When I was watching Zack Snyder’s Justice
League, I had an epiphany. See, when it comes to the argument around whether or not Snyder's batman is a good incarnation of the character, the argument has truly
gone around in circles. Um, Here’s how the average conversation’s gone
so far. If someone wants to explain why this version of batman is a bad incarnation of the character, their main point, and quite often their only point boils down to ‘Snyder’s
batman is a ruthless killer, therefore this version of batman sucks’, and when the disgruntled fan uses that attack
in an argument against a Snyder fan... it almost always turns out to not be very effective,
and it was when I was watching the Snyder cut that I finally realised exactly why that
is. It’s because in this film, Batman kills
absolutely nobody. Snyder fixed the number one complaint
people had about his character, so… why is it that in this film he still comes
across as… I don’t want to say boring because that’s
overly cruel, but just such a thoroughly un-entertaining character to follow relative to the other
depictions we’ve seen? It’s because, while other incarnations like Nolan’s trilogy, or the animated movies, or the animated series,
or the batman arkham games, or the elderly version of him from the dark knight returns,
while all of those incarnations have delved deep into the batman mythos, truly understood
what makes him as a character great, and using that understanding have allowed his character shine to his fullest potential, the simple truth is, Zack Snyder hasn’t just not captured that potential, He's barely captured a per cent of it, and that’s exactly what the last part of
this video is about where just like I did with my star wars and last of us 2 videos,
I’m going to be giving a batman focused rewrite of the
whole DCEU. But ok, let’s cut to it. Does this batman look badass? Yes, he looks
incredibly badass, is his voice modulator the single coolest sounding batman voice ever
put to film? Undeniably. If there were a fight between all of the batman
incarnations, would this batman easily win? Of course he would, partly because the other
incarnations don’t have guns. Ok, that was low hanging fruit, that was a joke... kind
of, but when it comes to those three things this Batman easily wins. However, when it comes to everything else, this batman easily
loses. This is the heart of why so many fans have
been disgruntled with this depiction of the character, it’s not because batman's a killer,
or at least that’s just a smaller part of a larger problem, it’s because Batman is so
much more than what we’ve seen so far in the DCEU, and Snyder has failed to realise
the majority of batman's potential and this isn’t gonna be a controversial thing for me to say at all It's because fundamentally Zack
Snyder doesn’t understand Batman's character. Boo Why are you booing me? I’m right I made a video trying to convince you guys
that the end of avengers endgame was bad, alright, I’m no stranger to getting drowned
with dislikes, but give me your time, reserve your judgement, and I will convince you
that this incarnation of Batman truly was subpar and if I somehow don’t…. Your money back I guess. I’ll give you a refund on the cost of watching
today's video! But, in order for me
to explain why Snyder’s batman was bad, I have no choice but
to make this next part of the video a breakdown of why batman to begin with truly is a fantastic character, and why when his character is done right,
the entertainment value he brings to the table is truly through the roof. So I’ve spent an unhealthy amount of my
life consuming batman related fiction, and after giving it years of thought, I think
I’ve distilled exactly how batman's character works. And the truth is, I don't think there's one reason why
Batman works. There are, in fact, 4. Resolve, Intellect, Integrity, and Physical
Prowess. I will be elaborating a lot on this later
on, I’m just laying out the barebones of it here, but fundamentally, every good Batman
story attacks and tests these four cornerstones of his character, and when they do so, his
character is at his most entertaining. What really sells this is the fact that batman
is the kind of character who you can pit against any foe, absolutely any foe, and yet convincingly
write him into the position of the underdog, yet also an underdog with a believable chance
of winning. As Batman is a natural underdog character,
it’s easy to put him in a desperate situation, to push him to his absolute limits, and in
doing so, you provide a trove of wonderful opportunities to test the four cornerstones
of his character: resolve, intellect, integrity, and physical prowess. Like that is the formula for creating good batman
fiction. Think of your favourite batman focused story,
and the odds are it does exactly this. And what’s absolutely worth mentioning here,
what supports this theory of mine, and this is just a theory feel free to modify it or shoot it down
in the comments, is that most of batman’s villains actually play into this whole idea because
almost all of his villains are fundamentally designed to attack one of these four qualities. Bane, killer croc, and deathstroke all attack
Batman’s physical prowess, they all challenge his fighting skill. Riddler challenges intellect. Poison Ivy And Scarecrow challenge his resolve,
Batman needs a strong willpower in order to resist those two, and finally, Joker, and
ra's al ghul challenge his integrity, and frankly that’s why if you ask me, that’s
why Joker and Ra’s are batman's two most compelling villains because they're such good foils for him, because they challenge what I think is not the only one, but what I think is the most important pillar
of what defines batman, his integrity. That’s the barebones of how I think
Batman's character works so well. So let’s flesh this out, let’s take a
deep dive into each of these four cornerstones, see how well other batman fiction handles
them, and then compare that to the Snyderverse and see how well they compare. So, I often get asked by aspiring writers
what’s the supposed secret to how I break down stories they way I do. And the secret is, there is no secret, you
just need to do two things. A, write a ton of fiction yourself, and b,
fill your head with as much knowledge on the craft as you can. If you want to be a good writer, you have
to do both, and today I’ve got to tell you about something you’ll find quite useful
here, because roses are red, Snyder’s batman is deplorable, you’re in for a treat, because
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writing great fiction by James Hynes as a good place to start, anyway, back to the video Trying to pin down exactly why Batman is such
an entertaining character is really hard, but one thing that’s for sure, some of his best
moments and some of his best stories revolve around this right. They’re about
his mind. Some of Batman’s best moments are often when he's fighting an enemy far more powerful than him, but by using his mind, not his fists,
he outsmarts them and wins because of it. For example, in justice league crisis on two
earths, batman goes up against this woman who's essentially an evil version of wonder
woman, he stands no chance against her in a fistfight, but she’s vain, she’s toying
with him rather than finishing him quickly, she beats him around a bunch, and he deploys
a smoke bomb as cover to escape, and then she’s all like “smoke, gah, how quaint,” but then she inhales it all as a part of her toying with him
with her incredible powers, but then after doing it, she sees that batman’s wearing a gas mask, and he says “it’s anesthetic gas” and he capitalised on the fact that she was toying
with him and used that to make her breath in the gas whick took her out, mmm, that’s peak Batman
right there, and it’s such a fun scene. But I think what’s one of Batman's best
stories in this regard is a whole episode of the justice league anime. In that episode, he gets captured by
a gang of villains, and yes I did just call it the justice league anime
because I knew that would piss some of you off but in that episode, he gets captured, and he
spends the whole time manipulating the villains while tied up. He brings up the fact they’re getting paid
different amounts of money to make them fight each other, and he seduces Cheetah, then one
of the group betrays the cabal and sabotages their plans, and they check their security
recordings and sure enough, they see cheetah kissing batman. So then they’re like “Uh yeah guys, cheetah’s acting kind of sus. I think she’s the imposter,” then they vote her out but then it turns out that she wasn’t the imposter,
and that Batman had already convinced ultra humanite to betray them for a hefty fee, and
he only seduced cheetah because he knew they’d find out about it, and he did it all to shift
the suspicion onto her so the real traitor among them that was on that was on batman’s side could
maintain their cover, and then it turns out that batman could have escaped any time he liked,
but he knew if he broke that they would have all runaway, so he stayed pretending to be
helpless so he could keep an eye on them and see what their plan was, and batman obliterated this group by outsmarting
the absolute **** out of them, and it makes for a brilliant showcase of his character
and a thoroughly entertaining story. this right here, this is what I’m talking
about. Batman being a genuine genius and outsmarting
people far more powerful than him, it’s one of the foundational pillars of his character It's one of the reasons why
he is so entertaining to follow But look at Snyder's incarnation. Name one moment where this he has deployed
his cunning to truly outwit his foe. You can’t, can you? Because there hasn’t been one. The most clever thing he’s ever done was
hack into Luthor's network, discover that he has kryptonite that can hurt Superman,
stole it, and then used that to make weapons with it in the climax of like the movie. That isn’t exactly a moment of idiocy from
batman, it doesn’t make him look stupid, but compared to the others moments where we've seen Batman's
character shine in other fiction right? Where he has done some true 4D chess plays, where he has been an
absolute genius, that is nothing, that is a parody of how clever batman can
really be. Like seriously, Batman in bvs is moderately
intelligent. He doesn’t make any rookie mistakes, he's
not an outright idiot, but he’s barely shown to be more clever than your average guy, but Batman
in Snyder’s justice league… he is an outright idiot. He makes some truly,
truly stupid decisions. Take this scene for example. The scene where superman is trying to kill the justice league and so then batman walks
out onto the field and stares superman down. Seriously, what was going through Batman's
head when he made that decision? But actually, you don't need to answer that question, because
Zack Snyder gave me some exclusive footage that ended up on the cutting room floor that
answers that very question. I hope you enjoy! Oh bloody hell Superman’s completely lost his mind, he
has become the monster I was always afraid he’d become. Now he’s trying to kill the flash,
and flash never gave Clark a reason to hate him. I'm the one that nearly beat him to death
that one time, and from Clark’s perspective that was only like half an hour ago. If he so much as sees me, there’s an incredible chance
that he’ll just kill me. It’s a shame I don’t have something like
a kryptonite knuckle duster, not enough to kill superman obviously, but enough
to weaken him so the other leaguers can restrain him and we can control the situation. You know that would have actually been a really
good idea. It’s just a shame I’m absolutely terrible
at having contingencies for eventualities like this, which totally isn’t something
my character is famous for. Also I’m compltly out of my element here. I have
No powers and there is nothing I can contribute towards that fight. and on top of that, superman doesn't seem to understand
language right now, so I can't talk any sense into him. Truly, me walking out on that field. Will only aggravate him more, therefore I should
stay put and let everything play out with me not a part of it Right? Nah, what’s the worst that can happen. Hey Clark, Clark, Clark How have you been mate? So much has happened since that time I tried
to murder you How’s the home planet? Still blown up I trust? Ow, stop lasering me, it hurts. Timeout! Time out! Who could have seen this one coming? Certainly not me! Everything about the way Batman handled Superman’s
resurrection was such a non-batman way to do things. Batman has always been a genius tactician,
even in the adaptions of him that deviate massively from
the base character, and he is infamous for having contingencies for every eventually no matter how unlikely or absurd. Does this batman have any contingencies in case this
superman turns out to have lost his mind and he just starts trying
to kill people, which as it turns out is a perfectly rational fear because that’s what
happens? No. Also, in other adaptiopns and depictions,
Batman does a good job at leading the justice league in the heat of battle and helping them enact an overall plan. In the superman resurrection scene, does Bamtan do any of that? No. he doesn't lead at all.
