Man of Steel (with spoilers)

[PhDeac]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Deacfreak07 again.

 

[RollWave35]

Mark Waid, who wrote some Superman stuff, hated it.

But about the time we got to the big Smallville fight, my Spider-Sense began to tingle. A lot of destruction. A lot of destruction–and Superman making absolutely no effort to take the fight, like, ONE BLOCK AWAY INTO A CORNFIELD INSTEAD OF ON MAIN STREET. Still, saving people here and there, but certainly never going out of his way to do so, and mostly just trying not to get his ass kicked. (I loved Clark Kent’s pal, Pete Ross, and not just because they cast pre-teen Mark Waid as Pete Ross.)

And then we got to The Battle of Metropolis, and I truly, genuinely started to feel nauseous at all the Disaster Porn. Minute after minute after endless minute of Some Giant Machine laying so much waste to Metropolis that it’s inconceivable that we weren’t watching millions of people die in every single shot. And what’s Superman doing while all this is going on? He’s halfway around the world, fighting an identical machine but with no one around to be directly threatened, so it’s only slightly less noticeable that thousands of innocents per second are dying gruesomely on his watch. Seriously, back in Metropolis, entire skyscrapers are toppling in slo-mo and the city is a smoking, gray ruin for miles in every direction, it’s Hiroshima, and Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich are somewhere muttering “Too far, man, too far”

Superman wins by killing Zod. By snapping his neck. And as this moment was building, as Zod was out of control and Superman was (for the first time since the fishing boat 90 minutes ago) struggling to actually save innocent victims instead of casually catching them in mid-plummet, some crazy guy in front of us was muttering “Don’t do it…don’t do it…DON’T DO IT…” and then Superman snapped Zod’s neck and that guy stood up and said in a very loud voice, “THAT’S IT, YOU LOST ME, I’M OUT,” and his girlfriend had to literally pull him back into his seat and keep him from walking out and that crazy guy was me.

Full review: http://thrillbent.com/blog/man-of-steel-since-you-asked/

 

[PhDeac]

Again, that giant machine was a back door way to get Superman to fight a giant spider.

 

[PhilliesDeacs]

Again, that giant machine was a back door way to get Superman to fight a giant spider.

I had to chuckle when Jon Peters' name popped up on screen during the credits.

 

[Go]

I thought this was a good first/origin/intro to what I think could be an incredible trilogy (Luthor then Doomsday?).

Anyone else think that Zod's lasers took out that family when Superman snapped his neck?

This also jives with Christopher Nolan's "Do what is necessary to save the greater good" political beliefs. See Dark Knight spying machine, Batman sacrificing himself in DKR, etc.

 

[Go]

Overall its a cool movie, the best movie I've seen in the theater since Dark Knight Rises.

The nitpickers are gonna pick nits, but I thought this was light years better than Superman freakin Returns as a homosexual NTTAWWT.

 

[bernbp5]

- Lois being a dead shot with alien weapons and then riding around on the C-17 was laughable. Someone posted this earlier, but if she had some sort of military connection, it would've made those scenes at least somewhat plausible

Haven't seen it, and not familiar with Superman backstory, but in Smallville, Lois' father is a general, so she had some fighting/gun fighting skill. Not some damsel in distress.

 

[PhDeac]

Haven't seen it, and not familiar with Superman backstory, but in Smallville, Lois' father is a general, so she had some fighting/gun fighting skill. Not some damsel in distress.

It's that way in modern comics as well. It was that way in Superman: The Animated Series that debuted in 96 or 97. All they had to do was mention it.

 

[PhilliesDeacs]

I thought this was a good first/origin/intro to what I think could be an incredible trilogy (Luthor then Doomsday?).

Anyone else think that Zod's lasers took out that family when Superman snapped his neck?

This also jives with Christopher Nolan's "Do what is necessary to save the greater good" political beliefs. See Dark Knight spying machine, Batman sacrificing himself in DKR, etc.

This is a good call, but clearly you're going to have the people who still wear their Superman underoos lose their minds over the fate of Zod (see the Mark Waid quote above). Personally, I think a little dirt on the hands makes it more realistic.

 

[Go]

This is a good call, but clearly you're going to have the people who still wear their Superman underoos lose their minds over the fate of Zod (see the Mark Waid quote above). Personally, I think a little dirt on the hands makes it more realistic.

Great point, sometimes evil is so evil that the only way to stop it is to end/kill it.

 

[Deacfreak07]

Great point, sometimes evil is so evil that the only way to stop it is to end/kill it.

I have no problem with that. My problem is that it seemed late for Superman to have that crisis of conscience. He was throwing people through buildings, into explosive trains, etc. Did he seriously not consider all of that capable of dealing a fatal blow?

 

[PhDeac]

I have no problem with that. My problem is that it seemed late for Superman to have that crisis of conscience. He was throwing people through buildings, into explosive trains, etc. Did he seriously not consider all of that capable of dealing a fatal blow?

I also wasn't aware that the neck twist could kill a Kryptonian.

 

[RollWave35]

Goyer and Snyder talk about the ending.

