‘Superman & Batman’ movie will follow ‘Man of Steel’

[Christopher]

...yet at the same time ignore that there is no "realistic" way that Superman could have stopped Zod without killing him...

That's an opinion, not a physically demonstrable fact. Just because the bad guy said killing was the only way, that doesn't mean we or the hero are required to believe him. What kind of superhero story ends with the hero surrendering to the villain's worldview? That's getting it backward. Villains are always trying to impose their cynical, violence-justifying narratives onto events, insisting that their way is the only way, but heroes generally reject those narratives and demonstrate the power of their own, more positive narratives. (Imagine if Return of the Jedi had ended with Luke deciding that Palpatine was right and he should just kill Vader.) Regardless of the morality of killing, Superman letting Zod's worldview win out is a failure for Superman as a character. Which is a pretty crappy way to end his debut story.

See, the problem with the whole "the character had no choice because of the circumstances" argument is that the characters and their circumstances don't exist. They're created by the writers, and the writers absolutely have the choice to make things happen differently. So I'm not criticizing the choice of an imaginary Kryptonian orphan. I'm criticizing the choice of David Goyer and Zack Snyder to construct the story in a way that would force Superman to kill. They didn't have to do that. They had the freedom to end the story in any number of different ways, and they chose to go with that one. And I have every right to disagree with that creative choice. Just as I have the right to disagree with their choice to create a climax that would destroy most of Metropolis for no story-relevant reason whatsoever and leave Superman helpless to prevent it.

So no, there is no contradiction there. In both cases, it's a disagreement with the creative choices of Messrs. Goyer and Snyder, their desire to do a gritty, cynical disaster-porn story that deconstructed Superman rather than a story that embraced and celebrated what Superman represents.

 

[DWF]

Killing Zod created a moral dilemma for Superman and in the lead to events in BVS. But the arrival of the Krytonians on earth was the result of holo Jor-El and obviously MOS was written with sequels in mind.

 

[DWF]

So no, there is no contradiction there. In both cases, it's a disagreement with the creative choices of Messrs. Goyer and Snyder, their desire to do a gritty, cynical disaster-porn story that deconstructed Superman rather than a story that embraced and celebrated what Superman represents.

You must know and understand that whatever Superman represents to you is merely an opinion and isn't representive of everybody.

In Superman Returns we learn that Superman fathered a child out of wedlock and the movie ended he failed to live up to his responsibilites as a father. I think the Superman we saw in Superman Returns was far worse than anything we saw in MOS.

 

[dahj]

(Imagine if Return of the Jedi had ended with Luke deciding that Palpatine was right and he should just kill Vader.)

Your SW analogy is flawed. Vader was defeated and helpless when Luke chose to spare his life, Zod was not. Also, Luke killed a whole bunch of people but that's beside the point right now...

So no, there is no contradiction there. In both cases, it's a disagreement with the creative choices of Messrs. Goyer and Snyder, their desire to do a gritty, cynical disaster-porn story that deconstructed Superman rather than a story that embraced and celebrated what Superman represents.

You can disagree with their choices, but their choices are consistent within the story they told, while your criticism is not, insisting or realism in one area you have a problem with(destruction), whilst disregarding that same realism in another area you have a problem with(killing Zod).

I don't particularly like Man of Steel myself, but I object to people using double standards when discussing things they do or don't like. The whole attack on Metropolis sequence isn't any longer than the attack on New York in the first Avengers, yet Avengers get a free pass because we're somehow supposed to believe that the Chitauri didn't kill anyone and just waited patiently in line while the Avengers got to them one by one so it's a "fun action sequence", but when it comes to MoS it's "disaster porn" just because there aren't any jokes thrown in while this horrible thing is happening.

 

[Christopher]

Your SW analogy is flawed. Vader was defeated and helpless when Luke chose to spare his life, Zod was not.

