Too much action?

[Wildcard]

I'm perfectly fine with the amount of action that's in MoS. It's a Superman movie so I feel that the action has been to be heightened. Obviously you don't want to go overboard with it but I think Snyder & co. found the perfect balance.

 

[Isearch4dope]

Not too much action. Too much meaningless CGI action that looked and felt as thin as cardboard. Snyder's shooting style and direction weren't the best of choices. I will say that it's still better than most superhero movie action scenes.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

Oy vey... How can it be "better than most" yet "Paper thin and meaningless"?

 

[Batmannerism]

Not too much action. Too much meaningless CGI action that looked and felt as thin as cardboard. Snyder's shooting style and direction weren't the best of choices. I will say that it's still better than most superhero movie action scenes.

Given the heavy reliance on CGI in most superhero films....(with the key exception being Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, and a fair chunk of the X-films) could you give some examples of superhero films that
had good CGI action scenes, and those that had not-so-good ones ?

For example, I vastly preferred the action scenes in MOS to Avengers and Iron Man 2 and 3 - but that's just my personal taste.

I think the MOS fight scenes in Smallville were the best, and much better than anything in TASM 2 (although I liked the movie in general), again my personal opinion.

It's funny you say that Snyder 's style wasn't the best choice, because if you watch his other films, MOS is radically different in terms of the colour palette but even more of a departure in terms of how he films fight scenes. Snyder usually relies on slo-mo, yet in MOS the action was at full tilt, and not particularly stylized (no big spinning sweeping movements). I thought this made MOS a much more enjoyable watch (in terms of fight scenes) than Watchmen, or 300 (there's only so much slo-mo spear-impaling and sword-decapitating/disembowling that I can take).

If anything, Snyder took a page out of Michael Bay's book, but one of the better pages.

Still, I respect your opinion. Is your gripe with CGI in general or just with MOS ? ( by contrast, while not the greatest choreography, the scene where Bane beats down Batman in TDKR is still kind of chilling, just because its so personal, and the same is true for their final encounter, IMO).

 

[Isearch4dope]

Given the heavy reliance on CGI in most superhero films....(with the key exception being Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, and a fair chunk of the X-films) could you give some examples of superhero films that
had good CGI action scenes, and those that had not-so-good ones ?

For example, I vastly preferred the action scenes in MOS to Avengers and Iron Man 2 and 3 - but that's just my personal taste.

I think the MOS fight scenes in Smallville were the best, and much better than anything in TASM 2 (although I liked the movie in general), again my personal opinion.

It's funny you say that Snyder 's style wasn't the best choice, because if you watch his other films, MOS is radically different in terms of the colour palette but even more of a departure in terms of how he films fight scenes. Snyder usually relies on slo-mo, yet in MOS the action was at full tilt, and not particularly stylized (no big spinning sweeping movements). I thought this made MOS a much more enjoyable watch (in terms of fight scenes) than Watchmen, or 300 (there's only so much slo-mo spear-impaling and sword-decapitating/disembowling that I can take).

If anything, Snyder took a page out of Michael Bay's book, but one of the better pages.

Still, I respect your opinion. Is your gripe with CGI in general or just with MOS ? ( by contrast, while not the greatest choreography, the scene where Bane beats down Batman in TDKR is still kind of chilling, just because its so personal, and the same is true for their final encounter, IMO).

I'll start off by saying that I expect more from superhero films due to TDKT (nowhere near perfect films that could have been done better but they showed the potential of the genre if you think about it as more than just the live adaptations of the comics.....TDKR was to take this further but took a step back which is an underlying reason I believe it divided fans). The comics merely served the story elements but the movies themselves existed in a world mimicking our own for the most part and they found a balance between the two worlds trying their best not to compromise ours. The reason this method worked in the first place was due to the fact that Batman is human. The intrigue of this is.....let's see how he can exist believably with limited suspension of disbelief in a world like ours. The reason I said that is the moment you tackle a hero with superpowers in a real world you now have to pay extra attention to all the ways that the said being affects everything around him/her for the film to hold up. Remember that the contrast between this being and the real world is what is intriguing on an equal level as their moral standing.....well at least for me (this goes especially for MOS because it specifically asked the question "What if this super-powered being existed in our world?"). By the way I view Marvel films the same way I view saturday morning cartoons with the exception of Iron Man 1 and to an extent TWS. IMO the moment you want to ground a super-powered (mainly power-wise) being he/she has to be convincing when interacting with our world physically. One example of where MOS forced my suspension of disbelief was when the filmmaker asked me to believe Kal-El (super-powered being) had the appropriate mass and strength to sustain a falling oil rig but moments earlier is pushed down by a regular human. Also he had the ability to stay on the fishing boat without it sinking or struggling not to capsize. Some might say this is not important and story comes first etc. but isn't that a major part of the storytelling and a major aspect of what draws us to the genre in the first place? To me ignoring those details destroys the illusion and causes one to realize the real world laws and physics of this world mimicking our own is not intact thus losing it's intrigue. This is the next step the genre needs to take or else connecting with the actions, stories and the very being of such heroes will quickly become a very repetitive and tedious affair.

