Random Guesswork: Batman v Superman Is the Film We Need but Not the One We Deserve
The new trailer for Batman v Superman was leaked online this week and it looks pretty good. Zack Snyder1 did the clever social media-savvy thing and dropped a high-definition version of the trailer shortly afterwards.
#BatmanvSuperman #NotBlurry #NotPirated https://t.co/6twr1oFBvr
— ZackSnyder (@ZackSnyder) April 17, 2015
Reactions have been mixed apparently. Anecdotally, quite a few friends and colleagues (like myself) think the trailer looks pretty good. Polygon on the other hand thinks the film is a potential bomb in the making. I think it could go either way, and it will all come down to whether Zack Snyder is giving us the film DC/Warner needs to compete with Marvel/Disney right now or if he’s just indulging himself by making the Batman film he’s always wanted to make.
Let’s dial back the clock to the 80’s for a little history lesson. Batman grew up suddenly from being “kid’s stuff” when Frank Miller (yes, that guy who created Sin City and wrote the third RoboCop film) created a story called The Dark Knight Returns2. Featuring an aged Bruce Wayne years out of the costumed superhero game, Batman comes back to bring law to Gotham during an era where costumed heroes are outlaws. It’s a very 80’s story that features jabs at the Cold War, the fascination with television celebrities, Ronald Reagan and the disillusioned youth of America. It no doubt revolutionised Batman as an “adult” character, and Miller would go on to write Batman: Year One which paved the way for the familiar Batman we all know and love today.
TDKR thematically shares a lot with Watchmen regarding outlawed ageing superheroes in an era of political tension, which coincidentally came out the same year (1986) and was eventually turned into a film by Zack Snyder which was…well, it was certainly a film he wanted to make for himself because it certainly wasn’t made for anyone else in particular.
That’s the start of my concerns with this new film. I know that Zack Snyder has wanted to put TDKR to film for years, because back around the time Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight came out there was a question that came up at a Comic Con Panel the featured Snyder and Miller3. Snyder had been previously quoted in interviews as saying the following:
Snyder: “There are a lot of other graphic novels out there, but I would love to see Frank Miller’s Dark Knight made into a movie, but that’s just me.”
A question regarding the importance of The Dark Knight as a comic book movie came up, to which Frank Miller looks disbelievingly in a joking manner as there’s obviously only one Dark Knight story and he wrote it. The response was interesting:
Miller: “You can do it anytime you want to Zack.”
Snyder said at the time he was making note of Miller’s response, that he “knew what he meant”.
Snyder has gushed about TDKR before at great length, the man just seems fascinated with 80’s-era comics. My main concern is that DC needs a Batman that everyone recognises, and I am just not sure whether “Frank Millerverse” Batman fits the bill. I have a hunch that Snyder has just taken a golden opportunity to make a film he has always wanted to make, rather than craft a film that DC Comics fans need as a start to a cohesive DC film universe.
My suspicions began around the time Kevin Smith announced on one of his many marvellous podcasts that Zack Snyder had shown him the new batsuit. He bleeped out the suit’s influence of TDKR on the original upload of the podcast but I twigged the moment he said it was a version of the Batman we had never seen on film before. I agree with many of Smith’s views on Batman and I think his work on Fat Man on Batman is an unparalleled service to Batman fandom, but I don’t have the same enthusiasm to see TDKR on screen and I think his view is biased as he was there when the original comic first punched the industry in the face (not because his buddy Ben Affleck is in it, nope). I get the same feeling about Snyder too4.
I am open to this take on Batman, but I wonder how close to Miller’s TDKR this take will be. The robo-suit from the Batman/Superman confrontation is spot on but I hope it’s all allusion to the material and not a direct adaptation. There will hopefully be a healthy dose of non-Miller Batman that we all recognise in Affleck’s Batman (which I incidentally am also open to). I’m not sure about Jeremy Irons as Alfred though, a character actor known for playing villains makes for a very cold sounding Alfred5 who doesn’t quite match up to sympathetically cynical Michael Caine.
Fingers crossed this movie is going to rock everyone’s socks off and that Snyder’s not just jerking off to his own personal movie fantasies becoming real. It might be worth watching the excellent TDKR animated feature for yourself and then decide when the film comes out!
On a completely different note, a different Snyder entirely is absolutely killing it (in the good way) in the Batman comic books…
- I still find it really difficult to believe that Zack Snyder is his real name for some reason, as it sounds like the sort of name you’d have for the teenage protagonist in a 90’s era Saturday morning cartoon. I also struggle to say his name out loud without saying it in a whiny voice, but I blame South Park for that. ↩
- It’s easy to get this title mixed up with the Christopher Nolanverse films The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, but it has nothing to do with those films at all and vice-versa. ↩
- I originally thought it might have been when Snyder made 300, which was based on another Frank Miller book. After some investigation it appears to be on an Entertainment Weekly “Visionaries” panel instead. ↩
- I am far too lazy to do the maths on Snyder’s age to work out if he was young enough to buy a copy of TDKR when it was first released, feel free to correct me. ↩
- My personal theory is that he’s actually playing Simon Gruber from Die Hard with a Vengeance, who’s taken on the guise of a butler and trained Batman up to kick John McClane’s arse for dropping his brother off of the Nakatomi Tower. ↩
Post by Sean Patrick Payne+ | April 18, 2015 at 2:08 pm | Batman, Films, Random Guesswork | No comment
Tags: Batfleck, Batman, Batman comics, Batman films, Batman v Superman, Ben Affleck, comic book movie adaptations, DC Comics, Frank Miller, Watchmen, Zack Snyder