My take on the Gunn Jor-El situation is that maaaaybe we needed this morally ambiguous version of him to balance out the excessively “space Jesus” versions that previous movies got?
For all their strengths and weaknesses, Donner and Snyder (and to a lesser extent Singer) were not subtle with the Christ symbolism, and I think we can all agree that shit was overplayed in the cinematic versions of Superman. In those, Jor-El essentially plays the role of God sending his only Son to save the people of Earth from themselves.
Gunn’s version on the other hand has a more human Superman who isn’t this intended savior of humanity and isn’t doing good in order to serve some higher cosmic purpose. Gunn’s Jor-El reflects that by swerving hard away from the all-knowing benevolence of the other ones. Indeed, Gunn deconstructs the idea of this “benevolent higher race sending their descendants to save these primitive savages” by implicitly pointing out how maybe that sounds kinda colonialist?
In conversation with previous versions of Jor-El from other Superman media, Gunn’s Jor-El may feel like a swerve. However, when considering him in conversation specifically with previous cinematic versions of the character, I’d say we probably needed him to get the Jesus stank off of Superman.
