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Batman v Superman Ultimate Cut |OT| - Men are still good (out now)

Chiggs

Member
We should do a poll to find out how many people on GAF hate this movie (UE), but consider Alien 3's DC to be good.

Admittedly, this serves no purpose, save for sheer amusement.
 

Ashhong

Member
It's a callback to 911. Some people didn't abandon the buildings until ordered in fear for their jobs.

I don't think that was exactly it.

People don't know how to react or where to go when shit goes down. Running out onto the streets is not always the best idea. Sometimes people get scared and don't act until told.
 
Eh, okay? Their loss.

Probably true. I skipped it in theaters and just finished this version 30 minutes ago. The fact that people are saying it's a pretty big improvement means I world absolutely hate what was shown in theaters. I imagine people who sat through 2.5 hours of a movie they dislike won't sit through a 3 hour extended version of it.
 
The change is superman appears. Literally. It's the entire premise put forth in suicide squads trailer. The dcu is all about how Clark is the catalyst for escalation. The red capes are coming.

That makes no sense. We're talking about Batman as a character changing, which was implied to have taken place BEFORE Superman's arrival and war. Superman doesn't make Batman more brutal, sadistic, etc.

You sure you read the countering points carefully? Because you seem to have a habit of shifting the goalposts to justify points when they aren't even relevant to the whole discussion.

what is a 'good bunch of people'? It's not like we're dealing in hard numbers or majority rules here. There's some people who are 'unsure' enough to spray paint a statue and there's enough people who feel the other way to have a statue erected in the first place.

There's not really anything there to support the idea that the world at large would reject the notion of
honoring the super powered being that just sacrificed himself to save them
.

I was thinking 50/50 split based on what the movie presented, but I wasn't too sure given that it's hard to quantify as you mentioned. The problem I have is that Snyder doesn't give enough build up, nor show how the public perception has changed from what he originally presents. The 50/50 split ends up being 100% respect during his funeral with no development for the negative crowd.

As for your point about rejecting the notion, I would argue that they would. People have made complaints about how much power Superman represents and how it's unsettling (not to mention the Westboro parallels when some crowds had "God Hates Aliens" and "Earth Belongs to Humans"). With that hate messaging in mind, it's not out of the ordinary to expect people to be satisfied with
his death
.
 

Alienous

Member
That Tom, or Stan guy? The religious dude who goes down with the building - they should have made that character Lucius.

For one, in the theatrical release, I was so distracted by trying to figure out who the character was - "What is Bruce saying? Dad? That can't be it? Chad? Who?". After the TDK trilogy, just make that character Lucius - then you can have the audience connect with the death in a similar way to how Bruce would. Obviously don't cast Morgan Freeman, but have Lucius.
 

Ashhong

Member
What bait? I asked you to prove a point and now you deflect. What a childish maneuver. If you can't prove that he fetishizes violence in his work other than quoting monty python, why even bring it up?

Still laughing you think mcu using "tactics" isn't fetishization with the aforementioned terrorist gun.

I think you and veelk are thinking of different things. Snyder fetishizes violence and Marvek glorifies it in their own way. Two different words


That makes no sense. We're talking about Batman as a character changing, which was implied to have taken place BEFORE Superman's arrival and war. Superman doesn't make Batman more brutal, sadistic, etc.

You sure you read the countering points carefully? Because you seem to have a habit of shifting the goalposts to justify points when they aren't even relevant to the whole discussion.



I was thinking 50/50 split based on what the movie presented, but I wasn't too sure given that it's hard to quantify as you mentioned. The problem I have is that Snyder doesn't give enough build up, nor show how the public perception has changed from what he originally presents. The 50/50 split ends up being 100% respect during his funeral with no development for the negative crowd.

As for your point about rejecting the notion, I would argue that they would. People have made complaints about how much power Superman represents and how it's unsettling (not to mention the Westboro parallels when some crowds had "God Hates Aliens" and "Earth Belongs to Humans"). With that hate messaging in mind, it's not out of the ordinary to expect people to be satisfied with
his death
.

This is absolutely not true. Batman changes after Superman comes and is mentioned multiple times in the movie. Alfred throws down the newspaper of his branding and says "new rules now?" or something along those lines, to which he replies "we were always criminals". His change is recent.
 

Veelk

Banned
What bait? I asked you to prove a point and now you deflect. What a childish maneuver. If you can't prove that he fetishizes violence in his work other than quoting monty python, why even bring it up?

