• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Man of Steel |OT| It's about action.

So, in your opinion, if a Superman fan did not like Man of Steel, they aren't true fans and their opinions are irrelevant?

That's Bullshit.

Just because a person's opinion is different than yours does not make their opinion any less relevant than yours is. I own dozens of Superman comic books myself, I've been a fan of the character since the early 80's. Yes I love Superman I and II, they tell good stories and stay true to the guts of what makes Clark Kent Superman. Superman the Animated Series was fucking fantastic and is still my favorite "film" depiction of the character. Returns was a let down, I appreciate parts of it years later but it still wasn't a great Superman movie. But Man of Steel, it's like it wasn't even a true Superman movie, it just featured him in a movie about aliens fighting on Earth. I won't go over the talking points again because it's been done to death in this thread, but my opinion, as a fan of Superman, is that Man of Steel was a bad movie.

So don't tell me I'm not a real fan, or that my opinion is irrelevant, simply because you disagree with me. That kind of behavior is just pompous and dickish.

and if you were a fan of Superman you'd know how pompous it is to say that the personality that was portrayed in MoS for Clark/Superman wasn't one that we haven't seen for many years.
it is fucking tiring to read the same people repeating themselves how Superman should have saved this person or that person or not destroyed the city (which he didn't)
when he fought Doomsday half the country was destroyed, when he fought Brainiac in Panic in the Sky(1991) Metropolis was destroyed (he also had a few years of experience under his belt) when he fought Imperiex(1999) half the world was destroyed.

I can keep going but every time I hear some so called fan tell me that "superman would never let such destructon happen" I laugh and my bullshit detector goes off. because I then know that he doesn't know his Superman media and if one thing that always follows Superman whenever there is a big story or big villain related to him, it's destruction on a large scale.
so yeah, I do get pompous and dickish.
too many people have been fed the Chris Reeve movies which while great(in their day) are done and finished. time for a post-Crisis take on the character.
if I wanted to see a perfect Superman again i'd just pop in Superman I and II.
 
and if you were a fan of Superman you'd know how pompous it is to say that the personality that was portrayed in MoS for Clark/Superman wasn't one that we haven't seen for many years.
it is fucking tiring to read the same people repeating themselves how Superman should have saved this person or that person or not destroyed the city (which he didn't)
when he fought Doomsday half the country was destroyed, when he fought Brainiac in Panic in the Sky(1991) Metropolis was destroyed (he also had a few years of experience under his belt) when he fought Imperiex(1999) half the world was destroyed.

I can keep going but every time I hear some so called fan tell me that "superman would never let such destructon happen" I laugh and my bullshit detector goes off. because I then know that he doesn't know his Superman media and if one thing that always follows Superman whenever there is a big story or big villain related to him, it's destruction on a large scale.
so yeah, I do get pompous and dickish.
too many people have been fed the Chris Reeve movies which while great(in their day) are done and finished. time for a post-Crisis take on the character.
if I wanted to see a perfect Superman again i'd just pop in Superman I and II.

Bro fist!
 

Mengy

wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
and if you were a fan of Superman you'd know how pompous it is to say that the personality that was portrayed in MoS for Clark/Superman wasn't one that we haven't seen for many years.
it is fucking tiring to read the same people repeating themselves how Superman should have saved this person or that person or not destroyed the city (which he didn't)
when he fought Doomsday half the country was destroyed, when he fought Brainiac in Panic in the Sky(1991) Metropolis was destroyed (he also had a few years of experience under his belt) when he fought Imperiex(1999) half the world was destroyed.

I can keep going but every time I hear some so called fan tell me that "superman would never let such destructon happen" I laugh and my bullshit detector goes off. because I then know that he doesn't know his Superman media and if one thing that always follows Superman whenever there is a big story or big villain related to him, it's destruction on a large scale.
so yeah, I do get pompous and dickish.
too many people have been fed the Chris Reeve movies which while great(in their day) are done and finished. time for a post-Crisis take on the character.
if I wanted to see a perfect Superman again i'd just pop in Superman I and II.


You aren't getting the root of what everyone keeps complaining about, so I'll try to spell it out for you.

It's not the action that has so many people hating this movie. The action was a very welcome change compared to what Returns was. It's Superman's behavior. He doesn't ACT like Superman in this movie. I'll give a few examples:

- When the Kryptonians are threatening his mom he flies Zod across miles of empty fields and throws him right into downtown Smallville. Superman then proceeds to fight them all on Main Street. They are literally surrounded by miles of empty fields, yet Superman takes the fight straight to the populated areas. Although the Faora fight was freaking awesome, the circumstances of it were just perplexing. Superman's actions were just as much a threat to Smallville as the Kryptonians were. Didn't he grow up there? Wouldn't he want to try to save as much of his home as possible?

- The world destroyer in Metropolis. When this appears, Superman takes off and flies half way around the world to destroy the machine IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE instead. He leaves the machine in Metropoplis, where millions of people are, to attack the machine where absolutely NO ONE is. And we proceed to witness the shockwaves leveling block after block of Metropolis, people running scared, buildings collapsing, all of this interspersed with action scenes of Superman attacking a machine in a deserted location with absolutely no people around. Superman would NEVER leave Metropolis like that, not when it's people are in grave danger. Why didn't he destroy the machine in Metropolis first and THEN fly off to destroy the other one? It didn't make sense....

- The kiss in the middle of the holocaust. WHAT THE FLYING HELL. Blocks after blocks of Metropolis are leveled, people are dead, buried, trapped, and Superman takes the time to meet Lois in the middle of it all and kiss her out of the freaking blue? The entire theater looked at each other with puzzled looks at that scene, I mean the guy behind me literally said "what the hell" out loud. The timing was wrong, the setting was wrong, the entire scene made Superman look like an enormous selfish dick.



