BvS David S. Goyer IS the Script Writer!

[Marvin]

I'll omit parts of the discussion where the fruitful answer is just "we'll agree to disagree" since we're just going in circles.

Good idea.

The comparison to swatting a fly and fighting a bull doesn't have any merit either. But you can go tell people that you've been in a fight when you've swatted a fly if you want.

I won't be calling anyone wrong if they ever tell me they did. Ergo my point. Telling people they are wrong, calling things plot holes when it's not a provable fact, just your take away etc.

I'm not saying a child isn't a big motivator, I'm saying that the survival of your people is as well. I don't see any of them failing to reach their potential due to lack of motivation.

I just think jor was extremely motivated as a basic movie trope. Not saying Zod wasn't, but if it comes down to it, would seem they are both equal and one has that extra push. This would be made more clear if one of Zod's men had the boy in grip with a knife at his neck. Sure that didn't happen but I'd hope it'd illustrate my point.

Since you keep bringing it up I guess you do. You keep mentioning it despite that I flat out said I remembered wrong, which is a pretty low thing to do, but I'm not surprised.

Ten pages of responding to that phrasing only to be called an apologist for ignoring "facts" that were thrown in my face over and over, not just by you in fact, you probably didn't mention this exact phrase as much as the other guy. Only to be then told that phrase was completely overstated.... I wanted to make a point about how the facts are presented here. Sorry if I offended you. I'll move on.

Saying that something is the most important doesn't mean that it's the only thing that's important. That's why you put a Flyweight UFC fighter vs a Heavyweight he won't win, because the gap in other areas is much larger than in skill and therefor become the deciding factor. Even if you don't take this from me you'll hear it from plenty of fighters if you listen to interviews etc.

If you have two people that have practiced to the same general skill level the better athlete will win. I was talking about the genetic modification since that would make someone fitting to their job in a way that exceeds all normal human potential. Even if Zod hadn't gotten to train more than Jor it seems like the genetic modification is a huge failure if it didn't help him there.

It's like I said 4 pages back, "skill being the most important factor implies a certain level of 'all things being equal' when in fact the real deciding factor is basically advantage and resource" Looks like we can finally put that to bed. If you are implying that zods genetics aren't all that greater than jor's than I would agree, if you are then stating that's a weakness of the film...
we'll just have to disagree.

As Jor-El was the leading scientist on Krypton I find it highly unlikely that he'd have time to train as much as someone that is living as a soldier.

But you don't deny it's possible. These stories aren't about what's likely but what's possible. Like you said, genetic manipulation allows for all sort of things. Moreover, you really have no idea how much time jor has had to train. At this point, seems it's more about what you find more likely and not what's simply wrong or poorly done. Unless of course you mean to imply that the best story decisions depend on "likelihood"

To answer your question, Jor tells Kal that every child was bred to fulfill one role in society and that there was no element of choice. And from an efficiency stand point making people perfect for one role is great. A scientist shouldn't have an athlete's body since that requires too much energy, etc. That kind of society doesn't seem very pleasant, but that's one of the main points of the movie. Krypton has lost much by doing this and it's ultimately led their civilization to fail.

My point was that of, the ideal would be a population of individuals bred physically for any such role thus ensuring an dynamic option is always presented. No harm in a strong scientist if all things are being kept equal, it just means your society is stronger for it. This also does not interfere with Jor's critique of Krypton, kids are still born with little odds of chance in their destiny. Not suggesting that's what was in the movie on whole but it would make sense imo.

Hard to say how much the clothes do on these actors but that guy looks pretty fit. Probably in better overall shape than Russel, who seems to carry a bit of fat.

Looking at basic medieval body types I'd personally say jor looks the far stronger knight and this other man the council type. I was looking at it from a worlds strongest man competition physique and not a body fat percentage one. I suppose it's subjective.

You seem to disagree with me when I think the movie is unclear and/or contradictory on many points. It seems like you should be able to explain very clearly to me why he couldn't go.

Your image didn't work by the way.

...No, you did. You've been the one saying that the genetic modification isn't locking people into being certain things, which then means that they can't aspire to something else due to cultural pressure. Those the only two alternatives, unless Jor-El is just lying to his son.

The issue was on why jor didn't join his son, right?
I said it was because he's technically a product of bad science, and just that. Whatever I've said about his ability to break those designs doesn't change the undeniable constant that he's a product of it and thus being so, he believes he needs to be wiped out so as to make way for a true fresh start. An idealist with conviction.
It is you that suggested that I must have thought it was because of cultural flaws and habits and such(north korean survivor) I said no such thing however, that's all your stuff.

The image was from the movie Gattaca(specifically of a mother giving birth to a natural child in a test tube baby society) and the question was of if you had seen it.

 

[ArmsHeldOut]

As Jor-El was the leading scientist on Krypton I find it highly unlikely that he'd have time to train as much as someone that is living as a soldier.

Much of their prowess is based on genetics though (think Captain America and the super-soldier serum). As you know, Kryptonians didn't acquire whatever roles were given to them the old-fashioned way; they were basically born and bred to be child prodigies --the very best at what they do. So, if Jor-El was designed to be of a superior class (above the likes of Zod and his soldiers), such an endeavor might actually be feasible.

To answer your question, Jor tells Kal that every child was bred to fulfill one role in society and that there was no element of choice. And from an efficiency stand point making people perfect for one role is great. A scientist shouldn't have an athlete's body since that requires too much energy, etc. That kind of society doesn't seem very pleasant, but that's one of the main points of the movie. Krypton has lost much by doing this and it's ultimately led their civilization to fail.

When you say "a scientist shouldn't have an athlete's body", you're thinking about human beings -- not Kryptonians. Although Kryptonians strongly resemble the people of Earth, their physiology, is, in fact, quite different. We honestly don't know what this race is capable of and how exactly they differ from us.

 

[DA_Champion]

As I said somewhere in my long posts there is an inherent and necessary contradiction in the Krypton part that really makes it hard to write. Krypton is supposed to be locked down in it's ways so people don't really have free will, as Kal-El puts it when he states why Krypton failed. Still you need someone like Jor-El to go against this so you can get Kal-El, but by having someone go against it you automatically show that Krypton isn't that locked down. If he and Lara can change, so could theoretically everyone (although not before the planet is destroyed).

I'm not really sure how to depict this. I'd probably show Krypton as very efficient but lack real spirit. Everyone are beyond extraordinary in what they do, but they don't have the "human spirit" which is so often brought up to explain why Earth is special in sci fi. The biggest reason why they differ from Earth is why they failed in the end.

Why Jor-El can break the thinking will have to be left to that he's a scientist and not locked into doing the same things but breaking boundaries. I wouldn't have him make the decision that he shouldn't leave (I don't see any reason why) so I'd instead have the only way to get Kal-El away to use a small ship, only big enough for him, which can sneak by detection from Krypton's planetary defenses. Jor-El and Lara can't get away, but they have a shot of sending their son away. As Kal-El is natural born, he isn't forced to be one single thing. He can do what he wants with his life if he gets to Earth.

This is just off the top of my head. Certainly not ideas ready to be formed into a script, but I think the overall logic and themes work better like this.

