first, big ups to you for having the balls to put your ideas out there.
People here can be quick to **** on other people's ideas.
We can disagree without being discourteous. I don't agree
with a lot of what you say, but hey, good on you for the effort.
I'd change the opening, develop Zod more, make a cleaner Krypton. Kal is born, they name him, we cut to Zod who is sitting in his home alone, show him having violent flashbacks of robotic creatures with symbols on their foreheads attacking krypton, killing people, even Zod's family, the flashbacks are brief, but just enough to see the Kryptonian council surrender to their attacker, a dome enclose over Kandor and make it disappear, Zod is haunted and angry.
Interesting, could be achieved thru flashbacks in a subsequent film, great way to bring back Shannon as Zod. I definitely agree that Brainiac should
be a future SM villain.
Jor-El is studying problems in the planet's core, but their computers say everything is fine, Jor-El asks Zod to come with him to check a fault line, as a scientist needs to be accompanied by a soldier when going to like the outer lands, access military equipment or whatever, just as a soldier needs authorization by a scientist to access scientific equipment, they talk, it's clear they're friends, Jor-El tells Zod about his son, Zod tells Jor-El that he knows a natural birth is illegal, suddenly an earthquake erupts, causing Jor-El to quickly check his readings, they're off the charts. Jor-El and Zod quickly rushes back to his lab to check his main computers, which are all reading things as fine, he digs deeper into the programming and finds the same symbol that was on the robotic creatures head embedded into the computers programming, corrupting it. Jor-El is horrified, Zod is furious, yelling about how that thing destroyed their families, their brightest city, and now it's destroyed THEM, Zod blames the council for bowing to the thing and proclaims them weak. Jor-El warns the council, as Zod rallies any soldiers loyal to him to save their world while they still can, he does so easily, they attack the council headquarters and take them out, Zod finds Jor-El, and asks him to help him save their world through allowing access to the Codex. The codex is a computer chip, essentially it's the brain, it has info on everything, from the genetic code from which all kryptonian children are created, to the entire history of Krypton and all its knowledge, and the how to build and operate a terraforming device called the World Engine, as such a thing has been illegal for a long time due to it requiring a planet with an already habitable environment and thus life. Jor-El refuses Zod, saying he will not allow Zod to destroy a entire race, Jor-El escapes, accesses the codex, steals it and goes to Lara, telling her they have to leave, Jor-El has set a warning for the planet to give them time to escape, but doubts they'll be able to as a military security system destroys any ship entering or leaving krypton, but Jor-El has a plan: a space probe, small enough to sneak past the security systems, but big enough to carry maybe one person, or one person and a baby, he sends Lara and Kal-El to the probe, she does, begrudgingly, as Jor-El gives her the codex and tells her he has to distract Zod's men to keep them from the probe, Lara is wounded fatally, maybe by Faora, but she gets into the probe with Kal-El and takes off, Zod captures Jor-El, and sees the probe doing that teleporting thing, he puts two and two together and takes Jor-El prisoner, gets on a large ship with his army, and shuts down the security systems, so he can track the ion trail or whatever sciency mumbo jumbo before disipates, Jor-El, though, has thought ahead, and damaged the teleportation device thing, making it so it would trap them temporarily in the "phantom zone" between the teleportation destinations, giving the trail time to disipate so they can't track it. Zod, furious, kills Jor-El, maybe, not sure, and we cut to Earth, where the probe crashes in Kansas at night, near a farm, Jonathan and Martha come out, Lara, barely alive, opens the probe, and they find her, Jonathan tries to save her, but she dies, her last words asking them to protect her son.
Hmmmmm. To be honest the way Snyder let it play out in the film worked for me.
I loved the depiction of Krypton, it really did give the impression of a dying world on the brink of destruction. The codex stuff probably could have been tightened up a little bit overall, but I was okay with it.
The fact that Krypton was doomed, that its core was collapsing, just like its civilization was (hence the short civil war and genetic stagnation) added a real sense of urgency to everything Jor El did.
Most important, it was because the Kryptonians had put genetic controls and limits on themselves, that was part of the problem, that they really did destroy themselves - that of itself was an improvement on the original story (like in SM the movie, they were just stupid about the end of Krypton, but in MOS, they caused it themselves). That really worked for me, as in Jor El wasn't just wanting Kal to escape from the doomed planet but to escape from the restrictions of Kryptonian culture that doomed its civilization.
So, have to disagree with you there. Plus, when Lara arrived on Earth she'd become indestructible and would probably survive - given that on Earth Superman can pretty much die and come back to life, that might not work.
A few other things, some development for Lois, making her a bit of a low level reporter, a bit of big skeptic, maybe the whole story could be told through the words of Lois writing the story. Her arc could be about her seeing how someone like Clark can bring hope to the world. She could also win her first pulitzer.
the Lois telling the story technique was used a little bit during MOS, when she's tracking him down. I suppose her winning her first Pulitzer for telling Superman's story might be a good story element. I kind of like it that she put the story out there, but after meeting Clark decided to pull it, made her more human and relatable.
