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I really hate the "why doesn't SUPERHERO X just do TERRIBLE THING Y because SUPERVILLAIN Z has done bad things" argument because it literally only holds in stupid circumstances. "Why doesn't Superman just MURDER DUDES" ignores the fact that there are a billion other options Superman could also take which he doesn't because comics don't allow it. He could help design and build a prison which actually holds villains. He could use his powers to make the world in general a better place and in turn reduce the crime rate that way. He could do a billion things but he isn't allowed to because those alter the status quo. The choice isn't "kill villains" or "not kill villains." It's "Does Superman alter the status quo" and they pretty much never allow that.
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Dec 23, 2012 21:48
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My general feeling about this film is that it felt a lot more like a sci-fi film that happened to have a guy in a cape in it than a Superman film. Like it felt more like "What if they remade the old Jeff Bridges Starman film with more Michael Bay" than it did Superman. The whole "you can inspire people to do greater good" theme was nice, but the secret identity stuff was incredibly poorly handled and Pa Kent's death was stupid. I like that Lois just flat-out figures poo poo out right away but the film never sells me on the idea that Clark needs to keep his identity secret. Pa Kent feels weird and paranoid and there's no real payoff for it. Superman breaking Zod's neck felt forced and weird, like they wanted to include the scene but couldn't properly build up to it. The supervillains yell that his morality is his weakness but it never really feels like we saw Superman hold back or be weakened by that morality. (And in turn, it kind of muddles the neckbreaking scene thematically.) It's a striking scene but probably shouldn't have been in this particular movie. In the end it feels like they had two films. There are moments it does a strikingly good job with capturing the Superman feeling and moments where you could basically have removed the cape and shield and nobody would have been able to tell. Unfortunately I feel like it had a lot more of the latter. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 22:30 on Jun 14, 2013 |
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Jun 14, 2013 22:27
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Network Pesci posted:Oh, also, this movie has my favorite "Superman is metaphorically Jesus" moment. It's there, but it's not jammed in our faces quite as badly as in Superman Returns. Are you serious? They literally have Jesus silhouetted behind him. How can you get more in-your-face than that? I broke up laughing at that scene because were they loving serious? He has to sacrifice himself for mankind. LIKE JESUS.Do you get? Here, let's have him standing in front of a stained glass window just in case you don't get it.
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Jun 14, 2013 22:42
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Burkion posted:Have him die due to being stabbed in the side and then come back 3 days later? That still didn't feature Jesus being literally onscreen directly behind Superman.
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Jun 14, 2013 22:43
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There are a lot of things which really just don't make sense. The entire "Kryptonian Atmosphere" as a standin for Kryptonite/The Red Sun is completely incomprehensible and seems remarkably forced even for a Superman's Weakness thing.
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Jun 14, 2013 23:22
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Snak posted:I watched very closely and you never see them after Zod's neck is snapped. There is a very distinctive redish mist the emanates from that corner in the next shot. I'm sure that a lot of people didn't realize that those people died, but I feel like the fact that there is no reaction shot of them as though superman had just saved them, they are never shown again, Superman's anguish, and that red mist/smoke that comes from just off camera where they were huddled makes it pretty clear. Plus Superman snaps Zod's neck by twisting it in the direction that Zod was trying to turn it in order to kill the people (In fact I' m sure that it is because Zod is trying to turn his head that way with all his might that Superman is able to combine their strengths to snap his neck). You missed them. They run out of the scene just before Lois shows up. You're looking for extra grimdark where none exists.
