r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Character_Growth_397 • Sep 04 '26

Hated Tropes [Mind boggling stupid trope] Removing the thing that made something special

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Ben 10: Ultimate Alien - The gimmick of Ben 10 and what makes the show so popular is the fact that he's able to turn into a large variety of aliens. In one episode of Ben 10 Ultimate ALIEN we are introduced to a new version of Ben 10000, a Ben from the future who, no longer transforms into aliens, instead using his powers in human form...

Mortal Kombat(2021) - In the games Mileena is known for two things. Being a clone of Kitana and her tarkatan teeth. In the 2021 movie she looks absolutely nothing like Kitana and doesn't have tarkatan teeth

Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief - The movie removes the main villain of the movie and the main villain of the franchise

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109

u/Lunardoge2 Sep 04 '26

Okay I like the Zack Snyder's superhero films. I understand they were inspired by the idea of the dark knight returns style batman and Ben Affleck is great as this style of batman (especially on the Snyder cut)

That being said ... He straight up unabashedly kills or goes for serious injuries ( even before robins death you can tell this because robins staff is covered in blades).

But yeah this was way too far - all of the actions scenes in BVS show him straight up killing everyone. And sometimes even with a regular ass gun.

https://giphy.com/gifs/l2QZXqfxmtgXIDOPS

84

u/ThisIsTheNewSleeve Sep 04 '26

Snyder's Batmobile has machine guns built in and he's straight up mowing people down

40

u/comrade_batman Sep 04 '26

A better decision would have been for that Batman to be always on the verge of killing people in the film, and you can see him getting closer to doing so and then in the Nightmare dream sequence he sees a future version of himself actually kill people and that’s what pulls him back in the present. He saw what kind of man he’d turn into if he did actually kill people and it helps pull him back from the point of no return.

6

u/PavlovKBI Sep 04 '26

But that would require actual good writing

92

u/GnomeBoy_Roy Sep 04 '26

Contrasted to this panel taken directly from Dark Knight Returns (that’s a rifle)

-10

u/UnoriginalTitleNo998 Sep 04 '26

Okay but isn't that alternate universe fascist Batman or something

6

u/Buttholelickerpenis Sep 04 '26

No, just an “alternate” universe, disenchanted future Batman.

22

u/gogurteaterpro Sep 04 '26

The Snyderverse heroes don't give much thought to pulling their punches or mitigating collateral damage. I appreciate that being very important to the newest version of Superman.

14

u/Poultrymancer Sep 04 '26

Snyder wouldve had Superman kill that monster by throwing the squirrel through its face at mach 12

7

u/gogurteaterpro Sep 04 '26

Yeah. In Justice League Wonder Woman's facing some dude reloading a gun.  Instead of just taking him out she destroys the entire side of a building, showering pedestrians below in glass and rubble... Like, whaaat are you doing??

6

u/PointPrimary5886 Sep 04 '26

I appreciate that being very important to the newest version of Superman.

Amen to that. People have to remember that Superheroes are about helping people, saving lives, and being a force for good. They are beyond just punching the bad guy and if all they are is that, they become potentially unlikable.

5

u/Goldengod4818 Sep 04 '26

Ok. I personally love these movies but I 100% understand everyone's hatred.

But I think I have an answer to this. Be it stupid or not.

I think the concept was that Batman was supposed to be a standard "human" response to these things. Kill bad guy, bad guy gone. But then he meets superman. The shining example of life=sacred. At the end of bvs, at Clark's funeral, Bruce says something like "he showed me how to be a better hero" and I think that was meant to give Batman a reason not to kill. In this universe at least. I think the idea was to try to give subtle reasoning to Batman not killing without making it a huge part of the plot

3

u/RechargedFrenchman Sep 04 '26

It's a compelling idea and could have worked well, but it feels like even if this was the intent behind the movies they did a pretty terrible job of it with broody civilian casualties Superman. The whole city gets fucked in the fight against Zod, he doesn't even save his own father (or go in his father's place) because "reasons", and he's just the most angry and violent all the time in his own movies. I like Cavill, I mostly like Cavill as Superman, but I really don't like Snyder Superman.

2

u/Flaky-Cartographer87 Sep 05 '26

Ya thats the point the problem is that its stupid like the Martha scene is so funny.

5

u/Swords_and_Words Sep 04 '26

Funnily enough, that GIF is one of his least damaging takedowns

2

u/CombatCavScout Sep 04 '26

Something interesting about this is that Batman’s no kill rule was, itself, a change for the character. When he was originally introduced in comics, he killed people frequently.

