Part 2: Batman vs. Superman

[Here’s Part One.]

First, a summary of the screenplay.

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ACT ONE:

The opening scene – Metropolis. A terrorist attack on the “Freedom Promenade” sends Superman flying into action. The monument tips over, which he catches in mid-air and fixes. By the time he locates the terrorists, their van has gotten into a car accident, the people of the city have dragged them out and started beating them senseless. Superman intervenes and says, “You have a right to your anger, nothing more.” The people scream at him, “Why are you protecting him?” Superman replies, “And what if you kill him? What then? Are you your wife’s husband? Your mother’s son, your children’s father? No. Not anymore.” Since when was Superman so preachy? Well, he promises that justice will be done and flies away with the terrorist. As they soar over a river, the terrorist throws Kryptonite dust into his face, falls into the river, and gets away. Supe’s left with a mask with scribblings on it.

Cut to Wayne Manor and the wedding of Bruce & Elizabeth Wayne. At the reception, Bruce strolls over to an exterior upper balcony and shoots the breeze with Clark Kent. They’re old friends. They know each other’s secrets. We learn that Batman is officially retired. Clark’s already married to Lois but they’re getting divorced. (We won’t see Lois, by the way.) Bruce hints at the weakness of humans to develop a thirst for blood following the loss of a loved one. It’s “a human thing,” he tells him. They talk a little about the terrorist that got away, and Bruce tells him to “be careful.” All in all, 3 ½ pages of dialogue. Bruce glances at the reception tent and suggests a “race.” Clark’s a blur and gone. Bruce smiles and laughs.

Cut to Metropolis. Clark wanders around sadly in his now empty apartment. Cut to Bruce’s honeymoon. Elizabeth is killed by a bumblebee dart that distorts her face into an “impossibly wide Joker-esque smile” of “exposed teeth and tart gums.” He sees a sign similar to what Superman discovered on the mask. Bruce, irate and bent on revenge, heads across his library toward the bookcase that’ll send him to the Batcave, but Clark confronts him. He tells him about the signs and their common enemy. He tries to persuade Bruce from caving into revenge. “Kill,” he says, “and you become the dark thing you’ve spent your whole life fighting. You can’t go back down there. You’ll destroy everything you are, everything you’ve done, and all those deaths, your parents’, Dick’s, even Elizabeth’s will be in vain.” Bruce blames Clark for not letting the mob kill the terrorist, throws a statue at him, and tells him to get out. Ends on page 23.

ACT TWO:

Elizabeth’s funeral. Back at the Daily Planet, Clark asks for some time off over this “thing with Lois.” Superman flies out of Metropolis. Bruce can’t sleep. He goes to the Batcave. Supe arrives in Smallville, returns to the Kent farm, sits in his room, and studies the terrorist’s mask. Batman takes off. Clark has flashbacks from his childhood. Batman takes his rage out on some thieves. News about Batman’s return spreads. Clark meets up with Lana Lang and saves her son, Billy, in a river. Lana takes the lead in the romance and says, “Would it be too much of an imposition if an old friend stopped by for a visit?”

Back in Gotham, inside a warehouse, Batman confronts the Toyman, a guy who has supplied toys to the Joker in the past. He shows him the bumblebee dart. Toyman denies creating it. Since this story is post-Batman & Robin, he also questions him on who is impersonating the Joker. Just as he’s told that the Joker’s still alive, explosions go off in the warehouse. Batman returns to the cave to get his car. Clark chats it up with Lana. She already knows his secrets. She tells how when he revealed his secret to her, she actually thought he was going to propose. They kiss. They make love in Clark’s old bedroom. Batman’s car careens through Gotham. Through Clark’s bedroom window, Lana’s post-sex silhouette figure walks to the bathroom.

