Liquidsnake
Banned
Dead serious.
-
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Man of Steel |OT| It's about action.
- Thread starter MisterHero
- Start date
Dead serious.
Anton Sugar
Member
Liquidsnake
Banned
Can you imagine anyone else filming a move on this scale with a handheld? Its unheard of. It like going back to the days of guerrilla filming.
Anton Sugar
Member
Yeah it did seem like a gorilla was filming the action scenes.
Mengy
wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
But why do you think that is a good thing exactly?
Liquidsnake
Banned
It made the movie raw. I felt like I was flying with Superman, not watching him. I think it was a bold decision, that should be studied.
The zoom in during flight is visceral to me.
DerZuhälter
Member
It worked for a small picture like Chronicle perfectly. For this, not so much.
Mengy
wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
Yeah, but it's not like this is a new technique or anything. Have you seen Firefly? Battlestar Galactica? Chronicle? District 9?
The difference is that these movies / shows used the technique for sweeping slower paced action shots with very focused action scenes and not much going on in the background. Man of Steel used it excessively in chaotic action everywhere scenes, it was distracting and hard to follow IMHO. If anyone would study how MoS used it, maybe it should be studied on how NOT to use the technique?
Liquidsnake
Banned
No you are right it felt a lot like district 9. I just wouldn't expect it from a movie like this. Its not very Marvel of them.
Anton Sugar
Member
What do you mean by "visceral"? Why should it be studied?
Liquidsnake
Banned
It felt instinctual. It should be studied because it was the best example I have seen of a movie filmed that way. Remember we are talking on this grand a scale, and how it was accomplished.
DerZuhälter
Member
We don't. It's just an assumption based on the flashback. Not a fan of this idea either.
EDIT: Btw, I'm wondering why no one is nitpicking the fuck out of this movie, unlike TDKR. I mentioned the inexplicable Codex decission and the theme of choice. Also the entire "atmosphere" stupidity and inconsistency regarding the Kryptonian strengths/powers.
Anton Sugar
Member
DerZuhälter;67957361 said:
In time, you will join us in the Spoiler thread.
Yeah, that's a serious stretch that I'm not buying.
Messypandas
Member
DerZuhälter
Member
Why does Clark struggle with Kryptonian / Earth atmosphere yet can chill in space with no atmosphere?
Ignatz Mouse
Banned
DerZuhälter;67957361 said:
This is a practice that can go die. Most of the nitpicks I've seen for this movie are actually explained *in the movie*. TDKR had a lot more hole issues, but even then it was annoying to read people nitpicking it.
Joel Was Right
Member
Found it on Twitter
Joel Was Right
Member
Didn't take him long though. Nor did it Kal.
thecouncil
Banned
this movie didn't need a longer run time to explain itself better, as I've seen some suggest. it needed a shorter run time achieved through better editing, pacing and shorter / less action scenes.
Liquidsnake
Banned
The only complaint I had was the pace was too brisk.I would have liked an additional 30 min.
So glad to see Idris Elba isn't on that list.
Honestly the movie doesn't even have that much action. The last act of Avengers is about 40 minutes of just straight action and nobody complained. Man of Steel is about half that. I think people overstate the amount of action because of just how overwhelming the action is when it comes at the end.
evil solrac v3.0
Member
See, this is all fantastic and would make a very good story for the film, except for the fact that the movie itself fails to delivery any of these points effectively. Yeah, there are quite a few points in that spoiler text that I never noticed nor picked up on during the film, and neither did my gf who I just read that too. She loved all of that explanation too, but her first reaction to it was "now why didn't the movie have any of that in it?".
And this is what disappointed me about MoS, it just failed to connect, it failed to get it's story across effectively. Your post is awesome Tsulumo, but it also showcases the film's failure spectacularly, sadly enough.
it was there, you didn't catch it. maybe on a second viewing? I think it was a bit too brisk but nothing impossible that you can't follow.
when did they mention that they feel connected to the star? Yellow sun gives them the energy to be super (like invulnerability and heat/x-ray/infrared/etc super hearing vision)and Earth's lower gravity let them perform those miraculous feats of strenght and speed.
it's too painful a process to go through.
DerZuhälter;67965176 said:
he wasn't used to the harsher Kryptonian atmosphere and as a baby had trouble adjusting to Earth's atmosphere. but once he started sucking in yellow sun, it made him stronger and able to survive.
