Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

Stop attacking people for saying things you don't like.

Jimmy Olsen is not a "peripheral" character — he is a genuinely important character to the Superman Mythos and has been a part of the Mythos since 1941. Killing Jimmy Olsen after five seconds of screentime would be the equivilent of killing Perry White or Lois Lane after five seconds of screentime. They had about the same amount of importance in the history of Superman.

Honestly, it's not even killing Olsen that I'm bothered by — although I am bothered that he won't be a character at all in these movies, since that's just a wasted opportunity — it's that Snyder referred to it as a "fun Easter egg." Yes, killing off a 70 year old character after five seconds is a fun Easter egg for fans.

I'm failing to see how that would make it not a critical review. Just because you disagree with it doesn't make it not a review anymore.

edited 2nd Aug '16 1:14:54 PM by alliterator

I've defended Bv S on a lot of things. Killing Jimmy and the way they did it, is not one of them.

You're calling Jimmy Olsen, Superman's Best Friend for Decades, a peripheral character? Wow!

And no, the movie is not smart. Putting a bunch of symbolism or using quotes from visionaries of the past in a movie isn't going to automatically make it smarter. It's like using a weapon. The best weapons on Earth are shit if the user doesn't use them properly.

edited 2nd Aug '16 1:20:44 PM by NoName999

^^^ After a while bitching is just bitching. They may technically still be critical reviews, but that is my assessment of their quality.

There was a theory floating around that "Jimmy Olsen" was a CIA name passed around from agent to agent. Kind of an interesting idea, but could easily turn him into the Kenny of the DCEU. Still, a better idea than Smallville having him with a brother who also went by Jimmy.

Thing is Jimmy has the notoriety of being "Superman's Pal" but in pretty much every adaptation no one knows what to do with him. He's just sort of there making some kind of funny remark. Even then, outside "Superman's Pal" Jimmy is a fairly minor character who sticks around out of tradition instead of having his own well developed role in the comics mythology (being faithful to the comics, Jimmy would have been the one mutated into Doomsday). With Jenny no one complains that she is a minor character, but doing so with Jimmy would make people wonder when he will become important to the story. Making him a major character is making him a bigger character than he is in the comics.

They could have just not included Jimmy Olsen in the story at all since killing him off only contributes bad shock value.

Isn't there some theory that a reset button might bring back all the people that died? Even though that seems a bit too Deus ex Machina for me, but superhero stories can pull that stuff off. A lot of people were kidnapped and just waiting to be rescued from Apokalips before they get turned into parademons or something. For some reason, it hasn't happened to them yet, so they will still be there for Batman to sneak in and rescue them. When they inevitably get cornered by the bad guys, Superman and the rest of the Justice League will burst in and save the day. I don't know why I want 101Dalmatians with superheroes instead of animals. I'm silly!

I don't think that's true — certainly in the Reeves Superman films, nobody was wondering when Jimmy was going to become important.

And, honestly, it would have been much better if we actually saw that Clark Kent had a friend at the Daily Planet aside from Lois. Jimmy Olsen's role could basically have been "Clark Kent's friend" and that would have humanized Superman so much more.

The Red Shirt CIA agent just happens to be called Jimmy Olsen. He isn't THE Jimmy Olsen.

What's the name of the trope(if it's a trope) for when a a character rescues some captives but they all have to be saved by some other characters showing up when they get cornered by the bad guys?

edited 2nd Aug '16 2:08:02 PM by bookworm6390

Well, imagine if Jimmy had the same amount of screentime as Happy Hogan in any given Iron Man movie. No one really knows or cares about Hogan, but Jimmy is a big name. Not saying they couldn't use Jimmy in a significant way, only that going half way, including him just to include him, could be its own problem. The Reeve movies were a different era, and Jimmy was mostly just comic relief.

For what its worth, in the Ultimate Edition there is some pathos when Jimmy is killed because he had more screentime and built something of a rapport and friendship with Lois. He also argues on her behalf a little more, making him more noble instead of just apologizing.

I've mentioned this before, but Secret Origin did great with Jimmy by having him reflect Clark's move to Metropolis. The two bond over being outsiders who are now part of the big city, who both come to find their dreams are not so easy, and are worried about if they're doing any good considering the rest of city's people keep treating them like crud. Jimmy is instrumental to Superman's fame and reveal of heroism amidst Lex Luthor's smear attempts, getting alerted to where his latest rescue is, and inventing such iconic poses like Sup standing hands on hips or lifting a car over his head.