Batman digs up Joker’s grave. Clark shows Lana his spaceship in the farm. Batman opens the coffin to discover a giant Joker-in-the-Box. Then, he gets word of a disturbance at Citizen’s Plaza, fights Jeeves One and Jeeves Two and finally discovers the Joker. He says, “Tell me true… did you miss me? I sure missed you. We’re going to have a blast!” and he gets away. Batman chases them in his Batmobile, deals with exploding bouncing balls, and then plays chicken on the road with Joker’s armored car. They barely miss each other and spin around. Joker shoots off missiles and Batman ejects out of his car just as missiles blow it up. Joker says, “HooooHee! It’s not a party till something gets broken!” Batman glides back to Joker’s armored car, punches through the windshield, almost grabs Joker who hits the brakes and Batman flies off. Joker says, “Too bad your friend in the red and blue pajamas didn’t kill me when he had the chance,” and leaps onto Batman and starts beating the life out of him. The two Jeeves’s pull him off, oddly enough. Joker says, “Yes, yes. The boys are right. Now’s not the time. But don’t despair, Brucey-boy…”

Back in Smallville, we learn that Clark is actually using the pod that brought him to earth to help analyze the terrorist’s mask and the kryptonite dust. (He couldn’t do that in the Fortress of Solitude?) Clark does some soul-searching while he’s there, too. He ask Lana questions about why he imposes his own values on others. She gives us a sappy speech: “How long could you leave your answers forgotten on the kitchen table? How many cries for help ignored before you’d start to hate what you’d done? And me for letting you. How could you ever just sit back and let nature take its course, knowing you could save a hundred lives. Knowing you could save just one. You can’t be the man who comes home from a hard day with roses. Because your day never ends. That’s lucky for the world. It’s just unlucky for me. And for you. I love you. Good-bye, Clark Kent.”

Out of depression, Clark mopes in the rain and then takes off as Superman. He saves some people in Smallville from a tornado. And then he gets the data from his pod about the mask, says “No,” and flies away. The dust was residue from a Kryptonite bomb Lex Luthor had detonated in orbit as a test. So, Supe meets Lex in prison who, after a little wheeling and dealing, tells him about a government conspiracy, called Achilles Heel, to create Kryptonite bombs to detonate in orbit just in case Supe ever wanted to take control of the government. In the Batcave, Batman also learns about Achilles Heel. Joker spreads pamphlets throughout Gotham laying down a challenge to Batman, a battle to the death at 4 a.m. on Friday the 13th at the Freedom Monument in Metropolis. Batman’s computer figures out the project’s location and so he sneaks into the factory, which he blows up. He steals the Kryptonite, which he incorporates into his suit. Clark meets him again at Wayne Manor and tries to apologize and tries to make amends, but Bruce will have none of it. He will have his revenge.

We learn in a conversation between Luthor and his lawyer that he had brought Joker back from the dead with “a little grave-digging, DNA extraction, and a billion dollars.” And he gave Joker “a plan to play one hero’s weakness against the other until they were at each other’s throats.” The Joker murders Batman’s wife, Batman vanquishes Superman, and the Joker gets to kill Batman as a reward.


At the Freedom Monument, Batman waits for Joker. Superman arrives, and their conflict comes to a head. Superman’s determined to turn in the Joker unharmed. Batman wants his revenge. He tells him, “I'll say this once and only once. Walk away.” Superman replies, “I can't let you lose yourself to the very dark you've spent your life fighting.” Batman replies, “Don't you get it? I am the darkness. I'm Batman.” And with that, he turns on his Kryptonite-laced suit, Superman’s eyes turn red, and they charge each other. The battle starts on page 92 and goes on for 10 pages. They battle on the ground, in the air, through buildings, trees, up-town, down-town, mid-town, all-around-town, and underwater. On page 95, Superman bleeds. Ultimately, Superman is hit with a Kryptonite-laced arrow below the collar bone. He falls. He’s dying. Batman walks over, breaks the arrow to leave the tip inside, tells him, “I had no choice,” and leaves. Ends on page 102.

ACT THREE:

It’s midnight. On the Freedom Monument’s Observation Deck, Joker looks for Batman. Superman climbs the Freedom Monument and says grimly, “Up, up, and away.” Batman tells Joker he didn’t have to kill his wife. Joker says that was “the easy part. Creating her, now that was much, much harder.” After some dialogue, he says, “Don’t you get it? She was never yours. She was always mine.” Batman falls to his knees, shattered by this news. A slab of concrete hits Joker in the gut, knocking him across the floor. The “emergency exit doors” slam open to reveal Superman. He immediately has to deal with some Jeeves characters and goes down after getting hit in the face with concrete. In no time, the two heros are working together to handle this situation. Everything reaches a point where Batman’s given the chance to kill Joker. Superman stops him and tells him that if he’s going to do it, take off his mask first. “Don’t hide behind it,” Superman says. “Don’t pretend there’s some other part of you doing this. This is your right, as a human being. Your retribution. So do this as the man who’s going to live with it for the rest of his life. Take off the mask.” Batman decides against it.

