If you've been on this site for any significant length of time, then chances are you're already familiar with my thoughts on 2013's surprisingly divisive
Man of Steel (
and if not, please feel free to check this out).
Simply put, my less-than-glowing take on WB/DC's first foray into the cinematic universe business means that I've been eyeing
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice with some
major trepidation because, after all, how much faith are we expected to have in a shared universe when the foundation for it all already seems to be built on such unsteady, uneven ground?
Hell, even after seeing that initial, moody
BvS teaser that helped set the tone and further establish the ever-expanding universe in which this franchise is taking place, my doubts just refused to go away. . .
. . .until I, like most of you, was sitting at my laptop as WB/DC's much-anticipated Comic-Con panel was taking place,
frantically eagerly scouring my Twitter feed (
don't be shy, throw me a 'follow' here too if you feel so inclined!) for any and all updates on the presentation they had put together. Then, when all the crazed reactions to the "exclusive" trailer footage shown came pouring onto the internet faster than I could even keep up with, fanboy hype reached a fevered pitch.
The suits over at WB/DC must've heard the outcry of thousands of fans demanding the extended trailer be released to the public, because they happily obliged us and, as a result, the entire landscape of comic book movies as we know it has changed.
Or at the very least, between the highly-discussed releases of the
BvS trailer, the
Suicide Squad teaser, and even the leaked
Deadpool footage. . .it certainly
feels like it has.
After pouring over the nearly 4-minute-long trailer countless times and stacking it up against my issues with
Man of Steel, I've managed to single out 3 incredibly important aspects of the footage that not only make me more optimistic and hopeful for
Batman v Superman, but actually
somewhat manage to settle some of my complaints with
Man of Steel as well.
So what exactly is it about the Comic-Con trailer that's managed to transform this cynic into, well,
maybe not an outright believer just yet, but into a more relieved and genuinely excited fanboy? Let's find out!
1) Getting Back to the Snyder Aesthetic.
Admittedly, this is probably the most minor point of the 3 that I'm about to go over. . .but it's important nonetheless, given how talented and adept Zack Snyder (
and acclaimed Director of Photography Larry Fong, too) is at constructing visually stunning movies and iconic imagery.
To briefly bring things back to
Man of Steel, it's abundantly clear that apart from a small handful of scenes (
most notably that 'dream sequence' with Zod showing Superman a vision of a destroyed Earth and a mountain of skulls swallowing up our hero), it simply didn't
feel like a typical Zack Snyder movie.
In fact, visually speaking, it looked and felt
much more like a Christopher Nolan film.
Who knows if that was a quirky stylistic choice on the part of Snyder to depart from his usual M.O., or a studio mandate in order to appeal to the same target audience that ate up Nolan's Bat-trilogy. . .but, frankly, it doesn't really matter either way. Whatever the case may be, it appears to be rectified with the most recent trailer for the upcoming sequel, as it looks like the most
gloriously unapologetic Snyder film we've seen since 2011's
Sucker Punch.
Just think of the imagery of Superman hovering over the civilians stranded on their rooftops in the middle of a raging flood. Or the slow-motion, dramatic shot of a gun being fired as young Bruce Wayne witnesses his parents being murdered. Or Batman poised on the side of a building, with lightning flashing and flaming embers all around, using his grapple-gun to dodge what
seems to be a blast of Superman's heat vision.
The first words to come to mind upon seeing all this footage should be something along the lines of '
operatic'; '
epic'; '
larger-than-life'.
Snyder's patented visual flair naturally lends itself to these superlatives, and these superlatives are
precisely what I want to see associated with a movie about gods fighting men, evil political masterminds manipulating events from behind the curtain, and immortal Amazonian goddesses eventually getting involved to clean up everyone else's shit.
With
Batman v Superman apparently returning to Snyder's
300 and
Watchmen roots, it's difficult to look at this dramatic visual overhaul as anything other than a much-welcomed course correction for the Snyder-led DCEU films moving forward.
2) Re-contextualizing Man of Steel's 3rd Act.
Some may call it a ret-con, some may see it as a lazy way of shoehorning a major character into past events.
Me? I found it to be incredibly clever.
I am, of course, referring to the unexpected reveal (
well, unexpected if you hadn't seen some of the set pics of Ben Affleck during filming) that Bruce Wayne was actually present and active in Metropolis during the events of
Man of Steel's climactic battle, which pitted a revenge-driven Zod against Superman himself.
Not only is it
unimaginably cool to see previous events told from a brand-new perspective and point-of-view (
it also gives us an awesome, if not iconic, hero-shot of Bruce running into the debris of a collapsing building while everyone else runs away), but it also goes a long way towards explaining some of Wayne's motivations in
Batman v Superman.
Where
Man of Steel's portrayal of the final action scene could be interpreted as nothing more than an overly-indulgent romp through a CGI city, whose common justification was that it showed off how destructive and '
realistic' it'd be for gods to have a throwdown on Earth. . .
Batman v Superman's depiction of these events, on the other hand, appears to directly answer the complaints of many fans and flips that entire fight right on its head.
