Editor’s note: Below are spoilers for Blue Beetle
The Big Picture
- DC Studios pushed for emotional death in The blue beetlewhich leads to the death of Jaime’s father, adding emotional stakes to the story and exploring Latin American culture’s connection to death and spirituality.
- The death of Jaime’s father allows for world building and introduces the idea that personal inferiority becomes a source of power for the reluctant hero.
- Although Jaime’s father is dead, there are still opportunities for Alberto to return in flashbacks or if Jaime has another near-death experience in potential. The blue beetle sequel.
If there’s one rule that screenwriters tend to follow when it comes to building a story, it’s the one that tells them to make it personal. A superhero is forced to save several people from a burning building, but what if one of those people is a grandmother? This type of thinking makes DC studios believe it The blue beetle director Angel Manuel Soto that they had to raise the stake of the original script.
In an interview, Soto told our Editor-in-Chief Steve Weintraub which he and the screenwriter Gareth Dunnet-AlcocerThe plan at the beginning was for “no one” to die in the film. Turns out that it was DC Studios that was pushing for an emotional death, and to even consider killing Alberto Reyes (Damian Alcázar), Soto had to sit down with Dunnet-Alcocer and answer some important questions:
“‘How can we create the lowest levels with a family member? And how is that low point not just another death in the superhero genre, but how does that low point become his power? At the end of the day, what effort does this distrustful hero need at the end of the day to accept his destiny?’ When we started realizing that, we were like, ‘This could be a great opportunity to explore magical realism in this series where Jaime is going to die.'”
Jaime’s Father’s Death Extends ‘Blue Beetle’ World Building
As Soto emphasizes, after Jaime’s father died he opened the opportunity to explore another aspect of Latin American culture that is related to death and spirituality. In the scene in which Jaime discovers that his father is gone, the two share a conversation in “his vision of limbo or heaven or earth.” Father and son live “this construction of what you feel is a home, and this home begins to break apart.” They also talk about accepting whatever comes their way and celebrating a person for what they have achieved in life. Soto suggests that the more they thought about it, the more they realized that indeed “the father has to go.”
We cannot forget that the death of Jamie’s father does not mean that we will not see Alberto in capacity The blue beetle sequel. The charismatic character can still return in flashbacks or if Jaime has another near-death experience – which is certainly within the realm of possibility for a superhero.
The blue beetle playing in theaters now. For more information with Manuel Soto check out our interview below.
