BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE

IS SHE WITH YOU?

The light of Doomsday’s heat vision fades into a stunning shot of Superman’s body floating in space silhouetted by the sun. Based on the time on Diana’s laptop (11:29pm) earlier, and the location of the sun at that time on 13 November 2015, we can assume this is the morning sun, filtering through the Earth’s atmosphere with the orange light of dawn.

Front shot of Superman, slowly pushing in. We see his muscles grow and his flesh regain some colour as the solar radiation restores his strength. The cut down his face also heals. Consistent with the motif, his expanding chest slowly turns to the camera throughout the shot, causing the sun to shine symbolically ever more on his shield as he gains strength, emphasising the deliverance of hope with his recovery. As we close to a medium shot, he suddenly opens his eyes, burning hot with life and energy.

The cut here implies Superman’s impending intervention to save Batman, in turn setting up the misdirect for Wonder Woman’s arrival. This rejuvenation from a morning sun that has not yet fallen upon the United States certainly makes Superman live up to his nickname as the “Man of Tomorrow”, though this was probably not intentional.

Cut to smoke, emerging to see Doomsday falling through the air towards Gotham and arcing his heat vision across the view, aiming for the Batwing. They descend into the darker area of the city, the abandoned port, with Wayne Station visible below. Doomsday fires his heat vision again.

As Batman attempts to evade the attack, the beam cuts the edge of the roof of Wayne Station and nips the wing of the vehicle. It bursts into flames, knocking Batman around violently inside the cockpit as he loses control.

The Batwing crashes into the ground, sliding across a parking lot to rip through several parked vehicles. The decapitated cockpit screeches to a stop against the wall of a decrepit building. The canopy has been torn off, and Batman is frantically trying to undo his seatbelt. Recall the drones destroyed in the Nairomi scene and towards the end of Man of Steel — a few minutes earlier, the Batwing was switched to drone mode, and now it gets destroyed too.

With a roar, cut to Doomsday crashing down from above Wayne Station, and snap zoom back to see him churn up asphalt as he skids to a stop, angry and growling.

In the cockpit, Batman ceases his struggling to look up. “Oh, shit,” he mutters. The tables have turned dramatically on him, transforming from a monster of the night who brought down Superman, to being afraid and helpless before an actual monster.

Doomsday takes a step forward. His face begins to glow yet again as he growls.

Batman is helpless but to raise his hands in a pathetic attempt to shield himself.

Doomsday fires his heat vision just as a figure drops down in the beam’s path. The prior sequence naturally misleads the audience into assuming Superman has arrived.

With a vibrating hum as the blast bounces against something, the frame is consumed in fire.

After a few moments on Doomsday’s burning face, he deactivates his heat vision.

The fire disappears, revealing a medium shot pushing on Batman’s saviour. Clad in a uniform reminiscent of Greek armour, Diana Prince has her glowing gauntlets raised in an X shape in front of her, breathing heavily, but with a look that shows she is ready for action. This reveal is widely considered the coolest moment in the film, and understandably so, especially thanks to the music. By now, most had probably forgotten about Diana’s last appearance leaving her plane, making this an unexpected surprise.

As she lowers her arms, so too does Batman, seeing the newcomer and looking awed.

With a yell of effort, Wonder Woman draws back her arms before striking her bracers together, creating an enormous shockwave that sends Doomsday back. However, the monster is undeterred, and snarls at her.

Diana hears a distant boom and looks up. Superman descends from space, curving through the air to throw himself into Doomsday. He carries the monster a fair distance before allowing the beast to go flying on its own inertia into an oil refinery, colliding with enormous tanks that begin exploding. From one tank to another, flames travel between the pipes connecting them, quickly annihilating a good portion of the dock in the inferno.

Cut to Lois, watching the action from beside Wayne Station. She looks down thoughtfully as an idea comes to her. With the flaming oil depot in the background, she turns and dashes back inside the building.

Entering the grimy hallway, she loses her footing in the deep puddles of rainwater, causing her to take a tumble and drench herself.

Cut to Diana, turned to face Batman. “Why did you bring him back to the city?” she asks.

