The DC Extended Universe is approaching its end with Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, as James Gunn prepares to introduce fans to his own revamped DC Universe – starting with Henry Cavill-less Superman movie, titled Superman: Legacy.
The 10-year-long franchise also kicked off with a Superman tale, Man of Steel in 2013. Looking back at it, the movie set the tone for DCEU and its underwhelming attempt to catch the MCU by covering too much in too little time.
Despite making $668 million at the box office, Man of Steel, which was supposed to be Superman’s origin story, left fans yearning for better-paced character development and more in-depth details of his origin, Krypton. Interestingly, initial plans included more focus on the planet.
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Why Henry Cavill’s Man of Steel Didn’t Feature Kryptonian War Dogs
Zack Snyder‘s Man of Steel opens with the birth of Kal-El, the first naturally-born Kryptonian child in centuries. At the same time, the planet Krypton is facing an inevitable destructive future, having been destabilized by the mining of the planetary core. Krypton’s top scientist, Jor-El sends young Kal-El to Earth and gets ready to face General Zod in his attempts to save Krypton.
Initially, the first draft of the Henry Cavill starrer movie focused more on Krypton’s destruction and Zod’s approach, and Snyder had designed a bigger battle, than the one seen in the final cut. Further, monstrous Kryptonian war dogs were going to feature as part of Zod’s forces in his pursuit to take over Krypton. But the director had to make changes. In an interview with Empire, he explained:
“There was a bigger battle that I had designed on the landing platform and we shot some of it, but for budgetary reasons it got smaller and smaller and then it got to the point where I was just like, ‘Let’s just have the battle inside.’”
He continued: “Jor-El has this robot called Kelex and there is this scene where Kelex dons a robotic body and he battles it out with Zod on the landing platform. We had it so Zod had this pack of genetically-engineered war dogs that ran ahead, and Jor-El and Kelex were fighting the war dogs and finally Kelex takes these detonation explosives out of his robotic body and arms them, turning to Jor-El and saying ‘Get the kid off the planet!’, basically. Kelex says, ‘I’m gonna try and hold them off’, and then runs and dives and blows himself up.”
Snyder added that this sequence would’ve made Zod really mad. However, fans didn’t get to see Zod’s reaction because the war dogs didn’t feature in the final cut.
Why Henry Cavill’s Superman Killed General Zod in Man of Steel
While Snyder could’ve added a lot to the action quotient of Man of Steel by including monstrous Kryptonian war dogs, many fans questioned the idea of him adding the controversial Zod’s death scene in the movie. Zod travels to Earth to turn it into a new Krypton and eventually comes face to face with Cavill’s Superman.
The final standoff between Superman and Zod leads to the protagonist killing Michael Shannon’s character to stop him from slaughtering an innocent family. However, this went against the idea of Clark/Superman avoiding killing anyone himself. Explaining this contrast, the movie’s screenwriter, David S. Goyer said (via Comic-Con International):
“This is an immature Superman. This is the first time he’s ever flown, just days before that. He’s not aware of the extent of his powers. And he’s fighting somebody who won’t stop — (Zod has) said, ‘You can’t put me in a prison, I won’t ever stop.’”
Goyer further added that the filmmaker did have a debate on this dilemma of Superman taking someone’s life, and even came up with an alternate version of the sequence. However, the final cut was more in line with the theme that he and Snyder wanted to show in their version of the Superman story.
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Source: Empire, Comic-Con International
