10 @ a Time - Batman v Superman, Part 7

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice – Part Seven: Welcome to My Knightmare

Welcome to the seventh installment of “10 @ a Time: Batman v Superman.” Last week we talked at length about Superman and how the film preempted #NotMySuperman. Today, we’re down with another case of Bat-fever, this time by way of Mad Max: Fury Road – and you may be surprised that I actually like that.

[For those playing the home game, we’re looking at the “Ultimate Edition” home video release; for today’s 10@T installment, we’re looking from 1:04:29 to 1:14:10.]

Darkseid is.

We’ve come to one of my favorite parts of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and it’s precisely the kind of scene that merits a “10 @ a Time” treatment because the film itself doesn’t do a lot with it by way of interpretation. It’s a dream sequence, a vision of the future, but it’s not even close to a future that comes to pass by the film’s end or which is transparently averted in time for the end credits. The Knightmare is instead posited as a mystery, inviting contemplation and exegesis beyond what the film will provide.

And look, I’m aware that if any other film pulled that stunt, I’d be out in front, leading a riot. To be fair, I do think that that theatrical cut of the film might have fared better if all this overt franchise-building had been left to the Ultimate Edition. But on the other hand, the point of this feature is in part to share all the things I see in the film that make me love it, even if those things are elements that I read into the film. Put another way, I know that most moviegoers don’t recognize the fire-pits and Parademons as intensely significant to the DC mythology, but those are among the things I love about the Knightmare sequence. The film would lose nothing without this scene, but it gains so much more.

Sidebar: I’m aware that Jay Oliva, storyboard artist for BvS and director of The Flashpoint Paradox, has called this sequence not a dream but a “Time Boom, a latent memory from the future.” There’s certainly evidence in the film to support that, most notably that Superman’s line “She was my world” contains information that a sleeping Bruce Wayne shouldn’t know at this point in the narrative. (Indeed, Bruce would think the opposite, that there isn’t a human connection for Superman.) It’s possible that there’s more to this than just a dream sequence, but it operates under the filmic language of a dream sequence, and the name “Knightmare” suggests we treat it as such until further notice.

"Nothing equals the Para-demon for ferocity and speed!!"

First, the dream begins with two very interesting details. In the way that a comic book panel is comprised of words and images, a cinematic shot is the union of sounds and visuals. In the opening frames of the Knightmare, we hear the reverberating sound of a Kryptonian world-engine, that terrible terraformer seen in the Battle for Metropolis in Man of Steel. In the unconscious mind of the dreamer, then, all this postapocalyptic furor begins with the warlike volleys of Krypton. On a visual level, the dream begins with Batman opening a door and emerging from a bunker into the wasteland, and what’s cinematically striking about this shot is that it’s framed identically to the beginning of the last dream, which found Bruce Wayne opening a door and entering his parents’ crypt. They’re both morbid dreams, fears of inheriting a legacy of death and destruction, and they’re both borne out of his fundamental misunderstanding of Superman’s purpose on earth. (Man, for a guy who literally works at a newspaper, Superman has lousy PR. His dad did spell all this out in Man of Steel, but did Kal tell anyone?) But it’s a reversal; in the first, Bruce Wayne walked into a mausoleum of his own memory, where here he’s walking out into a world for which he blames Superman in creating.

In the world of the Knightmare, Batman finds the ground seared with an enormous Omega, the final letter in the Greek alphabet. If I can do a little bit of free association, the Book of Revelation (the final book of the Christian Bible), ostensibly an account of the End Times, describes God as “the Alpha and the Omega,” the beginning and the end, and the text derives its title from the Greek word apokalypsis (an “unveiling” or a “revelation”), from which we get our word “apocalypse.” Meanwhile, over in the DC mythology, the Omega is the symbol of Darkseid, the literal god of evil who rules over the hellish planet Apokolips. These biblical overtones are very much of a piece with what Darkseid’s creator Jack Kirby intended his Fourth World saga to be, an epic clash of titanic good and archetypal evil. Apokolips, meanwhile, is a literal hellscape, pockmarked by great fire-pits that spit lava and fury (rumored to be powered by the sheer force of Darkseid’s hate).

We don’t see Darkseid just yet, though we’ll see his uncle Steppenwolf later in the film (and as the antagonist in Justice League, played by Ciarán Hinds). We do see the Omega, and the fire-pits, and intriguingly we see one erupting just behind Batman and next to Wayne Manor. We’re still on earth, then, not on Apokolips, and the presence of the fire-pit on Wayne Manor property tells us that Batman takes the fall of earth very personally. He’s become the leader of a resistance not just because the world is in danger, but because his world is on fire, conquered by an invading hostile force.

"In a different reality, I might have called him 'friend.'"

Later in the Knightmare, Batman attempts to obtain a hunk of Kryptonite to stop Superman. It’s the same plot he’s working in the real world, right down to the mineral being in the possession of Lexcorp. Freud would call this a “day residue,” a remnant of his waking memories being processed by his dreaming mind. So is this a future that comes to pass if Batman never steals the Kryptonite from Lex Luthor, as he will do later in the film? Unlike in the real world, though, Knightmare Batman doesn’t succeed at stealing the Kryptonite, and he finds himself at the mercy of “Superman Soldiers” allied with winged Parademons, the warrior class of mindless drones from Apokolips. Something truly dire must have happened for Superman to join forces with two armed factions against Batman – and, it seems, the rest of the planet.

