BvS Man of steel's battle ranked #1 of 2013

[DA_Champion]

I enjoyed the Smallville fight more than the Zod fight, and the Smallville fight might be the most impressive action sequence I saw this year.

Star Trek into Darkness, Thor 2, and Iron Man 3 had no memorable action sequences.

Oblivion had the drones going through the caves, and Pacific Rim had a few good ones.

 

[Brother Jack]

The Hong Kong fight sequence in Pacific Rim is far and away the best of the year. I liked the final fight between Superman and Zod but it was exhaustive at that point in the film, kind of a drag after the bloated world destroyer sequence. And then there's the obvious criticisms about the setting of the fight and flippancy for the destruction.

 

[Lantern Venom]

I'd have to put the Iron Man 3 battle over this one, but that doesn't diminish it in any way. MOS is the first time Kryptonian abilities have ever been done properly in live action, and the final product was amazing.

 

[Marvin]

Pfft. Gipsy Danger vs. Leatherback and Otachi was the best battle of the year. That's not even a question.

MOS had some pretty damn cool actions moments, but it also had it's share of blurry slop. It also loses points for action sequences that weren't intelligently scripted (yes, scripting is an important part of a action scene).

One could just as easily have an aversion to heavily rain soaked pixel battles with heavily cropped figurines. I do recall plenty of critiques about such thing this summer pertaining to PRim.

 

[Loki882]

The Hong Kong fight sequence in Pacific Rim is far and away the best of the year. I liked the final fight between Superman and Zod but it was exhaustive at that point in the film, kind of a drag after the bloated world destroyer sequence. And then there's the obvious criticisms about the setting of the fight and flippancy for the destruction.

Except that the location made perfect sense and there was no flippancy.

 

[Smashlilman]

God Man of Steel give me shivers. Oh the Abuse the Main hero took.
The Smallville fight was like "There's no way he can win this. How's he going to pull this off"

The Zod fight was like "OMG My Dreams Come True"

 

[Batmannerism]

First off, it's great to see Pacific Rim getting its props, after Man of Steel
it was my favourite film of 2013 (I liked Thor TDW too).

In some ways I find Pacific Rim easier to watch, it has an incredibly simple story, and I don't have the emotional investment I have in Clark Kent and
his journey (remember MOS covers his life from birth to his first real appearance as Superman, and does he fly around and save helicopters or
falling reporters.....no, he has to save the whole damn world, first time out ! It's like, oh great, glad you made it, can you get out there and save humanity, please ?)

Anyway, before I get carried away, I was saying it's just great so many people recognized Pacific Rim for what it is and what it achieved, IMO it should win best special effects if MOS doesn't - it's so slick and just so much fun. I challenge anyone not to at least think to themselves
"**** yeah !" the first time Gipsy Danger punches a Kaiju in the face !
I actually said it out -loud in the cinema.

Love, love, love Gipsy Danger vs Leatherback and Otachi, somebody start a thread just about that and I'm in. Sheer awesomeness !

Okay, but what I'm really here to talk about it my fave battle. The battle of Smallville. Wow !
People complain about pacing/scripting (I'd say the Supes v Zod final smackdown looked a lot less scripted) whereas the Smallville smackdown has a rhythm and a pace. You watch Faora take on the army and count the beats between her bursts of super-speed and smashing those poor soldiers.

Or, when Supes gets the better of the giant, it's knee (to knock him back) right-left , right-left right, then grab, fly up for a beat and POW ! into the train yard. It's almost action poetry....iambic smack-trameter !

here's what I'm talking about !

Not to mention their intial fisticuffs with Faora smashing Supes, and the giant slamming him into the ground. And when the giant boots Supes across the pavement, ouch !

Like the previous poster put it, you really wonder how he's going to get the better of them, as they start out pretty much kicking seven kinds of **** out of him. But he gets up (after the heat vision blast) with this look on his face that says " That all you got ?"

For me the battle of Smallville was the best super-hero on super-villain smackdown ever. It made Iron man vs Thor look like two kids wrestling in the sand-pit.