Again, though, that's because the writers of those respective stories chose to set them up in a way that would produce the desired narrative resolutions. That's the analogy. You keep arguing based on the events within the story as if they were real and predestined, but the writers made them up, and it's their choices that I'm discussing.

You can disagree with their choices, but their choices are consistent within the story they told, while your criticism is not, insisting or realism in one area you have a problem with(destruction), whilst disregarding that same realism in another area you have a problem with(killing Zod).

I made one mention of the word "realistic" to illustrate one minor detail in the larger discourse, and for some reason you've fixated on that detail as the entire basis of my argument. That makes no sense. I merely cited that estimate of the death toll as an illustration of the gratuitous excess of the destruction and the disproportion between what was shown onscreen and what was evidently intended in the story.

I don't particularly like Man of Steel myself, but I object to people using double standards when discussing things they do or don't like.

Then it's a good thing that's not what I'm actually doing.

The whole attack on Metropolis sequence isn't any longer than the attack on New York in the first Avengers, yet Avengers get a free pass because we're somehow supposed to believe that the Chitauri didn't kill anyone

That is a complete straw man. Obviously the Chitauri killed plenty of people. The difference is that the filmmakers gave a damn about it. The difference is that Whedon showed us the civilians and their reactions, grounded the destruction in something with an emotional and human context that we could relate to, and showed the heroes' attempts to rescue civilians as a crucial and central part of the action. Conversely, Snyder all but ignored the human dimension of the destruction and had his "hero" ignore it as well, and that meant it was nothing more than superficial computer-animated spectacle with no grounding in story, character, or emotion. And that made it tedious, soulless, and gratuitous.

You might try actually listening to other people's positions before you decide to condemn them. Especially in the holiday season. For my own part, I'm walking away, since I have no interest in feeding an unnecessary confrontation.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Avengers is an example of how to do that sort of sequence right. It wasn't a grim, relentless, pointless assault on our senses. The focus was on the heroes in action, not the destruction, and the action in that sequence was nicely paced and broken up into distinct segments. The action in Avengers was tailored to serve the characters, whereas Superman got lost in his own film.

In Superman Returns we learn that Superman fathered a child out of wedlock and the movie ended he failed to live up to his responsibilites as a father.

SR was a deeply flawed film, but I had no problem with that aspect of it. What they were going for there was that Superman would be the Jor-El figure in his son's life, and Richard (?) White would be the Jonathan Kent figure.

(Yeah, a couple of names have fallen out of my brain.)

 

[Nerys Myk]

In Superman Returns we learn that Superman fathered a child out of wedlock and the movie ended he failed to live up to his responsibilites as a father. I think the Superman we saw in Superman Returns was far worse than anything we saw in MOS.

Not to derail, but explain this to me. How did he fail? The end of the film is when he discovers Jason is his son. There's no time to explore "fatherhood" at that point. He also had no idea Lois was pregnant when he left Earth and Lois kept Jason's parentage from him when he returned, so again no chance to be a parent.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Jason, thank you! I'm in the minority, but I would like to have seen where Singer planned to go with that angle. With the Jason story, he was daring to go someplace new with the Superman mythos, in stark contrast to the rest of the film being a virtual remake of the Donner film.

 

[dahj]

You might try actually listening to other people's positions before you decide to condemn them. Especially in the holiday season. For my own part, I'm walking away, since I have no interest in feeding an unnecessary confrontation.

Eh, what just happened? I'm not really sure what was so confrontational about what I said.

My original comment didn't even refer to your thoughts on the matter but to the article that you linked which is rather derisive towards the movie.

I'm not sure why you think I'm condemning you or your opinion, I mostly agree with it, I myself would have liked to see a different, more "Supermany" Superman film.
I do however think that the movie itself is overly condemned not for what it is, but for what it isn't, but should be.

 

[DWF]

In Superman Returns we learn that Superman fathered a child out of wedlock and the movie ended he failed to live up to his responsibilites as a father. I think the Superman we saw in Superman Returns was far worse than anything we saw in MOS.

