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Certainly a theme of Superman, not sure if I'd argue if it's demonstrated in this film. I'm not really sure what values Superman has in this movie. He's the good guy certainly because the plot demands it, but beyond that I'm not really sold.

As a minor aside, when Superman ripped apart the scout ship with his heat vision, were there little Kryptonian babies in the pods? Or did they need the codex to create more? I was always curious if Superman did indeed just kill a bunch of babies.

 Manchu wrote:
but for now there's not enough information to criticize Man of Steel on this point.

And yet somehow I still did, I must have magical powers too. Honestly I was liking that they removed the silly tight tight shorts and the even sillier secret identy crap, that was one of the few thing left I was happy about and then boom they put it back in there as a final insult.

Zond wrote:
Certainly a theme of Superman, not sure if I'd argue if it's demonstrated in this film. I'm not really sure what values Superman has in this movie. He's the good guy certainly because the plot demands it, but beyond that I'm not really sold.

I dunno man. It's in the scene when Jonathan talks to Clark about the bullies. It's in the scene where Clark is talking to the priest. Jor'El gives a speech about it. It's the point of Clark's dialog with Lois regarding Jonathan's death. It's what the conflict between Superman and Zod is all about. It's everywhere in the film.

Zond wrote:
As a minor aside, when Superman ripped apart the scout ship with his heat vision, were there little Kryptonian babies in the pods? Or did they need the codex to create more?

There were no babies in those things.


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 Crablezworth wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
but for now there's not enough information to criticize Man of Steel on this point.

And yet somehow I still did, I must have magical powers too.

Yes, you have the magical power of making an unfounded point.

 rubiksnoob wrote:

 Breotan wrote:


No, the worst part of this movie was the asshats in the audience who thought it would be cool to try to start a slow clap or let out a "Whoop!" or like that. I really dislike people who have poor impulse control.

I'm afraid I was obligated to let out a quiet, "That's what she said." when Lois exclaimed, "It's supposed to go all the way in!" in reference to the command key as they were about to bomb Zod's ship.

I joked about that line with one of my neighbors that was sitting right next to me. I watched the movie in a group of 6.

 Ahtman wrote:

 generalgrog wrote:
I certainly wasn't implying SM thinks humans are dogs. But like his father and the dog he is wiling to sacrifice himself for us.
GG

I wasn't sure, but that is why I asked. As d-usa pointed out, Papa Kent didn't sacrifice himself for the dog. He went to get the dog with every intent on getting back to the family, but in the ensuing fracas his ankle is broken and can't get back in time to avoid the tornado. Clark could save him but Johnathan waves him off; the sacrifice isn't for the dog, it is to keep Clark's secret.

It was a sacrifice though, even if it wasn't intentional. There was a certain risk inherent in basically running into an oncoming tornado.

GG

A risk is not the same thing as a sacrifice. Clark made a sacrifice at the end when he killed Zod rather than allowing him to kill the civillians. Jonathan made a sacrifice when he gave up his life to protect Clark's anonymity. When he went back for the dog, he was taking a risk.

 Manchu wrote:
A risk is not the same thing as a sacrifice. Clark made a sacrifice at the end when he killed Zod rather than allowing him to kill the civillians. Jonathan made a sacrifice when he gave up his life to protect Clark's anonymity. When he went back for the dog, he was taking a risk.

How many thousands or hundreds of thousands did clark kill while flying through building after building?

 d-usa wrote:
You have the power and ability to save people, but you will risk your own safety and existence. Do you stay safe and secure, or risk it all by exposing yourself to save them. Your father died for your secret, because he was scared of what exposing it would mean to everybody and what it would mean for you. Your other father died giving you the ability to make that choice. Now, what will you do?

There is your lack of overarching moral theme.

And here we have the John Kent Family dog allegory succinctly demonstrated.

John Kent could have stayed safe under the overpass, but instead risked his life to save the family dog. Much like Kal-El(SM) did to save humanity.

