Why all the hate for Man of Steel?

[comicshorse]

For anybody who has seen the movie more recently than me. I seem to remember them saying that the colonies were deliberately left dependent on Krypton and so when the homeworld died off they inevitably followed it. Or is this just me remembering it badly.

Also re: why Terraform earth rather than Mars, the wiping out of the human race may have been part of the point. To Zod the human race is a potential threat to the existence of Krypton if not now then at some point in the future. So terraforming earth kills two birds with one stone by creating a new homeworld and removing a potential threat.

[Scowling Dragon]

For anybody who has seen the movie more recently than me. I seem to remember them saying that the colonies were deliberately left dependent on Krypton and so when the homeworld died off they inevitably followed it. Or is this just me remembering it badly.

Yup. That was not part of the movie, and certain colonizations died of thousands of years before. Illogical.

Also re: why Terraform earth rather than Mars, the wiping out of the human race may have been part of the point. To Zod the human race is a potential threat to the existence of Krypton if not now then at some point in the future. So terraforming earth kills two birds with one stone by creating a new homeworld and removing a potential threat.

That is a Legitimate point. However this once again happens because of Zods stupidity.

Humans on Earth could never pose a threat to a Kryptonian. Ever. And again Zod was loosing the tactical advantage despite being some military commander.

[comicshorse]

Humans on Earth could never pose a threat to a Kryptonian. .

That's a large statement. Kyrptonians are plenty tough but the potential for science is literally limitless. Certainly to a paranoid monster like Zod even the tiniest chance it could happen in the future is worth eliminating now

And again Zod was loosing the tactical advantage despite being some military commander.

Not sure what you mean by this

[Hopeless]

What fates, though?

Any half-serious attempt at forming a colony isn't going to just up and die off simply because they're not getting a regular stream of supplies from the homeworld, especially in a setting with tons of planets that they could survive on without advanced tech or recycled atmosphere... or even post krypto-forming.

Come again?

Sorry I was trying to figure out what happened to the colonies.

1) Darkseid noticed them and wiped them out causing the Kryptonians to retreat back to Krypton for their own safety and Darkseid left them alone for purposes of his own design.

2) They created Doomsday as a weapon and discovered it gained powers like they did under a yellow sun, so retreated to Krypton where they possessed no such power and felt safe there whilst the creature apparently wiped out their colonies and wasn't encountered until Zod and his inmates investigated the colonies salvaging what they could until the scout ship beacon on Earth drew them to the solar system.
If Doomsday was chasing after them then it would make sense to alter Earth if even gaining power wouldn't help them and since their native environment is lethal to humans then they would be wiped out once Doomsday turned up anyway...

3) Their caste system was established because of the environmental damage done to Krypton, the colonies proved a threat to their rigid caste system so they created an ultimate weapon and sent it to deal with the colonies and then imposed a communication blackout to hide the nefarious nature of their betrayal.
Zod's group discovered evidence of something that wiped out the colonies and salvaged whatever technology they could fleeing to Earth after they discovered it hadn't travelled to the world it was supposed to. Kal-El switching the beacon off revealed the son of Jor-El was there and because Zod and co were suffering from Kryptonite poisoning the result of being exposed to the shattered remaints of Krypton they were hardly going to stick to common sense or sanity...

4) What happened to Kara and the escaped murdered who killed her crew and crashed the ship on Earth?
Where does Wonder Woman figure into the sequel?
There was a suggestion at one point revealing Diana is actually a descendant of Kara but who knows...?

5) The problem with Man of Steel is that it would have worked better as a sequel with the first movie introducing Lex Luthor with him being responsible for activating the beacon on the scout ship drawing Zod to Earth and Kal-El stole the ship back to thwart Lex's attempts to bring on World War 3....
Anyway back to the thread...

[Scowling Dragon]

That's a large statement. Kyrptonians are plenty tough but the potential for science is literally limitless. Certainly to a paranoid monster like Zod even the tiniest chance it could happen in the future is worth eliminating now

I see it as a legitimate point, but my point is that it continuously reinforces Zod and all Kryptonians as so thick and stupid it continuously boggles the mind.

If Zod is so Stupid as to waste a perfectly good, amazing superpowers granting planet because he fears that the race might be a threat in the future: Still do something about it. Come back in like 40 years (You have given them no tech to reverse engineer), and then kill them all. Or just when you don't have all this sensitive equipment around.

My point is that its still the most "Durr-smash rocks-EVIL" plan.