Jonathan dies a different way, a tornado collapses a building, which a teenage Clark holds up, Jonathan's wounded, but he tells him it - it 's not serious, he's lying so Clark won't try to save him and compromise the stability of the building which could endanger anyone else alive under it, this could be how Clark also discovers his x-ray vision can't see through lead, this could also be after an argument where Clark says he wants to help people after 9/11, and gets angry at Jonathan...
hmmm. I didn't find the Jonathan death scene completely satisfactory either. I feel like there's just a few little tweaks that would have made it better - it did seem like it was. I mean, if Clark had run out there at super-speed, would people really have gone "Wow a super-fast alien !" no, they were a bit too busy cowering under the overpass and being terrified by the tornado. It just felt like Snyder had to tweak it, in some ways the death of Pa Kent in the original was powerful, because it highlighted that while Clark had godlike powers, he didn't have the power to bring back the dead (well, not until the end of the film, but let's not go there).
I think your idea has some merit, and totally agree some tweaking was certainly needed on that scene. It was okay in the film, but with a little work they could have made it incredibly powerful !
Zod maybe dies differently, make a big deal out of it, he could sucked into the phantom, which without a ship, would destroy the body, maybe, make this the reason Clark wants to live in the normal world with people, so he won't allow something like that to happen again, so he won't think of himself as above life and humanity.
Before I saw MOS, I was totally "Superman does not kill " but when I saw MOS, within the context of the story, I had to admit it made total sense.
He didn't kill Zod to save that family, he killed Zod to save humanity - as Zod was planning to wipe us out.
I haven't heard a single suggestion about what he could have done instead that would have effectively solved the problem.
However, with a bit of re-writing, as in if Zod vs Supes was happening simultaneously with Col Hardy's bombing run on the Kryptonian ship, then maybe Supes could have punched Zod and knocked him into the black hole before it closed.
Regardless, the way it turned out worked for me. I was okay with Superman killing Zod, it was a tough choice and he didn't want to do it,
and was deeply affected by it - and hopefully they'll expand on that in
later films. I think it was Goyer saying that sometimes the right thing to
do is also the hardest thing to do, and there are consequences to making that choice.
To anyone who says "Superman does not murder" First, Superman has killed in the comics. Second, in pretty much every common law country, killing someone else, if defending others from being killed by them is a form of self-defence, which is a justification for use of force on another.
As such, no court would find Superman guilty of murder.
So, is Superman a murderer for killing Zod ? No he is not.
Obviously develop the Clark/Lois relationship some more, a talk over coffee maybe.
Lois does not discover Superman is Clark, she gets close, but he comes to her asking her to stop. She does. However he reveals himself as Clark to her at the end of the movie when hired to the Daily Planet, and she recognizes him as both Clark and Superman. Same end line. Welcome to the planet.
I actually liked that they dealt with the "Lois is fooled by the glasses" thing from the first moment, by having her find him. I thought it was a good way of having them meet - she tracks him down. In fact, her knowing who he was, and deciding not to out him made her a much better character.
I haven't liked any of the versions of Lois on-screen so far, but Amy Adams brought intelligence and guts to the role. Definitely the best acted and best written Lois Lane.
So, essentially, I disagree, but I respect the idea. That last line was perfect, Welcome to the planet. Nice.
Also develop the world's reaction to Superman more.
yeah, even a few scenes of rebuilding would have been good, something to show the interval between Zod's death and the final scene.
Something at least that the world realises that there's still an alien in their midst. Avengers did a good job of this, so MOS didn't need to do a media montage, it could have been more subtle. However, they did do it, it needed to be less jarring of a transition.
And two post credit scenes, one for Lex, implying they found another kryptonian (Kara) and maybe some kryptonite. The other scene for Batman.
Yeah, but realistically, I don't think they knew where they were going to go until MOS had come out, and they'd got idea of how people reacted to it.
They'd have to have a crystal ball to really think through those things, especially Luthor and Kryptonite.
Besides, that post-credit scenes stuff is what we've come to expect from
Marvel, I think DC/WB can afford to be different (although the post-credits scene in Green Lantern was better than most of the film).
Personally, I think Marvel is trying to do a bit too much with its post credits scenes. I mean, at the end of the Wolverine, that scene with Xavier and Magneto, that's long enough to tack on to the end of the film. Post-credits scenes should be short.
The Avengers post-credit scene, with Thanos, was good. That **** with the Collector after Thor TDW, was awful !
And maybe Jimmy Olsen.
Would need a really good actor to play him, as generally Jimmy is Superman's most annoying sidekick.
So all in all, I would let the movie mostly stand as is, without putting in most of your changes, but I think you have a point there.
Even the best movies have a few flaws. I loved MOS, but I agree that some tweaks would have made it even better.
cheers