The complexity is such that it might have been better to show virtually nothing of Krypton, and to instead have the movie start with Jonathan and Martha finding a spaceship in a field. But let's leave that aside and try to deconstruct Goyer's vision.

I think that the approach Goyer had to Krypton was to try and construct a story that had the following parameters:
1) Show that Krypton is doomed, and explain why only Kal-El is sent away;
Grade: B

The script tells us these things, but the world building is internally contradictory. There's no reason for Jor-El and Lara not to leave Krypton.

2) Krypton is a sterile society, in this case due to a lack of choice as per a planetary policy of genetic and environmental determinism;
Grade: F

We have spent the past few pages exploring the fact that Jor-El being a bad ass contradicts the script's depiction of Krypton, so I won't mention that further as we have covered all the bases. Another failure, not stated in recent pages, is that Zod initiating a civil war is also an unexplained contradiction. Though civil wars appear destructive, they also require dynamism to initiate, they take a lot of spare resources and political support, and it requires an impressive degree of political theory and understand to realise the current system is broken, and to construct an alternative vision sufficiently viable that you can amass enough support to initiate hostilities and apparently take over large swaths of territory. This leaves aside the fact that Zod would presumably be indoctrinated to be a loyal soldier, and not be a revolutionary.

Krypton is supposed to be a sterile society, but the two Kryptonians we get to know best (Jor-El and Zod) are incredibly dynamic characters.

3) Jor-El had to be a bad-ass;
Grade: A

I think this goal is stupid because it contradicts goal #2, and because the story ends up in a weird situation where Earth would be better off having gotten Jor-El than Kal-El.

However, this was clearly a goal of Goyer, and he achieved it. Jor-El is a great political theorist, can harbor iconoclastic thoughts in spite of being a man of tremendous privilege, is a brilliant scientist and engineer, is the most eloquent character in the movie, is an incredible athlete, and can easily dispatch a genetically and environmentally perfected soldier even though combat training would have never been a primary priority in his life. He may be the greatest badass not just in Man of Steel, but in the entire genre of comic book movies.

4) Zod had to be an evil criminal and genuine threat;
Grade: C

On the one hand, the script tells us that Zod amassed political support and did take over large swaths of Krypton. On the other hand, the movie shows us Zod losing at his civil war, and being beaten up by Jor-El.

Further, the fact Zod fights a civil war against the Kryptonian ruling council makes him look like... a really great and noble figure. I'm not sure if Goyer wanted a non-villain villain.

5) Anything else?

 

[Mjölnir]

I just think jor was extremely motivated as a basic movie trope. Not saying Zod wasn't, but if it comes down to it, would seem they are both equal and one has that extra push. This would be made more clear if one of Zod's men had the boy in grip with a knife at his neck. Sure that didn't happen but I'd hope it'd illustrate my point.

That could be one way of viewing what goes down, but I just don't think that writing gives enough weight to the extraordinary elements of Krypton, nor takes the chance to build up the villain. That's my issue with it, that the writing doesn't make anything stand out well to me.

This is likely another disagreeing point that just won't get any further.

Ten pages of responding to that phrasing only to be called an apologist for ignoring "facts" that were thrown in my face over and over, not just by you in fact, you probably didn't mention this exact phrase as much as the other guy. Only to be then told that phrase was completely overstated.... I wanted to make a point about how the facts are presented here. Sorry if I offended you. I'll move on.

I'm not offended, it's just a discussion. I just found it unnecessary, but it's played out.

It's like I said 4 pages back, "skill being the most important factor implies a certain level of 'all things being equal' when in fact the real deciding factor is basically advantage and resource" Looks like we can finally put that to bed. If you are implying that zods genetics aren't all that greater than jor's than I would agree, if you are then stating that's a weakness of the film...
we'll just have to disagree.

I still maintain skill is the most important part. If you take two characters that are exactly the same in all aspects, and then increase one aspect of one character by 10%, I'd argue that you'd get the biggest result by increasing his skill over the other character. This isn't an issue that should really be put in numerical context, but I made it for the simplicity in communicating that way.

What I'm saying is that Zod doesn't seem to have gotten any better genetics than Jor, yes. Of course it's not only him, the two soldiers that get shot seem pretty unready for a threat. I just expected to be shown a much more effective force, given what I'm told.

It kind of becomes like A New Hope, where the heroes come upon the destroyed Jawa Sandcrawler and Obi-Wan says "only Imperial stormtroopers are this precise", which is one of the funniest comments in the movie as the stormtroopers are everything but precise. I don't think that movie takes itself as seriously and goes for as much realism as MoS does though.

But you don't deny it's possible. These stories aren't about what's likely but what's possible. Like you said, genetic manipulation allows for all sort of things. Moreover, you really have no idea how much time jor has had to train. At this point, seems it's more about what you find more likely and not what's simply wrong or poorly done. Unless of course you mean to imply that the best story decisions depend on "likelihood"

My argument isn't about what's possible, it's about stating and showing the same things and being clear about it so the themes really get substance. I can read all sort of things into it if I'm not too bothered about it making a lot of sense.

My point was that of, the ideal would be a population of individuals bred physically for any such role thus ensuring an dynamic option is always presented. No harm in a strong scientist if all things are being kept equal, it just means your society is stronger for it. This also does not interfere with Jor's critique of Krypton, kids are still born with little odds of chance in their destiny. Not suggesting that's what was in the movie on whole but it would make sense imo.

It would actually be a bit more effective with a scientist that doesn't have a lot of muscle mass as that requires a lot of energy, which isn't going to the person's primary use. Regardless of how efficient they may or may not be I'm guessing that this is a level of detail that Goyer didn't really think about.

And again, it's mainly not so much about what's possible but making the differences between humans and Kryptonians really stand out. To make them be a huge deal. The movie has a short time to make it pop so it should fire on all cylinders imo.

I think one reason we get stuck in circles is that we get stuck on details instead of just judging the effectiveness of the writing, which is more in line with the topic.

Looking at basic medieval body types I'd personally say jor looks the far stronger knight and this other man the council type. I was looking at it from a worlds strongest man competition physique and not a body fat percentage one. I suppose it's subjective.

Yes, Jor looks stronger. I think the other guy looks to have pretty good muscle definition though, which takes quite a bit of work to achieve. Not really a big deal though, and I doubt Russel Crowe was hired with much consideration to his body type and how it would fit into a Kryptonian society.

The issue was on why jor didn't join his son, right?
I said it was because he's technically a product of bad science, and just that. Whatever I've said about his ability to break those designs doesn't change the undeniable constant that he's a product of it and thus being so, he believes he needs to be wiped out so as to make way for a true fresh start. An idealist with conviction.
It is you that suggested that I must have thought it was because of cultural flaws and habits and such(north korean survivor) I said no such thing however, that's all your stuff.

The image was from the movie Gattaca(specifically of a mother giving birth to a natural child in a test tube baby society) and the question was of if you had seen it.

I guess this is just another case where we just disagree, since I think that's a very vague motivation for something so important. I don't see why him being a product of Krypton didn't prevent him from doing what he did in the first place, and I think that it seems a lot simpler to take to new ideals in a different place than to do it when you're living in the society you supposedly are too much a product of.

In short I think it looks like he truly has all kinds of free will, while he seems to say that Kryptonians don't.

