For DC fans who’ve long wondered if anything could be done to match the successes and storytelling in the recent crop of Marvel superhero movies, wondered if there was enough unsullied heart and imagination left in Hollywood to look beyond the clichés and bring Superman to a new generation that wants to believe a man can fly, it’s safe to believe again.
Take it from a bona fide Marvel girl, Man of Steel is the Superman movie I’ve been waiting 20 years to see, and this one was worth the wait.
It has the right mix of humanity and epic, as seen in the parallels between the fathers as Kevin Costner and Russell Crowe reflect one aspect of that balance in their portrayals of Jonathan Kent and Jor-El: two very different fathers wanting to protect their son from the dangers of the world around him that he’s not yet ready to face, yet leave him free enough to choose what’s best and what’s right when it’s his turn to face them.
There was some concern that the US Army leaders would end up being clichéd cardboard (which only turned out to be half-true), and about how they would handle Kryptonite if it showed up (it did, but it didn’t), but the twist is in how they handled the effect of his homeworld on him, as well as the reverse effect of Earth on the other Kryptonians.
Some of the battle scenes are filled with very quick cuts and moves that are sometimes hard to follow, but for some reason in the RealD 3D projection, that action wasn’t hard to follow or discern (see rants about unwatchable fight scenes in Bourne Supremacy). I feel the epic scale of those battles, given who the participants were and their abilities, far outweighed any minor disappointments with some of those shots being too short. I am curious if those scenes are still as easy to follow in regular 2D projection.
There may be a few minor quibbles from some about how the connection to the Daily Planet was handled, but in changing every other part of Superman’s story to fit a more modern world, there had to be a better way to reimagine that too, and it sets up the foundation for sequels. I think everyone can agree that the Clark Kent secret identity secret was one big part of the mythology that was in desperate need of a reboot.
Coming out of the theater Tuesday night, the news that talks had already begun with Zack Snyder on a sequel was welcome news, well deserved. It’s been a very long time since an entire theater sat captivated and silent through the entire film… no hushed chatter, no snarky commentary between buddies, everyone seemed to be transfixed, almost waiting for the moment when the story would disappoint them, and relieved at the end when it didn’t.
For me, this is the moment when the Summer 2013 Movie Season truly began.
Easter Egg: amongst the many corporate brand placements, keep an eye out for the label on several tanker trucks used during the street fight between Kal-El and Zod’s forces in Kansas. My guess is this may have been another seed planted towards future installments in the world built by this franchise reboot.
For those who want an unspoiled behind-the-scenes look at what changes were made to the backstory and why, there’s a 13 minute long Man of Steel featurette out there that’s well worth the time. It can be found in several places, including Hulu and YouTube.
A young boy learns that he has extraordinary powers and is not of this Earth. As a young man, he journeys to discover where he came from and what he was sent here to do. But the hero in him must emerge if he is to save the world from annihilation and become the symbol of hope for all mankind. Featuring an all-star cast, Man of Steel offers up an entirely new Superman: alienated, misunderstood, but forever a beacon of hope.
Cast: Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Antje Traue, Ayelet Zurer, Christopher Meloni, Russell Crowe
Directed by Zack Snyder
Screenplay by David S. Goyer
Story by David S. Goyer, Christopher Nolan
"Man of Steel" rekindles the joy of superhero movies
Summary
Some of the battle scenes are filled with very quick cuts and moves that are sometimes hard to follow, but for some reason in the RealD 3D projection, that action wasn’t hard to follow or discern (see rants about unwatchable fight scenes in Bourne Supremacy). I feel the epic scale of those battles, given who the participants were and their abilities, far outweighed any minor disappointments with some of those shots being too short. I am curious if those scenes are still as easy to follow in regular 2D projection.
There may be a few minor quibbles from some about how the connection to the Daily Planet was handled, but in changing every other part of Superman’s story to fit a more modern world, there had to be a better way to reimagine that too, and it sets up the foundation for sequels. I think everyone can agree that the Clark Kent secret identity secret was one big part of the mythology that was in desperate need of a reboot.
