‘Superman’s Controversial Jor-El Twist Won’t Be Retconned

Superman is soaring past the competition in theaters, landing some of the best numbers at the box office of the year so far. It’s a critical darling as well, boasting a Certified Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an even more impressive audience score. For all intents and purposes, the film appears to be the perfect start to the rebooted DC Universe, but not everyone loved what it had to offer, especially when it came to a major change from the DC canon.

During an interview with Rolling Stone, Superman director James Gunn was asked about fans who hoped that the evil Jor-El (Bradley Cooper) and Lara Lor-Van (Angela Sarafyan) twist would be retconned at some point. In the film, it is revealed that Kal-El’s Kryptonian parents sent him to conquer Earth by any means necessary. This was a shock not only to the audience, but to Superman himself. The twist to the origin story has proved controversial to some, but Gunn hilariously told Rolling Stone that they are “sh** out of luck.” The change is here to stay, and Gunn has defended the decision as an important inflection point in Superman’s character arc.

RS: “The problem is, fundamentally, that would undo the entire emotional arc of the movie, right?”

JG: “That’s right. That’s the whole point of the movie, that Superman thinks he is doing something because it is his destiny and his Kryptonian parents have set him out to do this thing, and along the way he discovers through the love of the people who are actually his parents that he’s doing these things not because of someone else, but because of himself. It’s like taking accountability in the deepest way possible that his morality is not based on some figure outside of himself, but on his own choices. I think it’s really beautiful in that way, and I’m not gonna change that.”

More to come.

Source: Rolling Stone