Rate MAN OF STEEL......once and for all

[Boy Scout]

I feel that MOS is particularly guilty of such. They emphasize the comparisons through imagery, but the problem is that those images don't actually mean anything and are irrelevant to the narrative as a whole.

 

[I Am The Knight]

Yeah, I wish they would just stop with the whole Space Jesus angle.

 

[ThePhantasm]

Religious parallels have always been a part of the mythos, ever since the story was written by two Jewish guys who made Kal into a sci-fi version of Moses.

Hoping that they'll drop the religious imagery is kinda like hoping they'll drop part of the character that's been there from the get-go.

 

[HAMMER]

I do find it a bit ironic that a loud complaint after Superman Returns was that they wanted better 'Superman action.' When we finally get to that in MoS, its after an hour and a half of the most bleak, down trodden, sappy, metaphor driven character development in the 70+ year history of the character.

Heavy handed, overly dramatic analogies have been a problem with DC movies for a while now, and it was just as apparent in MoS. Hopefully with Nolan/Goyer fully out of the picture and Snyder able to run loose with better material will give us a decent Superman outing in the next Batman film.

Agreed, it's the most painful experience I have ever had in a movie theatre.

Mine was The Dark Knight Rises. WORST MOVIE EXPERIENCE EVER!

 

[Flint Marko]

Religious parallels have always been a part of the mythos, ever since the story was written by two Jewish guys who made Kal into a sci-fi version of Moses.

Hoping that they'll drop the religious imagery is kinda like hoping they'll drop part of the character that's been there from the get-go.

But if it isn't going to go anywhere or serve the story as a whole (like in MoS) it needs to be dropped because it's meaningless. At the very least it shouldn't be made so damn obvious.
I find it interesting that they really wanted to play up the idea of Superman being similar to Jesus, so much so that WB actually created an entire website filled with resources for pastors to use in their sermons to draw comparisons to this movie (www.manofsteelresources.com).
I doubt any pastor could actually even use that since there was nothing other than some imagery to relate the two together. A sermon on Man of Steel could be summed up as, "Well Superman was Jor-el's only son and was sent here to save us or something. And then he raised his arms out a couple times like he was hanging on a cross... and then he and that other guy punched each other for thirty minutes."

 

[ThePhantasm]

Yes, Superman is more like a Greek god than he is like Jesus.

 

[The Question]

Religious parallels have always been a part of the mythos, ever since the story was written by two Jewish guys who made Kal into a sci-fi version of Moses.

Hoping that they'll drop the religious imagery is kinda like hoping they'll drop part of the character that's been there from the get-go.

I didn't say I wish they would drop the religious imagery. I said that I wish they would drop the Jesus imagery. Jesus =/= Moses.

I do find it a bit ironic that a loud complaint after Superman Returns was that they wanted better 'Superman action.' When we finally get to that in MoS, its after an hour and a half of the most bleak, down trodden, sappy, metaphor driven character development in the 70+ year history of the character.

Heavy handed, overly dramatic analogies have been a problem with DC movies for a while now, and it was just as apparent in MoS. Hopefully with Nolan/Goyer fully out of the picture and Snyder able to run loose with better material will give us a decent Superman outing in the next Batman film.



Mine was The Dark Knight Rises. WORST MOVIE EXPERIENCE EVER!

Why do people think Snyder running loose is a good thing?

 

[jmc]

I don't mind religious parallels because it's an area that could be explored but I absolutely hated how in your face it was. They may as well have thrown up a side by side comparison list.

 

[HAMMER]

Why do people think Snyder running loose is a good thing?

Snyder is only as good as the material he has, i.e. script, production people, actors, etc. His strong points are his cinematography and his particular brand of sfx action. The weak parts of MoS, I felt, were the script and some of the production decisions. I really feel his filmmaking style is more suited to a more 'comic book-esque' take on superheroes, like a MCU movie, then a dark and serious character driven piece, like a Nolan Bat film.

Give him a better script that has less long-winded exposition and more dynamic conflict, and I feel the film will be better. I have high hopes for BvS even though I was very underwhelmed with MoS. Maybe its just my starvation of seeing a more true version of Batman on film than TDK version that feeds my optimism.

 

[Rowsdower!]

I don't know, I didn't really think it was all that in-your-face in MOS. Other than the whole cross pose thing as he's leaving Zod's ship, I didn't really notice the other stuff until I saw people ranting about it on message boards. I think one of the stained glass windows in the church had Jesus in a red cape or something and then there's the whole "33 years" thing, but stuff like that is so minimal that I think you can ignore it if you let yourself.