Flaws are around here, but they aren’t too much to take away from the fun thrill of this movie. Good review Summer.
I just saw the move. Here’s my spoiler free opinion. For me it’s summed up by two words. Pretentious and awkward.
The movie technically is magnificent, but when you dig into the story, and more specifically its execution, there are some issues that needed to be smoothed over. The general shape of the story is really good, but some of the dialogue made me cringe and some of the reasons for the conflicts were weak and unclear. In fact some of them didn’t even make sense. Because of this, they turned Zod from what could of been a very engaging and complex villain into a moustache twirler.
As for the all-star cast, pretty much a waste of talent. Most didn’t have much to do other than being a big name to be in the movie. I will say that Amy Adams did make a good Lois Lane, and Cavill a pretty decent Superman.
6.5 out of 10.
John, I’m curious what about the conflicts you thought were unclear. I’d always thought Superman 2’s Zod’s reasons were pointless, petty and childish, and this Zod’s goals made far more sense, for which I was appreciative.
Yes, there were a few things that could have been beefed up, but that wasn’t one on my list.
I also thought it was pretty clear that everyone at the Daily Planet who was in the movie for like 4 minutes were only there to establish face time for the sequels 🙂
Hey Summer
Minor spoilers. If you haven’t Seen Man of Steel yet, stop reading now.
Here’s what I didn’t think was made very clear. Why is Zod so hell bent on destroying earth and killing Superman? You could say he really wanted revenge on Jor-El for stopping his plans on Krypton, but then why didn’t he kill Laura when he had the chance? That would have been a big kick in Jor-El’s teeth. Instead he leaves her alive, and to me that paints a portrait of a man who doesn’t kill needlessly. He’s someone who wants to protect his people and in some ways doesn’t that include Superman/Kal-El.?
If you think about it the whole conflict of the move could of been resolved with one polite conversation that went something like this.
Zod: Hi Kal, I’m from your home world. You have some stuff that can bring back our whole race. Will you give it to me, so I can go away peacefully and find a uninhabited planet to terraform?
Kal: Umm. You can bring back our people and I can have a place to go where I belong? Sure. Take my stuff. Here it is.
Zod: Thanks. Come visit some time. Bye now.
Kal: Bye.
I know, that conversation is a bit silly, but it illustrates my point. Zod is supposedly a General of at least some talent. So why start a war over something when there’s a possibility of getting what you want by just asking nicely? So to me his whole motivation for wanting to destroy Earth is because he has a moustache to twirl.
As is, the movie makes Zod look kind of dumb. He comes to Earth knowing he’ll have superpowers here, but doesn’t spend the time to acclimate to the planet and learn to use his new found powers before making himself known. Does that seem like something a General would do, considering they don’t really have a deadline in achieving their goals of a new Krypton.
Am I mistaken? Have I missed something while watching?
As for the Daily Planet cast, you have a good point. I think I brought that up because some of that screen time could have been spent on beefing up some of the weaknesses of the film. To me the story in this film could have been fantastic if they just cleaned up some dialogue and spent a few moments to make things clearer.
Well for one thing, we know that Krypton was a harsh planet yet Zod is squeamish for having to suffer for a couple of years in order to get fantastic powers. Someone like Zod wouldn’t throw away a chance like that to increase his own power. It didn’t even take him years to adapt, just a few seconds and already he’s just as good with them as Superemo. If Krypton was such a great and hearty civilization why couldn’t they have made a successful off-world colony and why send criminals to the Phantom Zone when they knew the planet was about to go boom? I had could not believe a civilization like that would be so passive in believing in destiny they way they did.
If Kryptonians suffered such discomfort at Earth’s atmosphere, why didn’t they notice when Jor-El’s ghost changed the air? Also when they were Krypto-forming Earth at the end of the movie why weren’t the gravity waves turning people into chunky salsa instead of merely crushing cars?
This wasn’t Superman, it was Shyamalan trying to do a Superman movie.