Zod was at his most Vulnerable when he tried to Terraform Earth. His Doomsday weapon was also his only lifeline.

Just come back later honestly. You have time.

[comicshorse]

3) Their caste system was established because of the environmental damage done to Krypton, the colonies proved a threat to their rigid caste system so they created an ultimate weapon and sent it to deal with the colonies and then imposed a communication blackout to hide the nefarious nature of their betrayal.
Zod's group discovered evidence of something that wiped out the colonies and salvaged whatever technology they could fleeing to Earth after they discovered it hadn't travelled to the world it was supposed to. Kal-El switching the beacon off revealed the son of Jor-El was there and because Zod and co were suffering from Kryptonite poisoning the result of being exposed to the shattered remaints of Krypton they were hardly going to stick to common sense or sanity...

Yep I can see Krypton keeping their colonies dependent on them least they depart from the 'right' order of things, as an englishman I can relate

Also I think its sometimes forgotten how much Zod and his crew have been through. They've seen their planet destroyed, their race all but annihilated and then wandered through space, seeing sight after sight of death and the destruction of everything they existed to protect, them being a little lacking in the sanity department is hardly surprising

[Kitten Champion]

This is the official explanation for Krypton's fate.

Jor-El: To see you standing there having grown into an adult... if only Lara could have witnessed this.
Clark Kent: Who are you?
Jor-El: I am your father, Kal, or at least a shadow of him. His consciousness. My name is Jor-El
Clark Kent: Kal? That's my name?
Jor-El: Kal-El, it is.
Clark Kent: I have so many questions. Where do I come from? Why did you send me here?
Jor-El: You came from Krypton, a world with a much harsher environment than Earth's. Long ago, in an era of expansion, our race spread out through the stars, seeking new worlds to settle upon. This scout ship was one of thousands launched into the void. We built outposts on other planets, using great machines to reshape environments to our needs. For 100 thousand years our civilization flourished, accomplishing wonders.
Clark Kent: What happened?
Jor-El: Artificial population control was established. The outposts and space exploration were abandoned. We exhausted our natural resources. As a result, our planet's core became unstable. Eventually, our military leader, General Zod, attempted a coup, but by then it was too late. Your mother and I foresaw the coming calamity and we took certain steps to ensure your survival. This is a genesis chamber. All Kryptonians were conceived in chambers such as this. Every child was designed to perform a predetermined role in our society as a worker, a warrior, a leader, and so on. Your mother and I believed Krypton lost something precious, the element of choice, of chance. What if a child dreamed of becoming something other than what society had intended? What if a child aspired to something greater? You were the embodiment of that belief Kal. Krypton's first natural birth in centuries. That's why we risked so much to save you.
Clark Kent: Why didn't you come with me?
Jor-El: We couldn't, Kal. No matter how much we wanted to. No matter how we loved you. Your mother, Lara, and I were a product of the failures of our world as much as Zod was. It's hard to explain.
Clark Kent: So I'm alone?
Jor-El: No, you are as much a child of Earth now as you are of Krypton. You can embody the best of both worlds. The dream your mother and I dedicated our lives to preserve.
[He reveals to him the Superman suit]
Jor-El: The people of Earth are different from us, it's true, but ultimately I believe that is a good thing. They won't necessarily make the same mistakes we did, but if you guide them, Kal, if you give them hope, that's what this symbol means. The symbol of the House of El means hope. Embodied within that hope is the fundamental belief the potential of every person to be a force for good. That's what you can bring them.
...

As for Zod's willingness to smoosh humanity..

Jor-El: Our people can co-exist.
General Zod: So we can suffer through years of pain, trying to adapt like your son has?
Jor-El: You're talking about genocide.
General Zod: Yes! And I'm arguing its merits with a ghost.

[TeChameleon]

So, lazy Gattaca-esque handwave for the first, and lazy 'Zod is cuckoo' handwave for the second. Why did they even include the whole pre-programmed-at-birth thing if they weren't ever going to explain it properly? Or... uhm... y;know, at all?

[Kitten Champion]

So, lazy Gattaca-esque handwave for the first, and lazy 'Zod is cuckoo' handwave for the second. Why did they even include the whole pre-programmed-at-birth thing if they weren't ever going to explain it properly? Or... uhm... y;know, at all?

It was hard to explain, and clearly Clark wasn't interested in getting more than superficial answers to the existential questions he's been plagued with since childhood. What do you think he is? A well-developed character?!

