Zack Snyder is a visionary director with a singular vision and a master of visuals. A lot of people like him but I just don’t care for his movies. I accept that. But that doesn’t mean I can’t step back and see when someone is making a mistake. If Joss Whedon had said these things I’d still have a problem with them.
Zack Snyder held a charity event called “Director’s Cut” where he screened extended versions of some of his films. The event screened the Dawn of the Dead – Unrated Director’s Cut, Watchmen (Director’s Cut), and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Ultimate Edition.
At the Q&A sessions, Zack Snyder said many crazy things. Here are the craziest things he said.
1. Zack Snyder Believes Superheroes SHOULD Kill
Two of the most controversial moments in Snyder’s DC movies are having Superman (Henry Cavill) snap General Zod’s neck and Batman (Ben Affleck) going on a killing spree against criminals.
You can argue all day and night whether Batman and Superman have killed in the comics (they have) and whether it was justified (it’s not). But one assumption everyone made was that Snyder’s approach was to establish that killing is wrong and the heroes needed to learn that.
He gave many, many explanations for why Batman and Superman murdered people in dozens of comics that do (and don’t) support his point. Everyone agreed that Zack Snyder wasn’t saying superheroes should kill just that they had to learn hard lessons. Then Snyder said, “hold my beer” and revealed the truth.
According to Heroic Hollywood he had some thoughts about people complaining about the killing in his movies. “Someone says to me: [Ben Affleck’s] Batman killed a guy. I’m like, ‘F**k, really? Wake the f**k up,” he said. “I guess that’s what I’m saying. Once you lost your virginity to this f***ing movie [Watchmen] and then you come and…and say to me something about like ‘my superhero wouldn’t do that.’
“I’m like ‘Are you serious?’ I’m like down the f***ing road on that. It’s a cool point of view to be like ‘my heroes are innocent’ My heroes didn’t f**king lie to America. My heroes didn’t embezzle money from their corporations. My heroes didn’t commit any atrocities. That’s cool. But you’re living in a f***ing dream world.”
So now we have the truth. Batman and Superman killing isn’t a bug in Snyder’s world. It’s a feature. He WANTS superheroes to be murderers and commit atrocities.
2. Zack Snyder Never Shot His Justice League Script
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| Justice League (2017) – Diana Prince / Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), Victor Stone / Cyborg (Ray Fisher), Bruce Wayne / Batman (Ben Affleck), Barry Allen / The Flash (Ezra Miller) |
Zack Snyder started with the critically panned but box office successful Man of Steel and followed it up with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. The movie underperformed and left Warner Bros. nervous. Snyder left Justice League after the tragic death of his daughter but the studio was already asking for changes.
Snyder later revealed that his original script for Justice League was supposed to be a massive two-parter that got cut short. It was never filmed and the studio made them go back to the drawing board and rewrite the film. But Stephen Colbert of Screenrant revealed on Twitter Snyder’s original plans.
“When this movie came out, understand that Chris Terrio and I had finished the script to Justice League before BvS came out. Some people didn’t like the movie. A vocal minority. So they said ‘there’s a lot of stuff we don’t want you to do’ so we did a rewrite from that script. 1/
— ☕Stephen M. Colbert (@smcolbert) March 25, 2019
“When this movie came out, understand that Chris Terrio and I had finished the script to Justice League before BvS came out,” Snyder told the crowd. “Some people didn’t like the movie. A vocal minority. So they said ‘there’s a lot of stuff we don’t want you to do’ so we did a rewrite from that script.
“So the original Justice League script, we didn’t even shoot. The really scary version. Because we were really nervous after the response.”
3. Zack Snyder Wanted to Kill All the Superheroes
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| Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) – Clark Kent / Superman (Henry Cavill) |
“The truth is that the Knightmare sequence in this movie is always something that I intended to explain and we end up in [a] future Earth where Superman has succumbed to the Anti-Life equation and [there are] a few surviving members of the Justice League, and a broken Cyborg was working with Batman to send Flash back to warn Bruce,” Snyder continued. “There was a scene in the trailer, apparently, it didn’t make it into the movie, where Bruce says Flash came to him and warned him that ‘Lois was the key’ and something darker was coming.
“They worked out a complex (and nonsensical) time travel formula. But the Earth has to be in the right position when Flash jumps or he’ll jump back in time into space.
