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Man of Steel

Jetboogieman

Somewhere in Babylon
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Is anyone else here as disappointed as I am?

I was so looking forward to this and WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP :(
 
I loved it, but there's two things that came to mind.

1) Snyder likes shaky-cam too much. The first sequence with Crow and the council, only a few minutes in length, was pretty bad with the camera work. I know a basic discussion of ecological politics for a few minutes isn't the most gripping thing in the world, but that doesn't mean that the viewer needs to feel like they were kind of drunk watching it. This continued throughout the flick, and it was unnecessary. Many times I did not notice, but sometimes it was bad.

Related to this is perhaps the complaint that Snyder likes close-ups just a bit wee too much.

2) An excess in the destruction of city property.
 
2) An excess in the destruction of city property.

This was a major complaint for me.

By the end of it I was bored to ****ing tears.

In my head just thinking "how many more layers of concrete could these guys possibly go through".
 
I loved it, but there's two things that came to mind.

1) Snyder likes shaky-cam too much. The first sequence with Crow and the council, only a few minutes in length, was pretty bad with the camera work. I know a basic discussion of ecological politics for a few minutes isn't the most gripping thing in the world, but that doesn't mean that the viewer needs to feel like they were kind of drunk watching it. This continued throughout the flick, and it was unnecessary. Many times I did not notice, but sometimes it was bad.

Related to this is perhaps the complaint that Snyder likes close-ups just a bit wee too much.

2) An excess in the destruction of city property.

I honestly think they made a mistake making Zod and crew the villians. It brought far more attention to the nature of Superman's powers than was really necessary, or even wise.

Lower gravity. a different atmosphere, and yellow sunlight lets you freakin' fly and shoot lasers out of your eyes? And all of those abilities just magically disappear the minute you start breathing your own planet's air again?

Ummm... What? wtf.gif

Call me a stickler for supension of disbelief, but if your premise makes that little sense, the last thing you want to do is explicitly invite the audience to analyze it deeper.

The simple fact of the matter is that no one really gives a damn how Superman's powers work at this point. It's just kind of accepted that they do. They didn't need to reinvent the wheel.

I think Brainiac would've been a smarter choice. That way they could've avoided those kinds of questions while keeping the alien invasion angle and the Kryptonian technology.
 
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Never heard of it. :) I understand it's a movie.
 
I liked it but had some of the same gripes as everyone else. I did think the darker than usual nature for a Superman movie was ballsy and a nice touch, but it seems to me Zod and crew are more for a sequel and they did try to fit a bit too much of the Superman universe into one movie. Other than that I thought it was overall awesome, I gave it a 4/5.
 
I liked it but had some of the same gripes as everyone else. I did think the darker than usual nature for a Superman movie was ballsy and a nice touch, but it seems to me Zod and crew are more for a sequel and they did try to fit a bit too much of the Superman universe into one movie. Other than that I thought it was overall awesome, I gave it a 4/5.

I think the thing was so much of it felt rushed and not well thought out.

Many of the moments with Clark as a child and young adult, struggling to deal with who he was were quite touching and well executed... I think if you'd have had a little more about that instead of 45 minutes of smashing concrete and explosions constantly that belonged more in a Transformers movie than a superman one, things might have turned out much better.
 
I've heard from various people that the story in Superman Returns was better, so I probably won't go see Man of Steel then. This Is The End however looks hilarious.
 
I think the thing was so much of it felt rushed and not well thought out.

Many of the moments with Clark as a child and young adult, struggling to deal with who he was were quite touching and well executed... I think if you'd have had a little more about that instead of 45 minutes of smashing concrete and explosions constantly that belonged more in a Transformers movie than a superman one, things might have turned out much better.
I think you're right on that. I just read an article about the various arcs from the Superman past and they IMO tried to smash a whole universe of divergent writing into a singular movie. I want to give a pass for the excessive fighting because the point of the Kryptonian arc was that Superman was matched and it would take an epic battle to convey that, but I do think they took it a bit too far with Man of Steel.
 
I've heard from various people that the story in Superman Returns was better, so I probably won't go see Man of Steel then. This Is The End however looks hilarious.
This is the end was pants pissingly funny.
 
This is the end was pants pissingly funny.

Yeah I figured between my 15 dollars for movie going money I have I'd rather see something that is pretty much given good reviews than something hit and miss.
 
I think you're right on that. I just read an article about the various arcs from the Superman past and they IMO tried to smash a whole universe of divergent writing into a singular movie. I want to give a pass for the excessive fighting because the point of the Kryptonian arc was that Superman was matched and it would take an epic battle to convey that, but I do think they took it a bit too far with Man of Steel.

I think you hit the nail on the head there in your first post.

