Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine Man of Steel

Well, I saw it tonight and...well...I liked it. I guess. I thought it was a bit disjointed story-wise and a little oddly paced, but the characterization was great. For the first time I got a feeling for how absolutely isolated Superman must have felt. How out of place he must always feel. I liked Lois Lane and thought Amy Adams made her believable and capable. I liked the action and thought (despite it being a little over the top) that it was appropriate and amazing visually.

What I didn't like? ZOD. Michael Shannon just DOES NOT do it for me. He didn't seem old enough. He didn't seem arrogant and proud enough. He just seemed ANGRY and CRAZY. Zod, to me, is not a typically insane character. He is bloodthirsty and vengeful and misguided, but not CRAZY.

But what I really, truly couldn't get over?



I can't get over it. I can't. And it spoiled what was turning out to be a really fun movie for me. I'd see it again though. It was a 80% awesome movie.

Having been spoiled elsewhere, I'll just say I agree with Conjure and am giving this one a pass for now.

I don't always agree with Kelly Thomson, but this article seems well done and crystallizes a lot of my fears about the film:

http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2013/06/17/she-has-no-head-the-problems-with-man-of-steel/

EDIT to Add: Spoilers ahoy in the link!

I do kind of agree with the criticism of the actor playing Zod. He did a good job of it, but, apart from the hero himself, the villain has to be *great.*

I liked the character of Faora better. She was cold and menacing and while Zod was crazyface ranting and justifying himself, she was just flat out playing a bad, bad person, no excuses or self-delusion or 'for the greater good' nonsense.

In fact, the nature of Faora (and the complete ciphers that were the other Kryptonians) might actually be why I found Zod's speechifying a bit off-key. They don't seem to have a tenth the instrospection that Zod does, and this might simply be the nature of the film, that the others won't get much in the way of speaking lines without padding the film out to three hours, but it made Zod seem like he was a completely different person than every other person on his ship, and blissfully unaware of that fact. He ended up seeming just a bit clueless.

Indeed, the speechifying and rationalization kind of undercut the 'Gattaca' theme that the warrior caste were designed for just that, war, and that Superman, not encoded to be limited to just one caste, one way of thinking, would never really be able to reason with them.

Eh. I suspect, as so often happens, we are putting more thought into this than the writers.

awww after reading the spoilers, now I can't watch it.

I'm sorry! To be fair, I would watch it again! I just...well...that does spoil it a bit.

I liked it, and felt it was Superman done right. There ARE some parts that keep it from being perfect (one being too much wanton property damage and most likely casualties in those buildings!) but I feel that they "got" Superman. Not in all of the scenes, but towards they end they totally did. When Superman tells off the generals for spying on him, I felt like "Wow, that's exactly what Superman would have done in the comics!"

It wasn't perfect, but I was satisfied and hope this leads to many more movies for DC.

I'm hoping to see it tomorrow or Monday!

Saw it today and enjoyed it.

I got to see it tonight! I'm still processing it, but I can say with confidence that I was basically in awe the whole time I watched it--and, I think that's exactly how one should feel if a film about Superman has done its job.

And about that ending....well Superman did the same thing (using a different method) during Byrne's run on the Superman books, so it's not unprecedented. There, it seemed a lot more calculated than it did here. And justifiable.

Not that it isn't a very very very common problem in superhero movies and cartoons, and comics too I suppose, but the collateral damage from combats always bothers me more with Superman than others.

And it was way, Way, WAYYY overdone in this movie. They could have cut 20 minutes and still had too much of it.

Sorry, Supes is my number one. He would have found a way to avoid at least the damage he himself did. Most of the time it didn't look like he was even trying to do so.

I completely agree with you, SS. The movie makes a big deal of the pains Superman goes to help others and to save other people, but had there been people in any of those buildings he'd destroyed they would definitely all be dead.

Slightly adapted review that I posted on FB. Just moved a few things around...did not change any wording.

Took my dad to see Man of Steel tonight.

He enjoyed it and thought it was action packed. Which it was.

As for me, I loved it. For different reasons that I still love the original Christopher Reeve Superman. They covered a lot of ground through the flashbacks, and did a good job introducing a lot of characters that comic fans know and love. Sure some of them looked different...but we got Lana and Pete learning and protecting Clarks secret. We have Ma and Pa Kent (wonderfully portrayed by Diane Lane and Kevin Costner...and you will not hear me say that often about Costner). Loved Mr. Fishburne as Perry...don't care what color he was in the comics...the man was a great choice even though he did not have too much to do. You got Dr. Hamilton. We saw Lexcorp and Waynetech represented. Star Labs mentioned. Steve Lombard is even in there!

Amy Adams is a great Lois Lane...and it was nice to see her portrayed as the reporter she is supposed to be. Sorry, but that movie got her down better than any other portrayal, including the comics, that I have ever seen. She is an ace investigative reporter and she proved it here.