From the brief glimpses in the trailer, it's likely that this pivotal moment will be told exclusively from the grounded viewpoint of Bruce Wayne - the famous billionaire who is, at that moment, nothing more than yet another innocent civilian caught in the crossfire. That dynamic, that sort of '
Show, don't tell' sequence has the potential to go a
long way towards defining this new iteration of the Batman character that we're only being introduced to here.
I don't know about anyone else, but as Bruce Wayne has his arms in a protective embrace around that little girl in the middle of the rubble and stares up at the sky in pure hatred (
presumably at the distant image of two gods duking it out in the air above), I'm 100% sold and convinced that this is a man who has legitimate reasons to want to take Superman down a peg and even go so far as to destroy him.
In a sequel that seems intent on positing the question of, '
Are the naysayers right? Is Superman actually the monster that Lex Luthor, Bruce Wayne, and many viewers think he is?', the inclusion of this flashback to possibly
the most well-known and widely-covered controversial action of Superman (
both in-universe and in the real world, as well) was the right way to go.
Of course, it's up to Chris Terrio's script and Zack Snyder's execution to convince us that Batman is actually making a horrible mistake in trying to take down Superman (
personally, I'm looking forward to seeing how Clark gets Bruce to forgive him for the destruction of Metropolis and convince him that he's not a threat, despite his unlimited power. . .it'd be disappointing if they only unite because of the greater threat of Lex Luthor), but if the trailer is anything to go by, this improved creative team likely won't drop the ball here.
By giving audiences a new perspective on perhaps the most controversial aspect of
Man of Steel, and by re-contextualizing past events to inform the motivations of a new major character, Snyder and Terrio are basically announcing that they are up to the challenge of deconstructing a beloved hero, while also showing a willingness to listen to criticisms and make improvements.
That, in and of itself, is almost enough to cure
any apprehension towards the movie that even the most pessimistic fanboy may have.
3) Dealing with Consequences.
Fair or not, deserved or not, one of the major criticisms of
Man of Steel was the fact that the shocking amount of collateral damage and death, resulting from Superman and Zod's climactic brawl in, around, and above the city of Metropolis, went by largely unacknowledged in the movie itself. In short, the film depicted some
major game-changing events, but never actually dealt with the aftermath (
in other words, the consequences) of afore-mentioned events.
With that in mind, it was a
very pleasant surprise to see the
BvS Comic-Con trailer open up with a scene where Superman gets called before the Senate in order to explain his actions to the American people, and to the world at large.
Though it's very difficult to look at the 3rd act of
Man of Steel as an intentional set-up for a plot point that would only come to fruition
three years later (
in a separate movie altogether, no less), it
was a nice bit of gameplanning to adapt quickly and turn such a major event (
and the significant backlash it received) into an opportunity to explore the aftermath and consequences of Superman's actions, intentional or not.
Of course, the concept of a movie directly addressing the complaints of the previous film isn't all that remarkable in and of itself (
it's been the linchpin of practically every James Bond movie since the Connery era, not to mention Man of Steel
itself employed this very same mindset in response to the criticisms of Bryan Singer's Superman Returns), but it is a welcome sight if executed properly.
With a world seemingly divided on whether Superman was a hero or a villain during the high-profile events of his solo flick (
so meta!),
Batman v Superman could serve as the
perfect examination of the roles that superheroes should have in this growing universe. With Snyder and Terrio set to dive deep into the core philosophical differences between Gotham's Dark Knight and Metropolis' Man of Steel (
as well as the neat concept of a major class difference between both sister-cities), all the ingredients for some epic conflict is right there, ready and waiting to explode in a big way.
If the script is able to take this theme of consequences and cleverly incorporate it into the plot (
rather than merely paying lip service to the idea), we may well be in for the most thematically interesting and meaningful blockbuster since Chris Nolan's
Dark Knight trilogy wrapped up in 2012.
Conclusion
So where does all this leave us with
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice?
Well, clearly this is just one fanboy's opinions based off of roughly 4 minutes of footage. . .so
maybe we should all relax a bit (
me included!) before treating this as some sort of definitive look at how the highly-anticipated blockbuster will end up turning out, either positively or negatively.
As new bits of information leak out and/or gets officially released in the coming months, opinions will change and perspectives will be shifted, and that's perfectly okay. It's all part of the process.
In my mind, the months-long lead-up to a major movie being released is possibly
the most fun time to be a fan - dissecting every second of the trailers, over-analyzing set photos, coming up with theories and speculation about what direction the characters and the plot will take. . .I love it all.
So maybe consider this as just one speculative piece that's part of a larger, more overwhelming tidal wave of fanboy hype. Between this,
Captain America: Civil War,
X-Men: Apocalypse, and
Deadpool (
let's not forget Suicide Squad
, Dr. Strange
, and Gambit
as well), 2016 is shaping up to be a magical year for comic book fans. I for one can't wait to devour them all.
So there you have it! Don't agree with my take on the trailer, or just have some better insights on it? Leave your comments in the usual place!