Ever wonder why there were so many horses in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice? No? Well, me neither. To be completely honest, though, after the first 30 minutes of that film, my brain involuntarily disengaged and there could have been repeated shots of tap-dancing penguins and I wouldn’t have noticed.
Anyway, Zack Snyder has now taken to Vero to talk about what he was trying to achieve with the horse imagery in the movie, saying the following to a fan who brought up the topic:
Now, I don’t want to be a neigh-sayer (sorry), but if Snyder hadn’t tried so hard to make hay (sorry.. again) out of this imagery and focused on stable-izing (this is getting silly) the core narrative rather than symbolism, he wouldn’t have had to bridle (I literally can’t stop the horse puns) against studio inference while creating the film. If he had, then there’s an outside chance Warner Bros. might not have had to have made Justice League on the.. uh, hoof (someone please stop me).
To be fair, while Batman V Superman bored the crap out of me, at least it seemed to have a lot of thought put into it. Plus, I’m still a fan of Zack Snyder, even going to bat for him on Sucker Punch (it’s a great critique of misogyny in action films). I also firmly believe that if Warner Bros. would have just let him make the Justice League he wanted to the end result would have been a huge improvement on the Frankensteinian monstrosity that cratered in cinemas and practically destroyed the DCEU.
Having said all that, I’ve heard it claimed that the Ultimate Cut of Batman V Superman fixes many of its problems, but I’m doubtful of whether more of a movie I dislike is going to turn me around on it. Either way, let me know in the comments if you think I should check it out.