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DeimosRising
Oct 17, 2005

¡Hola SEA!


K. Waste posted:

I like how that still looks like a really good movie.

My favorite thing might be the juvenile insertions of utinee and bantha poodoo into the ominous voiceover. Don't say Zach Snyder doesn't know what he's doing. He knows EXACTLY what he's doing.

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CelticPredator
Oct 11, 2013
🍀👽🆚🪖🏋

The film's biggest issues are in the screenplay and the editing. I know Zack knows what he's doing. He just needs to work with better screenwriters.

BravestOfTheLamps
Oct 12, 2012

by FactsAreUseless
Lipstick Apathy
What are the issues with the screenplay?

MacheteZombie
Feb 4, 2007

Phylodox posted:

The irony is that he did. He just didn't know how to properly mix his paints, so they're all slowly degrading. They originally were probably much brighter and vivid.

Do you have an article about this? My quick googling is failing me and it's an interesting topic I'd like to know more about.

Phylodox
Mar 30, 2006



College Slice

MacheteZombie posted:

Do you have an article about this? My quick googling is failing me and it's an interesting topic I'd like to know more about.

I don't have any articles, although apparently there's a book named Rembrand's Eyes that goes into quite paintstaking detail about his process. It's just one of those things you're taught in art history classes. All paintings degrade, particularly red and yellow pigment, and back in the day all artists would have mixed their own paints (or had their assistants do it). The common idea held is that Rembrandt used different pigments than most of his contemporaries, and they faded and darkened much more.

MacheteZombie
Feb 4, 2007

Phylodox posted:

I don't have any articles, although apparently there's a book named Rembrand's Eyes that goes into quite paintstaking detail about his process. It's just one of those things you're taught in art history classes. All paintings degrade, particularly red and yellow pigment, and back in the day all artists would have mixed their own paints (or had their assistants do it). The common idea held is that Rembrandt used different pigments than most of his contemporaries, and they faded and darkened much more.

drat, was hoping for something about Rembrandt's work degrading more than others specifically.

CottonWolf
Jul 20, 2012

Good ideas generator

Dragging this back from a couple of pages ago, because I just rewatched the film and thought this was an interesting point.

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

I had a acquaintance who some time ago watched Man of Steel for the first time, and complained about the scene of Superman trashing the spy satellite. They were fairly progressive, and the idea of a single man being able to destroy a spy satellite and declare himself unaccountable to earthly authorities was deeply bothersome, because it made him "Objectivist". His conclusion was that Snyder made a movie where "Lex Luthor was right". And that's really telling. When actually confronted with the idea of uncontrollable, unaccountable superhuman, people actually find the concept unsettling - and perceive this as a flaw. Turns out more people are going to going to be Lex Luthors than they thought. When confronted with Snyder's Superman they see a frightening alien figure. The point of Lex Luthor, of course, is that he's projecting his own malice onto Superman (and at this point you start seeing complaints about "likeability" where people start losing any sense of proportionality and touch with reality).

I think this film does make as strong argument that "Lex Luthor was right", but that he himself was a bad conduit for his argument, certainly as much as 'Lex Luthor was wrong'. Obviously, the Lexian argument boils down the power differential between the aliens and normal humans. In that sense, the morality or otherwise of Clark is actually irrelevant, whether or not he's "good", he is. Batman surrenders his point when he accepts Clark's humanity (at least at my reading of that scene) and decides that he's not a threat, but that doesn't ever answer the fundamental question of how you live in a world where you and everyone around you has been rendered implicitly powerless. Clark isn't in any sense objectivist or even the Judeo-Christian god-figure the films points at, he's more like the Greek or Roman gods, just a person but bigger. I think the film is openly ambivalent about that concept even at the end, it reaches an ending by dodging the question rather than expressing an opinion.

This leads the bigotry/anti-immigrant analogies to all falling flat too because unlike normal immigrants, Superman really is a threat both culturally and physically. It's completely rational for a normal person with no access to his inner life to fear him, and want the state to control him.

Snowman_McK
Jan 31, 2010

CottonWolf posted:

This leads the bigotry/anti-immigrant analogies to all falling flat too because unlike normal immigrants, Superman really is a threat both culturally and physically. It's completely rational for a normal person with no access to his inner life to fear him, and want the state to control him.

But that raises the question of why one would trust the vast apparatus of the state, which equally renders any individual powerless, if they're unwilling to trust an individual.

CottonWolf
Jul 20, 2012

Good ideas generator

Snowman_McK posted:

But that raises the question of why one would trust the vast apparatus of the state, which equally renders any individual powerless, if they're unwilling to trust an individual.

That's fair. But, at least in theory, the state has consent. In the ideal, the state acts for the powerless against other powerful interests. Some theories of the state claim that power equalisation in exchange for protection by a third party was the whole point. The state exists so we don't need to be able to trust an individual. It enforces punishment for infringement. Superman is a threat precisely because the state cannot equalise him away. He has no consent, but does not surrender his power. You can't punish something more powerful that yourself.

Superman does not exist to protect, the fact that in the story he happens to protect people is luck rather than anything else.

I mean, I'm not sure I agree with that, I'm not sure which side of the argument I come down on, but I think it's a fair statement of the case you could make.

Tuxedo Catfish
Mar 17, 2007

You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.