And that’s when Luthor appears. He’s wearing an exoskeleton suit from the Achilles Heel project. He battles them both. Need I even say how it turns out? In the end, Batman says, “You look like crap, by the way.” Superman replies, “You should see the other guy.” A few moments later, Batman says, “So you want to get a beer?” Superman says, “Maybe a soda or something.” Batman replies, “Oh my God, what is it with you?” Fade out. Ends on page 120.

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The first thing I want to do is talk about characters. I think Superman is more challenging for writers because, generally, he lacks character depth. He’s never wavering in his goodness whether he’s Superman or Clark Kent. He’s impossible to hurt, much less kill. It’s tough coming up with new villains that are genuine threats to Superman or that’ll put him into scenarios where you’re really scared for him. He only has one weakness, Kryptonite, or two if you count his love for people.

Batman on the other hand, while he’s changed quite a bit over the years, has more sides to his character. He puts on airs to the world at large about being an irresponsible, superficial playboy who lives off his family's personal fortune, although Wayne is also known for his contributions to charity through his foundation. On the other hand, he’s a dark, raging vigilante at night who deliberately cultivates this frightening persona in order to strike fear into the criminals he chases. Those dual sides of his nature gives you more to work with than Superman. He is destructible, too, which makes the action sequences more interesting, because he’s no man of steel. Frank Miller said in Christopher Sharrett’s book, “Batman and the Twilight of the Idols: An Interview with Frank Miller,” that he views the character as “a dionysian figure, a force for anarchy that imposes an individual order.”


Kevin Smith was absolutely correct, as quoted in my previous article, that Batman is about angst while Superman is about hope, which I think is what makes this setup work. The conflict in which Batman, on the one hand, set off by the murder of his new wife, goes too far in his rage and pursuit of vengeance and Superman, on the other hand, stands in his way because this goes against what he stands for, is great. In the end, Batman doesn't really want to harm Superman. He’s just taken all he can take and Superman’s in his way. Superman doesn't really want to harm Batman. He just can’t allow Bruce to do something he knows he’ll regret. It’s a good setup. And it’s a nice contrast with the varying shades of good in two forces of justice – the blackness of Batman's psyche versus the goodness of Superman.

But let’s clear the air about one important thing – Superman would kick Batman’s ass. The most cursory viewing of the website, Batman vs. Superman, in which their strengths and weaknesses are compared, Superman dominates. They’re both over 6’ tall, late twenties, orphaned, and they both have a thing for tights. Whereas Batman is usually proactive when it comes to a fighting style (he seeks out his opponents and he’s usually two-steps ahead), the Caped Wonder is generally reactive and deals with situations as they come. They’ve both had their share of bad beats. Batman had his back broken by Bane, while Superman was killed by Doomsday. But in terms of skills and mobility, Batman is a top drawer athlete, expert in all forms of martial arts. Superman is… invulnerable.

Which is why you have to, as a dramatist, hand the fight over to Batman. You have to kick Mr. Invulnerable down to the ground to make it interesting.

In any case, this script falters in three major areas.


1) THE EVOLVING RELATIONSHIP

They bring Batman and Superman together in Act One, set up the conflict, and then separate them for the length of a Bible until they finally confront each other for the big Act Two fight. That, my friends, is weak screenwriting. It’s too simple, and these guys are just avoiding the hard work of great storytelling. It’s too easy to separate main characters, let them do a bunch of soul-searching apart, and then bring them together for an Act Two climax. I think this is a very important principle about weak screenwriting. It is far more satisfying (and difficult to write), if they had carefully plotted the evolving relationship between those two individuals. This moment in the upper balcony of Wayne Manor during the wedding reception, which was praised in a number online script reviews, was the wrong decision on a number of levels. It’s the dramatic equivalent of giving away the game at the very beginning. We’re shown two guys who are already friends. They already know each other’s secrets. And in one scene, we’re robbed of so many interesting cinematic developments – how they meet, how they learn about each other, how they question each other for the first time, and how they uncover each other’s secrets. In that context, a conflict can grow between them about Batman’s pursuit of vigilante justice, which leads to battles, which makes them try to outmaneuver each other, and it comes to a head in the Act Two climax.