I thought the picture would be something specific I was supposed to comment on. I've seen Gattaca but it was a really long time ago and I don't really remember enough details to discuss it.

 

[Mjölnir]

Much of their prowess is based on genetics though (think Captain America and the super-soldier serum). As you know, Kryptonians didn't acquire whatever roles were given to them the old-fashioned way; they were basically born and bred to be child prodigies --the very best at what they do. So, if Jor-El was designed to be of a superior class (above the likes of Zod and his soldiers), such an endeavor might actually be feasible.

Captain America is actually somewhat in line what I'd expect of Kryptonian soldiers, as he's a human altered to be a perfect soldier (although I'd expect dna manipulation to also affect the mind and behavior).

Doesn't Zod say that as he is to the military, Jor-El was to science?

When you say "a scientist shouldn't have an athlete's body", you're thinking about human beings -- not Kryptonians. Although Kryptonians strongly resemble the people of Earth, their physiology, is, in fact, quite different. We honestly don't know what this race is capable of and how exactly they differ from us.

That's true. The way they work it's easy to assume that they work much like humans, but the whole skin cell thing pretty much throws that out of the window. The point I made is a too small of a detail to really be relevant in this script as well, I reckon.

 

[Mjölnir]

The complexity is such that it might have been better to show virtually nothing of Krypton, and to instead have the movie start with Jonathan and Martha finding a spaceship in a field. But let's leave that aside and try to deconstruct Goyer's vision.

I think that the approach Goyer had to Krypton was to try and construct a story that had the following parameters:
1) Show that Krypton is doomed, and explain why only Kal-El is sent away;
Grade: B

The script tells us these things, but the world building is internally contradictory. There's no reason for Jor-El and Lara not to leave Krypton.

2) Krypton is a sterile society, in this case due to a lack of choice as per a planetary policy of genetic and environmental determinism;
Grade: F

We have spent the past few pages exploring the fact that Jor-El being a bad ass contradicts the script's depiction of Krypton, so I won't mention that further as we have covered all the bases. Another failure, not stated in recent pages, is that Zod initiating a civil war is also an unexplained contradiction. Though civil wars appear destructive, they also require dynamism to initiate, they take a lot of spare resources and political support, and it requires an impressive degree of political theory and understand to realise the current system is broken, and to construct an alternative vision sufficiently viable that you can amass enough support to initiate hostilities and apparently take over large swaths of territory. This leaves aside the fact that Zod would presumably be indoctrinated to be a loyal soldier, and not be a revolutionary.

Krypton is supposed to be a sterile society, but the two Kryptonians we get to know best (Jor-El and Zod) are incredibly dynamic characters.

3) Jor-El had to be a bad-ass;
Grade: A

I think this goal is stupid because it contradicts goal #2, and because the story ends up in a weird situation where Earth would be better off having gotten Jor-El than Kal-El.

However, this was clearly a goal of Goyer, and he achieved it. Jor-El is a great political theorist, can harbor iconoclastic thoughts in spite of being a man of tremendous privilege, is a brilliant scientist and engineer, is the most eloquent character in the movie, is an incredible athlete, and can easily dispatch a genetically and environmentally perfected soldier even though combat training would have never been a primary priority in his life. He may be the greatest badass not just in Man of Steel, but in the entire genre of comic book movies.

4) Zod had to be an evil criminal and genuine threat;
Grade: C

On the one hand, the script tells us that Zod amassed political support and did take over large swaths of Krypton. On the other hand, the movie shows us Zod losing at his civil war, and being beaten up by Jor-El.

Further, the fact Zod fights a civil war against the Kryptonian ruling council makes him look like... a really great and noble figure. I'm not sure if Goyer wanted a non-villain villain.

5) Anything else?

Yes, I would also have preferred a more normal origin due to these difficulties but that's a moot point.

Your breakdown is very good and it matches my own view to such an extent that I'm having trouble to really add much to it. In my view it gets the worst grade on the most central point and the best grade on the idea that I don't think added much good to the movie.

I think the biggest problem with the things that aren't directly contradictory but just vague is that this is the part of the movie that should really set everything up. All important points should have been completely clear so you have a foundation to put everything else on.

I don't think there's any other theme there to judge. My only other possible criticisms would be with some of the design on Krypton, but that has nothing to do with the script.

 

[Matt.S99]

I don't know if it's true or not, but Justin Freakin Bieber has a pic up on his Instagram with a script...

 

[Marvin]

...Another failure, not stated in recent pages, is that Zod initiating a civil war is also an unexplained contradiction.... This leaves aside the fact that Zod would presumably be indoctrinated to be a loyal soldier, and not be a revolutionary.

Actually ignoring that zod very clearly was acting in what he saw to be Krypton's best interests with a coup. I'm curious if you truly believe the people of krypton are said to be like computer programs, incapable of descent and such things?

Further, the fact Zod fights a civil war against the Kryptonian ruling council makes him look like... a really great and noble figure. I'm not sure if Goyer wanted a non-villain villain.

You really mean to say that you don't endorse giving the main antagonist to a film a motivation that goes beyond "villainy". Or in fact a motivation that could be seen as noble? Righteous? And or relatable even?

If so I suppose we were destined to not agree on story premise.

 

[ArmsHeldOut]

Doesn't Zod say that as he is to the military, Jor-El was to science?

I don't recall him saying that, but, to be honest, it's been a little while since I last saw the film. I need to watch it again.

 

[DA_Champion]

Actually ignoring that zod very clearly was acting in what he saw to be Krypton's best interests with a coup. ...

You really mean to say that you don't endorse giving the main antagonist to a film a motivation that goes beyond "villainy". Or in fact a motivation that could be seen as noble? Righteous? And or relatable even?

If so I suppose we were destined to not agree on story premise.

Quit with the dumb counter-arguments that lead nowehere. Mjölnir, myself, and others have already firmly established a lot of these points, we're trying to see if there's a way things could have been done coherently without jettisoning half or more of the concepts. Some of us wish to discuss the writing, and not your ability to come with plotlines external to the script that add coherence to the script.

I'm curious if you truly believe the people of krypton are said to be like computer programs, incapable of descent and such things?

Truly believe?

You speak like we're dissecting a real and rigorous parallel universe. We're not.

Kryptonians are fictional people and the representation we see is completely made up by David S. Goyer, modulo some copy and paste from other versions. They're not real. This is what David S. Goyer tells us via the character Jor-El, who is the most intelligent and astute character in the movie:

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. Krypton's first natural birth in centuries. That's why we risked so much to save you.

Kryptonians have no freedom to navigate beyond their programming.

 

[BlueLantern]

Marvin, if you feel my posts are laden with negativity, well bravo on finding the Captain Obvious super-soldier serum that's been hidden away in the darkest recesses of the internet. Here's the deal, unlike the kind of posters who liked the film and just shower it with praise whilst excusing the shortcomings, I'm not going to needlessly do the former. So the natural route is to be upset about the latter. However, as I mentioned, I'm more than happy to productively discuss solutions to the problems of the film and even muse on on potential solutions. But like I said, that requires a mutual understanding and acceptance of the problems. Not individuals writing off plot problems as 'tropes' (which is your newest trick you've pulled) or saying 'well they didn't say no in the script so it must be a yes!'.

