It's still pretty disingenuous.
Well...yeah. It was sarcasm.
Well, no. Because people don't think that the film failed in not presenting it simply because it could have been done. They think it failed in not presenting it because it should have been done, and would have been superior to what we got.
I think you know what I meant by that. Not presenting it is considered a "flaw" because it could have been done and it would have improved the film.
And I recognize that.
But that argument is a bit of a slippery slope, honestly. I'm hard pressed to think of ANY film where something couldn't have been added to almost any element of it that would have been superior to what was in the film. I wouldn't consider all those films highly flawed, though.
Well, first of all, give the characters actual emotional responses to all of the destruction happening around them.
Well, near as I can tell, based on what we're shown, Hardy, Perry, Steve, Jenny and Lois did exhibit emotional responses to what was going on. So did Zod. Superman certainly seemed to as well.
It's obvious that people are dying by the thousands because when that many buildings are completely destroyed over the course of half an hour in a major American city then there's no way people don't die by the thousands. Just one of those buildings is likely to have well over 1,000 people inside when it collapses.
That's all well and good. And yet, if you watch the movie closely, it looks like many of the buildings are empty. At least the ones Superman gets tossed through. There's certainly no way to know for certain based on what we're shown. And again, I think it's a moot point, because the number of deaths involved isn't really the point. Superman kills Zod to save a few people at the end of the battle.
But if a film doesn't pay some measure of reverence to loss of life on that grand of a scale then it feels very cynical and very emotionally cold and disinterested. And if it doesn't seem to matter to the movie that all of those people are in peril, if that loss doesn't actually carry some kind of meaning, then the audience is much less inclined to care about how things turn out.
You've lost me here. I can think for myself, and don't need a movie to tell me how to feel about destruction and people being in danger, and what it all means.
It's false, hollow, cynical, and disrespectful because it trivializes that loss of life.
No it doesn't trivialize the loss of life. It doesn't make any attempt to make the destruction and likely deaths seem less important. In fact, it doesn't address it at all. Because that is not the movie's focus.
That entire sequence treats death on a massive scale as nothing more than a set piece It doesn't engage the emotional reality or the human tragedy of what's happening, focusing much more on the spectacle of the action going on, and as soon as that sequence is over it's completely forgotten.
You're really hung up on this "completely forgotten" thing. It's not forgotten any more than anything that happens in the film is "completely forgotten". The sequences are still in the film. Their meaning remains.
As much as the stakes of that whole sequence hinge on the safety of innocent people, the movie never actually takes the time to engage the tragedy of their loss and what it means to the hero.
The stakes of the later sequences actually hinge on Superman's safety. The safety of innocent people is, structurally, a secondary concept within those sequences.
Your argument is that the movie should take the time to show more. Mine is that I don't think the movie has to. The situation, the stakes, are obvious.
And again, while the movie could have taken the time to explore certain aspects during the battle, or at the end of MAN OF STEEL, it is not obligated to do so.
Except that was in direct response to having to kill Zod and it only lasted a few seconds and it's completely dropped in the next scene.
No, it was directly FOLLOWING Superman having to kill Zod. There's nothing in the film to suggest that he couldn't have been mourning all that happened, not just what he had to do regarding Zod.
This "completely dropped" thing just doesn't make sense. Eventually the film has to move on.
There's a difference between "moving on" and "acting like it never happened."
Yes there is. I'm starting to question whether you recognize the difference.
The scenes at the Daily Planet acted like the likely deaths of 100,000 people never happened.
No they didn't. Where does a character in that sequence act like the deaths of a lot of people never happened?
An intelligent film viewer still realizes that they did happen. So what's the issue, exactly?
It's not dwelling to acknowledge the fact that that's sad and that is in some way meaningful.
Actually, by the definition of dwelling, it would be. Because the film would be pondering or lingering on the concept in some fashion.
Don't you think that his place in the world and the impact his battle with Zod had on Metropolis would be deeply intertwined?
Yes, but dealing with that fallout of all that is a whole separate storyline.
And really, wouldn't all of that death and destruction effect him?
Again, I'm not so sure this movie doesn't show that it did.
If the movie is about him, shouldn't we see how he's been changed, how he's been effected emotionally by the events of the climax?
In what sense does he need to change?
What did he do wrong in the first place?
How does he need to change as a character as a result of the events?
And why is what the movie shows us about his decisions not changing enough?
I mean, yes he screams after he kills Zod, but in the very next scene and all of the remaining scenes in the film he acts like he's completely unaffected by what he had to do and the horror and destruction he witnessed.
No, he's just not still/constantly dwelling on it. It's obvious that he WAS affected by what he had to do. But then, like many of us do, he moved on with his life at some point.
It's pretty sloppy storytelling if you're telling a character study and fail to show how someone is effected by the single most traumatizing and significant moment in his life.
I seriously doubt that thisw as the single most traumatizing and significant moment in his life. I'm thinking that was probably the loss of Jonathan.
And they did show how he was affected by it. We haven't seen how it will affect him in his next adventure, or over the course of his career, or what changes it will cause in him as a person, because that hasn't happened yet.
No it's not. Showing would involve actually showing the real human, emotional impact these events had on the characters, including and especially Superman. Instead we see buildings fall down but we don't ever see the impact it has on anyone.
"Showing" involves "showing".
