All Things Superman: An Open Discussion (Spoilers) - - - - - - - - - - Part 90

[J.Howlett]

Wow. I'm sorry, but that is an insane generalization. And attacking him on the caps? Really?

Dude, when your essay is that long and you really want people to read it to get informed, why do all caps? That's what I'm getting at. It's just tough to read it that way.

 

[The Batman]

Don't forget Jor-El somehow kicked the a$$ out of 6 or 7 Zod followers without breaking a sweat. Then, beating the **** out of Zod made it a bit comical.

It really is weird how a guy, holding a general's rank and being bred to be a soldier...gets his ass handed to him by a scientist.

 

[PacificBoy]

Because that worked so well without property damage before. And this time they are in a big city, with tall buildings everywhere.

The Smallville battle was fun, because we finally get to see Superman duke it out with equally strong opponents, spectacularly, no less.

But I found the Metropolis battle a bore because it was more of the same, and there wasn't any payoff this time round - where's the Clark whose instinct is to safeguard people, at any cost, as established? Sure, he's a rookie, and Zod was getting the upper hand as he grew into his powers, but when this Clark thinks "I need to stop Zod", wouldn't he be thinking "let's get Zod out of the city first, so that the survivors will be out of harm's way" at the same time?

 

[J.Howlett]

Pretty much. I'm just not accepting of the whole 'what else could he have done?!?!' because truthfully I don't care if the film plays it safe and doesn't push the stakes through the roof. As long as it had provided an entertaining rendition of a classic character I'd have been happy. For me, it didn't. And I'm pretty sad that it didn't.

Sorry to hear that but what else are you going to do?

For me, supremely entertained and emotionally effected by what was told, flaws and all. If that makes me shallow or not of high mind, well, wouldn't be the first time.

With any art, some times your respond to things you have no business responding to. It is what it is.

Like I was saying yesterday about the film Gangster Squad. It's complete garbage and utterly frustrating because of the nature of it being a true story and yet, for a week straight, I've watched the hell out of it. Can't explain it but there it is....

 

[STARMAN]

I liked the battle for Smallville the best.

 

[J.Howlett]

IMO, no one had an actual rebuttal to the things he said. Just nitpicks on his posting style or questioning whether he actually enjoys movies...even though he clearly praised films like Up and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Plenty of people in the comments section had rebuttals to some of his arguments but, like with all things on the net, group think sets in and the rebuttals get tuned out.

Not pointing fingers but that's the reality. It happens all the damn time.

 

[The Batman]

Plenty of people in the comments section had rebuttals to some of his arguments but, like with all things on the net, group think sets in and the rebuttals get tuned out.

Not pointing fingers but that's the reality. It happens all the damn time.

I was actually talking about the people on this thread, but I'll be checking out those rebuttals.

 

[BlueLantern]

Sorry to hear that but what else are you going to do?

For me, supremely entertained and emotionally effected by what was told, flaws and all. If that makes me shallow or not of high mind, well, wouldn't be the first time.

With any art, some times your respond to things you have no business responding to. It is what it is.

Like I was saying yesterday about the film Gangster Squad. It's complete garbage and utterly frustrating because of the nature of it being a true story and yet, for a week straight, I've watched the hell out of it. Can't explain it but there it is....

I totally get what you mean. A similar example I can give you is the Phantom Menace video game. It's dog****. It's horrible. It's absolute trash. But I love it.

 

[BH/HHH]

But an argument could be made that a 10/10 film is a flawless film, else the concept of full marks would be a very broken one.

Well yeah if course but it depends how your mind works, there's some horror movies I'd rate a 10 but I wouldn't say they're better films than films like MOS etc but I think you can only rate a film against those that are if it's kind. So if all CBMs right now for me Man of Steel is a 10 as the flaws in it don't bother me.

But this is where the modern day obsession with 'realism' let's a character like Superman down.

Of course having an absolute no kill rule is unrealistic. We can all recognise that sometimes it's neccesary.

But it's not real life. And a man with his powers and origins ISN'T real.

So why do we have to push that much realism onto him?

I'm all for a real world setting, and the story flowing in a realistic fashion (something I don't think they achieved IMO).

But you don't have to take away a characters principals because you think they are unbelievable.

I only mention real life and the real world because that's the world the writers set this in.

I think the real world setting was the best way to go personally as I think people needed to see a Superman that was as far away from the comic world of Superman the Movie and that's not to say there's anything wring with that but it was time for a fresh approach.

 

[Jim-El]

It really is weird how a guy, holding a general's rank and being bred to be a soldier...gets his ass handed to him by a scientist.

You said that much better than I. I enjoyed the fight scenes, but Zod & Co should have been MUCH more of a match than they were.

 

[BlueLantern]

Well yeah if course but it depends how your mind works, there's some horror movies I'd rate a 10 but I wouldn't say they're better films than films like MOS etc but I think you can only rate a film against those that are if it's kind. So if all CBMs right now for me Man of Steel is a 10 as the flaws in it don't bother me.

My mind works like this. 10 on 10 is flawless. Don't know about the rest of the world but that's me.

 

[STARMAN]

I just hope they don't try to force corrections in a sequel. I think it would be disingenuous if they spend a lot of time in MOS 2 with Superman agonizing over the death of Zod or the destruction of Metropolis.

 

[Nathan]

The Smallville battle was fun, because we finally get to see Superman duke it out with equally strong opponents, spectacularly, no less.