He doesn't even have a plan. All he does is walk out onto a field, hope for the best,
and then get lasered. Alright, so in the film superman/batman: apocalypse,
in the climax, Bruce confronts Darkseid, and he defeats him by revealing that he’s done
the impossible, he’s hacked all of Darkseid’s un-hackable WMDs and has set them to go off
simultaneously. If Darkseid doesn’t back down and abandon
his plans, his entire planet gets destroyed. And darkseid is like
all
0:16:07.879,0:16:12.129
"You dare, you dare!" and then he beats him around a bunch, but then
after he lets out his temper tantrum, Darkseid is like "Well played." And Batman faces down Darkseid, one of the
most powerful villains in the whole DC multiverse, and he wins, because he uses his genius intellect. While other depictioms of the character push batman's wits to
their absolute limits, and in doing so, have him outwit some of his universe's most powerful villains,
Snyder's justice league ends with batman driving around in his
car, effectively going. “haha, car with miniguns go brrrr!” In the climax of Justice league, Batman doesn’t
use his brain at all, the only thing he uses are his fists, and it’s such a total waste
of the character. And I know what some of you might be thinking,
Batman's just not powerful enough to go toe to toe with steppenwolf, there was nothing he could do to contribute towards
that fight, therefor the fact he contrinbuted almost nothing Is perfectly fine, and to those people, I’d
say that it's not just possible to keep that big old punch up with steppenwolf where the league fights him,
yet also on top of that to give batman a chance to really shine, to realise the full potential of
his character and as a result, to have made the climax of this
movie so much more entertaining to follow. And I say that, because that’s exactly what
I’ve done, do stick around towards the end of the video to see my rewrite of the justice league,
because I want your watchtime. I mean you could just skip ahead now, and there’s nothing stopping you from
doing that, I guess, and... Wait, don’t! But alright, Batman's genius intellect is just
1 of the 4 things that makes him such a great character, so let’s look at another one. Let’s look at physical prowess… yeah Snyder’s got that one down. Did an incredible job. Knocked it out of the
park. What more is there to say? So, when it comes to Batman’s resolve, there
was one moment, one moment where Snyder hit the nail on the head and perfectly captured
this aspect of the character, and it was this. This was in the batman v superman trailer,
and at the time, the world collectively reacted by thinking "Oh my god that is so badass, and it’s such
a batman thing to do." And personally, when I saw this in the trailer,
it got me hyped as hell because it implied that Snyder just got batman’s character,
it hinted that this was going to be a great depiction of him. But whether or not it was, let’s break this
down, why is this such a great batman moment? It’s because Batman on top of his fighting skill and intellect,
his character also shines when an obstacle comes along that defeats
everyone else because they’re not mentally strong enough, or not determined enough, but
he manages to overcome it purely because of his strength of will, because he is so goddamned
tenacious. The fact that bruce runs towards this terrifying
threat while everyone else is running away from, it gives us a lovely glimpse into that aspect of his character.
It is a brilliant moment, but there are two issues with it: for one, it’s just a moment,
it’s not a plot arc or a big meaty chunk of a story where this aspect of him is rigorously
tested, it’s just one moment, and the other issue, the fact that this is the only time
in the entire DCEU that batman’s resolve has been properly showcased. So let’s look at other batman stories now and
see how well they compare, a fantastic example of this in other media would be when batman
ascends Bane’s pit in the dark knight rises. It’s the basis for a whole subplot of the
movie. A big deal is made out of the fact that no
one has ever managed to make the climb, but Bruce tries again and again, and is shown
to be a cut above the rest when he becomes the first person to ever succeed in escaping, and
it makes for a brilliant display of his resolve, and also his physical prowess at the same time. Another example, in the DC comics, there’s
a character called deadman, and he’s a disembodied spirit who possesses people, he does it to
ordinary civilians, and even superman at one point, and when he does it, he has total control over
them, but when he tries to possess batman, this happens, wow this guys mind is tough he gets kicked out almost immediately because
batman’s will is so strong. When anyone else in the justice league
gets possessed, you call an exorcist, but when Batman gets possessed? Don’t sweat it because he can exorcise himself. God dammit that’s peak batman right there,
but admittedly it is just one moment just like him running into the dust cloud was. But if you really want the perfect example,
just the best depiction of Batman's resolve, for me, it has to be in Arkham knight. In that game, the joker has infected several
people with his blood, and because of reasons that make no scientific sense whatsoever,
but we’ll give them a pass, it’s a superhero story, everyone who’s been infected by the
joker’s blood has had their consciousness gradually altered into the joker’s. We see that Batman is holding on a lot longer
than everyone else, his willpower is letting him stave off the insanity for far longer
than anyone else could, and that alone is a great display of his character, but it’s
still gradually progressing, and he can’t hold it off indefinitely. So in the climax, god this is such a good
climax, Batman is losing control, so he surrenders himself to scarecrow just before the joker
takes full control of his body, and then all looks lost, right, not only scarecrow have batman captured
but also the joker’s finally the one in control,
what a sad ending, how very tragic, but plot twist, scarecrow then injects his fear toxin into
batman, but now as Joker’s the one in control of his body, it’s affecting the Joker’s
mind, not batman’s, so there’s this whole sequence where we see the joker’s fears
being realised. The idea of everyone forgetting about him and him
having no legacy, it terrifies him, so the joker starts to lose control and acting erratically, the fear getting
the better of him, and then batman uses the opportunity to absolutely dominate the joker,
and he bursts into the nightmare like. “I am vengeance, I am the night, I am batman” and then he throws Joker into a cage in his
mind, and represses the joker’s psyche into a place where he’ll never bother him again
and he takes control of his body back in just this wonderful display of his mental strength. Arkham knight is a flawed game, but at the same time,
it's one of the best depictions of Batman’s resolve I’ve ever seen, it
plays a major role in the story and it culminates in a really fun climax, and at the same time it does a great
job at showing how intelligent Batman is for coming up with that plan to beat joker, but we’ve
already covered that point. But anywho, Bruce’s taciturn willpower is
a fundamental pillar of why he’s so fun to follow in other depictions, but in the
DCEU, this batman has never gone up against a foe that wiped everyone else out because they, weren't
mentally strong enough, but when they went against batman,
he persevered, soldiered through it when no one else could, and save the day. Yes, that dust cloud moment was nice and all,
but it’s just one moment in a series of films. When have we seen this batman's resolve ever get tested.