I'm not sure if you're referring to the literary version of "show, don't tell", which refers to shading details included in the text, or the film version of "Show, don't tell"
I'm referring to the film one, which involves the concept of visually showing something or showing the character experiencing something, VS telling us how they are feeling, or how others are feeling, etc.
I'm not asking for it to be the focus of the film. I'm asking that the film actually have significant events like that matter. When everything is dropped and forgotten in the next scene it feels like none of what preceded it mattered.
I guess if you yourself forget that it happened, and if you need to be told that it mattered for it to matter to you...
I don't get that. It seems like you want to be told how to feel at every step of the way.
And you don't see the emotional disconnect between what Superman goes through and how he reacts to it?
No. I don't. Because I see a Superman who is on his knees crying and grieving.
I don't see him talk about how he feels about what happened, but I also don't need him to, because I am capable of rational thought. I would imagine Superman regrets the incident, based on his reaction. Superman on his knees crying about what has happened would seem to back that up.
You don't think it's weird that Superman isn't left, on some level, haunted by the battle in Metropolis?
I'm sure he would be. And that would be something we would see moving forward in his story. In the next film.
The power of these two gods clashing doesn't mean anything if there aren't any stakes.
Except that there are stakes. The stakes are fairly obvious.
The damage they cause is meaningless unless we address the consequences of it.
The consequences of the damage are also fairly obvious. There's a lot of damage. People likely died.
The damage the cause and the deaths that result aren't two unrelated concepts, they're deeply intertwined. Without the human cost the damage caused doesn't matter.
You're suggesting that if you don't see the human cost explored, the idea that there was likely human cost somehow doesn't matter, unless the film outright states this. I don't agree.
I've been talking about the emotions of the main characters this entire time. The main characters should still be effected and changed emotionally by what's going on during the end battle.
Kind of seems like they are, at least affected emotionally.
Putting true emotional stakes throughout an action sequence doesn't muddy the focus, it gives the action meaning beyond simply being spectacle for spectacle's sake.
Depends on the structuring of the action sequence and what the emotional stakes look like. In the sequence as it exists, stopping to show the kinds of sequences you're referring to would affect the pacing and the believeability and intensity and urgency of what we're watching.
How is the destruction of the battle not apart of that impact?
I never said it wasn't.
Again, that stuff isn't what I've been talking about when I say the movie didn't address the loss of life.
Then what are you talking about?
If you aren't referring to the people of Metropolis dealing with what's happening to them, or the loss of life, or their feelings about what Superman has done, what are you talking about?
It can, but we're talking about two different things. You're talking about plot developments as a result of the destruction in Metropolis. I'm talking about addressing the emotionnal implications of it. There's a world of difference.
There's a world of difference between those two specific concepts, but I don't think the two concepts within the context of the franchise, or Superman's story, are necessarily mutually exclusive. If you're dealing with the reaction to the destruction, you would be dealing with the emotional implications, wouldn't you?
A big no on all counts.
A montage isn't just showing an image and expecting the audience to feel a certain way, it still explores genuine human feelings and important themes in a meaningful way. There's a world of difference between showing a building collapse and showing a montage of different kinds of reactions people have to the catastrophe that was just averted.
No on all counts? So THE AVENGERS
didn't rush through showing the various reactions to the event? That montage is like a minute long.
And I'm pretty sure that that montage was, in fact, expected to cause the audience to feel a certain way. Look at what they're showing, and the statements made within it. Not a lot of subtlety there.
And nevermind that, while there's some show, the actual information revealed is almost all "tell". It's a bunch of sound bytes and news headlines.
You keep telling me that there's a world of difference between obvious concepts. I'm aware there's a difference between visuals of buildings falling over and a montage of people's reactions. I'm not sure why you'd think I wouldn't be. I'm not advocating that one is better than the other, or making a value judgment between the two. I'm simply pointing out my opinion.
Also the montage wasn't the only thing that The Avengers did to address the destruction and loss and the human tragedy in the final battle. They also showed the reactions and fear of civilians and local emergency services, they showed the heroes actively rescuing civilians and formulating an evacuation strategy, they flat out stated that minimizing loss of civilian life was a part of the battle strategy, and they showed the main characters having emotional reactions to what was going on. Remember that shot of Captain America, where we see him tired and weary and horrified by the destruction happening all around him and the likelihood that The Avengers might lose where he looks at the civilians he just rescued from inside the bank? We never got a shot of Superman giving a look like that. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about.
This is true. THE AVENGERS did do that. It was nice to see.
It would have been nice to see something like that in MAN OF STEEL. However, it also would have been somewhat redundant, and would have shown us what we can already see, that there's a lot of destruction going on, and that people are probably in danger. So I don't consider it necessary.
I think it's somewhat obvious why we didn't see Superman standing around taking in the devastation-once it starts, the fight between Superman and Zod is depicted as constant, no holds barred combat, where Superman pretty much has no time to catch his breath, let alone standing around looking at destruction. Nevermind that he's generally knocked into a new AREA with each step of the battle. He's not even in the area where destruction is happening, there's kind of a chain of new destruction going on.
I still don't see how not including something like that, as nice as it would have been, is somehow an inherent flaw in the storytelling.
Clark was horrified well before any mass-murdering happened. I don't need to see him acting horrified or sad. He knows what the consequences will be if he doesn't stop Zod, and instead of moping about it, or wasting time on being sad, he's proactive, and does his best to try to stop it. 
