Does Batman Cross The Line in BATMAN V SUPERMAN? Zack Snyder Explains The Character's Actions
This could be considered a SPOILER discussion, so proceed at your own risk.
I loved Ben Affleck's version of Batman in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice — he was completely badass and the most hardcore version of the character we've seen yet. I'm currently writing up my thoughts on the movie, which I will share with you later. In the meantime, director Zack Snyder did an interview with Hey U Guys in which he explains Batman's violent nature and why some people die when they fight him.
Any Batman fan knows that Batman doesn't go out of his way to kill people, but I believe that his actions in fighting back lead to the deaths of some of them. That's why I was OK with the bad guys dying while fighting The Dark Knight in Batman v Superman. Sometimes it just can't be helped. Once Batman is in the zone and going ballistic on bad guys, he is fighting not only to stop them but also for his life, so if people die in the process, it's their own fault for trying to take down the Batman.
"I tried to do it in a technical way. There’s a great YouTube video that shows all the kills in the Christopher Nolan movies even though we would perceive them as movies where he doesn’t kill anyone. I think there’s 42 potential kills that Batman does! Also, it goes back and includes even the Tim Burton Batman movies where this reputation as a guy that doesn’t kill comes from.
So, I tried to do it by proxy. Shoot the car they’re in, the car blows up or the grenade would go off in the guy’s hand, or when he shoots the tank and the guy pretty much lights the tank [himself]. I perceive it as him not killing directly, but if the bad guys are associated with a thing that happens to blow up, he would say that that’s not really my problem.
A little more like manslaughter than murder, although I would say that in the Frank Miller comic book that I reference, he kills all the time. There’s a scene from the graphic novel where he busts through a wall, takes the guy’s machine gun…I took that little vignette from a scene in The Dark Knight Returns, and at the end of that, he shoots the guy right between the eyes with the machine gun. One shot. Of course, I went to the gas tank, and all of the guys I work with were like, ‘You’ve gotta shoot him in the head’ because they’re all comic book dorks, and I was like, ‘I’m not gonna be the guy that does that!’"
I actually liked how Snyder handled all of this stuff in the film. I'm sure not everyone will agree with his choices, but as he pointed out, it's not like Batman has never killed anyone in the comics. The only person Batman almost straight-up tries to murder was Superman.
If you've seen the movie, what did you think about the deaths of those who died in the process of fighting Batman?