When have we seen it displayed? I mean he hates superman enough to lay out
a plan to kill him, and then he follows through with it. So... I guess he can stay
focused on a task? At least we know he doesn’t have ADHD? And he also has an excersive routine, i guess,
so I guess that counts as a kind of willpower, but that’s all we get in terms
of his resolve, and simply, it’s nowhere close to being enough. But here’s the thing, and this is leading
towards the topic I’m sure you’ve been dying for me to cover, god knows most
of the criminals batman fights have. When it comes to intellect and resolve, Snyder failed to depict those those not just important, but vital aspects of batman's character,
and him doing that hugely compromises the entertainment value he brings to the table,
that's all true, but the problem with this final one is how Snyder didn’t just neglect this quality,
unlike the others, he willfully disregarded it. That’s right, buckle up boys, because Henry’s
finally talking about batman’s no kill rule. This isn’t going to be controversial even
slightly. So, when it comes to the argument around batman
being a killer, it will almost always flow like this. Firstly, the critic will say “You see, Batman never kills people, therefore this version
of Batman sucks,” And then the critic of that critic will say. “but batman killed in other incarnations,
and you loved those, therefore you’re a hypocrite and your criticism is invalid, sir!” and they’ll be all like “You lose, good day sir.” What’s the issue here? Well, the problem is that first critic failed to
understand the heart of this problem, and because of that what he says is really easy to shoot down
because it wasn’t really the truth. And what is the heart of this problem? Well, its something that the joker put really quite well. “You truly are incorruptible, aren’t you?” People claim they hate this batman
because he kills people. But that's not precise enough
and it's not really the truth. A better way of putting it, right, is saying that
batman being someone of integrity is the final fundamental pillar of his character, it is a defining trait that
makes him the man he is, and this batman is completely and utterly lacks that
trait. But what’s really worth addressing here
before we continue, is that you 100% can alter a classic character's makeup, when making some kind of adaptation
about them. Snyder could have conceivably thrown Batman’s integrity
out of the window and it could have worked well. A fantastic example of another peice of work that does
something like this and it works quite well is in the injustice series. In injustice, superman becomes a fully fledged
murderer, he becomes completely evil, but don't you think it's curious that superman
in injustice is warped far more than batman in the snyderverse, it’s actually more of
a deviation from the original character, yet almost no one complains about that depiction
of superman, while what feels like millions of comic book fans have been complaining about
Snyder's depiction of batman? Isn’t that interesting. And there’s a very good answer for it. It's because in injustice, the core thesis
of the story is posing the question "What would happen if Superman became a tyrant?"
the justification for warping the source material is pretty much as good as it gets because
the story is about Superman's descent. It’s not just in the elevator pitch, it
is the elevator pitch. With injustice, it would be truly impossible
to not warp the character and still tell the same story because the character being warped
is the premise of that story, and as a result, it’s a great reason for the deviation,
as a result, the fans were happy with it. But what is Snyder's justification for warping
Batman’s integrity, from how he has no qualms about using guns, to how he shows no regard
for the lives of his enemies and doesn’t just kill people who are in his way, he flat
out murders people who he could have easily spared. Oh sorry, what’s that criminal, you’re weaponless,
defencless, and I could easily knock you out with a single strike,
or sweep your feet out from under you? Nah, lemme do this instead, What was Snyder’s reasoning for erasing
Batman's integrity? Well, Snyder’s thought process when he made
this decision, it looked a lot like this. “You know, I like movies with a dark,
grim tone. I should make my superhero movies with a dark,
grim tone. What could be more grim than killing people? Therefore all of my superheros need to be
killers. Oh my god, that’s it. I'm a genius!” That’s it. That is the entirety of the reasoning behind
Snyder's creative choices. That is why superman snapped Zod’s
neck, and it’s why batman seems to be perfectly fine with murdering the criminals he comes
across. And i know what some of you are typing in
the comments right now, “But Henry, this batman has had a really
tough life. His robin’s died.
Theforefore, it’s fine for him to say such comedy
gems as I will fudging kill you and for him to generally be a depraved murderer.” To those people, that is a fundamentally flawed
argument, because as the joker again says “You truly are incorruptible, aren’t you.” Integrity is one of the key traits that defines
Batman's character, in the same way him being a genius is, in the same way him wearing a
bat suit is. And over the years so, so many incarnations
have thrown so much at him, have really put him through hell, but throughout all of those,
Batman still stays true to the man he is. Let’s not forget that in basically every
modern batman story, the joker killing Jason Todd is canon, the joker paralysing barbara
gordon is canon, so in pretty much every modern batman story not only is robin already dead,
but also a laundry list of other horrible stuff has happened to Bruce, yet depsite that,
he maintains his integrity, but now in the DCEU under the exact same conditions,
he’s suddenly has no integrity? What explains the disparity? Well, there is only one possible conclusion. The disparity is incontrovertible proof that
on a fundamental level, Snyder's batman and the
classic batman Are completly different characters
because when presented with the exact same scenario in their backstory, they have
both reacted in the entirely opposite way. And so much so it’s not much of a stretch
from that to make a ship of theseus argument and say that because this Batman is just so
completly different from this batman you might be able to say that he shouldn't be called the ship of theseus anymore,
to not called batman because so much has been changed about him. But a fantastic example of batman really being
put through the wringer and having his integrity tested is again from injustice. In that series, it’s been made public that
his name is bruce wayne. His assets and company have been taken away
from him. Every single one of his old friends, every
single member of the justice league has either died, or turned against him. Alfred is dead. Dick Greyson is dead. His son, Damian Wayne has betrayed him and
joined Superman’s regime. Absolutely everything, absolutely everything
that could go wrong with batman’s life save for physical mutilation has gone wrong…
but despite all that, he stays completely true to his values and that series is a wonderful
showcase of his character, it does a wonderful job at adhering to that four cornerstone theory
I mentioned earlier. And again, as a caveat, in some situations
you can alter a character’s key traits and it can work in an adaptation, but,
just like injustice did you need a really good reason for breaking the mould. You can’t just rip out one of his most defining
traits on a whim, for no other reason than you feel like it, Ok, that's not actually fair because the real reason why Snyder did this to batman
the only reason, was because he wanted to achieve a certain tone, and I know some of you are thinking right now, "but Henry, that’s just speculation, you
don’t know that’s what was going through Snyder’s head at the time" well unfortunately it’s not, because Snyder
confessed to it. There is a pretty infamous clip of him on
a panel from a while back where he said this. "Someone says to me like oh, batman killed a guy. I’m like wake the fudge up. And then you come and say my superhero wouldn't
do that. I’m like, are you serious? It’s a cool point of view to be like my heroes
are still innocent… they didn’t commit any atrocities.
(ngl I'm manually doing captions for this and I'm losing my sanity) I'm like That’s cool, but you’re living in a fudging
dream world.” Snyder rambles a lot in that clip, so that’s
why it’s got so many cuts, but Snyder's defence on why he made Batman a murderer, it isn’t like
injustice where he says he had a very specific story in mind that regretably required batman
being corrupted in order to tell that story, which would have been a far better thing for
him to say. Instead, his argument boils down, to that the source material he is adapting is fundamentally stupid, which isn’t a worrying
thing for someone adapting something to say at all. But alight, it's really bad form when you're making these kinds of videos
to just say hey, that's a stupid thing to say, and not actually
address his argument, so let's address his argumet. Snydeer's main point
boils down to that Batman as we know him… is not realistic enough
for his world, and that is a tremendously flawed belief. Partly because of this so Snyder is indirectly saying that Nolan's trilogy felt like it was in a dream world, that it just wasn’t realistic enough. No. But also it’s because he mistakenly thinks
that Batman simply must be a man without integrity in order to tell a dark story around him. And here’s the thing, yes, forgetting the
corruption of the character, Snyder undeniably achieved what he set out to achieve, he has
Batman calling in precision airstrikes on criminals like he’s playing call of duty,
and it effectively gives his story the grim tone he was going for. But the real problem here, is what Snyder
did in order to achieve his tonal goals was completely unnecessary, and this is a major
controversial point, right? Many a heated conversation has been had in
many a twitter thread and youtube comment section about this, where people have said
that Snyder fundamentally doesn’t understand what makes Batman Batman, and others have
vehemently disagreed, but truthfully, this is some solid proof that Snyder doesn’t
understand the character, because if he had, he would have known that Batman, in terms
of the major superheroes, is both the most realistic, the least innocent, and also the
single darkest one around already, unless you count spawn and the punisher maybe. But somehow Snyder’s got it into his head
that a man having integrity, that a man simply having a moral code equals them being not
a dark character, and that is nonsensical, because so many wonderful Batman stories have
been told where he sticks religiously to his no killing rule, yet the story still has a
very bleak tone, and his character still comes across as totally believable. Out of the many examples, the game Arkham
origins pulls this off really quite well. Simply put, Snyder doing what he did was caused
by one of two things. He either A, didn’t have a proper understanding
of Batman’s character, or B he was just being lazy, those are the only possibilities,
and I say all of this because you can easily, so very easily bring out the darkness of batman,
do a fantastic job at fulfilling Snyder’s creative vision of grim, gritty realism without
altering anything about the base character, because batman is already a character that
