With the Justice League set to premiere this Friday, I take a look back at the flop that was Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. While there may be people defending the movie to this day, I am hard pressed to find any valid arguments – but with one simple line change, the entire plot can make a lot more sense.
Martha? Why did you say that name?
The infamous scene in the movie where Batman breaks down at the mere mention of the name “Martha”. This scene makes just about 0 sense as written – a man was ready to murder Superman, and just for the fact they share mothers with the same name, he becomes his best friends.
Now let’s go back a bit in the movie to the scene where the Flash comes back in time to speak with Bruce. The Flash states how he has gone too far back and that Lois is the key. Something that is not revisited once in the movie, since Batman has basically no scene or opportunity to save Lois. Now here comes the one line that can fix this horrendous scene and actually make the plot have some real meaning.
The Flash says instead, “Martha is the key“.
With Bruce entirely confused as to why his mother is the key, the Flash would disappear. Bruce just lived through the potential future where Superman goes full Injustice evil, and he is now warned that Martha is the key to preventing this.
Now skip forward back to the end of this infamous fight scene. Batman is ready to kill Superman, and as he raises the Kryptonite spear, Clark lets out the words “Martha, they are going to kill Martha”. This realization then hits Bruce and the scene that was laughable now makes sense. This whole time Bruce had feared this future of Superman going rogue, which is why he is going to kill him, when finally The Flash’s warning comes through Superman’s lips.
If I prevent Clark from saving his mother, he will turn into the evil I was warned about, and blame me for it.
Now we can watch this future dystopian scene with it making sense. Superman tells Bruce that he took her from him. This would be in reference to Batman preventing him from saving his mother. Batman’s emotional outburst is no longer ridiculous, as he realizes that he must act now in order to prevent the hellish vision he had seen.
Now don’t get me wrong, this wouldn’t make the film an Oscar winner. But this would literally take 0 extra effort, and could actually be done post-production via a quick voice-over by Ezra Miller. And then the most laughed about scene in one of the largest budgeted films of all times wouldn’t be so infamous.
I’m excited to see what they manage to mess up this Friday.
