Director Zack Snyder appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience where he explained why he chose to have Batman kill in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice.
Ben Affleck as Batman in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), Warner Bros.
A little over an hour into their conversation, Rogan said to Snyder, “It’s interesting to see when there’s such a strong reaction to certain things and especially amongst like really wild hardcore fans. … You also face it because you cover these genres. You cover these subjects that are iconic: Superman, Batman. Just those alone.”
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Snyder responded, “By the way that’s a lifestyle choice for a lot of people. It’s not a movie. It’s not a movie. It’s like if I made a romantic comedy you’d be like, ‘Okay that was fun.’ The people who love and — by the way I love that they feel this passionately, I’m not in no way would I criticize that because I feel I lived the same life because for me it’s morning, noon, and night. But so for those guys it’s not just a movie and so you have to, on some on some level, you have to acknowledge that this is their religion and they feel strongly about it.”
He continued, “And by the way the truth is it’s my religion too. I tend to get in trouble because I do take a deconstructivist point of view because of Dark Knight Returns because of Watchmen. Those, if you’ve read those two comics it’s hard to go back, you know? And it’s because I care that I want to take him apart.”
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns #2 Cover art by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley (1986), DC Comics
Snyder then specifically addressed Batman and his no killing rule.
He said, “People are always like Batman can’t kill, right? So Batman can’t kill is canon. And I’m like, ‘Okay, the first thing I want to do when you say that is I want to see what happens.’ And they go like, ‘Well, don’t put him in a situation where he has to kill someone.’ I’m like, ‘Well that’s just like you’re protecting your god in a weird way, right? You’re making your God irrelevant if he can’t be in that situation. He has to now deal with that. If he does do that what does that mean? What does it tell you? Does he stand up to it? Can he survive that, right, as a god, as your god. Can Batman survive that?”
Ben Affleck as Batman in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), Warner Bros.
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After Rogan asserted that Batman’s rule on not killing is “ridiculous given the circumstances in which he operates,” Snyder shared, “So in Dark Knight Returns there’s a scene and I copied it kind of in Batman v. Superman where he grabs the M60, he busts through the wall, and he grabs the M60 and in the comic book he’s like got this kid, the mutant has this kid with a gun to his head and he’s like, ‘I’ll kill him. I swear I’ll do it.’ And Batman says, “I believe you,’ and shoots him straight in the head.”
Next, Snyder compared this to Star Trek’s Kobayashi Maru, “Because it’s like a no-win scenario. It’s like Kobayashi Maru. The Kobayashi Maru in Star Trek it’s that test they put Kirk through where there’s a no win. Because they want to see how you’ll react.”
“So, they say, ‘Okay, we’re going to make a scenario, a test scenario, where you don’t win, where there’s no way to win. And in that situation we find out what you would do in a no-win situation because if you’re going to be the commander of this spaceship you’re going to be in situations where you know it’s life or death and especially when there’s no tricking it. There’s no tricking death in this case. And the famous thing with Captain Kirk is he went and hacked the machine and made it so there was a solution. So that was his response to the no-win situation: Was create a scenario where he wins which is cool character move,” Snyder explained.
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns #2 (1986), DC Comics
He then brought it back to Batman, “But like that’s kind of how I felt. That’s what they would say, ‘Don’t do that to Batman. Don’t put him in a no-win situation because we don’t want to see him lose. Like we can’t see him lose he has to maintain this god-like status.”
“And that’s what the cool thing about Frank Miller,” Snyder continued. “Frank Miller said, ‘F**k it, I want to see who this guy really [is].’ So you’re saying to me that I’ve got a gun to this kid’s head, you’re Batman, there’s no move, there’s no trick, there’s no throwing the batarang, there’s no dust ball to distract me. Like I I’ve just got to pull the trigger and I kill this kid. So you’re saying in that scenario, what’s Batman supposed to do? He’s gonna lay down his gun? What’s he going to do?”
“The guy says to him, ‘I’ll do it. I swear it.’ Rogan responds, “I believe you is perfect.” To which Snyder says, “Yea, I believe you.”
Snyder then says, “So that’s where Frank [Miller] deconstructs Batman and just tears him in half. And you’ve got to now come out the other side of that and Batman is still the hero. Batman still does the right thing. He maintains his code, his [ethics]. He doesn’t change. But like our perception of him changes and I think that’s the- And I have run afoul-“
“But a lot of the fandom, I feel like, who have like gotten to the same place I have with the characters where they need to test them and I feel like the characters, it’s been my experience that the characters have not let us down, like these myths have not let us down. You put them to the ragged edge, into that scenario and they come out the other side, and you’re like, ‘F**k yeah!’ There’s a reason why Superman is Superman, you know what I mean? He can handle it. He can f***ing take it because he’s so iconic,” he said.
“Like you see like the red S. You go anywhere in the world with that Superman t-shirt on, anywhere, and you say to any kid like, ‘What’s this?’ ‘Oh, that’s Superman.’ ‘Yeah
exactly.’ That means something. That’s like f***ing cool,” he concluded.
Ben Affleck as Batman in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), Warner Bros.
What do you make of Snyder’s explanation on why he had Batman kill in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice?
