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I long for a more classic take of Superman like with Grants work. Optimistic futurist Man of Tomorrow researching cures to diseases and studying the universe, solving problems and advancing humanity. Like put a bit of silver age or a more pulpy take of the super masculine super scientist adventurer. Like a Doc Savage or something.
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Aug 2, 2014 01:59
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:That's how I feel about it, but the tone-deafness is very specific - Snyder's visual ambitions are much better and much more fun to read than the dumbbell dialog the characters say throughout. Yeah, Zack Snyder's a very "turn your heart off" kind of director for me.
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Aug 2, 2014 01:59
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Davros1 posted:The worse bit of this was the casting of Cobie Smulders. She was perfectly fine on How I Met Your Mother, but I just couldn't get over how bad she was in Avengers, and didn't improve any for Cap 2. She's yet another case of a fair level of talent being overshadowed by her immense physical attractiveness and being cast because of it. She was Whedon's front runner for Wonder Woman when he was involved in that mess. He even admitted he had not met her at first, just that she looked the part.
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Aug 2, 2014 02:03
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It's hard for me to think of Man of Steel as all that grim when the flying scene is one of the most joyous moments I've ever seen depicted on film, and especially in a superhero film.BrianWilly posted:It's easy to regurgitate the feel-good concept that you should help people even when they're mean to you (and I don't mean regurgitate in a bad way necessarily), but we're still left with the question of why Clark would do this. You've said that in the original stories he learns these values from his parents. Where did they learn them from? Rhyno posted:She's yet another case of a fair level of talent being overshadowed by her immense physical attractiveness and being cast because of it. She was Whedon's front runner for Wonder Woman when he was involved in that mess. He even admitted he had not met her at first, just that she looked the part. I can actually see that working out really well, though.
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Aug 2, 2014 02:07
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Attorney at Funk posted:Yeah, Zack Snyder's a very "turn your heart off" kind of director for me. Even when I rewatched it with a more sympathetic eye to Superman, he's still got a pent-up chimpishness to him that is properly unleashed when he has to fight, in order, an amoral nightmare assassin woman, some kind of man-ape, and a disgraced warrior who's been on death row for centuries. It's a Rambo 4 level of stacking the deck to show Superman as a man of action rather than a man of inherent goodness, whatever that might boringly entail. His hand is forced in a disconcertingly fraught way and understandably, people react to that.
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Aug 2, 2014 02:08
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Lord Krangdar posted:It's hard for me to think of Man of Steel as all that grim when the flying scene is one of the most joyous moments I've ever seen depicted on film, and especially in a superhero film. Chronicle did it way better.
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Aug 2, 2014 02:16
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:some kind of man-ape Why am I completely blanking on this part of the movie?
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Aug 2, 2014 02:20
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Lord Krangdar posted:Why am I completely blanking on this part of the movie? I think Faora and the giant dude.
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Aug 2, 2014 02:21
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Lord Krangdar posted:Why am I completely blanking on this part of the movie? The monosyllabic, hulking dude leaps on top of Clark and pounds him into the earth with flailing limbs.
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Aug 2, 2014 02:21
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edit: nvm
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Aug 2, 2014 02:21
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Lord Krangdar posted:Why am I completely blanking on this part of the movie? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zw0CjzBG5_4
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Aug 2, 2014 02:22
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Oh ok, I was taking "ape" a lot more literally.
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Aug 2, 2014 02:26
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Like I say, I have problems with MOS but anybody who faults the action is full of it. Nam-Ek (a hilarious reference, btw) is not only like a Superman at the nascence of his powers. (he doesn't fly, he bounds like a longjumper to project himself into the air), but he's also is The Hulk, another super thing who can jump miles at a time and tears up military hardware like an animal. Faora, on the other hand, is characterized by striking poses as she crushes any number of opponents at once, apparently in full control over what she can do. The origin shot of her hurtling to the A-10 to disable it is a little while before she does - when she does, she just appears behind a hole she's torn out of the plane, like a slasher movie villain. Later on, when Zod realizes what he can do (another scene with redundant dialog, as we can clearly see Zod becoming omniaware so there's no real reason to tell us this) he actualizes himself and does what Superman doesn't: casually hovering off the ground.