“And Cyborg asked when Batman wanted to send Flash back between [two] windows. Batman said ‘Which one would you send him in if you didn’t ask me?’ and then tells Cyborg to do the opposite.”
Colbert adds “Darkseid was supposed to boom tube into the Batcave and murder Lois!?!?”
So to recap, in the third DC Universe movie Zack Snyder was planning to kill off most of the team of superheroes and turn Superman into an evil murderer.
4. Zack Snyder Doesn’t Understand Character Motivation
After the success of Man of Steel, the studio pushed forward with a sequel that would unite the two biggest superheroes and begin the shared universe. The movie literally started with the title “Batman vs. Superman” (later Batman v Superman because dropping letters is tight).
The movie was supposedly based on the Dark Knight Returns graphic novel but the plot is completely different and so are the motivations. Frank Miller’s classic story is set in a dystopian future where America has become a fascist state. Batman becomes a revolutionary and Superman becomes an unwitting pawn of the government. The fight happens naturally and is one of the greatest in comics.
When Snyder and Chris Terrio set out to write the movie they started with a blank slate. There was no development of Batman and Superman was just starting out. The movie is set in modern day and there’s no fascist state. So how do you get them to fight? Turns out they had no idea either.
Snyder explained during the Q&A. “It’s funny, because we, [screenwriter] Chris Terrio and I, we did reach that point in the movie, in our discussions… we knew how to get them to fight, right? But how do you get them to stop fighting?”
Here’s the thing. The reason they had so much trouble is they had no idea how people act. No boxing match has ever ended by having one boxer yell out the other’s mom’s name. No one starts a fight without talking to the person first. Snyder doesn’t understand how people think and act which is the whole problem with his movies. They look cool but are inhabited by robots that act in bizarre and strange ways.
5. Zack Snyder Still Thinks “Save Martha” is a Great Idea
Snyder addressed the infamous “save Martha” scene in Batman v Superman where Batman is about to stab Superman with a Kryptonite spear and stops when Superman chokes out, “save Martha”. He’s urging Batman to save his mother Martha Kent (Diane Lane) who’s been kidnapped by Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg). Batman is taken aback because HIS late mother was named Martha Wayne (Lauren Cohan). He stops the fight to scream “why did you stay that name” and the two become BFFs. It’s actually a cool coincidence but makes no sense in context.
The moment has been the butt of countless jokes. First, you don’t talk about your mother using their first name. You say “mommy” or “momma” or “ma”. Second, there’s the question of why a world-famous detective wouldn’t already know the name of his opponent’s mother. So why do it?
“That’s a tough one. And we sort of were just throwing down on their humanity and Batman realizes Superman has humanity, he’s not just a creature, he’s a man — he’s an alien, but he is as human as, in a lot of ways, he’s more human than him, right? He’s sort of embraced all the good parts of the human race, and so Batman’s able to sort of see, in a lot of ways, a thing that he is not. And I think that that was how we started to talk about it.”
Snyder blames credits Terrio with pointing out the respective mothers shared the same name. “And it was actually Chris who told me, he goes, ‘You know, just saying… is it weird that they both, their mothers have the same name?’ I was like, ‘That’s crazy! Is that true? That is true,'” Snyder said to laughs. “And so that’s kind of how the conversation started, it’s as simple as that … So that’s kind of how it started, and then we started to talk about how it could work, and if it was Lois (Amy Adams) that said it, maybe it’s better, it’s that kind of thing. Look, it’s a mythological construct, I have no problem with that part of it.”
6. Zack Snyder Wants a Director’s Cut
Since Justice League flopped there has been a vocal minority of fans who want the studio to release a director’s cut of the film. In their mind, it’s perfectly executed and will redeem the film and the director. Some aren’t sure.
During the Q&A an audience member said, “You have a lot of director’s cuts and that’s a great tradition and I’d like to see it continue.” Zack Snyder raises mic to his mouth… pauses and says “me too.”
Someone yelled “release the Snyder Cut” and Zack just smiled.
In one of those rare moments in Hollywood the studio pulled the franchise back from the abyss and are now basking in the glory of two blockbuster hits in Wonder Woman and Aquaman. Shazam is coming soon and we’ll see if they get a threepeat. So, if you (unlike me) are a Zack Snyder fan, just know that he tried as hard as he could to ruin your favorite superheroes.
What do you think of Zack Snyder’s plans for the DC movies? Let us know in the comments below!
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