Because it's not something we dig deep to prove. It's present in nearly every one of his films, and in BvS, there are numerous depictions of it without it being called for it. Watching the UC now, you had any number of hundreds of ways to establish that you are in a underground event for criminals. They decide to open it with a fight between some random white guy vs some random black guy, which is the one Bruce bet on and won. Violence is very much Snyder's thing. It's not even a bad thing, but it is what it is.

It's like asking to prove he has an excessive focus on violence is like asking for evidence of excessive slowmo in 300. It's fucking everywhere, and if you can't see it, you're either being intellectually dishonest or this is one of those debates where I have to explain every miniscule point with a goddamn dragon's horde of evidence because anything less is used to discredit the whole argument. The same way my disengagement of you is taken as admitted defeat, even though there is no real connection there.

If you are questioning something as axiomatic as Snyder's penchant for violence, then that's a clear sign this is will be a far deeper rabbit hole than I am willing to go down. No, thank you.

I think you and veelk are thinking of different things. Snyder fetishizes violence and Marvek glorifies it in their own way. Two different words

I...guess that's an acceptable label for what Marvel does.

Marvel sometimes makes the violence fun, but I would say it stylizes it more often. Like, the hulk vs ironman fight is a good example. It's a pretty serious situation overall, hulk seriously gone rampant and him terrifying the citizens of the city. That said, Tony is a guy who jokes all the time, and I think it's often lost on people that the purpose of the jokes is often to keep his own shit calm. He's visibly concerned for both his safety and the safety of others while he fights off Hulk, but he'll still frame it in a humorous way because that's just how he copes with shit.

So what is it then? It's a fight scene that is well shot with action choreography that is both chaotic (tony keeps wanting to take Hulk out of the city, which isn't happening) and systematic (the progression of Tony's armor and abilities), serious, but still having a nervous kind of fun with itself because it's two big superheroes fighting....some say it doesn't know what it wants to be, but I would say that it does and it's just a lot of things at once, so it defies easy classification.

Part of it is the glory of seeing two heroes go up against one another, but another part is also kind of ugly at seeing one guy trying desperately to hold his maddened friend back from hurting anyone and trying not to die in the process.

So...sure, there is glory in it. But there is also more than that.
 
It was a good thing to keep it understated imo. Not a bad way to bring in a new Batman either since everyone is already familiar with the character. After all, he was the most praised part of the film next to Wonder Woman... Even most who didn't like the film liked Batman.

I think it depends on the writing and type of characterization that one is aiming for. If you're starting with a character that already appears to exist in the shared universe, then I think it's important to provide some context.
 

Dahbomb

Member
That makes no sense. We're talking about Batman as a character changing, which was implied to have taken place BEFORE Superman's arrival and war. Superman doesn't make Batman more brutal, sadistic, etc.
Alfred implies it pretty heavily.

He calls out Bruce on his bat branding to which Bruce says "nothing has changed, put one in more take their place" something like that. To which Alfred replies "oh but it has changed" and points at Superman and gives him the speech about gods, feeling of powerlessness and how men turn cruel when they are faced with something like that (talking clearly to Bruce as he even looks at him as he says the word cruel).

Since Superman came and the demolishing of Metropolis happened, Batman has become more ruthless than before in his pursuit to find a way to beat Superman. All of Batman's acts in the movie were to that end goal. Hell even the civilians of Gotham were getting the feeling that something has changed and that Batman is "on the hunt".
 

Ashhong

Member
That Tom, or Stan guy? The religious dude who goes down with the building - they should have made that character Lucius.

For one, in the theatrical release, I was so distracted by trying to figure out who the character was - "What is Bruce saying? Dad? That can't be it? Chad? Who?". After the TDK trilogy, just make that character Lucius - then you can have the audience connect with the death in a similar way to how Bruce would. Obviously don't cast Morgan Freeman, but have Lucius.

Why? Then you would have people complaining about how Snyder killed yet another character just for fun
 

Alienous

Member
Why? Then you would have people complaining about how Snyder killed yet another character just for fun

That wouldn't be for fun, that would be for a reason. Character motivation. Audience connection.

The complaints regarding Jimmy Olsen are because of the senselessness of it.
 
That Tom, or Stan guy? The religious dude who goes down with the building - they should have made that character Lucius.

For one, in the theatrical release, I was so distracted by trying to figure out who the character was "What is Bruce saying? Dad? That can't be it? Chad? Who?". After TDK trilogy, just make that character Lucius - then you can have the audience connect with the death in a similar way to how Bruce would. Obviously don't cast Morgan Freeman, but have Lucius.

On some level I believe they didn't want to close the door on important Batman characters. Lucius would've been a good candidate instead of Jack. But say they wanted Lucius in the solo Batman film. They were in the process of figuring it out.