When it comes to action scenes I don't differentiate between regular action and fighting scenes. For me that oil rig scene in MOS I mentioned was an action scene and that holds as much weight for me as a fight scene. With that said.....an example of an action scene (although CGI) that I thought captured a feel of power and awe and also looked convincing (everything other than Hulk and the soldiers surviving the tank throw etc.) was this scene from Ang Lee's Hulk...

[YT]8wrNMPRriwc[/YT]


The avengers as well as the others you mentioned have no rank in my books for action scenes.....and yes they are below MOS....for me it's all about the weight, look and then execution......the smallville fight is ok but again the CG ...I'm sure it's difficult to film a Superman fight but I've seen better depictions of super strength, speed etc. to know that it can be done with a more grounded feel.....the background in the ihop, the CGI nature of the debris, the colour palette.....maybe it's Snyder's lens choice but the very look of the characters against the background is off putting and seems almost cartoon-like.....the punches have no weight to them but a shock-wave looking effect and when faora smashes through the soldiers it looks so fake and you can't even tell if it's MOS or MOS the animated film.

[YT]yQBlnx1ucxI[/YT]
[YT]ZBv807e7oSE[/YT]

My gripe is with both CGI and MOS. Will agree on the first Bats and Bane fight . With the choreography being sub-par (didn't want flying ninja men) the weight alone made it worth watching and as you can see from what I said earlier for me it's weight, look then execution. Didn't like anything about the second fight at all. Maybe it's a movie curse but the first encounters always seem to stand out and have more grit.

 

[Batmannerism]

I'll start off by saying that I expect more from superhero films due to TDKT (nowhere near perfect films that could have been done better but they showed the potential of the genre if you think about it as more than just the live adaptations of the comics.....TDKR was to take this further but took a step back which is an underlying reason I believe it divided fans). The comics merely served the story elements but the movies themselves existed in a world mimicking our own for the most part and they found a balance between the two worlds trying their best not to compromise ours. The reason this method worked in the first place was due to the fact that Batman is human. The intrigue of this is.....let's see how he can exist believably with limited suspension of disbelief in a world like ours. The reason I said that is the moment you tackle a hero with superpowers in a real world you now have to pay extra attention to all the ways that the said being affects everything around him/her for the film to hold up. Remember that the contrast between this being and the real world is what is intriguing on an equal level as their moral standing.....well at least for me (this goes especially for MOS because it specifically asked the question "What if this super-powered being existed in our world?"). By the way I view Marvel films the same way I view saturday morning cartoons with the exception of Iron Man 1 and to an extent TWS. IMO the moment you want to ground a super-powered (mainly power-wise) being he/she has to be convincing when interacting with our world physically. One example of where MOS forced my suspension of disbelief was when the filmmaker asked me to believe Kal-El (super-powered being) had the appropriate mass and strength to sustain a falling oil rig but moments earlier is pushed down by a regular human. Also he had the ability to stay on the fishing boat without it sinking or struggling not to capsize. Some might say this is not important and story comes first etc. but isn't that a major part of the storytelling and a major aspect of what draws us to the genre in the first place? To me ignoring those details destroys the illusion and causes one to realize the real world laws and physics of this world mimicking our own is not intact thus losing it's intrigue. This is the next step the genre needs to take or else connecting with the actions, stories and the very being of such heroes will quickly become a very repetitive and tedious affair.

When it comes to action scenes I don't differentiate between regular action and fighting scenes. For me that oil rig scene in MOS I mentioned was an action scene and that holds as much weight for me as a fight scene. With that said.....an example of an action scene (although CGI) that I thought captured a feel of power and awe and also looked convincing (everything other than Hulk and the soldiers surviving the tank throw etc.) was this scene from Ang Lee's Hulk...

[YT]8wrNMPRriwc[/YT]


The avengers as well as the others you mentioned have no rank in my books for action scenes.....and yes they are below MOS....for me it's all about the weight, look and then execution......the smallville fight is ok but again the CG ...I'm sure it's difficult to film a Superman fight but I've seen better depictions of super strength, speed etc. to know that it can be done with a more grounded feel.....the background in the ihop, the CGI nature of the debris, the colour palette.....maybe it's Snyder's lens choice but the very look of the characters against the background is off putting and seems almost cartoon-like.....the punches have no weight to them but a shock-wave looking effect and when faora smashes through the soldiers it looks so fake and you can't even tell if it's MOS or MOS the animated film.