I think with that, if you'd established Superman in the first movie as this all powerful being and had a semi decent villian and thrown General Zodd into the second film with the exact same premise for Man of Steel, it would have made for a much more exciting film in the same way people loved Batman and turned on him when things got bad with the Joker, you could have had a much more interesting conflict with humanity and complying with Zodd if Superman had already been established in a prior film.
 
I loved it, but there's two things that came to mind.

1) Snyder likes shaky-cam too much. The first sequence with Crow and the council, only a few minutes in length, was pretty bad with the camera work. I know a basic discussion of ecological politics for a few minutes isn't the most gripping thing in the world, but that doesn't mean that the viewer needs to feel like they were kind of drunk watching it. This continued throughout the flick, and it was unnecessary. Many times I did not notice, but sometimes it was bad.

Related to this is perhaps the complaint that Snyder likes close-ups just a bit wee too much.

2) An excess in the destruction of city property.

My first thought when the movie began was, "It's 2013. Why are we still being subjected to shaky-cam? What is it going to take for this to finally go out of style?"

The movie focused on several aspects not attempted (or attempted, but unsuccessfully) in other movies: 1)The disjointed story telling style in the first act was effective in conveying the idea of Superman being out of place. Before this we were forced to watch various forms of Emo Superman as he sighed wistfully about being all alone on this planet. This time there's less of Superman bitching about being isolated and more about him being isolated. As a writing teacher told us once, don't tell us that the girl is sad, show us that the girl is sad. 2)The pure, raw destructive capabilities of Superman. Well, I think we can all agree the movie handled that well enough. 3)The message of the destructiveness of social engineering at the purest, most immoderate level. General Zod serves as the last living example of everything that was wrong with Krypton and why it was necessary for it to die. Creating babies Matrix-style in order for them to fulfill pre-programmed functions for the rest of their lives was also the same programming that guaranteed that every outpost, not just their own home planet, met the same result: unwilling to question their own genetic directives they were set on a course that could only end in death. This is further demonstrated by Zod's goal to carry on that same tradition here on earth. It was for me the most poignant part of the movie as he essentially argues (with no awareness of the irony) that you can place all the credit for the death and mayhem he brought to earth squarely at the feet of Krypton's own rotten civilization. I believe his "confession" and his ultimate death was meant to echo the climax in Bladerunner, although Rutger Hauer's character was able to display a self awareness that remained out of Zod's grasp to the very end.

Though obviously imperfect, Man of Steel was smarter than it will probably get credit for, and had a message that I didn't feel they tried to beat into my skuyll in an obvious, hamfisted way. I do agree with Gathomas88 about trying to scientifically explaining Superman's power with the quality of the air -- that veered dangerously close to (if not exactly the same as ) the nanites or whatever the hell those things were from The Phantom Menace.
 
Like most Sequels or Reboots they know even if it is the worse movie ever made people will still go to watch it if it has a popular title .
 
Like most Sequels or Reboots they know even if it is the worse movie ever made people will still go to watch it if it has a popular title .

You could make the identical argument for high profile actors. Title and certain actors are a draw, nothing new there.

In any case, while Man of Steel is imperfect, I believe it was worth the time and energy to make. It has its own unique appeal, especially by virtue of the fact that it wasn't trying in the least to be the 1978 Superman (and thank God).
 
I honestly think they made a mistake making Zod and crew the villians. It brought far more attention to the nature of Superman's powers than was really necessary, or even wise.

Lower gravity. a different atmosphere, and yellow sunlight lets you freakin' fly and shoot lasers out of your eyes? And all of those abilities just magically disappear the minute you start breathing your own planet's air again?

Ummm... What? View attachment 67149017

Call me a stickler for supension of disbelief, but if your premise makes that little sense, the last thing you want to do is explicitly invite the audience to analyze it deeper.

The simple fact of the matter is that no one really gives a damn how Superman's powers work at this point. It's just kind of accepted that they do. They didn't need to reinvent the wheel.

I think Brainiac would've been a smarter choice. That way they could've avoided those kinds of questions while keeping the alien invasion angle and the Kryptonian technology.

Brainiac was actually in the movie. He's the AI for all of the Krypton tech. Plus I like the nod by having one of the trucks say "LexCorp" on it.

But I agree with the general sentiment that the shaky cam + fast zoom from a wide angle was overused.

Overall, however, my wife and I enjoyed it.
 
You could make the identical argument for high profile actors. Title and certain actors are a draw, nothing new there.

In any case, while Man of Steel is imperfect, I believe it was worth the time and energy to make. It has its own unique appeal, especially by virtue of the fact that it wasn't trying in the least to be the 1978 Superman (and thank God).

Yes , over paid actors who play terrible roles how could I possibly forget . It may not be the worst Superman but they could make it a lot better .
 
Yes , over paid actors who play terrible roles how could I possibly forget . It may not be the worst Superman but they could make it a lot better .