It's weird how Flash is only Flash in BvS, Robin is only Robin, and Gordon isn't mentioned once. Some rumors claimed Gordon is dead in BvS. We know he's alive and in Justice League, but at a point perhaps he was. Because they never committed one way or the other, they're afforded the option to take another path. Even the identity of the dead Robin wasn't revealed until weeks after the theatrical release.
 
Whelp I've just finished it. It's 2:30am in the morning and I'm about going to bed and would like to say me and my whole family loved it; they didn't want to stop the movie midway to go to bed, but wanted to finished it.
 
This is absolutely not true. Batman changes after Superman comes and is mentioned multiple times in the movie. Alfred throws down the newspaper of his branding and says "new rules now?" or something along those lines, to which he replies "we were always criminals". His change is recent.

- "Not today. Twenty years in Gotham, Alfred; we've seen what promises are worth. How many good guys are left? How many stayed that way?"

Not to mention he keeps a defiled Robin suit likely reminding him of what he's lost in his career. All Superman's arrival does is spark him into action to stop him from causing more damage (there are many references to Superman being about what Bruce does with his legacy), but it's implied that he was already changed.
 

Veelk

Banned
- "Not today. Twenty years in Gotham, Alfred; we've seen what promises are worth. How many good guys are left? How many stayed that way?"

Not to mention he keeps a defiled Robin suit likely reminding him of what he's lost in his career. All Superman's arrival does is spark him into action to stop him from causing more damage (there are many references to Superman being about what Bruce does with his legacy), but it's implied that he was already changed.

I just got to that part of the movie. Again, it shows how even when it's implied that things were 'better', it's hard to see that when Bruce only focus on the terrible aspects.

Had the paint been scrubbed off, we might thought "Oh, he's thinking of the partner he lost". But with the paint, he's thinking of the event in which he lost his partner. That's a subtle difference maybe, but it's a significant one. A clean suit implies he cherishes the person. The defiled one implies he remembers only the tragedy. And it's a small thing, I admit that, but it would serve as a nice, small contrast to think this miserable bastard had any happy days in his life, where he wasn't what he is now.
 

Alienous

Member
Is BvS a 2.5 hour movie, a 3 hour movie, or a 5.5 hour movie?

I'm wondering, does the story even really work without having seen Man of Steel? Thinking about it, I'm not so sure how much of an isolated story it is from that.

I'm thinking Snyder might want to look into episodic television.
 

Dahbomb

Member
Is BvS a 2.5 hour movie, a 3 hour movie, or a 5.5 hour movie?

I'm wondering, does the story even really work without having seen Man of Steel? Thinking about it, I'm not so sure how much of an isolated story it is from that.
This is a silly statement to make.

For one, yes BvS works as a standalone movie. What you need to know from MoS that relates to BvS happens in the first 15 minutes of the movie. Destruction happens at the hands of Superman vs the Kryptonians which is the catalyst for the events in BvS... that's all you need from MoS.

It's no more of a requirement than watching 5 different movies before watching Civil War. No one is going to claim that Civil War is really a 20 hour movie.
 
There are is a lot of convoluted and muddy story telling in this movie, the idea that Bruce watches his friends die due to this "war" that he perceives Superman bringing to earth causing a change in him is not one of them. It's like plain as day, with the way the movie opens, the whole 18 months later, Alfred's remarks....do you want them to just spell it out for you?
 

Alienous

Member
This is a silly statement to make.

For one, yes BvS works as a standalone movie. What you need to know from MoS that relates to BvS happens in the first 15 minutes of the movie. Destruction happens at the hands of Superman vs the Kryptonians which is the catalyst for the events in BvS... that's all you need from MoS.

It's no more of a requirement than watching 5 different movies before watching Civil War. No one is going to claim that Civil War is really a 20 hour movie.

I suppose. My thinking is moreso how much stuff do you need to see in order to pull together the plot of BvS. It seems like the extra 30 minutes really did aid the comprehension of the plot, and I'm sure seeing Man of Steel must have a similar impact. So I'm wondering, if you went in to see the 2.5 hour theatrical release without having seen Man of Steel, how much that would impact the sense you can make of the muddled narrative.

But you're right, the 5.5 hour thing isn't fair.
 

Dahbomb

Member
There are is a lot of convoluted and muddy story telling in this movie, the idea that Bruce watches his friends die due to this "war" that he perceives Superman bringing to earth causing a change in him is not one of them. It's like plain as day, with the way the movie opens, the whole 18 months later, Alfred's remarks....do you want them to just spell it out for you?
This concept is only convoluted because the person in question who is going through this is Batman... not someone like Lex Luthor.