John, I’m not so sure that Zod did know the full effects Earth’s environment would have on them, that’s why all of them stayed in their armor with masks (scientist knows science, soldier knows battle). Remember Jor-El’s argument with the council at the beginning? He was a scientist, he knew what was happening and what was about to happen, and he knew it was too late to save anyone on the planet. He was trying to convince the council to save what could be saved, but they were being politicians, so… 🙂
Remember the part where Zod & Jor-El were arguing, right before the craft with Kal launched? The disagreement was over the existence of a natural born child vs an engineered child, designed to do or want nothing else other than what it was programmed to do… remember Jor-El’s line from the trailers? “What if a child aspired to be something more than what society had planned for him?” All the Kryptonians knew only what they were designed to do, and nothing more… all of Zod’s people were programmed to defend and protect Krypton and all Kryptonians at all costs.
BUT… since Kal-El was natural born and not bound by those engineered constrictions, Zod considered him an abomination, a heretical creation that went against everything he had been designed to protect, thus he had no qualms killing Kal-El (remember, he asked his scientist if the preprogrammed DNA sequences of Kryptonians yet to be cultivated from the Codex could be retrieved from a dead Kal-El). He also saw Jor-El as a threat to the “purity” or integrity of the Krypton his was programmed to protect, thus him continuing to live would be a threat Zod must eliminate. That’s why Zod killed Jor-El, but he didn’t see Lara-El as a threat in that way.
Zod believed that he had no purpose outside of protecting Krypton, and in his limited philosophy, they only way he could regain his relevance and his place in the universe was to rebuild Krypton. Since Earth’s sun would give them all superpowers, all he needed to do was terraform the rest into the Krypton he lost and wanted to get back, and people of Earth be damned.
So killing Kal-El to gain the information stored in his body, then terraforming Earth to be a new Krypton under a yellow sun would have been the best outcome: he gets his world back, he kills the last of the people he believes are responsible for the death of his old world (he blamed the scientists & politicians of Krypton for the events that led to the planet’s destruction), and he gets his engineered society back and he can be happy again.
Also remember, Jor had already told Kal that Zod was a fanatic, and Zod practically gloated over the fact that Kal’s activation of that scout ship was the only reason he found Earth anyway… without the signal from the scout ship coming online again, Zod would never have found them. Plus the scout ship had a genesis chamber, where he could grow the new Kryptonians from the information in Kal’s DNA, so that being destroyed was another reason for Zod to kill Kal-El.
So for me, Zod’s reasons for wanting to kill Kal-El and destroy everything he wanted to protect made more sense in this movie (wanting to rebuild what he lost and regain his sense of self) than in the original Superman II (your daddy put me in stasis for wanting to rule and I didn’t get to kill him myself so I’ll kill you and make his dead ass feel sad about losing his baby boy and I’ll rule here instead. whatever).
Alverant, the point I think a lot of people are missing is that the leaders of Krypton didn’t believe the planet was doomed. Only Jor-El truly believed and he’d spent years trying to convince them to do something. It’s not like Lara conceived and gave birth in a few weeks time… they knew this was coming, and that’s why they decided to try to have a child naturally, still hoping in the meantime they’d manage to convince the council to do something else other than what inertia had gotten them used to doing.
It also seemed to me, based on what Jor-El was telling them in that discussion at the beginning, that those colony worlds had long been forgotten or lost/abandoned. Zod found the remnants but many of them had been dead centuries before Krypton died. That was another element of Zod’s disgust at the council, how they’d become insular and complacent and the world was dying as a result. If those other colonies had been maintained over the centuries, it was likely that everyone could have left Krypton and continued on long before Krypton got to the point where it was unstable and blew up.
I had thought Jor-El only changed the air Lois was, and did something different in the room where Kal was, thinned something so that the sun’s rays could reach him… I don’t recall clearly. As for the gravity changes, yeah, I got nothing there.
That’s what I heard in the conversations as they were going on. I do want to see it again in 2D, mainly to see if the airborne battle scenes still hold up.