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Jun 15, 2013 01:22
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Snak posted:Well, I'm not saying that my eyes are infallible, but as soon as he did it I remember thinking "holy poo poo I can't wait to see how that didn't kill the family who was a 6 inches away from Zod's heatvision BEFORE you snapped his head that way AND we say the heat vision pan for the first 90 or so degrees before it shut of. I thought maybe it would show that it had swept just above them or something. But then I never say them alive, and the camera never faced that way again. Instead, the next shot was straight on facing Superman on his knees, and then this really distinctive (as in standing out from the otehr dust and rubber effects) drifts onto the screen from the lower left corner, which is where the family would have been, since they were slightly to Superman's right. It almost feels like a scene of them being dead was too dark and would make the ending too much of a downer, but they kept the implication. I'm not going to lie, I think it would have really been too dark to show them dying/dead right on the screen, but I really like the idea that they died, just a few more dead humans among the tens, if not hundreds of thousands that were killed in metropolis that day. When you think about it, it fits fine with how people dying is shown in the movie. Only three characters die on screen: Kal El (Superman's Father), Johnathan Kent (Clark's father) and Zod. Many, many people die in the movie, but their death's aren't really shown, they are implied collateral damage. Arguably, we don't even see Johnathan Kent's death. In the context of the film, it's not strange that the family at the end dies and we don't explicitly see it. Jesus Christ, you really want violence for the sake of violence in a movie whose core message is "hope." They are showing running offscreen. You missed it.
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Jun 15, 2013 01:34
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Power Walrus posted:Why are you being so hyperbolic? We spent so much time on Krypton so that we might actually care about their story, and so that when we see Zod again, we have a much better understanding of his motivations. I thought it was a really great descision, to try fleshing out the villain so that we might empathize (not sympathize) with him. Since the film makers decided that this would be a non-stop action movie, they needed to sustain the intensity. So, rather than spend the next 30 minutes with young Clark learning his powers, they went for what I think was a more interesting approach - to show his youth when it was pertinent to his story as an adult. Zod had a evil Nazi scientist onboard with his "purity of race" ideals. Nobody was supposed to empathize with him.
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Jun 15, 2013 02:42
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The villain's plot (even right down to the thing's name I think) is actually a direct reference to the Death and Return of Superman, where the villains use two of them to try to terraform the world and piss off Superman. One of them is even in Metropolis. (The other, in the original story, was Hal Jordan's home town of Coast City. They killed everyone there but Superboy saved Metropolis.)
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Jun 15, 2013 03:31
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Bongo Bill posted:
This really bugged me. The biggest moment of "look, humanity is standing together" in the film is Perry White and the sleezy dude risking everything to save their co-worker. The thing is that none of them ever even saw Superman. That was their default state. Almost every truly heroic individual was truly heroic before Superman showed his S to them.
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Jun 15, 2013 03:55
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Russel Crowe's Jor-El, frankly, felt more interesting to me than Superman did.
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Jun 15, 2013 04:32
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BrianWilly posted:I'm trying to see different perspectives of this, I really am, but I metaphysically cannot understand how anyone could like Pa Kent in this. Literally not a word out of his mouth made any drat sense. In one breath he browbeats Clark into repressing his nature and keeping his birthright hidden, and in the next he pressures Clark into being something great that radicalizes humanity. In one flashback he's proselyting about this miracle alien child being sent to them through some great destiny, and in the next is utterly bewildered that this kid doesn't wanna be a farmer like him for the rest of his life. It's madness. Pa Kent was just a terrible character. A good actor but a terrible character. I guess it's a question of how much it was intentional but holy poo poo I don't think he did a single thing right in the entire movie.
