openly. This kind of indecision works for a character like Wolverine, a tainted hero with powers based on damage and people shredding violence. You can understand why Wolverine shuns situations that get his blood up. Transpose Superman into these scenarios though and he just plays as weak. The most powerful thing on the planet should not have a confidence issue, he doesn't need to refuse the call. It's disingenuous.

Human sympathy aligns with Superman when his problems are more broadly existential - his alien otherness, or his ability to match the ideals his fathers gift him. Keep him under a bridge while the man he loves most in the world is swept away and you make him seem cowardly. Include that event in a story where he never carries that pain forward into regret and you undermine your character and thesis. Man of Steel is not a carefully considered alternative take on the mythology of Superman, it's pop contrariness with zero follow through. Superman tweaked in ways antithetical to his appeal to track with a studio's idea of their target demographic. 

After the thoroughly shitty Green Lantern, it's disappointing to see Warner Bros once again overlook the key thematic appeal of their most popular movie superhero. Being Batman is Bruce Wayne's drive. His indecision is wrapped up in the execution and his longevity rather than the initial leap. His agenda is unshakably to fight crime. In Batman Begins, Wayne travelled the globe to hone and temper his resolve. Man of Steel makes Clark's journey a surface level identity crisis, resolved through expositions dumps and lifeless talking heads written like essay bullet points.

The uselessness of this Clark Kent is especially apparent when compared to a character like Faora, General Zod's right-hand woman. Unlike Kal-El, and even a Zod prone to face creasing tantrums, Faora is centred and comfortable. She has instantly adapted to her new environment, able to channel her Kryptonian martial arts into a super fighting style heavily indebted to Dragon Ball Z. She's exactly the kind of ideological opposite this film needs. She can control her powers, but doesn't want to. Her movements are precise and directed where Kal and Zod are flailing. She's the strong, silent answer to Kal's repression. Why then did the filmmakers return to Zod when they could have built the film around the fascistic allure of a beautiful Kryptonian equal who behaves like an Israeli commando? As a hook it beats the barely explored eugenics tension set up during this film's (admittedly fantastic) Heavy Metal Krypton prologue.

The real tragedy of Man of Steel is that, like Prometheus, the film is stuffed full of interesting design work made rootless by an indifferent script. The Krypton sequence is Moebius' Arzach escaping from Alejandro Jodorowsky and Juan Gimenez's Metabarons. Zod and his men are outfitted with Giger muscle suits that look like they've been carved out of prehistoric bones. Each action sequence has a distinct identity and genre through-line. The first act, featuring a slugger Jor-El, is basically the action heavy first episode of Bruce Timm's Superman: The Animated Series by way of Dune. A small town throw-down is blocked like an Akira Toriyama fight comic, and the Metropolis toppling finale has visual flourishes mined from Akira, Miracleman, and the animated adaptation of The Dark Knight Returns. Man of Steel's action moments are steeped in these kind of clashing, discordant influences - a comic artist's reference shelf nabbed at random then hammered together around the hollow, infuriating, tale of two losers putting lumps on each other.