We needed the standard nonspecific transgressive spiritual event for our Christ allegory and 'lo Goyer delivers! Praise Superman!

[Scowling Dragon]

So, lazy Gattaca-esque handwave for the first, and lazy 'Zod is cuckoo' handwave for the second. Why did they even include the whole pre-programmed-at-birth thing if they weren't ever going to explain it properly? Or... uhm... y;know, at all?

This Is what I meant.

No matter how you explain it, no matter what you do its either going to be a lazy film or a stupid film.

When in reality its both.

[Anteros]

... Huh.



So it is not okay for to presume "we can terraform planets now, other civilizations with the same tech level should be able to accomplish this equally well", but it is okay to presume that the species with the terraforming bomb engine could terraform at the same level as our current theoretical abilities?

Note: theoretical because we have not done it, not because we cannot yet do it.

We haven't even BEEN to another planet. We have no machine capable of terraforming another planet. Our current ability to terraform another planet is exactly 0%. There is an enormous difference between "we may be able to do this someday" and "we can do this now." We haven't even gotten around to making our own world livable for a large percentage of our population.

Even if it were possible, how long would it take with our current technology level to completely change another planet to mimic our own? Hundreds of years. At best. Creating a livable atmosphere alone would be a virtually impossible task for us outside of completely self contained bubbles. We certainly possess no technology to change the density or gravity of the planet itself. Even if we had the technology, we don't yet possess the resources or the manpower necessary to undertake such a task. There's certainly no comparison between our (theoretical) abilities and a machine that can do the entire job in an hour by pressing a switch.

So yes. I see some problems with making vast assumptions about the capability of a technology we know nothing about simply because we can draw some vague similarities to a technology of our own that serves a similar purpose, operates on a microscopic scale (in comparison), functions thousands of times more slowly than theirs, and doesn't actually exist yet.

I see it as a legitimate point, but my point is that it continuously reinforces Zod and all Kryptonians as so thick and stupid it continuously boggles the mind.

If Zod is so Stupid as to waste a perfectly good, amazing superpowers granting planet because he fears that the race might be a threat in the future: Still do something about it. Come back in like 40 years (You have given them no tech to reverse engineer), and then kill them all. Or just when you don't have all this sensitive equipment around.

My point is that its still the most "Durr-smash rocks-EVIL" plan.

Zod was at his most Vulnerable when he tried to Terraform Earth. His Doomsday weapon was also his only lifeline.

Just come back later honestly. You have time.

Zod is a super villain. You can do this type of deconstruction for almost any villain in the genre. The Incredibles had a whole thing about it. They are short sighted, insane, and megalomaniacal because that is what is drives these types of plots.

Look at the Avengers. Loki's plan was idiotic. It literally involved him getting himself captured by the enemy so he could maybe make them mad at each other.
Look at Spider Man. Dr. Connors wanted to turn everyone into lizard people. Lizard people! Why? "Because lizard peoples is bettah" or some drivel. It's completely ridiculous!
Iron Man has the bad guy conveniently tell all his plans to Stark so that he knows how to counter him.
Iron Man 2 has a company hiring a known terrorist, and giving him complete control over hundreds of deadly weapons systems with virtually no oversight.
Iron Man 3 has the enemy bringing their hostage into their base encased in a suit of Iron Man armor.
In the new Batman the villain tells the good guys about the bomb, and then sets it to go off several months in the future instead of just detonating the thing.

I meant to stop at Avengers but they just kept popping into my head. The point is that these stories are supposed to be over the top and outlandish. That's the entire point of the genre.

Or why not extend the same Olive branch to EVERYTHING? There is no flaw BIG enough, that you can't call needless nitpicking. So thus every movie is flawless. Because no flaws are worth mentioning.

You say Im Nitpicking. Im saying Im looking at obvious flaws in the story. Like the Obvious Question "Why Colonize Earth?". Which is a reasonable question to ask. You make Up an explanation. I find holes in your explanation. You have to make an even more elaborate explanation. I still pick it apart. You make even more elaborate explanations. I still pick them apart.

I nitpick because YOU force me too. BECAUSE The movie is Riddled to its core no matter what you say, most of it will not make any sense at all. The characters actions can only be explained by stupidity or heavy brain damage.

And even with your explanations that not makes for a good movie. You don't have to discuss an elaborate situation just for it to make sense. You can sort of force it if you squint. But that not be the sign of a good movie.