Summer, I remember most of, if not all, of what you mentioned, but here’s were I think it falls short. I don’t really remember any of those things being reinforced. They’re just mentioned and not really dealt with again, so that’s why motivations and reasoning become cloudy for me. Does Zod ever call Kal-El an abomination that needs to be destroyed or espouse the greatness of the pure Kryptonian? Is there a moment where Kal-El, or anybody for that matter, struggles with societal expectations vs. personal desires?
Zod may not have know the full effects of removing his helmet, but my point is he had the time to figure that out. There was not a ticking clock on his arrival. Delaying making himself known by one day, or one year, wouldn’t have made a difference. Except it would have given Zod time to prepare and plan. And as you’ve said, he has a scientist with him, which informed him on stuff about the codex. Why didn’t Zod just ask him of the possible effects of superpowers? Seems like a prudent move.
Terraforming the Earth would have removed all their superpowers. Remember near the end when they say near the world engine the Earth is becoming like Krypton so the closer to it Kal-El got the weaker he would become? So to me terraforming Earth vs another planet, there’s no difference. Except in terraforming Earth Zod gets to commit genocide.
Like I said, if Zod asked nicely, Kal-El would have probably given him what he wanted, and if Zod felt the need to kill him, he could have did it after that. Sure Jor-El warned Kal-El that Zod was a fanatic, but there’s a long leap from fanatic to genocidal maniac. Especially when there were obviously other viable options available.
Maybe on a second viewing, I may change my mind, but right now, the more I think about the movie, the more convinced I am that my opinions stand on solid ground. Man of Steel isn’t a terrible movie. It has entertainment value, but too many thin spots to poke holes in. Part of me thinks that the movie tried to be too many things and that detracted from movie as a whole.
Zod’s initial reaction when Jor-El tells him what’s in the capsule says it all. He also says that child’s existence is a threat to Krypton society, then Jor=El says something like Krypton society is dead and needs to start over with something different, or something like that.
Given that Zod’s very first action was to walk into a council chamber, proclaim loudly “you’ve killed us all” and start in on his plan to destroy the council to “protect” Krypton, don’t his later actions reinforce for you the fact that he wasn’t going to ask anyone nicely for anything, that he was just going to take it his way, everyone else but the people he’d protected for the past 33 years be damned? 33 years harboring a festering resentment without outlet can make someone pretty damned single minded.
He didn’t know what he was going to find when he got to Earth. All he did was find a signal, and fly immediately towards it, hoping it was a thriving Kryptonian colony. When he found Earth, and the missing tech he needed to rebuild a Krypton for himself, he took it.
I forgot about the “becoming more like Krypton” part… that’s a little flimsy, but that also reinforces Zod’s blind zeal… he doesn’t give a damn about being more personally powerful unless it helps him rebuild the Krypton he lost.
As for moral struggles and societal pressures, on Krypton there were none. Everyone was designed to be born into one place, and stay there their entire lives, contributing to society in the way society needed them to, without question or fail. Kal-El’s birth outside the Codex chamber ensured that he would be free to choose his path… which is what I thought was the whole point of his being a drifter… he’s trying to discover who he is, whereas on Krypton he never would have had that problem, nor been free to make his own destiny.
That’s why he had such a hard time killing Zod at the end… killing at all, even to save another life, violated the personal morality he’d set for himself as a result of living on Earth and of being Jonathan Kent’s son, broke everything he believed was precious and worth protecting. Killing didn’t come as easily to him as it did to Zod, because killing was something Zod was designed to do if he thought it necessary to protect Krypton, so there was nothing maniacal in his decision to kill that councillor, nor to want to rebuild Krypton by destroying Earth. It wasn’t in his programming to give a damn about Earth or the people who lived there, so it wasn’t a decision at all for him; it was an obstacle blocking his path to getting his home back, and he decided to take it out.
Is a person who’s home has been claimed by eminent domain to be demolished to make way for a mall or a highway extension a maniac for resorting to desperate measures when no amount of legal methods remain to save their home? Is a person who’s home has been destroyed by tornados 4 times in the past 10 years a maniac for rebuilding their home in the same place it used to be?