inherently lends himself to that kind of story. Honestly, it’s almost like the classic batman
character is tailor made to fit inside the Snyderverse already. As a metaphor to get across what I’m saying,
this is like putting up a shelving unit. The shelves are the grim tone that needs to
be set up, the screws are batman, and the builder is Zack Snyder. Now what is worth saying here is that these
screws are perfect for this job, The classic batman character truly is perfect for this
job. You couldn’t ask for a better screw. And all Snyder had to do was deftly and delicately
screw them in, all he had to do was take batman’s existing mental trauma, or the various moral
dilemmas around his character like is it eve ethical for him to arrest criminals putting
them in prison, knowing he’ll break out and kill someone again. Batman through his innactions is indirectly
killing people. Is that ethical? There are a ton of potential angles snyder
could have taken with this. Snyder could have easily given us the best
of both worlds, where the shelving unit is nice and sturdily put up, and the integrity
of the screw, the integrity of Batman's integrity is perfectly maintained. But unfortunately Snyder didn’t use a screwdriver
for this job, perhaps because he didn’t understand the nature of the screw well enough
to know a screwdriver was the tool of choice, or perhaps because it was out of reach, or
it was just too much effort to do, we can only speculate about his reasoning, we can
only guess, but what we do know for a fact is that it was at this point that Snyder instead
grabbed the hammer, and mercilessly beat that screw into the wall, warping the absolute
shit out of it in the process. Now, yes, in the end, he did successfully
succeed in putting up the shelves, but at the same time he caused a tremendous amount
of pointless collateral damage to the nail, to batman. When an artist adapts a story they should
have the freedom to alter things when they get in the way of their creative vision. However, in Snyder’s case, Batman’s no
kill rule was not remotely in the way of said creative vision as per what I just said, it
would be easy to rewrite batman v superman so the same story could play out, but batman
still has his integrity, and I’ll show you how in a second. But he changed an incredibly important thing
about the source material unnecessarily, and because of that, what Snyder did to Batman
was therefore a bad creative decision. Injustice is a story that warps its character,
and it has a flawless excuse for doing so. The Snyderverse warps it’s character, and
it has a flimsy excuse for doing so, and that is why the DC fandom has almost collectively
loved the injustice series, and that’s why they were far, far less inclined to love the
depiction of Batman in the snyderverse. And what makes this worse is even if Snyder
had an injustice level excuse for doing what he did to batman, even then, because Snyder
failed to depict batman’s intelligence and resolve on top of failing to depict his integrity…
he fails to depict 3 of the 4 qualities that makes batman the man he is, and so even with
a top tier justification, he would have never come across as batman, the genius detective
who has a superhuman willpower and an incorruptible integrity. He instead comes across as a brute who has
a lot of fancy gadgets and is very good at punching things. Now those are all things batman is, but this
is ultimately why Snyder’s batman was such a waste of potential, and such a sub-par incarnation,
because while he did tick some of the boxes in the criteria, he did get some of the things
right, he failed to tick the majority of the boxes that actually mattered. Let’s also not forget that Batman being
someone of integrity doesn’t make him a less entertaining character, it actually makes
him more of an entertaining character. Batman having his code provides an extra layer
of depth to him, it makes him more likable, it is another way for the writer to give him
compelling conflict internally as he debates whether he’s right or wrong, and externally
as him choosing to spare those he fights only makes him more of an underdog with the odds
even more stacked against him because of the lines he refuses to cross. Batman’s integrity is a quality of his character
that is nothing but an asset to any prospective writer looking to write his story, and that
just makes Snyder depriving this incarnation of that quality all the more inexcusable. Simply, in the DCEU, but especially in the
justice league, Batman’s character screams untapped potential, and speaking of which,
the time has finally come. Here is my vision of what a better batman
could have looked like. So, in this section I’ll be rewriting Batman
in both BvS and Justice league. The thing is, I had an idea for a wholly new
movie for BvS with a completely different plot, it keeps the fact superman and batman
are main characters, but changes everything else, but I chose to be far less ambitious
and just rewrite Batman's role in the original bvs and nothing more. So one simple change that entirely fixes his
character is this, this batman has never killed anyone before in his life, and the film is
about batman contemplating breaking that rule for superman. There is nowhere on earth where Clark could
be imprisoned if he went rogue, killing him truly is the only way to take him out, and
the film is about Batman dealing with the dilemma that something has to be compromised,
the safety of the world, or himself and his integrity, one of those things has to go,
and he has to decide… alright, I’m just pulling your leg, it’s impossible to fix
batman v superman with one change like that, and you guys know by now that I have no self
control when it comes to these kinds of things. Here is my pitch for a fundamentally different
batman vs superman in which I do my best to not just fix batman in that movie, but also
everything else while I’m at it. So, in this new story, I want to turn this
batman into not just a loyal incarnation of the character, but also a compelling character
in his own right with his own functional arc. Here’s the problem, Batman's arc in bvs
for lack of a better term is big donkey doo doo, it sucks basically, and it does an awful
job at setting him up for justice league. If we tracked Batman’s arc from start to
finish of that film it would look like this. I hate superman. I hate superman. I still hate superman. Oh I hate that man so much. Big climactic fight. “Martha!” “huh, I guess I don’t hate
superman anymore”. Ten minutes of brainless action later. “You know what, I think I’m going to start
a team.” Don’t get me wrong, Batman saying I want
to start a team at the end to set up the justice league is something he absolutely had to say,
but this is weak sauce, this is nowhere close to the best way Batman’s character could
have reached this end point, and here is what I think is a far better approach. This film shouldn’t have been called batman
v superman, but something more along the lines of batman and superman. And hear me out, hear me out, this film should
have been… a buddy cop movie. I know, get your laughing out of the way,
but I seriously think giving this movie the same formula as a buddy cop movie such as
lethal weapon would have been the best possible way to tell a joint batman superman story,
and lay the foundation for the justice league. But ok, what would such a story have looked
like, well, we start following a van rushing through the street in the dead of night, everyone
inside’s wearing a mask and they’re all acting terrified, they’re asking each other
if they lost him, and after looking out of the back, making sure to look up at the rooftops
as well as on the street level, they say that no one’s following them, so they stop outside
the docks and go to meet a small ship that’s just arrived. It’s at this point the criminals start getting
taken out one by one, the whole thing is filmed as if it’s a horror film with criminals
vanishing all over the place, imagine a fight scene from the arkham games except you don’t
follow batman, you follow the criminals trying to survive, then there’s a grand explosion,
and batman leaps forth and we have a grand action scene on the same level as that warehouse
fight where he beats the hell out all of them, we see batman’s fighting prowess as our
introduction to him, but soon enough a second boat arrives with a mounted machine gun, it
gives Bruce a lot of trouble. He calls in the batwing, but just before it
can do anything, before the fight can be resolved, Superman suddenly comes along and takes them
all out for him. Once all of the criminals are tied up, Batman
is on his own brooding as he’s sifting through the shipping crates looking for what they
were smuggling when Superman walks up to him and says “you must be the batman.” Silence. “It’s good to finally meet you,” he
reaches out his hand to shake. Batman just looks at his hand, then goes back
to sifting through the crates. Batman grabs one of the boxes from inside
and turns to superman saying “Stay out of Gotham. It already has one protector, it doesn’t
need another.” It’s at this point superman starts wincing,
he’s looking sick, he’s sweating. The police finally arrive, Superman looks
at them, and by the time he turns back Batman's already grapelled up to his batwing and he
flies off. In the first act, we set up that superman’s
getting serious with Lois and he’s still as supermany as ever doing noble deeds and
saving cats from trees and the like, in this scene he says to her he met batman the other
day, and that Batman wasn’t remotely interesting in speaking to him, and we introduce the idea
that superman really wants batman as an ally, maybe even friend because outside of Lois,
clark doesn’t have anyone to work with or confide in. We also see that Lex luthor, forget jesse
eisenberg, just imagine him as the animated series luthor, is orchestrating a campaign
to slander superman’s name, he’s bought several newspapers, numerous billboard ads,
and is using every resource he has to convince the public that superman is a menace with
too much unchecked power, why, he could kill every person in the world if he wanted to,
and he’s really starting to convince people. Generally we see that lex just really, really
hates superman’s guts but we don’t quite know why yet. I love the idea that our first scene with
Lex is in a charity ball in gotham entirely paid for by Lexcorp, Clark and lois are there
covering it, which explains why Superman is visiting Gotham, and lex is hosting the thing
with a big smile and generally putting on a face of being a lovable, kindhearted philanthropist
who cares tremendously for the children, he makes a ten million dollar donation in the
middle of a speech on stage, and everyone gives him a standing ovation, to which he
looks down embarrassed and says he’s just doing the right thing. He leaves the event to be bombarded with journalists,
but Lois Lane corners him and asks why he has such an irrational hatred for superman. It’s then that Lex pulls out an odd black
device from his pocket, activates it, and all of the microphones and cameras held by
the reporters break, he’s created an EMP, and while everyone’s trying to fix their
cameras, Lex’s whole demeanor shifts, it’s like he becomes a completely different person
as he leans in to Lois and says something cold blooded. Something like “You should be more polite
to your new boss, Ms Lane.” She looks confused, and he says “Haven’t
you heard? The negotiations for my purchase of the daily
planet concluded this morning. You'll be under my employ from tomorrow. But, with you asking such… impolite questions