Not to derail, but explain this to me. How did he fail? The end of the film is when he discovers Jason is his son. There's no time to explore "fatherhood" at that point. He also had no idea Lois was pregnant when he left Earth and Lois kept Jason's parentage from him when he returned, so again no chance to be a parent.

He is Jason's father right? And Lois did tell him that, even Lex figured it out. Richard is left to raise a son who isn't his. How can Lois profess to love Richard without telling the truth? And where's Superman's responsiblity to his son. He irresponsibility includes leaving teh planet allowing LEx to get out of prison. Not only that but Superman is a voyuer in the movie, using his powers to spy on Lois and Richard. Heck, for that matter young Jimmy Olsen isn't above having a liquid lunch in the movie, i guess that means he was well beyond his teenage years.

 

[M.A.C.O.]

Avengers is an example of how to do that sort of sequence right. It wasn't a grim, relentless, pointless assault on our senses. The focus was on the heroes in action, not the destruction, and the action in that sequence was nicely paced and broken up into distinct segments. The action in Avengers was tailored to serve the characters, whereas Superman got lost in his own film.

I'd argue the Avengers AOU fight was repetitive and uninteresting. All the drones looked the same and had no fight in them at all. You had non-powered heroes like Widow and Hawkeye oneshotting Ultron bots with the same efficiency and ease that Thor and Iron Man were. I think the X-Men handled an army of robots better in DOFP. There you had a mix and match of powers utilized together in a manner of creative ways, to fight an enemy that could actually punch back. The Avengers were given another punching bag army to fight.

In Superman Returns we learn that Superman fathered a child out of wedlock and the movie ended he failed to live up to his responsibilites as a father.

SR was a deeply flawed film, but I had no problem with that aspect of it. What they were going for there was that Superman would be the Jor-El figure in his son's life, and Richard (?) White would be the Jonathan Kent figure.

(Yeah, a couple of names have fallen out of my brain.)

Jason, thank you! I'm in the minority, but I would like to have seen where Singer planned to go with that angle. With the Jason story, he was daring to go someplace new with the Superman mythos, in stark contrast to the rest of the film being a virtual remake of the Donner film.

Be careful what you wish for. This is the synopsis for the Superman Returns sequel.

http://screenrant.com/bryan-singer-superman-man-steel-brainiac-storyline-rob-91933/


Last year, Singer said that his Superman Returns sequel, which would've also been called Man of Steel, would've looked a lot like Snyder's. Singer wanting his sequel to have more "balls to the wall action". Singer's film would've been an alien invasion movie too. He did the interview in Empire Magazine.

 

[Nerys Myk]

In Superman Returns we learn that Superman fathered a child out of wedlock and the movie ended he failed to live up to his responsibilites as a father. I think the Superman we saw in Superman Returns was far worse than anything we saw in MOS.

Not to derail, but explain this to me. How did he fail? The end of the film is when he discovers Jason is his son. There's no time to explore "fatherhood" at that point. He also had no idea Lois was pregnant when he left Earth and Lois kept Jason's parentage from him when he returned, so again no chance to be a parent.

He is Jason's father right? And Lois did tell him that, even Lex figured it out. Richard is left to raise a son who isn't his. How can Lois profess to love Richard without telling the truth? And where's Superman's responsiblity to his son. He irresponsibility includes leaving teh planet allowing LEx to get out of prison. Not only that but Superman is a voyuer in the movie, using his powers to spy on Lois and Richard. Heck, for that matter young Jimmy Olsen isn't above having a liquid lunch in the movie, i guess that means he was well beyond his teenage years.

At what point did Lois tell him? Do we know he was going to have no presence in Jason's life? Do we know that she was never going to tell Richard? Luthor's been escaping justice for years and now suddenly it's a problem? Never thought of Superman being a voyeur in that scene. Just someone making sure an old friend was okay. A bit stalkerish, maybe. Reeve's Superman peaking at Lois underwear is voyuerish. Jimmy probably hasn't been portrayed as a teenager since the 1950s. He's usually a young man in his early twenties. So more than old enough to drink at lunch or any other time.