Preprogrammed Kryptonians aren’t the only ones who irrationally cling to an ideal that they built up in their minds, whether or not it really existed the way they remember it or not, and viable options for compromise are never going to be on their plan of action. Here on Earth, we label them as extremists, and they exist in every societal niche on the planet, and there are plenty of examples in the news detailing that rational thought and working together are nowhere on their meeting agendas.
But I’m glad you’re one of us few who still like to consider rational alternatives though 🙂
Are you so sure the council didn’t believe their planet was dying? As you said before, there were pre-programmed roles in society. Scientists do research and report what they find. Why would they lie? If an expert told you your water heater was defective and was going to explode like on an episode of Mythbusters would you ignore or drive out to the Home Depot and fix the problem right then and there?
Another big issue I had with the movie was how they treated evolution. I am so sick of the bad guys using evolution to justify what they said. In the movie the female lieutenant said that being empty of morals was an evolutionary advantage. That was bullshit! Morality is an evolutionary advantage because it is a core part of people living in groups. You can’t have a society without a set of rules individuals are expected to follow. Also evolution only happens when there is change which the Kryptonian society was missing. They’re far closer to creationists than evolutionists with their “divine” plan for everyone and a hatred of people trying to rise above their station. It’s Zod, not Clark, that is the better fit for the Jesus allegory that the movie was repeatedly hitting us over the head.
“Is a person who’s home has been destroyed by tornadoes 4 times in the past 10 years a maniac for rebuilding their home in the same place it used to be?”
Uhhh YEAH! Isn’t that the definition of insanity? You know when you do the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
Pretty sure. Part of Jor-El’s initial speech was that they’d failed to listen to him and other scientists until it was too late, which was basically right then when the planet had begun breaking up under their feet. Kinda like the stories you hear where people don’t want to leave their homes in dangerous locations (unstable mountainsides, eroding waterfronts, etc) until it’s actually collapsing underneath them.
I think you’re way overreacting to the evolution thing… Faola-Ul said that because she believed as Zod did… a natural birth was a threat to the society they’d engineered, and apparently engineering a conscience out of those designed to be warriors was something they saw as a good thing (interpretations of that are a different thing, YMMV). There was never any mention of divine anything anywhere… the word wasn’t once mentioned in the movie (save for the one kid’s mother who was certain that Clark was a miracle), so methinks thou dost project a bit too much here 😉
There are a lot of stories/comments out on the web about Krypton’s society being engineered that baffle me… I swear, no one got this butt-hurt when they used the same engineered society ploy in that ST:TNG episode, did they?
Is it insane? Were people insane for rebuilding London or Chicago or San Francisco after they burned down? Were people insane for rebuilding New Orleans or other communities that have been flooded out over the centuries, or destroyed by earthquakes or other acts of nature simply because that same thing might happen in that location again?
I reserve some healthy concern for folks who want to stay on in the face of a volcano, but otherwise, who defines when a place is worth rebuilding and who tells the people who want to rebuild there that it’s not worth it and to move somewhere else?
Krypton blew up. The choice to rebuild somewhere else was obvious. Deciding that Earth would suffice, I believe was a choice of convenience… the last bit of tech he needed was found here, the planet was close enough to Krypton’s makeup that it wouldn’t take as long to terraform as another planet might (only need to modify the atmosphere and gravity, not wait for it to form), and as a bonus, he gets to kill someone who he sees as an abomination to everything he believed in. Zod saw it as a win-win.
I do have to disagree about how the movie treated evolution. First they misrepresented what evolution, and science in general, means while making it the domain of the bad guy. This, unfortunately, is rather common in movies. We saw it in the first GIJoe move. We saw it in Transformers. We saw it in X-men. Again and again we see the “Evolution made me better than you ergo I should rule and you should die” meme on the big and small screen. Scientists are usually either portrayed as evil or naive. More people in the USA believe in angels than accept the evidence behind evolution. Yet millions of those people flock to the local Wallgreens for their flu shot every year.
Science has a bad PR problem and when villains use science to justify their actions, the problem only gets worse. It’s like the only fiction show that shows scientists in a positive light is Big Bang Theory and even then the audience is as much laughing at them as with them.