Or do only YOU get to decide what is a flaw or not?

I've never seen Battlefield Earth, so I can't speak for it. As to your other points here...we DO extend this olive branch to everything. It's called "The Willing Suspension of Disbelief". It's required to make 95% of fantasy media work.

You're not nit-picking because I forced you to. I admitted the movie had several problems like 5 pages ago. You're nit-picking because you want to, and because I don't agree that it's as terrible as you do. Also, you're not "picking my explanations apart." You're disagreeing with them.

As for who gets to decide what is a flaw. You get to decide for you, and I get to decide for me. We both speak only for ourselves, and we are both entitled to give our opinion. We are not required to agree. Personally, I don't need the writer to hold my hand and explain every irrelevant detail throughout the movie. I'm more than capable of making up my own explanation for things that aren't spelled out in giant letters on screen. If my personal explanation is wrong? Who cares? It was never relevant to the film in the first place.

[Foeofthelance]

This Is what I meant.

No matter how you explain it, no matter what you do its either going to be a lazy film or a stupid film.

When in reality its both.

To be fair, at least the Kryptonians are consistent in their stupidity.

"We have a sprawling, hundred thousand year old interstellar empire? Let's drag everyone home and let the stragglers die."

"We've thrown away our empire? Let's kill our planet by abusing its resources!"

"Our planet is dying because we've tried to force it to support the remaining population from hundreds of planets? Let's solve the problem by stifling all creativity via genetic predestination!"

"Our planet is minutes away from suicide? Let's waste our last few FTL capable, stasis equipped starships on exiling a bunch of treasonous jerks."

It sort of makes sense that only the Els (assuming Supergirl ever shows up in this continuity) had the brains to evacuate the place, since if they were designed as scientists they had to have been given at least a little bit of independent thought and creativity. Even then, the best answer they can come up with is, "Don't be Kryptonian as we know it." I honestly don't think Zod is stupid, just really, absolutely, terribly programmed. Its not that he doesn't come up with a better answer, its that he can't. He's not a general because he fought brilliantly in a series of wars and earned his rank through deed and honor, but because however many years ago some Kryptonian genegineer got told, "This kid needs to be the leader of our warrior caste, make it happen." A switch got pressed, a baby got dropped out of a bucket and they shoved him in a uniform. His entire life is focused solely on running the "Protect Krypton" program, and then someone went and accidentally deleted a couple of crucial files. A better programmer would have set him to focus on protecting Kryptonians rather than Krypton itself, but unfortunately he was built by actual Kryptonians and all the other evidence says they weren't that smart.

Now, and this is entirely me yanking things out of some really dark places... The ships pick up the beacon coming from Earth, and tell Zod and cohorts there is a living Kryptonian there. At this point Zod's buggy programming decides that since Kryptonians only live on Krypton, Earth must be Krypton, but since Krypton isn't Krypton, it must become Krypton. Right file name and type, just the wrong contents, so the contents need to be replaced! Cue the whole 'Earth must die so Krypton can live' schtick.

[Kitten Champion]

Zod's not quite right in the head, sucks at fists fights and diplomacy in equal measure, and is indifferent to genocide when it suits his particular ideological narrative,

Yep, he's Krypton's answer to Jonathan Archer.

[Coidzor]

Oh, that reminds me. Apparently Kryptonians don't have a sense of morality, according to crazy Russian Kryptonian. Despite Zod demonstrating a sense of morality, or at least moral outrage.

And Clark allegedly having one despite being born of two Kryptonians with their capacity for morality genetically removed.

That's a large statement. Kyrptonians are plenty tough but the potential for science is literally limitless. Certainly to a paranoid monster like Zod even the tiniest chance it could happen in the future is worth eliminating now

I suppose that might explain whyall the colonies died off despite being left with functional ships and tech and such.

Their First Contacts always ended with them trying to xenocide the other species until they were bottled up on their homeworld and they turned inward and sniffed derisively at anywhere else and even altered themselves stupid in order to never want to leave the planet ever again.

Yep I can see Krypton keeping their colonies dependent on them least they depart from the 'right' order of things, as an englishman I can relate

Not at that scale without trivially inexpensive, nigh-instantaneous FTL to make travel completely trivial.

We haven't even BEEN to another planet. We have no machine capable of terraforming another planet. Our current ability to terraform another planet is exactly 0%. There is an enormous difference between "we may be able to do this someday" and "we can do this now." We haven't even gotten around to making our own world livable for a large percentage of our population.