Zod vs Superman......hmmmmm, not as good. What would have helped if there was a bit more toe-to-toe, so to speak, and a bit less aerial combat, although I did like that when Supes punched Zod, that sucker flew miles.
I thought a bit more super strength and speed ( which is what we see
just before the "this only ends one way.." speech).


I'm not going to talk about Iron Man 3, because I hated the film
- it's one thing for a movie to break rules, and suspend disbelief, but when it breaks its own rules and destroys its own continuity, well that's just ****e ! Less advanced versions of the suit took on Thor, and they're going to get taken apart by extremis soldiers.....and trucks ????? WTF ???

Sorry, didn't want to get into that, just IMO !

 

[Masone]

Not only the best fight scenes of all time, but the best action sequences of all time. From Nam-Ek taking out of those jets, Faora zipping through those soldiers and punching them into an oblivion, Nam-Ek and Faora taking on Superman, and Zod and Superman fighting in the air, nothing beats air fights like that. I mean they fought on a damn satellite. Best action I've ever seen.

 

[BH/HHH]

Even if you don't like this movie, no one can deny that the action pieces were incredible in this film.

 

[Rowsdower!]

Pfft. Gipsy Danger vs. Leatherback and Otachi was the best battle of the year. That's not even a question.

MOS had some pretty damn cool actions moments, but it also had it's share of blurry slop. It also loses points for action sequences that weren't intelligently scripted (yes, scripting is an important part of a action scene).

Please enlighten me on how ANYTHING in Pacific Rim was "intelligently scripted."

 

[MrsKent26]

Or, when Supes gets the better of the giant, it's knee (to knock him back) right-left , right-left right, then grab, fly up for a beat and POW ! into the train yard. It's almost action poetry....iambic smack-trameter !

I love your enthusiasm, Batmannerism.

I love those scenes too. And agree about Pacific Rim. Those were also great action scenes. And I know some people think Snyder should lighten up on the action, but I respectfully disagree. I want some great, quiet character moments in between the action for sure and am really hoping we are going to get them. But I'm hoping Snyder doesn't tone down the action at all. I say, bring it on! This type of epic superhero smack-down is thrilling to watch.

Bring it, Snyder. Bring it!

 

[DChero]

I didn't see Pacific Rim, so I can't really comment there. I will say that the only scene that I think rivals any of the Man of Steel ones would be the "barrel escape" from the Hobbit 2. I wouldn't put it over, but it was another surprisingly unique take.

The Zod fight, to me, is at the top of the list and one of the most enjoyable that I've seen. The layers to it were what really put it up there. Throughout the fight, it was clear that there was no way that either could be imprisoned, which lead to the ending that we all enjoy discussing. We also got to see Zod changing tactics. He started with what was comfortable, his battle-suit. Then switched to Kal's "style." After that, he resorted to using Kal's weakness, humans.

 

[DaRkVeNgeanCe]

Personally both the smallville fight scene and the Zod and Supes fight scene are my favorite fight scenes from any comic book related film, they were what I was hoping for, for many years and I was surely not disappointed.

As far as Pacific Rim was concerned the fight scenes were just ok for me, there were some incredible shots in that film but overall I just wasn't impressed, it was nowhere near as good as most make it out to be, but I guess that's personal preference.

 

[Steyin]

As far as Pacific Rim was concerned the fight scenes were just ok for me, there were some incredible shots in that film but overall I just wasn't impressed, it was nowhere near as good as most make it out to be, but I guess that's personal preference.

Ditto. I thought the film was a mess honestly.

 

[Rowsdower!]

Yeah, as far as PR goes, some of the battles were cool but it all looked so unreal that it wasn't really thrilling or intense. The fights in MOS were downright brutal. Sure, there was a ton of CGI used, but it didn't look cartoonish in the way that PR did.

 

[Batmannerism]

I love your enthusiasm, Batmannerism.