As for references to the divine in the movie, there are examples like how Clark is 33 when it happens, the same age when Jesus supposedly died and the scene in the church where the stained glass image of Jesus is right next to Clark. WB even sent flyers out to churches with suggestions on using the movie in their sermons. Let’s not forget about how Kal-el is supposed to be the savior of a new Krypton and how humanity will rise up and follow him. That’s just in this movie, in the previous one you have Supes rising from the dead at the end after sacrificing himself. How can he return from the dead? Because he’s Superman, no more was said.
If WB did a specific promotion like that to churches, that pisses me off. It’s a PR stunt Lionsgate did with that movie Warrior, with Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton. There wasn’t anything remotely religious in that movie either, and I could see the copywriter twisting themselves up to find an angle to play. Talk about charlatans playing to a crowd.
I would also bet that like me, 80% of the country had no idea about the correlation of him being 33 years old.
Sorry for the long pause in the response. I’m not even sure you’ll see this response.
By and large, things in a movie is included for a reason. They chose to make Emoman 33 at the time of the movie. Not 27. Not 35. So one has to ask why. Same is true for the dialog. Not only was the line about not having morals an evolutionary advantage a lie, but it was unnecessary from a plot perspective. It added nothing and could have been done better. She could have said how his morality was a weakness or how his desire to protect left him vulnerable. But no, they chose to make a swipe at an important aspect of science for no reason other than to be petty.
Normally, I’d give the benefit of the doubt and say “never attribute to malice that which can be explained by pure stupidity” (or lack of education), but in this case, not sure I can even believe it myself. Feh. Marketers Who Pander, next on Good Morning Amerca.
Summer, I’m going to address some specific points in your response.
Summer said:Given that Zod’s very first action was to walk into a council chamber, proclaim loudly “you’ve killed us all” and start in on his plan to destroy the council to “protect” Krypton, don’t his later actions reinforce for you the fact that he wasn’t going to ask anyone nicely for anything, that he was just going to take it his way, everyone else but the people he’d protected for the past 33 years be damned? 33 years harboring a festering resentment without outlet can make someone pretty damned single minded.
John said: I keep coming back to this point, but when he starts a war against an entire civilization there’s a chance someone from his side will get hurt, so why start an unnecessary fight when he can get what he wants without risking his own people? He’s a General. Looking at options and strategy is what he was bred for, so why is the non-war route not even tried? And why doesn’t he plan better. I expect more from a General.
Summer said: He didn’t know what he was going to find when he got to Earth. All he did was find a signal, and fly immediately towards it, hoping it was a thriving Kryptonian colony. When he found Earth, and the missing tech he needed to rebuild a Krypton for himself, he took it.
John said: I finding that I’m repeating myself now. He’s a general why didn’t he scout and plan better, especially when there were no time constraints. Rushing in is not a sign of a smart general.
Summer said: As for moral struggles and societal pressures, on Krypton there were none. Everyone was designed to be born into one place, and stay there their entire lives, contributing to society in the way society needed them to, without question or fail. Kal-El’s birth outside the Codex chamber ensured that he would be free to choose his path… which is what I thought was the whole point of his being a drifter… he’s trying to discover who he is, whereas on Krypton he never would have had that problem, nor been free to make his own destiny.
John said: I wasn’t talking about societal pressures on Krypton. I was talking about showing us examples of them in the movie on Earth. If this statement of “what if a child dreams to be something else other than what society expects” is a major driving point in the movie, then it should be reinforced, not just mentioned and never explored in any meaningful manner. As for Kal-El’s drifting, that’s someone trying to find their own path, but there are no pressures on him to be this or that, so it’s exploring one half of an argument, making the picture incomplete and unclear.
