BvS All Things Superman and Batman: An Open Discussion - Part 1

[Boom]

In the long run, I don't think it should matter what color a person's skin is, even if it's a fictional character.

The problem is that people are freaking out over the mere idea of a character being cast with an ethnic person, but I'm not sure if an ethnic character was cast with a white person that they would be that upset.

It's the double-standard that I suspect is hidden under the surface of this argument that bothers me.

Notice what happened with the casting from Avatar: Air Bender? All the characters in the original canon are obviously ethnic, with the bad guy actually having the lightest skin tone, yet Hollywood cast all white people for the good guys, and the only ethnic character was the bad guy.

The point is, unless you get hysterical over every miscast of race in Hollywood, just keep your opinions on racial casting to yourself.

 

[Boy Scout]

No, Year One Selina look Black to me as well, both in the comic and the movie. I thought that was obvious, but I guess not.

Same.

 

[Tempest]

I simply prefer my characters to look like their comic book counterparts. This doesn't have much to do with "white power!" (which i strongly suspect is what you're implying here) as it is retaining as much of the visual elements which compose any given role that has been illustrated for decades.

This includes race, size, sex, physical build, hair length/color, etc. There's no deep reasoning for it and I don't think preference of adaptation should require it. It's an easy enough desire to understand; adaptations are generally better received the closer they are to the source.

I was turned off by the white-washing of Ra's and Bane, but I moved on ultimately. I'll do the same in the future. In the meantime, I don't think it's at all wrong to express one's feelings on the matter. But I do think it's messed up when it's immediately turned into this race war.

Well, I'm so glad you were turned off by white-washing, but then you got over it. So it's safe to say that you can get over a white character being recast as a person with ethnic origins, right? Good.

Then stop posting about why Selina is white.

 

[John Lambert]

But General Zod intended to kill the family, and Superman had to kill him in order to save them.

At first, I don't know very much about the Superman's character and his rules but I only watch him from his movies. Occasionally, I researched on his character and his mythos on Wiki because my close friend's a Supes fan. I occasionally discussed with him about his favorite character.

Killing General Zod in Superman II is acceptable yet killing him in MOS is not??

Um, that's why I'm somewhat puzzled.

Why are some fans against Supes killing General Zod in MOS? I'm just curious.

I think some people object to Superman killing on screen. Except, since they say they object to the killing, not just seeing it, I am not sure even that makes sense.

To me, SM2 is so flawed with the memory-wipe kiss, that I just have to hate it. From a pure story point-of-view MOS beats up the horrible cop-out of SM2. Plus, I just prefer Clark letting Lois know who he is and comfort him, and be a true ally, instead of his forcing her to sue subterfuge to expose the truth of him.

Also, I have to say that Clark jealous of himself has been done to death. Still, I prefer self-jealous Clark of L&C who wants Lois to love him over the Clark of SM2 who is like "Oh, now Lois knows who I really am and wants to shack up, I will abandon my powers and leave the world at risk."

OK, I just mainly think that the powers vs. love set up in SM2 is really stupid, especially since it gives power to the real stupid ideas of "Man of steel, women of Kleenex".

 

[John Lambert]

That's not what anyone said though. The point being made was that the establishment of Superman's "no-kill" rule doesn't make sense, and here's why:

General Zod is stranded on Earth with no worthwhile cause worth fighting for, other than to hurt Superman. The best way to do that is to kill humans. Now this leaves Superman in the position where he absolutely has to kill General Zod.

Now then, what happens if the same situation arises again? No prison can hold people on that power level, the Phantom Zone is gone, so given the precedent, Superman must kill again. Because it is the same situation.

General Zod's murder is not treated as if it were the wrong decision to be made, as if it were a mistake. It just made Clark feel sad for a few seconds, but with no scenes of contemplation on it.

General Zod was not "murdered" anymore than anyone else killed in the course of battle is murdered. You are using the wrong terms and missing the true issues.

The killing of Zod was a 100% justifiable act on the part of Superman. I have no problem with it. This is not the questionable morality of a drone strike to assassinate a US citizen in Yemen fomenting hate and attacks on US citizens. This is the clear and present danger of a being who is Super-powered, who has directly threatened to kill.

Do you say a police sniper is a murderer if he takes out a shotter in the process of gunning down people?

 

[John Lambert]

This is how this conversation goes:

'I didn't like it that Superman kills in this film'

'Why? He's killed before!'

'Yeah, I didn't like it then either.'

'But he had to kill, there was no other way'

'Yeah, but the writers didn't have to write the script so that there was no other way'

'Yeah well, the writers were just trying to do something different and shake up the expectations'

'Sure, but I think they handled it badly and it ended the movie on a feeling of deflation rather than triumph'

'Well that's the real world, and it was daring of them to do that instead of just forcing a happy ending'

'I don't want that much real world when I go to the movies at all, let alone Superman. I WANT the happy ending'

'You're just too stuck on your nostalgic love of Donner's version of the films. They've moved on since then'

'Except that I don't like the Donner films, I like the Superman from the comics'

'Well that's your problem, you went in with all these expectations, it could never have pleased you... besides, Superman has killed in the comics'

'... like I said, I didn't like it then either...'