 

[Christopher]

Avengers is an example of how to do that sort of sequence right. It wasn't a grim, relentless, pointless assault on our senses. The focus was on the heroes in action, not the destruction, and the action in that sequence was nicely paced and broken up into distinct segments. The action in Avengers was tailored to serve the characters, whereas Superman got lost in his own film.

I'd argue the Avengers AOU fight was repetitive and uninteresting. All the drones looked the same and had no fight in them at all. You had non-powered heroes like Widow and Hawkeye oneshotting Ultron bots with the same efficiency and ease that Thor and Iron Man were.

Well, he was talking about the first Avengers film, as I was. AOU is another matter. But whatever its problems, the climax of AOU was even more focused on saving lives than that of the previous Avengers, and that was its strength. The destruction wasn't just an exercise in computer animation, it was a peril to ordinary people that the heroes were fighting to protect, and that protection drove the action. That's what superhero stories should be, and it's what too many moviemakers get wrong. Superheroes are ideally treated as rescuers first and fighters second. Even when they're fighting the bad guys, the focus should remain on the people they're fighting for, not just the fight itself. (That's why I like it that CBS released that recent Supergirl promo that presented action excerpts from the show with a running tally of "Lives Saved." The numbers were rather inflated, I thought, but the emphasis was in the right place.)

What I particularly love are those scenes that make it reciprocal -- that let the civilians be not just bystanders or passive victims, but heroes in their own right, inspired by the superhero and trying to help them in turn. Like in Superman II when the crowd thought that Zod's trio had killed Superman (though I'm not sure why they thought being hit by a bus would faze him much) and made a futile but noble effort to charge them. Or in the climax of Spider-Man when the New Yorkers started throwing things at the Green Goblin and chastising him for trying to hurt their fellow New Yorkers. Or, of course, the beautiful elevated train sequence in Spider-Man 2. Even the deeply flawed Superman Returns has one of its best moments after Superman falls back to Earth and is rushed to the hospital, the people of Metropolis trying to save him as he's so often saved them. Scenes like this underline that what defines superheroes is the compassion and courage they inspire in ordinary people.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Be careful what you wish for. This is the synopsis for the Superman Returns sequel.

http://screenrant.com/bryan-singer-superman-man-steel-brainiac-storyline-rob-91933/

OK, that seems...problematic at best. Definitely a waste to establish Jason just to go and kill him...and having Superman kill his own kid would have been a lot worse than the Zod thing. Regarding which, for the record, I'm so/so--I get what they were trying to do there, but as with so many other things in the film the excecution, if you'll pardon the expression, was lacking.

 

[DWF]

Not to derail, but explain this to me. How did he fail? The end of the film is when he discovers Jason is his son. There's no time to explore "fatherhood" at that point. He also had no idea Lois was pregnant when he left Earth and Lois kept Jason's parentage from him when he returned, so again no chance to be a parent.

He is Jason's father right? And Lois did tell him that, even Lex figured it out. Richard is left to raise a son who isn't his. How can Lois profess to love Richard without telling the truth? And where's Superman's responsiblity to his son. He irresponsibility includes leaving teh planet allowing LEx to get out of prison. Not only that but Superman is a voyuer in the movie, using his powers to spy on Lois and Richard. Heck, for that matter young Jimmy Olsen isn't above having a liquid lunch in the movie, i guess that means he was well beyond his teenage years.

At what point did Lois tell him? Do we know he was going to have no presence in Jason's life? Do we know that she was never going to tell Richard? Luthor's been escaping justice for years and now suddenly it's a problem? Never thought of Superman being a voyeur in that scene. Just someone making sure an old friend was okay. A bit stalkerish, maybe. Reeve's Superman peaking at Lois underwear is voyuerish. Jimmy probably hasn't been portrayed as a teenager since the 1950s. He's usually a young man in his early twenties. So more than old enough to drink at lunch or any other time.

