Man of Steel - *Spoilers*

[ye5man]

Where Christopher Reeve won me over with his portrayal was that his Superman clearly cared about everyone. Yes, this Superman cares in the abstract–he is willing to surrender to Zod to spare us–but the vibe I kept getting was that old Charles Schulz line: “I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.”

Yeah, I totally felt this too. I think this was a big flaw and I lost my connection to the character.

Looking forward to 2nd viewing though.

[erikhh]

Hi guys

I would just like a longer cut, maybe something like 3 hours. With more character development and more flashbacks from his childhood
and teenage and Smallville years A long time ago I read something about a scene of a young Clark being taken to the doctor by his
parents, I think they have a lot more footage and some was left out because of pacing and running time.

Danish Superman Fan

[Valentine Smith]

I can say this...if you're on the fence about this movie, a second viewing will probably help. If you already dislike it, though, it probably won't!

[EnriqueH]

Eh, who gives a shit bout Mark Waid.

Birthright was boring as shit and Man of Steel wasn't.

[ye5man]

Jun 17, 2013 6:38:48 GMT -5 Valentine Smith said:

I can say this...if you're on the fence about this movie, a second viewing will probably help. If you already dislike it, though, it probably won't!

Yeah, I'm on the fence. Really hope its a "Grower"

[crazy_asian_man]

we got to The Battle of Metropolis, and I truly, genuinely started to feel nauseous at all the Disaster Porn. Minute after minute after endless minute of Some Giant Machine laying so much waste to Metropolis that it’s inconceivable that we weren’t watching millions of people die in every single shot. And what’s Superman doing while all this is going on? He’s halfway around the world, fighting an identical machine but with no one around to be directly threatened, so it’s only slightly less noticeable that thousands of innocents per second are dying gruesomely on his watch. Seriously, back in Metropolis, entire skyscrapers are toppling in slo-mo and the city is a smoking, gray ruin for miles in every direction, it’s Hiroshima, and Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich are somewhere muttering “Too far, man, too far”…but, you know, Superman buys the humans enough time to sacrifice many, many of their own lives to bomb the Giant Machine themselves and even makes it back to Metropolis in time to catch Lois from falling (again), so…yay?

And then Superman and Lois land in the three-mile-wide crater that used to be a city of eight million people, and the staff of the Planet and a couple of other bystanders stagger out of the rubble to see Superman and say, “He saved us,” and before you can say either “From what?” or “Wow, these eight are probably the only people left alive,” and somehow–inexplicably, implausibly, somehow–before Superman can be bothered to take one second to surrender one ounce of concern or assistance to the millions of Metropolitans who are without question still buried under all that rubble, dead or dying, he saunters lazily over to where General Zod is kneeling and moping, and they argue, and they squabble, and they break into the Third Big Fight, the one that broke my heart.

See, everyone else in Zod’s army has been beaten and banished, but General Zod lives and so, of course, he and Superman duke it out in what, to everyone’s credit, is the very best super-hero fight I’ve ever seen, just a marvel of spectacle. But once more–and this is where I knew we were headed someplace really awful–once more, Superman showed not the slightest split-second of concern for the people around them.

Mark Waid put my feelings better for the problem a bit better than I did.

Maybe it's living in a time of feeling overdose with watching news reports of real life bombings with real people and property getting blown up, that it feels like if you do imitate those images realistically, and to a bigger scale, that you have to have the human element to it.
"Disaster porn" is a good term. Some might prefer disaster porn to boredom, and bring big box office (Transformers)- but Superman I thought was more about high ideals, not excessive violence and characters being mostly desensitized to it.

"24" was violent as heck, but the human element was constantly there. I know I wanted Superman to hit something and have action, but- like Waid said, "Too far, man, too far'.

[Deleted]

Thank god MOS wasn't as dull as birthright otherwise we might have another flop on our hands.

I think Goyer made mistakes, but I doubt he's kicking himself for not having Superman rhyme off funny one liners will the people are in danger and part of the city is being destroyed.

[Metallo]

Jun 17, 2013 3:00:56 GMT -5 ye5man said:

Where Christopher Reeve won me over with his portrayal was that his Superman clearly cared about everyone. Yes, this Superman cares in the abstract–he is willing to surrender to Zod to spare us–but the vibe I kept getting was that old Charles Schulz line: “I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.”