Batman retrieves his Kryptonite grenade launcher from the miniature armoury in the former co-pilot seat in the ruined Batwing cockpit. “The port is abandoned,” he assures her, standing from the wreckage. “There’s a weapon here that can kill it.”

This line connects us to the flooded stairwell wherein Lois hid the spear. Now she enters through the archway to throw off her jacket before descending the steps into the murky water.

Waist-deep into the pool, she peers frantically into the murky depths, looking left and right in a desperate search for the one thing that could kill a Kryptonian monster. The low-angle from Lois, partially obscuring her through the waters, conveys a feeling of claustrophobia to immerse the viewer in the environment further.

Batman steps off the debris, the burning depot in the background. Superman suddenly lands in front of him.

Standing up straight, he asks, deadly serious, “Did you find the spear?” Assuming Batman’s goal was to reacquire the spear shows Superman is smarter than he seems.

Batman looks up from the grenade launcher in his hands and responds sarcastically, “Been a little busy.”

Wonder Woman looks toward the beast in the distance. “This thing, this creature, seems to feed on energy,” she says, prompting Batman and Superman over her shoulder to turn to her.

As we hear Doomsday roar, Batman preps the launcher, loading his final Kryptonite grenade.

As the two men move to stand beside her, Superman says, “This thing is from another world.” He pauses before regretfully saying, “My world.” Indeed, once again, Superman’s heritage has come back to threaten humanity, and this weighs heavy on him.

Diana turns from him to unsheathe her ancient Greek sword. She says confidently, “I’ve killed things from other worlds before.”

Superman turns to the Dark Knight and asks, “Is she with you?” Diana kills things from other worlds, as Batman intended to kill Superman, so he naturally assumed they must be in cahoots.

Batman turns to him with a look of confusion. “I thought she was with you?” he asks, presumably having just made that connection, assuming the two super-powered beings must know each other. The humour here gives us a moment to breathe in the pause before the final leg of the film’s climactic battle.

Both heroes turn to look at Diana before focusing their attention on Doomsday. At last, for the first time in live-action cinematic history, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are on screen together as DC’s “Trinity”, ready to fight a monster that threatens the world.

Now comes the money shot. Wide shot of all three characters: Wonder Woman in the middle, with Superman on the left and Batman on the right as we push in. @brucewaynebkbf on Instagram pointed out that Wonder Woman sometimes holds parallels to Lady Justice, who represents the impartial and fair arbitration of justice and law. In accordance with the film’s title, one might say she is the “v” who represents the ideological balance of the viewpoints of the two characters, and she is placed here now to connect the two.

Wide shot on Doomsday, growling loudly as his body burns with energy, putting his hands around his head in agony before finally exploding yet again.

High-angle of the entire port, seeing the blast spread out across the area and flattening everything, including Wayne Station.

Ground-level rear shot on Batman, following the hapless Dark Knight as he runs for cover under a slanted slab of concrete, presumably allowing the force of the explosion to travel up the sturdy angled surface and leave Batman untouched.

Wide side shot of Superman and Wonder Woman (using her shield), both bracing against the explosion all around them as vehicles and debris fly by.

Wide shot of the port to see the explosion rip apart several buildings across the landscape.

Alerted by the sound of cracking stone and concrete, Lois looks up from the pool at the ceiling to see the structure of the building get ripped apart by the explosion.

Lois dives into the water to avoid being flattened, swimming deeper as a huge slab of wall falls to block her escape. She turns in the murky water to swim up.

At the bottom of the pool, the Kryptonite spear glows beneath the debris pinning it down.

Superman and Wonder Woman slide back from the force of the explosion as it dissipates. Diana’s shield glows with heat after the blast. Diana stands up from her crouched position and lowers the shield.

Cut to flames, in which Doomsday emerges consumed in the fire. He snarls.

Wonder Woman readies herself, unsheathes her sword yet again, and launches herself forward across the battlefield with a mighty yell, and the battle begins.

Doomsday leaps at her just as Superman takes flight.

Before anyone can collide, Doomsday crashes through some debris and stomps the ground with the force of an earthquake, churning up further debris.

Diana powers through the cloud of rock with her shield and strikes at the monster’s leg with her blade, but he narrowly avoids her.