As far as resorting to namecalling is concerned, like I said, you do it the passive aggressive way of trying to be funny in order to not avoid confrontational, I just cut to the chase. Do I really need to explain that again? Furthermore, as mentioned, it's come to this now because talking to you is worse than a dog chasing a car. At least the dog might catch up with the car. You're the driver who's so vindictive that you'll specifically spend your entire life savings to arrange for a freighter aircraft to lift you out of traffic and place you in a different part of the city just to spite the dog. Sounds outlandish? See David Goyer's plotting and the logical bounds they take or any of your arguments to support his writing style. As far as my attacks failing, well sir, I have people supporting these failings. I'd say my work's called in reinforcements or another person's work has called me in.

Which leads me onto my next point. The most voracious supporters of this film even have almost faded away either because they can't be arsed to argue or because even they're scratching their heads at the lengths you'll go to in order to defend the film. Furthermore, there's people now coming down on the film who previously liked it. Or hang on, people like me, who wanted to love the film so frickin' much that I watched it five or six times notepad in hand trying to figure out where the film went wrong. And wrong it did. From top to bottom. The only thing that had more green than red was the score and even that fell over in a few places.

The problems in this film have been dissected to death. I'm not going over them in detail too much anymore because I've said my bit and so many others have too. It might explain why I have so little patience with your ad hominem flogging of a dead horse. Move on, sir. Stop trying to have the last word in the defense of a film that's clearly riddled with plot bullets. To the point that even the Man of Steel's now being sent to a scrap yard for up for upgrading to a gold titanium alloy, in a potential attempt to have a better sequel. Or the alternative being they're introducing Batman. Whatever. Same thing. The issues DA Champion and Mjolnir have raised are very valid. The stuff in this film just doesn't add up.

Jor-El's the leading scientist, but the stuff he does points to the contrary. A scientist who just weeks before the planet explodes gets around to pleading with the Council. He doesn't even make a communication device/holographic projector for his wife. You and the other guy say 'he's a warrior, deal with it'. What the ****? Well **** it, if that's the attitude to take then why even have this conversation? Everyone should just deal with **** films and or problems in potentially good films and not worry. Settle down into a practice apathy or dystopian society where lavish praise is showered onto mediocrity, just to avert any potential conflict.

That wouldn't let us even go onto the weird motivations of Jonathan Kent, Clark Kent himself or how inept a seemingly advanced people like the Kryptonians in general are. A military leader who can't hold his own against a scientist. Furthermore, if he knew that Jor-El had secretly been learning to fight with Chuck Lidell's Kryptonian counterpart, you'd think he would've just taken Faora along for a can of whoopass instead of going one on one with the gret one. Oh, and a military coup shortly before the planet goes boom? **** that, you want to save your people? Just stockpile the ones you love and gtfo! It's not like the morons on the council would even move their skeletal buttocks from the council chambers.

God, the council. The wonderful council who supposedly understand and acknowledge Jor-El but yet just go around handing willy nilly life sentences in a prison who's power cable is socketed into Krypton but think '**** it, they're someone else's problem now!' The wonderful Council who are so mired by apathy that they literally sit around waiting to die? Why? God ****ing knows, because the plot demands it. KRYPTON'S SUPPOSED TO EXPLODE DAMMIT. Well, I'd rather a Council comprising of a dozen Marvins and ArmsHeldOut to explain such a criminal level of myopia. One goes 'well, Jor-El, here's why it won't explode. You see the core's going booboo but you can't see this amazing invisible device that will fix it all' whilst another goes 'deal with it'. Bah. But they had to be even more moronic, because the plot demanded it. And aren't all councils moronic? Look at the Jedi! Apart from the White Council, who could be given credit for partly affirmative action, apart from obviously not recruiting some Eagles and the dumb decision of giving a hobbit the task of bearing the ring, they're alright. Bah.

Marvin, you almost hit the nail on the head before by quietly admitting that the Zod/Jor-El confrontation was tropish. That's the two pronged problem with the film. It's full of tropes used and reused to the point of intolerance. Combined with the 'well that's how it needs to be' attitude to plotting, the film's an utter mess. It doesn't feel natural. It doesn't flow where things don't feel forced. I feel like I'm watching something written. That old cliché of characters flying off screen and into the audience's hearts and minds. Nope. Because it's so evidently a product. And that's that. I watched a product. Not a work of art or literature or cinema. A product. A bad one too. Refund, please. Sorry for the length. I had to tackle the plot holes in your posting style, because you know, I don't like it and then do the same for the film. Unlucky for me, I wanted to love the film. No such issues with dismissing your blinkered response to the film's criticisms, so the former was easier.

 

[DA_Champion]

God, the council. The wonderful council who supposedly understand and acknowledge Jor-El's but yet just go around handing willy nilly life sentences in a prison who's power cable is socketed into Krypton but think '**** it, they're someone else's problem now!' The wonderful Council who are so mired by apathy that they literally sit around waiting to die? Why? God ****ing knows, because the plot demands it. KRYPTON'S SUPPOSED TO EXPLODE DAMMIT. Well, I'd rather a Council comprising of a dozen Marvins and ArmsHeldOut to explain such a criminal level of myopia. One goes 'well, Jor-El, here's why it won't explode. You see the core's going booboo but you can't see this amazing invisible device that will fix it all' whilst another goes 'deal with it'. Bah. But they had to be even more moronic, because the plot demanded it. And aren't all councils moronic? Look at the Jedi! Apart from the White Council, who could be given credit for partly affirmative action, apart from obviously not recruiting some Eagles and the dumb decision of giving a hobbit the task of bearing the ring, they're alright. Bah.

I had somehow not noticed the similarity between the Jedi council of the prequels and the Kryptonian ruling council. I'm laughing, I'm sad, I'm frustrated, I'm still laughing, and I kind of want to cry ...

It's not that hard. We have some real-world templates of ruling elites sitting on their asses as their empires crumbled, so there is in fact no need for "original thinking". You can study western political responses to the global warming issue in the past twenty years and copy/paste that. You can look at Soviet leadership in the 1970s and 1980s and copy/paste that. Decaying empires are usually undermined by an excessively comfortable elite (not hinted), corruption (not hinted), and outdated institutions (not hinted).

Neither Goyer nor Snyder have the understanding of politics and sociology you might find in a gifted college freshman let alone a good storyteller dealing with themes of greater society. That's a common issue in Hollywood, think back to the 1998 Godzilla movie that forgot that Godzilla was an allegory for the United States after WW II. It's definitely something this movie misses... In contrast, whether it was Jonathan or Christopher Nolan, the politics in TDK and TDKR were handled and presented in an educated manner.

Two-Face: Your men, your plan!
The Joker: Do I really look like a guy with a plan? You know what I am? I'm a dog chasing cars. I wouldn't know what to do with one if I caught it. You know, I just...do things. The mob has plans, the cops have plans, Gordon's got plans. You know, they're schemers. Schemers trying to control their little worlds. I'm not a schemer. I try to show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are. So, when I say...uh, come here.
The Joker: When I say that you and your girlfriend was nothing personal, you know that I'm telling the truth.
The Joker: It's the schemers that put you where you are. You were a schemer, you had plans, and look where that got you.
The Joker: I just did what I do best. I took your little plan and I turned it on itself. Look what I did to this city with a few drums of gas and a couple of bullets. Hmmm? You know... You know what I've noticed? Nobody panics when things go "according to plan." Even if the plan is horrifying! If, tomorrow, I tell the press that, like, a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it's all "part of the plan." But when I say that one little old mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds!
[Joker hands Two-Face a gun and points it at himself]
The Joker: Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I'm an agent of chaos. Oh, and you know the thing about chaos? It's fair!

