William N. Law Blog: ‘Batman v Superman’ Bits: Alternate Doomsday Concept Art, Cameo and Batman Origin Rehash Explained

Monday, April 4, 2016

‘Batman v Superman’ Bits: Alternate Doomsday Concept Art, Cameo and Batman Origin Rehash Explained

Like it or not, everyone is still talking about Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice after its second weekend…and we’ll probably going to be talking about it for some time yet. In this round-up of bite-sized news morsels:

Alternate concept art for Doomsday has been revealed.
Zack Snyder explains why it was necessary to kill Thomas and Martha Wayne again.
Details on how that top-secret cameo was filmed.
Check out art showing off a different take on Superman’s statue.

In my laundry list of complains and nitpicks concerning Batman v Superman, one of the more minor offenders was the presentation of the unstoppable killing machine Doomsday. The cinematic version of this iconic Superman foe looked less like his comic book counterpart and more like a cave troll from the Lord of the Rings trilogy rendered in mud. He was disappointing, to say the very least.

But like all superhero movie characters (heck, like just about any movie character), he went through more than a few iterations before director Zack Snyder and his team landed on that final design. Concept artist Vance Kovacs has released a batch of concept art to show off a few alternate takes on the character and they all follow the same basic pattern: hulking grey thing with a messed-up face and twisted, muscular body that towers over Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. I personally prefer a few of these to final version, especially the ones that look truly alien and bizarre. The fact that Doomsday looks so familiar to so many other major CGI baddies in the final film is a bit of a shame, especially when there were so many other options available.

Whether you liked the film or not, this Forbes interview with Zack Snyder is a good read, especially as it allows the director to dig deep into his work and discuss some of the decisions he made in making Batman v Superman happen. Here’s one interesting excerpt, where Snyder responds to a question about Batman feeling the need to lift himself up as he tears Superman down:

Yeah, I think it is. And that’s how Lex underestimates us in a lot of ways. He doesn’t think we’re capable of rising, so he has to bring the god down, right? And look, Luthor’s a humanitarian on some level. But in that moment it was about leveling the playing field, and what seems like a vast difference between our perceived ‘god’ and our perceived ‘man’ are really just labels and sort of ways of looking, but in reality there’s this common morality they share — and a really common kind of mythology too.

You know, they’re both born and live in a world where someone can care about them and mourn them, and they can love their mother. And that’s the cool thing, you know we spend so much time with the Martha-Clark relationship that I think it kind of pays off there. You realize, oh, we needed that as viewers, so we could get to a moment with Batman where that moment with Martha resonates. Because we’ve lived on with Clark’s relationship with his mother, so that moment is like, ‘Wow, that’s ringing for me and I feel it.’

When we were shooting the title sequence, that whole idea about, ‘Do we really need to see the death of the Waynes again,’ is a big thing to take a shot at again. But you realize you need it, because it actually pays off. And I really wanted to do it all the way.

So there you go: Snyder wrestled with filming the death of the Waynes for the nth time before deciding it was necessary. Whether that is something to chew on or more fuel for your personal fire is decision you must make for yourself.