Seven Years After The Release Of Batman v Superman, Here's A Reminder That Zack Snyder's Director’s Cut Is Actually A Good Movie
Even though Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was panned by many critics and underachieved at the box office, it remains one of the most singular, memorable superhero movies since such tentpoles became so popular about 15 years ago.
Right in the midst of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's rise, this was meant to launch the DC Extended Universe of interconnected films to spark a true big-screen comic book rivalry. Unfortunately, Warner Bros' approach tried to shoehorn in about five movies worth of setup into BvS, as opposed to letting the iconic heroes breathe in their own solo outings.
Under the circumstances, director Zack Snyder and screenwriter Chris Terrio delivered a damn good, three-hour version of such a complicated story ask. Problem was, that cut didn’t see theaters. It was instead released months later, with “Ultimate Edition” slapped onto the end of the already-wordy-as-fuck title. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Ultimate Edition is the cut Snyder intended to initially release. Studio executives had other ideas. They wanted to arbitrarily slash into the runtime so that more screenings could happen. Damage to the quality of the film itself clearly meant very little to them.
Too many cooks in WB’s creative kitchen led to execs cutting out over 30 minutes of key plot, character development and story from the BvS theatrical cut. That culminated in the critical bashing, sad Ben Affleck memes, and an inconsistent, total shit show of a plan for the DCEU that was never seen through. Once the troubled Justice League production and underwhelming release came and went, that was the end of all that.
Many moons later, Snyder's biggest stans still insist his run with DC/WB could've culminated in something truly epic if he'd been allowed to see everything through. For all the toxic fandom allegations thrown at Snyderverse advocates, tons of positivity has emerged — and now, Snyder's DC trilogy is hitting theaters one last time (yes, in BvS' case, it'll be the Ultimate Edition):
I realize I’m in a luxurious position right now where I’m not required to be super critical about certain movies/TV shows. It’s not that I love everything I watch. I have opinions. It’s just that, for some of these characters and big IPs I really care about, it’s impossible for me to divorce the end product from the behind-the-scenes chaos that can transpire, and how fucking hard it is for a successful movie to come together. BvS should be a film school case study (if there is such a thing, IDK) in studio meddling that sabotages a filmmaker’s vision. I understand it was seven years ago, but bear in mind, the the BvS Ultimate Edition runtime of 182 minutes (shortened to 151 minutes for theaters) was barely shorter than last year’s The Batman, which ran for 176 minutes.
OK. All that backstory is established. Now let’s proceed to discuss BvS: DoJ, UE (LOL) on its own merits. This will be a mix of how the Ultimate Edition addresses severe flaws in the theatrical cut, and why certain plot points and ways these iconic characters are drawn actually work for the story Snyder and Terrio were attempting to tell.
The hacked-up, reordered sequence near the beginning makes way more sense
Were you confused by the second 15-minute chunk or so when you saw BvS in theaters? Yeah, same! Believe it or not, before that bit was, well, chopped to bits, there was a lot more context to it all. The CIA tries to launch a drone strike that's thwarted by Superman, because he's keeping an eye on Lois Lane while she interviews a dictator somewhere in fictional Nairomi, Africa.
Just before that, unlike in the theatrical cut, we see Lex Luthor's private security contractors kill and torch a bunch of innocent civilians to make it look like Superman lit 'em up with his hot laser eyes. We literally do not see this in the theatrical version. We get a vague shot of guys burning shit and dumping gasoline. No pile of corpses. So from there, you get to the political hearing where one of the villagers is testifying. Her implication of Superman carrying out the "attack" doesn't add up whatsoever.
If you never watched the UE, this is the part that's most rewarding to see. Give that a shot, because it sets up everything far better than the initial release did. I bet most viewers were checked out almost right away. All momentum from that Battle of Metropolis banger of a start dissipated for a lot of the audience.
Get a load of how Terrio described the butchery that happened to BvS, per a great interview with Vanity Fair that I recently plugged elsewhere:
"If you took 30 minutes out of Argo, as they were from Batman/Superman, it would make zero sense at all. Critics would say, 'what a lazy screenplay,' because the characters don’t have motivations and it’s not coherent…And I would agree with them. […] I was proud of the script when I completed it, but it turns out that when you remove the 30 minutes that give the characters motivation for the climax, the film just doesn’t work. As we learned from the two versions of Justice League, you can’t skip on the character and think the audience will give a shit about the VFX. That stuff was later restored in the extended version.
"[…] So this house of cards that had been built in order to motivate this clash between America’s two favorite heroes made no sense at all. That was what happened with Batman/Superman. The movie was always was going to be dark. There were always going to be people who just didn’t want to see that version of a comic book world, and I get that. But what hurt was the criticism that the script was not coherent, because when I turned in the script to the studio—which they, by all accounts, were happy with—it made sense."
Lex Luthor doesn’t have a “master plan” — and that’s the point
This version of Lex portrayed by Jesse Eisenberg is faltering under the weight of his successful, abusive father's legacy. Alexander Luthor Jr. is clearly a brainiac (Superman pun intended) who's taking LexCorp into the quickly-evolving, tech-based 21st Century. Eisenberg is good casting for this drawing of Lex.
But unlike the cold, calculated, criminal brilliance of Prime Lex Luthor, this younger, impulsive and impetuous version of Lex isn't quite perfect in his attempts to stay one step ahead of his nemeses. The guy is flailing and feels betrayed that Superman didn't help him during his childhood. Lex is feeding off raw emotion all the time, and instead of having a "master plan", he's throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. For all the inside intel he has on Supes and the rest of the Justice League — including their secret identities — Lex's tactics and schemes are sound on the surface to him, but fundamentally flawed.
All this setup created fertile narrative ground for Lex to ascend to the formidable force of nature fans of the comics know him to be. It was a ballsy move for Snyder and Terrio to take his character in this direction in the first place, and when he didn't have the iconic bald look of Prime Lex, people wrote him off right away.
I'm not saying this Lex Luthor was a pitch-perfect performance, or that he's one of the greatest comic book movie villains of all-time. It's just not near the disaster everyone makes it out to be. Based on what the movie was going for in Lex's characterization, Eisenberg delivered a solid turn.
Clark Kent does Big J Journalism, further motivating his clash with Batman
The in-theater BvS never showed us critical footage like Clark visiting Gotham to get the scoop on Batman's newfound brutality, or a prison scene where an inmate gets shanked due to carrying the brand the Caped Crusader has been marking criminals with.
Turns out, Lex is manipulating all this in the background, getting his henchmen to pay off prisoners to kill those who've been Bat-branded. Seeing this actually happen is pretty significant. But, you know, RUNTIME.
Since the movie was trying to hard to establish a brand-new, broken-down older Batman, it seems WB decided to prioritize his scree time over the most important Clark Kent bits, even though he'd only had one solo project to get going. Baffling decision-making driven totally by money over quality storytelling.
Superman as an analog for complex/gray area U.S. foreign policy
To me the theme of the movie explores how many layers there are to every decision the U.S. military makes, and the global geopolitical consequences, radicalist blowback and morality of basically playing Team America: World Police. BUT, by the end, Superman makes his sacrifice and is killed at the hands of Doomsday. The overly-simplified-for-sake-of-time way that I've interpreted this is, "Dubious jurisdiction be damned, when all the chips are down, the USA will stand up and fight on behalf of all mankind."
Felt a little weird even typing all that out because it feels way too serious. That's some of the darkness Terrio was talking about. I don't think it's a totally out-of-left-field interpretation. Snyder and Terrio, who won an Oscar for the political thriller Argo, strove to tell an austere story and embrace the premise of putting Superman, Batman and the other DC heroes in the real world.
…And how that informs the way Batman is drawn in BvS
Alfred's monologue does a fantastic job in spelling out Bruce Wayne's worldview at this point in his life and crimefighting career.
Batman is a fallen vigilante who's so disenchanted by the destruction the duel between Superman and Zod caused at the end of Man of Steel that he's pretty much embraced a nihilistic attitude. Killing and mortality doesn't matter anymore to him in the face of the first-ever publicized god who pancaked an entire city and, by proxy, murdered thousands of people.