GG

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
A risk is not the same thing as a sacrifice. Clark made a sacrifice at the end when he killed Zod rather than allowing him to kill the civillians. Jonathan made a sacrifice when he gave up his life to protect Clark's anonymity. When he went back for the dog, he was taking a risk.

How many thousands or hundreds of thousands did clark kill while flying through building after building?

When you remove all context from a thing you can make it sound just about any way you want.

 Crablezworth wrote:
How many thousands or hundreds of thousands did clark kill while flying through building after building?

This is a classic put down of comic books and comic book writers often put it into the mouths of comic book villains. Man of Steel 2 will have LexCorp rebuilding Metropolis while Lex begins a media campaign about all the people "Superman killed." The obvious answer, of course, is that Zod killed people as Superman was trying to stop Zod.

 Ahtman wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
A risk is not the same thing as a sacrifice. Clark made a sacrifice at the end when he killed Zod rather than allowing him to kill the civillians. Jonathan made a sacrifice when he gave up his life to protect Clark's anonymity. When he went back for the dog, he was taking a risk.

How many thousands or hundreds of thousands did clark kill while flying through building after building?

When you remove all context from a thing you can make it sound just about any way you want.

And how would you describe it? What am I leaving out? Just because we're not seeing explicit deaths of individuals, when there's like a 15 minute segment of the movie where metroplis get's levelled and countless buildings are ruined, partially ruined, completely collapse as a result of two super beings making holes through them every other second on top of the f35's falling out of the sky (they're good at that) I think it's safe to assume the death toll is probably high. It's also really hard to ignore, especially when instead of evoking massive sorrow it instead makes the protagonist "frisky" for a lois lane smooch

I just didn't expect a michael bay level of disregard, it just felt really vapid.

Weird double post...
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Superman didn't disregard those lives. If he disregarded them he would have let the whole planet get destroyed instead of trying to save 99.9% of the population.

 Manchu wrote:

Zond wrote:
Honestly I'm not sure. Superman killed a couple of bad guys

Superman killed one bad guy. That's an extremely important point actually

He also wiped out all those embryos in the scout ship, screaming "Krypton had its chance!"

There were no embryos in there. It was pretty clear.

Agreed.

Again, I think the movie has areas for criticism, but some of this stuff that people are coming up with doesn't even make sense. As a friend of mine mentioned today, Superman Returns scored better with critics, and that's fething insane. MoS had a better story, better action, and much better acting. I don't know what some of them were looking at, other than seeing Snyder's name on the thing and deciding they were going to hate it.

I liked that it didn't run away from the religious themes connected to the character. That stuff has always been there, right down to his angelic name. But the creators pretty much embraced it, even choosing the Lucifer character in the mythos as the villain. It was a good decision -- it's there and it's always going to be there, so just own it and hell, make him 33 years old.

Regarding the issues surrounding the destruction of Metropolis, if we assume that we're talking about a city the size of NYC, there would have been large sections of the city still intact. And just like with 9/11, once it'd become possible for people to get to their jobs, etc., they would. It's not only not unrealistic, it's highly realistic because human beings and life move on after tragedies. It's what human beings do.

So regarding the "wrongness" of Zod's death, what happened in Superman II after Kal took away Zod's powers and threw him into a chasm? Hmm?

 Manchu wrote:
There were no embryos in there. It was pretty clear.

Yes there were. They even smashed the "glass" barrier letting all the water flow out.

 gorgon wrote:
So regarding the "wrongness" of Zod's death, what happened in Superman II after Kal took away Zod's powers and threw him into a chasm? Hmm?

I'm sure they were just knocked out and put back into the phantom zone later. It would be in the tone of the Donner film to do that.

 Breotan wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
There were no embryos in there. It was pretty clear.

Yes there were. They even smashed the "glass" barrier letting all the water flow out.

No there weren't. The pods were empty. The genesis chamber was operational but not making babies.

