One of the biggest debates of the summer was over Hollywood’s penchant for showing mass, 9/11-evoking destruction. The biggest offender was Man of Steel’s final fight sequence that seemingly left Metropolis in shambles. (A professional estimated the damage at $700 billion, with over 125,000 casualties.) Well, apparently that was exactly what director Zack Snyder was going for. Speaking with the Japan Times, he explained his reasoning:
“I wanted the movie to have a mythological feeling. In ancient mythology, mass deaths are used to symbolize disasters. In other countries like Greece and Japan, myths were recounted through the generations, partly to answer unanswerable questions about death and violence. In America, we don’t have that legacy of ancient mythology. Superman (who first appeared in ‘Action Comics’ in 1938) is probably the closest we get. It’s a way of recounting the myth.â€
So, yeah, that was his response.