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Aug 2, 2014 02:33
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gently caress trophy 2k14 posted:Why don't you show us what you think the best shots in the film are? I, too, would like to see this.
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Aug 2, 2014 02:34
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:That's how I feel about it, but the tone-deafness is very specific - Snyder's visual ambitions are much better and much more fun to read than the dumbbell dialog the characters say throughout. The dialog basically works best when you let Amy Adams say it and go through several distinct facial expression before and after each line, ideally pausing in the middle of them to cycle through a few more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSUGgdhcFsE This also opens with my favorite shot in the movie.
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Aug 2, 2014 02:44
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Like I say, I have problems with MOS but anybody who faults the action is full of it. You do not seem to be aware that DBZ's use of the word Namek is referencing the Superman character and not the other way around.
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Aug 2, 2014 02:47
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A lesser director would have shown him landing, or worse, had him block out the sun. Side by side, the relationship is equal because it empowers him.
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Aug 2, 2014 02:49
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Rhyno posted:You do not seem to be aware that DBZ's use of the word Namek is referencing the Superman character and not the other way around. I had no idea. That rules.
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Aug 2, 2014 02:49
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Rhyno posted:You do not seem to be aware that DBZ's use of the word Namek is referencing the Superman character and not the other way around. How is it referencing Superman?
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Aug 2, 2014 02:58
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Commissar Of Doom posted:How is it referencing Superman? "The Superman character" here means "the character from Superman stories" rather than "the character, Superman". I didn't know this either. You learn something every day.
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Aug 2, 2014 03:01
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Commissar Of Doom posted:How is it referencing Superman? There is a character from the comic book Superman named "Nam-Ek." Sorry I wasn't clear in my original post.
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Aug 2, 2014 03:03
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Commissar Of Doom posted:How is it referencing Superman? Nam-Ek was an actual Kryptonian character/phantom zone criminal in the comics first. Iirc he's also in the John Byrne story where superman kills Zod.
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Aug 2, 2014 03:04
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AFoolAndHisMoney posted:Nam-Ek was an actual Kryptonian character/phantom zone criminal in the comics first. Before the planet "Namek", where Piccolo is from in Dragonball Z, just to make that clear.
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Aug 2, 2014 03:07
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Tim Roth is so cool. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60ybn1NpSJ0 Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
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Aug 2, 2014 03:15
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Lord Krangdar posted:It's hard for me to think of Man of Steel as all that grim when the flying scene is one of the most joyous moments I've ever seen depicted on film, and especially in a superhero film. I'm not trying to poo poo on your opinion, but this scene was the scene that made me feel like this movie wasn't working for me. By all accounts this scene should've been astounding, and cathartic...but it was just, so boring. I felt nothing for Clark, but that was probably because I didn't really like him. He didn't do much to get me on his side. So when he has this big defining moment, it fell flat. Also, the scene was so grey and shakey. It felt like I should be feeling the opposite of what the movie wanted me to feel. Shakey and grey visuals don't really equal fun in my brain.
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Aug 2, 2014 03:40
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CelticPredator posted:I'm not trying to poo poo on your opinion, but this scene was the scene that made me feel like this movie wasn't working for me. By all accounts this scene should've been astounding, and cathartic...but it was just, so boring. I felt nothing for Clark, but that was probably because I didn't really like him. He didn't do much to get me on his side. So when he has this big defining moment, it fell flat. Just to clarify, fun isn't really how I would describe the feeling. I dunno if I liked him either, but I find the film more intriguing that way.
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Aug 2, 2014 03:45
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Although I really didn't like Man of Steel, it was visually kind of cool. Zack Snyder really knows how to make poo poo look cool and awesome. He's a waaaay better director than Joss Whedon.