First, in a podcast for Empire, the duo admit that they went back and forth on whether or not Superman should kill Zod since, originally, the villain was going to get "zapped" into the Phantom Zone. “But David, Chris and I had long talks about it, and I said that I really feel like we should kill Zod, and that Superman should kill him," Snyder said. "The 'why' of it for me was that if was truly an origin story, his aversion to killing is unexplained… I wanted to create a scenario where Superman, either he's going to see [Metropolis' citizens] chopped in half, or he's gotta do what he's gotta do.”

Goyer adds that the hold out was actually Nolan, who was against it. "[Chris] originally said, 'There's no way you can do this,' Goyer said. "I came up with this idea of heat vision and these people about to die, and I wrote the scene, gave it to Chris, and he said, 'Okay you've convinced me.'”

Regarding the mass destruction that takes place in Metropolis and why Superman allowed it to happen, Goyer told Bleeding Cool the following:
"When you’re dealing with a threat like this, there will be collateral damage. This is something that hadn’t been depicted in comic book films is what it would be like if these powerful figures did clash, if the Hulk and Thor fought, people would probably die. Particularly in this case where Zod and the Kryptonians really don’t care if people die. I think people died and I’m sure that upsets some people.

We knew that people would be upset by some of the choices we make. We got some grief when we did Batman Begins. Now people think what we did was great but when Batman Begins first came out, people were upset by some of the choices we made.

Some people have said a hero is only as good as a villain and I would extend that corollary to say a hero is only as good as his love interest. One of the things we were attempting with this was to depict a “realistic” Superman, do what we did in the Batman films which was to ask, “What if they existed in our world?”

http://www.movies.com/movie-news/man-of-steel-ending/12582?wssac=164&wssaffid=news

 

[PhDeac]

Batman Begins - 85% on RT
Man of Steel - 56% on RT

It's more than "some grief".

I don't think they get what was disturbing about the Smallville and Metropolis scenes. Superman doesn't care that people died and he did little to avoid it.

The idea that Superman has an aversion to killing AFTER killing Zod seems to derail everything Uncle Ben, er his dad taught him about "with great power comes great responsibility," oh sorry, about choices.

I posted on the superhero media thread a link with a suggestion that the destruction of Metropolis does set up a narrative in which Lex Luthor swoops in to rebuild and sow seeds of distrust in Superman. That would be a good angle. Of course, someone that powerful could easily get the military intel that Clark Kent is Superman.

 

[Deacfreak07]

Batman Begins - 85% on RT
Man of Steel - 56% on RT

It's more than "some grief".

I don't think they get what was disturbing about the Smallville and Metropolis scenes. Superman doesn't care that people died and he did little to avoid it.

The idea that Superman has an aversion to killing AFTER killing Zod seems to derail everything Uncle Ben, er his dad taught him about "with great power comes great responsibility," oh sorry, about choices.

I posted on the superhero media thread a link with a suggestion that the destruction of Metropolis does set up a narrative in which Lex Luthor swoops in to rebuild and sow seeds of distrust in Superman. That would be a good angle. Of course, someone that powerful could easily get the military intel that Clark Kent is Superman.

It's not like Batman ever really initiates much of the destruction in TDK trilogy. Zod wasn't the only one causing havoc in Metropolis, Superman was tearing down buildings too.

They should just be honest instead of trying to high brow it. "We leveled Smallville and Metropolis because it looked fucking awesome in IMAX 3D"

 

[PhDeac]

It's not like Batman ever really initiates much of the destruction in TDK trilogy. Zod wasn't the only one causing havoc in Metropolis, Superman was tearing down buildings too.

They should just be honest instead of trying to high brow it. "We leveled Smallville and Metropolis because it looked fucking awesome in IMAX 3D"

Well said. Instead of Superman ramming Zod into a building, take him to a desert. Simple.

 

[Go]

Jeeez, you guys act like he is Superman or something...oh wait

 

[WakeForestRanger]

One problem with the Jonathan Kent as Uncle Ben comparison. Jonathan doesn't imply with great power comes great responsibility, instead he overtly tells Clark that maybe he should let people die because the Earth isn't ready for him. Jonathan says as much when Clark rescues the kids in the bus and he believes this so strongly that he pointlessly let's himself be sucked up by a tornado after refusing to let Clark help save the stupid dog or the other people on the highway. Uncle Ben would have been horrified by that.

That seems to be a pretty big distinction between the two characters.

 

[WakeForestRanger]

To anyone that reads comics - is Pa Kent still alive? He died in "Smallville" but was alive and well in the last Superman comic I read about 15 years ago.

They've killed him off twice since 2006. I believe the NEW 52 has both Ma and Pa Kent pushing up daisies.

 

[PhilliesDeacs]

One problem with the Jonathan Kent as Uncle Ben comparison. Jonathan doesn't imply with great power comes great responsibility, instead he overtly tells Clark that maybe he should let people die because the Earth isn't ready for him. Jonathan says as much when Clark rescues the kids in the bus and he believes this so strongly that he pointlessly let's himself be sucked up by a tornado after refusing to let Clark help save the stupid dog or the other people on the highway. Uncle Ben would have been horrified by that.

That seems to be a pretty big distinction between the two characters.

This. The characters, as presented in the most recent films, are not similar at least in their philosophies on power.