Point is, it was a dark version of the character.
Are you saying it was too dark ?
If so, that's a fair call, and you're totally entitled to your opinion.
BTW I agree with you on the death of Jonathan Kent. That his death is part of the myth and needed to be in the film, almost goes without saying. I know what they were trying to do with the Tornado scene, but for me
it didn't quite carry it off.
As to this being a "dark" version of Superman, I disagree, but it's really just my opinion.
In relative terms it was a much darker version than STM 1978, or many of the modern comics iterations - even a shade darker than Byrne's Superman, which has always been my personal favourite.
Anyway, the word I would use to describe this film, as opposed to "dark" is "serious" or maybe "heavy." Of course, maybe that's just another way of saying dark, but that's how it looks to me.
I guess Christopher Reeve and Richard Donner have tremendously influenced the character in terms of injecting a sense of fun into him, and in those film Superman smiles a lot, and cracks jokes whenever he can. There's that great moment in STM where Clark and Lois get mugged, and after the mugger runs away, Clark recovers from his pretended faint, Lois storms off, Clark stands up, opens his hands to reveal he's caught the bullets, and smiles at the audience - that kind of thing is totally absent in MOS.
Maybe if after he saved the school-bus, he'd smiled at Lana, then that might have lightened things up.
Cavill's Superman is a much more serious character. I wouldn't describe him at all as depressed -mostly because people suffering depression often can't do anything, whereas Clark goes about his life, searching, a bit aimlessly, looking for himself. He's certainly burdened, and not joyful at all. I don't think we see him smile in the first half of the film.
I think the sense of what they try to convey in that first half film is
Clark's emotional turmoil, and struggle to find out who he is and what he's supposed to do, and the burden that his great secret carries. I don't see this as "dark" but it certainly isn't the joyful romp that STM was.
This is just IMO, but when he comes back to Smallville to see his mom, after meeting Jor El, you see him smile for pretty much the first time, there is real sense of relief in the character, now that he knows who he is, although he still doesn't really know what he's supposed to do.
Anyway, that's one of the more emotional scenes in the film. The final flashback, with Clark as a kid, although it's the image of a child playing, it's not really a "light" scene, because it's about Jonathan's realisation that this child is going to grow up and change the world ....and of course the characters thinking about it are standing over his grave.
Maybe the reason MOS worked for me is that I've always seen Superman as quite a serious character, one who carries a lot of self-imposed responsibility. I've never thought of him as happy-go-lucky.
t's true that in MOS he doesn't say much, but to me Superman's a man of few words, he's a doer not a talker. To be honest, I thought that Cavill's work as Superman (in the costume) was better when he didn't say much. The interrogation room scene worked for me (there was a brief light moment there, one of the few in the film, before it gets serious again).
All in all, I didn't see it as "dark" per se (might just be me, but "dark" would be more like The Dark Knight, as in the film deals with obsession, madness and a kind of anarchic violence). In STM even then there was the threat of the death of millions, although it seemed much more impersonal (death by Earthquake) than death by forced terraforming.
Hmmmm... maybe the Apocalyptic nature of the threat posed by Zod and the Kryptonians could be described as "dark."
I wouldn't say it makes Superman a dark character, or the film overall a dark film, but I would agree that MOS' version of Zod is certainly much, much darker than Superman II. You can still have dark elements in a film without the overall picture being "dark." e.g. Return of the Jedi has dark elements in it, including a teddy-bear massacre, but I wouldn't call it a dark film.
In the end, I liked seeing Superman struggle and was glad that nothing came easy to him -especially his victories- for me that really worked, and was a good iteration of the classic hero, IMO.
So, in summary, I didn't see the film as dark, but that's just IMO. Much , much more serious though, so if that fits your description of "dark" then we're probably on the same page. I can certainly see why the film was
too serious for some people (especially fans of the original film).
On a different subject, changing Lois' knowledge re Clark's secret identity,
well actually doing away with the secret identity altogether really, is changing a core part of the myth (of course it has happened in the comics as well).
I don't know if it makes Superman more interesting, or if it was necessary, but I still liked it. Personally, I'm glad they did it, because it also solves the problem of how Lois Lane, investigative reporter, is fooled by a pair of glasses. To be honest, I thought that having Lois be the person who essentially "outs" Superman (well before Zod does it more conclusively) and that she finds him, made more sense in having the two characters meet and form a relationship. But that's just IMO.
yeah, not the best screen romance ever, but I thought that it accomplished what it needed to. Probably on a par with the romance in Thor, not all that convincing, but there.
I'm also glad they gave Lois stuff to do (like shoot evil Kryptonians), although I guess I'll have to agree to disagree with those who thought her being on the Kryptonian ship, or the cargo plane were just contrivances. Personally, I thought it worked, but that's just me.
In STM and SM II she's pretty much a liability the whole film, so I thought that was a welcome change.
