Zack Snyder’s Justice League successfully avoids the problem faced by many contemporary movies revolving around the science fiction, outer space genre. Man being an egocentric creature has often given Earth the most important among all of the universe, in his writings. It is assumed that this approach can be to give the story a more humane touch and make it more relatable for the audience. A number of cinematic universes are guilty of this trope including MCU and DCEU.
One very good example of sci-fi focusing heavily on incorporating the familiar modern world with the alien or foreign world will be “Doctor Who”, the Gallifreyan who often decided to trouble the modern earth while he had the entirety of space and time to choose from.
In The Marvel Cinematic Universe, we witnessThanoson a journey of finding the six infinity stones. Despite its grandeur, three of the six stones were located on earth – the Tesseract in shield’s possession, the Sorcerer Supremo’s Eye of Agamotto, and Loki’s scepter. While we know that the Avengers are the Earth’s most powerful heroes, and thus finding three out of five infinity stones on earth helps to further the storyline but from an in-universe point of view, the importance of earth makes little sense in the grand scheme of things.
The DC Extended Universe(DCEU) has also faced a similar plight. Being a cinematic universe brimming with alien worlds and out worldly concepts, making earth the place where Darkseidsuffers defeat in the ancient past and Steppenwolf faces the end at the handsJustice League is unanticipated, to say the least.
Here’s why Zack Snyder’s Justice league is making a difference
While almost all other universes have failed to provide a rational explanation on why the earth is always made the centre of all activities, Snyder attempts to give a credible explanation for why earth could be the symbolic center of the universe, by giving the anti-life Equation. At an unknown time in the ancient past, a mischief-maker carved the Anti-Earth Equation into the earth’s very crust. The Anti-Earth Equation is claimed to be an all bounding power that allows the wielder to take control over mankind.
The theory is that Darkseidand some others have been looking for it since time immemorial and some skeptics even go as far as claiming that Darkseid may have protected it in MartianManhunter’scase. The Anti-Earth Equation also accounts for the cosmic importance of the earth, which justifies all the major events occurring here.
Why earth was made to home the anti-life power is a question that is yet to be answered, but it can be assumed to be a single coincidence. This whole theory despite having its flaws is still more believable than the unexplainable theories put forth by various other cinematic universes like MCU, for example, the Doctor’s navigation system conveniently getting jammed in London or three infinity stones being found on earth out of all other places.
Although it is criticized that Justice League scratches the Anti-Earth Equationonly at the surface level, even with its 4-hour runtime. It still puts forth a commendable effort to give some answers to the question of why the earth is always the “chosen one”, be it in the case of Harry Potter, Infinity wars, or Anakin Skywalker.