I love those scenes too. And agree about Pacific Rim. Those were also great action scenes. And I know some people think Snyder should lighten up on the action, but I respectfully disagree. I want some great, quiet character moments in between the action for sure and am really hoping we are going to get them. But I'm hoping Snyder doesn't tone down the action at all. I say, bring it on! This type of epic superhero smack-down is thrilling to watch.

Bring it, Snyder. Bring it!

Absolutely ! The character moments in MOS are sublime (particularly the flash backs to his childhood), but the action sequences have to be epic fights -none of that throwing islands around stuff from SR, but full-on superhero fisticuffs. At least 1 major mountain range should get levelled in Superman's next film.


But to manage that kind of epic destruction, they're going to need a villain who can really challenge Supes (as opposed to just weakening him, which is what Metallo or Parasite does), Doomsday perhaps, Bizarro maybe, and for a forthcoming JL film, just has got to be Darkseid !

I totally agree though, Snyder needs to continue the way he started and bring the action, big time !

 

[The Guard]

Yeah, there's nothing cooler than slowly moving giant robots...

Oh, wait...

 

[Saint]

Please enlighten me on how ANYTHING in Pacific Rim was "intelligently scripted."

Haha, fair point. I don't want to get into an argument about which film is better, since one is a blatant Saturday morning cartoon and the other was making it's best serious face at me for two hours straight, so I'll say that I found the Pacific Rim action scenes more engaging and better designed.

As an example of the difference between them, the fights in Pacific Rim have a flow--there a pretty immediate consequences to the fighters when they start wailing on each other and the fights progress as a result. The hits matter.

Conversely, whether it's Superman punching Zod through twenty buildings or the other way around, I didn't feel like it actually mattered. They just kept pounding on each other ineffectually until Zod committed suicide-by-Superman.

It is admittedly more difficult to progress a fight when the combatants are basically invincible, but it would have made a huge difference to me if the film had instead shown that Superman was losing the fight because he was trying to avoid civilian casualties, thus leading to that final moment. Then we'd have some progression in the battle.

One could just as easily have an aversion to heavily rain soaked pixel battles with heavily cropped figurines. I do recall plenty of critiques about such thing this summer pertaining to PRim.

Shrug. I guess I can't really fault you for preferring blurry pixels over rainy ones (not to imply the effects were on the same level; they were absolutely not--MOS is a different league, in that respect).

 

[smallville fan]

Well, after almost forty years, people FINALLY got the proper Superman fight that they've been wanting (and ironically some people are now complaining about it).

It's sad isn't it? It's those damn critics turning fans against one another. This is the time to rejoice we finally have Superman in his full glory and doing what he's meant to do ever since Siegel and Shuster made him back in the 1930's ie fight oppression and be a light in the darkness, not getting kittens down from trees and lifting heavy stuff(not that there's anything wrong with small deeds, but there should be a balance and way too many people seem to want the latter rather than the former now which is just plain silly).

I'm not going to talk about Iron Man 3, because I hated the film
- it's one thing for a movie to break rules, and suspend disbelief, but when it breaks its own rules and destroys its own continuity, well that's just ****e ! Less advanced versions of the suit took on Thor, and they're going to get taken apart by extremis soldiers.....and trucks ????? WTF ???

Agreed! I never realized that until later. It still puzzles me on how that movie did better(aside from the momentum it gained from The Avengers and other previous Iron Man films etc etc)

 

[DA_Champion]

Please enlighten me on how ANYTHING in Pacific Rim was "intelligently scripted."

The best defense I've read of Pacific Rim is that it's aimed at 10 year old boys. When I read that, I forgive all the problems in the movie.

I don't forgive condescending adults who said it is the best movie of the summer, who said it's an original work, and who said that people who don't like the movie lack souls.

 

[Batmannerism]

Smallville Fan: Agreed! I never realized that until later. It still puzzles me on how that movie did better(aside from the momentum it gained from The Avengers and other previous Iron Man films etc etc)

Thanks dude, I am likewise confounded and bewildered by that result. How that ****e made over a billion, I just don't know ? When Pepper took out the main villain at the end, I wanted to ask for my money back. Iron Man was a masterpiece of the super-hero genre, IM 2 was pretty crappy, and IM 3 just makes us hope there won't be any more. At least Iron Man can redeem himself next summer in the next Avengers film. Just IMO of course, peace Iron-fans !