And this is only Superman's behavior. I won't even go into Pa Kent's character destruction in the movie.

You'll notice I didn't put Zod's death in the list? It's because honestly I don't have a problem with the scene, HOWEVER, it's out of place due to Superman's callous uncaring behavior for the entirety of the movie for human life up to that point. If Clark had shown any concern for human life up to that point then the scene would have resonated so much better. In the film however, it just feels very out of place and confusing.

Man of Steel did a lot of things right. The cast was awesome, the overall story line was very good, the music was great, but it's the details of Clark's character (or lack thereof) that ruins the movie. He just doesn't act like we would expect Superman to act, based on the majority of Superman's history of material before this.

You might be tired of hearing it, you might not understand it, but for an awful lot of us Man of Steel was very disappointing because of this. It's a very divisive movie, some love it and some despise it, different strokes for different folks I guess.
 

Zabka

Member
You'll notice I didn't put Zod's death in the list? It's because honestly I don't have a problem with the scene, HOWEVER, it's out of place due to Superman's callous uncaring behavior for the entirety of the movie for human life up to that point. If Clark had shown any concern for human life up to that point then the scene would have resonated so much better. In the film however, it just feels very out of place and confusing.
It's like you deleted the first half of the movie from your mind.
 

IconGrist

Member
The problem I have with the "he wasn't the Superman we've come to expect" argument is that it seems to me that was the point of the movie. It was Superman's first day as Superman and he's hit with a threat he's never had to deal with and it overwhelmed him.

Saving the bus full of kids? No casualties.
Saving the oil rig crew? No casualties.

These are things well within his control. Almost easy. Dealing with a small army of Kryptonians hell bent on wiping out the human race? A government that's trying to take him out as well. Not easy and not something he was prepared to deal with. He just learned to fly like a day or two before. This was not "been around the block with Darkseid and Doomsday" Superman. Superman in the Reeve's movies got like 13 years of training and was perfect from day one. That's not how it happened with Cavill's Superman.

Even Welling's Clark from Smallville got training.
 
The problem I have with the "he wasn't the Superman we've come to expect" argument is that it seems to me that was the point of the movie. It was Superman's first day as Superman and he's hit with a threat he's never had to deal with and it overwhelmed him.

Saving the bus full of kids? No casualties.
Saving the oil rig crew? No casualties.

These are things well within his control. Almost easy. Dealing with a small army of Kryptonians hell bent on wiping out the human race? A government that's trying to take him out as well. Not easy and not something he was prepared to deal with. He just learned to fly like a day or two before. This was not "been around the block with Darkseid and Doomsday" Superman. Superman in the Reeve's movies got like 13 years of training and was perfect from day one. That's not how it happened with Cavill's Superman.

Even Welling's Clark from Smallville got training.

I was going to post something like this but thank you, you did it better. This is exactly it.
 

george_us

Member
The problem I have with the "he wasn't the Superman we've come to expect" argument is that it seems to me that was the point of the movie. It was Superman's first day as Superman and he's hit with a threat he's never had to deal with and it overwhelmed him.

Saving the bus full of kids? No casualties.
Saving the oil rig crew? No casualties.

These are things well within his control. Almost easy. Dealing with a small army of Kryptonians hell bent on wiping out the human race? A government that's trying to take him out as well. Not easy and not something he was prepared to deal with. He just learned to fly like a day or two before. This was not "been around the block with Darkseid and Doomsday" Superman. Superman in the Reeve's movies got like 13 years of training and was perfect from day one. That's not how it happened with Cavill's Superman.

Even Welling's Clark from Smallville got training.
It's the lack of any indication that Superman actually gives a damn that bothers most people. The destruction would have been a-ok with me if they had some shots of Superman looking on in concern to the destruction he and the Kryptonians were causing. Maybe he also saves some people. Maybe a ton of people die and that motivates him further to become a better superhero. But the lack of any empathy whatsoever, even until the bitter end when he's tongue kissing Lois in a smoking crater, really didn't set well with me and a lot of other people.

You bring up Smallville but from day one Clark generally tries to cut down on collateral damage and makes every effort to save anyone in danger, even if he didn't succeed at times. Outside of the two instances you listed, you don't see those same qualities in Man of Steel.
 

kyser73

Member
Two super beings going at it full tilt and fanbois are bitching because Supes didn't try to take the fight out of Metropolis?

That he killed someone who quite clearly wanted to die and who placed him in a situation where there was no other resolution?

MoS s a great piece of cinema and for me a narratively satisfying story about an alien attempting to live above human morality but also to live by it.
The scene when he's a kid hiding on the cupboard s singly one of the most affecting moments in a superhero move I've ever seen, and for me successfully humanised him while simultaneously emphasising his alien-ness
.

I enjoyed pretty much everything about this film - casting, direction, story, art direction, camerawork - and for my money its a superlative reinvention of Superman for the cinema.
 

Cloudy

Banned
Two super beings going at it full tilt and fanbois are bitching because Supes didn't try to take the fight out of Metropolis?

They could have easily solved this with a scene of how Clark tries to drag Zod away from the city while Zod resists. It'd have been a minute at most. I really like the movie but I agree it's a big flaw since it goes against pretty much everything Superman stands for.

I hope it's addressed in the sequel...
 

Darkmakaimura

Can You Imagine What SureAI Is Going To Do With Garfield?
Saw the movie last night.

Dark, drab and dull would be one way of putting it. I don't care to see another Superman movie after this.
 
Top Bottom