Peyton Westlake
the Dark Avenger
- Joined
- Nov 17, 2004
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Man of Steel
When I was little, I didn't have a dad around, but I think in my mind Superman was like a father figure.
This man with conviction, confidence, integrity, strength... but warmth, gentleness, kindness, compassion. I watched him, I read him, I played him in make believe games, I wrote about him classes.
He means the world to me.
Then later in my adult life, when I've been struggling with depression, he's always been there to catch me... to keep me from completely falling into despair.
You know why?
Because his stories fill me with hope. They lift my spirits. And I always felt they could be relied upon to cheer me up (or in the case of depression, soften the pain a little) by being, in some ways predictable.
And then I watched MOS.
And I watched Superman spend his childhood unhappy and alone. I watched his father believe so little of human nature that he tells his son he should let a bus full of children die before revealing his secret. That he should let his own father die. And then... he actually does.
I watched Clark Kent wandering the earth, lost and purposeless. Living a life with no joy. I watched him get outed and forced with much hesitation to reveal himself, before being captured and tortured by his native race because he wasn't down with genocide. I watched him tell his tragedy to a reporter, and I watched him fall in love with her - because she was the only friend he'd ever had.
Finally, he had to battle the last of his people, while innocents die around them... because of them. And when it all comes to an end, and it's down to just him and Zod, he kills him. He violently snaps his neck, with a crack that echoes throughout the room, in front of small children... and it breaks him. That decision makes him fall to his knees in utter defeat and anguish. It feels like he lost.
Right then, I died a little inside.
Honestly, I don't remember much about the rest of the movie on my first viewing. I was crying too much. I couldn't even see. I couldn't think about anything but that moment.
The whole movie had been flooding me with this sense of disappointment and sadness, but that moment was like I'd been punched through the heart,
The one thing that I could always count on to lift my spirits, my go to comfort food, my hope, my light, my hero... Zack Snyder took him and shook his spirit around like a rabid dog with a rat between it's teeth.
Now... I know I'm being very dramatic
But that's how much it effected me. That's how I felt. Totally and utterly heart broken.
No superhero film had or has ever since, effected me so much.
It took me a while to get over it... and I still can't watch it without wincing
No need to justify your feelings. They are what they are. But if I may.....MOS affected me in quite a different way. It showed us that with all Superman's powers he had to make a decision, a split second decision, to kill one person or have that same person kill countless others. He chose to kill the one. A human decision from an alien.