Yeah, I totally felt this too. I think this was a big flaw and I lost my connection to the character.

Looking forward to 2nd viewing though.

Cavills clearly a better actor than Routh or Welling but he ended up having the same problem. He had this monotone in most of his delivery and didn't get to show much range as Clark or Superman. Reeve and Reeves played it different from each other but they both delivered their lines like they had some life in them and the tone of their voices actual changes. It made their performances way more engaging.

Watched the Lois & Clark pilot recently and even Cain got to show more range. And what I mean has nothing to do with comedy or bumbling Clark kent or any crap like that.


The movie also suffers because they sold it on the real world affect of something like this happening and it ends while not addressing the HUGE implications of what just happened. Like a video game. Even Avengers executed this before the credits rolled. The point were MOS did address this was people being afraid and wanting to turn Superman over to Zod. That was great because it made sense and provided some tension in the film.

[Jor-L5150]

i do not give a solitary shit about what mark waid thinks of man of steel.

he is a decent-to-sometimes-excellent writer, but very haughty, and over rated.

man of steel kicks the shit out of birthright.

[SupermanUF]

Jun 17, 2013 7:33:04 GMT -5 crazy_asian_man said:

we got to The Battle of Metropolis, and I truly, genuinely started to feel nauseous at all the Disaster Porn. Minute after minute after endless minute of Some Giant Machine laying so much waste to Metropolis that it’s inconceivable that we weren’t watching millions of people die in every single shot. And what’s Superman doing while all this is going on? He’s halfway around the world, fighting an identical machine but with no one around to be directly threatened, so it’s only slightly less noticeable that thousands of innocents per second are dying gruesomely on his watch. Seriously, back in Metropolis, entire skyscrapers are toppling in slo-mo and the city is a smoking, gray ruin for miles in every direction, it’s Hiroshima, and Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich are somewhere muttering “Too far, man, too far”…but, you know, Superman buys the humans enough time to sacrifice many, many of their own lives to bomb the Giant Machine themselves and even makes it back to Metropolis in time to catch Lois from falling (again), so…yay?

And then Superman and Lois land in the three-mile-wide crater that used to be a city of eight million people, and the staff of the Planet and a couple of other bystanders stagger out of the rubble to see Superman and say, “He saved us,” and before you can say either “From what?” or “Wow, these eight are probably the only people left alive,” and somehow–inexplicably, implausibly, somehow–before Superman can be bothered to take one second to surrender one ounce of concern or assistance to the millions of Metropolitans who are without question still buried under all that rubble, dead or dying, he saunters lazily over to where General Zod is kneeling and moping, and they argue, and they squabble, and they break into the Third Big Fight, the one that broke my heart.

See, everyone else in Zod’s army has been beaten and banished, but General Zod lives and so, of course, he and Superman duke it out in what, to everyone’s credit, is the very best super-hero fight I’ve ever seen, just a marvel of spectacle. But once more–and this is where I knew we were headed someplace really awful–once more, Superman showed not the slightest split-second of concern for the people around them.

Mark Waid put my feelings better for the problem a bit better than I did.

Maybe it's living in a time of feeling overdose with watching news reports of real life bombings with real people and property getting blown up, that it feels like if you do imitate those images realistically, and to a bigger scale, that you have to have the human element to it.
"Disaster porn" is a good term. Some might prefer disaster porn to boredom, and bring big box office (Transformers)- but Superman I thought was more about high ideals, not excessive violence and characters being mostly desensitized to it.

"24" was violent as heck, but the human element was constantly there. I know I wanted Superman to hit something and have action, but- like Waid said, "Too far, man, too far'.

I don't understand what the problem is with there actually being real, human consequence. I'm GLAD this is a Superman that can't save EVERYONE, but just does what he can. As he says in the end... "I'm just here to help." He doesn't have the savior complex of Routh's Superman.

[ShogunLogan]

Anyone help me out??

My wife was wondering...and I didn't catch it...why were Kryptonians artificially bred? Why was Kal the only natural birth in centuries?


Anywhoo...one of the nickpickings I have about the flick was when Zod and Faora arrived at the Kents house..."where is the ship he arrived in?" they asked. Ummmm...Zod...you may want to check in that big barn to your left there....HEY! LOOK AT THAT! It was in there!!