Superman flies by, drawing Doomsday’s attention upwards.

Taking advantage, Diana swipes the beast’s leg with her shield, tripping him over backwards, and Superman dives down to shove Doomsday into the ground. A wave of dust and rubble spreads out from the impact site. Despite having only just met, Superman and Diana have amazing team synergy.

Wonder Woman leaps up with her sword, bringing it down on Doomsday’s stomach before he quickly recovers and stands away, embedding Diana’s word in the ground.

Doomsday punches Superman with a bang as he flies at him.

Diana slices the monster’s leg with her sword, yet again creating hot marks on his flesh, but Doomsday collapses to a knee and roars in anger.

He throws a car at Wonder Woman, but she cuts clean through it with her sword.

Superman tries to get the drop on him, but Doomsday avoids the flying charge, grabs him by the legs, and swings him 360 degrees, tossing him down some distance away.

Before the Man of Steel can recover, Doomsday presses his advantage and kicks him, sending Superman crashing through what feels like a mile of debris.

Nearby, Batman finally emerges from his hiding spot to spectate this battle of titans, contrasting him to show us just how utterly outgunned he is here. He never prepared for anything like this.

He sees Wonder Woman force Doomsday back across the battlefield with another shockwave from her bracers.

Recovering, the monster backhands a truck at her. She leaps over it, flying at him.

Doomsday throws a punch, connecting with her indestructible shield mid-air and she flies back. Then he keeps up the attack with his heat vision. This moment alone demonstrates that Wonder Woman is the MVP of this fight, keeping the monster distracted when Batman is too helpless and Superman is stunned.

Wonder Woman’s back is forced against some unmoving debris. She glares before charging at the beast again with unnatural speed and another banshee’s roar.

Cut to the cracks in the concrete slabs preventing Lois’ escape from the pool. She desperately tries to squeeze her head through the gap to take a breath, but to no avail. She looks out across the environment around her for some solution.

Low-angle on the debris, light shining through the cracks. Escape is so close, yet so far.

With no recourse, Lois begins hitting the debris, and her screams are muffled in her aquatic tomb. She places her hopes in the symbol of the man she loves.

Behind the Scene

“It’s surprising how simple this was (to film, not to finish). We dollied towards Henry as a bright red light was dialled up. Then the camera moved around and away from him. This provided the basic element for the VFX guys (led by DJ DesJardin) who took over from there and voilà!”

Larry Fong, Twitter, 22 June 2018

Appropriately, we cut to Superman, flying sternly before igniting his heat vision. As the camera turns toward the direction he is facing, we see his heat vision is now locked with Doomsday’s. As we back away, we see the fiery beams from both powerhouses connect in a picturesque yet terrible volcanic inferno.

Superman shrieks in effort before Doomsday ups the pressure, sending Superman flying back. As Doomsday’s beam pushes him, we see him grimace in pain before he collides with a pile of debris.

However, Superman is far from done, and he launches into the sky amid a hail of rubble to prepare to retaliate. But before he can, he pauses, and we hear Lois banging on her prison. He whips his head toward the noise and surveys the battlefield.

Lois continues hitting the concrete, her yells still muffled. Her legs flail before her eyes roll back into her head.

Turning dramatically, Superman launches away toward the ruins.

Moments later, we see the slab of tiled concrete coming away, revealing Superman above the shimmering surface. He tosses it aside.

Lois is now unconscious beneath the water. Superman reaches down, grabs her, and hastily pulls her to the surface. He carries her in his arms, his heroic shield a prominent feature in the frame yet again.

He kneels to gently place her on the ground, and she suddenly returns to life. She chokes for a moment. Panting, she turns to look up at Superman and smiles with relief. She must have held her breath to the point that she knocked herself out, never succumbing to the urge to take in air.

He caresses her cheek before standing, smiling at her. This is another one of their wordless interactions, again communicating entirely with emotion.

Then Superman dives into the water himself. Lois hastily crawls to the edge of the pool, looking worried as she watches him disappear into the darkness.

Meanwhile, Doomsday has finally noticed Batman. The monster turns to him, rearing into a ferocious attack pose. The lighting darkens Doomsday appropriately, silhouetting making his visage look especially terrifying and emphasising his gigantic stature.

