Zack Snyder Defends Batman V Superman’s Martha Scene, Says It’s A Beautiful Idea

Fans had been waiting so long to see DC’s two crown jewels face off on the big screen that Zack Snyder’s Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice came burdened with almost impossible levels of expectation. For the first time ever, two of the most iconic fictional characters in history were set to duke it out in live-action, but the results left a lot of people underwhelmed.

For one thing, the movie was stuffed to bursting point with so many subplots, supporting characters and hints towards the DCEU’s future that the central conflict itself was never given enough time to breathe. Not only that, but Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne only battled face to face for what felt like a couple of minutes before they resolved their differences after realizing their mothers had the same name.

Indeed, the Martha scene split the fanbase right down the middle, and while it offered a logical conclusion to their brief feud, it felt like the movie was in a rush to get there, so the moment might not have had the impact that it was supposed to. In a new interview, though, Snyder has defended Batman v Superman‘s most divisive element and the polarizing reactions it generated.

“Clearly I am a fan of, and am very interested in how ‘Martha’, that concept is central to the film. I mean, it’s 100% the linchpin that holds the entire movie together. I think it’s indicative of the way that Batman v Superman was received that its central tenant was sort of belittled and made fun of. I personally think it is like this beautiful and incredibly symmetrical idea that it completely finishes it as a concept. It all is 100% with intent and intention to be all the images that you see, as far as their inspiration and stuff like that.

“It’s funny, because Chris Terrio and I, we did reach that point in the movie, in our discussions. 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.”

Martha has since spawned a thousand memes and is still used as a stick to beat Snyder’s contributions to the DCEU over the head with, but you can’t say that his intentions weren’t noble, and his explanation makes perfect sense even though the execution was more than a little off, after it didn’t quite resonate the way he wanted it to within the context of Batman v Superman‘s story.