The Double Standards Against Superman

[Senator Pleasury]

Ok.

 

[Llama_Shepherd]

I admit, while i don't think The Man of Steel was very good, i really liked their version of Zod, his motivations were interesting and well thought out, and i'm not sure we've seen somebody like this in an action film yet. That genes bit was definitelly an interesting addition, which is why Zod does all he does.

I actually thought Shannon's Zod and Stamp's Zod, in terms of motivation, belonged to be in each others films.

In the 70's an old general who is essentially racist would be quite poignant and speak to those social issues.

In the present a man who stands above others because he was born into an aristocracy (think the OWS 1%) would be relevant to now.

Though I did like them, I always think, what could have been.

 

[Smashlilman]

 

[sportjames23]

HAHAHAHA Sums it all up, doesn't it?

 

[Panthro]

That's pretty spot on.

 

[sf2]

So cute. No wonder he is crying.

anyway I really like this idea.

4. After Superman defeats Zod, have Lois convince Superman he did the right thing by picking Superman off his feet to look at the family he saved (preferably a shot of the father/son). Have her then lead Superman outside where they see hundreds of people staring in awe & confusion. Superman then begins to help people out of the rubble etc, most of whom start with confused expressions of their faces which turn to more trusting faces. Eventually muffle the sound and start to play news footage from around the world talking about how "they think it's over", "one of these aliens seems to be protecting us" "Is this Kal-El?", etc, showing people hugging each other in relief (TDKRises style), all that jazz. A slow piano theme would be playing over all of this with some light drums building before it fades out.

I think it would pacify many disgruntled fans.
o cute. No wonder he is crying.

 

[Darkstar]

Though there are some pretty locales, Skyfall mostly takes place in rainy gray London, and ends in foggy Scotland, compared to most Bond films that are mostly centered around exotic locales. It literally ends with them destroying the classic James Bond car....if that wasn't a blatant metaphor for "out with the old", I don't know what was. Not to mention killing off M, making Moneypenny black, and making Q a tech geek instead of an old man.

That, and having Bond fail through the whole movie-all that he succeeded at was terminating Silva.

 

[MydnightPhoenix]

Dangit I need to watch MOS again because I don't remember Lois or Jor El killing anyone.
Other than my bad memory love the image.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Dangit I need to watch MOS again because I don't remember Lois or Jor El killing anyone.
Other than my bad memory love the image.

What? You seriously don't remember the the action sequence with Jor-El and Lois in Zod's ship. Not snarky, it's just that I love those scenes so much and I'm surprised you don't recollect 'em. Those scenes were so badass. Jor-El is the Man. D

As for Jor-El killing, he used Flashbang, some hand to hand combat and a gun to take down a few of Zod's army of rebels. It was sweet and showed Jor-El's tactical acumen against born and bred soldiers. Russel Crowe was so awesome

 

[Osiris-Rex]

I wouldn't call it a double standard. It's more Superman is held to a higher standard. Soldiers and police officers are depicted killing lots of bad people. And people are fine with that.
But Superman is so mighty, and such a figure of hope and compassion, that killing should never be an option for him.
It's like in the Supergirl TV series. Alex Danvers and J'onn J'onzz routinely kill. But after Supergirl recovered from Red Kryptonite, her first question was "Did I kill anybody?" and had such
a great look of relief when Alex assured her that she hadn't killed anyone.

 

[MydnightPhoenix]

Superman doesn't kill humans, he should strive not to kill humans and that is where his mightiness comes in. But I have seen Superman killing or fighting to kill Super powered aliens before and that is what Zod was. Sometimes he ends up killing them sometimes he doesn't. If I recall he tried to kill Darkseid in STAS; and numerous comic book readers have said he has killed Zod before in the comics.

 

[CLARKY]

I thought it wouldn't hurt to have a thread about this topic over here, but one of the things that I wanted to discuss about with everyone is regarding the "Double Standards" that people seem to have towards the character of Superman, especially as of late.
I can understand if people had issues with MOS because it's not a perfect film and it could have been better. But seeing the character made fun of and bashed for things like this, it' s just freaking annoying and so hypocritical.

Hey ! I see it very simply :

- The carnage in Metropolis was indeed out of character. Most people divide the debate over he should have saved people / He could not save people. To me, due to the scope of the fight, people were going to die. What is out of the character is the way it beglects the fact that Clark would have at the very least tried to save people. None of this appears and it feels like it is more serious when everyone dies. :/ He could have tried. And Zod could have gladly played with that.

- The fight in the city : Same here. Clark could have tried to take the fight out there in the nearby sea/ocean. Maybe he would have failed, maybe he should have realized that Zod does not let him. It's all fine.

- Killing Zod : If you know Superman, you know there's always a way. So to prove him wrong in the very first movie was a broken-leg move to me. It's like trying to show how great he is but in fact no. I think the debate over this is great and the idea of Superman forced to kill is clever. But in the first movie whenhe isn't the Superman ? :/

- Modernized hero does not mean negative hero. And this is something I see often ; If you want to be "realistic" make the hero suffer and lose or crush a principle... ? Like winning or joyful or having integrity is realistic ? Like life is always unfair and crual ? ... If Superman himself fails, when he is a philosophical concept,I'm not even trying to maintain my morality am I ? Superheroes are child products. Most fo the time, when someone want to make it "adult" they take the pessimist, negative, cynical approach. I don't see how THAT is more mature. It's been like this since Frank Miller's Batman in the 80es.

 

[souperman]

Superman doesn't kill humans, he should strive not to kill humans and that is where his mightiness comes in. But I have seen Superman killing or fighting to kill Super powered aliens before and that is what Zod was. Sometimes he ends up killing them sometimes he doesn't. If I recall he tried to kill Darkseid in STAS; and numerous comic book readers have said he has killed Zod before in the comics.

...everyone knows aliens don't count!

Superman never killed nobody.

; )

 

[Herofan]

I think the criticism is actually maybe more because of how torn up he was about it compared to how many people had already died in the battle, and that it felt contrived he was able to defeat all the other Kryptonians without killing them and but not Zod, that just went on more to have a different darker ending, so it felt more forced by filmmakers than necessary, also the weirndess that he quickly goes from being so torn up about it (and/more than the city devastation) to kissing Lois.

 

[C. Lee]

Superman has killed humans. There has been 80+ years of Superman stories in comics, radio, TV, and movies. It's not like he has made a habit of killing people...but he occasionally does.

 

[vantheman77]

There is almost 85 years worth of Superman material to draw from for movie, TV, and animation stories to adapt so the idea of not knowing what to do with Superman is absurd.

 

[GreenKToo]

For me, to justify superman killing zod later on, I would have preferred something like this.

Earlier in the fight, superman sees civilians in danger from falling debris.
He rushes to save them, but zod uses his heat vision to incinerate them first, then laughs.
Why do you protect these weakling?

In the midst of the fight, supes tries over and over to save people, but each time zod turns the tables and kills them. Laughing at how weak they are, taunting superman.

Supermans anger boils over.

He finally puts 100% into the fight ( he had been holding back ) and kicks zod's azz.

It ends the same, Except supes screams ENOUGH! as he snaps zod's neck before he can kill the family.