Summer said: That’s why he had such a hard time killing Zod at the end… killing at all, even to save another life, violated the personal morality he’d set for himself as a result of living on Earth and of being Jonathan Kent’s son, broke everything he believed was precious and worth protecting. Killing didn’t come as easily to him as it did to Zod, because killing was something Zod was designed to do if he thought it necessary to protect Krypton, so there was nothing maniacal in his decision to kill that councillor, nor to want to rebuild Krypton by destroying Earth. It wasn’t in his programming to give a damn about Earth or the people who lived there, so it wasn’t a decision at all for him; it was an obstacle blocking his path to getting his home back, and he decided to take it out.
John said: An overzealous drive for something is the very definition of maniacal.
Summer said: Is a person who’s home has been claimed by eminent domain to be demolished to make way for a mall or a highway extension a maniac for resorting to desperate measures when no amount of legal methods remain to save their home? Is a person who’s home has been destroyed by tornados 4 times in the past 10 years a maniac for rebuilding their home in the same place it used to be?
John said: As I said above the very definition of mania is an overzealous drive for something, so by your description of this person they’re a maniac. Also I don’t think this house analogy is correct. What Zod is doing is demolishing his neighbors house to so he can build his own house on his neighbors property when there are plenty of other lots free for him to build on.
Summer said: Preprogrammed Kryptonians aren’t the only ones who irrationally cling to an ideal that they built up in their minds, whether or not it really existed the way they remember it or not, and viable options for compromise are never going to be on their plan of action. Here on Earth, we label them as extremists, and they exist in every societal niche on the planet, and there are plenty of examples in the news detailing that rational thought and working together are nowhere on their meeting agendas.
John said: The movie never establishes how strong this “Programming” is or what it really even means. I mean Jor-El and his wife broke societal norms, and when Jor-El asks what if a child aspires to be something else, it implies that anyone can break this programming not just Kal-El. Also what compromise is Zod making by avoiding conflict? He can get a new Krypton and kill Kal-El if he wanted. All he had to do was plan, and isn’t that what a General like him is bred for, planning?
I think we’ve reached a point where we’re going to have to agree to disagree, because I understand your points and you understand mine, and neither of us has been convinced to budge. Your points make sense, but for me, they weren’t brought into focus enough in the movie. If they were, as someone who grew up reading comics, I’d be geaking out.
And for me, I’m not so wired into everything has to be the same as prior canon… for a movie, as long as the story is internally consistent (to me), I can enjoy it, and in my book, Man of Steel meets that standard
(ref my rants in years past about Event Horizon, Matrix 2, Matrix 3, XMen 3, Spider-Man 3, and Superman Returns for examples that make it impossible for me to ever watch those movies again)
I can see where others might not have seen the same things I did while I was watching Man of Steel, any may have missed a few of the things I interpreted as the story was moving along, but I really don’t understand a lot of the hate the movie seems to be generating.
IIRC, Batman Begins left a lot of hanging doors open, but I guess more people were willing to give those a pass since it had the word “Begins” in the title?
Besides, the fact that we’re arguing this passionately means something… if more people felt “meh” about it, they wouldn’t be any arguing 😉
So, I had one major technical nitpick abut Man of Steel.
Who the frell let JJ Abrams into the editing bay with his lensflaromoter(tm)?
There were only a few moments when it was blatantly obvious, but when it was, it took me out of the film.
Dear Hollywierd,
Lens flares are NOT cool.
Other than that, I quite enjoyed it.
Just imagine how many shiny lens flares he’s gonna add to Star Wars!!! Makes you all tingly with antici—-pation, don’t it? 😉
There can be only one … reply to this:
http://nooooooooooooooo.com/
They won’t be lens flares, they’ll be lightsaber flares!
Great. Now you’ve got me imagining lightsaber battles intercut with those slow-motion dramatic battle moves (like in 300), where the lightsaber motions leave light trails behind them like a bad acid trip.
If JJ does that, I’m so coming after you….
Just got in from seeing it in 3D. I loved it. Superman for the early 21st Century viewer. Had no problem with anything or the direction Snyder took the film including the controversial bit near the end with Zod, there was really no other adult, non-cardboardy way for that to come about. Has room for growth in characters for any future sequels. My wife was with me. Her critique: “The best live-action film I have ever seen.”