as that, I think it’s safe so say I won’t be your employer for much longer.” He walks off, and we get a shot of Lois just
looking pale faced and ill. So yeah, this lex luthor isn’t some socially
awkward mark zuckerberg-esc character, he’s a sociopathic manipulator, he’s far more
true to the comics, and someone who could be a great foil for batman. But now we see Batman in his cave along with
alfred. Bruce says he met superman tonight, and Alfred's
happy for him, he insists that Bruce needs friends, that this superman could be a valuable
ally, but Bruce ignores him and opens the box he pulled from the shipment. The second he does, the cave’s radiological
alarm goes off. Whatever’s in that box, it’s highly radioactive,
so batman puts the box inside one of those chemistry cases with the gloves built into
the glass, and he opens it in there, until soon he’s holding a dagger with glowing
green stone as the blade. They deduce that that whole shipment had to
have been full of this stuff, but why would anyone want so many weapons made out of radioactive
rock? Alfred says he’ll run a spectral analysis
to see what it’s made of, and while he does that, Batman walks around the cave and sees
robin’s suit set up in a glass box. And this is the thing, this is batman’s
whole deal in this film, this is his wound. Robin is dead, but it hasn’t affected him
in the same way as the original BvS. Batman truly, completely despises the idea
of working with anyone, it’s not superman that’s the issue, it's how many years ago,
batman sent robin out alone to do a mission he wasn’t ready for, and as a result, robin
died. He’s been guilt ridden ever since that day,
he’s carried on as batman, the mission must go on, but Jason’s death has affected him
not by turning him into a psychotic killer, but instead by making him terrified at the
idea of ever having another teammate, or even a friend, otherwise he’ll let them down
too. He’s convinced that if anyone is ever left
to rely on him, he’ll fail them when push comes to shove. But anyway, Alfred says that this is unlike
anything he’s ever seen, it’s not natural, that’s for sure, it was synthesised in a
lab, but something about the sheer fantastic complexity of the chemical structure leads
alfred and bruce to conclude that whatever this thing is… it’s not of earthly origin. That’s when Batman puts 2 and 2 together,
and he realises that this is a weapon made for killing superman, an alien weapon to kill
an alien, and someone’s been supplying all of gotham’s criminals with them. Bruce hates the idea of working with anyone,
but he’s not a monster, he has to warn superman about this. But then inciting incident time, a building
is burning down with tons of civilians trapped inside. Clark’s still at that charity event, but
he hears the screams, sneaks away, and arrives as superman to start saving people, he bursts
into the burning building when he starts to feel weak, then he falls to one knee, and
that’s when someone appears through the flames wielding a sword with a green glow,
his suit is back and orange, and his helmet only has one eye. It’s deathstroke, superman tries to stop
him, but all of his strength has mysteriously vanished, and there’s a very one sided battle
as deathstroke slices and stabs superman with his kryptonite laced sword and just kicks
his ass. Just before the fight can end in deathstroke’s
favour, Batman arrives and saves superman in a grand action scene, scaring deathstroke
off, but not before deathstroke manages to shoot Superman twice in the gut, and his bullets
pierce superman’s skin, making him scream in agony. Batman then rushes Clark to hospital with
his batwing, but by then clark’s wounds have actually healed over, but the bullets
are still inside. The doctors go to inject morphine, and the
needle breaks on his skin, they use scalpels to try and get at the bullets, but it’s
like slicing steel, they can’t even scratch him, superman’s dying, all the while batman
is on the balcony observing the operating theatre, speaking with alfred, and alfred
is demanding that bruce take him to the cave, they have the kryptonite dagger, they can
use it to get at the bullet, and batman says alright, he’ll go retrieve it and give it
to the doctors, and alfred says no, it would be 40 minutes by the time he got back to the
hospital, but it’ll be 20 if he brings superman to the cave. That difference could mean his life. “Don’t condemn a man to die because of
your own pigheadedness!” it’s at this point that superman stops groaning, Batman
looks and sees it’s because he’s lost consciousness, and batman, with huge reluctance
goes in, confronts the doctors and grabs superman’s body, one of the doctors holds the scalpel
up to fight him the last of us style, but batman just gives him a look, and the doctor
drops the scalpel and raises his hands in surrender. He then brings superman back to the cave,
and Alfred uses the dagger to take the kryptonite tipped bullets out. After this, Batman says “right, let’s
get him out of here before he wakes up, he can’t know who I am,” and speak of the
devil, it’s at that moment superman wakes up, feeling considerably better, his wounds
completely healed. There’s a fairly awkward conversation, clark
thanks bruce profusely, Alfred is very polite back saying he’s been following his work
and he’s a big fan, but Batman’s grouchy and doesn’t want to speak to him, he does
however tell superman all about slade and that he’s an assassin, one of the best in
the world. Someone obviously paid him to take you out,
someone with a lot of cash to burn, slade isn’t cheap. It’s at this point that we see a phone call
from Deathstroke, he calls up a man and says he came within an inch from killing the target,
but Batman got in the way. He needs more time. Then we see a shot of a mouth on the other
side say “You’ve had your chance, Slade, and you’ll have another. But your request for an extension is denied. Consider the exclusivity period on your contract
expired.” he hangs up, and of course, who else could
it be on the other end but lex luthor. So I’ll level with you guys, sometimes these
plots come fully formed to me in a matter of hours, sometimes a matter of days, but
I’ve been sitting on this one for over a week now and I haven’t solved it yet. My justice league rewrite I’ll give in a
minute is clear as day to me, but with this BvS one, while I have the jist of where it
all goes and the overall direction of the film, I haven’t yet pierced together every
plot point, but from here on, the movie is essentially a buddy cop film following superman
and batman, they’re working on solving a grand mystery, ideally the seeds for this
mystery have been planted before this point in the story, and this is the first live action
batman film where batman truly embraces his detective side, where the whole film is a
showcase of his intelligence as he pieces together the clues as to where all of this
kryptonite is coming from, and who wants superman dead, with superman being the watson to his
sherlock, albeit a watson who can bench press an oil tanker. But Superman keenly works with batman, perhaps
even too keen, he’s incredibly enthusiastic that he finally has a partner because he’s
operated alone this whole time, and batman begrudgingly works with superman, not happy
about it, grouchy all the way. We’d start off by showing Superman constantly
joking and teasing batman, and he isn’t having any of it, but over time, batman slowly
warms up to him and reciprocates the banter. Slowly, superman is being a positive influence
on batman, they’re not just developing a friendship, but he’s gradually convincing
batman that working alone is a weakness. As for some scenes that would come along the
way, firstly I like the idea that Lex has made Superman’s bounty public, and now there’s
a 50 millions dollar reward for his head, and all of the DC universes best assassins,
bane, deadshot, and the league of shadows are coming to claim it, and kill him, and
these people constantly interrupt the detective side of the story as bruce and clark work
together. I’m in love with the idea of there being
a scene where they lure one of these assassins into a trap, try to interrogate them, and
superman is all like “I’m warning you, you tell me what you know or else” and the
criminal’s like “or else what, boy scout? You’ll help an old lady cross the street? Ooh, I’m so scared.” and superman just
has no idea how to squeeze the answers out of him, he’s nowhere near dark or experienced
enough to pull that off, then batman says “allow me,” and then he’s all like “This
is how you interrogate someone.” and then it just cuts to the assassin telling them
everything he knows. That would be a fun scene that shows off their
characters. But at one point, clark’s in the cave looking
at the robin suit, Alfred walks up and Clark says Batman used to have an assistant, then
one day he vanished. What happened to him? And Alfred tells him, and thus the audience
all about what happened, that the joker murdered Jason, and Bruce doesn’t blame the joker,
he instead blames himself for sending Jason in when he wasn’t ready. But as a part of the mystery, Bruce somehow
gets a lead that the kryptonite could have come from Superman’s ship, so he goes to
the compound, meets cyborg’s dad, Silas, and Batman tells him about the kryptonite,
and that he needs access to that ship, superman’s life depends on it. But Silas says those kryptonite weapons simply
can’t have come from here because they’ve never managed to access the ship at all. The security software is unhackable, and the
door is impossibly hard to get through by physical means, they tried blasting it open
but the ship’s defences ended up killing two men, his people have spent months trying
and failing to get inside. Silas says Lexcorp got the contract initially,
but they yielded no results so the job was given to star labs, who still haven’t managed
to crack it, so then batman spends about half an hour trying to hack it when superman comes
along with a smug grin saying let me help you with that, he places his hand on the ID
pad, but it doesn’t work, it doesn’t recognise him. Batman says he’s nearly got the hang of
how this works, just give me a few more minutes, but then superman sighs and tears the door
open like its made of paper. Superman walks in with an aura of smugness
about him, batman follows him with far less glee, and that’s when they both get attacked
by the ships defence drones, they take them out, and superman sees that all of his suits,
they’re all gone, he accesses the computer, and finds out that all of the files, every
last piece of data the ship had on Krypton’s people, it’s been deleted. Superman’s understandably upset because
this was the only record left of his heritage, and now it’s gone. But they deduce that because lexcorp is the
company that got the government’s contract to study the ship, but was kicked off the
project, it makes sense that Lex Luthor secretly achieved something, he at least has to know
what happened to all of this missing data, so they both go to Lex’s office to confront
him about the ship’s missing data, Lex smiles, hits his emp device, disabling any potential
recording devices they brought with them, and lex confesses the horrible truth. Yes, he did figure out how to open the alien
ship, he says it only took him a few hours, and once he accessed the ship’s systems,
he memorised every blueprint, every technological advancement, the workings of every mechanical
marvel the kryptonians had ever created… and then he deleted everything, now the only