Realising the danger, the Caped Crusader finally moves from his hiding spot with a quick Bat-claw escape, barely avoiding Doomsday before the behemoth crashes into the ground where Batman stood a moment ago.

Batman briefly perches himself on a wall, where a sudden flash of lightning illuminates him in the spitting image of an iconic cover from The Dark Knight Returns (1986), before grappling away to safety yet again an instant before Doomsday’s heat vision incinerates the spot.

Batman hits the edge of a roof, and his fall to a fire escape below saves him from another beam of fire that arcs over him.

Grunting, Batman visibly fights the pain as he throws a smoke grenade and leaps from the balcony right before Doomsday can crush him.

Doomsday follows but has lost sight of him in the lead smoke. This moment with Batman, showing just how utterly outclassed he is here, also works as a little catharsis for those who wanted to see Superman win their battle. Now, Batman truly does not stand any chance but to run and hide.

Behind the Scene

Batman’s leap from the fire escape was practical. Stuntman Albert Valladares, doubling for Ben Affleck as Batman, posted these stills performing the leap into the smoke cloud.

Cut to Lois looking into the pool. Silhouetted by the green light from below, Superman comes into view beneath the water. Lois immediately gets waist-deep and grabs him, dragging the drenched Man of Steel onto dry land. As usual for their relationship, Superman saves Lois and Lois saves Superman.

• This might be a reference to Superman (1978), where Eve Teschmacher drags Superman out of the water of Lex’s swimming and throws away the Kryptonite necklace that previously hung around his neck, which is especially likely because the architecture of both pools looks similar.
• Superman and Lois are both symbolically baptised in water. Calling back to Bruce’s mausoleum dream sequence, Superman has assumed the holy position of the angel Gabriel and will slay the Devil:
• “And then this is what I was alluding to earlier about the water as rebirth for both of them, essentially, because Superman jumps back in the water to get the spear, which was a weapon of his own destruction, and then he becomes [the Angel] Gabriel and Doomsday becomes the real Satan.” (Zack Snyder, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Director’s Commentary, 2021, 2:34:53)

As Superman lays unconscious, the brightly glowing Kryptonite spear falls beside him as Lois calls, “Clark!”

Seeing the weapon, Lois grabs the spear steps away from Superman. She readies the spear like a javelin and launches it away with a yell of effort.

Now with some distance between the Kryptonite and himself, Superman coughs and gets to his knees.

Lois rushes to his side, exclaiming, “Clark!”

She looks him in the eyes, making sure he is okay. Then she kisses his cheek and possessively cradles his face, burying her brow against him.

Superman looks ahead at the battle raging to see Diana take another leap at the monster, struggling to get close enough to deal a deadly blow, and Doomsday punches her back yet again.

She is tossed some distance through rubble and debris, her sword and shield knocked from her grasp. However, she is still alive and kicking, and she flashes a grin, enjoying the intensity of a real fight after a century.

Behind the Scene

This smirk was Gal Gadot’s idea, improvised on the set. She wanted to add some more fire to her character’s personality by making her relish in combat.

“Well, you know, you bring yourself to every role, but at the end of the day, it was important for me that she’s not gonna be too goody two shoes, you know? I wanted her to have this spice, to be feisty, like the smirk after Doomsday hit me and I’m like, ‘Yeah, you’re messing with me, alright!’ So I wanted her to have this cool attitude.”

Gal Gadot, Fox 5, 18 March 2016

“You know Wonder Woman, she’s amazing. I love everything that she represents and everything that she stands for. She’s all about love and compassion and truth and justice and equality and she’s a whole lot of woman. For me, it was important that people can relate to her. Being all that, I wanted her not to be too, ah, ‘goody two shoes.’ I wanted her to have this attitude. I wanted her to have a smirk when she fights Doomsday. I didn’t want her to be too polished. I wanted to make her a little bit darker, a little bit dirtier. In the sense that, yes, she’s still all of these amazing things. But she’s been around, she’s very experienced and she has her own fight.