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Jun 15, 2013 04:59
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Toady posted:He came off to me like they wrote him as a more realistic blue-collar Kansas farmer rather than the fount of sage wisdom in past portrayals. He was paranoid but well-meaning, and he gave Clark a justified mistrust of humanity. There's not really any way to call his paranoia justified when he kills himself. Lois Lane had absolutely no trouble whatsoever tracking down Clark and we see pretty clearly that half of Smallville knows he has special powers. His philosophy of "let people die to keep yourself safe" doesn't actually make any sense, even when he goes to bat for it himself. The absolute second someone starts looking she finds Clark right away. So he died effectively to do nothing but breed paranoia in Clark. The entire paranoia aspect is just so mishandled. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 06:32 on Jun 15, 2013 |
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Jun 15, 2013 06:29
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Semper Fudge posted:I thought Pa Kent was an interesting departure from the norm with an entirely respectable and understandable perspective? I guess I can't remember any particular scene where what he said was nonsense and not just something that came out of fear and concern to protect his son? How so? At what point was he right? Maybe the government, maybe, but the government is dealing with an alien invasion. Meanwhile when Clark saves Pete Ross, Pete Ross goes from a tormentor to a friend. When Lois discovers his secret she keeps it and becomes his most trustworthy ally. Clark willingly spouts about how he's a Kansas-born American to the Government to help foster trust even as he adopts his secret identity which sure would make it easy to track him down considering Lois did it on her own with less. His perspective is crazy paranoia through and through which is constantly proven wrong. If this is intentional then that's fine, but it doesn't make him a sympathetic character. If it isn't then they failed pretty hard.
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Jun 15, 2013 06:34
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Semper Fudge posted:That's a pretty disingenuous way of paraphrasing that scene considering that it took a Pulitzer prize winning journalist who was personally saved by the man and traveled the entire country chasing down leads in order to track him down. It took her because she was, as near as we can tell, the first person who tried. That isn't to downplay her achievement but it sure as hell wasn't a miracle of detective work considering she just traced sightings of him until she got to Smallville where Pete Ross went "Oh, he's Clark Kent. Here's his address." Semper Fudge posted:Wasn't Pa Kent's entire point that he needs to keep that side of himself ready until he's sure of the man he wants to be? Seems like by the time he's wearing the suit, he's already at that point. We wouldn't need the scene in the church if that was true and that's well after the suit.
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Jun 15, 2013 06:37
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Hollis posted:Uh Pa Kent Clark Kent was proven to be a outcast because of his abilities that's why he was bullied. Pete Ross was is only "sort of" friend. Pa knew that if he exhibited his abilities openly he'd be considered a outcast by earth. If he didn't then they'd just hunt him. His opinion was that he should stay hidden so that he could better help the world, and he was right, but Jor El was kind of right as well he could be a protector but he wasn't completely right either. If he had one sole purpose he'd just become Zod He was an outcast because he acted incredibly bizarre and every time someone tried to talk to the Kents about it they got weird and paranoid. We saw Pete's mom going and trying to talk about how this must have been God's work to the Kents and their (mostly Jonathan's) reaction. I saw Lois's entire role as being a refutation of Pa Kent. Here is someone who discovered his secret and despite it being the story of the century she chose to shelve it despite the fact that she'd been willing to risk her job for it before. Pa Kent's crazy paranoia is entirely wrong. BIG HEADLINE posted:Uh, was I the only one who kinda went into No, those were completely Kryptonian Space Dongs.
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Jun 15, 2013 06:41
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octoroon posted:Yeah, I can't be the only one who thought that the after-killing-Zod scream of anguish was somewhere in the same category of cheesiness as Darth Vader's NOOOOOOOOO. It was poorly earned, as people said. All the villains went on about how Superman's morality was his weakness but we never see any example of that. It isn't like Superman is holding back in his fights. He initiates a plan to loving suck the enemy forces into a giant black hole without a moment's hesitation. It's like they're playing the Superman Doesn't Kill card based off audience expectations instead of actually doing it.
