#ReleaseTheKryptoGetsPunchedCut
One of my favorite moments in one of my favorite movies, Halloween, is when Dr. Loomis and Sheriff Brackett stumble upon the corpse of a dog. Without even showing the violence inflicted on the dog, Loomis responds, “He got hungry,” and we as the audience know just how vicious and evil Michael Myers/The Shape is with that small piece of unpleasantness.
I’m certain that scene would be ripped out of Halloween if it got made today because the level of sensitivity audiences have towards dogs has become comical. That’s no more apparent than recent news of a scene in Superman (2025) being cut from the film after test audiences responded poorly to seeing Krypto the Superdog get punched by a villain.
So That’s Why Test Screenings Were Bad
When news of Superman test screenings started to leak out, it was widely reported that responses to the movie were not exactly over the moon. My initial takeaway from this was actually a positive one. “Oh, it sounds like James Gunn might have made something outside the norm for a tentpole superhero movie!”
Now, the word is out that test audiences responded extremely poorly to a scene in which the villainous Ultraman punched Krypto, Superman’s loyal canine companion who also happens to be super strong and invulnerable. The notes on this moment were voluminous and passionate enough for Gunn to excise the scene.
So now all those negative test screening responses make a lot more sense. Because if you do anything other than pet, feed, walk, or pick up a dog’s shit in a movie, audiences are ready to get their knives out and cut you to pieces if a dog gets nothing less than the cinematic equivalent of a spa day.
I Get It, I Do
Before I get drawn and quartered for advocating for this scene, let me make it clear that I don’t hate dogs or animals at all. Far from it. I often prefer them to humans. But I’m also an adult who understands the difference between real violence and simulated violence for an intended emotional effect in art.
And it’s not like I don’t understand why people would be averse to seeing violence inflicted on a dog in a Superman movie. Probably the same way people would be averse to seeing a Fast & Furious movie set in the concentration camp my home state erected; it’s an uncomfortable idea in a piece of entertainment where people are expecting to feel good.
I also don’t have any issue with people wanting to know ahead of time if animals are harmed in their chosen entertainment. I don’t have that proclivity at all but I’m not some empathy-lacking monster. If you want to curate your recreational relationship with art to avoid any harm towards dogs, go for it! But, this Krypto scene getting the boot points to an extreme level of aversion that borders on a desire to censor. That’s where I start to get a little worried.
Sometimes, You Should Punch the Dog
I can’t speak to the effectiveness of the cut Krypto punching scene, but it affected audiences strongly enough to garner its deletion. And maybe the movie works better without it, I don’t know! But the context of the scene involved a villainous character doing something to illustrate how evil they are. It is a moment that was intended to make the audience feel bad and direct their negative response towards the villain.
But because that evil act was directed towards a dog, the audience’s emotions got too twisted with reality, even though I’m pretty sure Krypto is a cartoon made by a computer and not real. Still, their investment in the reality of Superman’s Krypto made the violence toward him break the fourth wall of security we expect with our popular cinema.
And sometimes, that is exactly what art should do. Sometimes, punching the dog is the right choice for whatever goal your story is aiming for. To be fair, Gunn felt he didn’t need that beat for his story and that’s 100% within his creative rights. But I worry about a future where you can’t make any big story decisions in popular art that involve (fake) violence towards dogs. We can’t even show a god dog getting punched by another god!
So I guess I have to take my cues from a militant fan movement that astroturfed online discourse in order for their glorious master’s preferred version of a movie to be released. I’m officially backing #ReleaseTheKryptoGetsPunchedCut. I jest but I would like to see the scene in question just to know how tightly a few test audiences clutched their pearls from seeing it. And I especially want to see it because it will make Krypto’s eventual retaliation against the vile Ultraman all the more sweeter.
