Super Duper Man of Steel Spoiler Discussion
MatthewPetz
Posts: 30
Went to a midnight show.
I'll preface this with the fact that I loved the Nolan Batman movies, and was really let down by Star Trek and IM3 this summer. They just felt been there done that...but this..
I loved it.
I'm seeing a crazy divide in reviews and discussion, and I really think this may be a generational thing, or...maybe a nostalgia thing? The movie is uncompromisingly modern and barely even attempts to do what has come before. Whether thats the old Movies, the cartoons, or TV shows.
I really think if the Donner Superman movies are your thing, then maybe even avoid this. I grew up with them, but they never were my thing.
A lot has been made about the ending being TOO actiony, and I can't fathom that criticism. Its just so huge and really, I've never seen stuff this big before.
I'll be interested in what you all thought. The acting, and the designs, and the deep mythology of Krypton was all just so good. I loved the new dynamic with Lois. And while there weren't a lot of funny bits, they they did show up it was great and a gave you a breather. The religious stuff is there and I think handled really well...it's kind've unavoidable.
I think Superman is this gigantic litmus test. Fans and non fans alike instantly know how he should act and what he should do. This movie really puts that to the test.
I'll preface this with the fact that I loved the Nolan Batman movies, and was really let down by Star Trek and IM3 this summer. They just felt been there done that...but this..
I loved it.
I'm seeing a crazy divide in reviews and discussion, and I really think this may be a generational thing, or...maybe a nostalgia thing? The movie is uncompromisingly modern and barely even attempts to do what has come before. Whether thats the old Movies, the cartoons, or TV shows.
I really think if the Donner Superman movies are your thing, then maybe even avoid this. I grew up with them, but they never were my thing.
A lot has been made about the ending being TOO actiony, and I can't fathom that criticism. Its just so huge and really, I've never seen stuff this big before.
I'll be interested in what you all thought. The acting, and the designs, and the deep mythology of Krypton was all just so good. I loved the new dynamic with Lois. And while there weren't a lot of funny bits, they they did show up it was great and a gave you a breather. The religious stuff is there and I think handled really well...it's kind've unavoidable.
I think Superman is this gigantic litmus test. Fans and non fans alike instantly know how he should act and what he should do. This movie really puts that to the test.
Comments
Does.
Not.
Kill.
Didn't the comic storyline 'Exiled' come out of Superman depowering Kryptonian criminals, which resulted in their deaths?
M
I'll come up with my review a little later but think of it in this fashion. For all intent and purposes this is "Superman Begins"
He is forming who he is as a hero. The anguish on his face was enough to realize that he did something he didn't want to do but HAD to do.
Maybe that incident is the moment that solidifies his commitment to not killing?
The pain of knowning that he killed one of his people, good or bad.
This was just fulfilling the action movie trope that the "hero" must kill the "villain" at the end.*
*Or in the case of the typical Batman movie, allow the villain to plummet to his death.
M
When a writer makes Superman kill, he's no longer writing Superman.
Superman will find another way.
M
I'd argue Kal-El would have to be more powerful then Zod. He's been on Earth for decades, so his solar battery body would be more "full" then Zod's.
With that premise, wouldn't Kal-El's body feel the effects of Kryptonite quicker because Zod spent decades on Krypton? Shouldn't Zod have some type of immunity?
M
I disliked all the stuff I expected to dislike: general mopiness; too much Jor-El; tired, blatant Christ imagery/allusions; hamfisted dialogue.
What made me hate it was "Superman" snapping Zod's neck like something out of a bad Mel Gibson movie.
The other unexpected bit of awfulness was Michael Shannon's voice. Nearly as bad as Julian MacMahon in Fantastic Four.
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/06/14/controversy-over-the-climatic-battle-of-man-of-steel-spoilers/
Mark Waid and I are the same age and grew up on the same comics. his Superman and mine are the same.
As are our reactions.
Zod is essentially committing suicide by cop. He's forced Kal to kill him. He knows what he's doing and its horrible. Seeing Superman pleading with Zod to stop because he knew what had to happen....really powerful.
Petty, malicious property damage
Complete disregard for bystanders and collateral damage.
This movie's final act owes more to Scott McCloud's DESTROY!!! than it does to any Superman story.
I liked the scenes growing up and his 'walking the earth' phase. I noticed he used Joe as an alias and I thought they could have used Jerry somewhere as well.
Please, for the sequel, NO LEX LUTHOR.
