The Man of Steel General Discussion Thread

I think the villain being Lex or almost anyone other than Kryptonians would have been a better approach, Superman (emerging to) save the world from his own people is kind of a fresh take (despite of course a lot of comparison with Superman II) but also at least a bit too dark and especially reactive.

It was a difficult challenge, to make a new Superman origin film after S78 and TAS/other adaptations and a lot of other recent superhero origin stories but just kind of doing brief but angstier origin + with II-like (literally Zod) story and action was a pretty unimpressive response.

 

we need a serious well thought-out follow-up. soon....
MoS was a very good and different approach to Superman that I appreciated after already having StM and Returns and Smallviille. Great casting and writing mostly and great cinematography and score, VFX and production design/costumes IMO and mostly good overall. Small nits I would pick and would have "rather" seen scenes but overall a though provoking film... and we are still talking about it so...

 

While I'm generally a lurker on this forum, I have many thoughts about MoS and BvS that differ from my friends who don't like these films as much as I.

I truly appreciate that they tried to do something different with the character. As I saw Superman: The Movie on its initial release, it has always been the standard for me, and informed much of my interests over the years, however, MoS showed me a side of Clark that we'd not seen before. The vagrant, the traveller, the wanderer trying to figure out who he was, and that he was also fallible having a bit of a temper. The stoicism and religious parallel of the character were a tad over-cooked for me, but otherwise, the photography, casting, music, plot, characterisation (particularly of Zod who considered himself doing nothing wrong in wanting to save Krypton whatever it took) refreshing. I appreciate that is was different.

Also, I felt, as a viewer, that I was involved more in this iteration; I felt we were treated with a certain respect not found in the Marvel movies and we were considered much more capable of putting together subtext and context; there was no pandering ('Welcome to the Planet, Clark'...'Thank you Lois, it's great to be here'...etc etc). I respected that as much as I respected Lois doing her job and tracking down Clark. She's not a puppy eyed idiot...she kicks ass.

The things I didn't enjoy were the poor death of Jonathan Kent (the less dramatic version in S:TM is better in it's immediacy and impact) and some of the dialogue between Superman and Zod 'you're a monster Zod, and I'm gonna stop you' is cringey as hell. We needed more of sassy Perry White.

 

Rewatching MOS recently, I wish they had...

Not been so derivative with Jor-El where Crowe has basically the same role that Brando did in the 78 movie as this consciousness that can have conversations with Superman and tell him about Krypton, etc. I would like to see a cinematic version of Superman where he CAN'T talk to Jor-El, because he's dead. It makes the destruction of Krypton less tragic if Superman can go to the Fortress and chat with his dead biological dad.

I wish they had used Brainiac instead of Zod. Would've fit the "first contact/alien invasion" story without feeling derivative of Superman II.

I wish they had a better Lois (never really been a big fan of Amy in the role).

If they were going to go with this "you shouldn't let people know you are an alien, even if that means you have to let me die" thing with Jonathan Kent, keep him alive, and do the Lois & Clark thing where Clark works with him and Martha to create the Superman persona so he can save people and still be Clark Kent, instead of doing the Superman 78 thing again where you kill off Jonathan and let Jor-El be the guy who helps Clark create Superman yet again.

In general, I wish Man Of Steel was more like the John Byrne reboot and less of an amalgamation of Superman 78 and Chris Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy. Focused more on the human side of Superman instead of going back to the Jesus parallels. Make the Kents the moral backbone of Superman instead of Jor-El.

 

It's frustrating that it sold itself as being a "reboot" when it was really just a truncated remake of the first two Donner movies with the hope and optimism removed.

 

For me, I would have had Brainiac be the cause of Krypton's destruction.

An AI that the citizens of Krypton had turned over all control of their daily lives to.
He gains sentient life and decides Krypton needs destroying.
He escapes just before the planet is destroyed.
Later on, he learns that a surviving kryptonian is on earth.

The editing could have been better also.

 

Instead of destroying Krypton, he could've been banished by Jor-El to the Phantom Zone because his plan to "save it" would mean taking away everyone's humanity and freedom, Borg style. The destruction of Krypton only strengthens Brainiac's point of view (because in his mind he was proven right).