The ending "controversy" was fine with me. Look, Supes did something similar to that character in Superman 2 (he dropped all three down a crevasse, with no powers, to certain death. He took another route to get to the same place with those characters shortly after his comics reboot in the 80's. So all the uproar over his actions seems a little misplaced. The character gave him no alternative. There was no way to send him to the Phantom Zone...all that tech was gone. No prison was going to hold him...Kal knew that. He was going to murder people until stopped. It was a last resort that he hated doing.

What were his other choices. He was outmatched. Zod was a warrior. Created for war. He adjusted to the same level Clark had in an extremely shorter amount of time.
As to the sheer amount of destruction...wow. I thought they went a little overboard at first...but I think in part, it was to show what would continue to happen if Zod had lived. He would not have stopped. Don't forget as well that Faora said that they had no moral code...

Michael Shannon as Zod was perfect. The man totally took charge of every scene he was in. Although Henry Cavill did a good job holding his own against him. At least in my opinion.

Zod comes this close to taking my favorite villain spot...but Doc Ock (Alfred Molina still keeps that spot...he was just genius.

So, I liked the movie a lot, and am looking forward to the worked building that the DC folks can do now. I can totally see a Flash movie and how it could work.

See I totally disagree, because when faced with an impossible choice, he finds a way out of it because he's frickin' SUPERMAN.

I initially chalked this up to lazy writing until I read that quote from Snyder stating that in the script he DOES send Zod to the Phantom Zone, but Snyder insisted this be changed to add more "depth" to it. grr..

Superman has killed Zod before though. In the movies as well as the comics. It's not unprecedented...that's all. I just do not have the same issue with it others do.

Saw the movie earlier today and, in general, I enjoyed the ride. It's probably the best Superman film since Superman II, circa 1980, but that's almost damning it with faint praise since the other movies have been so bad. In actuality, Man of Steel was a good film, though not a great one. It is marred chiefly by some overlong sequences, particular the Krypton prologue and the invasion.

I don't have a problem with Superman killing Zod. I thought it was a mature and risky decision on the part of the filmmakers. Good stories challenge our conceptions of what a hero can and cannot do, not simply reinforce what we already expect. That's why I cannot buy the "He's Superman. He would have found a way not to kill" argument. When I hear that, I have to ask why. If the answer is "Because he's Superman," that's circular reasoning.

The Kelly Thompson review linked to earlier does a fine job of dissecting the film's weaknesses. Thompson points out that, while all the attention is focused on Superman killing Zod, reviewers ignore the huge number of corollary casualties that must have been inflicted during Superman and Zod's battle. This is a failing, not only of this film but blockbusters in general these days. Modern action films have become so much like video games that it's expected to see buildings collapse, planes and helicopters crash, and things explode. Never mind the civilians who must have gotten in the way. Just don't show them and everything will be all right seems to be the dominant thinking. There comes a point, however, when the the escalation of violence and destruction in films becomes so over the top it's desensitizing. Showing violence without consequences is irresponsible film making.

Thompson also takes the film to task for being joyless. Right or wrong, however, I don't think joy was what the film makers were going for. Nor do I think they were necessarily trying to turn Superman into The Dark Knight. What struck me upon leaving the theater was the awesome scale of power Kryptonians possess and how that power is checked and guided by the moral code and sense of personal destiny of Superman--values instilled in him by his foster parents. It sounds cliched and trite, but those values are at the heart of Superman, and, when he says, "I grew up in Kansas. I'm as American as it gets," I felt like the movie was trying to highlight the old fashioned ideals espoused by the Captain American movie two years ago. Man of Steel doesn't trumpet those values the way the Cap film did; it matter-of-factly tosses them out there like a softball. But I think the overall theme of the movie is that trust and love temper the abuses of power.

Henry Cavill made an outstanding Superman--he exudes quiet authority and boyish charm. The supporting cast shored up the film nicely, as well. I also appreciated the narrative chances the film took--such as showing Clark's upbringing through carefully interspersed flashbacks (which made the film seem oddly like the old Kung Fu TV series at times) and answering the does Lois know or not question early on. In fact, the whole secret identity aspect was handled in a unique and fresh fashion.

This movie challenges our conceptions of what Superman is and can be. It's not a "safe" Superman film, but I don't believe it violates the character or the mythos in any significant way, other than the usual blockbuster-scale violence I mentioned earlier.

Looking at Man of Steel (and Nolan's Batman movies) from the perspective of someone who would throttle an adorable meerkat to see a Justice League movie on par with the Avengers movie, I'm a tiny bit concerned that DC is weighing their movies towards a very grim and gritty and serious tone, if a shared universe is in fact intended. Green Lantern lightened things up a bit, but wasn't terribly well-received.