*Matt mentioned Kal-El/Zod power levels. I've never gotten it straight how the yellow sun powers up Kryptonians. Is it like a battery with a charge up to 100% - after a few hours/weeks/years you reach 100% and then you're all basically equal. Is it an unlimited reservoir that with longer exposure will continue to increase. Has there been a definitive statement in comics? I think All-Star Superman had it as unlimited, but that was out of continuity.
Jor-El.
All the death and destruction visited upon the Earth was due to his theft of the Codex.
*Besides Goyer, Snyder & Nolan, of course.
A Chekhov gun appears in act 1 and doesn't go off in act 3.
Giant robot type things hit other giant robotic type things.
Christ Imagery again.
911 imagery was uncomfortable
The kiss wasn't earned.
And...they...didn't...play...the...music.
(or at least they hadn't by the time I got up and walked out of the credits)
And again. And endless. Just obligatory. Nor by the time the theater I was in just shut off the credits.*
*I hope they were in a hurry to repair the AC
So how about?
A final battle where Zod threatens trapped humans family with eye beams.
Superman defeats him and leaves him apparently incapacitated on the floor. Superman moves to rescue trapped family.
Zod rises from ground and staggers towards Superman's back. The spike pops from his armour (which he did not remove).
Lois runs in just in time to see what is happening (or preferably Peter Ross) and yells "Clark".
He turns just in time to parry the spike and it deflects into Zod who sinks to his knees and dies while Superman holds him and looks into his eyes with tears in his own.
Superman does not kill
Nope.
Read Mark Waid's review (link above). He explains far better than I why it just feels cheap.
The end destruction is an unfortunate reality for two super aliens fighting in a populated area. Call it real, or modern or whatever.
I can easily assume that when Zods ship started doing its terraforming people would have begun evacuating. When Superman was getting thrown through buildings I didn't see them full of terrified office workers.
Avengers did the same thing. No one cried foul.
Problem is people hold Superman to a higher standard ( rightly or wrongly ), and I think that's why he's regarded as corny and outdated. He's not aloud to really modernize. When he does. People lose it.
He's Superman.
Superman is the HIGHEST standard.
And now that standard has been degraded.
Which should not have been allowed* to happen.
There's nothing "modern" about murder and there's nothing "corny and outdated" about a respect for life.
*Yes. I know. Cheap shot. Sorry.
I like yours better than mine:
Lois doesn't conveniently drop the Kryptonian gun before getting in the escape pod.
Superman refuses to kill Zod, claiming there has to be another way.
Zod scoffs at Kal-El's mercy/weakness reverses the hold and is about to kill him when he gets a look of shock and pain and he falls dead, revealing a gun-toting Lois behind him.
Okay, a couple things here:
1.) the costume did kind of bother me in the full shots
2.) so now rather then Kal-El killing, you have Lois (or Pete.) Here's why I think that's worse then Kal-El killing Zod -- wouldn't Superman's moral code cause him to turn away from a killer? I don't think he's close friends with Pete anymore, but I cannot see him being involved with Lois knowing she took a life (regardless of villain.)
When I read the plot, I chagrined at that moment. When I saw it, I still didn't really like it, but understood why it was done. Did you ever cheat on your spouse or serious girlfriend with a one-night stand? Afterward, it probably made you feel shitty enough to know you weren't going to do it again. THAT'S how I interpreted that scene. He made a choice that he'll have to live with, never doing it again.
Sometimes, the moments that define you aren't from good decisions. Sometimes they're from making mistakes.
If the sequel has him killing another villain (except like a Brainiac), then there's an issue. Its not like he killed Zod then went for an Icee.
M
Didn't like:
- Too much "really advanced Krypton stuff we humans can't possibly understand" as a central aspect of the story. WEAK!
- Too much collateral destruction, to the point where you literally did not care that someone just got blown through five buildings. The surroundings became nothing.
- The characters were strong, but the quiet moments, the human interest moments, were not given enough room to breathe. The bombast was allowed to eclipse the people.
- As much as I liked Amy Adams in this movie, Lois Lane needs to be more shrewd and formidable. Her character should be utterly indomitable with one exception: Superman.
- As has been said, Superman doesn't kill. As soon as that happened I was not pleased. Superman would have found another way. That is why he is Superman, and that's why ultimately, this film version is NOT Superman.
Lois Killing Zod? Eh...Would make Superman weak...yet again. Superman is big enough to take the weight of his actions.
I just watched the Superman 2 clip where Superman kills A DEPOWERED AND HUMAN ZOD AND SMIRKS ABOUT IT. He almost laughed when Lois Punches Ursa who falls to her presumable death...
I hadn’t realized that Nolan was co-writing the script as well as producing it; somehow, I had managed to miss that detail. Raises my hopes a little.
The 3-D was very, very good, especially for the space and Krypton scenes.
