"No one stays good forever"

[Dark Jaguar]

Again, if I actually felt like that was an accurate description of the movie I saw, I would be with you there. But, I don't think they are "learning to be heroes for the first time", I think Zack Snyder is trying to tell us that they already ARE great heroes, "Better than heroes!" according to an interview, because they are smart enough to determine who should live and who should die.

I'm starting to wonder if the climax of Watchmen was misinterpreted by Zacky as a full-on endorsement of Ozy's "kill the world to create world peace" plan. Ozy is smarter than everyone else, so of COURSE he should be the one who gets to decide who lives and who dies. I mean, look at those PLEBIAN FOOLS on the streets, so ignorant of what's outside their bubble it makes me VOMIT IN HORROR! Pah! If a few should die to prevent the idiots of the world from killing more, then all the better!

More to the point, his "edgy deconstruction" comes across as something he wasn't aware was done a billion times already. I have a personal pet peeve, and that's whenever anyone says something they think is brilliant and insightful and iconoclastic, only they don't realize EVERYONE ELSE ALREADY THOUGHT THAT THOUGHT ALREADY! It was the round-up lesson at the end of an episode of Carebears, fer cryin' out loud! Like, X-Men's shoehorned "hating people because they are different is wrong" message. Yes, that's an important message, but to pretend it's something new is a bit insulting. Contrast that with Zootopia. They went a more subtle route. They acknowledged that everyone already knows "specism" is bad and live in a society where everyone is equal. But, that's on the surface. Deeper down, there's systemic prejudice most aren't aware of and minority groups are still suffering for it. It addresses the evils of second-order racist elements to an audience that already knows the overt "burning crosses" form of racism is wrong. It challenges the most prevalent racism that we actually HAVE in the real world today, instead of a ghost from the past that people can use to say they "aren't racist" because they aren't a grand dragon from the 50's, or literally Hitler.

Also compare and contrast Wall-E with literally every Miyazaki movie. Wall-E spends so much time talking about garbage covering the earth and that particular brand of pollution that it skips over how humanity tends to actually care about the pollution it can see, but the big issue today is the pollution we can't see, IE, carbon dioxide. Then it invents some stupid scenario where everyone lets robots do the work for them and evolve into lazy good-for-nothing slugabouts, which is a "dire warning" that doesn't really apply to anyone in the real world, like trying to warn us about the evils of trying to bring your pet dog back to life. In contrast, Miyazaki goes the more subtle route. Spirited Away showed us a river over and over again, just an old nearly dried up thing, only to confront us with the hidden reality of how dirty that seemingly "clean" water was and how it wasn't the result of any one thing but an amalgamation of decades worth of trash. It doesn't go for the giant tower of trash immediately, it goes for the surprising reveal, the one that makes us wonder just how much of our damage to the environment has gone completely unnoticed by us.

Anyway, that was kinda a random aside, but my point is this. Batman v Superman: Court Case of the Century is a conflicted movie that contradicts itself throughout, unless Zack Snyder actually DOES believe that his versions are already heroes in an Ayn Randian way. His recent interviews seem to suggest that, yes, he really DOES believe they are fully formed and idealic heroes already. Here's what puts the lie to it all. Batman in this movie has been Batman for decades. There's no room for him to "grow up" any more. He should have done that a long time ago.

All that said, I still think the DC universe has a chance. I would celebrate these movies if it turned out we were in the "Justice Lords" universe, and all of this was a prelude to them eventually trying to take over the "real" justice league's universe. Make us hate them, then love them, then start introducing DC's vast catalog of unsung heroes.

Such as:

Arm-Fall-Off Boy, with the power to rip off his own arm and beat people up with it.



The Codpiece, who's power is to become the living embodiment of phallic imagery



Matter-Eater Lad, who's power is obvious


And two more: The Defenestrator, who attacks people with entire windows, but pales in comparison to the Dog Welder, who welds dogs to people's faces. The saving grace is, according to those cartoon X's in the dog's eyes, the dog is already dead when this happens.


I want a deep dive psychological analysis of the hero who welds dogs to villains' faces. We ALL want that.