place in the whole world where that data exists is in here. He says pointing at his head. “I’ll be cautious about it of course,
and I’ll be generous, developing genetically engineered super crops to solve world hunger
over here, introducing the cure for cancer over there… getting filthy rich in the process
of course. I’ll most likely drip feed the more boring
innovations out through the years, saving the more exciting ones for myself. But imagine what the history books will look
like. Lex Luthor, the man who invented faster than
light travel, Lex Luthor, the man who solved global warming and saved a hundred million
lives, they’ll be singing songs in my honour for thousands of years to come.” Then superman just snaps and grabs Lex, his
eyes burning red, but Lex smiles back at him. “Now really, superman? We both know you won’t do it, you don’t
have it in you. And even if you did, remember I’m the only
person on earth who knows how to cure cancer, I’m the only man capable of leading humanity
into the stars. If you were to kill me, which you never would,
you’d be setting humanities advancement back by centuries.” “What did you do with my people’s history? My culture?” Lex guffaws “What care could I have for
the history of a dead race? I didn’t see any point in memorising those
files.” And then Superman is just boiling with rage,
and Lex just smiles back at him, there’s a tense build up, but Clark drops him, crushes
a priceless metal art piece on his desk, and flies out of the room. The next day Alfred comes up to Clark and
Bruce, and with shakiness, says they better look at the news, they turn it on, and every
news station is running the story that Superman just gave Lex Luthor a death threat. Lex is giving an interview, doing a great
job of looking shaken, saying that Superman came to his office and threatened him to stop
his PR campaign against him, or he’d take his life, and then he shows the reporters
his crushed priceless art piece as proof, this is unquestionably superman who crushed
it because only he’s that strong, you can even see the shape of his hand from where
he squeezed it, and Lex uses that as another way to ruin superman’s image. Like I’m just saying that right there is
the lex luthor we should have had, not a whining mark zuckerbergy teenager with daddy issues. So, Bruce ends up figuring out that Lex used
all of this knowledge to synthesize the kryptonite in a lab somewhere, but there’s a problem,
they have yet to find any hard evidence that Lex has been trying to kill Superman, they
both suspect it, the writings on the walls, but Lex has just covered his tracks too well,
there’s no paper trail, and certainly not enough evidence to make any kind of charge
stick in court. At one point just before the climax, Clark
says to Bruce that he knows about Jason. And Batman growls “You have no right to
say his name.” and they have a heart to heart. Clark’s endless goodness has been wearing
Bruce's defences down, and in this conversation, Clark really gets through to him. He says “I’m responsible for my own father’s
death. There was a tornado, it was about to kill
him, and I was about to save him… but he told me no. He told me to let him die because there were
too many witnesses. He didn’t want the world so see who I was. I could have saved him, and I didn’t, and
not a second goes by that I don’t regret it. I know what that kind of guilt is like, Bruce,
I know that you’ve spent every day of your life since then wondering what you could have
done differently. And I’ll tell you right now you’ll never
stop doing that, you’ll always carry that weight, but at the same time, you also have
to know that the last thing they would want would be for that weight to break you. Now, that’s not a free license to feel nothing,
but it’s an obligation to soldier on. You can’t stop putting yourself out into
the world, you just can’t, otherwise the world loses two people over their death, not
one. Bruce, you’ve been hiding in your cave for
nine years now, I’m not sure anyone’s seen the real bruce wayne attend a charity
event in all that time, but before all of this I understand you were the one who usually
hosted them. Think of the amount of good you could have
done, all of the injustices you could have stopped if you had the right allies to help
you, but you were powerless because you were too afraid to reach out for help. And this is just the truth, and I’m sorry
to say it Bruce, but if Jason could see you now... he’d be disappointed in you.” Bruce gives him a glare half between hate
and heartbreak, but then he just gives up on it, looks away and mumbles “I know.” And Clark really instills the idea in Bruce
that he needs to stop isolating himself from others. But alright, it goes along, and I love the
idea that lex, using all of this knowledge he’s got from the kryptonian ship, takes
a sample of superman’s blood and uses it to clone superman, except he edits his genome
just like the kryptonians did to themselves. This clone has all of superman’s powers
and looks identical to him, he just has no free will, is compelled to do whatever Lex
asks, and has no care for the value of life, and he also wears a black suit because why
not. And lex’s plan is that once superman is
killed by the assassins, he’ll replace superman with this clone, but he’ll be a superman
completely under lex’s thumb, and why exactly does lex does this, well, we’ll get to that
later. Now, if I were telling this story, I would
absolutely detest the idea of superman dying here. I think him dying is very, very, very stupid,
it was completly uncessary and everyone knew the second he died that he’d come back in
justice league. I mean he was on the original posters of the
film for christ sake. But, for continuity's sake, we’ll have this
clone fight superman, not doomsday, and the clone kills superman, he wins the fight. Once that’s done, once we’ve had a grand
fight and Superman's dead halfway through the climax, Lex orders the clone to do one
final task before he takes up superman’s mantle. “Batman knows too much. Kill him for me.” So then we have the final fight where bizarro
comes after batman and it all looks lost, Bizaro just managed to kill Superman, and
now he’s coming after Batman? Jesus Christ, that’s going to be a one sided
fight, but here’s the thing, Batman's the ultimate underdog, he’s a genius, he has
big brain, and as I said earlier, he’s at his most entertaining when he’s outwitting
enemies far more powerful than him. So, naturally batman knows lex is going to
send his clone to kill him, so to prepare for the fight, Batman calls of all people…
deathstroke and says “We have a mutual enemy. Tomorrow, it’s business as usual, but tonight,
we need to bury the hatchet. I have a proposition that will benefit both
of us.” We cut outside as the batwing flies around
so we miss what batman says, but we cut back in to catch the last of it, and Slade says
“Fine, this once. But if this is some trick, if you’re so
stupid as to lie to me, I won’t be needing a contract to end you, Batman, I’ll be doing
you for free.” So, the fight comes, and Batman stares Bizarro
down, he has a full body armoured suit just like he did in the original film, except this
one covers every inch of his body including his face, but he’s staring bizarro down
as the fight’s about to kick off, then… deathstroke appears from the shadows, then
bane, then a whole myriad of the DC universe’s best assassins. And Batman used the fact that there was a
50 million dollar bounty on superman, and got the whole of gotham’s criminal underworld
to help him win this fight, because he looks identical to superman, it’s an easy enough
lie to believe. So then we have a grand fight where all of
these assassins take on bizarro, in the middle of it deathstroke “Accidentally” misses
bizarro and slices his sword at Batman, Bruce barely blocks it, and then deathstroke is
like “whoops, that was clumsy of me, wasn’t it?” and they stare at each other for a
long moment with the sword locked in bruce’s gauntlets before slade breaks it off and continues
the fight against the clone, during this fight several of the assassins die, and everyone
else gets their ass absolutely kicked until it’s just batman and deathstroke left standing,
we have a civil war like scene as Deathstroke and Batman double team the clone, they best
him, and Deathstroke stands over the clone’s wounded, writhing body, puts a pistol to his
head and is about to pull the trigger when batman says “Slade, our deal.” Deathstroke gives superman’s clone an intense,
long glare, his grip on the gun still tight, then he says, “Of course, he’s all yours.”
and with that deathstroke walks away. Batman slaps some heavy duty handcuffs onto
the clone encrusted with kryptonite, and he lifts him away with the batwing. Deathstroke says over the radio “I’ve
kept my side of the bargain. If you don’t deliver on yours—” “Relax
slade. I’m taking his body straight to Luthor. And I’ll let him know you were the one who
took him down. You have my word,” says Bruce as a smile
creeps over his face. This whole part of the story also does a pretty
good job at laying the foundation for a potential standalone batman movie down the line as deathstroke
has a vendetta against Batman for tricking him the way he did here. But then Bruce calls Commissioner Gordon,
he picks up and Gordon’s hysterical, saying “I’ve had two dozen reports of gangs of
ninjas having sword fights on the rooftops, are these friends of yours?” and Bruce says,
“Jim, it’s about that. Something’s come up. I need a favour.” So the next scene, the batwing lands on the
helipad of lexcorp’s HQ, and Bruce arrives at Lex’s office still in his combat suit,
and Superman’s clone is in front of him, weakly stumbling along with the kryptonite
handcuffs still clamped to his wrists. Batman drops him to the floor and says “I
believe this is yours.” “I have no idea what you're talking about,”
says Lex. “You murdered superman, you tried to murder
me.” “I dare you to prove it.” “You have plenty of motive. Anyone who watches the news knows you have
a pathological hatred for superman. I have your motive, and the murder weapon.” “You have nothing.” says Lex as he pulls a device out of his pocket
and presses it. Suddenly, superman’s clone starts screaming,
he’s squirming in complete agony, and batman staggers back in terror. That’s when Lex pulls out the other device,
the handheld EMP and triggers it. The lights go out, and Lex says “Did you
seriously think I wouldn’t have a contingency in case this was how it all ended? And did you seriously think you could stride
into my office and record my confession? You aren’t half as bright as your reputation
suggests, detective.” “What did you do?” asks Batman, his voice
warbling and more distorted than normal. “Kryptonian technology. I just sent out a command to denature his
DNA. A kill switch if you will.” It’s at this point that the clone stops
looking like Henry Cavill and begins to change into a horrible grey skinned monster, that’s
right, it turns out that he was bizarro all along, and Batman is still acting completely
terrified, stepping away from bizarro. Meanwhile Lex is just looking at the body
as it reaches out to Luthor, groaning, begging for help from his father. But Lex just looks at him with dead eyes,
his hands behind his back and continues by saying “In theory anyway” the conversation
goes along for a while, and Lex is being tight lipped giving away nothing, Batman’s trying
to squeeze a confession out of him, but Lex isn’t giving away a thing. “Why did you want him dead, I wonder?”