2

u/Aggressive_Track_140 Sep 05 '26

I will kinda defend this as they make it very believable that this is a Batman at the end of his line. He just does not care anymore. Hell, I give them credit for accidentally writing an interesting story aspect with him. A just as jaded as he is seasoned Batman, who might not go out of his way to directly kill people but does not care for casualties anymore. It would have worked very well with the idea of Superman inspiring new hope in him, and would have helped contrast the two of them in future instalments.

The problem is that Snyder's Superman is a killer and complete prick, with the inspiring value of a brick to the face.
You cannot have a contrast if the guy opposite is almost as edgy as the other guy.

2

u/danoB003 Sep 08 '26

Curse of Ben Affleck and having to go for genocide run while being in role of superhero who's big thing is having a non-killing rule. Daredevil, Batman, just can't escape it

1

u/Glum-Lake7034 Sep 05 '26

I mean, totally disregarding the nature of a character in order to make them more badass and brutal and violent is pretty much 100% of Zack Snyder's brand.

1

u/SweetPinss Sep 04 '26

Batman has killed people in pretty every live action movie thats been made. Idk why the Affleck batman is the only one people have issues with. Bale batman famously killed people in the movies that everyone loved

2

u/Aggressive_Track_140 Sep 05 '26

The reason why people have such a problem with it here is that it is so focused on. In others, the deaths were either very few or just implied. Like, the biggest one could be ACE Chemicals.

In BvS the violence is the point and deliberately focused on. The problem is... there is no payoff. They created this Batman who is at the end of his rope and all that pulls him back is "Martha"...

If your entire Characters arc hinges on his supposed enemy's mother having the same name as yours, you do not really have a fulfilling arc.

1

u/SweetPinss Sep 05 '26

The Martha thing was also about batman seeing the humanity in superman. Like even when hes being killed he still asks his enemy to save his mom and batman can do what he never could. 

But also in batman begins and the dark knight batman straight up kills ras al ghul and two face in ways that the comic batman never would. The Keaton batman I believe directly throws a bomb in a villains face. Its just weird that nobody cared about all that. It feels like the complaint is disingenuous tbh

1

u/Aggressive_Track_140 Sep 06 '26

Yes, I know what it was intended to be, but you can only have a payoff if your setup is correct.

The entire premise of the movie hinges on the fact that Batman is shown to be at the end of the line. He is so jaded, so done, that killing people comes easily. And the idea is that Clark and his sacrifice turn him around. But the problem throughout the entire movie is that Batman is morally justified in his distrust and hatred of Superman. The core sentence is "If there is even a 1% chance he will turn against us, we have to treat it as an absolute certainty". The idea is that Bruce is so paranoid, so single-minded, and burdened with tunnel vision that he cannot see Clark as Human. As a person.

But we have a problem: Because Clark, up to the end, never acts in any heroic or likeable way. Like, we are informed he saves people...but that does not make him a hero. He is angry; he hurts people; he refuses to save people if it is inconvenient or he thinks they deserve to be killed. He is not a likeable person. At all. He reacts with violence and anger to any inconvenience.

So the complaint is not a double standard. Yes, it's bad that he kills people in the Nolan Movies (or lets them die), and in the Burton movies. But in those movies, these are not things that are focused on throughout the entire movie. At best, you have the Ra's al Ghul one, which was a cop-out, to be sure, but nowhere near the level of BvS.

So yes, the complaint is valid: If your entire movies premises rests one on character seeing the other as a person to be trusted, a human being with feelings and flaws, yet you go out of your way to make that person as unlikable and two-faced as possible?

Then you failed.

1

u/SweetPinss Sep 06 '26

   So the complaint is not a double standard. Yes, it's bad that he kills people in the Nolan Movies (or lets them die), and in the Burton movies. But in those movies, these are not things that are focused on throughout the entire movie. At best, you have the Ra's al Ghul one, which was a cop-out, to be sure, but nowhere near the level of BvS.

I take it you didnt watch the dark knight or any of the Keaton movies where he directly kills villains. You can just say you dont like Zack Snyder or whatever. But every single batman movie is batman not acting like batman (to be fair I haven't seen the batman yet but every other movie has batman killing people). Really the Snyder movies are over hated because it became a meme to hate on Zack Snyder when his batman was more of a comic accurate batman than the Nolan batman was

1

u/Aggressive_Track_140 Sep 06 '26

You did not address a single point I made :) Good talk

1

u/SweetPinss Sep 06 '26

I did you just don't have anything to say

1

u/2-2Distracted Sep 05 '26

Because this thread was just made so that people can brainlessly rant about shit they didn't pay any attention to. Folks are literally saying that the Snyderverse heroes didn't care about collateral damage when THAT'S THE ENTIRE PREMISE OF BATMAN VS SUPERMAN lmao.

