If Synder thought Jimmy had no place in his films, why not just leave him out? Why go out of your way to introduce him anyway?
belongs to the hurricane
In order for killing him to have any narrative merit he would have had to be a character the audience knew for a reasonable amount of time and had reason to care about. Killing him five minutes after he's introduced is like a bad joke.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Worth noting that that part was cut out so.... guess he agrees.
He didn't cut Jimmy out. His actor is still listed as Jimmy in the credits.
www.ign.com/articles/2016/04/08/zack-snyder-reveals-how-missing-scene-explains-pivotal-batman-v-superman-moment
When IGN sat down for a chat with the Bv S director, we asked why Superman can’t hear his mother’s screams and cries for help when she’s kidnapped by Lex Luthor late on.
It sounds like an excised sequence might help explain the issue as well.
"We had a scene that we cut from the movie where he tries to look for her when he finds out that Lex has got her," Snyder continued. "It was a slightly dark scene that we cut out because it sort of represented this dark side. Because when he was looking for his mom he heard all the cries of all the potential crimes going on in the city, you know when you look.
“I kind of like the idea that he’s taught himself not to look because if he looks it’s just neverending, right? You have to know when, as Superman, when to intervene and when not to. Or not when not to, you can’t be everywhere at once, literally you can’t be everywhere at once, so he has to be really selective in a weird way about where he chooses to interfere.”
The initial kidnapping shouldn't even really be a question. Superman is not aware of everything going on at every moment in the world. That deleted scene is certainly an interesting premise, but to openly acknowledge that thousands of people are in danger and Superman has to ignore them is even more uncomfortable than any implied collateral deaths in the big battles.
It reminds me of the commentary by Nightslash2020 (or TFX Production as his channel is now called) in his first stop-motion Transformers Trilogy episode. He started off the series by having Brawl kill Rodimus and Mirage at the very beginning, hoping to create shock value for his viewers. But then he noticed none of the comments below ever talked about this shocking moment despite Mirage being a fan-favorite character. It was treated as casual.
Personally, I wasn't aware that Jimmy Olsen was in this movie due to the fact that the marketing never mentions him. No promotion or hype for Superman's pal. As such, it was more of surprise that he was even named since I figure they would replace him with Jenny Junwirch (who apparently originally called Jenny Olsen)
But he can turn up whenever Lois is in danger with no explanation whatsoever?
They should have clarified what exactly his abilities are and if there are any limitations. In the old movies, they would have stuffed Martha into a lead cell surrounded by kryptonite. Because this is the only scenario in which it makes sense that Superman would send Batman to rescue her.
Also, Kryptonite is radioactive. That can't be good!
The fact Superman was back in town was a bit of a stretch, but Lex did say that he knew Superman kept close tabs on her. That's why he used Lois as bait, while holding on to Martha as his trump card. It is somewhat convenient that Anatoli was the one actually holding Martha, but it's not like they had established any other scrupulous bad guys under Lex's employ.
As for Jimmy Olsen, it seems like they did a Decomposite Character with him and Jenny for the exact reason that Jimmy was such a big name they didn't want audiences thinking he was going to become really important later on.
They didn't even mention Jimmy's name at all in the film, so why would audiences care? Also, he died in five seconds, so, again, why would audiences think he was important?
It seen more as inside joke, in fact I think sydner said he wants to joke around with him since Jimmy didnt fix the movie tone, so he off him because he can.
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"
You do realize that's a recursive question. I said they made him a minor character so audiences wouldn't think he's important. You're asking why audiences would care since he was a minor character.
'
You know, Im looking Dark knight returns in tv and....I can see where some element come to play in sydner story, the mature batman, being less not-kill happy as before and something that happen to jason.
But that story look pretty batman-fanboy to me, the stawman, how nothing can stop him, it have good moments(like two face it) but is to chararter centric to me.
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"
belongs to the hurricane
It's not a story I'm that fond of these days myself. In particular I don't care for how Miller writes Superman and I don't think he's ever really understood him.
Well Snyder also blew up Mercy Graves in a really underwhelming way, and Dr. Hamilton got offed in the last movie. I don't want to believe that he just doesn't care much about the classic Superman supporting cast, BUT this does seem to be a trend of his.
And yeah, Superman seemingly magical knowing whenever Lois is in danger, no matter where she is at the time, and showing up, yet apparently missing his OWN MOTHER being kidnapped (is she less important to him that his GF or something Snyder) is something that bugged me, it felt contrived.
I'm not as fond of it either, but i think people tend to overstate how much Miller supposedly 'ruined' Superman in that book.
Yeah, DKR Superman was still a mostly reasonable and decent person who just happened to be caught in a situation where often he had to do things he really didn't want to. He gives Bruce several chances to solve things peacefully, pointing out how self-destructive he's being, and in the end he just smiles, nods and lets him go. He's hardly the ham headed goon he becomes in DKSA that's for sure.
belongs to the hurricane
Yeah, I would basically have to agree with those assessments. The whole government worker thing I wasn't so hot on but I'm not gonna pretend it was a complete character assassination for Supes either, especially in the face of something like DKSA which was just embarrassingly bad.
edited 9th Apr '16 10:30:48 AM by wehrmacht
I just feel like it's part of this weird revisionist trend to try and discredit everything he's done. He's a nutter now but let's not pretend he contributed nothing.
Well I suppose that his recent work, combined with certain public statements, have just soured people on him in-general.
And I think that some people just don't like the idea of "government stooge" Superman in-general. Also the fact that the book has Batman give this speech about "remember the face of the man who beat you" while Superman is on the ground defeated, really ticked off some fans. So not only does Batman defeat Superman, but he gets to gloat about it to Clark's face as well.
I might completely agree with said fans, but I can certainly understand why they don't like that.
I think Miller even said he wrote Superman that way because it was a Batman book. If he were to write a Superman book it would be different.
Also making Jimmy a Decomposite Character was their way of making Jimmy a minor character. With Jenny she can stay in the background and no one will complain about her being a minor character. What happened is Jimmy's death was botched somewhat because of both changing the casting and removing the set up in editing. It was probably meant to be like with Dr. Hamilton, give the character a meaningful if small role, have them die and then move on. Jimmy's role may have been small but there is a sense that he and Lois were friends.
Except that TDKSA was basically a Superman book (it features two Superman villains as the main threats, it focused more around Superman, he gets more panel-time, his child is involved, etc). And he wrote Superman even WORSE there
Also TDKR being a Batman book doesn't mean that Miller HAD to characterize Superman the way that he did.
It's funny how I joked to my friend in the theater about the guy getting killed in the opening was Jimmy, and then I come home and find out it really was. What a shame, although I can see Snyder's reasoning for his removal agreeable.
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