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Aug 2, 2014 03:45
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Hollismason posted:Although I really didn't like Man of Steel, it was visually kind of cool. Zack Snyder really knows how to make poo poo look cool and awesome. If there's a circle of hell for faint praise, you've just bought Zack Snyder a one-way ticket.
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Aug 2, 2014 03:56
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Bubble Gum Girls or whatever it was called was pretty visually and awesome. So was Man of Steel. The fights felt like they had "impact" , even Watchmen had great visuals. It's not like he's a lovely director, he's a lovely writer and director at like anything that is not a action sequence. People forget 300 and it's parodied now but that poo poo was awesome seeing it in the theaters. Sure it may not have been great but I remember coming out of the theater witha big poo poo eating grin as you'd never seen that type of style before. Guy has a definitive style to his films and his action sequences.
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Aug 2, 2014 04:03
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Snyder is great at constructing individual shots, but I do feel a disconnect in his action. Watchmen in particular feels really off to me in terms of his use of space. This scene in particular feels weird to me. Rorschach and Nightowl seem to have delays in their reactions and I don't really have a clear idea of why they decide to talk to Ozymandias sometimes and attack him other times. With Man of Steel, the final battle has such weird stakes and it's a little unclear to me how much damage has been done to Metropolis or how many people had died.
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Aug 2, 2014 04:05
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Even when I rewatched it with a more sympathetic eye to Superman, he's still got a pent-up chimpishness to him that is properly unleashed when he has to fight, in order, an amoral nightmare assassin woman, some kind of man-ape, and a disgraced warrior who's been on death row for centuries. It's a Rambo 4 level of stacking the deck to show Superman as a man of action rather than a man of inherent goodness, whatever that might boringly entail. His hand is forced in a disconcertingly fraught way and understandably, people react to that. This ties back into the Pa Kent stuff, since the film conceives of Superman as the personification of revolutionary terror and divine violence. His mere existence is Earth-shattering, before he even throws a punch. Without the good upbringing, you have a Gojira 1954 instead of Godzilla 2014. Pa Kent understands the danger here - something stronger than the atom bomb and the Oxygen Destroyer. One of Superman's bigger enemies in the film is, subtly, the unscrupulous blogger who uses this Earth-shattering knowledge to accrue page-hits. This, of course, is mirrored in Zod's commandeering of all Earth media. The punching draws all the attention, but a significant chunk of the film is Superman Vs. The Internet. (As we know, the Internet makes you stupid.) SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 04:09 on Aug 2, 2014 |
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Aug 2, 2014 04:07
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GonSmithe posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60ybn1NpSJ0 You know since Hugo Weaving doesn't want to do the Red Skull anymore why not replace him with Sam? He can do crazy well especially when it involves interdimensional portals through space 
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Aug 2, 2014 04:10
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How much influence does Feige have now with Marvel Films? Is he the architect of all of this?
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Aug 2, 2014 04:25
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If I remember right from an interview he gave, Feige says that he acts as a sort of spokesperson for a group/counsel of head honchos at Marvel that entirely consists of comic industry-rooted people.
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Aug 2, 2014 04:37
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:One of Superman's bigger enemies in the film is, subtly, the unscrupulous blogger who uses this Earth-shattering knowledge to accrue page-hits. This, of course, is mirrored in Zod's commandeering of all Earth media. The punching draws all the attention, but a significant chunk of the film is Superman Vs. The Internet. What's your take on that in comparison to say, the similar sequence in the Goyer-penned Dark Knight? The guy who everybody thought for some reason was going to become the Riddler having his lunch eaten by the Joker, who commandeers the media to give an revolutionary ultimatum instead of seeking some short-sighted profit?