CottonWolf posted:

I think this film does make as strong argument that "Lex Luthor was right", but that he himself was a bad conduit for his argument, certainly as much as 'Lex Luthor was wrong'. Obviously, the Lexian argument boils down the power differential between the aliens and normal humans. In that sense, the morality or otherwise of Clark is actually irrelevant, whether or not he's "good", he is. Batman surrenders his point when he accepts Clark's humanity (at least at my reading of that scene) and decides that he's not a threat, but that doesn't ever answer the fundamental question of how you live in a world where you and everyone around you has been rendered implicitly powerless. Clark isn't in any sense objectivist or even the Judeo-Christian god-figure the films points at, he's more like the Greek or Roman gods, just a person but bigger. I think the film is openly ambivalent about that concept even at the end, it reaches an ending by dodging the question rather than expressing an opinion.

I've been saying this before the movie even came out!

CottonWolf
Jul 20, 2012

Good ideas generator

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

I've been saying this before the movie even came out!

Well, in that case, I agree with you!

Tezcatlipoca
Sep 18, 2009

CottonWolf posted:

It enforces punishment for infringement.

Laughing at this in particular.

CottonWolf
Jul 20, 2012

Good ideas generator

Tezcatlipoca posted:

Laughing at this in particular.

The state defines law and punishes infringements of that law. Isn't having a monopoly on force the basically definition of the state?

Snowman_McK
Jan 31, 2010

CottonWolf posted:

That's fair. But, at least in theory, the state has consent. In the ideal, the state acts for the powerless against other powerful interests. Some theories of the state claim that power equalisation in exchange for protection by a third party was the whole point. The state exists so we don't need to be able to trust an individual. It enforces punishment for infringement. Superman is a threat precisely because the state cannot equalise him away. He has no consent, but does not surrender his power. You can't punish something more powerful that yourself.

Superman does not exist to protect, the fact that in the story he happens to protect people is luck rather than anything else.

I mean, I'm not sure I agree with that, I'm not sure which side of the argument I come down on, but I think it's a fair statement of the case you could make.

That's my point. You only trust the state because they are, ideally, on the side of right and doing the right thing. There's a leap of faith in both cases.

Tezcatlipoca
Sep 18, 2009

CottonWolf posted:

The state defines law and punishes infringements of that law. Isn't having a monopoly on force the basically definition of the state?

I'm not laughing at the concept of the state, I'm laughing at the inherent trust you seem to put in the state to not abuse that power (which it does almost in perpetuity while constantly grasping for more) over good guy Clark Kent who isn't trying to exercise his power over anyone. He isn't overthrowing democratically elected governments in South America, he isn't invading other countries for colonialist reasons. Maybe he should though.

McSpanky
Jan 16, 2005






Yeah I mean, the reason why Lex Luthor is evil is that he's so piqued at the idea of Superman that he refuses to accept the reality of Superman. (And then decides the proper way to resolve this conflict is to remove the conflicting element from existence.) Senator Finch has the same basic concerns he does but she can engage with the man while he and everyone else is still struggling with the implication of his mere existence.

"Must there be a Superman?"
"There is."

Xealot
Nov 25, 2002

Showdown in the Galaxy Era.

CottonWolf posted:

Clark isn't in any sense objectivist or even the Judeo-Christian god-figure the films points at, he's more like the Greek or Roman gods, just a person but bigger. I think the film is openly ambivalent about that concept even at the end, it reaches an ending by dodging the question rather than expressing an opinion.

I most definitely view this version of Superman as Judeo-Christian, in the essentially Christian humanist terms of Last Temptation. Beyond the obviously messianic and disruptive nature of his abilities, the film routinely comments on the tension between his sense of duty to the world and his human interests and attachments ("you don't owe this world a thing," and what-not.) Clark's inner conflict is essentially the same as Jesus' in that particular story. Moments like the fire rescue in Mexico feel really uncomfortable not just because of some cosmic horror at the thought of a living God, but because Clark himself seems really uncomfortable with that association...the divine implications of his powers are at odds with his expressed sense of identity, which is quite humble and human.

His entire conflict with Batman falls apart upon that realization. Batman doesn't back down because he's convinced of Superman's inherent goodness, but because he's convinced of his essential humanity. His construction of Superman as some inscrutable force collapses when he realizes he's a son who fears for his mother's life. Of course, despite that humanizing reality, Supes still martyrs himself. A spear is involved, he winds up in a Pieta pose, etc. If it was Willem Dafoe, it'd be a pretty similar movie.

Snowman_McK
Jan 31, 2010

McSpanky posted:

Yeah I mean, the reason why Lex Luthor is evil is that he's so piqued at the idea of Superman that he refuses to accept the reality of Superman. (And then decides the proper way to resolve this conflict is to remove the conflicting element from existence.) Senator Finch has the same basic concerns he does but she can engage with the man while he and everyone else is still struggling with the implication of his mere existence.

"Must there be a Superman?"
"There is."

I reckon it's also that Luthor seems to place himself largely outside the law. Luthor is an immensely powerful individual who is more or less beyond the law. He hates Superman because Superman reveals the lie Luthor tells to himself.

Megaman's Jockstrap
Jul 16, 2000

What a horrible thread to have a post.
Once you don't have faith the State's (Superman's) inherent goodness, you go full right reactionary.

Pretty accurate message IMO.

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scuba school sucks
Aug 30, 2012

The brilliance of my posting illuminates the forums like a jar of shining gold when all around is dark
Just rewatched Man of Steel. Man, what the gently caress is going on with Zod's arm when he drops the I-beam?

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