Dayid Goyer read this comic; he even provides the foreword and put some of its lines in Man of Steel. It's a shame he missed the better parts.

I keep hearing this theory about "that wasn't actually Jimmy. Jimmy Olsen is a codename." Here's the problem, the movie itself never even vaguely hints at that in any way, shape, or form whatsoever. And Snyder's own words, point in the exact opposite direction.

Snyder doesn't want to use Jimmy, fine. He doesn't NEED to be here. But then just don't include him at all, it'd still be better than introducing him and then having his brains blown out like two minutes later because the director considers that to be "fun." And his death is completely meaningless within the actual film/plot, which makes it all the worse.

In fact that's one of the problems throughout the movie. Fans keep having to come up with stuff like "well maybe it means this" or "maybe this is what that person is thinking" or "well it could be this," and so on and so forth.

They're constantly needing to come up with hypotheticals in their heads to try and explain things that the movie doesn't bother to delve into/talk about, or at least not to a sufficient degree.

edited 2nd Aug '16 2:24:31 PM by Punisher286

Jimmy is a big name is that he has been around for a long, long time. But, again, he's always been Superman/Clark Kent's friend. Having him as Clark Kent's friend would not bother people, just like having Perry White as Clark Kent's boss hasn't bothered people.

Well, we'll never know if using him in a different role will or won't be a problem. Because he's dead. Snyder killed him. Which now means that nobody can use him in the DCEU, even if they want to.

edited 2nd Aug '16 2:31:03 PM by alliterator

It's a Death Is Cheap genre. If some one really wanted too, they could retcon Jimmy back to life.

It's a comic book world. If they decide they want to use Jimmy Olsen in some way they can figure out a way. The one on Supergirl is an In Name Only Jimmy already, and Jenny is something of a Decomposite Character as well. It's a similar thing with Dr. Hamilton dying in MOS, he's an important supporting character but his role is not irreplaceable among the dozens of other similar characters in the DC universe. A lot of times in these movies the writer/director says "I have an idea for a character" and the parent company says "You can use names X, Y or Z."

Except Snyder has already used Jimmy Olsen now. If another filmmaker comes along and says, "I'd like to use Jimmy Olsen," they can't, because he's dead.

Sure they can. Resurrection, Names The Same, Legacy Character. You hear that, Jimmy Lives!

Except then what was the point in killing him off in the first place?

None. There was no point. He could have literally been named anything else and it would have had the same impact.

Happened in Smallville.

Season 8 still sucked though.

Ok, who let Light Yagami in here?

If someone else directing in the DCEU really wanted to use Jimmy Olsen in the future, they probably could and the movie would invent some excuse. It's just that the attitude displayed here by Snyder killing him off in a "fun" manner gives a troubling view of what they consider characters like him to be. 'He's too silly, so let's have him violently murdered!'

And any excuse would be awkward considering New Jimmy would probably be a new tag-along companion completely unrelated to the CIA guy, so the film would either have to ignore his name being inexplicably the same or insert a retcon with Lois muttering something of: "I knew a guy named Jimmy Olsen once..."

edited 2nd Aug '16 3:14:16 PM by Tuckerscreator

We certainly wouldn't be discussing the characters' death if it wasn't Jimmy Olsen. It was done for the surprise value of killing off Jimmy Olsen. Positive or negative, mission accomplished.

Eh. "A film that aims low should not be praised for hitting that target."

edited 2nd Aug '16 3:15:49 PM by Tuckerscreator

I'm not sure that means what you think it means. The one thing near everyone agrees on was that BVS was hugely ambitious and threw in everything they could. Being controversial is not the same as aiming low. I would even say it is the opposite.

edited 2nd Aug '16 3:55:16 PM by KJMackley

"I'll take this beloved character and kill him off entirely for shock value" is aiming pretty low. The quote wasn't referring to the movie as a whole, but by this action in specific.

edited 2nd Aug '16 4:02:53 PM by Gaon

"All you Fascists bound to lose."

Doing something controversial for the sake of being controversial isn't bad necessarily, but in this specific instance it adds very little of value to the movie. There was no point to including him in the film, so he shouldn't have been there.

Jimmy's death being controversial isn't really the issue, just that him being there never mattered at all.