If you replaced the opening scene with Lex Luthor then not a single person would talk about it and in fact praise the fact that Lex actually has some motivation to take on Superman (when currently he has shaky motivation).

As it stands the movie paints Batman as a person blinded by rage and guilt who is so blinded that he allows himself to be thoroughly manipulated by Lex. Most people hold Batman in higher intellectual and emotional regard than that so it's hard for them to believe that Batman would go through a character arc like that when it's completely believable for someone like Lex to go through the same (minus being manipulated by someone else).


So I'm wondering, if you went in to see the 2.5 hour theatrical release without having seen Man of Steel, how much that would impact the sense you can make of the muddled narrative.
Well the plot was only muddled in the theatrical cut, in the Ultimate cut it's all much clearer. The stuff that is muddled are the JL tie-in and the dream/Knightmare sequences that don't lead to anywhere in this movie and are just build up for future movies... stuff that is related to this movie is relatively straightforward as presented in the UC.
 

Veelk

Banned
The bigger issue of the opening is the utter lack of characterization his 'friends' are given.

Lots of stories do the "Here is the protagonists friend in the first scene, but, oh wait, he's dead." thing that affects them. It's a difficult thing to pull off well, so they usually do something that makes them memorable in some way to show that the protagonist remembers them. One immediate example that comes to mind is Firefly. I haven't seen the show in years, but I still remember why Malcom remembers the random kid that died. He gave him the "We're too handsome to die" speech. And he basically died at the moment he realized there was no help coming. He just stood up, looked on the battlefield, while a stray bullet kills the kid he literally just told a second ago was going to die.

Do you know who Jack is? Neither do I. He said a quick hail mary before the building collapsed on him, that's pretty much it. Bruce's only words to the guy were "Jack? Listen to me. I want you to get everyone out of the building, right now! You understand?!" And so he does that. He doesn't look like anything or anyone interesting. He doesn't have any interesting dialogue or good acting moments. I have no idea what their relationship is beyond 'friendly'. He is a generic ass character.

Which is a really bad mistake if he's the hinge upon which Bruce is supposed to begin his pivot to grimdark Batman. You want characters with actual...character, if they're going to affect the main protagonist to this extent.
 
This concept is only convoluted because the person in question who is going through this is Batman... not someone like Lex Luthor.

If you replaced the opening scene with Lex Luthor then not a single person would talk about it and in fact praise the fact that Lex actually has some motivation to take on Superman (when currently he has shaky motivation).

As it stands the movie paints Batman as a person blinded by rage and guilt who is so blinded that he allows himself to be thoroughly manipulated by Lex. Most people hold Batman in higher intellectual and emotional regard than that so it's hard for them to believe that Batman would go through a character arc like that when it's completely believable for someone like Lex to go through the same (minus being manipulated by someone else).

I guess I could see that, but I'm not arguing whether it's a good plot or not, just that it's pretty easy to follow. The movie literally opens with Bruce watching his friends/coworkers die, cut to **18 months later** (giving Bruce ample time to stew), cops are surprises that Batman is now "branding" criminals, Alfred expresses concern for Bruce's change...I mean, it's sort of all right there laid out pretty clearly. Like I said, I don't necessarily think Snyder nailed the execution by any means, but I find it hard to believe that it's that hard to follow.

The bigger issue of the opening is the utter lack of characterization his 'friends' are given.

Lots of stories do the "Here is the protagonists friend in the first scene, but, oh wait, he's dead." thing that affects them. It's a difficult thing to pull off well, so they usually do something that makes them memorable in some way to show that the protagonist remembers them. One immediate example that comes to mind is Firefly. I haven't seen the show in years, but I still remember why Malcom remembers the random kid that died. He gave him the "We're too handsome to die" speech. And he basically died at the moment he realized there was no help coming. He just stood up, looked on the battlefield, while a stray bullet kills the kid he literally just told a second ago was going to die.

Do you know who Jack is? Neither do I. He said a quick hail mary before the building collapsed on him, that's pretty much it. Bruce's only words to the guy were "Jack? Listen to me. I want you to get everyone out of the building, right now! You understand?!" And so he does that. He doesn't look like anything or anyone interesting. He doesn't have any interesting dialogue or good acting moments. I have no idea what their relationship is beyond 'friendly'. He is a generic ass character.

I agree with this. When the trailers first hit showing Bruce watching helplessly while the office building is destroyed, I speculated that maybe they were going to give Bruce a wife/girlfriend that is killed in the attacks, which would have really been a good impetus to draw him back out as a colder, more ruthless Batman, like old Bruce finally had found his happiness and had it taken away (again).
 
