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How The Matrix Inspired Man of Steel's Final Zod Fight Explained
As the film nears its tenth anniversary, storyboard artist and producer Jay Oliva shares how The Matrix Revolutions inspired Man of Steel's epic final Zod fight sequence. In 2013, Zack Snyder's Man of Steel had a tough job on its hand, being the first DC movie to be released since the worldwide hit The Dark Knight Rises a year before, with Snyder and company having to follow the closure to Christopher Nolan's much-loved and largely grounded Batman trilogy. With the help of Nolan and David S. Goyer, who was a story contributor on The Dark Knight trilogy, Snyder managed to bring the story of Superman up to date with Man of Steel, helping to launch Warner Bros.' DC Extended Universe.
Whilst carrying over a more scientifically grounded approach from Nolan's films with touches such as Superman creating a sonic boom in flight and that flight can be painful for him, Snyder brought in renowned storyboard artist and animation director Oliva to ensure his vision made it well off the ground and into the sky. With it being Oliva's first live-action feature, Man of Steel had several key action sequences that needed mapping out. The most complicated of these was the film's final showdown between Superman (Henry Cavill) and long-time screen nemesis General Zod (Michael Shannon) amidst the toppling skyscrapers of Metropolis.
As audiences continue to look back on the Snyderverse, artist Jay Oliva took to Twitter to share how The Matrix sequels inspired Man of Steel's final Zod fight. Fans have often cited Snyder's own professed love for The Matrix as proof enough of its origin, with Oliva now adding fuel to that fire by addressing both Superman's cinematic past and the influence of anime on crafting those parts of the story. See what Oliva shared below:
Oliva's comments confirm long-held fan theories that an anime influence brought a whole new dimension to the cinematic world of Superman. Reinvigorating such a well-trodden path needed strong inspiration not only to follow Nolan's efforts in the superhero canon, but also to bring the last son of krypton into a more modern world after 2006's Superman Returns failed to reignite the franchise. Channeling inspiration from The Wachowskis' revolutionary original Matrix films turned out to be an extremely effective path to take, given it paid homage to anime classics including Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Dragon Ball Z and Ninja Scroll, and is often credited with bringing anime to the attention of mainstream western audiences.
Not only are the final battles of Snyder's film and The Wachowskis' trilogy closer stylistically related, the motivations of their big bads are also strikingly similar. General Zod is determined to terraform the earth so that Krypton can be reborn, just as Agent Smith in The Matrix Revolutions (Hugo Weaving) wants to render everyone, including Neo (Keanu Reeves), into a copy of himself. Almost a decade on from Man of Steel's cinema release, audiences have become used to these kinds of potentially world-ending, airborne CGI battles, but at the time, the DC superhero franchise was really in its infancy. With war between DC and Marvel still raging, and both houses taking inspiration from multiple points of pop culture, it will be interesting to see where the next cultural touchstones are laid.