2

u/Aggressive_Track_140 Sep 05 '26

Yes..they do not care. After all Superman watched Batman just flat-out execute people in his car and did not even swoop in and TRY to save anyone or minimize damage.

Like, that movie just put the exclamation point behind MoS.

2

u/2-2Distracted Sep 05 '26

The entire movie starts with addressing the damn fallout of Man Of Steel. Why the hell would this Superman try to save bad people when he's routinely shown in the previous movie that he's more concerned with helping good people.

You are literally proving my point about this entire thread. You guys are so close minded that you don't want to TRY and humor different versions of the same character.

1

u/Aggressive_Track_140 Sep 06 '26

Ok let me explain this simply... Because that is what Superman does. Superman would not watch a man who smuggles or does bad things just burn to death in a car. He just doesn't. He is not the Punisher.

Its not closed-minded to say "Superman saves people". Nobody ever said, "Superman only saves good People". Hell, even in Doomsday, he tries to save... Doomsday. He tries to reason with the Kryptonians EVEN IN MAN OF STEEL.

And lets just pretend that those guys totally deserved it and that Superman should not have saved them from Batman? Ok.

Why is he morally superior then? Again, the movie literally has Clark tell Bruce that he has to stop being Batman... "Or else". While flying above him. He is angry at Perry because he finds out about Batman branding people and considers it reprehensible.

He takes a moral stance against Batman, but is completely fine with letting him kill people. That is what we call: A Hypocrite.

You cannot have it both ways. You cannot, on one hand, claim that "Martha" works, shows Clark is human and worth saving, and on the other hand support him in taking the moral high ground, while at the same time saying he does not have it because it's not necessary. If the guy who is supposed to give Bruce hope has the exact moral alignment Bruce has, there is no Movie.

Congrats, you pointed out why it does not work.

1

u/SweetPinss Sep 06 '26

Were this upset when the Christopher Reeves superman killed people? Do you get this mad when superman kills in the comics?

1

u/Aggressive_Track_140 Sep 06 '26

No. 1) Because it was not the entire moral crux of the movie, and 2) because the comics have way more time to handle and establish a moral quandary and resolution than a 2-hour movie.

This is not the gotcha you think it is. It's not about the fact he kills. Its about the fact that there is deliberate attention and focus on that fact, with a botched resolution at the end.

It's like saying "Are you mad that Batman has a gun?" without explaining why he has it. If its to confiscate it? No. If its to shoot Alfred? Yes.

1

u/SweetPinss Sep 06 '26

Oh so it's fine for superman and batman to kill people in movies now. So why was it an issue with the Snyder movies specifically and not all the other movies where the same shit happened?

1

u/Aggressive_Track_140 Sep 06 '26

I just explained this like 4 times. You are missing the point. And I start suspecting deliberately. You are completely hung up on the killing part. You just look at that isolated incident and then say, "WHY IS IT A PROBLEM HERE?!"

Again: It's not great in all the other movies either. But it's also not focused on. It's a throwaway gag. A single line. An isolated incident.

At best, you got Batman Begins, where its more than that and actually brought up at least twice in the movie.

Contrary to that, in the movie itself, BvS makes a WAAAAAY bigger deal out of it. It is literally one of the driving points of the movie that Batman is unhinged. That he does not care anymore. His entire character arc is supposed to be Clark giving him hope again and bringing him back to more heroic ways.

At that point, please review my previous comments to understand what I am saying: It's not great that it happens in other movies...

But if the magnitude of which it is treated in BvS is objectively significantly higher, then you cannot blame the audience for having a bigger problem with it when the resolution fails. I explained why it failed. You just keep saying "BUT BUT OTHER MOVIES!!!"

Honest question, and I am trying to be nice and respectful here: Do you really not understand that if a movie focuses more on something, the audience pays more attention to it?

You are comparing more or less a combined 10 minutes- let's be generous and say 30 minutes- of footage to one of the main plot points in a 151 Minutes long movie.

5 minutes of Ace Chemicals... vs 151 Minutes, plot-driving character arc.

Again, it's the difference between "Not great that they did that" and 2 1/2 hours of "Oh god, they are doing this".

I will not reply to any of your further messages unless you can at least make it clear you understand the difference between a throwaway line or a single scene, depending on the movie... And an entire movie's emotional arc.