Zod himself explained it that he was trained to master his senses, his whole body. so it took him less time. Kal had 33 years and lots of growing pains.
Anton Sugar
Member
Yeah, as another poster pointed out, Superman was just like, "Hurts, right? Concentrate real hard and you'll be okay." And Zod goes "lol thanks" and is back to full strength within an hour.
Yup. Although I thought seeing Krypton was interesting, I think it was a waste of time. Trim/cut it (they have no problem explaining via exposition, anyway), cut the stupid church scene, trim some of the Daily Planet crew stuff, and give us more Superman/Zod.
Joel Was Right
Member
30 years or genocide? Fuck inconvenience, we'll just kill billions and get this done now. Doesn't really fit the Zod character we saw. He wasn't really a villain up until that point, and Goyer took every opportunity to remind the audience of that.
Although Zod mentions the adjustment, I don't think that's the core issue. I think, for him, making a new Krypton is the goal. One that was exactly like the old one, before shit hit the fan.
The Zod who killed Jor-El then told Superman he'd build a new Krypton on the ashes of humanity in their first meeting? Just because he believes his actions are justified doesn't mean he isn't a villain.
There are tons of action scenes on top of several fights. Jor El alone fights a handful of people, shoots some soliders, has a chase scene while the sky basically explodes behind him, dives off a cliff, has a one-on-one fist fight with Zod, ships explode over the house of El, etc.
All in the first ten minutes.
Salvor.Hardin
Banned
It's not really about being a villain. He was programmed to carry out a specific task. It's not genocide to him. It's an inconvenience.
Dude the movie is book-ended by action. The middle acts have virtually no action. There is the opening on Krypton which IS NOT a big action set piece. There is the Smallville fight and then the finale.
Anton Sugar
Member
Listened to Battleship Pretension today and one of the hosts brought up a great point: man, Krypton seemed like a really shitty place to live.
-You have no parents
-You are bred to a single purpose with little (no?) choice
-Diplomats/government doesn't give a shit about the destruction of your planet
-You live in caves
Also, someone likened Zod to Herod. "I will find the child" and all that. I forgot about the 33 years old bit...give me a fucking break.
-You have no parents
-You are bred to a single purpose with little (no?) choice
-Diplomats/government doesn't give a shit about the destruction of your planet
-You live in caves
Also, someone likened Zod to Herod. "I will find the child" and all that. I forgot about the 33 years old bit...give me a fucking break.
An action scene doesn't need to be a fight in order to constitute as one. Man of Steel has tons of small action scenes, gigantic set pieces, and multiple fights.
The oil rig.
The bus crash.
Clark fighting off the
drone in the old ship.
crashing through a mountain even
The nightmare sequence where a
world engine destroys Earth
The tornado scene.
Superman
blowing a hole through a space ship and then flying back to Earth as he rips apart a pod
The
world engine being turned on in Metropolis, in which a significant portion of a major city if completely obliterated step by step
Superman fighting
the other half of the world engine halfway across Earth
THEN we get to "the finale."
I'm not saying these are problems, but come on. To say this film didn't have that much action begs the question of what you'd consider standard volumes of action any more.
ViewtifulJC
Banned
I've seen this movie twice now, had to see it with a friend who I promised we'd see it with because he was so hype about. He seemed to enjoy it. Second viewing really solidified a lot of my problems with the film, just a lot of really, really terrible storytelling decisions and ideas. It's something that works on a "tangible" level(all the actors are fine, it's very pretty, action scenes are impressive, big bombastic music) and for a lot of viewers that's enough, but dramatically it's a goddamn mess, front to back. There's a reason it's probably the most divisive blockbuster of the summer.
That presumes a level of
ideological flexibility that was bred out of Zod... the man considered natural birth a heresy which prevented him from restarting the Kryptonian race with his crew members. If unable to accept even that change, I don't think super powers factor into the vision of Krypton that resides in his blood.
Jables Swan
Member
Fair enough.
This makes me laugh: "I am saying this as a man with taste above and beyond normal movie tastes."
And then the whole "The way this move was shot will be taught in film schools for years to come." It won't, by the way.
He's reaching.
He's a warrior. He's spent his life training and mastering his senses, which is why him flying is a bit of an "oh shit" moment.
And Kal clearly struggled with his abilities and skills as a kid, to a point where it was clearly painful for him.
