Jor-El: You came from Krypton, a world with a much harsher environment than Earths. Long ago, in an era of expansion, our race spread out through the stars, seeking new worlds to settle upon. This scout ship was one of thousands launched into the void. We built outposts on other planets, using great machines to reshape environments to our needs. For 100 thousand years our civilization flourished, accomplishing wonders.
Clark Kent: What happened?
Jor-El: Artificial population control was established. The outposts and space exploration were abandoned. We exhausted our natural resources. As a result, our planets core became unstable. Eventually, our military leader, General Zod, attempted a coup, but by then it was too late. Your mother and I foresaw the coming calamity and we took certain steps to ensure your survival. This is a genesis chamber. All Kryptonians were conceived in chambers such as this. Every child was designed to perform a predetermined role in our society as a worker, a warrior, a leader, and so on. Your mother and I believed Krypton lost something precious, the element of choice, of chance. What if a child dreamed of becoming something other than what society had intended? What if a child aspired to something greater? You were the embodiment of that belief Kal. Kryptons first natural birth in centuries. Thats why we risked so much to save you
OMG. WHY. SO UNNECESSARY.
How else are we supposed to learn about it? I thought it was interesting to hear about Krypton's history.
Even taking out Zod mano a mano, without so much as breaking a sweat, goes against what the movie has already told us. Say one thing, do another. There is no information provided (shown nor told) to account for Jor-el a born scientist, besting Zod, a born and conditioned warrior in a physical confrontation. Jor-el won because the story called for it. Goyer (or Snyder?) wanted to keep the audiences interest with some action (look how badass Jor-el is!), whether it made sense within the narrative or not. He did the same thing in Watchmen with normal, out of shape human protagonists performing at superhuman levels, strictly for the visual feast it provides. Sloppy creative choice.
I didn't think there was anything easy about Jor-El's battle with Zod. He was desperate to save his child, and he managed to briefly over-whelm his enemy. Big deal.
Some of my army buddies have had pals murdered once they've gotten back home. Trained soldiers being taken out by regular citizens. It can happen. It sucks, but it happens.
Goyer goes for the traditional heroes journey but fails most prominently by giving us a weak, personality-less protagonist. Clark Kent, in MOS, is a reluctant protagonist, which while not a bad thing in and of itself (action/adventure/fantasy films are full of RP's), it becomes boring and dramatically weak when the narrative isn't being guided by the protagonist's choices- A strong, active character will make choices, but we don't see that here. In MOS, Clark's hand is consistently forced, and it makes for weak drama (particularly in a movie like this).
You saying this does not make it so. I liked this Clark. I thought he was an interesting change from the usual Superman, who is at times enormously arrogant and obnoxious. So far, I like MOS Superman's personality the best.
Clark is sent to earth, he's told by his father to avoid using his powers, then Jor-el tells him he must use his powers, then Zod shows up and Clark has no choice but to turn himself in. At no point is Clark truly guiding the narrative through his own choices.
Sometimes Clark listens to people. Other times he doesn't. He thinks about his choices, and he decides what his course of action should be. And in the end, he doesn't do what everyone wants him to do.
He's not a tool for the US government, he's not going to be a leader, but he's not going to be anonymous and in total hiding anymore either. I don't see how this is a bad thing.
Marvin,
You are the kind of guy who prefers blade trinity to mozart's requiem and who considers MoS to have a great script, so yes your opinion is worth less than mark waid. The odds of you being right and him wrong are not zero, but close to it. Either way you should catefully ponder what he has to say rather than casually and arrogantly dismiss it.
As a professional once told me, learning is painful. Keep reading what experts until you understand their point.
Mark Waid had a successful comic book run. That does not grant him the title of "expert". It means he's a guy who wrote a good comic book.
The conceptualization of Krypton is a total failure in this movie. The lack of political stagnation in the movie, but overall it is clear that tgey did not hire competent consultants. The most crude error is that thry told us it is a higher gravity planet, and showed us a planet with comparable or lower gravity to earth.
I also dont get why Krypton's sun was yellow. Another example of showing ome thing and telling another.
What are you talking about? They talk about political stagnation in the film, and they show it by the council seeming to be reluctant to even listen to Jor-El. As for the gravity, how would they show us that Krypton has different gravity from our own? The Kryptonians move easily in their world because they live there.
And red suns can be yellow. I know that's confusing, but hey, that's how it is. It's more of a classification on the stage of a star, rather than the actual color.
When a story constantly tells you that one character was born to do science and one character was born to fight and the scientist one takes down the warrior one, with no outside context, it's going to leave people scratching their heads. Sure, there's the plausibility that it can happen, but then why tell us over and over again that your society is "bred" for this or that? Not only sloppy, but extraneous.
Bred for does not mean someone can't learn some other skills. Ok? It's not a difficult concept to grasp.
To save an oil rig, surely not to be Superman. He is still refusing the call to action (being Superman).
So you're saying he's making choices now? I thought he just did what everyone tells him to do.
Yes, Zod is guiding the narrative at this point. Clark is simply reacting. He is not making choices that steer the narrative.
Well, Superman could join Zod. He could just try to remain hidden. He could turn himself over to Zod. Or he could turn himself into humanity. His actions ultimately give the movie the direction it needs.
Funny that you don't see how these are all so clearly narrative contrivances. You actually think that this is legitimately effective storytelling? I'd be really interested to see what your scripts look like.
Everything is a narrative contrivance. If he had done something outrageous, like side with Zod even briefly, we'd be having this same conversation.
And since you seem so certain as to what is good, why don't you give us a sampling of your own ideas?
Say one thing:
Show another:
This one actually bothered me as I was watching the movie. If they're going to have the script tell us that part of Superman's powers are due to the Sun, then Krypton should be orbiting a different kind of star. A red sun makes sense, since red means lower peak energy than yellow. Regardless, Krypton's Sun looks indistinguishable from Earth's sun, other than that it's a little bigger. I'm not sure why they changed the mythology just to make it inferior.
It's important to both show and tell. If you tell us Krypton has a different kind of star, then don't show it as orbiting a solar twin.
ETA: the age of the star doesn't really matter here, and in the cases it does matter it just contradicts the movie's narrative. I'm not sure why they mentioned that Earth's sun is younger, it's just stupid to just make up irrelevant fake depth.
You're right, Krypton's sun isn't red in the movie, it's a solar twin.
Actually, the young sun is not a contrivance of the film, it's a contrivance of the comic books. Take it up with the source material if you have a problem with the red sun versus the yellow sun.