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Jun 15, 2013 06:50
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:Superman's enemies in this film are explicitly amoral and are not self-aware of the fact that they are hopelessly fixated on destruction, because that's all they know. They were grown in vats and are scientific nightmares designed for a singular purpose. Their great weakness is that they dive headlong into destruction and self-destruction rather than, say, establishing a colony on Mars, or any number of other solutions, all of which would be very easy for them given the technology at their disposal. They're so obsessive about purpose that even something basic like procreation eludes and horrifies them. They're interested in perpetuating a status quo that doesn't even exist anymore. There needs to be a galactic baby vat atop a sea of skeletons, because that's how things are, you see. A creature making decisions based on morals makes no sense to them, lacks singular "purpose," and is therefore weak. But that has nothing to do with Superman's ideals and Superman's morality. The giant final scream is played as Superman doing something that horrifies and shames him, but only really makes sense within the context of what we know of Superman outside of the film. It's a scene that clearly was come up as a shocking and dramatic interpretation on the original story where Superman killed Zod (and indeed I believe Zod quotes the comic directly) but with very different context. This is a Superman who didn't flinch at the idea of a plan that killed before. It certainly isn't a case where he should be uncaring about it, but the "on his knees, weeping into Lois's arms" scene felt like it came from a different movie with different buildup. It isn't a bad scene on its own but it is a poor fit for this particular film. I admittedly felt that way about most of the Zod fight though. It's a visually stunning fight but it feels hollow and empty.
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Jun 15, 2013 07:09
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Deadpool posted:I think you missed something. The singularity wasn't designed to kill the other Kryptonians. It sent them back to the Phantom Zone. The way it was framed is that it was taking advantage of their previous Phantom Zone stuff + the setup to create a singularity. The military guy even says that it's a good death before he triggers it. If it wasn't intended as death then so be it, but they still failed to present the idea in a way that sold his entire fight with Zod.
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Jun 15, 2013 07:24
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AccountSupervisor posted:I was inspired by Superman in this film, but I also felt pretty bad for him. I dont know if Id want to be Superman, I dont know if I could handle it. That to me is the core of this film. Also punching and explosions. I don't know how anyone could be inspired by Superman in this film. I kind of thought that was the point. He was kind of pathetic. He hadn't remotely grown into the person Jor-El was trying to force him to be. It's an interesting idea to present a Superman who is basically kind of sad and pitiable while being held up as someone who should be something more. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 07:28 on Jun 15, 2013 |
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Jun 15, 2013 07:26
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Deadpool posted:The military guy says that because he's a human about to crash his airplane and die in order to make the plan work. Jor-El clearly pointed out that use of the Phantom Drives would send them back the Phantom Zone. Well, then that makes it even less sensible. They didn't confront the idea of Superman killing or not killing at all. Ending on that is completely unearned.
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Jun 15, 2013 07:29
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AccountSupervisor posted:I wouldnt call him pathetic, its more of like seeing someone having to deal with something really really heavy and you say "Man, I wouldnt want to be that guy" but because he is this god and has super powers, you simultaneously want to be him, but then see the kind of poo poo youd have to deal with in order to posses that responsibility. I think being a comic reader may color my perception of this. One of my absolute favorite Superman stories is not, strictly, a Superman story. It's titled Superman: Secret Identity and covers the story a boy (jokingly named Clark Kent by his parents) who wakes up one day with Superman's powers and has to deal with that. It's an incredibly human story, dealing with people's mistrust of him, his concerns about trusting others, the horrible lengths people might go to if they discover his powers, and ultimately the reasons he goes through what he does. It is, to me, the ideal of a 'human' Superman story. Man of Steel, in comparison, feels to me like a very cynical story. It takes Jor-El and shows him as an amazing, idealistic, hopeful person who directly quotes All-Star Superman, but then shows that he was wrong about his son, or at least that his son has a ton of growing to do to live up to his father's excessive expectations. The bravest and most self-sacrificing people we see are human