Bumped it up from a 5 to a 7 for me. I'm not enamored with the film overall for sure but there's still some stuff I quite liked about it.

First off this cut makes Lex out to be a better villain, there's a greater sense of him moving pieces on the board here and manipulating Clark, Bruce and the public behind the scenes. The Africa crap makes so much more sense with the few additional scenes for sure.

Superman seemed like an improvement to me, it's so small but just seeing him carry a body to a stretcher after the senate bombing (it's like 30 seconds) makes him seem way less detached than i thought he was prior to this movie. It's small things like that or calling his mom after he sees the news shit on him where I get a way better read on him as Superman trying to do the right thing as opposed to the robot flying god in Man of Steel and the theater cut of BvS. It's not really the "aww shucks" guy myself and many others want as Superman but it's still a pretty solid characterization in its own way tbh.

Knightmare scene was still a mistake. The youtube justice league placement was a glaring issue once again too.

Batman warehouse scene was fantastic action-wise, even more brutal though. I don't remember there being blood splatter from the guy's head when the crate hit him lmao. This batman is a psycho, i did not like that very much honestly. I still think the movie did a poor job explaining his psycho heel-turn here. Gotta shout out how PERFECT Batman's introduction is though. It was basically the David Fincher Batman I always wanted. The aura of the scene was very horror-like. Basically treated batman like the underworld's boogieman. World building in this movie is unmatched by any other superhero movie imo. When you got a crashed ship in metropolis and the indian ocean just hanging there with opportunists, nancy grace shitting on you, neil degrasse tyson and jon stewart going on spiels about it, people literally worshipping those with super powers etc. it all culminates in a world that seems more living and breathing than the mcu or any other comic book films have presented. it's only one movie but this dc universe feels so established already, sadly mired in so much cynicism in it's world lol but perhaps that will change in later films. surprisingly i think zack snyder really succeeded in setting the whole world up with this movie. hell i don't even think man of steel is necessary viewing anymore. just watch this to set the entire thing up since we got that metropolis scene anyways. plus outside of Zod and clark's parents MoS kinda sucks.

All the power to them if they want to make a 3 hour superhero epic (there's been like 40 superhero movies in the past 5 years, there's room for like one epic every few years i guess), but personally I think the longer it is you better give it some decent levity. You can call this movie competent now, and at times actually quite good imo but it definitely aint that fun to watch. It's a damn slog. I'm not asking for Whedon overkill but there should be some balance. Akin to Dofp or Civil War for instance.

I am more impressed with this movie than the other comic films this year but overall I still think Civil War is better. This needed some levity to keep the film from feeling so damn long. And also there's some characterization and plot decisions and inconsistencies that i just can't fuck with.

edit: this is already gleamed from the theatrical version but yeah i think the soundtrack and cinematography is quite good. like him or hate him snyder has always been one of the best at iconography.
 
Batman warehouse scene was fantastic action-wise, even more brutal though. I don't remember there being blood splatter from the guy's head when the crate hit him lmao. This batman is a psycho, i did not like that very much honestly. I still think the movie did a poor job explaining his psycho heel-turn here. Gotta shout out how PERFECT Batman's introduction is though. It was basically the David Fincher Batman I always wanted. The aura of the scene was very horror-like. Basically treated batman like the underworld's boogieman.

I want Ben Affleck's solo Batman flick to be exactly like that. Hope he's picked up some Fincher-esque tricks.
 
I really enjoy this movie. I know that a lot of people don't like how sadistic Batman/Bruce is in this film, but I like this animalistic, monstrous take on him. I think a lot of that is down to how Ben Affleck plays him versus the actual writing for the character. He gives off the vibe of being totally ground down and weary, but holding a monster at bay in a lot of the scenes.

Affleck's been going on about how his favorite Batman stories have been "detective ones" so if he puts his money where his mouth is it will be incredible.

MSuipGw.gif
 

Veelk

Banned
Just got to the Senator meeting scene.

Did Snyder not let Cavill act or something? I am sure he's perfectly capable of it, but holy shit, the wheelchair exploded, and Superman is just staring around with a "Well....this is awkward" face. The UC generally does do a better job of giving Superman a character arc, but holy shit, that's a bad moment.
 
Just got to the Senator meeting scene.

Did Snyder not let Cavill act or something? I am sure he's perfectly capable of it, but holy shit, the wheelchair exploded, and Superman is just staring around with a "Well....this is awkward" face. The UC generally does do a better job of giving Superman a character arc, but holy shit, that's a bad moment.