And it goes on and on and on and on...

Also, I just checked out a comic book from my local library, Superman comic, and guess what, it did not end on a high note. True, it was Vol. 1 of "Camelot Falls", and so I guess I should have checked out the other volumes, but I didn't, so I was left with an ambiguous not.

On the other hand, MOS ends on a very positive note. We move beyond the death of Zod.

 

[Boy Scout]

Yeah, it's like it never even happened.

 

[John Lambert]

Superman has killed in the comics in the past .
These days when faced with such situations, he finds another way .
If he can do it in the comics , I think that he can find another way on film as well.

I just read a comic where his hesitancy to kill lead to his death, so there are problems with being too slow to kill.

 

[Boy Scout]

General Zod was not "murdered" anymore than anyone else killed in the course of battle is murdered. You are using the wrong terms and missing the true issues.

I think you're so concerned with semantics that you're missing the point.

The killing of Zod was a 100% justifiable act on the part of Superman. I have no problem with it.

Yes. Exactly. It was justified and presented as the right thing to do. It was deliberately done by Superman to stop Zod from murdering everyone on the planet.

So...that being the case...why would Superman walk away from that experience with the firm belief that killing is wrong?

I just read a comic where his hesitancy to kill lead to his death, so there are problems with being too slow to kill.

There are also problems with killing. Neither of those things matter more than the other unless the writer wants it to.

 

[John Lambert]

For the people inside the MOS universe, maybe. They don't see him as a super famous, 75 years-old pop icon. He's just an alien who saved everyone from other aliens.

For me, he's a 75 years-old superhero who's kinda like Jesus.

Umm, I do not think you can make any sustainable comparisions of Clark Kent to Jesus. Any comparison will end up being superficial and not working if thought about very much.

I still thought MOS went a little too far in that regard, but they toned it down a lot from S:TM, and from the extreme it went to in SR.

 

[John Lambert]

I would have loved to see what Donner would have done if he were born into our era. I feel like if he had perfect control over Superman:TM we might be surprised by the results. I think it would actually be a bit more serious.

I just have no respect for anyone who uses a time reversal to get out of the consequences of their plot.

 

[TheFlamingCoco]

I am surprisingly okay with this decision regarding Superman..but would have liked to see that in more of a trilogy-ending type scenario. To me, having Superman kill makes his resistance to the act more personal. It's no longer a compulsion or an internal arbitrary rule, but rather an unwillingness to go back to the emotional state that the killing made on him. Also, the sequel MUST deal with his feelings. Does he have trouble sleeping? Does it weigh upon his mind heavily? He should definitely go out of his way to avoid such destruction in MOS2.

Will Batman taunt him for this, or would he be reasonable and understand?

There are so many ways this can go, that it seems more thought out than not.

However, if rebooted Batman has blood on his hands, I'll pretty much boycott live action DC movies :/

 

[Boy Scout]

I am surprisingly okay with this decision regarding Superman..

I'm not, but I've made peace with it. This is just one version of the character. There will be others.

However, if rebooted Batman has blood on his hands, I'll pretty much boycott live action DC movies :/

I'm sure he'll remain squeaky clean. But hey, you never know.

 

[TheFlamingCoco]

I just have no respect for anyone who uses a time reversal to get out of the consequences of their plot.

I have no respect for anyone who creates the genre as a big-budget feature film, with a spectacular performance by the leading role, and thrilling effects (for the time) and a silly ending that was taken from the unreleased sequel while fighting for creative control against producers who just wanted more camp t:

 

[Batmannerism]

Also, I just checked out a comic book from my local library, Superman comic, and guess what, it did not end on a high note. True, it was Vol. 1 of "Camelot Falls", and so I guess I should have checked out the other volumes, but I didn't, so I was left with an ambiguous not.

On the other hand, MOS ends on a very positive note. We move beyond the death of Zod.

Good call bro. I just read Superman Brainiac, by Geoff Johns, it ends with Clark sitting on the floor of the barn, head in his hands, mourning the loss of Pa Kent.
Another Johns masterpiece is "Last Son" which also doesn't end on a happy note at all.
But the thing is, these endings work, because while Superman always wins in the end, victory has its price.

I liked the MOS ending too, because it did have a positive note - I though the people who said they didn't feel hopeful afterwards must have seen a different film.
When Lois says "Welcome to the Planet" what she really means is, "welcome to the human race." this is Clark Kent stepping out of the shadows, true he's got a dual identity, but before he was trying to hide any trace of his existence from humanity.
Hopefully, subsequent films will show that people in Smallville all obviously know that Clark Kent is Superman, and Perry and Lombard will work out pretty quickly(as they've seen Superman in close proximity).
Anyway, blah blah blah, you feel good, because at last they guy's kind of found himself, which is what the majority of the film was about.

I reckon a sad ending in a Superman film would only work if there was an impending sequel (kind of like we all knew at the end of Empire strikes back that Return of the Jedi was coming, that would restore the good-evil balance and put good back on top). The ending of Superman returns was somewhere in the middle, which is why it didn't work for me.