beings who, before they even know Superman exists, are willing to throw their lives away to protect people. Clark's adoptive father is a paranoid and shallow man who teaches Clark to fear others. The people who are his closest friends in the comics are... well, they still are, but in sad and kind of bitter ways. Pete Ross isn't a senator. He's an IHOP Manager. In MoS Jor-El represents the ideal of Superman and the film spends its time breaking it down. Superman talks about how the symbol on his chest means "hope." Lois points out that, no, on Earth it doesn't mean that. It's just an S. That's sort of the film in nutshell. Superman's symbol isn't a symbol of hope and inspiration. It's a mundane letter. It is a story that exists to break down the traditional Superman mythos. It goes out of its way to do it in fact. Lois discovers who Clark Kent is before he even joins the Planet. Superman kills Zod. (Which is comic-accurate but outside of public perception, most people view him as having a Batman-style no-kill rule.) Metropolis is massively destroyed by the fighting. The humans who do amazing things do so on their own, without mimicing Superman. Even small things, like Zod killing Jor-El long before Krypton is destroyed, exist to take the simple words that Grant Morrison used at the start of All-Star Superman and break them. God drat, Lex Luthor is going to be interesting in this universe. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 07:56 on Jun 15, 2013 |
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Jun 15, 2013 07:48
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AccountSupervisor posted:See, I liked all of this because as opposed to Superman inspiring us to be something that we are not but could be, he makes us realize what we are and should be. Yeah, but as I said, the point of the film is that he doesn't do that. The people we see inspired during the 9/11-imagery are people who have never met Superman, and have never seen him aside from maybe briefly on television after his arrest. He didn't inspire anyone. These people are great because that is who they already are. The military is willing to take on godlike beings because it is what they do. (Kind of oo-rah but so it goes.) Even when down to just a knife, they don't give up and don't flinch. Lois Lane is a prize-winning journalist and not even a God can keep his secrets from her. All these people are amazing before the existence of Superman. He has no impact on their bravery or their courage or their greatness. mind the walrus posted:
This is also part of the Mythos-breaking, thinking about it. Perry is a black man and Jimmy is a woman. That was unexpected and cool. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 08:08 on Jun 15, 2013 |
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Jun 15, 2013 08:05
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Deadpool posted:Also, I've seen it mentioned a bunch of times. But Rebecca Butler's character in this movie is not Jenny Olson. It's Jenny Jurwich. Aww, that's disappointing. I heard it mentioned but didn't check the credits.
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Jun 15, 2013 08:44
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I said come in! posted:The alternative was that he allows Zod to commit genocide. I'm not complaining that he killed Zod. I'm complaining that, in the context of this particular movie, the scene was not earned. It was a shocking and dramatic scene that was built up to poorly and seems to be in because they wanted the "gasp, Superman KILLS" talking point more than because it was the thematic climax. Darko posted:So, what exactly was Superman supposed to do when fighting someone that was almost par to him? Considering the whole "gets knocked into space" thing, there is certainly more Superman could have done to limit property damage by trying to move the fight elsewhere. He's just extremely bad at his job. It's probably intentional though because this is largely a film about how a crappy Superman. He's even directly responsible for the destruction in Smallville because he attacked without thinking. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 17:23 on Jun 15, 2013 |
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Jun 15, 2013 17:21
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RoughDraft2.0 posted:Re: Superman's wanton property destruction and the likely collateral damage to human life,, it's not that he's "bad at his job" but that he's been at the job for barely five minutes. Pretty steep learning curve when a squad of your physical equals comes storming into town. I would've liked to have seen an acknowledgment of this, though--some line about Superman feeling guilty that he couldn't better corral his powers. He's been using his powers all his life. One of the few advantages he has is that he learned to control his powers. At least until Zod powers his way to doing the same. This is his first time using them in this hectic a situation but he's clearly been doing it long enough to build up a reputation. Either He's supposed to be exceptionally bad at doing this or he isn't supposed to care. That's the only way they can have the light-and-fluffy scenes directly after the Metropolis destruction scenes unless the director/writer are just bad at their jobs and I don't feel the need to assume that.