I don't know. I'm not saying you HAVE to ignore it but I don't find it to be as in-your-face as people make it out to be. It's sort of like The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Despite being a religious allegory, if you want to, you can just ignore that and embrace it for what it is: a really weird fantasy story about talking beavers and sh**.

 

[The Question]

Snyder is only as good as the material he has, i.e. script, production people, actors, etc. His strong points are his cinematography and his particular brand of sfx action. The weak parts of MoS, I felt, were the script and some of the production decisions. I really feel his filmmaking style is more suited to a more 'comic book-esque' take on superheroes, like a MCU movie, then a dark and serious character driven piece, like a Nolan Bat film.

Give him a better script that has less long-winded exposition and more dynamic conflict, and I feel the film will be better. I have high hopes for BvS even though I was very underwhelmed with MoS. Maybe its just my starvation of seeing a more true version of Batman on film than TDK version that feeds my optimism.

I think that's ignoring some of his inherent flaws as a filmmaker and the problems that he brought to the table on MoS. The pacing problems in Man of Steel were 100% Snyder, he rushed through the dialogue scenes and lingered way too long on the action scenes, as he always does. Also, he is really bad at directing actors. Bad dialogue or no, it takes effort to get a bad performance out of Lawrence Fishburn. Snyder is also really tone deaf when it comes to subtext. His films never have any, even if the script he's working off of does. He never knows how to play a scene in a way that makes the subtext noticeable. I can't speak for him, but I suspect its because he doesn't pick up on the subtext in the first place. Watchmen is full of this problem.

 

[Rowsdower!]

Wow, sounds like watching MOS was a pretty miserable experience for you.


Watch it a few more times.

 

[The Question]

Wow, sounds like watching MOS was a pretty miserable experience for you.


Watch it a few more times.

Why would I do that if I didn't enjoy it the first time around? There were no outside influences effecting my enjoyment of the film, I just didn't think it was very good.

 

[Rowsdower!]

I know, I was just kidding around.

Although, you're a pretty harsh critic considering I remember seeing you whopping praise on crap like Agents of SHIELD a while back.

 

[The Question]

I know, I was just kidding around.

Although, you're a pretty harsh critic considering I remember seeing you whopping praise on crap like Agents of SHIELD a while back.

1: I wasn't whopping praise on Agents of SHIELD. I was just saying that people were grossly overreacting in their complaints about it, which they were. All of the Skye hate was ten times more obnoxious than the character herself, and to be honest a lot of it came of to me as fairly sexist to me. Also a lot of it was people wishing that the team were more like five super badass Navy SEALs who never make mistakes, and that basically feels like hyper macho competency porn, which I feel is pretty useless. My opinion of Agents of SHIELD is that it is one step above mediocre and generally entertaining but also nothing special.

2: I think that Agents of SHIELD is more competently written and produced than Man of Steel and is generally more entertaining. Obviously there's a bit of an apples/oranges thing between a TV show and a movie, but as much as the two can be compared Agents of SHIELD wins out for me.

 

[HAMMER]

I think that's ignoring some of his inherent flaws as a filmmaker and the problems that he brought to the table on MoS. The pacing problems in Man of Steel were 100% Snyder, he rushed through the dialogue scenes and lingered way too long on the action scenes, as he always does. Also, he is really bad at directing actors. Bad dialogue or no, it takes effort to get a bad performance out of Lawrence Fishburn. Snyder is also really tone deaf when it comes to subtext. His films never have any, even if the script he's working off of does. He never knows how to play a scene in a way that makes the subtext noticeable. I can't speak for him, but I suspect its because he doesn't pick up on the subtext in the first place. Watchmen is full of this problem.

I think the editing on MoS is really poor and then coupled with the choppy flashback shots in the script it really accentuates the pacing problems even more. But yeah, its hard to argue a lot of those points. I agree about the Watchmen stuff especially. Just because you film a woman dressed as the Mona Lisa doesn't mean your getting the subtlety of the smile.

 

[Boy Scout]

I thought Laurence Fishburne was fine. He wasn't great, mind you, but I don't think he gave a bad performance.

 

[The Question]

I think the editing on MoS is really poor and then coupled with the choppy flashback shots in the script it really accentuates the pacing problems even more. But yeah, its hard to argue a lot of those points. I agree about the Watchmen stuff especially. Just because you film a woman dressed as the Mona Lisa doesn't mean your getting the subtlety of the smile.