As one critic said, Lawrence Fishburn was an unnecessary distraction (I agree with this), Superman's character was fine (you're never really going to squeeze very much out of a role that inherently has no character flaws, as opposed to, say, Iron Man who is just one giant character flaw with arms and legs), and Zod was fantastic. All in all I think the casting was actually quite good.

It should be said that Christopher Reeve was a Superman for another era: clean cut, innocent, hopeful, three things that for whatever it's worth is out of place in our time.

The story might not have had as clean a linear development as the first Superman (every sequel after that was a train wreck) but I think Man of Steel held its own.
 
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!!!Spoiler Alert!!!

I took great issue with their use of Krypton's atmosphere rather than kryptonite weakening their powers. I also took great issue with the Dragonball Z esque over the top battle that left all of Smallville and Metropolis in ruins. But what ruined the movie for me was the ending, Superman doesn't kill and that is a huge part of the character.

!!!Spoiler Alert!!!

That being said, the movie was fun and very enjoyable. I was never bored, nor did the shaky cam bother me (I'm a BSG fan.) I thought it was a better more memorable movie than Iron Man 3, and it was certainly better than Superman Returns. I found I could empathize with this Zod far more than the Tyrant Zod of Superman II, and his motivations. All this movie needed was some Kryptonite and for the final fight w/ Zod to be more like the battle with the other Kryptonians, Faora-Ul the female kryptonian fighting the Army soldiers was the sickest fight.
 
!!!Spoiler Alert!!!
But what ruined the movie for me was the ending, Superman doesn't kill and that is a huge part of the character.

Comic books typically reflect the soul of the era. The old Superman stood for a United States that had a notion of hope and the popular belief that it was inherently good, and that those ideas of what was good were not up for compromise . Those ideas are in in doubt today, so in an era that now seriously rationalizes torture, domestic espionage and a permanent state of war, we get the Superman we deserve: one who may hate it but will kill as a last resort anyway.

In short, this ain't your granddaddy's Superman.
 
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Comic books typically reflect the soul of the era. The old Superman stood for a United States that had a notion of hope and the popular belief that it was inherently good, and that those ideas of what was good were not up for compromise . Those ideas are in in doubt today, so in an era that now seriously rationalizes torture, domestic espionage and a permanent state of war, we get the Superman we deserve: one who may hate it but will kill as a last resort anyway.

In short, this ain't your granddaddy's Superman.

And that makes him not Superman, but just another super-powered bozo in a funny costume that is as much villain as he is hero and twice as nonsensical. Supes is an ideal archetype, ultimate power responsibly controlled. Always fighting his own self-corruption.

The movie is a fail. This was yet another crappy attempt to bring the DC characters to life. That right there is the glaring difference between Marvel and DC characters. DC deals with one dimensional characters whose humanity is like a afterthought and whose actions in the comics are silly, their story illusions are easily destroyed by common reality. Marvel, the characters are largely human first, superheroes reluctantly and a distant second. Much easier to set their stories to film.
 
I loved the movie....

I loved the scenes on Krypton.

I loved the flashbacks as a way to tell his childhood.

I love Amy Adams as Lois Lane.

Michael Shannon is freaking amazing as Zod.

Watching the action sequence was amazing....by far the best depiction of Superman in a fight....

Generally I get bored by long action sequences but this one had me glued.
 
I loved the movie....

I loved the scenes on Krypton.

I loved the flashbacks as a way to tell his childhood.

I love Amy Adams as Lois Lane.

Michael Shannon is freaking amazing as Zod.

Watching the action sequence was amazing....by far the best depiction of Superman in a fight....

Generally I get bored by long action sequences but this one had me glued.
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And I love Amy Adams as anyone.
They better not have dyed Amy's hair black, a la the comic book Lois, though.
If they did, I swear to gawd, I'll walk out of that theater.......and I won't buy any popcorn, either.
 
You could make the identical argument for high profile actors. Title and certain actors are a draw, nothing new there.

In any case, while Man of Steel is imperfect, I believe it was worth the time and energy to make. It has its own unique appeal, especially by virtue of the fact that it wasn't trying in the least to be the 1978 Superman (and thank God).
My opinion is a great movie could have been an epic movie in this one with a few key choices. I thought they were too "busy" with the story line as I stated earlier, but overall that was a minor gripe. The biggest issue is how they up the ante for the sequel, and I'm pretty sure this was made to set up a series, what made the Kryptonians work in Superman II was the challenge to Superman, up to that point there were few that could challenge Superman at full force. Man of Steel IMO brought the Kryptonian arc out waaaaaay to fast, what's to challenge the hero next, does Lex Luthor make an appearance, do we see darker and less popular comic arcs that may not hit with casual movie watchers? Things like that bugged me about an otherwise great film.
 
-------------------

And I love Amy Adams as anyone.
They better not have dyed Amy's hair black, a la the comic book Lois, though.
If they did, I swear to gawd, I'll walk out of that theater.......and I won't buy any popcorn, either.
Nope, redhead.
 
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