Zack Snyder Explains the Reasoning Behind the "Martha" Moment in BATMAN V SUPERMAN
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice had some fun and cool moments, and I was a fan of Ben Affleck’s version of Batman. But ultimately the story fell flat for me, and I’ll admit, the whole “Martha” scene between Batman and Superman was kind of an eye-roll moment for me. I remember seeing the movie in the theater and the audience starting to laugh during this scene.
You can watch the scene below for those of you who want a refresher:
The scene was joked about and mocked by a lot of people after the film was released. But Snyder continues to defend the Martha scene, and in a recent interview with I Minutemen, he explained the reasoning behind it and how it came out of wanting to find a way to try and humanize Superman to help him form some kind of connection with Batman. Snyder said:
“Clearly I am a fan of, and am very interested in how ‘Martha,’ that concept is central to the film. I mean, it’s 100% the lynchpin that holds the entire movie together. I think it’s indicative of the way that Batman v Superman was received that its central tenant was sort of belittled and made fun of. I personally think it is like this beautiful and incredibly symmetrical idea that it completely finishes it as a concept. It all is 100% with intent and intention to be all the images that you see, as far as their inspiration and stuff like that.”
Snyder continued:
“I’m certain there’s a lot of cinematic references that we have, as well as classical, and Citizen Kane certainly would be among the things that we would and do look at as iconographic benchmarks that people would be able to link into as a way to help with a secondary storyline. That is to say that the images exist here, but the images they evoke are deeper. It’s like every image that you see - and we endeavored carefully - that each image you could take a dive on and find, whether it be a cinematic reference or whether it be mythological or historical, we really try and support the movies in that way as much as possible.”
In a previous Q&A, the filmmaker talked about how he and Chris Terrio came to develop the idea, saying:
“It’s funny, because we, [screenwriter] Chris Terrio and I, we did reach that point in the movie, in our discussions... we knew how to get them to fight, right? But how do you get them to stop fighting? That’s a tough one. And we sort of were just throwing down on their humanity and Batman realizes Superman has humanity, he’s not just a creature, he’s a man — he’s an alien, but he is as human as, in a lot of ways, he’s more human than him, right? He’s sort of embraced all the good parts of the human race, and so Batman’s able to sort of see, in a lot of ways, a thing that he is not. And I think that that was how we started to talk about it.”
It’s nice to get a little more insight into this scene and what Snyder’s thoughts on it are all these years later. I’ve had discussions with friends about this, and some of them believe it’s the make or break moment of the film. I have friends who think this is a brilliant scene, and for them, it’s one of the best superhero moments of all time. Then there are the people like me who rain on their parade because it just didn’t click with me. It seemed more silly than dramatic.
Where do you stand on the Martha scene? Did you love it? Hate It? Or learn to love it or hate it later on?