[YT]yQBlnx1ucxI[/YT]
[YT]ZBv807e7oSE[/YT]

My gripe is with both CGI and MOS. Will agree on the first Bats and Bane fight . With the choreography being sub-par (didn't want flying ninja men) the weight alone made it worth watching and as you can see from what I said earlier for me it's weight, look then execution. Didn't like anything about the second fight at all. Maybe it's a movie curse but the first encounters always seem to stand out and have more grit.

You raise a lot of good points...no, great points there. I disagree with you on the cartoonish feel of the Smallville fight, for me it worked- and Faora smashing those soldiers was a highlight in particular. I'm just not sure how you could do that better. To contrast her superhuman speed and power against the soldiers. For me, I thought that MOS did a great job of showing what would happen if Kryptonians threw down in our world, it would be like a man thrashing about in a landscape made of tissue paper. The same goes for the Supes v Zod fight in Metropolis, I suppose when they're zooming around it might seem a bit cartoonish, but really I don't know how Snyder could have accurately represented their speed and ferocity otherwise ? I'm just really glad he didn't use slo-mo.


However, my perceptions are coloured by the fact that I'm a die-hard Superman fan, so things that didn't bug me, might have bugged others.

As for the physics of the oil rig. Is mass important (I'm not a physics student) ? Kal clearly has the strength, or depending on how you interpret Superman's powers, can exert sufficient force to hold up the tower. What happened (which to me seems to be reasonably accurate) is that the girders he was standing on gave out from underneath him, and the tower collapsed under its own weight.

As for choreography. Well, the first two Nolan Bat-films had better fight choreography, and I think Nolan's point in TDKR was to show a Batman who was rusty and hampered by a lot of injuries.
Also, people forget that Nolan's whole point was to take Batman back to a grittier place, as you say -where we believe that it actually could happen. In real fights people very seldom throw fancy kicks - and certainly not when they're wearing body armour.

I think a lot of fans are influenced by the Arkham video games in which Batman pulls of miraculous and flashy moves in combat - that real humans could never do, and definitely not when wearing the Bat-suit.

The choreography in MOS was very "brawl" like - but I liked it.

especially this...... check out 1:45 my favourite fist fight moment in MOS.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBv807e7oSE


a big swinging left then right then a quick left-right up in the air and POW ! Now that is a straight-up Superman move.

For me, that's about as good as you can get when showing beings of Superman's power and speed fighting. Personally, I don't think anything in Hulk (which I really liked anyway, both Ang Lee and the Louis Leterrier/Ed Norton version) is as good. But that's just IMO.

 

[Steamteck]

Big surprise coming form me. Not too much action and wonderfully executed. I really look forward to Snyder's Batman fight scenes as well as Wonder Woman.

 

[-Arya-]

Having seen it now for the 4th time, I thought the tentacle fight scene was redundant.

 

[Steamteck]

Having seen it now for the 4th time, I thought the tentacle fight scene was redundant.

Perhaps but I loved the tension and emotion as he was mustering all to destroy the thing after being knocked down as Jenny was about to get flattened and the planes couldn't get through. I've seen it a 1/2 dozen times at least and that scene still puts me on the edge of my seat.

 

[Batmannerism]

Check out 2:39 of this, to see that audiences are fickle !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnY4p_ASV9M&index=6&list=UUHCph-_jLba_9atyCZJPLQQ

 

[Steamteck]

Check out 2:39 of this, to see that audiences are fickle !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnY4p_ASV9M&index=6&list=UUHCph-_jLba_9atyCZJPLQQ

Really cracks me up. I think its more that Superman is held to a different standard than any other hero out there though.

 

[Batmannerism]

Really cracks me up. I think its more that Superman is held to a different standard than any other hero out there though.

Too right ! In the Dark Knight trilogy Batman allows Ra's Al Ghul to die,
and then kills Harvey Dent by tackling him over the side of the building,
in TDKR he opens up with rocket/gunfire on the truck, which we see kills the driver.

And Batman has an express code against killing ? Well, I guess except when he doesn't !

Yeah, Superman gets held up to a different standard. But then, Superman shows that he wasn't too happy about killing Zod (again, maybe the movie should have followed up on that, and the destruction a little better) but
the HT guys are spot on.