Batfleck essentially stopped himself for almost 20 years from going full Charles Bronson Death Wish on Gotham City. Once Superman made his grand, devastating entrance, all that fell by the wayside. You may take issue with the tone of Batfleck, but I don't think the actual execution was bad at all. Which leads me to this…
More character development helps that “MARTHA” scene land better
For some folks, the added runtime will never fix this infamous, memed-to-death moment where Batman accepts Superman and doesn't kill him with the kryptonite spear because their mothers have the same name.
Not only is it Batman's recognition of Superman's humanity, and not only is it the shared name of their mothers, but if you remember, "Martha" is the last word Bruce Wayne ever heard either of his parents say as they lay there bleeding out in Crime Alley from fatal gunshot wounds. That's why the flashback to that footage of Joe Chill's kills is shown. I feel like a lot of people view that as super on-the-nose. I see that. I also see that this moment is more layered and deeper than meets the eye.
When you get Clark's better-fleshed-out UE arc, the main conflict, and especially this scene of reconciliation, carries a lot more weight in my opinion. But to each their own.
“Why didn’t Supes stop that explosion at the Capitol?” ANSWERED
You mean there was an actual scene where Lois is told by a lab technician that the wheelchair that blows up at Superman's Capitol hearing was made out of lead!? Which Superman notoriously can't see through?? Yup. And it was nowhere to be found when BvS hit theaters.
Supes is also shown in the UE at least attempting to help victims outside before flying away, as opposed to just, you know, flying away. And the balcony scene in the UE makes him seem like far less of a detached monster than the shorter cut made him out to be.
I will say, in either version, they could've had Lois say, "Clark, it's not your fault. The chair was made out of lead!" Would've provided more clarity. But I digress.
Now we know Martian Manhunter was there THE WHOLE TIME
Thanks to Zack Snyder's Justice League, we know General Swanwick was hiding in plain sight as the Martian Manhunter all along. Makes for some pretty sweet repeat viewing, particularly when you see the exchange between Lois and Swanwick when she's investigating the bullet lodged in her journal from the Nairomi firefight. Swanwick refuses to get into classified information beyond the revelation that the prototype military rounds were made by LexCorp. Still, J'onn J'onzz was lurking and ready to help out in the eventual war on Earth waged by Darkseid that was teased in ZSJL.
No matter the cut, Wonder Woman still rocks, and so does this exchange with Bruce Wayne
Some of the best dialogue and game-spitting Bat Guy has ever done in live action. Don't @ me. And the way Diana Prince/Wonder Woman holds her own here and bests Bruce is very cool. Her action scenes are dope, but if people were doubting Gal Gadot's casting, I feel like this scene that actually made it to theaters (for the most part) should've sold anyone.
In conclusion: Give Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Ultimate Edition a spin
Could I interest you in another Terrio quote about the title from that VF piece?
"I did not name the script. In fact, I found out what the movie was called along with the rest of the world on the internet. I was not consulted on the title of the film, and I was as surprised as anyone. I would not have named it Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
"I don’t know exactly who named it, but I suspect it was the studio and I suspect it was marketing, to be honest with you. It might have been the first step toward creating ill will for the film. I suspect that putting the words 'Batman' and 'Superman' into the title had some marketing component to it.
"I heard it and I thought, it just sounds self-important and clueless in a way. Tone-deaf. The intention of the film was to do something interesting and dark and complex, not quite as Las Vegas, bust ’em up, WWE match as Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice."
Still waiting for this guy to spill all the tea on The Rise of Skywalker. Has to happen at some point, right? I can dream.
See if you don't perceive this movie differently when you watch the Ultimate Edition, though. There's a reason HBO Max is only streaming that cut as opposed to what came out in theaters. It's just food for thought. I know that some will hate BvS no matter how much is added to it. The polarizing depiction of Batman, Snyder's visual style, and the lack of eventual payoff from everything that was set up are real factors that won't persuade those predisposed to dislike BvS to change their minds.
All I'm suggesting is, there's more to this allegedly big, dumbass blockbuster than you may have realized if you only saw the version released in theaters.
…And the best scene in the entire thing is even more brutal in Snyder's far superior cut.