@Gorgon: 100% agree.

 d-usa wrote:

 NecronLord3 wrote:
I really dislike the Star Wars prequel inspired Planet Krypton. Worst part of the movie for me. I was deeply disappointed with the rushed backstory of Zod and Jor-el whom both seemed to be attempting to do the same thing and yet felt the need to oppose each other for it. I would have much rather seen 30 minutes of this film solely dedicated to establishing the narrative.

I think that the conflict between the two did a good job explaining what was wrong with Krypton and their way of life. Both were genetically engineered for their purpose. Zod was created to be a soldier, a military solution to any problem. He didn't decide to be General Zod, he was created to be General Zod and everything he knows about protecting his people would always require a military solution. Jor-El was created to be a scientist, to think and to experiment. That was the only way he knew how to solve this problem. Krypton has engineered both these people to such an extend that they could not compromise against their genetic engineering. That's why the whole thing about Superman being able to make choices is such a big deal, even from the very beginning of the movie.

Zod spending 33 years looking for Kal? How unrealistic, why could they not simply have used the phantom zone as Zods reason for being absent for 33 years instead of asking us to believe that he would just mindlessly be doing the same search the entire time. After like 10 years I think Zods people would have just said feth it lets build a new Krypton somewhere and sexually reproduce.

They needed the Codex, without it they could not rebuild Krypton. So they kept on looking for it. And even if they just would decide "hey guys, Jor-El was right and we should just feth" you might remember that Krypton was gone. Kaputt. And with it every piece of their technology. The movie made it clear that they didn't just hop from planet to planet going "nope, he's not here". They also gathered supplies and resources to eventually build a new Krypton which they found in the old outposts. They wouldn't have been able to attempt to terraform Earth if they wouldn't have spend 33 years gathering supplies.

Lois being in on Clark's identity from day one it pretty lame.

Lois being in on Clark's identity is a lot better than the ace reporter being to stupid to figure out that both the guys she wants to bang is the same guy with removable glasses IMO.

And Clark's willingness to kill and callously fighting Zod in metropolis was very out of character.

There were lots of implied deaths, but not because Superman "killed" them. I think it is in Supermans character to fight and risk some lives instead of not fighting and letting every single human on earth die. And I thought that having him kill Zod, after a very emotional struggle before being forced to make that decision and clearly struggling with what he did afterwards, was a great moment in his character.

They really should have held Zod for the sequels and kept a smaller more grounded narrative to reboot the franchise. I feel this movie ultimately was to large in scope and it will make Superman fighting a human like Lex in the sequels less impactful on audiences.

I thought it was a good reboot. He killed Zod because he had no other reason, he fought and fought him and realized that he could never stop him in any other way. No prison on Earth would hold him, he would never stop attacking, so he had to go. Fights against Lex will be able to show the need to balance the fighting against his ability to kill.

Still a good movie and I think All the actors were rightly cast in their roles, but I gave it a 7/10 because there were just some major missteps that hurt this film and ultimately I feel the DC brand was not helped after the failures of DKR and Green Lantern.

Agreed on good casting. I would give it a 8.5/10 and I think it was a good step for DC. I'm not too worried about the failures of DKR and Green Lantern. I don't think the Batman Triology will be a part of the Justice League and the Avengers were able to recover from a few bad Hulk movies before taking off.

Exalted... nothing to add here.

I loved this movie... it's a great starter movie for Superman.

One thing to keep in mind guys, is that the Superman comic book series is venerable, with many, many different takes on the character.

I really like the take in MoS.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Manchu wrote:
I don't get your point about the dog. Pa Kent died saving their dog, which they had for years. So when that dog dies they can never get another one?

There doesn't need to be a scene where he says all life is precious. In this movie, that's not why he saves his dog. The character is presented as a salt of the earth kind of noble guy, in the American mold. Such a man would not just abandon his dog like a Starbucks-guzzling yuppie (who probably would go back for the iPad).

Also, he doesn't run to get the dog thinking "the dog's life is more important than mine." His foot gets caught and he's injured. There's just no time -- unless Clark uses his powers in front of everyone. The point of the scene is that Jonathan really believes the people of earth are not ready to accept his son. He believes that his son's life is more important than his.

