Man of steel ?

[wintertime]

[/BI have just seen "Man of Steel"and was not impressed.Special effects now are very good but this like a few others is too much.I much preferred the old Superman movies.And I also thought the cast was very unappealing.Is it just me?

 

[cacc]

Eh, that sort of movie just isn't my bag.

 

[mtls]

I find the movie strange tonally. Superman is this boy scout type of superhero character yet they made the film so dark, like Nolan's batman films. I do like Cavill as Superman though, thought he did a great job!

 

[Dendood]

I didn't come up with the quip but I wish I had, it fit the movie so perfectly: One guy reviewed it as "destruction porn." Very strange in this post 9-11 era to visually delight in falling buildings. One would have been enough. Maybe one was one too many. But 476 in a row???

All human empathy was lost at that point. The same with the battle scene in Oblivion. In the blue ray extras of Oblivion, Tom Cruise and the director both applauded themselves for setting the proper tone of the violence. It wasn't 'over the top' gory. The success of being 'clean kills' is exactly the failure of the movie. When human tragedy is portrayed as video game entertainment, all empathy for the human condition goes right out the window. Nothing is lost because nothing 'real' is ventured. The only thing missing was the Pac Man music chimes, which should have played each time a rubble or energy waves or whatever wasted another "human."

Oh for the glory days of 1960's Marvel, where artists and writers kept the 'action' down to implied carnage -and pumped up the level for human bravery to super human levels. That's how it should be. Done well anyway...

 

[js324]

I don't care that he killed someone, or that they destroyed many buildings, or that the film was dark... I would say the worst and most unbelievable part of the film was when Jonathan Kent, died to save the stupid dog from a tornado.

 

[brmstn69]

It didn't come close to Nolan's Batman movies or the Marvel movies, and now they've gone and cast Ben Affleck as Batman, or is it Batfleck, for the next movie...

But there is a silver lining...

Rumor has it that Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad) has been cast as Lex Luthor, which should be epic...

 

[DarthMorrow]

Well it was a good reboot. Best Superman-flick in 30 years.
Henry Cavill was just great. Not everyone can fit in this outfit. Almost anyone would look like a guy in a Superman-costume. But Mr. Cavill nailed it. The likeness of him to Christopher Reeve was creepy sometimes.
The destruction was a little too much, almost cartoonish in times but i didn´t mind Supes killing Zod.
He is a little inexperienced at that time, stressed, hurt maybe a little desperate. I would like to see the fallout of the Ending explored in Part 2. Supes killing, the destruction and what Lex is making out of all that. Put in Batman and his "unorthodox" view on some things and we could have a nice clash of the Titans.

 

[Dendood]

There were certainly lots of elements to like. You put a vast team of technically professional creative minds together + hundreds of thousands of dollars + a few years out of everyone's life, there's bound to be elements to love. There were lots of neat little things in the movie.

The cast was excellent and made the best of what was handed to them. It is a shame they weren't handed better. As mentioned, (and I had SOOOOO blocked out of mind) the absolute idiocy of Pa Kent shushing his son about anyone seeing him rescue a dog in the middle of a tornado.... "I'll do it. I'll do it." It is so laughable, at that point one roots for stupid to die. -It is the primal rule of evolution in action. Smart lives. Stupid dies.

Superman does not kill.
End of story.
Batman does not kill. Mickey Mouse does not kill. -Sure, there are adults out there who long for their childhood heroes to 'grow up' with them and become 'adult' too. Shifting from idealized philosophies to some greyer, more nuanced view of the world. -It is as if they are ashamed of the conceits of the genre. "How can anyone be THAT good? I can't be that good? Why do they have to be THAT good?"

Well, true, they don't 'have' to be.....

And now that they aren't NuMarvel and NuDC sell Superman and Batman in the range of 50,000 copies a month. As opposed to several million a month in its heyday.

NuMarvel and NuDC modern comics haven't gained much of any value over time. You can't give them away. Meanwhile, the good stuff -when the conceit of the genre was accepted- you could pay for a year's college tuition.

What the Comics code enforced on the genre as a restriction became the fuel for the golden years of the Silver Age. And when the Comics Code was finally dropped, the bottom fell out of the genre. You want good super hero stories, keep the heroes heroes. Make the delineation between hero and villain clear as can be. Superman does not kill.
Batman does not kill. Spider-man does not kill. Luthor kills. Mangog kills. Zod kills.

The very success of the movie Captain America is built on the central scene where a non-super powered nerd throws himself on a grenade to protect the people around him.
That character trait of 'good' is innate to the character. The costume is just a disguise. The powers are simply a means to the end.

Peter Parker is good to his core. True, he let his guard slip out of a moment of pride, but short of that distraction, he would have acted to protect Ben or anyone else. He too would have thrown himself on a grenade. The costume is just a disguise. His powers only a means to an end.

Supes too.

If that conceit is too much to handle, it is time for those 'adults' to move on to 'adult' story telling. Be they at NuMarvel, NuDC, Sony Pictures, you name it.

-Don't fuck with Mickey Mouse.

Mickey does not kill.

Charlie Brown does not kill.

-If you write him killing someone, he's not Charlie Brown any more.

 

[havocs]

@Dendood, and that is one of the similarities between Batman and Superman. They stick to their morals, the joker has killed hundreds/thousands and Batman still refuses to kill him. And I think the best reason why is what he said in the Under the Red Mask animated movie, he said that he didnt kill Joker because it is too easy, and that once he starts he wont stop. And that is one of the things that makes the Joker insane, he just wants Batman to break his code. Lex Luther is similar, he goes about and works his schemes and Superman is aware but plays by the rules. The best comics spinoffs are the ones where the Justice League go rogue and become the Justice Lords (animated show).

As for the reboot Superman movie, it wasnt bad, it could have been better but could have been worse given some of the other bad reboots. I think the real secret to Superman/Batman is showing their human side, they are not freaks, they are really just trying to be the best 'people' they can and doing it the only way they know how.

 

[Dendood]

Hi Havoc, this is one of my worries with the Superman/Batman film. What I hope they don't do is cast Batman as this crazy rogue to choirboy Superman and call it drama. That is too easy and risks sliding them into a pissing party for a third of the movie. Now if they legitimately set up a plot where cirstances make the two doubt each other because of cirstances (meaning, you could swap them out for any other 2 DC heroes and they too would be inclined not to trust the other), THAT would be cool.

But the idea that Batman would be cool with water boarding or bending the law to Superman harping about that..... Ugh. Shoot me.

Actually, I'm rooting for DC. I want them to hit the bar as high as possible. They did that with the last Batman series. But Green Lantern was just a dark, muddy mess. Meanwhile Marvel has been knocking it out of the park with multiple great films. It would be nice to have a very good Superman/Batman movie lead into a spectacular Justice League film.

 

[Dendood]

Although some of us here, myself included, wouldn't mind watching Ben Affleck and Henry Cavil having a pissing party... Imaging seeing all that equipment hanging out in IMAX 3D.

 

[etacass]

Disaster porn isn't necessarily a bad thing. It just doesn't belong in a Superman movie. Superman's supposed to care about humanity. That's his weakness, what makes him vulnerable and therefore interesting as a character. But not in this movie. Superman just didn't care, so it was hard to care about him. Even if he was really pretty.