He's got a couple decent facial expressions in the next scene.

lol
 

Gleethor

Member
The tone and context of the entire senate scene is different once you know that Sen. Finch knows about Lex's scheme. Why did they cut that shit
 

Shaanyboi

Banned
Just got to the Senator meeting scene.

Did Snyder not let Cavill act or something? I am sure he's perfectly capable of it, but holy shit, the wheelchair exploded, and Superman is just staring around with a "Well....this is awkward" face. The UC generally does do a better job of giving Superman a character arc, but holy shit, that's a bad moment.

Yyyyup

c4jt321.png


This was the one moment in both movies where Superman could finally make a mission statement about what his intentions are, why he does what he does, and they just ignore it and go the explosion route.

Granted it makes more sense within the UC now, but still man... Your hero for two movies in a row still hasn't even expressed what he really wants.
 

sappyday

Member
Saw it and it's changed my mind. It's not a terrible movie. The UE adds a lot more context and development to the plot and characters. I wasn't confused half of the time, but still there are some major problems. I don't mind the tone and dark nature, hell I commend it for not trying to be like Marvel, but it does need to take itself a little less seriously. We don't need multiple scenes shouting off nonsense about god and man. We got it from way people treat Superman but we don't need Lex shouting it off every 5 seconds.

My major problems are the death of Superman/Doomsday and Batman doing a 180 with Superman all of a sudden, and for a stupid reason mind you. These were problems they couldn't fix in a UE but the movie is definitely not shit. When you have movies like Amazing Spiderman 2 and Green Latern, I think it's a bit unfair to call BvS shit. It's basically on the level of the average MCU movie like Captain America: TFA. I commend it for having some cool themes (How would one react to a being like Superman in our modern world) but then you have shit like Doomsday killing it all. I don't think you can tackle those themes while also tackling some typical comic villain. That's why Civil War worked a lot better imo cause it was more self focused.
 
While placing zod in the alien fluids, Lex is...crying?

wat

yeah there are times where I really fuck with this Lex Luthor like on the rooftop scene or when he's giving demands to that one guy but then you have nonsensical and goofy eccentrism like this.
 

Arnie7

Banned
I've always liked this film but the Ultimate cut is just even better. My favourite comic book movie just behind the Dark Knight. Just beautiful.

While placing zod in the alien fluids, Lex is...crying?

wat

No, seriously.

wut?


hhaha he flew to close to the sun. I love his crazy eccentricity.
 

Grizzlyjin

Supersonic, idiotic, disconnecting, not respecting, who would really ever wanna go and top that
yeah there are times where I really fuck with this Lex Luthor like on the rooftop scene or when he's giving demands to that one guy but then you have nonsensical and goofy eccentrism like this.

I liked Lex when he was negotiating access to Zod's body. Unwrapping that piece of candy and putting it into that dude's mouth was small but unsettling. But then they just took him off the rails. His interactions with the Senator that was spearheading the committee on Superman were pretty good too. They had a nice back and forth and it added so much context to the hearing and bombing. Beyond that point the character gets turned up to 11.

I honestly have no strong feelings with how Lex Luthor should be portrayed. Do what you need to do to make the story you're telling work. But this Lex was just bizarre. He was sometimes overly confident and brash, but then also eccentric and socially awkward. The combo just doesn't work for me.
 

Veelk

Banned
Yeah, even I consider Lex to be one of the lesser evils that this film vomited up. He's weird and obsessed with godhood but in a completely shallow way, so he fits thematically with the movie.

My Lex Luthor is always going to be the Azzarello/Young Justice (tv show) incarnation and I'm still kind of baffled why more people don't go for that kind of depiction. Lex Luthor is never as frightening or interesting as when you find yourself agreeing with him.
 
I honestly have no strong feelings with how Lex Luthor should be portrayed. Do what you need to do to make the story you're telling work. But this Lex was just bizarre. He was sometimes overly confident and brash, but then also eccentric and socially awkward. The combo just doesn't work for me.

me neither. i liked kevin spacey and hackman in the roles too forreal.

i liked the jolly rancher scene quite a bit, it seemed this lex got off on being perverse. but yeah some of his awkward ticks and random tears were just too much lol. i think he'll have to dial it back a bit for the next one.
 

Dominator

Member
I find it a little baffling how many people didn't hear Bruce say Jack in the beginning. I remember the OT so many thought he said Dad lmao

Still a fantastic movie to me, what was a 9 is now a 9.5 after finishing the Ultimate Cut.

I have no problems with people who don't like the movie, but damn I love it. And I actually hated Man of Steel so I'm a rare breed I think.
 