No, no. This is clearly boring drama.
I want to revisit this: you realize the giant Smallville battle, where Superman
plows Zod through several structures while punching him, then fights Faora & the big guy, trains get thrown, the military guns down the street, etc,
My point was I'd prefer an explanation more like that, as the current classic "Yellow star light gives you powers millions of orders of magnitude greater than the actual energy striking you" is really such an unbelievable science magic stretch. I'm taking this from some little tidbits I've read about some Superman comics and how their people worshiped Rao their sun god and had a history of star worship.
ViewtifulJC
Banned
This movie has some of the most pointless flashbacks I've ever seen. Flashbacks are used to inform you about the current, present day story, usually in very direct ways. In Toy Story 2, when it flashes back to Jessie's life with her owner and being abandoned, it wasn't just to tell you sad story; it directly informs the audience in a big way about who Jessie is and what her motivations are. "Ah, so that's why she's still here in Al's collection!" "Oh, so that's why she was trying to sabotage Woody's escape!" This also creates a big change in Woody's entire character motivation(CHARACTER GROWTH) in that he decides to stay with Jessie and go to Japan.
In Man of Steel, they flash from that spaceship to the ship, which is cool, but pointless. Superman is already fully-developed, saving people at a moment's notice. He falls in the water and they...flash back to him being in class? What exactly is this informing? Then it's over and it doesn't directly inform in any way whatsoever when he wakes up and oooh look how sexy Henry Cavill is and finds some clothes. It's just...a thing that happens in the movie. It kinda seems like it's gonna be our way into Ma/Clark Kent's relationship, but they doesn't pan out either. Is it just to show how Zod goes through the same thing later?
Then there's Pa Kent's weird ass speech about he should have let those kids die, but at the same time he's also needs to be a good person because he's gonna be very special one day.
. How does this actually impact Clark's character? His motivation? We don't see it. He's still out there saving people anyway in secret. *shrugs* It's just...why are these scenes here?
It's just laziness. They didn't want to commit to an origin story or they couldn't be arsed, so they just insert these flashbacks haphazardly through the movie that don't inform the character motivations/relationships/our understanding of them.
And that stinks because origin stories can be great, no matter how familiar you are with the material. They're a great way to show who a character is, why they are who they are, how they get from person A to person B by the end. It builds relationships, connects with these characters emotionally. Man of Steel's like "fuck that, he's some early smallville scenes or whatever, lets get on it with". So you got a main character with zero character growth(the kid living that bus in smallville is the same person fighting Zod), zero character motivation(we never see why Superman gives a fuck about humanity, never get to live out bonding and experience/emphasize his connection with humans), and you end up a with an emotionally inert actionfest.
It's just bad storytelling.
In Man of Steel, they flash from that spaceship to the ship, which is cool, but pointless. Superman is already fully-developed, saving people at a moment's notice. He falls in the water and they...flash back to him being in class? What exactly is this informing? Then it's over and it doesn't directly inform in any way whatsoever when he wakes up and oooh look how sexy Henry Cavill is and finds some clothes. It's just...a thing that happens in the movie. It kinda seems like it's gonna be our way into Ma/Clark Kent's relationship, but they doesn't pan out either. Is it just to show how Zod goes through the same thing later?
Then there's Pa Kent's weird ass speech about he should have let those kids die, but at the same time he's also needs to be a good person because he's gonna be very special one day.
And then there's that REALLY fuckin' stupid scene where Pa Kent saves that dog we've never seen so the movie assumed we just give a fuck about why its so important, and Pa dies in a scene Clark could have prevented in a million ways without revealing his secret
It's just laziness. They didn't want to commit to an origin story or they couldn't be arsed, so they just insert these flashbacks haphazardly through the movie that don't inform the character motivations/relationships/our understanding of them.
And that stinks because origin stories can be great, no matter how familiar you are with the material. They're a great way to show who a character is, why they are who they are, how they get from person A to person B by the end. It builds relationships, connects with these characters emotionally. Man of Steel's like "fuck that, he's some early smallville scenes or whatever, lets get on it with". So you got a main character with zero character growth(the kid living that bus in smallville is the same person fighting Zod), zero character motivation(we never see why Superman gives a fuck about humanity, never get to live out bonding and experience/emphasize his connection with humans), and you end up a with an emotionally inert actionfest.
It's just bad storytelling.