Lois whispered it to him in the hospital and really after ten yearsand still hadn't told Ricard the truth she even agred to marry him. And really it all doesn't matter since they were going to kill off Jason anyway solving the problem.

Oddly enough the bartender in Jimmiy and Clark's lunch scene was a former Jimmy Olsen.

 

[M.A.C.O.]

Avengers is an example of how to do that sort of sequence right. It wasn't a grim, relentless, pointless assault on our senses. The focus was on the heroes in action, not the destruction, and the action in that sequence was nicely paced and broken up into distinct segments. The action in Avengers was tailored to serve the characters, whereas Superman got lost in his own film.

I'd argue the Avengers AOU fight was repetitive and uninteresting. All the drones looked the same and had no fight in them at all. You had non-powered heroes like Widow and Hawkeye oneshotting Ultron bots with the same efficiency and ease that Thor and Iron Man were.

Well, he was talking about the first Avengers film, as I was. AOU is another matter. But whatever its problems, the climax of AOU was even more focused on saving lives than that of the previous Avengers, and that was its strength. The destruction wasn't just an exercise in computer animation, it was a peril to ordinary people that the heroes were fighting to protect, and that protection drove the action. That's what superhero stories should be, and it's what too many moviemakers get wrong. Superheroes are ideally treated as rescuers first and fighters second. Even when they're fighting the bad guys, the focus should remain on the people they're fighting for, not just the fight itself. (That's why I like it that CBS released that recent Supergirl promo that presented action excerpts from the show with a running tally of "Lives Saved." The numbers were rather inflated, I thought, but the emphasis was in the right place.)

You're right of course, and AoU was crafted in response to the mass destruction scenes in MOS, and Transformers 3. The trade off though, is that the Avengers did so against a cannon fodder army. The second one they have fought. There is no sense of peril for the heroes because the villains are just there to get beat up. The same thing can be said about the battle droids from the Star Wars Prequels and the legions of Orcs from the Hobbit trilogy. There's no tension when the main enemy forces are totally ineffective. Anyone can look like a hero when you're facing an army of level 1 grunts.

What I particularly love are those scenes that make it reciprocal -- that let the civilians be not just bystanders or passive victims, but heroes in their own right, inspired by the superhero and trying to help them in turn. Like in Superman II when the crowd thought that Zod's trio had killed Superman (though I'm not sure why they thought being hit by a bus would faze him much) and made a futile but noble effort to charge them. Or in the climax of Spider-Man when the New Yorkers started throwing things at the Green Goblin and chastising him for trying to hurt their fellow New Yorkers. Or, of course, the beautiful elevated train sequence in Spider-Man 2. Even the deeply flawed Superman Returns has one of its best moments after Superman falls back to Earth and is rushed to the hospital, the people of Metropolis trying to save him as he's so often saved them. Scenes like this underline that what defines superheroes is the compassion and courage they inspire in ordinary people.

There were no civilian heroes in AoU, to my recollection, but SHIELD coming in to save the day was nice.

Be careful what you wish for. This is the synopsis for the Superman Returns sequel.

http://screenrant.com/bryan-singer-superman-man-steel-brainiac-storyline-rob-91933/

OK, that seems...problematic at best. Definitely a waste to establish Jason just to go and kill him...and having Superman kill his own kid would have been a lot worse than the Zod thing. Regarding which, for the record, I'm so/so--I get what they were trying to do there, but as with so many other things in the film the excecution, if you'll pardon the expression, was lacking.

Oh I here you. Can you imagine that though? Think of the huge furor that was raised over Superman killing a murderous villain like Zod, in defense of humanity.Then imagine how audiences would've reacted to Superman killing his own son, who would've been under the age of 10.