Do you see what I mean? To separate them as they’ve done, to avoid the tough work of showing an evolving relationship, is to wimp-out as screenwriters. It’s too easy, and it’s unsatisfying. Instead of one 10-page battle at the end, which frankly reminded me too much of that endless battle in Superman IV, you could’ve had smaller battles throughout the story that builds up to a shorter, more powerful, more memorable confrontation at the end of Act Two. By the way, this absurd subplot with Lana Lang was nothing short of a Superman III rip-off and we just don’t need to be reminded of either of those films.


2) WORLD OF SUPERMAN

All of the big action was given to Batman throughout Act Two, and I think the writers stayed too close to familiar grounds. They didn’t know what they were doing with Superman and it shows. Guys, an arrow is not going to pierce his suit or his skin. He is not going to fall down after getting hit in the head with a concrete block. And I don’t care how big the action is, he’s just not going to bleed in a battle against Batman. His dialogue never sounded right. He was too preachy. It felt like an inconsistency in his character to tell Batman in the Third Act that it was his right as a human to do retribution to the Joker, which is not what he believes and contradicts all he said up to that point.

Also, to have Superman getting divorced from Lois is upsetting in a number of ways. Their relationship is true love locked in Greek tragedy because they cannot consummate that love. You don’t play around with that in a Batman vs. Superman movie. I think it’s just an ignorance of the mythology to make a decision like that. Plus, to jump ahead to the divorce pulls the rug out from underneath a highly anticipated storyline in a Superman film. Even if they were to go back and film how Lois learned about Clark Kent and how they got married, this undermines those happy feelings because we now know that they’ll eventually get divorced. This is the dramatic equivalent of totally “giving up” on a franchise and just giving away the farm for nothing.

I’ve said this before - a Superman movie is only as good as Lois Lane. You cannot get around that. You have to carefully foster that love and that humor between them. Weak screenwriters never fail to avoid her or cut her out completely.


3) THE ENDING

The ending was too predictable. By the time Lex shows up, you’re tired of all the fighting, and you’re ready for the whole thing to end. The final bits of dialogue was so hokey, it practically harkened back to the cheap one-liners of Batman & Robin. And I hate the way it sets up endless Batman & Superman sequels. It isn’t enough to do what everyone thinks you’re going to do, that is, make them reconcile and work together to fight a common enemy. You have to take it further and end a story like this in some meaningful way that will have a good impact on the two separate franchises. Personally, I would’ve ended it with the establishment of the Justice League and introduced new characters. That would get people excited as they walk out of the theaters.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Let me ask a question - what’s the point of a “VERSUS” movie of any kind? We’ve had Freddy vs. Jason and Alien vs. Predator, which have turned out to be nothing more than cinematic tourist traps, and I’d like to know what’s the inherent value in seeing two signature icons duke it out on film. It seems to me that these types of films do more to lower the stature of those iconic figures than it does to elevate the genre. In music terms, this has to be the equivalent of two washed-up singers going on tour together because their TWO sets are almost worth the price of ONE ticket. Is this not just a desperate act to squeeze the last dollar out of a public that’s grown tired of two icons?

Of course, it’s a little different with Batman and Superman, because people don’t easily tire of their most beloved, iconic superheroes. But you have to be very, very careful with them.

I gotta say, I agreed with Darwin Mayflower who wrote in his review: “Batman Vs. Superman had the right idea in mind. The idea of Batman seeking revenge, blinded by rage, and Superman trying to stop him from self-destructing, is a great premise. But this is the pallid, PG-rated version of that story. It sounds good, but the words don't live up to the promise. Despite the terrific opening, with Bruce and Clark letting us in on a more human level, the writers soon leave the characters behind and instead of exploiting this singular opportunity to bring these guys together for something special, they keep them apart and give up on them for some standard action. Batman Vs. Superman takes its characters for granted. This project is dead and buried, but if they had gone back to Walker's original draft and hired a writer with the ability to imbue some depth and substance into the script, it might have worked out to be something pretty intriguing. But we'll instead get stand-alone films about Supes and Batman. And with all concerns in consideration, it was definitely the right decision.”