There's more political acuity in that passage than in the combined works of David S. Goyer.

Someone had argued that the common man is not educated enough to deal with complex themes, and therefore a script needs to have simple ideas and vocabulary. But that's not true, we're all smarter than the 10% of our brain, the tip of the iceberg, that is our conscious awareness. Audiences were able to appreciate the brilliance of the Joker's quote even if they had never articulated or studied any anarchism whatsoever. It's in fact the most famous set of lines from the movie.

 

[BlueLantern]

Kryptonians have no freedom to navigate beyond their programming.

See, this I have a problem with. This concept of 'freedom' is so annoyingly ambiguous in the film that the entire film's structure falls down. Let me haphazardly list some issues from start to finish or as I can remember them.

-Jor-El and Lara **** and have a child. There's no policing or recognition whatsoever of this event by a society that's actively embraced and enforced artificial population control.

-Zod leads a coup against the Kryptonian council. He does this despite when you think that if genetic engineering meant that each individual was a product tailored specifically to its society's needs, you'd have a subservient and non-rebellious military leader or military in general. Sure, he has to appeal to Krypton's best interests, but I don't think intended ethnic cleansing and a hostile takeover is in that list of 'best interests'.

-The council refuses to accept an imminent threat to the entire populace of Krypton. Hold on, aren't they supposed to be created as the most effective or at least engineered leaders possible? I mean, really, they're supposed to be good at their jobs, right? Or you might as well just have an unmodified normal person being thrust into leadership. They can't be much worse. Same response for every action of the council down to their inept dealing with of the rebellious portion of their society.

-Jor-El prepares a ship for his only son. A son that's free of genetically engineered restrictions. Wait, but Jor-El was a scientist and a warrior. Hell, he seemed a better leader than the council too. So why not just use the same super serum that made Jor-El to create Clark and then send him off? Or was Jor-El just looking for an excuse to **** in a society where it was no longer required for reproduction so the trend of pleasure-sex even got driven out? I'm not sure. I mean Jor-El's clearly had the 'freedom' to do his own thing on a planet where no one gives a **** about what people are upto. So what's the deal? What's this lack of choice he later harps on about?

-Jor-El beats Zod. With his super secret fight club training. He sends his son off into space. Bye. Zod kills Jor-El. Alright, so he kills Jor-El in a fit of rage. Fair enough. Genetic engineering can't entirely weed out aggression, especially from a warrior. No problem. But ****, he's a terrible warrior thus far and later on, so they might as well have just neutered the poor bastard and just left him with the secret pig sticker (the pig sticker he doesn't use at all later in the film despite having it).

And the planet goes boom. All gone. With them is gone the conundrum or whether they did or did not have freedom or choice or whatever the ****. But really, where's the problem with choice? People have done stuff of their own free will, a condition that's not actually explicitly confirmed as not present in Kryptonian society so fair enough. But you'd think the genetic engineering would've weeded out problems. I mean why is it only Zod who thinks that there maybe 'degenerative bloodlines'? And furthermore, why the **** are those degenerative bloodlines leading the damn race? Surely they should be 'cleansed'? Or is it another deal with it situation? That leads to the root of the problem. Warning, a potentially sarcastic approach follows.

Krypton's been related to Clark and the audience as a place where choice was abandoned and individuals were tailor made for society's needs. But therein lies the issue. They're tailor made but yet the production line's so low budget that apart from Jor-El, Faora and maybe Lara, everyone ****ing sucks at their job. Krypton's failure as a society and eventual demise wasn't down to a myopic council or a rebellious leader or dwarf-like greed of digging deep. It was the ****ing scientists who created the production system.

I mean whoever the **** initiated the genesis programme, whoever approved it and whoever was responsible for the quality control after that need to be rounded up in Kryptonian heaven and beaten with a wet towel. Because they're **** at their jobs. And that ****ness went through the ages. Only three people as we can see it came out anywhere near competent. Though ****ing Jor-El. He can kick some ass but couldn't stroddle down to the genesis chambers or look into the data in the codex and think '****ing hell, this genesis programme's creating some shoddy product. Scrap it'. He's as **** a scientist as the rest of them. I mean, sure, he made a ship, wayhay. There's loads of ships around already. No biggie.

Better still, what does the winner do thanks to his dumbass programming? He puts all this flawed information into his kid, doesn't tell him about it and sends him off into space! He later admits to this after giving his son a lecture about how people on Krypton had no choice. Okay, he leaves the decision of reviving Kryptonian society down to his son. Good job. But he, like some shady investment banker, writes the fineprint in really small font. 'Son, the genetic information maybe flawed. Based on the leadership capabilities of our council and general competency witnessed in the scientists, warriors and workers in latter day Kryptonian society, we all sucked at our jobs. Just go bang an efficient human under red sun rays instead and screw this civilization. We're no better than humanity. **** us. No, I mean **** one of them and leave us. **** us. **** it. We suck.'

So there. Kryptonians clearly had the freedom to do what they wanted outside the initial loosely set parameters involved in their genesis. Clearly some of them can supplement their existing skillset whilst not thinking 'holy ****, instead of beating on a punching bag, I should be off siezing the initiative to find alternative resources or refine the genesis involved with creating more members of society'. Or most of them just sucked at their jobs. Oh well. Good old people. Even after genetic engineering they're still as bad as humanity. No wonder Clark killed them all. They're all useless.

 

[TheFlamingCoco]

I'll wait until all this blows over

 

[BlueLantern]

Y'know I'd much rather be discussing what could've been done to improve that film or even discussing where this new one will go. But that requires acknowledging problems. We're still in the first stage of dealing with death. Deny deny deny deny. BUT HE DIDN'T DIE, HE'S JUST GONE TO THE FARM!

DA, I have no issues with an inept leadership structure. But unlike the Soviets or any generally incapable set of leaders on our planet, the Kryptonians whilst sterile and stagnant, were meant to be created to be good at their jobs. Didn't seem very good at their jobs to me. Except Faora. She fits the 'exceptional' trope along with Jor-El. I bet Jor-El's hanging out in Kryptonian heaven with Zod asking if the famed Military Leader had tapped that. She was the bomb. Top to bottom.

 

[DA_Champion]

Jor-El prepares a ship for his only son. A son that's free of genetically engineered restrictions. Wait, but Jor-El was a scientist and a warrior. Hell, he seemed a better leader than the council too. So why not just use the same super serum that made Jor-El to create Clark and then send him off? Or was Jor-El just looking for an excuse to **** in a society where it was no longer required for reproduction so the trend of pleasure-sex even got driven out? I'm not sure. I mean Jor-El's clearly had the 'freedom' to do his own thing on a planet where no one gives a **** about what people are upto. So what's the deal? What's this lack of choice he later harps on about?
us

I really like the idea that Jor-El and Lara were only looking for an excuse to **** and everything that came after is just retroactive clairvoyance on the part of Jor-El, that could lead to a new interpretation of the Superman character. That should go in the prequel movie that Russel Crowe said he "wouldn't mind" making.

