Several days ago, Zack Snyder hosted a special screening of the director's cuts of DAWN OF THE DEAD, WATCHMEN, and BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE, followed by a Q&A where he answered questions from fans. Although there are many who love Zack Snyder's take on the DCEU and wish that he had been given the chance to complete his vision, there are others who aren't exactly pleased with how he interpreted iconic characters such as Superman and Batman. When someone brought up complaints about Batman (Ben Affleck) killing in BVS, Zack Snyder had a pretty extreme response (via Reddit) to those who were upset about the Dark Knight taking lives.
Someone says to me like, ‘Oh! Batman killed a guy!’ I’m like, ‘Fuck, really?’ I’m like, ‘Wake the fuck up!’ That’s what I’m saying about once you’ve lost your virginity to this fucking movie and then you come and say to me something about like, ‘Oh, my superhero wouldn’t do that,’ I’m like, ‘Are you serious? I’m like down the fucking road on that.’ You know what I mean?
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Traditionally, Batman doesn't kill; that's kind of his thing, but there have frequently been stories over the decades which have found Batman grappling with, and even breaking, that policy, so it's not like Zack Snyder was the first to take Batman down this road. Ben Affleck's Batman in BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE was older and had definitely seen some shit during his time, which made it a little easier to understand what could have led him down that path, however, it is kind of an important part of his character.
Zack Snyder argued that BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE can be seen as a deconstruction of Superman and Batman and comic-book movies in general, similar to Alan Moore's approach to Watchmen. "It’s a cool point of view to be like, ‘My heroes are still innocent. My heroes didn’t fucking lie to America. My heroes didn’t embezzle money. My heroes didn’t fucking commit any atrocities.’ I’m like, ‘That’s cool, but you’re living in a fucking dream world.'" Snyder said. "The cool thing is, like mythologically speaking, I’m 100% fine – and by the way I love more than anything Superman and Batman – but in the same way that Alan Moore was fed up with the fucking like, ‘Okay no, they do this,’ clearly this is a response. Watchmen talks about comic books in the same way that this movie talks about comic book movies, but it talked about comic books at their most – they were broken, so he was just addressing that. The thing with comic book movies is – and you know I’m a fan, I go and see them, I love ‘em…"
What do you folks think? Is Zack Snyder off the mark here or is there room for other interpretations of these characters?