says batman. “Did you want to save the world from him? Or are you jealous? Did you see how loved he was by the public,
and that just ticked you off because that meant fewer people were loving you?” Lex’s hands form into fists, he glares at
batman. “Oh, no. That’s not it at all. It was never about saving the world. You wanted to see him dead because behind
all that pretend intelligence, that fake personality you present to the world, you're just afraid
that someone out there might see you for what you really are, a pathetic little man, a man
so pathetic that he can’t stand the idea that someone out there has more power than
him.” And Lex’s composure snaps like a twig, he
leaps forward and says “You dare?! My father was a penniless immigrant, and from
that baseline I’ve come to own half of Gotham, and most of Metropolis. Most of this city's population works for me,
whether they know it or not. I have a net worth of 53 billion dollars. I achieved all of that, and I did it alone. So don’t you dare question my intelligence.” “No, I’m not biting,” says batman. “You might fool them, but not me. Cloning superman? Hacking an alien ship? You’re not clever enough to have pulled
that off. Who really hacked that ship? Who’s the real brains behind this?” “There was no one else.” growls Luthor through gritted teeth. “Don’t lie. It couldn’t have been just you, not you
alone. I bet you covertly tricked some scientists
more clever than you into doing the lion’s share of the work, not that finding someone
more clever than you is a challenge.” Oh of course it was me, who else could? Who else could kill superman but lex? Lex laughs bitterly, “You simple, simple
man, you don’t understand. I never had to worry about being covert with
finding help, because I never needed help. Anyone else would have just slowed me down. I was the first ever man to hack an alien
ship, and I did it on my own, I mastered Kryptonian cloning, and I did it on my own, and I used
my genius to kill superman on—” Suddenly, Lex’s seething rage dies, replaced by fear,
he staggers back, then stands tall trying to regain his composure. “You’ve done it now,” says batman. “Done what?” Lex laughs nervously, then scoffs. He looks around the room checking for anything
irregular, he sees nothing and laughs with more confidence. “Nothing’s changed. You couldn’t have recorded that.” he says reaching into his pocket and pulling
out the EMP device, “This made sure of that. It’s still nothing more than your word against
mine, and something makes me think the big bad batman won’t make his appearance on
the witness stand.” “Wrong, because it wouldn’t be me who
took the stand.” Luthor’s eyes tremble with confusion, fear,
then rage, but then something out of the window catches his eye, he looks at it, and his face
pales. Batman is outside on the helipad. He’s in the middle of leaving the batwing
and storming towards Lex’s office. “Then who—” says Lex as he turns to
look at Batman, what he thought was Batman, but now that he’s taken off his helmet,
he can finally see that the person under the suit was none other than commissioner gordon. “It’s over Luthor,” Gordon says. Batman finally walks through the door, his
voice coming in twice, once from him, once from Gordon's suit. Gordon and Batman walk towards Lex, Lex staggers
back, “But how did you—” “Overcome the EMP?” says Batman, “That suit has
a vacuum tube radio, one specifically designed to resist EMPs. I put it in there just for you, Lex.” and
Lex blurts out “this is entrapment, this is illegal, his confession will never hold
up in court.” And Commissioner Gordan says “Lex Luthor,
I’m arresting you under suspicion of murder and attempted murder. You have the right to remain silent, god knows
you don’t seem interested in exercising it. Anything you say can be used against you in
a—” “I know my rights!” Blurts Luthor, a silence follows, and we see
his eyes shifting, just from the look on his face we can see Lex’s mind moving at a million
miles a minute considering and reconsidering every possible option he has. Batman steps closer, Lex locks eyes with him,
stops, sighs, and puts his hands out in front of him, surrendering as Gordon cuffs him. Then we cut to later as Gordon's out of the
suit on the street, Lex is being put in a patrol car, and he looks at batman. “You know, that suit of yours stinks like
the communal vests the GCPD soccer team uses,” says Gordon. “I never noticed.” “Just please, promise me you won’t ask
a favour from me again.” “I’m afraid I can't do that. The suit's recordings were corrupted, but
the ones on the batwing weren’t,” says Batman, handing over a USB drive. “In case the reliability of your testimony
comes into question. Who knows? Luthor might make the case that the smell
of soccer vests is hallucinogenic” “Are you alright?” “What?” “It's just… you made a joke.” Batman smiles, “First time for everything.” Gordon looks away and mumbles “It wasn’t
a very good one if that helps.” They see Luthor getting driven away, and Gordon
sighs, “Superman’s gone, and apparently my people have stopped receiving calls about
ninjas reenacting the middle ages on the rooftops. I guess everything’s going back to normal,
or as normal as it gets in Gotham.” “No. No it isn’t,” says Batman, an aura of
hope about him. Gordon looks at him, but before he can ask
how so, Batman grapples up to the batwing and flies off. Then Gordon looks at one of the patrol officers
standing next to him and says, “You know, must’ve been the first time he’s done
that while my back wasn’t turned.” So now we have clark’s funeral, except no
wonder woman and bruce is hanging out on his own near the back, Lois comes up to him and
she’s just a wreck, she’s barely holding it together, and she says he died for nothing,
but Bruce puts his hand on her shoulder and says you’re wrong. His death did mean something.” She gives him a look and he says “I can’t
tell you yet, it’s too early, but give it a year, maybe two, and you’ll see what I’m
talking about. Just know that whenever you see us on the
news, whenever you hear about the good we do… know it’s all going to be in his name. Clark’s not dead, because his ideals, everything
he stood for, defending the innocent, taking down the guilty, justice, it’s going to
live on through us. “Who’s us?” asks Lois, and to that Batman
smiles, and just as he opens his mouth to speak, the credits roll. So there are two post credit scenes, the final
one is Bruce tracking down wonder woman and introducing himself to her and effectively
starting the league, but the first one is similar to the one we had in the original
movie. Batman visits Lex in prison. He walks past the now grey skinned bizarro
trapped in a cell illuminated with red sunlight, and reaches the end to see Luthor. Lex immediately monologues, saying Superman
wasn’t human, therefore killing him never classified as murder, so all that’s left
is attempted. I have the best lawyers in the world. I’ll be out on parole in 6 months, tops. You’ve lost. I’ve won,” says lex, desperately. Batman just stands there, saying nothing. “Well say something, damn you!” barks
Lex. “I came here to tell you one thing. Even if I was a killer, I’d still have spared
you.” “Is that it?” scoffs lex. “You murdered superman, but in killing him,
you’ve started something that’s impossible to stop. You forced the two of us together, you planted
an idea in my head, and thanks to you, I’m finding others like him.” Lex looks confused, and Bruce says, “And
you’ll be powerless to stop us.” with that, the hate on Lex’s face grows. “Even if I was a killer, I’d still have
spared you, because now… you get to watch, you get to be humiliated, to feel powerless
every day for the rest of your life by the mere fact my league exists. That, for a narcissist like you? That’s worse than a life sentence, that's
worse than death.” “Fine,” says lex, barely keeping it together,
“Fine, I’ll just send the assassins after you this time, just you, and there’s nothing
you can—” “After being convicted of trying to kill me, your plan is to try again? You aren’t half as bright as you think you
are, Luthor. You do that, you’ll never see the other
side of these bars. And besides, if you’d have done your research,
you’d know,” he says turning around, readying to walk away “Know what? Know what?!” screams lex. “That if you were to track down every world-class
assassin, and ask them all if they have what it takes to kill me, only the insane would
say yes, the rest, no, because every last one of them,” he says glancing back, “They’ve
already tried, and despite never asking it myself, I know only the insane say yes to
that question, you know how? Because only the insane make the mistake of
trying to kill me twice. I wonder which one you’ll turn out to be,”
And Batman walks away, a smile on his face and Luthor screams at him through the bars,
saying he hasn’t heard the last of Lex Luthor, and with that, the film ends. Now that, that is the batman v superman we
should have got. Why did Snyder have to cast Mark Zuckerberg
as Lex luthor? Anyway, moving on to the justice league. So, there are rumours that ben affleck’s
batman will reprise his role for the flash, also going back to that rewrite I just suggested
where batman’s deciding to work with others again, let’s run with that and alter justice
league so batman is acting as barry’s mentor, almost like he’s treating him as the next
robin, and seeing as this barry has no experience as a crime fighter, this feels like a natural
direction to go. For the sake of time, I’ll be focusing just
on the fight scenes in this rewrite. In the superman resurrection fight, batman
basically does nothing but walk into a field with absolutely no plan, and then get his
ass kicked by superman. Let’s fix that. So Barry suggests he can resurrect superman
by building up an electric charge for the motherbox, but he needs to go faster than
light to do it, he’s worried, he’s afraid of what might happen, then batman gives him
support, and says he has faith in barry, and Bruce gives him the final nudge of encouragement
to go through with his idea. Then barry does the thing Superman bursts through the ceiling, and batman