Perhaps he just wants to get paid 20 million to film a sex scene with Ayelet Zurer?

 

[DA_Champion]

DA, I have no issues with an inept leadership structure. But unlike the Soviets or any generally incapable set of leaders on our planet, the Kryptonians whilst sterile and stagnant, were meant to be created to be good at their jobs. Didn't seem very good at their jobs to me. Except Faora. She fits the 'exceptional' trope along with Jor-El. I bet Jor-El's hanging out in Kryptonian heaven with Zod asking if the famed Military Leader had tapped that. She was the bomb. Top to bottom.

This problem is in my opinion fixable, even though it's broken within the script itself.

Let's say the shift to genetic and environmental determinism happened 1000 years (40 generations prior). Those politicians would be sufficiently close to perfect -- for the political universe of that era. However, the world evolves, even if organisms don't evolve. A smart scientist may one day create a perfect organism to tackle a jungle, but then that jungle's ecology will respond and evolve, if that original organism has stopped evolving it will eventually no longer be that perfect of an organism.

Krypton may have thought it no longer needed to evolve, but write out that this can't work. All societies need to evolve even those which are the pinnacle of technological, cultural, biological, and scientific progress in the Galaxy. They may not be evolving, but their planet is evolving. It's running out of natural resources, of energy, and now they need to mine the core. As one wise man once argued, how the means of production are organised in a society determines their social relations. As another wise man argued, geography is destiny. If you want to change the shift from 1,000 years to 100,000,000 years ago (which I think is better), the environmental driver of change could be the fact that Krypton's sun is becoming redder and brighter as it ascends the red giant branch.

Thus, the Kryptonian elites become incapacitated. They have directive to rule Krypton to a greater place, but they might also have a directing to maintain the prior social order and by extension their own privileged status, which might be dependent on not escaping the planet, and not acknowledging the depletion of resources. Sound familiar?

Alternatively, you can put in that Kryptonian society has become dysfunctional because 1,000 years without evolution and without "choice" means that it is a world without any good art, and everybody's depressed. This isn't meant to sound sarcastic.

**********

Our own political rulers are largely "bred and raised" to be our rulers, not to the extent we can infer for Krypton, but to a significant extent. They were all educated in the same handful of universities, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and they are disproportionately the children of previous generations of elites, Gore, Bush Sr., Bush Jr., Kerry, Romney, being clear examples.

 

[Tempest]

The complexity is such that it might have been better to show virtually nothing of Krypton, and to instead have the movie start with Jonathan and Martha finding a spaceship in a field. But let's leave that aside and try to deconstruct Goyer's vision.

I think that the approach Goyer had to Krypton was to try and construct a story that had the following parameters:
1) Show that Krypton is doomed, and explain why only Kal-El is sent away;
Grade: B

The script tells us these things, but the world building is internally contradictory. There's no reason for Jor-El and Lara not to leave Krypton.

Has there EVER been a good reason why Jor-El and Lara have never left Krypton? EVER? Please. If you're going to criticize Goyer, have the decency to criticize the source material as well.

Helpful link, in case you've forgotten the entirety of how stupid the entire story is: http://www.comicvine.com/articles/off-my-mind-supermans-shipwhy-only-room-for-one/1100-142830/

2) Krypton is a sterile society, in this case due to a lack of choice as per a planetary policy of genetic and environmental determinism;
Grade: F

We have spent the past few pages exploring the fact that Jor-El being a bad ass contradicts the script's depiction of Krypton, so I won't mention that further as we have covered all the bases. Another failure, not stated in recent pages, is that Zod initiating a civil war is also an unexplained contradiction. Though civil wars appear destructive, they also require dynamism to initiate, they take a lot of spare resources and political support, and it requires an impressive degree of political theory and understand to realise the current system is broken, and to construct an alternative vision sufficiently viable that you can amass enough support to initiate hostilities and apparently take over large swaths of territory. This leaves aside the fact that Zod would presumably be indoctrinated to be a loyal soldier, and not be a revolutionary.

Krypton is supposed to be a sterile society, but the two Kryptonians we get to know best (Jor-El and Zod) are incredibly dynamic characters.

No. You just didn't understand anything who counters your argument has stated, and apparently, you lack any understanding of the film.

The people of Krypton have free will. What they don't have is a choice in what their status is. They do not get to choose their occupations, and are in fact genetically engineered to fit a particular job.

This is stated in the film. It's not that hard to understand. You are either willfully being stupid, or you are purposefully ignoring all commonsense in order to bolster your argument that the film is terrible.

3) Jor-El had to be a bad-ass;
Grade: A

I think this goal is stupid because it contradicts goal #2, and because the story ends up in a weird situation where Earth would be better off having gotten Jor-El than Kal-El.

However, this was clearly a goal of Goyer, and he achieved it. Jor-El is a great political theorist, can harbor iconoclastic thoughts in spite of being a man of tremendous privilege, is a brilliant scientist and engineer, is the most eloquent character in the movie, is an incredible athlete, and can easily dispatch a genetically and environmentally perfected soldier even though combat training would have never been a primary priority in his life. He may be the greatest badass not just in Man of Steel, but in the entire genre of comic book movies.

I think, just like your arguments about how terrible the film is, you are over-stating things. I don't know why you like criticizing Goyer so much; because frankly, all your ideas except for like one, have been stupid.

Yes, I'm going there. If you want to go against the big boys, you'd better have some solid ideas to back up your arguments. You've got nothing but recycled material. Nothing you've come up with has been original or engaging.

4) Zod had to be an evil criminal and genuine threat;
Grade: C

On the one hand, the script tells us that Zod amassed political support and did take over large swaths of Krypton. On the other hand, the movie shows us Zod losing at his civil war, and being beaten up by Jor-El.

Further, the fact Zod fights a civil war against the Kryptonian ruling council makes him look like... a really great and noble figure. I'm not sure if Goyer wanted a non-villain villain.

First of all, we didn't see any mention of Zod amassing huge political support, or that he took over great swaths of Krypton. Pray tell, where did you find this information? You miss huge chunks of plot, and make others up. No wonder you don't like the film; you come up with some crazy nonsense.

Secondly, it is OBVIOUS that Zod was meant to be a villain that we are meant to feel some sympathy towards. That's why we get his speech at the end, where he explains what losing his people has meant to him.

I don't see a problem with having a villain that you kind of almost want to root for. It makes for a more interesting film than to just have an Evil Enemy Being Evil for no real reason.

5) Anything else?

Where to start?

The film is not perfect; there are a few things I would change. But it wasn't as horrible as you suggest. And it certainly wasn't a difficult to film to follow.

The problem that you've run into is that you hate the film, and you want to find anything and everything to argue about in order to support your hatred of it.

That's fine. But it doesn't really make you right.

For one thing, the film made $690 million bucks. If it was so terrible, it wouldn't have made that much. It just wouldn't have (hello, the Lone Ranger).

If the film was really that bad, they wouldn't be making a sequel. (Hello, Mortal Instruments sequel, indefinitely suspended).

