Zack Snyder laughed. He sat unconcealed at the Batman v Superman premiere. His film played before him. It was cool.

Zack Snyder never has and never will care what you think. He’s said as much. “I aim my movies, as much as I can, at myself,” he told one interviewer. “It’s the individual way of looking at things that makes us different. It’s why we go to the movies,” he told another. He’s making movies for himself so he can see what he thinks is cool.

And what he thinks is cool is a hell of a lot different than what you think is cool.

Or, as he puts it, it’s ironic. “I feel like all the movies I’ve made have been born out of irony, in a weird way.” What does he mean? Let’s look over his filmography.

You want to watch survivors fight slow zombies so they learn that we’re all in this together? Here’s fast zombies, and you better accept and figure out reality or you and everyone else is dead if you do something stupid like go after a dog or try to save your pregnant zombie wife.

You want a critique of the excesses of war and American imperialism? Here’s an ode to Western culture fighting off Arab barbarism in the name of freedom even though Sparta wasn’t really that free.

You want an animated movie for children about the power of myth? Here’s a war story about the way fascism is bred in youth.

You want a depiction of rape culture and the victimhood of women? Here’s an epic about the mind being the ultimate source of female empowerment and how you can use it to overcome your trauma.

You want an undermining of the greatness of humanity that devolves into nihilism? Here’s a discussion of the dark side of humanity that shows how we destroy ourselves by undermining our greatness.

“The most ironic part of Superman is that it’s not ironic. It’s serious,” Snyder said. So you want a story about Superman being obligated to protect humanity? Ok, here’s how he grew up and why he chose to protect us.

You say you want an artist to break the mold. You say everything Hollywood is churning out is the same, and it may be. Yet what Zack Snyder makes most assuredly isn’t, and you ask him not to make it.

Zack Snyder is making The Fountainhead because he is Howard Roark. He is told again and again that his buildings are awful and he doesn’t know what he’s doing, that he needs to build them more like everything that has come before. Still, he continues steadfast in his work, not thinking of you/me.

And that is why you hate Zack Snyder.