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Jun 15, 2013 17:50
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Darko posted:No he has not. That's kind of an important plot point. I didn't say pushing. I said controlling. He flat-out beats Zod the first time because he understands how to keep his senses in check. His vision powers in general are the best advantage he has and his greatest successes come from exploiting those, and his dramatic neckbreak only occurs once Zod also masters his vision powers. Flight is the other one and likewise his few successes rely on the fact he has it. He has been using his powers all his life though. We see a record of him doing it in fact. He hasn't pushed himself beyond his limits but the powers he has using he has control over. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 18:11 on Jun 15, 2013 |
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Jun 15, 2013 18:09
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Kal-L posted:Lex Luthor parachute account found I said earlier but I think the Lex Luthor in this universe is gonna be really interesting. They intentionally subverted the mythos in a lot of ways and doing the same with Luthor could do a lot. At bare minimum, even if they stick close to the comics, his paranoia and fear of Superman is a much weightier thing in the wake of how Superman debuted. TheJoker138 posted:Keeping his powers in his limits was not an option when fighting someone with the same powers who doesn't give a gently caress about anything else other than killing him. He does not have any experience pushing his powers beyond his self imposed limits, and he's never been in a situation like this before. Stopping an oil rig from crushing some guys is not the same as getting into a fight with a guy who can do the exact same thing you can who is purposefully trying to murder everyone around him. It's like saying because someone has been using their legs their entire life they could become a kickboxer with no practice or training. Again, I'm not talking about keeping his power 'in limits.' I'm talking about controlling them which he fails to do. Him bringing the fight to Smallville being the biggest example. I have no problem with Superman failing or Superman killing. I'm saying that this is intentional. This is a movie about a failure of a Superman and it's distinctive for doing that. But they picked the All-Star Superman quote for a reason and it can't be thematic similarities because this is no All-Star story. In many ways they directly subvert All-Star to the point where I think it has to be intentional. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Jun 15, 2013 |
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Jun 15, 2013 18:15
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Darko posted:Are you ignoring that he never threw a punch in his life and discovered how to fly a day ago? Yes? Those have nothing to do with it? A major point of the story is that being born and even trained to do something doesn't mean you're going to be able to do it. Jor-El stands up to Zod and even basically beats him until Zod gets a surprise shiv in while Jor-El is watching his son leave. Superman can't win in a straight-up fight but he also doesn't need to. He needs to be cleverer and more creative than his blunt weapon of an enemy. He has tools Zod doesn't. He has experience Zod doesn't. Instead he allows himself to be goaded into a fight and it hurts everyone around him. Jor-El, in the terms of the new Superman story, is the man we think of as Superman. His son is trying to live up to that.
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Jun 15, 2013 18:32
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Darko posted:We're talking around each other. I'm saying there's an important semantic distinction there. He does not yet have control because he has been containing. That's important because it ties into the overall themes of the film, and probably his progression in the sequel. Yes, because as I said, this is a film about a failure of a Superman. We agree on that, I think. He may progress in the sequel but this opening story is one of minimal successes and massive failures, where the kindly Pa Kent is a paranoid man who holds back his son and Pete Ross is an IHOP manager. It's a very different kind of film. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 18:37 on Jun 15, 2013 |
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Jun 15, 2013 18:35
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Darko posted:Eh, he'd pay attention to the person that was broadcast as "being in league with Superman," and she was standing right there, so, why not? I know that it was all just a reason to give her something to do so she wouldn't just be a damsel in distress, but there were valid plot reasons/contrivances for that to happen. They were valid but forced. I really liked some of what they did with Lois but I think they could have carried it more into the late game where she basically devolves into an information delivery factory + romantic interest.
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Jun 15, 2013 20:29
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Toady posted:I have to admit its financial success and overall high audience reviews according to CinemaScore make me happy, but I respect the opinions of those here who didn't like it as much. I'm curious, though, and apologies if I missed it: I think he described it accurately but I also think he didn't really do a great job of updating it. As I said he did a story of a failure which is interesting, but difficult to describe as updating the public consciousness. Man of Steel, unsurprisingly, is very much a followup to The Dark Knight as far as how it handles the hero. Not quite as grim as that particular one, but at its heart it's about failure. In some ways it's grimmer because it isn't the Empire Strikes Back of the triology but the start of it. (And it will inevitably be a trilogy, let's be honest here.) I worry that this basically means DC will take that sort of attitude and tie it to everything they do. Green Lantern bombing only seems to increase the likelihood of that. (Even if GL bombed for a lot of other reasons.)