Alienous

Member
Alright, the Ultimate Edition...

It's a better cut of the film, notably so, but that's negated by the length. 1/8th of a day is a heck of a lot to commit to watching a film.

The same problems persist. All it really does is elevate some of the stuff that was ok into stuff that's sort of interesting, such as the subplots. It's clear that the purpose of the theatrical cut was to trim stuff where it didn't seem like it would do too much damage to the comprehension of the film; there are 5 and 10 second moments cut for what I assume can be no other reason than trying to trim the film down to 2 hours 30 minutes, removing every second they could manage to without destroying the plot.

It isn't a terible movie, but it isn't a great one. But I'm compelled own all of the Batman films, good or bad, Batman & Robin included, regardless. BvS was definitely a film worsened in editing, and I do come out of the UC with renewed faith that Justice League could be a good movie. This does feel a bit like closure. I really wish BvS could have held it together, though - it had a lot of great ideas, but it makes a mess of the execution, increasingly so as the film goes on. The theatrical cut just enhanced that.
 
This was the one moment in both movies where Superman could finally make a mission statement about what his intentions are, why he does what he does, and they just ignore it and go the explosion route.

Yeah that's the point. Superman finally wants to clarify his stance but an oppressive system won't even let him do that. As a result, his actions are constantly misinterpreted, as the world expects him to be a God and solve every problem ever and then gets infuriated with him when he doesn't much like Man of Steel detractors cough cough
 

IconGrist

Member
Yea, the whole point there was to prevent Superman from speaking. If what he says is well-received it fucks with Lex's plans. He can't risk it. I do wonder if the bomb was on a timer or had a remote detonator. Remote seems like the smarter idea in case Superman speaks sooner than Lex expects him to.

Alright, the Ultimate Edition...

It's a better cut of the film, notably so, but that's negated by the length. 1/8th of a day is a heck of a lot to commit to watching a film.

This has seemingly varied from person to person. I've seen a few instances where people thought the UC felt shorter than the TC simply because they enjoyed it more. Were more invested with the movie since it felt more like a movie and less like a series of random almost disconnected scenes. Schnepp mentioned something like this as well in his review. Can't remember exactly but I believe Frosty did too.
 

Veelk

Banned
Watched the BvS fight and warehouse scene again.

BvS is still a complete joke of a fight

And Warehouse scene is still a spectacularly choreographed fight that we should fully credit to Rocksteady, who are the real designers of it.
 

Alienous

Member
This has seemingly varied from person to person. I've seen a few instances where people thought the UC felt shorter than the TC simply because they enjoyed it more. Were more invested with the movie since it felt more like a movie and less like a series of random almost disconnected scenes. Schnepp mentioned something like this as well in his review. Can't remember exactly but I believe Frosty did too.

It felt longer, imo, but this is only having seen each once. It didn't feel 30 minutes longer, though.
 

IconGrist

Member
Watched the BvS fight and warehouse scene again.

BvS is still a complete joke of a fight

And Warehouse scene is still a spectacularly choreographed fight that we should fully credit to Rocksteady, who are the real designers of it.

I'd be dumb to argue that the Arkham games didn't at least inspire the choreography of that fight but if this is the narrative moving forward with reactions to Batman fight scenes, no thank you. The same way "Eisenberg was just imitating Ledger" irritates the shit out of me.
 

Bleepey

Member
People who try to tally off Batman's number of confirmed kills as if to say "Oh, he's not bad, just a few here and there" miss the point entirely.

Nolan's Batman killed people as well, plenty of them, but his rule in the Nolan movies was not "I'll never kill", but rather "I'll never murder". I talked about this in the other thread, but Nolan's Batman had a gentle heart and greatly valued life. The most significant act of taking alive was Harvey Dent. This was right after he saved the Joker's life. But he didn't murder Harvey. He pushed him off the ledge in the persuit of saving a child's life. He didn't realistically have another option, given how wounded he was and the situation at hand, and he certainly didn't intend to kill Harvey, and he felt horrible about it...but it can't be denied that Batman killed Harvey Dent. There was no uproar over that, or any of the other Batman killings because while the situation was one that resulted in death, Batman intentions were to avert it at all times.

I think there is a lot of pushback against the 'no kill' rule in live action. And I get why: It's simply speaking unrealistic to expect Batman to go through his kind of live without, in some way, dealing with death, and his no kill rule can get absurd when he's up against the kind of danger he is. Of course, that argument can be equally bounced back by pointing out that a lot of the danger is implausible to happen (like people escaping from jail over and over), if you're trying to go for a flavor of realism, so Batman's rule of not killing his villains makes more sense when he only has to stop them once before they're gone forever.

