David S. Goyer Doesn't Hold To The "SUPERMAN Doesn't Kill" Rule; Briefly Talks JUSTICE LEAGUE

There have been endless debates here on CBM about the ending to Zack Snyder's Man Of Steel, which sees Superman choose to end Zod's life in order to save some innocent civilians -- and it's not even the first time David S. Goyer has chimed in. But during his most recent discussion of the scene at the BATFA and BFI Screenwriters' Lecture last night, the screenwriter goes into more details than he has before. Goyer says that the black and white "Superman doesn't kill" rule which is held to pretty rigidly by most comic writers "exists outside of the narrative" of the movie, and he didn't want to be hindered by it to tell the story he wanted to tell. He also addresses the popular "why didn't he just fly Zod to the Moon or something?" fan-gripe!

"We were pretty sure that was going to be controversial, It's not like we were deluding ourselves, and we weren't just doing it to be cool. We felt, in the case of Zod, we wanted to put the character in an impossible situation and make an impossible choice. This is one area, and I've written comic books as well and this is where I disagree with some of my fellow comic book writers - 'Superman doesn't kill'. It's a rule that exists outside of the narrative and I just don't believe in rules like that. I believe when you're writing film or television, you can't rely on a crutch or rule that exists outside of the narrative of the film. So the situation was, Zod says 'I'm not going to stop until you kill me or I kill you.' The reality is no prison on the planet could hold him and in our film Superman can't fly to the moon, and we didn't want to come up with that crutch. Also our movie was in a way Superman Begins, he's not really Superman until the end of the film. We wanted him to have had that experience of having taken a life and carry that through onto the next films. Because he's Superman and because people idolise him he will have to hold himself to a higher standard."