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Jun 15, 2013 21:00
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Rhyno posted:This is five pages ago but you're wrong. In the DaR those were not terraformers and they were not tied together. They were engines. Mongul and the Cyborg were going to turn Earth into their new War World and the thing they built in Coast City was an engine to propel it through space. They were used in a different way but had basically the same name and the same basic plan involving two engines, one in Metropolis, and loving up the Earth. They even turn Coast City into Engine City. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 21:28 on Jun 15, 2013 |
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Jun 15, 2013 21:23
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Toady posted:I think he did, but I respect that you disagree. I'm glad that Superman movies can now move forward from the Donner film, because it had become such an albatross for making new movies as well as how the public viewed the character. I admit a large part of it is that I'm really really tired of pessimism. Man of Steel isn't a bad deconstruction but it feels like they found it easier to be pessimistic than honestly inspiring. My general feeling coming out of MoS was "man, it sure would loving suck if Superman existed" which is an interesting idea but not really where I want to see the franchise going. I'm holding out hope the sequel isn't more of this, but considering the middle point of a trilogy is almost always the lowest moment, I don't see it not being. Especially because I'd bet dollars to donuts we're gonna get Luthor and it's gonna be going right to Lex Luthor: Man of Steel for inspiration because Lex Luthor: Man of Steel is exactly the right tone for a Man of Steel followup.
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Jun 15, 2013 21:38
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Rhyno posted:No actually they were not. Engine City was a gigantic loving engine to propel a planet through space. They weren't terraforming poo poo, they just annihilated Coast City and built over it. You said it's a direct reference and it's only vaguely similar. You're overly focused on the terraforming instead of the presentation and context. v  v It's a pretty obvious reference. I have to double check where but I'm fairly sure they directly refer to Warworld's engines as the World Engines either in Return or in Exile. McSpanky posted:That isn't what happened, though. You constructed that idea in your own mind by convincing yourself that the film is about "Superman's failure" or some poo poo after half a dozen pages of pedantic arguing over every second of screen time he used his powers. No, because that is what happened in the film. Again, this isn't a convoluted reading. They're pretty blunt about it. Again, Lois flat-out tells him that his symbol of Hope is just an S on Earth. That's basically the text of the film in one line of dialogue. If you think that isn't what it is, then explain it instead of going "stop thinking so hard about the film!"
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Jun 15, 2013 21:45
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teagone posted:That said, my brother and I were discussing a couple things afterward that we couldn't agree on. One being when Clark yelled after breaking Zod's neck. He thought he was yelling because Zod did end up killing the family, since it abruptly cut the shot off with the neck snap, but I said it was because Clark was grieving over taking his first life. Is there any reason to think Zod did kill the family with his heat vision? I thought it was pretty clear Clark stopped Zod right before, but my brother said it was ambiguous and they didn't show a reaction shot of the family afterward (or did they?). And the other was a scene towards the end between Clark and the US general, regarding the whole surveillance drone trying to find where Clark hangs his cape. Was he referring to the Fortress of Solitude? Or his farm in Kansas? Or both? I said it was the Fortress but my brother mentioned the scout ship that was supposedly the fortress was destroyed. Perhaps we haven't seen the real Fortress of Solitude? Or maybe he was talking about his farm?. The family is briefly seen running out of the scene. He is screaming because he killed the last Kryptonian/a living being/whatever. It's a Superfailure film but it isn't THAT much of one. He stopped the bad guy but had to kill to do it.