It all stems from Singer's interpretation of the character. An interpretation he based largely on the Donner movies, and not the comics and animated shows which had evolved beyond the 1978 characterization. Singer's interpretation focuses on the 'will they, won't they' drama of Superman and Lois. It's why Superman Returns opens with Kal being absent from Earth for 5 years, because it keeps Superman and Lois apart. However, the final line in Superman II (1980) was "I won't let you down again". Returns has Lois happily engaged and raising a child with another man. In Singer's MOS, killing Jason was have facilitated keeping Supes and Lois apart. Because, how could they ever reconcile after something like that?

It's drama for the sake of drama, and really out of character for Superman. Anyone who reads the comics knows that Supes has no trouble having relationships with women. All both parties have to do is talk about being together, and they would be.

But these are just more problems that Superman Returns had. TPTB likely foresaw the problems and cancelled the sequels before they began production.

Remember, WB's planned schedule was:

Batman Begins (2005)
Superman Returns (2006)
The Dark Knight (2008)
Man of Steel (2009)
Batman/Superman (2012)

^ Right on time for the Avengers (2012). Instead we got The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

 

[eyeresist]

...yet at the same time ignore that there is no "realistic" way that Superman could have stopped Zod without killing him...

That's an opinion, not a physically demonstrable fact. Just because the bad guy said killing was the only way, that doesn't mean we or the hero are required to believe him. What kind of superhero story ends with the hero surrendering to the villain's worldview? That's getting it backward. Villains are always trying to impose their cynical, violence-justifying narratives onto events, insisting that their way is the only way, but heroes generally reject those narratives and demonstrate the power of their own, more positive narratives.

In the real world, sometimes you have to kill the bad guy. The alternative you ask for, where the hero wears a white hat and always lucks into a no-kill solution to the problem of a homicidal maniac, is far from realistic, and has no relevance to an adult audience.

 

[theenglish]

...yet at the same time ignore that there is no "realistic" way that Superman could have stopped Zod without killing him...

That's an opinion, not a physically demonstrable fact. Just because the bad guy said killing was the only way, that doesn't mean we or the hero are required to believe him. What kind of superhero story ends with the hero surrendering to the villain's worldview? That's getting it backward. Villains are always trying to impose their cynical, violence-justifying narratives onto events, insisting that their way is the only way, but heroes generally reject those narratives and demonstrate the power of their own, more positive narratives.

In the real world, sometimes you have to kill the bad guy. The alternative you ask for, where the hero wears a white hat and always lucks into a no-kill solution to the problem of a homicidal maniac, is far from realistic, and has no relevance to an adult audience.

That's Bulls**t. We're talking about a story where writers are in charge of the situation. We're not debating reality. How the story is written is entirely dependent on how it is written.

For example:
Easily in Man of Steel, the story could have set up that Kal placed a Phantom Zone projector in Metropolis upon returning from the other side of the world. The ending could have been Superman tossing Zod back into the Phantom Zone rather than snapping his neck.

Superman has always been about outsmarting his foes, not beating them by sheer strength. That was what was shocking about the Death of Superman storyline--Doomsday was a foe he could not outwit.

 

[eyeresist]

In the real world, sometimes you have to kill the bad guy. The alternative you ask for, where the hero wears a white hat and always lucks into a no-kill solution to the problem of a homicidal maniac, is far from realistic, and has no relevance to an adult audience.

That's Bulls**t. We're talking about a story where writers are in charge of the situation. We're not debating reality. How the story is written is entirely dependent on how it is written.

For example:
Easily in Man of Steel, the story could have set up that Kal placed a Phantom Zone projector in Metropolis upon returning from the other side of the world. The ending could have been Superman tossing Zod back into the Phantom Zone rather than snapping his neck.

Superman has always been about outsmarting his foes, not beating them by sheer strength. That was what was shocking about the Death of Superman storyline--Doomsday was a foe he could not outwit.

You're asking for a fairy tale in which moral dilemmas are solved by magic.

P.S. Thanks for the gratuitous abusive language.

 

[Taylirious]

It was his first day!!!