The over-whelming evidence is that your perception of the film is just wrong. I'm not arguing whether you're right or wrong to like the film; that's a matter of chemistry, and not something that can be challenged.

But I will challenge your perception of the film as being badly written. It's just not. No, it ain't Shakespeare, but it wasn't dreadful. I don't want to hear that you had expectations that it was going to be this golden film to put all other films to shame.

It's a comic book movie! Comic books are inherently riddled with ridiculous plot holes, strange continuities, sometimes really, really bad writing or drawing, and enough hand-waving, that if harnessed, could power the entire planet for the next millennia.

So why is MOS catching so much **** for taking a silly comic book story, and giving it some emotional depth and still managing to make it feel like a true mythical tale?

Could some things have been improved? Sure. I could have done with a more streamlined version of events in Krypton, and a few of the lines could have been tweaked. I think the shaky cam could have been done without so much bouncing, and honestly, I feel like lens flares are overdone. I could have done without those too.

There's a few things I would have added, but very little I would have taken away, because the film was pretty good. Not perfect, but good.

What was good? They shook off some of the old stuff, and gave us something nice and new to look at.

--A Lois who is intelligent, capable, and not stupid and/or creepy as hell (if you haven't read the Lois Lane comics, then you are fortunate soul).

--A capable, brave, military. One of the more common tropes is to have the military always be evil. What Goyer gave us were brave soldiers, with competent leaders. While it's likely (and logical) that the military could be future antagonists for Superman in the future, it was nice to see the military so well written and treated on film.

--A more realistic Clark Kent. In comics, he will speak of loneliness, but half the time it really lacks any emotional resonance behind it. (Earth One has an excellent example of a loner Clark Kent). In MOS, we get a real sense of the struggles he had as a child who was 'different'. We saw his parents (mostly Jonathan) struggling with how to raise him in a way that would teach him to not abuse his powers, and to be a good man.

--A more 'human' Clark. We don't have Kal-El being Clark Kent; we have Clark as the dominant personality. He wasn't 'raised by the Kents' (a phrase I've seen often in the comics). He was raised by his mom and dad, Martha and Jonathan Kent. I really hope this is a trend that is carried through in the next films.

--Imperfect characters. Jor-El, Zod, Jonathan, Lois, Clark, Swanwick...they all did things that weren't necessarily the best things to do. They weren't morally perfect creatures, they didn't always get things right, they didn't always make the wisest of choices. That made them more human, and added moral complexity to characters that could easily have been too silly or preachy if they'd been 'perfect'.

--The color scheme. This is more a matter of taste, of course. I loved the film, because it was just so pretty. The lighting really gave it a sense of mythology, almost a fairy talesque quality -- which is the point. Superman is one of the greatest fairy tales of all time. The color scheme fit that.

So any way. It's been an interesting discussion. I'm sure you'll have many, many things to say in response, but I think I'm done with this particular topic for now. Clearly, we are not going to change each other's minds, and as I have the attention span of a butterfly, I'm getting bored talking about it.

Final word on this topic: Goyer's the writer for the sequel. Hooray for me, too bad for you.

 

[BlueLantern]

Has there EVER been a good reason why Jor-El and Lara have never left Krypton? EVER? Please. If you're going to criticize Goyer, have the decency to criticize the source material as well.

Helpful link, in case you've forgotten the entirety of how stupid the entire story is: http://www.comicvine.com/articles/off-my-mind-supermans-shipwhy-only-room-for-one/1100-142830/

Agreed.

The people of Krypton have free will. What they don't have is a choice in what their status is. They do not get to choose their occupations, and are in fact genetically engineered to fit a particular job.

Agreed.

First of all, we didn't see any mention of Zod amassing huge political support, or that he took over great swaths of Krypton.

Agreed.

Secondly, it is OBVIOUS that Zod was meant to be a villain that we are meant to feel some sympathy towards. That's why we get his speech at the end, where he explains what losing his people has meant to him.

Agreed.

For one thing, the film made $690 million bucks. If it was so terrible, it wouldn't have made that much. It just wouldn't have (hello, the Lone Ranger).

Transformers. Transformers II. Transformers III.

If the film was really that bad, they wouldn't be making a sequel. (Hello, Mortal Instruments sequel, indefinitely suspended).

Mortal Instruments made no money.

It's a comic book movie! Comic books are inherently riddled with ridiculous plot holes, strange continuities, sometimes really, really bad writing or drawing, and enough hand-waving, that if harnessed, could power the entire planet for the next millennia.

So why is MOS catching so much **** for taking a silly comic book story, and giving it some emotional depth and still managing to make it feel like a true mythical tale?

Blame Christopher Nolan's first trilogy. Or Sam Raimi. Or Bryan Singer's X-Men. They're not free of plot holes but they're good films on their own even without being based on comic books. Regarding Man of Steel, the film's emotional depth was derivative, clichéd and generally forced. Parts of it really really worked in the moment but I walked away and thought, wha?

Could some things have been improved? Sure. I could have done with a more streamlined version of events in Krypton, and a few of the lines could have been tweaked. I think the shaky cam could have been done without so much bouncing, and honestly, I feel like lens flares are overdone. I could have done without those too.

So only the aesthetics, a little of the dialogue and some of the editing bothered you? Bit convenient considering this discussion.

There's a few things I would have added, but very little I would have taken away, because the film was pretty good. Not perfect, but good.

What was good? They shook off some of the old stuff, and gave us something nice and new to look at.

--A Lois who is intelligent, capable, and not stupid and/or creepy as hell (if you haven't read the Lois Lane comics, then you are fortunate soul).

There's been a fair amount of that over the years, but few and far between. Still been there. Across the animated series, comics and even Smallville.

--A capable, brave, military. One of the more common tropes is to have the military always be evil. What Goyer gave us were brave soldiers, with competent leaders. While it's likely (and logical) that the military could be future antagonists for Superman in the future, it was nice to see the military so well written and treated on film.

This I'll agree with in part. They still rained hellfire down on a town occupied by innocent civilians all the while insisting on derailing Clark's attempts to subdue the actual opposition. Even though he gave every indication possible of cooperating with them thus far.

--A more realistic Clark Kent. In comics, he will speak of loneliness, but half the time it really lacks any emotional resonance behind it. (Earth One has an excellent example of a loner Clark Kent). In MOS, we get a real sense of the struggles he had as a child who was 'different'. We saw his parents (mostly Jonathan) struggling with how to raise him in a way that would teach him to not abuse his powers, and to be a good man.

Smallville. Anything by Geoff Johns, Mark Waid and Jeph Loeb.

--A more 'human' Clark. We don't have Kal-El being Clark Kent; we have Clark as the dominant personality. He wasn't 'raised by the Kents' (a phrase I've seen often in the comics). He was raised by his mom and dad, Martha and Jonathan Kent. I really hope this is a trend that is carried through in the next films.

Smallville. Anything by Geoff Johns, Mark Waid and Jeph Loeb. Furthermore, this Clark was more in line with the terrible Earth One than the excellent works of the above writers. Smallville wasn't excellent but it did what you said before.