He completely missed the point of the "nothing ever ends" line, which is a big deal because it's the thesis statement of the entire story.

It's like putting on a production of "No Exit" and not understanding the meaning behind "Hell is other people."

 

[The Question]

I thought Laurence Fishburne was fine. He wasn't great, mind you, but I don't think he gave a bad performance.

Ehhhh…

He wasn't unbelievable, sure, everything he said felt genuine, but he had no character. Fishburn is capable of a lot of subtlety and personality in just a few lines of dialogue, and none of that was in MoS.

 

[Boy Scout]

I will agree that he came across as a rather generic editor. I thought he and Amy Adams did well enough together, though, and could tell that their characters had formed a genuine connection. Outside of that, though, I found the character unremarkae.

 

[Dr.]

I don't know, I didn't really think it was all that in-your-face in MOS. Other than the whole cross pose thing as he's leaving Zod's ship, I didn't really notice the other stuff until I saw people ranting about it on message boards. I think one of the stained glass windows in the church had Jesus in a red cape or something and then there's the whole "33 years" thing, but stuff like that is so minimal that I think you can ignore it if you let yourself.

I don't know. I'm not saying you HAVE to ignore it but I don't find it to be as in-your-face as people make it out to be...

The religious allusions (Jesus/Moses/generic messiah) are pretty much embedded in the Superman mythos - and can’t really be denied. But how subtle or obvious those allusions are can be legitimate fodder for debate.

 

[Human Torch]

I don't get the complaints about the Christ allegory in MOS.That was one thing that was actually subtle.As someone said,it's just the Christ-like pose and saying he's 33.Not exactly things that beat you over the head.The picture of Jesus in the church was nice and subtle.

Superman Returns is the one time I felt they overdid the Christ Allegory.Supe gets beaten by a mob,stabbed in the side,"dies", and a woman finds the "empty bed" the next day.The only thing they failed to do is have Luthor flog him with a Kryptonite tipped whip.

 

[The Question]

I don't get the complaints about the Christ allegory in MOS.That was one thing that was actually subtle.As someone said,it's just the Christ-like pose and saying he's 33.Not exactly things that beat you over the head.The picture of Jesus in the church was nice and subtle.

Superman Returns is the one time I felt they overdid the Christ Allegory.Supe gets beaten by a mob,stabbed in the side,"dies", and a woman finds the "empty bed" the next day.The only thing they failed to do is have Luthor flog him with a Kryptonite tipped whip.

I don't like the Christ allegory in general because it doesn't fit the character. There's really nothing Christ-like about Superman beyond being a fundamentally decent person.

I also thought the stained glass was incredibly blunt.

 

[Boy Scout]

Yeah, there was absolutely nothing subtle about it.

 

[Flint Marko]

1: I wasn't whopping praise on Agents of SHIELD. I was just saying that people were grossly overreacting in their complaints about it, which they were. All of the Skye hate was ten times more obnoxious than the character herself, and to be honest a lot of it came of to me as fairly sexist to me. Also a lot of it was people wishing that the team were more like five super badass Navy SEALs who never make mistakes, and that basically feels like hyper macho competency porn, which I feel is pretty useless. My opinion of Agents of SHIELD is that it is one step above mediocre and generally entertaining but also nothing special.

2: I think that Agents of SHIELD is more competently written and produced than Man of Steel and is generally more entertaining. Obviously there's a bit of an apples/oranges thing between a TV show and a movie, but as much as the two can be compared Agents of SHIELD wins out for me.

I'll go ahead and second everything you've said here. AoS is largely unremarkable, but it's still written by people who know how to tell a proper story. MoS didn't have that luxury.

I don't know, I didn't really think it was all that in-your-face in MOS. Other than the whole cross pose thing as he's leaving Zod's ship, I didn't really notice the other stuff until I saw people ranting about it on message boards. I think one of the stained glass windows in the church had Jesus in a red cape or something and then there's the whole "33 years" thing, but stuff like that is so minimal that I think you can ignore it if you let yourself.

I don't know. I'm not saying you HAVE to ignore it but I don't find it to be as in-your-face as people make it out to be. It's sort of like The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Despite being a religious allegory, if you want to, you can just ignore that and embrace it for what it is: a really weird fantasy story about talking beavers and sh**.

You didn't notice the stained glass window depicting Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane? It was huge and in your face, right in the golden mean for audiences to see.
I was raised reading the bible and recognized that the second I saw it and given the context of the movie it was clear what the film makers were trying to do, but it had all the subtlety of a chainsaw and the meaning/depth of a poem written by a middle schooler.