But then we have BvS Batman...Snyder made a statement before that Batman doesn't murder, he just commits a whole bunch of manslaughter. On a surface level, that's comparable to Nolan's Batman...but not actually. Both Batman's may have no problem with Manslaughter, but Nolan's Batman makes a concentrated effort to avoid death where possible. While death happens around him, he can make a convincing case that there was no other situation in which his actions would have worked. That's not the case of BvS batman. In pure technical terms, he commits manslaughter, because, for example, when he's in the car chase, his objective is to catch the car rather than kill any of these guys. The difference is that he clearly doesn't go out of his way to not kill them. It's clear that he has absolutely no regard for the lives of criminals and, by all indications, would happily murder them if he felt like that would be helpful. In fact, that's literally his objective with Superman. He's premeditating and making the objective to kill Superman. The premise of the movie is Batman trying to become a murderer. But it goes even a step further with that. With the Brand thing explained, I can only come to a conclusion that he only brands people as a sadistic power trip, because there is no reason for it otherwise.

People often praise Batman as the character of the film, and I can admit that Ben Affleck does a good job portraying him, but it depresses me to see that people praise this batman as the best incarnation of the character. I mean....people often try to associate Batman with mental illness, which makes sense, because his is a very psychological character, his rogue gallery suffering from all sorts of mental diseases and it's often a talking point that maybe Batman is as crazy as his enemies. But when people talk about that, it's mostly that suffers from a compulsion to perform feats of heroism because of what happened to him as a kid. But this batman is nothing but a cruel, sadistic, and angry bully whose more concerned with being on a power trip than actually helping anyone. It's the only explanation that makes sense with the fact that he goes out of his way to power trip while beating Superman instead of flat out killing him and then turning his position around when he realizes he can emphatize with him. Otherwise, the problem of his power, with the destruction of metropolis being a haunting reminder of what could go wrong, remains.

And that's when people usually go "But Veelk, the film makes it clear he wasn't always like that!" Who cares? There's no justification he can give that can justify his behavior in the present. Like, dude, I'm sorry that you suffered the loss of your parents, your Robin, your employees, whatever, but nothing about that makes any of this okay. Only someone of severely stunted emotional maturity would try to claim otherwise. And keep in mind, nothing has happened to him recently, as far as we know. I could forgive making bad judgements while in the midst of despair, but he lost his employees a year and a half ago and has done nothing but stewed his fury all that time and projected the blame onto a guy who wasn't to blame for it. Even moreso with the death of his parents and Robin. He's had time to process and reassess and turn his grief into something more productive.

"But Veelk, that's the point of this batman! He's a awful shitheel! Isn't that awesome?!" No. No, it's not. He's...pathetic. And he makes me angry. That, in itself, doesn't stop him from being a good character, but it really depresses me that many people frame up these qualities....cruelty, brutality, sadism.... as something to be admired. They can be fascinating to examine in well written characters, such as Walter White, and that's all good and fair but I find it a hard thing to conceive how they should be qualities to admire, and that's the vibe I get whenever someone cheers at how horrible a person Batman is in this incarnation. But even ignoring that, none of these qualities make Batman an interesting character to me. Fallen or corrupted heroes need some kind of tangible evidence of how they were once good, and what do we have? Alfred telling us "This is how it starts" and him mournfully looking at a defiled robin costume that he maintains. From the TC itself, I have no reason to believe that at any point that Batman wasn't a motherfucker from the jumping off point other than some vague remarks about how things used to be better. Better how? To what extent? For all I know, Alfred just means that Batman used to hide the bodies rather than just leaving them out in the open messily.

And without that point of contrast, all I have is this angry, fearful, piece of shit coward that wants to murder an innocent guy just because he projects the cause of his fears and insecurities onto him and only then spares him once he can in some way relate him to himself. Fuck this guy with a rebar. Especially in this poltiical atmosphere (which I normally wouldn't bring up, but given how this film outright fucking begs for it with it's parallels to 9/11, I say it's relevant), where people are routinely othered, hated, and blamed for all that is wrong with the world to the point where real and tangible acts of hostility are inflicted on them.

That's who this batman is. Fuck him. Whether his kill count is 5 or 500, he's a piece of shit.

Bullshit he didn't have any other option. He told Gordon to blow up the bridge killing Ra's and tried to justify it by saying he didn't have to save him. Motherfucker caused it. Then there's the whole driving the tumbler underneath the truck or killing the league of assassins. I personally like the redemptive arc Batfleck went through and I think the reason why Batfleck was so violent was to give Superman more reason to dislike him.
 
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