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Jun 15, 2013 21:49
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McSpanky posted:Darko was doing a fine job of explaining it until you exhausted him into submission with semantic nonsense. And It's not that you thought too hard about the film, it's that you thought too hard about this one specific "this Superman wasn't born a perfect fighting machine, not my Superman Except I didn't say that at all and me and Darko came to an agreement that we viewed the film in a similar way, at least in that regard? You're viewing my discussing as "NOT MY SUPERMAN" when it hasn't been aside from the brief part where I discussed why I don't think it was a successful reimagining. I'm discussing the film on its own merits and its own storyline. You're taking the idea that I at all care about how accurate a film is to the comics when I don't. I defended films like Iron Man 3 entirely because I enjoyed that they were willing to be their own thing instead of adhering to the 'canon.' I don't much like MoS as a reinterpretation of Superman but I think it stands on its own as an interesting movie for its take on failure. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 22:31 on Jun 15, 2013 |
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Jun 15, 2013 22:27
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" line of complaint, which is now getting as much refutation as it deserves: it's dumb and you're dumb for wasting so much posting effort on it.
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Toady posted:What I got from the movie was a message about trust and faith. Clark and the human world have learned to trust each other. My gut tells me Luthor will continue this theme by influencing humans to turn against Superman and question his interventionism. It could end up exploring concepts that Superman Returns brought up but didn't fulfill. I agree. That is part of why I brought up the Lex Luthor: Man of Steel thing. It's very much about that.
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Jun 15, 2013 22:33
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teagone posted:Your argument of this film's theme of failure, and the failure of the idea of Superman is kind of negated though, based on what happens in the film regarding Clark's character arc. How so? The defining moment of the ending of the film is one where Clark barely wins but only after killing his opponent with an absolutely brutal neck snap. He then breaks down weeping into Lois's arms. He didn't fail to save the world but it sure as hell wasn't an inspiring success. It isn't a ending without hope (since Clark decides to join the planet and the Planet) but his initial outing was largely characterized by barely-succeeding or largely failing. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 22:41 on Jun 15, 2013 |
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Jun 15, 2013 22:35
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teagone posted:Because I see that as part of the process to becoming a symbol of hope for the people of earth, not a failure preventing or debilitating it. How does killing an alien bent on planet-wide genocide dumb down the idea of Superman to failure? I don't see it. It clearly was a failure to Clark. You can have long debates about when it is justified to kill (and "invincible genocidal madman" is a pretty good baseline) but he clearly didn't see it as a success and portraying him as weeping among the ruins of the city means that they clearly don't want the viewers to see it as one either. He succeeded but not in an inspiring or hopeful way. It was brutal and messy even if it was justified. teagone posted:The barely-succeeding aspect I can agree with, since the film shows Clark just scratching at the apex of understanding and harnessing his abilities while using them for the first time at that level against a threat that is of equal power. I just don't see how you can view his efforts as a failure when Clark embraces his alien heritage and uses what he can to protect the humans he has grown up with to the best of his ability at that point. He succeeds, and gains their trust while he exposes his Kryptonian roots. The last thing we see from Clark is him adopting his trademark secret identity. However the context of this is very different in this film than in other films. Here, it is a return to Pa Kent's paranoia to some degree. It's a step forward as well in some ways. He's now using his real name for his identity instead of fake names like he was before, and he's being more open about saving people with his powers. That and he has Lois now where previously he only had Ma Kent. It's not without hope, as I said, but it's a small step forward taken after what is clearly depicted as something horrifying enough to make him break down. Before he approached people openly if cautiously. He went to see the priest and told him who he was. He saw no real difference between Clark and Kal. The ending is him separating the two. He is joining the world, but it's in that slow and paranoid way Pa Kent encouraged. He's building up to a world he can trust but I don't think anyone reached it yet. The Government still spies on him and he still avoids them. It's perhaps the first step on the road to actual mutual trust. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 23:03 on Jun 15, 2013 |
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Jun 15, 2013 23:01
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