I remember after we did that take, Zack came to me and he said, ‘Did you just have a smirk?’ I said ‘Yeah.’ And he asked, ‘Why? I think I like it, but why?’ ‘Well, if he’s gonna mess with her, then she’s gonna mess with him. And she knows she’s gonna win.’ At the end of the day Wonder Woman is a peace seeker. But when fight arrives, she can fight. She’s a warrior and she enjoys the adrenaline of the fight.”

Gal Gadot, Los Angeles Times, 24 March 2016

She grabs her sword just before Doomsday approaches, bringing a fist down on her, but she blocks it with the sword against his flesh.

She pulls back, and Doomsday’s powerful arm hits the Earth. With this opportunity, Diana swings her blade to slice his arm off. Roaring in agony, the damage is enough to begin charging another blast in the monster. He glows and crackles again with fiery electricity, but before Diana can jab him with her sword, his heat vision sends her flying back with a shriek.

Doomsday stares at the stump where his hand used to be. Bony protrusions grow from the severed flesh, one in the middle forming the longest spike.

SCENE OVERVIEW

While Superman regenerates in space from the sun, Batman crashes into the port, chased by Doomsday, until Diana shows up in her Amazonian garb to save him, properly introducing Wonder Woman to the audience. When Superman joins the fight, the Trinity is assembled for the first time. With the imperilled Lois adding an extra layer of tension and urgency, the final battle begins.

SCENE ANALYSIS

This action scene is approximately 6m26s from the frame after Superman’s awakening to the last frame of the spike growing from Doomsday’s stump.

This scene is a cathartic moment for Superman fans feeling frustrated after Batman defeating the Man of Steel a few scenes prior. Doomsday represents the reality that the only reason Batman beat Superman is because he was not trying to kill him. Doomsday is actively trying to kill Batman, and he is all but hopeless in the face of this Kryptonian killing machine. In a way, it is karma for Batman’s endeavour to pursue the death of Superman when the real monster has now been unleashed on the world. Batman is no longer at the top.

This is the only scene in both this film and Man of Steel where the music implies that the violence is cool instead of questionable. Doomsday is essentially a mindless zombie animal, and it makes a lot of sense that Snyder’s condemnation of typical superhero violence-without-consequence does not carry over to a fight with such a creature. Here, we can revel in the violence because the antagonist is not a person, or questionably even alive. So, here, the cool music wants us to think, “This is awesome!”

Greater musical analysis coming soon.

BEHIND THE SCENES

“It was too good of an opportunity to pass up, to have this image of the trinity — Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman — standing together. That had to be in the movie.”

Zack Snyder, The Art of the Film, p187

“I drew that scene and I really had this… And we had talked about it a lot and it was really crucial to me that the first thing Wonder Woman does is save Batman, the first time we see her really in action, because I thought that she needs to enter at this super high level because we will later on examine the ‘Why’ of Wonder Woman, but when we meet her, she is a veteran of multiple gigantic, epic battles and that she has fought literally gods of war. These guys are amateurs.

Zack Snyder, Film Junkee Vodka Stream, 14 May 2020

“Yeah, I’m a big Trinity fan myself. I loved the idea of that moment. It was kind of my whole thing when we were doing BvS that I really wanted to have this moment with the Trinity, and I just thought that if we could get them all to be on camera in one shot, that we really would be on our way to doing something really epic. I just think that the one thing about DC, whether you’re a fan or not, those three heroes are the most iconographic superheroes ever and their symbols are worldwide recognizable. They’re corporations, they’re countries, they’re religions of some kind. You know, just to see Superman’s ‘S’, the Wonder Woman eagle, and the Bat, you’re literally like, ‘Holy shit!’ And I think that’s really powerful, and I hope they continue their Trinity mission into the future. I hope they come together again soon.”

Zack Snyder, DC Cinematic Cast, 9 March 2021, 00:47:34

The final battle was shot on a green screen soundstage at the late Michigan Motion Picture Studios along Centerpoint Parkway, Pontiac, Michigan. The digital environment was constructed with 3D renders of the Nicholson Terminal and Dock Company (where the first part of the Batmobile chase was shot) and Michigan Central Station (where the Batman-Superman fight was shot), both in Detroit. However, the layout has been altered slightly, so it is not the same location as Knyazev’s warehouse.