The best defense I've read of Pacific Rim is that it's aimed at 10 year old boys. When I read that, I forgive all the problems in the movie.

I don't forgive condescending adults who said it is the best movie of the summer, who said it's an original work, and who said that people who don't like the movie lack souls.

Wow, we're really off topic here, as this is an MOS thread really.

Like I said before, the battle of Smallville is the best battle this year, IMO.

I think it's cool that Pacific Rim is getting some discussion, if anyone out there starts a thread, I'm in !

Now, to reply to your comment:

Dude, one of the best things about Pacific Rim is that it delivers exactly what it promises, giant robots punching giant monsters, a few laughs, and that's about it.
The characters are total stock, and if you listen to GDT's commentary, he says it's essentially a sports movie - complete with all the clichés.

You are totally correct that it is not an original work, it's a pastiche of the mecha/kaiju and a bunch of other anime genre pieces brought together on film. It borrows unabashedly, listen to GDT's commentary man he is straight up about it,
it's an homage (he even thanks Harryhausen at the end of the credits) to monster and giant robot films. But, despite all that, it really, really works !

It doesn't pretend to be a character drama or anything else, which is why it works so well and we can suspend disbelief on the outrageous silliness of the whole concept.

You are dead-right that this was written for 10-year-old boys, but in particular for the 10 year old boys lurking inside everyone (especially GDT, he loved making it !)

This is not to sound condescending or disrespectful, but didn't your inner 10-year-old enjoy it ?

I might be mis-reading your post but you sound almost like you feel cheated by PR.

Personally, I found it immensely satisfying, one of the ultimate guilty-pleasure films . The reason it's so satisfying is that it promises giant robot vs giant monster action, and a little bit of story, and that's it.....which is precisely what it delivers ! Yayyyy ! No pretensions there at all, which is why it's my favourite GDT mainstream film.

So perhaps people aren't suggesting you don't have a soul, I'm sure you do. But be honest dude, didn't your inner-10-year old enjoy the film ?

Come on, even a little bit ? I bet you did, come on, admit it.

 

[Man in the Suit]

Personally both the smallville fight scene and the Zod and Supes fight scene are my favorite fight scenes from any comic book related film, they were what I was hoping for, for many years and I was surely not disappointed.

Yep.

It's superhero action on a scale that's never been in live action. People have been wanting this forever. And then they whined about destruction when it finally happened.

 

[MrsKent26]

You are dead-right that this was written for 10-year-old boys, but in particular for the 10 year old boys lurking inside everyone (especially GDT, he loved making it !)

This is not to sound condescending or disrespectful, but didn't your inner 10-year-old enjoy it ?

I'm a female and it brought out the 10-year-old boy in me, lol.

I didn't like the Pacific Rim overall, but the action sequences were great. I enjoyed them a lot, while still realizing that it was all kinda dumb. Some movies are best enjoyed on a basic level and that's ok.

 

[FeedOnATreeFrog]

GDT basically wanted to make live-action cheeseball anime.

That's why I found it to be hilarious, and I loved it.

 

[The Batman]

It's sad isn't it? It's those damn critics turning fans against one another. This is the time to rejoice we finally have Superman in his full glory and doing what he's meant to do ever since Siegel and Shuster made him back in the 1930's ie fight oppression and be a light in the darkness, not getting kittens down from trees and lifting heavy stuff(not that there's anything wrong with small deeds, but there should be a balance and way too many people seem to want the latter rather than the former now which is just plain silly).


Agreed! I never realized that until later. It still puzzles me on how that movie did better(aside from the momentum it gained from The Avengers and other previous Iron Man films etc etc)

This film...is not Superman at his full glory. Flaws with this film aside, the whole point of the film was showing him on the road to his full glory.