[Paul (ral)]

Jun 17, 2013 10:51:36 GMT -5 ShogunLogan said:

Anyone help me out??

My wife was wondering...and I didn't catch it...why were Kryptonians artificially bred? Why was Kal the only natural birth in centuries?


Anywhoo...one of the nickpickings I have about the flick was when Zod and Faora arrived at the Kents house..."where is the ship he arrived in?" they asked. Ummmm...Zod...you may want to check in that big barn to your left there....HEY! LOOK AT THAT! It was in there!!

I thought they were artificially bred because their society had deteriorated and they needed the population to do specific tasks.

I also thought it strange that noone had gotten giggy in a few hundred years.

[cypher85]

My biggest gripe is definitely the question of how/why the costume was on the Kryptonian ship, and we can all come up with our own theories, but the movie should have made it more clear. We see Lara closing up Jor-El's suit into a pod, it would have been cool if that ended up being Superman's suit, and Lara sent it to the Kryptonian ship knowing that one day Kal would find it. Though if that's my biggest gripe, I'm okay with that.

[Keith]

Another questions I have.. articles before the movie came out said that Superman suit has like a specific purpose.. or his suit was supposed to do something.. I missed it.. What did his suit do?


Anyone have any idea on if Zod did kill those people at the end with his heat vision before getting his neck snapped or did Superman save them.. I'm still at loss as to what really happened there.

[ShogunLogan]

Jun 17, 2013 11:04:18 GMT -5 Keith said:

Another questions I have.. articles before the movie came out said that Superman suit has like a specific purpose.. or his suit was supposed to do something.. I missed it.. What did his suit do?


Anyone have any idea on if Zod did kill those people at the end with his heat vision before getting his neck snapped or did Superman save them.. I'm still at loss as to what really happened there.

Looked to me he broke his neck before the beams got the family. He was anguished because the killed a dude.

[Keith]

Thats what I thought.. but my Mom said she thought Zod killed the people which made Supes snap his neck, cause you never see those people again... I noticed right before Supes snapped his neck, he closed his eyes right before he did it.. did he close his eyes cause he couldn't see the people perish or did he do it cause he knew he was going to have to kill Zod.

I'm going to have to see it again and pay more attention because I really don't know what happens in this scene. It's bugging the heck out of me.

[ye5man]

cause you never see those people again

They are taken to safety by the Arctic police in the extended cut

[cypher85]

I'm sure some of you already know this, but I just read that "Jenny" is not "Jenny Olsen", or even simply "Jenny". Apparently she is "Jenny Jurwich", as evidenced by this photo. That actually does kind of annoy me. I was okay with the fact that they wanted some more females in the film to help with diversity, and changed Jimmy to Jenny. But, to have her not actually be Jenny Olson and draw from the mythos, but some other invented character irks me. Though to be fair in the final film she is simply credited as "Jenny", and you could never read her badge in the film. They could make her Jenny Olsen in the sequel if they wanted. It's always just a little annoying in super-hero films, or any films in general based on existing content, when they create characters instead of drawing on original material. It's a nice nod to fans of the material, and those who don't know, won't care anyway. Like the incredibly awesome inclusion of Kelex on krypton.

Though, functionally she is "Jimmy/Jenny Olsen". So why does it matter. But, that get's back to my point of, if it doesn't matter why not throw fans a bone. They probably did it to not have the fans be pissed because they made Jimmy a girl. As there are the legion of fans that were pissed when that rumor was going around. It's almost like they were damned if they did and damned if they didn't. So at the end of the day they left it ambiguous and simply credited her as "Jenny".

[Jor-L5150]

The suit is in the pod because that ship already belonged to the EL clan, per the MOS prequel comic.
The kryptonians have a caste society- and the genetic engineering was totaltarian enforced population control.

Since all the kryptonian ships were blown up- what/where would the next fortress be?

[Metallo]

Now that I think about it I remember Lois saying the Kryptonians read her mind while she was on the ship. I guess Zod wanted her there to know what she knew. Especially a out Kal-El.

Jun 17, 2013 10:51:36 GMT -5 ShogunLogan said:

Anyone help me out??