According to IndieWire, this fight was originally going to be a single giant shot, but it was determined that this would make it difficult to enact editorial changes. In interviews with Art of VFX, fxguide, and, 4dtotal, VFX supervisor Guillaume Rocheron of MPC explained the technical process of creating the environments and animating the digital doubles. The transformed environment after the blasts given off by Doomsday were also inspired by dry lava fields in Hawaii. Photos of the set were posted by Zack Snyder [1/2], Gal Gadot [1/2/4], director of photography Larry Fong [1], set photographer Clay Enos [1/2/3/4/5], key second assistant director Misha Bukowski [1], and stuntman Ryan Watson (who played Doomsday) [1/2]. Concept artists Vance Kovacs, Christian Lorenz Scheurer, and Jerad Marantz created stunning artwork for this scene.

“We made it with normal cuts… with Wonder Woman leading the charge. We changed stunt poses late in the game but had the world figured out. It became Wonder Woman-centric. You want to see her combat in a slow, intimate way. She’s enjoying cutting lose on this thing. She’s had down time for 100 years.”

John DesJardin, IndieWire, 24 March 2016

“Another good reason to consider sound design and music early on has to with extended action scenes. As you get deep into the last act of a long film like this, you have to do everything you can do avoid bombarding the audience and shutting them down before the film’s over. A good trick is to pick a point late in the 3rd act to let the sound effects play underneath strong melodic score. The sequence will seem different now, fresh. Hans Zimmer really went for this in the 3rd act, saving the big action melodies as long as he could. We created a montage-y action beat late into the sequence, where Superman and Wonder Woman are fighting Doomsday. The style of this lent to a mix where hard sound effects went into the background, with reverb, as well as the war cries of Wonder Woman. Actually this action beat was reconceived by Zack late in the game, so that the camera was more with our heroes than in the original previs.”

David Brenner, ProVideo Coalition, 10 April 2016

“One of the biggest challenges for me was when we got to the end fight with Doomsday. We were approaching when that section was supposed to be done and I went back to Zack and said, ‘I don’t think you love this. I don’t think I’ll ever love it so let’s tear it down again and go back in with Damon. Let’s not change the fight choreography but change the camera. Let’s make it more like the Snow Speeders versus the AT-AT Walkers in The Empire Strikes Back.’ It became one of my favourite parts of the sequence and I’m so glad we weren’t so precious with that initial idea.”

John “DJ” DesJardin, 3D World, May 2016, p50

The flooded stairwell was shot in an underwater green screen constructed at the late Michigan Motion Picture Studios along Centerpoint Parkway, Pontiac, Michigan. Filming was done with Dorsalfin Productions‘ underwater director of cinematography, Ian Seabrook, a professional underwater cameraman, whose demo reel can be seen here, and you can find interviews with him from Underwater Podcast and Dive Photo Guide. On 17 August 2014, Seabrook posted this photo to his Instagram of what resembles the set with the BvS hashtag, so the sequence was likely filmed around that time.

“They had a great team that really made me feel safe, but it was definitely claustrophobic. I was under the water and trapped, and playing that was something I hadn’t anticipated, emotionally. It was intense, until I accepted that I wasn’t actually drowning. We were a team of six people — the divers, the stunt woman, the cameraman — and we all went down together, which was very comforting. It became strangely meditative and relaxing. Except I got really bad swimmer’s ear; that was my war wound! Everyone else had to work so hard that I felt the least I could do was get down there and not complain.”

Amy Adams, Press Release, March 2016

Zack Snyder mentioned during the BvS Watch Party that the idea for the flooded stairwell came from a flooded area they found at Michigan Central Station. He later confirmed in the director’s commentary (2:15:16) that the pool was built on a soundstage at the late Michigan Motion Picture Studios, Pontiac, Michigan. The sequence was shot in June or July 2014 when the crew were filming in Pontiac. Concept art by Christian Lorenz Scheurer (above) indicates an earlier concept had Batman keep the Kryptonite spear in the Batwing, which would crash in a Gotham canal where Superman would later retrieve it from the drowned vehicle, showing how the “baptism” concept was always part of the plan.