Headscratchers / Brightburn

• So, is it ever explained why Brandon acts the way he does? I mean, it's easy to say that the ship was controlling his mind and telling him to do these things, but even after the ship is destroyed, he continues slaughtering people and clearly takes pleasure in doing so. Also, he was shown to be a creepy little bastard even before the ship started influencing him, if his Porn Stash full of diagrams of human organs and intestines is any indication. Not to mention, the ship was just telling him to "Take the World" — very vague instructions that Brandon took to mean he should go full-on imitating the Plutonian. So, to sum up, was it the ship, or was he always a disturbed sociopath?
  • He's an alien, he doesn’t really have the same moral obligations and feelings as humans. Remember that he actually WAS a normal kid (for an alien) for all of his life UNTIL the initial activation of the ship. And even during the initial stages of his ‘activation’, much of his behavior does fall within expected 12-year-old child behavior. Getting angsty, being moody, and having (sexual) urges is not like a rare thing for kids at his age (and during puberty, to boot!) All of what he done (while being obviously wrong) are still human emotions and reactions coming into play. It’s just now it’s being experienced by someone who lacks the mental maturity to understand stuff to make the right decisions here. It was definitely more of a nature vs. nurture concept, he returns to being his old self when he listened to his mother but when she tried to kill him, he felt beyond hurt. The one thing that kept pulling him back from no return, just tried to kill him. That's where he "died". It’s that betrayal that fully pushes him into the point of no return. He could be a good kid just going through puberty without mostly any issues, but once that ship activated, he's forced down no matter what.
  • He's a brood parasite, as implied by his comments in class about wasps. His species send their offspring out to be raised on other worlds and then destroy them. We don't know if it's inherently in his nature, if it's his ship brainwashing him, or if it's a combination of the two, but the end result seems to be that he's simply acting out his programming. We don't know why he's programmed to be a brood parasite. It might be the only way his species can reproduce, or it might be For the Evulz.
  • But if the premise of the movie is "What if Superman was evil," then wouldn't they need to dig a little deeper than "He's an alien" or "The ship made him do it"? The core aspect of Superman's character is that he owes his morality to being raised by salt-of-the-earth farmers who taught him to be a good person before revealing that he's an alien. If Clark Kent was raised by mobsters in Kansas City and was on his way to becoming a criminal mastermind, the ship wouldn't have turned him into a superhero.
    • Yes, it's not really a deconstruction of the Superman character and origin story, as most of us probably assumed it would be. The premise is less "What if Superman caved to the temptations of absolute power?" and more "What if the Kents adopted a Tyke-Bomb programmed to destroy the Earth?" Brandon is simply an evil alien wasp.
  • There's also an implication that it's just the reaction of a 12-year-old boy (who was probably slightly, but not "unhealthily," disturbed to begin with) coming to grips with the fact that he's an alien with superpowers. His ranting of "I HATE YOU!" and "I know what I am now, I'm superior," could just be his young mind constructing a framework in which this all makes sense. In all, just like in Real Life when people go and do something horrible, there's no one thing you can point to and say "that's what made them that way." Brandon was at least a touch sociopathic, dealt with being a social outcast, then had the bomb dropped on him that he's not even human and oh, by the way, has godlike power. There are just too many factors pulling Brandon towards The Dark Side.
  • In the movie his parents found the porn stash after the ship had activated and broadcasting those evil thoughts. For all we know the stash originally was just normal porn and it was only recently that he took an interest to those medical drawings and gore pictures.
• Why the unanswered questions of where did he come from, why did his people send him to Earth or even what his species or his planet is called?
  • Sequel Hook or Nothing Is Scarier. Take your pick.
• I get Brandon wearing a mask to conceal his identity, but why does he put on a cape too? There is no indication that he is a fan of super villains and super heroes. There are no comic books in his room.
  • To be fair, he could be thinking of himself as a "hero" in a Believing Their Own Lies sense.
  • Why do superheroes in the comics themselves wear capes?
    • Depends on the specific superhero. For Superman, it represents his heritage (the S-logo representing hope in his world), for Batman, it looks scary, etc.
    • Thing is, those superheroes are in a comic book world. Brandon lives in the "real world".
    • To be fair, Brandon could be wearing the mask and cape to "look badass", not caring about any other reason (due to his Face-Heel turn during the middle of the movie).
• In fact, why does Brandon feel the need to conceal his identity at all? Unlike Clark Kent, he's not trying to have a secret double life, and it's not like there's anything or anyone that can stop him if someone did find out who he is.
  • It's not so much as concealing anything, more like the mask looks scary.
  • Psychologically he could be turning himself into a monster instead of looking the same as the weaklings around him.
    • Considering that he actually takes the time to go and put the costume on before killing his father, this theory as well as him just wanting to "look badass" as pointed out above seem like the right ideas. To Brandon, the costume may just be him getting into a preferred mindset and persona.
  • One theory I've heard behind the costume is that it that Brandon's species aren't Human Aliens, that he was modified to blend in with humans, and that the mask might actually resemble what his species really looks like, with the image of them likely being put in his head by his ship.
  • There may not be anyone who can stop him, but Brandon still doesn't want to get caught. He doesn't want his parents to know (and when they find out, he kills them), and he doesn't want to be investigated by the police. He may not know exactly how indestructible he is yet, he may not want to find out the hard way. He may want to actually lead something of a double life, have at least one place he can kick back and be just like everyone else when he's not out terrorizing the planet. Whatever the reason, Brandon places his privacy at a premium, the mask helps him keep it.
  • Brandon could conceal himself for the same thing that Yoshikage Kira of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure did: He wants to live his life the way he wants with no one disrupting its "rhythm."
  • Or he could just be dressing up that way so he won't look like a skinny twelve-year-old kid. By the time he's fully into his rampage, he wants to terrify people, and "lightly-built middle school boy" is not a scary look.