That's all on the screen, no homework required. If you didn't get it, I don't know what to say. I mean, you're not required to like it but it's all there. In fact, Clark later explains to Lois exactly what this scene is about so it's actually explicitly spelled out on screen as well.

The Pa Kent part of saving the dog was my favorite part of the film... it adds so much to Clark's upbringing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Manchu wrote:
A risk is not the same thing as a sacrifice. Clark made a sacrifice at the end when he killed Zod rather than allowing him to kill the civillians. Jonathan made a sacrifice when he gave up his life to protect Clark's anonymity. When he went back for the dog, he was taking a risk.

This... exactly this. That's how I took it. And no... I wasn't tearing up... it was... um, allergies I think.

When they meet up in the desert to hand over superman, why did they request lois lane come too?

Also, why does christopher maloni's character care if they want one more person?

Why was his suit on a random 20,000 year old ship that like crashed on earth or something?

Cause detective Stabler doesn't negotiate with terrorists or people who disrespect women and children

As for the genetic engineering thing, am I the only one who found it odd that a guy built to be a scientist could mop the floor with a bunch of guys built to be soldiers (even beating the General of the entire planet into the ground) while the guys built to be soldiers could reconfigure the star ship in a complex sounding process to move vast distances of space?

It's a minor quip but it did bug me since there's the whole eugenics undertone throughout the film (kind of wish they'd done more with that).

 LordofHats wrote:
As for the genetic engineering thing, am I the only one who found it odd that a guy built to be a scientist could mop the floor with a bunch of guys built to be soldiers (even beating the General of the entire planet into the ground) while the guys built to be soldiers could reconfigure the star ship in a complex sounding process to move vast distances of space?

It's a minor quip but it did bug me since there's the whole eugenics undertone throughout the film (kind of wish they'd done more with that).

Same reason Sherlock Holmes can kick ass.


I think they took Lois as leverage against Superman.

Louis knew who Superman was, knowing his earth identify could prove useful.

I think they took Lois because they'd been tracking Earth's communications and probably picked up that she 'knew' who Kal-El was and figured probing her might reveal the location of the codex.

EDIT: Ninja'd.

There were a few moments like that in the film that kind of slid by without much explanation. Like how the Jor-El program implied that the outposts were created because Krypton was suffering over population and then abandoned because of the resources and distances involved once they could control their population. Well, not implied. Rather that's just what could be inferred from the scene.

 Crablezworth wrote:
When they meet up in the desert to hand over superman, why did they request lois lane come too?

She was the one "outed" as discovering Kal-el. The Kryptonians want to see what else she knew (like the possible location of the codex).

 Crablezworth wrote:
Also, why does christopher maloni's character care if they want one more person?

He doesn't care if they want one of their own. He cares about them wanting a human.

I liked the recent Star Trek 2 better than Man of Steel.

There were some good moments, and some fine acting, but I felt the movie was OK at best.

60 minutes of tearing down 1 building after another. I get it. These guys are bad asses. Do I really need to see 400 buildings get torn down, one by one?

Yes. feth yes. I've been waiting for a movie to actually emulate the scale and destruction of the fights from comics for decades.

The sun gave her and the big guy some super abilities, but they never removed their masks so they didn't get the full effect. They were trained soldiers and he was Superman: Day 2, with no combat training. If it had been a more experienced Clark or if they were fully powered it would have been a different fight. It was even said when he was talking to Jor-El 2.0 that the atmosphere of Earth made the effect even greater than anticipated, not just exposure to our Sun.

The Phantom Zone engine was unique to the Fortress they were on, and to Supes little rocket ship, and they weren't really bred to make those kinds of leaps. The only person who made the connection was Jor-El 2.0, Kryptons leading scientist and creator of the Phantom Zone engine.

My question at this point was that there was a lot of soldiers bred for war, but I don't really recall them mentioning any enemies of Kryton.

Maybe they made a habit of "cleansing" habitable planets with their soldiers?