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Aug 2, 2014 04:44
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Attorney at Funk posted:Which is, you know, fine. I like horror and disaster movies. I like movies where people are lost and helpless and afraid. I like movies with big scary monsters! But generally those movies aren't also plodding two and a half hour epics that go out of their way to elaborate every nuance and wrinkle of the kaiju/comet's origin. Well, if you're buying into the premise of the movie, you care about the kaiju/comet and its efforts to find a place for itself on earth and to forge relationships with earth's people. What's it like to be a kaiju? Is it as cool as it seems? What would you do if you realized you were one as you grew up, and heard conflicting messages about the meaning and consequences of your monstrosity? Superman really does love his mom and really does want to figure out if and how his powers can be used, openly, for good. That he's an apocalyptic star monster rather than a really strong, fast, smart man complicates his efforts, but ultimately doesn't thwart them. Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 04:54 on Aug 2, 2014 |
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Aug 2, 2014 04:52
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Now I want pancakes for some strange reason...
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Aug 2, 2014 05:07
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Ferrinus posted:Well, if you're buying into the premise of the movie, you care about the kaiju/comet and its efforts to find a place for itself on earth and to forge relationships with earth's people. What's it like to be a kaiju? Is it as cool as it seems? What would you do if you realized you were one as you grew up, and heard conflicting messages about the meaning and consequences of your monstrosity? I think it takes a little bit more than buying in to the premise of the movie to identify with the Superman put forward in Man of Steel. It requires you to internalize or ignore the dissonance the movie trades on to conjure feelings of holy terror and artificial disaster. Sequences of the movie ask us to read Kryptonians under the yellow sun as anything from Jason Voorhees to 9/11. Even the moments of pathos are operatic (Both of Superman's fathers' "sacrifices") or jarring to the point of distraction (that kiss in the smoking crater near the end of the movie). It's certainly true that the movie also takes pains to show us that these disasters in human form have feelings themselves, feelings we see play out in the carnage that happens around them, at them, or because of them. But it's not indicative of a bad-faith viewing of the movie to fail to connect with those feelings. It's a direct consequence of the movie's efforts to cultivate a monstrous distance between the audience and the hero it came to root for.
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Aug 2, 2014 05:08
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Attorney at Funk posted:I think it takes a little bit more than buying in to the premise of the movie to identify with the Superman put forward in Man of Steel. It requires you to internalize or ignore the dissonance the movie trades on to conjure feelings of holy terror and artificial disaster. Sequences of the movie ask us to read Kryptonians under the yellow sun as anything from Jason Voorhees to 9/11. Even the moments of pathos are operatic (Both of Superman's fathers' "sacrifices") or jarring to the point of distraction (that kiss in the smoking crater near the end of the movie). The first instance we see of (grown) Clark using his powers is undoubtedly heroic (the oil rig scene), the second one we see is comedic (the logging truck). You're definitely expected to emphasize with him beyond being a force of nature (either literally or as a slasher). Beyond that, you're explicitly supposed to feel conflicted about Zod - everything he tells Clark in the vision was unambiguously true, and yet he's still the villain. He's an imperialist racist poo poo-head, and yet he still lost his home. He was legitimately glad to see Clark, because Clark was still part of his race. You mention operatic, and that is probably the right frame of mind to approach it. Zod explicitly is a tragic figure, an Othello or Hamlet. Superman killing him is the right thing to do, but it's also tragic. The world isn't in black or white, and neither is this film. I know people have accused this of being a DC v Marvel thing but I'm struggling to find a similar alternative in a Marvel film. Loki is the only real example of a complex antagonist that undoubtedly needs to be stopped but is also understandable in his motives (actually the other one would be Malekith from Thor 2 but he's not elaborated on as much as Zod is).
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Aug 2, 2014 05:26
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computer parts posted:The first instance we see of (grown) Clark using his powers is undoubtedly heroic (the oil rig scene), the second one we see is comedic (the logging truck). You're definitely expected to emphasize with him beyond being a force of nature (either literally or as a slasher). Now, maybe this is on me, but   I didn't think the logging truck thing was funny.
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Aug 2, 2014 05:29
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