Superman’s leadership role in this new world order is apparent in the execution sequence where he eradicates two of Batman’s soldiers before pressing through the Bat’s chest to kill him. If this is a dream, it’s a pretty transparent one, expressing Batman’s fears that Superman will be the end of him. However, as mentioned above, Superman speaks a line of dialogue that implies knowledge Bruce Wayne would not possess at this point: “She was my world. And you took her from me.” At this point in the film, roughly seventy minutes in, even Superman doesn’t know that Lois Lane is his “world”; it’s a revelation he won’t make until near the end of his fight with Doomsday, and it’s certainly something Bruce Wayne wouldn’t begin to consider just yet.

"My name is Barry Allen, and I am the fastest man alive!"

Then we get to the really interesting stuff – a visitation from The Flash (Ezra Miller), who’s brought a different message of foreboding from the future: “Listen to me now! It’s Lois! It’s Lois Lane! She’s the key! Am I too soon? Aggh! I’m too soon! You’re right about him. You’ve always been right about him! Fear him! Fear him! Find us, Bruce! You have to find us!” This seems to confirm that Knightmare Batman must have done something to take Lois Lane away from Knightmare Superman, but at the same time I’m intrigued by the lack of an antecedent for the pronoun “him.” On the surface, we’re led to believe that it’s Superman, but it’s equally possible that Flash is warning Batman about Lex Luthor, someone he has never trusted; then again, perhaps we haven’t met the “him” of whom Bruce should be afraid.

Whether this is a dream is something else altogether. In the comics and on television, The Flash has the ability to travel into the future, and the suit he’s wearing looks souped-up enough to support time travel. Add to that the fact that there are papers swirling around the Bat-cave once Bruce wakes up – I’d say that was a definite premonition of the future. Whether the Knightmare vision came with The Flash is up for debate.

"This man is not our enemy."

Finally, after more development of the Bat-brand subplot and Bruce’s investigation into the White Portuguese, which will bring Superman and Batman into conflict in the next installment, we get a scene with Bruce and Alfred that’s a little revelatory. “Twenty years in Gotham, Alfred. we’ve seen what promises are worth. How many good guys are left? How many stayed that way?” We get an ironclad carbon-date on this Batman – two decades of crimefighting has turned him into the fallen man we see before us. Despite Alfred’s constant attempts to humanize him, attempting to remind Bruce who he was when he was seven years old (something Superman will unintentionally accomplish), Bruce slips into the growly Bat-voice while he talks to his confidant, and he clings to this idea that there are no good guys left. “We’ve always been criminals,” he told Alfred earlier, but his arc in the film is the journey from “How many good guys are left?” to what he’ll tell Diana at the grave in the film’s final scenes – “Men are still good.”

Tellingly, Alfred telegraphs where the film is about to go when he paraphrases a line from Man of Steel. Did you catch it? It’s the moment when he protests Bruce’s decision to use the Kryptonite to launch a preemptive strike on Superman. “But he is not our enemy!” is very nearly the exact turn of phrase used by Colonel Hardy after he sees Superman fight off the Kryptonians in Smallville – “This man is not our enemy.” Don’t tell me the people making these movies don’t know what they’re doing.

Next time, put your feet up for an action sequence.

Observations and Annotations

• We get a nice look at the Bat-computer, reminding us that Batman is the world’s greatest detective. The last time we saw one of these, Christian Bale was using it as an expensive microfilm machine to research Selina Kyle; it’s nice to see some more thorough detecting with a world-class computer.
• Let’s acknowledge that the duster worn by Knightmare Batman is simultaneously impractical and awesome. It reminds me of a throwback to the 1990s action figure variants like Hydro Suit Batman, Neural Claw Batman, and Claw Climber Batman (the latter of which I actually have), and maybe it’s not that far removed since I have the Knightmare Batman Funko Pop figure on my desk.
• Knightmare Batman fires a gun, an indication of just how dystopian this future/dream is. But he also uses the gun as a kind of Batarang, which feels much more natural.
• Additionally, the shot of Batman fighting off the Superman Soldiers and Parademons is one continuous shot, for which I’m always a sucker. It allows us to see Batman’s fluidity and a fighting style reminiscent of the Arkham games (which we’ll see again at the end of the film).
• “Master Wayne, since the age of seven you have been to the art of deception like Mozart to the harpsichord, but you’ve never been too hot at lying to me.” Just another fantastic piece of dialogue.
• “It’s a rock... a mineral.” Sounds like Bruce has been watching Breaking Bad.
• “Jesus, Alfred, count the dead... thousands of people.” Bruce sounds an awful lot like the people who complained that Superman didn’t save enough people at the end of Man of Steel, doesn’t he? Remember the film sets him up as the one misreading the situation, already placing a burden of expectation on a guy who’s having the worst imaginable first day on the job.
• While pursuing his Batman story, Clark is told of the Dark Knight, “A man like that, words don’t stop him.” Well, one word will...