But I found the Metropolis battle a bore because it was more of the same, and there wasn't any payoff this time round - where's the Clark whose instinct is to safeguard people, at any cost, as established? Sure, he's a rookie, and Zod was getting the upper hand as he grew into his powers, but when this Clark thinks "I need to stop Zod", wouldn't he be thinking "let's get Zod out of the city first, so that the survivors will be out of harm's way" at the same time?

Maybe his plan was to put him down fast and hard? But right after the first collision, Superman gets flung into a building, and from there on out, it was basically Zod dictating the pace of the battle. And once they got the fight airborne, it was Superman who had to chase after Zod, because he used the buildings to hide. And when they finally got out of the city, guess who brought the fight from orbit, back into the city? Zod. By crashing a big, nice satellite into Superman.

 

[The Batman]

You said that better than I did. I enjoyed the fight scenes, but Zod & Co should have been MUCH more of a match than they were.

I don't even think it should've been a fair match. Given that Zod is bred to be a soldier, and assuming that Jor El has been bred to be a scientist, Zod should've handed Jor El his backside. Jor El should've won that fight using his brains, IMO.

 

[Serpico Jones]

It really is weird how a guy, holding a general's rank and being bred to be a soldier...gets his ass handed to him by a scientist.

Maybe Jor-El was screwing around with genetics.

 

[BlueLantern]

In my head I imagine that Jor-El had some sort of aerosol virus he's got that weakens Kryptonians. That's the Kryptonite for the realism age.

 

[Jim-El]

Maybe Jor-El was screwing around with genetics.

 

[Nathan]

Maybe Jor-El was screwing around with genetics.

Or maybe he went all Neo. "Whoa... I know Kung Fu."

 

[Bebop Cowboy]

I think we can all agree that Goyer and Snyder should have added more scenes of Supes at least attempting to save the many people who were put in danger due to the battle, or did the destruction differently.

I've been a life long fan of Superman, more so than any other "cool" character like Batman or Wolverine. Never changed my allegiance to who was always my favourite superhero. And for me, one of the biggest things that make him superman, as much as the s and the red cape was that he saves people. Stops a train from derailing, a volcano or flood killing people, a plane from crashing etc etc. More so than fighting bad guys, Supes saves people for me any way. So I thought more of this could be shown where an entire city was falling down.

I know the filmmakers put together the school bus scene and the oil rig, but when thousands of lives are in danger I think more could have been written into this space, and I think even they would be thinking the same now that they've viewed it with the rest of us.

 

[J.Howlett]

I totally get what you mean. A similar example I can give you is the Phantom Menace video game. It's dog****. It's horrible. It's absolute trash. But I love it.

And this is why I've been trying to get away from reading film criticism because at the end of the day, who the hell is right?

We have been conditioned with narrative cinema that there are certain cinematic storytelling techniques that are the RIGHT way to telling a successful story.

Why do we have to be set by those rules in the first place? I mean, is there really a right way to tell a story?

I wrestle with that because some films utterly buck that, make no sense to me, and yet, I'm utterly mesmerized by them.

Upstream Color comes to mind. Seen it twice. Have no damn clue what it is talking about. I have theories. Have no clue to the structure of why it tells it's story the way its tell it but I was mesmerized by both viewings.

Why?

 

[C. Lee]

It really is weird how a guy, holding a general's rank and being bred to be a soldier...gets his ass handed to him by a scientist.

I thought that at first too...then the more I thought about things in the movie, I started thinking about the way that Jor-El was living. He was working against the status quo of Krypton where you are bred for one thing. Who is to say he didn't only go against the Kryptonian way by managing to have a live birth of a child with his wife and to build a spaceship capable to wormhole it's way to Earth...but what if he also taught himself to be a bad ass warrior to protect his family if someone came to stop him from doing the other things.

 

[PacificBoy]

I don't even think it should've been a fair match. Given that Zod is bred to be a soldier, and assuming that Jor El has been bred to be a scientist, Zod should've handed Jor El his backside. Jor El should've won that fight using his brains, IMO.

It was quipped that Russell Crowe's contract stated that his character had to be written as a badass.

While seeing Jor-El haul henchman ass was infinitely cool, seeing Zod being beastly on perhaps the council's troops during the rebellion would set Zod up as more of a physical threat when he eventually faced Clark.

 

[STARMAN]

A couple of reaction shots from a concerned looking Superman, as well as a line or two of dialogue, and they would have saved themselves half the criticism.

 

[Jim-El]

I thought that at first too...then the more I thought about things in the movie, I started thinking about the way that Jor-El was living. He was working against the staus quo of Krypton where you are bred for one thing. Who is to say he didn't only go against the Kryptonian way by managing to have a live birth of a child with his wife and to build a spaceship capable to wormhole it's way to Earth...but what if he also taught himself to be a bad ass warrior to protect his family if someone came to stop him from doing the other things.

Very well thought out. I just wish the movie could have "documented" what you theorize.

 

[Nathan]

I thought that at first too...then the more I thought about things in the movie, I started thinking about the way that Jor-El was living. He was working against the staus quo of Krypton where you are bred for one thing. Who is to say he didn't only go against the Kryptonian way by managing to have a live birth of a child with his wife and to build a spaceship capable to wormhole it's way to Earth...but what if he also taught himself to be a bad ass warrior to protect his family if someone came to stop him from doing the other things.

Makes really a lot of sense, and I've been suspecting that too. He told Kal that Krypton lost something precious, the freedom of choice. So it would make sense, with Jor-El going against the norm, he trained himself, so he has the means to protect everything that's precious to him, when the time comes.