Zack Snyder slams the concept of respecting canon
(boundingintocomics.com)
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I'm not a Snyder fan but the headline makes it sound worse than it is out of context. He's specifically talking about Batman not being allowed to kill and fans telling him not to put Batman in a situation where he'd have to kill someone, which is kind of a weird request.
Yeah, I don't necessarily mind tweaks to an established story if it's interesting. But the people who disrespect canon usually do it in ways to show you that the characters you liked actually were never that great to begin with and this new one is actually way better.
Or they completely invert the point of a character: e.g. nu Spock being a short-tempered emotional wreck.
It’s all motte and bailey. They make massive, unnecessary changes to established media, typically in service to their ego and/or pet ideology, and then they immediately revert to seemingly obvious and rational positions the moment you call them out.
“We have to make changes when we adapt for different mediums.”
“We have to make changes when we localize for a new audience.”
“We have to make changes when remaking media for modern audiences.”
All of their excuses sound reasonable, and that’s the point: to create plausible deniability for their self-insert bullshit and leftist propaganda.
I mean the issue is that often the "situation" they put them in is either super contrived or completely nonsensical, revealing that it wasn't just a part of the story but a deliberate shit on the parts of canon they don't like.
Like, you need to properly set such a thing up with justifiable in-universe reason if you are going to do it (which the "older, bitter Batman" angle did well enough), but so often the reason is entirely meta related instead.
Yeah, Snyder isn't like the Leftists -- he really is a geek about these things and more like Quentin Tarantino than someone like Neil Druckmann, the latter of which purposely subverts media to push "The Message".
I hated what Snyder did with Superman, but I could at least understand what he wanted to do with Superman. The problem is that Snyder just isn't a good enough writer -- and did not surround himself with good enough writers -- to pull off what he was trying to convey.
His depiction of Batman wasn't great, but it was far better than how he handled Superman, and I don't think I've ever come across anyone who really railed on Snyder for his depiction of Batman, other than that they didn't like how he killed, but they "loved" the whole warehouse scene because it reminded them "...of how Batman fights in the Arkham games".
That being said, I get Snyder's point, but challenging canon needs structure and consideration, as Adam points out in his reply. Contrivance or poorly fabricated structures to employ canon-breaking situations just ends up making people miffed, and that's sort of the problem that Snyder had with his whole depiction of DC's super heroes.