Despite what people say, I believe that film and comics are different enough so that some things that work amazingly in comics have to be treated differently onscreen (hey, it worked for Lord of the Rings !).

Peace.

 

[marvelrobbins]

This Is batman & Superman film there are bound to be characters from batman side In film too.

It would be Intresting If they are going to try to kill 3 birds In one film and also bring In Wonder woman.I am doudtful they would bring back catwoman so soon.

 

[Marvin]

On the other hand, MOS ends on a very positive note. We move beyond the death of Zod.

This is precisely why you can't please everyone.
If said movie had ended on a more "tonally appropriate" note after the snap and destruction, as some have suggested, we'd probably find ourselves in far different arguments.

 

[Marvin]

Yes. Exactly. It was justified and presented as the right thing to do. It was deliberately done by Superman to stop Zod from murdering everyone on the planet.

So...that being the case...why would Superman walk away from that experience with the firm belief that killing is wrong?

Probably because how it makes/made him feel.

Ask the president who dropped the bomb on japan the same question. About his feelings on taking lives in the heat of sanctioned war.

 

[Malcolm Reynold]

In the long run, I don't think it should matter what color a person's skin is, even if it's a fictional character.

The problem is that people are freaking out over the mere idea of a character being cast with an ethnic person, but I'm not sure if an ethnic character was cast with a white person that they would be that upset.

It's the double-standard that I suspect is hidden under the surface of this argument that bothers me.

Notice what happened with the casting from Avatar: Air Bender? All the characters in the original canon are obviously ethnic, with the bad guy actually having the lightest skin tone, yet Hollywood cast all white people for the good guys, and the only ethnic character was the bad guy.

The point is, unless you get hysterical over every miscast of race in Hollywood, just keep your opinions on racial casting to yourself.

Really? Because I remember people saying the white washing of the Avatar character's was one of the biggest problems of the films. And a lot of people got pretty upset that they made Khan white in Star Trek Into Darkness.

 

[Tempest]

Really? Because I remember people saying the white washing of the Avatar character's was one of the biggest problems of the films. And a lot of people got pretty upset that they made Khan white in Star Trek Into Darkness.

You missed the point of what I was saying. I'm just making sure people are checking themselves before they carry on with their griping about the potential for an ethnic Selina.

If they protested this strongly against the changes made in other films, then excellent. But in the event that they did not protest, or were not aware of other, more insulting instances of changing a character's ethnicity, I thought they should know.

And yes, before anyone says anything, changing the race of a minority character into a white person is far more insulting than changing the race of a white character to an ethnic person.

 

[Malcolm Reynold]

If they protested this strongly against the changes made in other films, then excellent. But in the event that they did not protest, or were not aware of other, more insulting instances of changing a character's ethnicity, I thought they should know.

And you missed my point which was that pretty much everyone who saw The Last Airbender didn't like the whitewashing. Also there was no evidence that the people who were replying to didn't know or protest the changes in The Last Airbender.

 

[Llama_Shepherd]

Probably because how it makes/made him feel.

Ask the president who dropped the bomb on japan the same question. About his feelings on taking lives in the heat of sanctioned war.

The nuclear bombings were an unnecesarry act and killed mainly civilians. The act of killing Zod would be more akin to actually defeating the German and Japanese armies. You've killed millions of people, but in the end, it was justified. So it can be justified again.

 

[Tempest]

And you missed my point which was that pretty much everyone who saw The Last Airbender didn't like the whitewashing. Also there was no evidence that the people who were replying to didn't know or protest the changes in The Last Airbender.

There's no evidence that any of them were upset about it either. Basically this all reminds me of the response on Twitter about Rue, from The Hunger Games. No ethnic minority has been cast yet, and people are acting like this is just a terrible thing to happen to Batman/Superman. Come on, people.

 

[Malcolm Reynold]

There's no evidence that any of them were upset about it either. Basically this all reminds me of the response on Twitter about Rue, from The Hunger Games. No ethnic minority has been cast yet, and people are acting like this is just a terrible thing to happen to Batman/Superman. Come on, people.

I couldn't care less about the Catwoman conversation earlier since I doubt she will even be in the reboot, I was just responding to your Last Airbender comparison.

 

[Marvin]

The nuclear bombings were an unnecesarry act and killed mainly civilians. The act of killing Zod would be more akin to actually defeating the German and Japanese armies. You've killed millions of people, but in the end, it was justified. So it can be justified again.

Considering the sheer lives lost during the struggle with the axis power during war times, civilian and these lesser beings known as "non civilians".
To argue that the bomb dropping which in fact not only ended the war but ended the war perhaps months before japan was in a position to employ their own fission bomb and with far more prejudice given all the crimes of war and morality they had been committing up to said point....

I think that would be an open debate.

I'm sure either way president Truman was affected enough to at least look at the situation differently in had he been faced with world war three. And that's the point. Obviously he would drop the bomb again if he had no other choice, but how much harder would he struggle in the events leading up to that moment? Perhaps he would then fight as hard as superman is famed to.