The Krypton sequence was quite good. It was a different look, but a good one and very expertly realized. I was a bit creeped out early on by the Kryptonian mode of visual-technology, the odd liquid metal 3-D sculptures, but after awhile I got used to them. And there were several scenes where this tech was actually used to beautiful effect, creating beautiful visual dioramas. It still seems strange that a highly advanced scientific civilization would want to use such an odd means of visual communication in place of a more elegant light hologram system, but it is genuinely unique, and I was good with it once past the early sequences.
I was pleased to see them use the Kryptonian robot, Kelex.
The limited palette I was afraid of the film using just wasn’t there, thank Rao. It was still kinda subdued and not as colorful as I would have preferred, but at least it didn’t feel stifling or pretentious.
I never had much quarrel with much of the casting, and they all did a fine job. Russell Crowe made a more convincing Jor-El than I would have guessed and they made far more use of him than I thought they would. Fishbourne, as Perry White, got a bit better play than expected as well, and though his scenes were few, was used well. Kevin Costner and Diane Lane as the Kents were very good. Amy Adams as Lois Lane was… okay. I had a little bit of trouble with her part; she started out well, but seemed to lose a lot of that feistiness that Lois is so well known for, and they fell just a little too quickly and a little too cleanly into the romance between her and Superman.
I did not like the manner of death for either of Clark’s two dads. I saw how they were being used for the sake of the story structure, but they just didn’t sit well with me. No sir.
No Jimmy Olsen. But we do get Steve Lombard.
Surprisingly (to me) they did actually use the correct villains from the traditional Phantom Zone stories: Zod, Jax-Ur and Faora. I was even surprised to see that they used Dev-Em!!!
It took me a few scenes to recognize Richard Schiff as Emil Hamilton. And Christopher Meloni (who has been Green Lantern at least once in his career) was very good; I enjoyed his scenes very much.
I have never, ever bought into the idea of the Kryptonian symbol for ‘hope’ looking like an English ‘S’. It is one coincidence too many, and it always felt forced. (“Hey! Our word for ‘hope’ looks just like your letter ‘s’! Which also stands for Superman! Which is my name! Wotta coincidence!”) This film doesn’t change my mind about it.
They make a mess of Metropolis. I kept wondering throughout all of the battle why Superman didn’t try to take the battle out into less populated areas. I realize that the sequences would have looked less dramatic and have less tension to them, but I thought he might at least try to make the effort, or at least say something as to how he couldn’t maneuver them away.
Very quick nod to Lexcorp in one scene.
One complaint I did see mention elsewhere was the lack of humor in this film, and I have to agree. It was just a tad dry. It could have used just a touch of humor to lighten it up a bit – not to the extent of campiness, but just enough to relieve the heaviness a little. There was one quick humorous scene, but if you blinked, you missed it: Zod throws Superman into a skyscraper skeleton, right into a sign noting the number of days without an accident (something like 280). When Superman hits it, all of the digits except for the zero fall off.
The one overall success of the film was the special effects, no question. Not just for the over-the-top battle scenes, but for how they did them so seamlessly. There’s a moment where a patch of the floor that Superman is standing on suddenly vanishes and, without effort, he hovers for a moment before zooming forward, and it looks natural – no sudden jerking of wires or telltale aura from superimposition. Everything in the film looks natural, from his flying at supersonic speeds, to holding back a flaming oil derrick, to pummeling Zod through a flying debris field. It is seamless. It is beautiful.
Very nice and unexpected use of Pete Ross in a small but key scene of young Clark’s development.
Henry Cavill is no Christopher Reeve. He lacks Reeve’s sheer presence. However, he is no slouch either. He handles the role very well and very reverently. We see little of Clark the reporter, though, and we don’t really know how he’ll deal with handling a dual role within a single movie, but I guess that’ll be in the next film.
Superman crosses the line by killing Zod. That disturbs me. I see that they're trying to copy the famed killing sequence from the story done by Byrne, but there isn't a sufficient build-up here, or a good aftermath to it. Maybe that'll be the basis for the next film.
To sum up, I have to admit that the film is the blockbuster that everyone hopes it to be. It isn’t perfect, but it comes pretty damn near close, in spite of my earlier apprehensions. See it.
However! One point I will still not concede: the costume is still ugly. Cavill’s performance is good enough to make you look past it most of the time, but when things slow down you just can’t help but see the shine on the pants and glitter on that baroque insignia, and notice how wrong it looks without the traditional red trunks. I still deduct points for this and I will not be swayed from this opinion.
Out of a possible Five Stars, I’ll give it Four. And a quarter.
And, hell, I'll go see it again.