They drove the story. Buildings falling on Bruce Wayne's people in Man of Steel. That was what drove the story.
Not that I saw. Everything in this movie seemed to indicate that this Batman had been going off the deep end for a while, and Superman was just his latest and greatest obsession. Remarks being made about the ultimate cut seemingly confirm that.
There's a difference between attempting to provide a basic reason (and then at least partially undercutting it) for a character's actions, versus actually driving the movie.
Not mention, Batman himself wasn't the driving force for this movie, anyway. That was Lex Luthor, who's backstory and motivation was completely glossed over.
I rather disagree. I certainly hadn't been expecting them to go full-on Death of Superman in their second movie outing. Whether or not they reverse it, well, it's comic books, but it's a distinct difference from the consequence-free violence of MCU films.
I already said it was unexpected. That still doesn't make it worthwhile. It has basically no drama, no effect on the story, it will have no effect moving forward (since Superman obviously cannot stay dead - indeed, we've already seen his new costume for JL - and they didn't even give themselves a setup for the actual death of superman storyline), so it's just a completely meaningless throw-away death entirely devoid of tension. I agree with you that MoS had tension. BvS, though, didn't. At all.
And since Marvel actually has killed off a major character and not immediately brought them back in the next movie, it is definitely not somehow superior just for having the balls to (temporarily) kill someone.
And the way the action is filmed and directed, and the structuring of the story, and the themes, and basically everything. What it had in common with a Marvel movie was superheroes, that's it.
Those weren't the types of characteristics you were talking about before. Also, the themes (hero vs hero, what is the right thing to do, can x be trusted with power) have been seen mutliple times in the marvel movies. And I have no idea what you think was so special about the structure of the story. Just that it was longer? Because it didn't stand out as at all unusual to me.
I guess what I would say is that consequences in the big-screen MCU for me... there's very little in the way of teeth in them. I can watch an MCU movie and laugh along with the quipping heroes and such, but I never feel a moment's actual
tension on behalf of any of the characters. We will get to the end without anybody being killed (save the disposable faceless mooks) or even undergoing anything too deeply harrowing, and we know this at the beginning; even GotG's "killing" of Groot is reset -- albeit memorably and hilariously, I'll give them that -- by the end.
(It stands out particularly glaringly in the big screen because Downie's Iron Man has become basically the Avengers' flagship hero... and that character comes built in with a
very famous story arc conspicuous in its absence from the films, for the fairly obvious reason that it isn't Disney-friendly.)
Compare and contrast Superman being forced to kill Zod in his first movie or getting whacked in his second big-screen outing, or Batman suffering from PTSD from watching the destruction of Metropolis. For that matter compare and contrast what the MCU itself routinely does on the small screen in series like Jessica Jones, Daredevil or Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. -- there's just no comparison.
Quicksilver is actually dead, in an incredibly moving scene that drove both character development (for SW) and the plot (by taking her away from her post). As far as the movies (and probably most of the audience) are concerned, so is Coulson, in probably the most important scene in the Avengers. I'll grant, they've had a bad habit of fakeout deaths so far, but those are not the only representation of the stakes in the MCU. And they're not the only kind of consequences.
IM3 was nothing but consequences from Avengers (and incidentally actually openly made use of PTSD, which BVS did not, even if you can theoretically interpret it that way). Civil War was nothing but consequences from Ultron.
And I'm not even sure why you're trying to couple the ideas of 'consequences' and 'tension' in the first place, because the movies you're claiming have more tension have significantly less consequences in them than several of the marvel movies. It sounds to me like your experience of tension has far more to do with tone - that you just can't overlook the quippy marvel style enough to feel the tension.
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