Batman v Superman: Zack Snyder Explains Ending

Batman v Superman director Zack Snyder explains his reasoning behind the controversial ending

Batman v Superman is a controversial movie. Diehard DC fans seem to love it, critics seem to hate it, but that’s hardly all that’s controversial, as Batman v Superman has a rather surprising ending. Director Zack Snyder talked to Entertainment Weekly about the ending. If it wasn’t super obvious from the headline,

THIS PERTAINS TO MASSIVE SPOILERS ABOUT BATMAN V SUPERMAN, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

So in Batman v Superman, Superman dies in the fight against Doomsday, and he has a whole funeral and everything. As far as you are concerned, he is dead for the time being. Zack Snyder explains that he basically thought it would be too easy for Superman to assemble the Justice League, and he wanted Batman to have to do it more or less solo:

"The ending of BvS was designed to show that Superman was willing to make himself collateral damage if it meant saving others. I felt like we had to kill Superman in this movie in order for us to have been serious with the entire premise of the film. And that’s not to say that he clearly is gone forever.I wanted Bruce Wayne to build the Justice League. I felt like with Superman around, it’s a different conversation when you create the Justice League, right? It’s like, ‘Me and Superman, we want to make a Justice League.’ [Other heroes would be] like, ‘Okay, yeah, I’ll join!’ I just feel like Bruce Wayne having to go out and find these seven samurai by himself, that’s a lot more interesting of a premise.I also I felt like, without Superman, there is definitely a vulnerability to the team that they’re gonna need to figure something out, you know? Superman does represent the powerful. He’s the Michael Jordan of heroes, he’s gonna score.He comes very close to death in space and the reason why we did that is because I wanted to show — and keep the idea in the viewer’s mind – that he can come pretty close to death and the sun can revive him, or he can be revived. I think something more is gonna need to be done.I felt like there’s a mythological journey for Superman. There’s the birth, death, and resurrection thing. And when you bring him back, who knows what he is when he comes back."

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So I feel like this could have worked had Snyder not botched the WHY of Superman dying in the fight against Doomsday so horribly. Literally all you would have had to do is have Doomsday incapacitate Batman & Wonder Woman bad enough that it’s up to just Superman. That easily justifies him carrying the Kryptonite spear despite it weakening him so bad that Doomsday dies but still manages to kill him. BUT BOTH BATMAN & WONDER WOMAN ARE PERFECTLY FINE. And so even if you do that, the fact that he is coming back, so you do the resurrection at the end of Batman v Superman. That still gives you a triumphant moment at the end instead of this downer of an ending you’ll have to somehow spend 30 unnecessary minutes dealing with in Justice League.

Yes, Superman is the Michael Jordan of the Justice League, so he makes friends with guys like Aquaman and Flash and Cyborg and they join the league rather than having Batman spend 2/3rds of the movie (and you know this is what’s going to happen) trying to convince them they need to join forces because hey, Darkseid is coming! This makes me feel like Justice League is actually going to be less coherent than Batman v Superman, because Snyder is going to have to juggle all these characters already and he’s adding these completely unnecessary and pointless layers. We’ll find out if that’s the case next year with Justice League.