You’ve given me an idea (that I hope Aluminum will consider since I have NO editing skill), what if instead of showing the last part of Bruce in Metropolis saving the girl as the nightmare, we’re left wondering why Bruce hates Superman up until he has that whole opening sequence as a PTSD nightmare.
Funny you should say that. That’s how I had the sequence edited in my earlier version of this edit: Man of Tomorrow. Many things in that cut didn’t work, but moving the whole thing back did. I daresay it works better than keeping it intact in the beginning.
Though I’m generally not a fan of withholding a character’s motivation for such a long duration of time, I think it is at least partially justified because Batman doesn’t ACT on this motivation until after the dream sequence. I remember finding it horribly distracting in the cinemas to find that after the traumatic Metropolis ground sequence, Batman was on a completely unrelated case, chasing after a dirty bomb. This way, we get hints of it (dialogues with Clark and Alfred) before it being completely revealed.
This also has the wonderful bonus effect of us seeing Batman before the grown Bruce Wayne and also makes it clearer that the narrative is focusing on Clark/Superman as its main character.
So, consider me a BIG FAN of this idea! 😄
Another idea we could add to this is instead of having him save the little girl, we see the large metal thing (don’t remember what it’s called) coming towards the screen and that being what abrubtly wakes Bruce up from the nightmare, with the implication being that the little girl was killed in front of him, which gives him even MORE hate towards Superman.
An interesting thought, but the problem is that it removes Bruce staring furiously at Superman above, which I think is an essential moment.
That all being said, I was actually trying to go with the idea that the girl may have died for the version of the edit currently circulating (the large metal beam cuts off the Metropolis sequence in the beginning and then the conversation with the girl only is in the dream). Because we only see the girl saved in Bruce’s dream, it was ambiguous whether or not he managed to save her in real life. All that is clear, being a dream, is that Bruce clearly hates Superman.
But, of course, I don’t think the current edit did a good enough job of establishing it.
I’m moving towards your first suggestion of pushing the entire Metropolis flashback until later, but having it where it was originally and just cutting the dream sequence (as Just DC suggested) is another option.
Again, would love to hear more thoughts on this, especially if there were any testers who thought the edit as-is worked.