 

[TheFlamingCoco]

Too right ! In the Dark Knight trilogy Batman allows Ra's Al Ghul to die,
and then kills Harvey Dent by tackling him over the side of the building,
in TDKR he opens up with rocket/gunfire on the truck, which we see kills the driver.

And Batman has an express code against killing ? Well, I guess except when he doesn't !

Yeah, Superman gets held up to a different standard. But then, Superman shows that he wasn't too happy about killing Zod (again, maybe the movie should have followed up on that, and the destruction a little better) but
the HT guys are spot on.

I think it goes down to a movie-induced subconscious. The first major Batman movie had Batman blowing up a factory and throwing somebody in acid, and the first major Superman movie had the titular character not fighting anyone.

But yeah, I do think there is a stricter standard for Superman, even if it's unfair.

 

[Avenging Angel]

The movie was filled otherwise with a lot of emotional scenes that were material to the plot. Essentially a origins/reboot. I don't think the action scenes took away from the movie as a whole. I liked the battle scene. Of course the anti climatic ending to Zod was OOC and made me feel uneasy to watch based on the track record of the previous films. MoS was dark but in general it was a good stand alone from what I was used to watching. The only thing that might have been a little boring were the Chlois scenes, because it was necessary to canon, just found it a little dragging. The fight scenes were the best parts.

 

[sportjames23]

Too right ! In the Dark Knight trilogy Batman allows Ra's Al Ghul to die,
and then kills Harvey Dent by tackling him over the side of the building,
in TDKR he opens up with rocket/gunfire on the truck, which we see kills the driver.

And Batman has an express code against killing ? Well, I guess except when he doesn't !

Yeah, Superman gets held up to a different standard. But then, Superman shows that he wasn't too happy about killing Zod (again, maybe the movie should have followed up on that, and the destruction a little better) but
the HT guys are spot on.

Amazing how people overlook this while trashing MOS.

And don't get me started on The Avengers.

 

[ThePhantasm]

And Batman has an express code against killing ? Well, I guess except when he doesn't !

 

[Batsfan1]

Too right ! In the Dark Knight trilogy Batman allows Ra's Al Ghul to die,
and then kills Harvey Dent by tackling him over the side of the building,
in TDKR he opens up with rocket/gunfire on the truck, which we see kills the driver.

And Batman has an express code against killing ? Well, I guess except when he doesn't !

Yeah, Superman gets held up to a different standard. But then, Superman shows that he wasn't too happy about killing Zod (again, maybe the movie should have followed up on that, and the destruction a little better) but
the HT guys are spot on.

He didn't kill Ra's.
He didn't intend to kill Harvey.
Not only was that an accident, Batman didn't even know it happened.

 

[Batsfan1]

The action isn't the real problem. Although the issue isn't too much, but too over-wrought. The film's weak writing is the problem though.

 

[Batsfan1]

The Burton films don't really count because that practically wasn't even Batman. As the killing will show. But Two-Face in Batman Forever doesn't die. His clothes are in Arkham in Batman & Robin and it was stated that his fate was meant to be ambiguous at the time.

 

[DlAMONDZ]

No such thing as "too much action"

 

[sportjames23]

He didn't kill Ra's.
He didn't intend to kill Harvey.
Not only was that an accident, Batman didn't even know it happened.

He let Ra's die. He even said he didn't have to save him. If Superman had did something similar with Zod, we'd never heard the end of it.

And tackling Harvey off the ledge = him not meaning to kill him? What did he think would happen?

 

[Batsfan1]

He let Ra's die. He even said he didn't have to save him. If Superman had did something similar with Zod, we'd never heard the end of it.

I know I wouldn't have a real issue with it.

And tackling Harvey off the ledge = him not meaning to kill him? What did he think would happen?

Save the kid. I've never really saw that as a logical movie. I saw it as an impulsive move to save the child.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

The action isn't the real problem. Although the issue isn't too much, but too over-wrought. The film's weak writing is the problem though.

I would love to hear about these weaknesses but I'm sure it's just the usual subjective complaints that simultaneously overlook the supposed same weaknesses in other films.

 

[ripse]

Too much action and is ok i like it

 

[Bizarro!]

We could argue that 90% of the cb movies nowadays have more action than whay they really need to have in order to be engaging, but i don't think Man of Steel is the prime example of that. I wish more movies would have a little less action and a little more character and story development. That's what's missing in the super hero genre. Characters and story are just too weak overall.

The Burton films don't really count because that practically wasn't even Batman. As the killing will show. But Two-Face in Batman Forever doesn't die. His clothes are in Arkham in Batman & Robin and it was stated that his fate was meant to be ambiguous at the time.

It qualifies as Batman. It was just not the best version of the character.