Zack Snyder to People Who Wonder Why His Batman Murders People: ‘Wake the F**k Up’

Zack Snyder may be out of the superhero movie business for the time being, but he still has plenty of thoughts about the genre, and his own particular contributions to it. Over the weekend, Snyder hosted an event where he screened extended editions of several of his films (sorry, no #SnyderCut), and took part in a Q&A with the audience. During this time, Snyder shared his thoughts on his superhero movies – specifically touching on how his take on characters like Batman frequently end up murdering people.

Should Batman kill people? The character has before. In his original comics incarnation, Batman had no qualms about offing some bad guys. And in Tim Burton’s movies, the Caped Crusader straight-up straps dynamite to people and lets them explode. But in recent years, Batman has adopted a “no kill” policy that was further cemented by Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy.

But Zack Snyder doesn’t care about any of that. Snyder received some major guff when he had Superman snap necks and level cities in Man of Steel. And by the time Batman v Superman came along, Snyder’s Batman was a borderline sociopath, branding bad guys like cattle, and not above murder at all. The director has addressed this before, and it’s likely he’s tired of talking about it. Over the weekend, Snyder hosted a Director’s Cut event over the weekend, and addressed his killer Batman in blunt terms (via The Playlist):

“Someone says to me, ‘Batman killed a guy.’ I’m like, ‘fuck, really? Wake the fuck up…I guess that’s what I’m saying. Once you’ve lost your virginity to this fucking movie and then you come and say to me something about like, ‘My superhero wouldn’t do that.’ I’m like, ‘Are you serious?’ I’m like down the fucking road on that.”

Uh…okay. There’s a lot to unpack here, most notably the “once you’ve lost your virginity to this fucking movie” part. When you boil this down, it seems like Snyder is making the point that his superheroes exist in a darker world than some other comic characters, and if you can’t handle that, you should grow up. The director continued:

“It’s a cool point of view to be like, ‘My heroes are still innocent. My heroes didn’t fucking lie to America. My heroes didn’t embezzle money from their corporations. My heroes didn’t fucking commit any atrocities.’ That’s cool. But you’re living in a fucking dream world.”

I get what Snyder is saying here, and I don’t entirely disagree. I do think there’s room in the superhero movie world for both stories of hope and inspiration and stories of dark cynicism. However, I also feel like Snyder’s “do you even lift, bro?” way of parsing this info out is a bit much. Also: saying that people who expect more from superhero characters are “living in a fucking dream world” ignores what makes (some) superhero stories so special. Many of these stories should exist in a better world – a world we can aspire to live in, as unrealistic as that might be.

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