As much as I yearn to see DC succeed with a Justice League build-up the way Marvel did with their Avengers offering, Man of Steel and Nolan's Bat-flicks don't really seem to lend themselves to the sort of shared world-building that led to the Avengers.

The tone feels like it's boxing in any future properties, like Wonder Woman, the Flash or Aquaman, to a similarly bleak and overly serious and 'heavy' tone, which really, IMO, doesn't do anyone not dressed like a Bat any favors...

As mentioned above I do have the "Supes would find a way" attitude about the collateral deaths of innocents. Or he'd at least try, and the filmmakers never made me feel he did.

But if he had to kill Zod, and by "had to" I mean by writer or director fiat, that one death was well done in that he had to do it right then. Zod was not giving him any time or even a free hand to find another way. Or at least it felt well done at first viewing.

Frankly when it comes to superhuman murderers swearing they will destroy earth, I'm not expecting even Superman to go with due process, given no prison on Earth can hold them (kryptonite is still unknown as of this movie's events) and that by means Kal is unaware of they've ALREADY escaped the Phantom Zone once.

Here is the entire exclusive prequel comic for MAN OF STEEL featuring Kara and Dev-Em from Screencrush: http://screencrush.com/man-of-steel-prequel/

For some reason my mind is going back to the trial of The Flash. When Barry (ironically, given this discussion) snaps Zooms neck.

They brought in witnesses to say that because he moves so fast he should/could have found another way. Wally was even in on the fun there.

Thing is, I always felt that it became a moot point if Barry could move that fast, because...so can Zoom. It then becomes as simple as two people fighting over the life of another. Barry was fighting for the life od his fiance, after haaving lost Iris to the madman. Not something that the people in the courtroom knew, but Wally did. Wally also knew what Zoom was capable of and that he was not going to stop until Fiona was dead.

If two men are evenly matched...and one has the jump (in this case Zoom), how can anyone say that there was another way? Of course everything was rigged...and there were other twists that figured in, but that fact always got to me.

To me, the same thing applies to the Man of Steel movie. Two matched opponents, and one could be considered superior (Zod) based on his training and tenacity. The writers left no room to do anything else.

Just saw Man of Steel with my wife yesterday. It was a pretty good flick. Too much death and destruction, but I guess that was to prove what kind of bad ass Zod was supposed to be.

I definitely liked the natural birth vs. embryo selection subplot on Krypton. My wife wondered if anyone on Krypton still had sex anymore with such a system. Interesting question indeed!

That did have a sort of subdued 'Gattaca' theme to it, whether or not a person genetically tailored towards one specific role was inherently inferior to a 'generalist' with no such built in predestination.



The majority of sex isn't for reproduction, but for pleasure and social bonding, so it's possible that sex would be as common, or even more so (with no fear of accidental life-changing consequences!) in a society where reproduction was not linked to intercourse.

And yet, a society as different as Krypton might have no use for the social bonding aspects (since everyone is born into a caste with their 'friends' and 'peers' already pre-determined), and might have either lost the drive for pleasure (or had it re-wired so that they receive pleasure when fulfilling their agreed upon roles in society, making conflict pleasurable for warriors, leadership pleasurable for the ruling caste and discovery pleasurable for scientists!) or found technological workarounds, like direct electrical pleasure stimulation, removing any inclinations towards physical sex, as everything you could possible want it for is already more easily accomplished via neural induction or caste-bonding or genesis matrix.

One persons dispassionate clean utopia is anothers freakish sterile zombie world...

I wouldn't have minded at all if this were explored a bit more in the movie, but I know they had to cater to the A.D.D. audience dynamic for this type of film. I'm sure it would have been panned mercilessly if they'd spent even a few more minutes on Krypton without action. I'm happy, though, that these themes were implied, though.

I did get the feeling that sex was more than likely unusual in this Krypton. This aspect was likely inspired by Byrne's version in which I'm pretty certain sex was eliminated. IIRC Kal was conceived artificially, and Jor-El and Lara experienced their first kiss as Krypton was dying. So "Man of Steel"'s Krypton is similar to Byrne's, though not as extreme.

It's funny in a way to see that Zod was so driven to convert Earth into a New Krypton that if they had succeeded, all the Kryptonians would have been rendered powerless or very nearly powerless--if I understand the scenario correctly.

Yeah, that was odd, as if Zod was so biologically programmed to recreate Krypton so that his caste had something to protect that they ended being almost non-sentient, more like ants than people.

The same deal on Krypton, where it seemed like anyone not Jor-El or Lara was incapable of even recognizing that their actions were hastening the death of their world.

Leader "Blah blah, science-dude is talking. Oh, he's done, time to say something leaderly. 'We'll form a committee to look into it, Jor-El.' Yes, that should do."

Zod "Blah blah, imminent threat, must... fight... something! Rarr! Zod Smash!"

Not altogether without parallel in real life, eh?

Ha! True.

When you've got a hammer, every problem looks like a nail, I suppose!