You're confusing "how many planets have with terraformed" with our actual ability to do so given our current tech and understanding of the universe, and even then, you're completely forgetting about the actual research we're currently conducting on that front which has shown enough promise to at least be somewhere between 0% and 1%.

Also, forgetting about willingness and a number of other factors. Like, as in, you're not even talking about the right thing when you say "we may be able to do this someday," that's not where we're at, we're much more closer to "we've got the broad strokes down and are fairly certain we could hammer out the last details that would only get hammered out as part of preparing to make a serious attempt at it anyway, provided we were richer than creosote and able to throw money at something that we haven't yet determined a way to make profitable."

Even if it were possible, how long would it take with our current technology level to completely change another planet to mimic our own?

That's irrelevant for our purposes here, but, y'know, being able to terraform on a timescale that it's usable as a strategic or tactical weapon is going to be a huge leg up on the process, yes.

So that's actually kinda against you in the long run to go down this path...

Creating a livable atmosphere alone would be a virtually impossible task for us outside of completely self contained bubbles. We certainly possess no technology to change the density or gravity of the planet itself. Even if we had the technology, we don't yet possess the resources or the manpower necessary to undertake such a task. There's certainly no comparison between our (theoretical) abilities and a machine that can do the entire job in an hour by pressing a switch.

And you're again arguing that greater capability somehow does not equate to greater ability.

So yes. I see some problems with making vast assumptions about the capability of a technology we know nothing about simply because we can draw some vague similarities to a technology of our own that serves a similar purpose, operates on a microscopic scale (in comparison), functions thousands of times more slowly than theirs, and doesn't actually exist yet.

It's a terraforming device and it's able to change/create the density, core, and atmosphere of a planet. Mars' main difficulties are its magnetosphere and atmosphere which are inter-related. QED, their apparent ability to fix this with their terraforming device means they have a greater capability to do so than we do and we actually think we could do it without going all that far into the future of our tech tree.

[Hopeless]

Zod's not quite right in the head, sucks at fists fights and diplomacy in equal measure, and is indifferent to genocide when it suits his particular ideological narrative,

Yep, he's Krypton's answer to Jonathan Archer.

HEY!
Mirror Universe version of Jonathon Archer thank you!

Now if you compared Clark Kent to Jonathon Archer from Enterprise there may be less to argue about!

[Avilan the Grey]

This Is what I meant.

No matter how you explain it, no matter what you do its either going to be a lazy film or a stupid film.

When in reality its both.

Reminds me of Dogbert (paraphrased):

"At first I tried to decide if you were ignorant or stupid, but then I thought: Why limit myself? He can be BOTH"

Words to live by

And not that I think it needs to be said, but no, I am not talking about YOU (any of you).

[grolim]

Quote Originally Posted by imdb
Jor-El: Our people can co-exist.
General Zod: So we can suffer through years of pain, trying to adapt like your son has?
Jor-El: You're talking about genocide.
General Zod: Yes! And I'm arguing its merits with a ghost.

Made even more stupid....somehow...by then showing him take about 30 seconds of that pain to get used to his superpowers and adapt.

[Scowling Dragon]

But thats because he was born that way!

He's one of a kind, because its not like the Kryptonians have ways of altering their children!

[Coidzor]

But thats because he was born that way!

He's one of a kind, because its not like the Kryptonians have ways of altering their children!

Despite all of the others being soldier-type Kryptonians too, yep.



Heh. A thought occurred to me and now I really want to watch this Zod's head explode when he finds out that Kryptonians can breed with Earthlings.

[Scowling Dragon]

That was the Joke. They have cloning arrays. Just adjust all the Kids so they all adjust in 30 seconds.

[theNater]

Iron Man has the bad guy conveniently tell all his plans to Stark so that he knows how to counter him.

I don't remember that part of Iron Man. Care to remind me?

As to your other points here...we DO extend this olive branch to everything. It's called "The Willing Suspension of Disbelief". It's required to make 95% of fantasy media work.

Suspension of disbelief isn't solely the responsibility of the audience. The creator has a number of tools available to make it easier for the audience to suspend their disbelief, and by all many accounts Man of Steel used them poorly.

[Scowling Dragon]

Suspension of disbelief does not extend itself to stupidity that is not character based.

[SiuiS]

Anteros, you do realize that you're now arguing that having advanced technology makes it more difficult to terraform, right?

And why all of those colonies died off rather than, say, having been withdrawn but left stuff there is actually a rather pertinent question. Either A. something actively killed them and if so, why isn't that pertinent to the plot and destruction of Krypton? or B. they yet again missed an opportunity to convey that the Kryptonians were so suicidally stupid that they offed themselves even when they weren't blowing up their own homeworld up via implosion.

Right, I forgot in the interim, but believe it or not the movie actually answers this! The answer is hamfisted and heavy handed and yet indecipherable symbolism.

Kryptonians were genetically limited. But they are able to make viable offspring. So it's not that they don't have genes for things, it's that any potential beyond what they need for their job is switched off. It's capped.

This was the point of the weird scene of giving Kal-el all the potential of krypton – he was not given the DNA of all kryptonians. He was given a limiter-release, unlocking every and all genetic block. Where before a Kryptonian would be limited by their block if they managed to exercise a trait to it's fullest, Kal-el was limited only by his effort. A Kryptonian bodybuilder could eat 6,000 kilocalories a day, take in the perfect, optimal amount of all macro and micro nutrients, and perform the single most perfect exercise regime ever devised and still (if limited in that way) be a 98. Pound weakling who could barely lift a milk gallon.

Clark was not. The keys to unlimited (in that they were not limited) potential are in him. He was Unlocked. This extends to all kryptonians too. Each and every colony of krypton was doomed to perform the exact same bullheaded failures for no raisin because they were designed to be unable to do anything else.

Hell, if they brought a soldier they might have died because someone decided (like Zod) that broccoli was a lesser species and needed to be genocided to make room for New Krypton, extinguishing all foods. A similar fight broke out in the mine shafts as someone found traces of graphite in the diamond vein and ended all life to make room for their new world order.

So, lazy Gattaca-esque handwave for the first, and lazy 'Zod is cuckoo' handwave for the second. Why did they even include the whole pre-programmed-at-birth thing if they weren't ever going to explain it properly? Or... uhm... y;know, at all?

Yup! Well mostly. They did explain it. Really, really badly.

[QUOTE=Anteros;17958080]We haven't even BEEN to another planet. We have no machine capable of terraforming another planet. Our current ability to terraform another planet is exactly 0%.[/qute]

You're misunderstanding, I think.

I have never fixed an internal combustion engine. I'm not a mechanic. I have no tools and no money for tools and no internal combustion engine to fix. I do not even personally have the knowledge to fix an internal combustion engine. By your standards, my current ability to fix an internal combustion engine is exactly 0%.


But I could get those tools and find that knowledge and put it together in a way that applies to the specifics of the engine I would work on with relative ease, at cost.


That's what we mean. It is my understanding that our science is advanced enough that we could sit down and decide to put together a terraformation plan. We can use a combination of machinery and fauna to localize changes in atmospheric composition, introduce minerals and small contained ecosystems to begin changing soil composition, and more. That we do not have a written down in a Manila folder somewhere terraformation plan, but there could be with trivial ease. Whether someone would foot the bill is a different matter, of course.

[Scowling Dragon]

If your theory of Unlock is correct then it makes the whole natural birth thing worthless.

Its like saying "Let me play this game for real! Before I put in cheat codes".

[Coidzor]

That was the Joke. They have cloning arrays. Just adjust all the Kids so they all adjust in 30 seconds.

Honestly, it's not really portrayed as anything worse than puberty when going through it as a prepubescent or pubescent child, IIRC. It's just that in Clark's case, his parents had no idea about puberty, having never experienced it.

Zod makes it seem like Oh, hey, we could've set down in a remote area and adjusted in, like, a day, tops. With shifts of people not doing it in order to help make things smoother. And that's assuming we can't just arrange to do it aboard ship before anyone has even realized we're here.

If your theory of Unlock is correct then it makes the whole natural birth thing worthless.

Yeah, you can't genetically engineer a child to unlock it to have infinite potential and perfect stats while also having it be a "natural birth," as opposed to all of those genetic engineered idjits. That just don't jive.

[...]

Okay, what my opinion on how you can figure out why some people don't like this movie may be controversial, so I will put it in white.The Nostalgia Critic video explains a whole lot of reasons people don't like it, watch and learn.Also, I need to add that there is a running joke on this site about "collateral damage man," and I think we found a contender for the title.

[georgeresorts]

Fighting Over something that doesn't even exist in real life. :) But funny how everyone is taking it personally like Super man is their buddy in the neighborhood.

[SiuiS]

Yeah, you can't genetically engineer a child to unlock it to have infinite potential and perfect stats while also having it be a "natural birth," as opposed to all of those genetic engineered idjits. That just don't jive.

Not at all. The natural birth establishes working genes rather than allowing the implication that limited kryptonians would be unable to pass on complete genetics (that is, they pass on their limits but not by giving incomplete genes), and is as much a Screw You to the establishment as anything else. It randomized Supes in a way that no other Kryptonian had. It may have been foundational for the unlock in the first place. Who knows.

But really, it's not a good symbolism use. It's just a relatively obvious one. Several people coming out of the theatre got it, but they were the ones who accepted the flow of the movie. Geeks expect less soft mushy thought so they tend to miss it. XD

But if you want proof the kryptonians are dumb, they have force fields and granular morphics but can't produce glass. Cool computer monitor, but not the most efficient.

[Anteros]

You're misunderstanding, I think.

I have never fixed an internal combustion engine. I'm not a mechanic. I have no tools and no money for tools and no internal combustion engine to fix. I do not even personally have the knowledge to fix an internal combustion engine. By your standards, my current ability to fix an internal combustion engine is exactly 0%.


But I could get those tools and find that knowledge and put it together in a way that applies to the specifics of the engine I would work on with relative ease, at cost.


That's what we mean. It is my understanding that our science is advanced enough that we could sit down and decide to put together a terraformation plan. We can use a combination of machinery and fauna to localize changes in atmospheric composition, introduce minerals and small contained ecosystems to begin changing soil composition, and more. That we do not have a written down in a Manila folder somewhere terraformation plan, but there could be with trivial ease. Whether someone would foot the bill is a different matter, of course.

I mean no offense, but it's a bad analogy because combustion engines are things we understand and have practice with. Terraforming a planet is not. Having a few hypothetical ideas of how to do something is enormously different from actually attempting it and overcoming all of the hundreds of obstacles of doing so. Many of which we can't even predict yet. A closer analogy would be handing a caveman a some rocks, and mud, and asking him to make a combustion engine.

I did some research before replying to this, because I'm tired of going back and forth with "we don't have this capability" "yes, we do" over and over.

One of the largest hypothetical barriers is the fact that unlike Earth, neither Mars nor Venus possess an electromagnetic field, and thus would leak any atmosphere we managed to create. The magnetic field is also presumed to be what protects us from solar radiation. We currently possess no technology capable of creating a planet-wide electromagnetic field. This is just one of many problems that we can actually foresee of terraforming another planet. There is a whole list of other reasons it won't work with our current level of technology such as gravity, solar winds, the fact that Mars receives only about half the amount of light as Earth, etc. Then, you have to get into actually doing it, and dealing with any unforseen difficulties.

Then, even if we hammered out the details, developed the technology tomorrow, and got started...estimates to create a breathable atmosphere on Mars range as high as 100,000 years, with even the most "optimistic" scenarios placing the time table around 900 years...and this is assuming we somehow come up with a way to prevent solar winds from stripping away any atmosphere we release.

Sources and further reading:
http://www.science20.com/robert_inve...ng_mars-126407
http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~meech/a28...astrobio01.pdf
http://science.howstuffworks.com/terraform-mars.htm
http://www.space.com/11187-earth-mag...olar-wind.html


So no. Both our knowledge, and our technological capabilities are a long, long way away. Even if things like resources, distance, and time weren't a factor, we still wouldn't be able to do it. We don't even know if it's possible.

On the bright side, studying all of this was far more entertaining than debating about Superman. So at least I got something positive out of this thread.

[Hopeless]

The only genetic engineering involved in Kal-El's birth was that required to allow him to be actually born normally the first for god knows how many years/decades even centuries after all you can't call that an abomination unless it has actually happened before after they began controlling the population growth.

The genetic device/mask codex was downloaded into Kal-El after he was born he basically functions as a host for it, this might explain the unlocked potential you mentioned but I assumed it meant he could at some later point could use that to figure out a way to interbreed since he is basically invulnerable and the requirements involved in getting to the stage of having children is a mite nasty if he can't switch off the fact he literally lives in a world of cardboard...

Read the novelisation and gave it away afterwards as it really doesn't help explain the mess which it should have at least tried...

Anyway, maybe they'll do better the next time they reboot this movie series say in about what twenty years maybe?