Originally Posted by
kingaliencracker
This is my perspective, so take it for what you will....
I think Lex thought of Batman as the anti-Superman - a man who trained himself to be the ultimate weapon, in his case against crime, and didn't depend on powers to accomplish his mission. I think he felt Batman was the symbol of the person he wanted to kill Superman. Lex even made the comment after Superman returns that Batman wasn't strong enough, which is why he had Doomsday as his ace-in-the-hole.
I think people are kind of overthinking this when Lex stated pretty specifically why he wanted to kill Superman.
In Lex's warped view, someone like Superman can't exist because if someone is all-powerful, they can't be all-good, and if someone is all-good, they can't be all-powerful. It appears this comes from Lex's upbringing, where his father started out in poverty and became powerful, but was abusive towards Lex proving he wasn't a good man. When Lex inherited his father's empire, he manipulated events behind the scenes for evil purposes, proving he wasn't a good man either. Lex wanted to prove to the world that Superman wasn't both all-powerful and all-good by killing him or having him kill Batman.
In terms of everything else, I mean why was Batman so antagonizing towards Superman in THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS? By all accounts, Superman was still doing good in the world and appeared to maintain his "boy scout" demeanor. The reality is, they wanted a Batman vs. Superman plot, so they made sure the plot moved in that direction to try and justify the fight. Same with this movie. From the beginning they made Batman loathe Superman, to the point that nothing Superman could have done or said would have made a difference.
I still believe that Henry Cavill is easily the 2nd best actor to play Superman, and I don't think he's far away from Christopher Reeve. I just think he needs a better story from someone who actually likes the character, which I'm not entirely convinced Snyder & Goyer do.