--Imperfect characters. Jor-El, Zod, Jonathan, Lois, Clark, Swanwick...they all did things that weren't necessarily the best things to do. They weren't morally perfect creatures, they didn't always get things right, they didn't always make the wisest of choices. That made them more human, and added moral complexity to characters that could easily have been too silly or preachy if they'd been 'perfect'.

Read above.

--The color scheme. This is more a matter of taste, of course. I loved the film, because it was just so pretty. The lighting really gave it a sense of mythology, almost a fairy talesque quality -- which is the point. Superman is one of the greatest fairy tales of all time. The color scheme fit that.

It felt like part Twilight/any young adult film and part any general swords and sandals film of the last fifteen years. But that's your taste.

Easier this way.

 

[DA_Champion]

First of all, we didn't see any mention of Zod amassing huge political support, or that he took over great swaths of Krypton.

You're right, Zod staged a coup, not a civil war.

He still needs some political support to stage a coup though. And that necessitates a vision of what comes after.

For a good movie on a military coup, watch Valkyrie starring Tom Cruise.

Has there EVER been a good reason why Jor-El and Lara have never left Krypton? EVER? Please. If you're going to criticize Goyer, have the decency to criticize the source material as well.

I don't know if it's the case that Jor-El and Lara have never had a good reason to not escape Krypton, as there are so many different versions. Either way though, that's not a defense, as it's not hard to make it work. The movie reaches a larger audience, there are not multiple movie continuities running simultaneously, and thus the standards are higher. Just because the comics fail doesn't the movie has to.

Some simple solutions:

1) If you don't have a good Krypton story, that's fine, just don't write one. Just start the movie on Earth. It would be perfectly fine for the opening scene of the movie to be Jonathan and Martha finding a ship with a baby in it. That would liberate 20 minutes of screen time.
2) As suggested my Mjölnir, just make it such that the ship can only transport one person. Perhaps the phantom drive consumes too much energy. Perhaps Jor-El isn't rich. That makes for a good emigration story, for example kids escaping concentration camps without their parents, sometimes with their parents' help.
3) Have a lot of people try and escape Krypton, but only a few of them make it. Say Krypton is blown up by a hostile alien super-race, and only one small ship makes it past the blockade.

It's a plot requirement that only Kal-El (and maybe Kara and maybe New Krypton) survive. It doesn't emerge from the story. It's a requirement that the story has to be constructed around. Try and give it an explanation that's not contradicted by the rest of the plot.

*****

Blue Lantern, Volume 2 of Superman Earth One is a step up.

 

[Marvin]

Quit with the dumb counter-arguments that lead nowehere. Mjölnir, myself, and others have already firmly established a lot of these points, we're trying to see if there's a way things could have been done coherently without jettisoning half or more of the concepts. Some of us wish to discuss the writing, and not your ability to come with plotlines external to the script that add coherence to the script.

If by that you mean you want to talk amongst yourselves then simply so(wasn't aware this place worked that way outside of PM's). Don't recall you firmly establishing anything though, just arguing your views.

Truly believe?

You speak like we're dissecting a real and rigorous parallel universe. We're not.

Kryptonians are fictional people and the representation we see is completely made up by David S. Goyer, modulo some copy and paste from other versions. They're not real. This is what David S. Goyer tells us via the character Jor-El, who is the most intelligent and astute character in the movie:

No I speak as if we are discussing fictional people. 'Do you believe they are are incapable of descent?' It was a simple question about the story. Not sure how that isn't clear.

Kryptonians have no freedom to navigate beyond their programming.

Here is an honest question, it might be a dumb counter argument, it might lead to nowhere and it might be all about my ability to come up with plot lines external to the script but here goes,

If Kryptonians have no free will whatsoever and are incapable of descent(according to jorEL) due to programming; Why is it they have a kryptonian prison and judicial system for that prison?

 

[BlueLantern]

By the way, Tempest, Birthright had a sound reason for why Clark was the only survivor of Krypton. The civilization's council had forbidden space exploration and anything linked to it, which was complemented by a sentry system to shoot down any potential vessels attempting to do so. The small craft designed by Jor-El was the most functional prototype he created and only large enough to fit a baby at the time. So they took the risk. Donner's universe portrayed a dystopian society which was in denial of their fate as related by the dialogue and they thus forbade any attempt by Jor-El to instigate an evacuation or himself leave. Both reasonable explanations.

 

[DA_Champion]

Marvin,

The Kryptonians have a judicial system and prison but other than Zod they don't use it much. When Zod got booted out of the phantom zone after the planet blew up (either that or he went through his prison term of 300 cycles), there was nobody else there, just him and his team. Contrast that to a society like the United States, if all the prisoners were let out at the same time you'd have as big a population as Metropolitan Seattle. This implies that there are not a lot of criminals on Krypton.

OK, I just checked:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_Zone
Zod is released from the phantom zone early, before his 300 cycles are up, and the release is triggered by the planet's destruction. This also explains why he was not reformed/re-educated whatever as he was supposed to, he did not serve his full prison term.

Since Zod was released early, all other prisoners would have been released early as well. They were not. There were no other prisoners: Krypton is an orderly society, consistent with the description of Jor-El.

There's also the fact that there was a lack of security guarding the Codex. Thinking about this: there was no security guarding the codex. Jor-El went in by himself and took the codex, even though it's a "class-B crime" which sounds like serious business. I had previously criticised the movie for the Codex not being secured, but I take it back. It's reasonable that a society like Krypton would not put security to guard the Codex -- it wouldn't need to.

The justice system and the laws could still be there even if they are not used. They could be there as vestiges of a time from when laws were necessary. That's how it works on Earths: laws stay on the book until they are changed, not until they stop being relevant.

******

The words of Jor-El, the general order, etc imply that Kryptonians should have a much reduced capacity for dissent (not descent) or even an eliminated one. However, the two Kryptonians we get to know, Jor-El and Zod, are incredibly dynamic individuals and are in fact defined by their dissent. Their dissent is incredible, and that's not acknowledged or explained, it just is.

It's conceivable one could make a character study of two individuals showing a spark of dissent in an otherwise spectacularly orderly world, but it's hard to see that constructed from what we see of Krypton in MoS.

 

[DA_Champion]

Some comments on the dialogue I found while brushing up my memory on the phantom zone:

Other than the general flow of the film, I have to criticize the dialogue. The first school sequence - where Clark winds up hiding in a broom closet - was just kind of awkward. The “The world’s too big, mom,” dialogue worked in the trailer but here it’s just awkward. Who talks like that? There’s a lot of crummy dialogue in the film. In fact, let me just get all my dialogue qualms out of the way here. Lois Lane (Amy Adams), when shown a small room she has to stay in at one point in the film says: “What if I have to tinkle?” Later on she refers to the fact that she's a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. We get it. She’s a good reporter. At one point late in the film, Superman confronts Zod with the line (I’m paraphrasing) “You’re a monster and I'm going to stop you.” It seems like somebody put that line in the script as filler and forgot to rewrite it. Another line, perhaps the worst in the film, spoken by General Zod (again, paraphrasing): “There's only one way this is going to end...either you die or I do.” Isn’t that two ways?

http://www.totheescapehatch.com/2013/06/escape-phantom-zone-man-of-steel-review.html

 

[D.P.]

I'll wait until all this blows over

Same.

I've resorted to lurking, the tone of this thread has gotten far too pretentious.