Jor El was disgusted with what Krypton had become, perhaps he was upset with more than just selective breeding, eco-destruction, and ugly hats?

 kronk wrote:
Maybe they made a habit of "cleansing" habitable planets with their soldiers?

Jor El was disgusted with what Krypton had become, perhaps he was upset with more than just selective breeding, eco-destruction, and ugly hats?

Perhaps. I don't think it is an oversight so much as allowing them some wiggle room for future story lines.

 kronk wrote:


WTF? I thought the sun's radiation gave superman his power, not the air. When he goes on the ship, they explain that the Krypton air made him weak. Also, General Zod and hot alien fighter chick didn't get x-ray vision until they took off their masks, but he had super strength from the get go? I don't get it. Big hole there some where.

See, now this topic is an area that probably deserves a little criticism. Jor-El specifically cites the solar radiation, but you're right that most of the talk on the Kryptonian ship is about atmosphere. I think it's fairly clear that they're supposed to be separate issues, but they could have made it clearer exactly what it was on the ship that was suppressing his abilities.

Personally, I've always preferred the version in which his abilities come mostly from stored solar radiation, which takes *years* to build up. So Kryptonians arriving on Earth would only have whatever extra strength they'd have from being on a lower gravity world, etc. Obviously that doesn't help a movie along, so I understand the instant powers. Still, there was some unevenness there, like with the vision powers as you suggest.

This leads me to...

 LordofHats wrote:
As for the genetic engineering thing, am I the only one who found it odd that a guy built to be a scientist could mop the floor with a bunch of guys built to be soldiers (even beating the General of the entire planet into the ground) while the guys built to be soldiers could reconfigure the star ship in a complex sounding process to move vast distances of space?

It's a minor quip but it did bug me since there's the whole eugenics undertone throughout the film (kind of wish they'd done more with that).

Well, IIRC the Byrne post-Crisis take was that Jor-El and Lara represented the best genetic lines out there in general. And figure that a eugenics program would ideally lead to healthy, fit, athletic citizens overall. Just because Jor-El is bred to be a scientist doesn't mean he has to end up like Stephen Hawking. This is quibble territory, but sure, maybe the drone should have helped him a smidge more during his escape. Though maybe the explanation is as simple as saying that the soldiers were still fairly blinded throughout that fight.

Of course, Kal also takes on a bunch of soldiers and wins. My take was that Kal was ultimately a bit stronger/faster/tougher due to his many years adapting to Earth and our sun. The Kryptonians' training and toughness -- they are soldiers after all, and familiar with fighting through pain and injury, something Kal hasn't experienced much -- compensated for their slightly weaker state. Plus at times Kal is likely holding back -- partially because of nearby civilians, etc., and partially because he's spent a lifetime suppressing his powers and may not know how to tap their full potential. I thought his destruction of the world engine was meant to show him finally not holding back and tapping his true power.

 LordofHats wrote:
There were a few moments like that in the film that kind of slid by without much explanation. Like how the Jor-El program implied that the outposts were created because Krypton was suffering over population and then abandoned because of the resources and distances involved once they could control their population. Well, not implied. Rather that's just what could be inferred from the scene.

As Manchu said earlier, they might be laying some groundwork there for a sequel. You're right...they spent a little time on the colony deaths and they're portrayed as being mysterious, but then nothing's done with it. So it's either a sloppy throwaway or a little seed being planted. I lean strongly toward the latter given how the skeleton they find apparently died screaming and clutching a weapon. They didn't need to show that if it was meant to show a starvation death. Even Zod seems to be a little unnerved by it. So I think it's supposed to suggest that something nasty is out there. Brainiac? Tyranids?

 gorgon wrote:
Jor-El specifically cites the solar radiation

Jor-El (AI) also says that the oxygen rich atmosphere enhanced the effects for more then even he expected. The only other Kryptonian that took off their breathing helmet was Zod, and it almost immediately supercharged him.

 gorgon wrote:
Tyranids?

I would watch this.