puts his finger to his ear. “Alfred, what’s your ETA?” “About seven minutes, master wayne.” “Get here sooner.” “Is that wise? I’m already pushing the speed limit.” “I’ll pay the ticket. Just get here, now.” Batman looks at everyone and says “I have
a plan. I have a weapon inbound that will pacify superman,
buy me time until it arrives. No matter what, Superman has to stay in the
field.” Everyone nods and they head out, goes up to
superman and it plays out pretty much the same way. As the league fights Superman, Batman is covertly
observing it all play out, and constantly checking a GPS device, seeing the red dot
grow closer. Then the fight takes a turn, superman bests
flash and is about to kill him when batman sees what’s going on and presses a button
on a device, a high, terrible whine goes off and superman winces, yet no one else seems
to react. It’s at a frequency only superman can hear. Superman turns and glares at Bruce, and Bruce
says “Alfred, I need the contingency, now.” “I’m doing my best,” says Alfred as
we get a shot of him racing down the street. As the whine continues, the league tries to
stop superman as he moves for batman, they do nothing but stall him, and once he’s
taken everyone out, superman goes straight for batman who’s in the middle of running
towards the red dot. Superman grabs him, crushes the sound device,
and glares at Batman, his eyes glowing red. We get a shot of the GPS on the ground, the
red dot finally on top of them, just as Superman readies to kill Batman, just as Batman reaches
into his pocket. A car door closes, and both men turn to see
Lois Lane running towards them from a car, and Alfred then stepping out of the driver’s
seat. The rage leave’s Clark's face, big smooshy
romance moment as he remembers who she is and the two of them fly off. The league catches up with Batman, and Wonder
woman gets a glimpse of a green glow coming from one of Batman's pouches. She asks what it is, and he pulls out a kryptonite
knuckle duster, saying it was his last resort in case Lois never arrived. He thanks everyone and says they all did good
work, he gives special attention to Barry saying that if what he saw was anything to
go by, with a little more training and confidence, Barry might actually be able to beat superman
toe to toe, and Barry blushes. So then we go along, we have a scene where
Alfred mumbles about being given a $1,000 speeding ticket, and we approach the climax,
and I had an idea of how to make the end of justice league so much more fun, and to improve
batman’s character in the process. So in the climax as is, all Batman does is
drive around in the batmobile and shoot parademons, it’s a complete waste of his character because
any member of the justice league could have more or less done the same thing. As a fix, I want to add back in the idea of
civilians being in the area, don’t worry, flash isn’t going to be saving them, but
it’s important to include and you’ll see why. So, in the planning scene before the climax,
Batman lays out what they need to do, he’s acting as the leader and saying flash needs
to build his charge and zap the mother boxes while everyone else takes on Steppenwolf. Cyborg says because they’re dealing with
3 fused mother boxes now, the amount of electricity he needs is orders of magnitude larger, so
much so that Flash would have to run for ten minutes straight just to build up that charge. So Batman says, “Fine, I’ll cover Barry
with the ship and keep the parademons off his back. Everyone else takes on steppenwolf. They all agree, and just that happens, once
it all kicks off, flash starts running and Bruce is flying around with the transport
ship, firing missiles and taking down all of the parademons that get close to Barry. But here is where things really start to diverge,
Darkseid has been observing the battle through the parademon’s eyes, and he’s noticed
the flash. In the comics, Darkseif has a habit of finding
powerful and talented people, then brainwashing them into being his elite soldiers, let’s
play off that, and Darkseid says to steppenwolf that he wants the flash so he can do exactly
this to him, he doesn’t care what it takes. If it takes losing ten thousand parademons
to capture him, so be it. In thousands of years, Darkseid has never
seen someone so attuned to the speedforce. The powers of everyone else in that battlefield
are inconsequential compared to him, so then Steppen wolf obeys and sends every single
last parademon he has after flash, and it’s too much for batman to handle, he runs out
of rockets, his ship gets crippled, batman makes a crash landing, and without Batman’s
cover barry gets overwhelmed himself, he trips, gets knocked unconscious, and then the parademons
grab barry and take him through a boomtube away from earth, and into apocalypse. Batman crawls out of the wreckage and tells
them all that Barry's gone. Naturally everyone else freaks out, and Cyborg
says it’s over, without Barry he’ll never get the charge he needs to separate the mother
boxes, they’re all as good as dead. But batman is like “I’m on it. Take care of steppenwolf. I’m going after Barry” This is why there
needs to be civilians in the area, because before this point we’ve sporadically seen
civilians being taken by parademons and, just like Barry, taken to apocalypse for an unknown
reason. Bruce has seen this, so this is what makes
him pull his cowl down, put over a big coat concealing his batsuit, and step out into
the open surrendering himself to be picked up by the parademons, they grab him and take
him to apocalypse. All the while as this plays out, the rest
of the league is fighting steppenwolf. So we follow Bruce as he’s being lifted
by a parademon over what looks like hell, and it’s here we have a whole subplot where
we follow batman being taken to apocalypse, trying to make sense of it and rescue the
flash. Eventually, they put batman in a regular cell,
but they put flash in this super advanced cage where he’s hovering in midair syndrome
style without any physical restraints, so Batman breaks out, because of course he does,
he’s batman, takes out a few of the parademon guards, and has a brief dialogue with barry,
something about because batman had no powers, so thought they could put him in a regular
cage, their mistake, Barry asks, “so how long did it take you to break out,” “eleven
seconds” says Bruce nonchalantly, and Barry says it’s not like it would have made a
difference if they’d put you in one of these, if they had, iit might have taken you what? At least twenty seconds to break out, I’d
bet.” Batman humms, opens the panel, looks at the
circuitry and just stares at it stone faced for ages, Barry is like what’s wrong, and
Batman says from what I can tell, it’s programmed to release the contents of that gas can behind
you if someone tries to break the lock. It’s reasonable to assume it would kill
us instantly. The camera shows what looks like a gas can
on the wall behind barry, and Bruce then kneels and starts tinkering with it immediately,
and the last shot we see is of Barry’s face looking absolutely terrified, then we cut
away to the fight back on earth, but that’s boring, we know how that goes so let’s cut
buck to Batman and Flash a bit later, and Flash says “You can leave. Just leave me. If more guards come— ”, “I’m not leaving
you behind.” Batman says. He tinkers a bit more and says “This lock
is incredibly complex.” “Is that a problem?” “No. A lock is a lock, no matter which galaxy it’s
from,” just then a parademon comes around the corner, batman reacts instantly by throwing
a batarang straight into his face, then he touches the lock just a few more times, there’s
a clunk, barry drops to the floor, and they both have a grand escape scene where they
fight as a team trying to find a portal to go back home, they finally find one, and they’re
about to get inside it working when the worst happens, Darkseid appears around a corner,
his hands behind his back, and with just complete ease he backhands barry and sends him flying,
batman doesn’t even try to fight Darkseid, he’s not that stupid, his first instinct
is to leap into the portal, grapple hook the concuseed, stunned barry and heave his body
at lighting speed through the portal after him, just as barry comes through the portal,
Darkside looks at him and simply says “If I can’t have you, no one can.” and this
next bit plays out in a classic bit of Zack Snyder slo mo. Darkseid’s eyes burn red, and out comes
an omega beam zig zagging through the air, right at Barry, and Barry just watches, completely
stunned as he’s about to die. Then Bruce sees what’s happening, and pauses
for just a moment before he leaps in between them to take the hit for Barry, and as the
blast closes in headed straight for Bruce’s chest, him resigns to die, the portal closes. Bruce feels his perfectly intact chest, lets
out a weary sigh, and Barry looks up to him in awe saying thank you and wanting to have
some kind of heart to heart, but Batman is immediately over it and says “what are you
doing lying around? you’ve got a job to do. Start running.” And Barry is just about to when the worst
happens, the mother boxes go off, the entire rest of the league is killed, and Bruce and
Barry look on from outside the blast radius in complete shock, they’re mortified, and
as the dust cloud comes close, Bruce raises his arm to shield his eyes, Barry reaches
out his hand, then everything freezes, and that’s when barry reverses time and the
climax pretty much plays out the same from then on. There we go, as simple as that. We’ve barely changed anything plotwise about
justice league, yet batman’s character is showing off his intelligence, is far more
active, and is overall a much more entertaining character to follow in this version, not to
mention by fleshing out batman acting as a mentor to barry, that does a lovely job at
setting him up for being a mentor in the standalone flash movie. But anyway, i hope you liked my rewrites,
please consider supporting me on patreon if you want to help me make more videos just
like this, subscribe or I’ll make my next video on why the room is secretly a masterpiece,
I swear to god I’ll do it, and I will see you guys next time on the closer look.