My wife was wondering...and I didn't catch it...why were Kryptonians artificially bred? Why was Kal the only natural birth in centuries?


Anywhoo...one of the nickpickings I have about the flick was when Zod and Faora arrived at the Kents house..."where is the ship he arrived in?" they asked. Ummmm...Zod...you may want to check in that big barn to your left there....HEY! LOOK AT THAT! It was in there!!

I think we were were to assume that Kryptonians were artificially bred and born for genetic engineering purposes. Its a pretty standard trope for advanced civilizations in sci fi stories. Krypton could produce better people to do specific things. Zod even said be was created to be a warrior. They probably felt it was more efficient that way. I think Byrnes Krypton had some of that. Personally I was cool with it. Even in Superman's early days it was said be came from "a race of supermen". I took they to mean they were superior to humans even when on Krypton. And that means there may have been some genetic tinkering or selective breeding like Khan and his eugenics borne followers.

One thing I had a problem with ties into your thing about Martha and the farm. When Superman tackles Zod does he even think about what the OTHER Kryptonians might be doing to his mother? I know he did what he did in a fit of rage. I'd be mad too. That made sense to me. But I'd also be scared for my mom. I'd never leave her alone with some murderers just to punch one murderer.

[Deleted]

Doubt it. Zods the leader, he knows they're there for him and codex. If he's going to batter Zod the others would obviously follow. Reminds me a bit of SII when Supes flies off but you sometimes think what if the 3 villains didnt follow and just wiped out the city!


Also, I get what you mean about monotone, but the more I think about it the more I think Reeve's wouldn't be all that far off being the same if he didn't get the portray a goofier Clark Kent with the higher voice. Incidentally one of my fav scenes in any film ever is Reeve talking to Lois as CLark after her flight with Superman when he straightens his back, deepends his voice and removes the glasses.

[ShogunLogan]

Anyone see or hear of any Easter Eggs? You probably know about this one:

[Metallo]

Jun 17, 2013 11:52:35 GMT -5 @kris said:

Doubt it. Zods the leader, he knows they're there for him and codex. If he's going to batter Zod the others would obviously follow. Reminds me a bit of SII when Supes flies off but you sometimes think what if the 3 villains didnt follow and just wiped out the city!


Also, I get what you mean about monotone, but the more I think about it the more I think Reeve's wouldn't be all that far off being the same if he didn't get the portray a goofier Clark Kent with the higher voice. Incidentally one of my fav scenes in any film ever is Reeve talking to Lois as CLark after her flight with Superman when he straightens his back, deepends his voice and removes the glasses.

That excuse doesn't work because Faora and co EASILY could have used Martha as leverage or a bargaining chip to force Clark to give up the codex. It could have gone any number of ways. There were several of them which makes it clear they could have done a lot of things at once.

As for the Reeve bumbling Clark bit that excuse doesn't work either. George Reeves was no bumbling Clark Kent. Neither was Cain. But Reeves in particular got to show just as much range as Chris Reeve did as Superman. His character certainly wasn't as flat. Cavill played it the way he did because of the script and directing. That's probably the tone they wanted so it fit the movie. But it got dull for me.

[atp]

Jun 17, 2013 11:46:45 GMT -5 Metallo said:

Now that I think about it I remember Lois saying the Kryptonians read her mind

She asked Zod, "Can You Read My Mind?"

[Deleted]

Reeve's range is definitely tested more because of the script and vastly superior extended dialogue he has, i'm just talking about the thing about monotone, how much does it really change during STM?

Cain? He might get more opportunity to show range but I'm not sure how good it is since his Superman flat out sucked, and I love Cain and his portrayal as Clark.

If MOS get's a sequel, with the secret identity thing set up, and Lois knowing who Clark is, that should really put Cavill's acting chops to the test.

I'm not really getting that though, I suppose he had a decision to make and decided it wouldn't be wise to take 3 or 4 kryptonians on right next to his mum. I've also heard people say he was irresponsible in the film and should have tried to have moved these fights elsewhere away from people. but then like you say, what's to stop any of the kryptonians just grabbing bystanders and murdering them? It's the kind of thing that if you look at in too much detail you can't enjoy, much like my Superman II example of Superman abandoning an entire city hoping the villains would follow him.