Zack Snyder Defends The Infamous 'Batman V Superman' Martha Scene [Update]
Update: It's been revealed that the Martha Wayne/Martha Kent "twist" mentioned below was, in fact, a joke on Snyder's part. Hats off to Mr. Snyder, because I have to admit, the joke is pretty damn funny. You can watch him say it in a video below.
One of the most infamous scenes in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice comes near the end, when Batman and Superman have a big CGI smack-down in the rain. During the battle, Batman comes very close to murdering the Man of Steel, but stops when he learns that Supes' mother is named Martha – which was also the name of Batman's mother. It's a moment that was meant to make the xenophobic Batman realize that Superman didn't deserve his hatred, and while it might work in theory, the scene itself was met with derision.
Director Zack Snyder recently screened several of his movies for an audience, and took the time to discuss them at great length. During that discussion, the Batman v Superman Martha scene inevitably came up. Snyder also dropped some info on a huge, crazy twist that was briefly floated around the idea.
Zack Snyder has spent the last few years defending or explaining his choices for films like Batman v Superman, and I'm sure he's tired of it. But, good sport that he is, he's also willing to engage in the conversation. During his Zack Snyder: The Director's Cuts event at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena over the weekend, Snyder offered a defense of sorts for the laughably bad Martha scene from Batman v Superman. In case you somehow forgot the scene in question, here it is.
Martha!
According to Snyder (via ScreenRant), it was Batman v Superman co-writer Chris Terrio who first pointed out that Batman and Superman's mothers both had the same name. The scene grew from there:
"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... Then we started to talk about how it could work, and if it was Lois (Amy Adams) that said it, maybe it's better, it's that kind of thing. Look, it's a mythological construct, I have no problem with that part of it."
Again: this is fine, in theory. It just doesn't work in the movie. Snyder also joked that at one point, they considered making Martha Wayne and Martha Kent the same person. An idea was floated that after Martha Wayne was shot, she didn't die. Instead, she was put into witness protection somewhere in Kansas. Here, it really seemed that Snyder was implying Martha Wayne then took up the name Martha Kent. This idea is wild, and I almost wish Snyder and company had gone for it, even though it would be kind of shitty for Martha Wayne to just flat-out abandon her son and make him think he was an orphan.
Update: You can watch Snyder talk about this around the 44 minute mark in this video: