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2014-07-27, 02:47 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why all the hate for Man of Steel?
I got a bunch of old Kamandi comics when I was a kid, and I had fond memories of it being one of the first comics I got into that wasn't through character I recognized from Saturday morning cartoons. Since I assumed it had vanished in a poof of '70s after the Kirby run, never to be heard from again, I was super excited when the internet told me that there had been a limited series published in the '90s. Really, I should have known better than to get my hopes up as soon as I saw the "in the '90s" part, but even still, there was really no way of knowing what I was getting into.
I think I ended up reading Superman At Earth's End out of a kind of morbid curiosity and ended up being pretty pleasantly surprised right up until I learned it wasn't really intended as a parody.
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2014-07-27, 02:54 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2014
Re: Why all the hate for Man of Steel?
Yeah. Several times.
Please see Coidzor's answer.
Superman didn't kill Doomsday. He tried really hard (specially in the first rematch), but Doomsday can't really be killed. Brainiac is not a living being (in modern incarnations). Superman doesn't kill - the fact that he even contemplates killing some villains serves to underline just how dangerous those guys are.
That's why the whole no-killing code thing stuck with most superheroes after the Comics Code stopped being an important thing - it leads to good stories, because it puts limitations in powerful characters and leads to great dilemma. The non-killing code is a big deal with Superman (heck, it's what kickstarts the plot of Kingdom Come), but he has broken that code on occasion - and those occasions are big deals. Iron Man and Captain America avoid killing, as well - that's why they invited Wolverine to their New Avengers, because he has the perspective of someone who chooses to kill a lot more often.
You see, you're the only person saying "Superman never kills". Everyone else is saying "Superman doesn't kill". I can say "I don't watch soap operas", because it's simply not something I do. I can't say "I never watched a soap opera" because there were times I was in waiting rooms with TVs and they were showing soap operas.
Actually, if you count Japanese dorama, I guess you can say I watch soap operas, but I digress. Superman doesn't kill.
If they made a movie about Spiderman where he never took off his mask and only fought villains no one would watch it as well.
Peter Parker and his supporting cast are as big a part of the movies as they are in the comic books.
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2014-07-27, 10:06 AM (ISO 8601)
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2014-07-27, 12:10 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why all the hate for Man of Steel?
The "do not kill rule," where comic characters avoid killing to the point of holding back in fights with world-endangering threats, is such a deviation from the realities of dealing with violent threat that I would applaud its immediate demise. Censorship of the real consequence of violence is part of what makes these movies even more over the top violent, as massive property damage and employment of superpowers of mass destruction rarely result in hideous gore or a sobering body count.
A more realistic superman doesn't have to be colorless or be in a world without friends, but he does have to deal with kill or be killed, and with weighing the lives of the villains against the lives of innocents.The laws of physics are not crying in a corner, they are bawling in the forums.
Thanks to half-halfling for the avatar
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2014-07-27, 12:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2011
Re: Why all the hate for Man of Steel?
It's been done. Rarely done well, but it's been done.
Also, why does superman have to be realistic? It's a about the last survivor of an alien race who can fly and tank artillery fire and not even call it a massage. Seriously, insistence on realism got us The Dark Knight Rises and Man of Steel. I fail to see were it's a good thing were comic books are concerned.
And Reddish, maybe he doesn't have to, but good luck convincing anyone outside of marvel studios in hollywood of that."I Burn!"
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2014-07-27, 12:25 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2014
Re: Why all the hate for Man of Steel?
I think the reason for all the hate is reflective of the overall contempt WB/DC and its representatives have shown its fans.
And the list of examples in this are endless.
From poor or misaligned characterizations, to a saturation of product placement, to flat out insulting publicly fans for the characters they love...
And WB/DC starts its creative process from the wrong place: Money.
Not story or love of the characters.
And it's clear they are capable of getting it right. Arrow is a great example of them doing so. Flash may well prove to do it as well.
But between greed and marketing executive interference in the creative process, it's very evident that they care more about the fans' money than the fans themselves.Last edited by SeeDarkly_X; 2014-07-27 at 12:26 PM.
Fan of roleplaying, fantasy, and sci-fi? Read The Myth Prosaic by Georgia Z.
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2014-07-27, 01:58 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2012
Re: Why all the hate for Man of Steel?
I think a lot of the criticisms come from the fact that people went into the movie with a bad taste in their mouth, pretty much determined not to like it from the moment they saw Snyder or Goyer was involved or they saw Superman didn't have red briefs and a spit curl, and pretty much nothing that happened in the film would have come through that filter intact. If Superman fought Zod in a desert, people would complain about Zack Snyder having to make everything brown. I think Reddish Mage sort of addresses this in the sense that fight scenes have happened in Metropolis in the comics and in cartoons that don't get nearly the same level of hate because people are willing to suspend their disbelief and accept that all the innocent bystanders were successfully evacuated or whatever; despite the similarly largely bloodless carnage in Man of Steel, viewers presume a massive body count to justify their ire. The problem isn't that Superman punches people through buildings, really, since that's happened in a lot of media that doesn't get the same reaction or even the same presumed death toll; the problem is that a Superman people decided would be grimdark before the first trailer even finished rolling punched people through buildings, so they decide there's a huge death toll. Basically, it's a reading that is no more supported by the text than it is by various other texts; if it's true about Man of Steel, it's true about the Justice League episode mentioned earlier in the thread.
This isn't to say that there aren't real problems with the film, but that so many of the overwhelmingly negative reactions read as pretty transparent attempts to hate the film. The tornado scene is one good example of this. Nothing Jonathan Kent does is really all that dumb; he leaves Clark to take care of his wife, he manages to get out of the truck in about than twenty seconds, then limps out of it because a car just crushed his leg. Yet, when people complain about the scene, anyone who isn't a total idiot would have broken a car window with their bare hands and crawled out of that (with a car crushing their leg) in like ten seconds, he limps out of the wreckage because his leg "was asleep," and so on. It's not even a matter of Hulk's "tangible details," it's to the point of entirely intangible, largely invented details.
It's fine to not like the movie, or to feel that the movie isn't the representation of Superman you'd like to see, but I think a lot of the "hate" for it just boils down to bad criticism that doesn't hate the film itself so much as preconceived notions of what the film would be, regardless of how supported those criticisms are by the text itself.
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2014-07-27, 02:05 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why all the hate for Man of Steel?
It gave us Baman Begins and The Dark Knight but I don't know what would make a good non-cheesy 21st century superman movie (haven't seen one yet). I do know that I hate the no kill rule, particularly when it is glorified as something that makes heroes more moral and better than others rather than (if it has to be there because of censors) just there in the background we'd prefer not to discuss.
Last edited by Reddish Mage; 2014-07-27 at 02:11 PM.
The laws of physics are not crying in a corner, they are bawling in the forums.
Thanks to half-halfling for the avatar
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2014-07-27, 02:13 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2011
Re: Why all the hate for Man of Steel?
Actually, no, I wanted to like the movie going in. I pretty much always want to like the movie when it's a super hero movie going in. I think the only exception I can think of is a movie that hasn't happened yet. (Ant Man, because Apparently were getting Hank Pym but were not getting Janet as Wasp, and hopes of Wasp and The Vision being set up were the only things about that movie that I was ever going to care about cause I HATE Hank Pym.). So I wanted to like this superman movie.
I didn't for a whole plethora of reasons.
BTW, regarding the casualty's, man of steel just bruises if off, the comics actually show evidence of the death toll's and superman grieving for the one's he didn't/couldn't save, Further, he's not the only one (Read Superman/Supergirl: Maelstrom for and excellent example of this coming from Super-girl's end of it near the beginning of the story.). As for the animated series, first of all, a lot of the really bad action takes place outside of the city over the course, and second of all, by the time the battles get really serious on collateral damage, it's been hours since things started happening more often then not and thus, yeah, it's actually not that unreasonable to assume that a percent or two of the city has been evaced. And third, again, The Avengers Proved you could get away with it with just a little effort at the end to show grieving and during the fight to at least show attempts with varying degree's of success to save civilians during the action + minor limits on the scale of the collateral damage. Man of Steel Didn't care and went for destruction porn then just blew off the after affects and pretended it was realistic to give themselves a feeble excuse to hide behind.
As for Snyder: I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt as while Watchmen wasn't my favorite movie I didn't hate it, and I rather liked 2 out of 3 of Chris Noland's Batman movies so I figured here was a guy who'd figured out how to put effort in and give a damn about super heros involved in the project, and I had not even heard of Goyer. This was yet another reason why it was so frustrating and disappointing and infuriating. I gave these people trust and benefit of the doubt, and they gave me this dreck for the trouble.
Edit: Reddish Mage:
If I might propose some suggestions? The plot line for All Star Superman is that Superman is Dyeing and Knows he's dieing, and it's all about how he deals with and prepares for his own death which has gone from a thing he didn't think possible to a thing that is now looming and rapidly approaching. Of how a saintly man spends what he knows are to be his final weeks and days.
Alternatively, What's So Funny About Truth, Justice And The American Way is all about exploring the serious restrictions he places on himself as far as killing and inflicting harm on others, with a group of Anti-hero's who are perfectly content to kill you on your first offense if they deem you a threat and are indeed rather invested in the idea of proving there better because they don't give there enemy's quarter like superman does, and even gives you a taste of what it would be like if Superman did decided "Ok, screw it, going forward if I have to trade punches with you your ass is grass", and shows why that is not, in fact, a good thing for superman to take as a position.
Superman: For Peace, isn't really action packed but it also goes into a lot of interesting territory by showing why superman can't and/or shouldn't solve a rather long list of the worlds problems. World Hunger being a big example.
Take your pic, though if you want more I'd think Fan would be more the person to talk to then me.
Edit: Also, Nolandverse Batman is lower powered then a lot of comic/animated variations on Batman, but not exactly realistic in a lot of respects. That said, again, that's Batman, he's Suppose to be a whole other animal from Superman and Wonder Woman. He's the one who says "yes, the system means something, but we have to go outside it to fix some of the problems." the one who instead of standing for Hope or Truth instead stands for Justice, the one who is there to make the bad guys afraid instead of the good guys inspired, the one who looks into the abyss until the abyss blinks to prove you can deal with the horrible side of things with out necessarily becoming a monster while superman's job is to show and remind that there is so much more then the horrible things that prowl dark back ally's. Neither one is right nor wrong, there both good when done properly, but they are different things.
It's like Steak and Ice Cream, you like them both, but for completely different reasons.Last edited by Metahuman1; 2014-07-27 at 02:24 PM.
"I Burn!"
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2014-07-27, 04:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2012
Re: Why all the hate for Man of Steel?
By the time Clark and Zod fight in Metropolis, it's been hours since the start of a large-scale alien invasion. Why wouldn't Metropolis have evacuated? Moreover, every building the viewer can see into is clearly empty up until the building where Zod takes his hostages. There are some people still fleeing in the streets, but all the evidence with which the viewer is presented points to the buildings being entirely empty and it is as reasonable to infer a successful evacuation in this situation as in any other in which that is assumed. You don't have to like the use of "destruction porn" to give the fight a sense of scale, but it's just not tenable to really draw a line between Man of Steel and any other explosion-heavy action movie.
More to the point, the criticism is set up as a lose/lose. If Superman grieves and broods after the battle, it's grimdark Nolanified emo Superman; if he doesn't, he's a heartless monster who ignores the millions of casualties. If it shows or acknowledges the casualties, it's grimdark Nolanified emo Superman that refuses to have fun; if it doesn't, it's "blowing off" the aftereffects of big explosions in order to just have fun with big explosions. Every time the movie isn't lighthearted and fun, it's too dark and Not My Superman, every time the movie lightens the mood or has a little fun, it's callously brushing aside innocent lives and Not My Superman.
Just to clarify, it was released under the title "Superman: Peace On Earth" in America.Last edited by Zrak; 2014-07-27 at 04:19 PM.
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2014-07-27, 04:25 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why all the hate for Man of Steel?
If there was a good Superman movie no one would give a **** if it was cheesy or not.
Super heroes are crime fighters. They don't kill people because they stop crimes, they don't commit them.
Superman is indestructible, 'kill or be killed' is irrelevant. Superman doesn't care if anyone thinks he's a wuss because of having a moral code, he's Superman and they're not.
Superman is a power fantasy. If your power fantasy is killing people who aren't a threat to you then read The Authority.
Its not Batman's fault that the Joker isn't dead, its the judges who ignore the death penalty in a country that hasn't outlawed it (yeah yeah writers blah sales blah).Last edited by Closet_Skeleton; 2014-07-27 at 04:27 PM.
"that nighted, penguin-fringed abyss" - At The Mountains of Madness, H.P. Lovecraft
When a man decides another's future behind his back, it is a conspiracy. When a god does it, it's destiny.
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2014-07-27, 04:26 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2011
Re: Why all the hate for Man of Steel?
I don't. I go to watch a character I find interesting strive to overcome obstacles that matter to them. This is otherwise known in the movie business as having a compelling character interact with a compelling plot.
What you are describing is the logic that currently holds in the executive suites in Hollywood: since the only competitive advantage Hollywood currently holds over, say, HBO is spectacle, then let's ramp up the spectacle to 11 and give the audience wall-to-wall CGI porn. There's just one problem with that: that doesn't work for any audience other than teenage boys.
It also ignores just how valuable creating a reputation for quality storytelling really is. If you look at the studios that most consistently churn out successful movies, the three biggest are Marvel, Disney and Pixar. And every last one of them has a reputation for producing quality stories. The Avengers was just a blockbuster largely because Marvel Studios spent such a huge amount of time laying the ground work for it by telling stories that established their characters like Iron Man, Captain America and Thor, all characters, mind you, that fifteen years ago people would have said were B-listers who would never have a successful movie built around them. Pixar needs no introduction, and it is bar none the most successful studio of the last 20 years. Disney fell off precisely because they got a reputation for cash grabs over creating compelling stories and characters, and they have been restoring their reputation precisely because they've stopped following the formula that got worn to a nubbin by Mulan and they just kept trying to redo with diminishing results.Characters:
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2014-07-27, 04:37 PM (ISO 8601)
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2014-07-27, 05:04 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why all the hate for Man of Steel?
Fan of roleplaying, fantasy, and sci-fi? Read The Myth Prosaic by Georgia Z.
The story revolves around a character who plays an RPG & how that experience becomes useful to him in a dystopian future.
It's free online, presented as a web-serial, with updates 3 times weekly.
The Myth Prosaic - Book I of The Mythic Chess Set by Georgia Z
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2014-07-27, 05:09 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2012
Re: Why all the hate for Man of Steel?
I would accept that argument if it weren't for the fact that, like I said, the same criticisms aren't leveled against other Superman media. When Superman fights in Metropolis in the Justice League cartoon, it's totally reasonable to assume there was a successful evacuation effort beforehand,; when Superman fights in Metropolis in Man of Steel, the exact same assumption is "blowing off" the consequences of fighting in a city. The fact that Superman has gotten in plenty of fights with plenty of explosions in Metropolis in media people don't lambaste for it indicates that it's not really fighting in Metropolis, itself, that's the problem.
EDIT: How do Superman's efforts prove hopeless? Did the Earth get blown up in some after credits scene I missed or something?Last edited by Zrak; 2014-07-27 at 05:10 PM.
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2014-07-27, 05:11 PM (ISO 8601)
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2014-07-27, 06:09 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why all the hate for Man of Steel?
So, would you go watch a movie advertised as "Peter Parker's normal life except he doesn't get super powers"? I don't know you, so maybe you would. The vast majority of people would not though. The vast majority of people are going to watch some dude with super powers do fantastic things...not an angsty teen deal with his love life drama. Those movies DO exist...but Twilight wasn't exactly critically acclaimed.
I actually missed your response earlier. Apologies.
if "Read Alot" means "I read Superman: At Earths End, Justice League: Act Of God, Superman: Distant Fires, The Dark Knight Returns, The Dark Knight Strikes Again, All Star Batman And Robin, The New 52 Superman and Justice League Books, Kamandi At Earth's End, Countdown, and his run starting in Superman 700 after the new krypton event." Then no, see, you've never read real superman if that's the case.
Have you read Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? Superman: Red Son? All Star Superman? The Death and Rebirth Story Arc? Superman: For Peace? What's So Funny About Truth, Justice and the American Way? Or it's sequel?
You don't get to pick and choose....or rather...you personally are more than welcome to pick and choose your personal canon...but you don't get to claim that your interpretation is the only valid way to interpret the character.
You argument is still "Superman never kills, ever! Except the times he kills people." I don't care how often you say he doesn't kill, or how many people you get to agree with you...the simple fact is that he tries to kill his enemies any time they pose a legitimate threat. He's killed several people before. He's tried and failed to kill even more. He'll almost certainly kill people in the future. He's not a psychopath or anything, and the people he kills always deserve it...but to say "Superman doesn't kill, ever" is patently and obviously false.
If you want to move the goalposts and say that Zod was a bad villain for the first movie, then I actually might agree with you. That was never an argument I was making.Last edited by Anteros; 2014-07-27 at 06:18 PM.
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2014-07-27, 06:11 PM (ISO 8601)
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2014-07-27, 06:53 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2011
Re: Why all the hate for Man of Steel?
And yet, the powers are never why anyone actually fawns over spiderman movies. The fawn due to character interactions.
First, more then half of those are else world stories, so they should absolutely be discarded as not part of Canon cause well, there not part of Canon. They can still be a thing to point at, if there good, but the thing is, there not, at least as far as superman is concerned there textbook "How to screw up working on this character."
And again, I point to these cause there solidly written and don't totally miss the whole point of the character. Which again, is the crux of the problem, the people who made the movie either don't get the character, or actively hate the character and thus want to either do there own stuff instead but need his logo to fill seats cause no one would go see "Uber-Dude" or what ever in there minds, and don't want to do anything else with him except jack a few names form his canon. Or possibly are too insufferably lazy to even attempt to try for five seconds.
Zrak: Ok, let's look at the damage done with that "World Made out of Cardboard scene." vs. Man of Steels Final Battle. You'll notice a few buildings get damaged in the former, and the overall damage is generally lesser then the Avengers Final Battle in there movie, were as Man of Steel leveled, full on leveled, more then half the city. That is a HUGH difference in the scope, and the former allows us to more easily buy "Ok, they evacuated.", more so since they showed lots of people running and then we saw no more people were as man of steel kept showing you the people almost none stop to rub your face in the fact that they were there, were as the latter, does not by pushing it too far. Does that make more sense?
Closet_Skeleton: Yes. Thank you sir, you've hit the nail on the head."I Burn!"
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2014-07-27, 07:01 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why all the hate for Man of Steel?
I saw the All-Star Superman Animated Movie, it seemed to take a lot from the new animated series, which is far too thin and straightforward villain of the week plot for me to get into. Then again I don't normally read comic books, so when you rapid-fire present characters and like Lex Luthor's niece (first impression: really 15 and already a dominatrix?) and Solaris and Hercules without much introduction (as if it was the continuation of a very long series) I don't react well. I'm not sure how a good movie would like like, but this one was quite too busy with superman,Spoilerwho possess incredible technology at his Fortress of Solitude, somehow has to spend most of his last time personally bringing the city of Kandor to another star system.
Superman:For Peace, doesn't sound like movie material, its summary sounds like the sort of plot I thought up for it immediately (what I thought up, the actual plot is a bit more detailed and nuanced): Superman tries to solve hunger, finds his superpowers have its limits when it comes to mass scale food distribution, ends with Superman is better off as an inspiring figure and using his powers to deal with superpowered type crises rather than structural issues. The militant dictatorship opposing superman presents nuanced issues. This is more an exercise in speculative science fiction and political philosophy rather than an action movie.
What's so Funny about Truth Justice and the American way, from your description, is everything I hate about taking the No Kill Rule as a serious moral rule, complete with stawmen "kill you on first offense if they deem you a threat." These anti-villains (getting the term anti-hero/villain right is a pet peeve of mine, this group plays the antagonist to superman's pro despite having heroic traits, they are playing the villain role in the movie despite being "heroes") are going deep off the other end.
Certainly, I wont argue that it preferable to imprison, neutralize, or even rehabilitate or simply co-opt villains rather than kill them, if you can. This is true even if the hero has to take some measured risk...However, so often we are presented with the superheroes in the midst of fighting a villain presenting a clear and present danger to both the heroes and to others, often on a mass scale, and the heroes start pulling their punches or refusing to take the clear shot! And it is not terribly uncommon for these decisions to lead to the death of others on a mass scale or major characters (Doctor Who comes to mind). It isn't even uncommon to see this when the heroes are the underdogs!
The "do not kill" rule is always presented as either categorical (NEVER!) or with incredibly rare exceptions that are made only after allowing a very high degree of risk to the heroes and innocents. Man of Steel is actually no exception to the rule.Spoiler(Superman kills Zod only after they destroyed a good bit of Metropolis and only when Zod gratuitously decides to kill bystanders to force Superman's hand)
I recall this situation in Arrow (though I hear on the grapevine that the hero adopted this attitude in season 2 because of studio interference, he is constantly struggling and sometimes going back on them) and in Smallville. It was a real part of what made Avatar the Last Airbender disappointing for me, and it makes Inuyasha:The Final Act frustrating as wellSpoilerin the approaching final battle which Aang isn't supposed to be capable of winning Aang is only worried about the possibility that he might have to kill the villain.Spoilerthe main villain Naraku is constantly killing humans and demons, yet the main casts refusal to sacrifice even willing warriors and this allows Naraku to play all sorts games and threaten TPK, and that's just as far as I've gotten so far
This is a morality that I haven't seen extolled anywhere in real life in the specific way it appears with regularity in at least American, British and Japanese media. Why do we need it glorified in our movies?The laws of physics are not crying in a corner, they are bawling in the forums.
Thanks to half-halfling for the avatar
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2014-07-27, 08:57 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why all the hate for Man of Steel?
Why does Man of Steel get hate? Because it promises so much and delivers so very, very little. Wooden acting (which I blame largely on the directing, since all of it is wooden in an oddly similar fashion), more of that ****ing shaky-cam, disjointed-to-the-point-of-nonsense plot, that stupid tornado scene, that stupid, stupid, stupid neck-snap scene... both of which could potentially have worked, if they hadn't been so amazingly poorly done.
The tornado scene, if you weren't watching closely, was a really dumb way to commit suicide. If you were watching closely... it came across as a really dumb way to commit suicide -_-; It's possible that the senior Kent was motivated by protecting his boy, etc. etc. etc., but it's not even hinted at by the movie. What does get communicated is that he's a severely screwed up individual raising a kid who's too good for him, or... something. Somebody needed to stand behind the director and/or the screenwriter and bash them over the head with something heavy every time they tried to ram either 'u r SO SPESHUL!!!!1!' dialogue or messianic imagery into things.
As for the neck-snap scene... really, the only thing I can say about it is "OH NOES! My mighty biceps cannot overcome the power of his neck muscles, even though I'm straining against them with all my might! The only solution is to snap his neck by twisting sharply in the direction that I've already proven to be able to overcome the strength of his neck muscles!" The silly part is, the kill didn't bother me nearly as much as the moronic, illogical way that they did it. How can Superman suddenly snap Zod's neck when he couldn't even affect the speed of Zod's slow-head-turn a split-second earlier? Did someone shoot Zod in the neck with a kryptonite dart right then, or something? For that matter, why not just poke Zod in the eyes? Presumably Kryptonians still have a blink reflex, and even if they don't, if Superman jammed his thumbs in Zod's eyes, I'm pretty sure that it would cut off the heat vision PDQ, and if it did more than burn Supey's thumbs a little, well, that raises some interesting questions about just how strong Zod's heat vision was.
The other big thing that bothered me about the movie, and frankly just kicked me right out of it, was how fast Zod and not-Ursa (yes, I know Faora Hu-Ul is in the comics, but even so...) adjusted to 'and suddenly, massive sensory overload and other powers!' The movie made such a thing about how hard it was for Clark to adjust even when his powers came on gradually, and even hinted that it was rough on Zod with that fight-ending disorientation. Then all of a sudden, they were perfectly fine and shooting around in the sky like it wasn't even a thing. For that matter, how the hell did Zod even know he had heat vision? It's not like superpowers come with conveniently labelled switches inside your head... I don't remember if Superman used heat vision where Zod could see before, but it strikes me as very weird that Zod would just figure out how to shoot lasers out of his eyeballs without... y'know, years of practice. And for that matter, the decades of absorbing yellow sunlight like Superman did. Granted, that's always been a weakness of the whole 'Kryptonian villain' thing- they shouldn't be any stronger than infant Kal-El was when he first arrived, since they've had all of a few days of vitamin super-sun. But oh well.
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2014-07-27, 09:01 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2012
Re: Why all the hate for Man of Steel?
Also the reason why Superman doesn't kill:
"Next time on MOS Superman!
Lex Luthor: Mwahaha! How will you stop me Superman! Me and my Legion of-*Crack*
Gorilla Grod: Holy **** Hes DE-*BOOM*
Brainiac: We are over o-*Zap*
Toyman: ......A-*Splode*
Now there is no excuse for Superman not just to kill every ****er that gets in his way.
Edited: Cause I wanted to continue the logic
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2014-07-27, 09:16 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why all the hate for Man of Steel?
This is what I was referring to when I said the criticism was a catch-22. Currently, the battle in Metropolis is on the "light" end of the scale; insofar as the viewer can discern from the text, casualties are fairly minimal, there are some sight gags during the fight, and Clark begins a hopeful future afterwards. Yet, people complain that the tone is already too dark, so increasing the body count and ending with a brooding, broken Clark clearly would not address the complaints.
Evidence from other media suggest tht battling in Metropolis is not, itself, a problem. Evidence from other criticism suggests changing the tone would not alleviate the problem. I'm not really sure what the filmmakers are supposed to have done differently to address the complaints about this scene. Again, I'm not saying the movie was perfect or even really arguing that it was good. I'm not saying anyone had to like it. I'm saying that the specific criticisms people are leveling at the film aren't supported by the text or could be equally applied to other texts about which they do not make those criticisms.
I think you see maybe ten people, total, during the final battle of Man of Steel; five or six on the street in front of the parking garage, and the family in the building at the very end. Otherwise, every building they fly through, every building whose windows you can see in, and every street they fly past is empty. It also didn't look to me like anywhere near half the city was leveled, judging by how much they flew through during the punch-each-other-through-the-sky phase of the fight. At the end of the day, drawing a line in the sand about how many Awesome Explosions! you can include before it's too many just seems much too arbitrary to really be a tenable criticism, to me.
To be fair, that wasn't/isn't really much of a strawman, when you consider a lot of the comics to which it was created to respond. "Shoot first and ask questions later" was and to a fairly large degree still is a pretty pervasive attitude amongst heroes in media.
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2014-07-27, 09:20 PM (ISO 8601)
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2014-07-28, 12:18 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why all the hate for Man of Steel?
Again, it's not merely about the facts of the final battle. It's about the tone of the movie. By the time we get to the point of evaluating the final battle, the catch-22 has already been set up by the movie. When you say there's no way to satisfy the critics with the final battle, you're absolutely right--but the cause is not unsatisfiable critics.
(Though I gotta say, mood whiplash between sight gags and the neck snap and the Lois kiss can't have helped.)
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2014-07-28, 01:08 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why all the hate for Man of Steel?
Just to be clear, I'm not taking with the fact that there's no way for the final battle to "make up" for other failings of the movie or silence critics. Like I said, I'm not denying the movie has flaws or that it's remotely unreasonable to dislike it. I'm arguing that many of the specific criticisms leveled against it are incoherent as critiques. My argument isn't that the final battle should make you like the movie, or even that you should like the final battle, but that some of the specifics arguments for why the final battle is bad just aren't really tenable. The same way it's fine to object to the way Pa Kent is portrayed, but a lot of the objections to the tornado scene pretty much rely on intentionally misreading the scene so that it conforms to the complaints.
I don't care if people hate the movie, or even hate the scenes in question; I just ask that they hate it with a little more critical rigor. Hate Man of Steel all you want, but hate it like Nabokov hated 1984, not like frat boys hate Jane Austen.
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2014-07-28, 01:40 AM (ISO 8601)
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2014-07-28, 02:07 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why all the hate for Man of Steel?
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2014-07-28, 02:28 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why all the hate for Man of Steel?
Even ignoring complaints related to Superman not acting like Superman, or loss of life in Metropolis (which personally didn't bother me)...
The movie wasn't good. The acting was... I found Anakin and Padme's romance more convincing; though can't actually say I blame the actors, but that the writing and direction rather forced it (except Zod who chewed enough scenery to be amusing). The story just wasn't interesting without relying on the idea that this is Superman and drawing upon nostalgia and such for Superman, which can work (I quite liked the new Star Trek movies, but they, especially the first one, rely upon 'hey it's Star Trek'). The film runs on telling us that Superman is a hero without showing us that he's really a hero. Then there's the action. I mean the big fight is just boring; the washed out aesthetic makes the fight scene uninteresting, the shaky cam makes it hard to watch, the whole thing is uninteresting. Let's say it's just an action movie, that you're watching it for the fight and special effects, and not because of it's Superman, and the fight scenes are uninteresting there is a problem. Let's compare to Avengers, as both have fairly long, drawn out 3rd Act big fights and are super-hero movies. Avengers has interesting choreography, gives us a variety of multiple tactics and fighting styles, has the space whale versus the Hulk, Captain America's heroic moments, Hawkeye's shooting Loki, and Hulk Smash puny god. MoS has kryptonians punching each other. Even compare to Thor: the Dark World, the travel between the worlds, the swirling darkness, Mjolnir's attempts to return to Thor, Thor's need to figure out a way to defeat Malachite other than brute force; these made the fight interesting. MoS has... punching, flying, punching, and neck snapping.
I could talk about it not Superman not acting like Superman, but really if it had been good enough to stand on its own I wouldn't care that much. I mean I like the new Star Trek films even if Kirk acts like some internet meme version of Kirk as opposed to acting like Captain Kirk. Those were enjoyable despite it feeling like it was made by people who didn't really know or like Star Trek. This failed as a movie and, unlike the not actually particularly interesting/enjoyable older Superman movies you didn't have the sense that the makers loved the character and hoped you would too; that's not much, but it helps. I liked Superman (the live action film) as a child, and Superman IV, and while I wouldn't like them now, I wouldn't have liked this as a child. I might have liked it when I was 15? Maybe? I'm not sure I would have even then. I will note if the movie hadn't been about Superman it wouldn't be hated. It wouldn't be talked about at all. The only draw of the movie was that it was Superman and that's a bad sign. I don't like Iron Man, he's never interested me as a hero, the Iron Man movie managed to draw me in despite a pre-existing dislike of the character. I love Spider-Man and think none of the movie portrayals of Spider-Man do him justice, but I enjoy those none the less even Spider-Man 3 which really I can't think of a redeeming quality except that it managed to be entertaining even if messing up my favorite superhero.
Also Zod was a poor choice as the villain for the first movie. He contrasts Superman, but you need to establish Superman as Superman first. This was a poor choice of first villain. Unfortunately I can't think of a good first villain for Superman. Luthor is played out with Superman Returns. Darkseid is a worse choice than Zod, though I'd have avoided Zod entirely to save the dark mirror contrast for Darkseid. Braniac is the best I can think of, but really I'm mostly familiar with his villains from the DCAU.Last edited by Zaydos; 2014-07-28 at 02:34 AM.
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