I don't recall Superman expressing any "no kill" rule in Man of Steel.
DC Movies - To Infinity and Beyond
- Thread starter dahj
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I don't recall Superman expressing any "no kill" rule in Man of Steel.
*Sigh*
Or more to the point, because Zod said so and Superman just accepted it without question. Which means that, philosophically, the villain won, even though he died. So the hero's origin movie climaxed with his failure, and made him come off as a weak character who couldn't assert his own philosophy successfully. Regardless of which side of the moral debate one comes down on, it should be clear that that's a poor story structure. Sure, there's room in the world for tragedies, stories where the heroes lose or fail, or where they only succeed by selling out their principles. But is that a good approach for the origin story of a character meant to be the linchpin of a superhero universe?
Trek_God_1,
Instead of returning your invective and escalating it, I am going to end it. Feel free to walk away believing that I never supported my case, as I will walk away believing that you never supported your case. Superman II shows an ambiguous end for the Phantom Zone villains; this is all that can be stated definitively, our opinions notwithstanding, and is not a topic to which I am going to devote any more time.
I genuinely hope you have a great day today, and that you find much joy in all the genres of which you are a fan. Peace.
Instead of returning your invective and escalating it, I am going to end it. Feel free to walk away believing that I never supported my case, as I will walk away believing that you never supported your case. Superman II shows an ambiguous end for the Phantom Zone villains; this is all that can be stated definitively, our opinions notwithstanding, and is not a topic to which I am going to devote any more time.
I genuinely hope you have a great day today, and that you find much joy in all the genres of which you are a fan. Peace.
That's true, but wasn't the point of that story that Superboy was the actual pre-Crisis version through the machinations of the Time Trapper? It's been a long time since I read it, but I thought it was a continuity patch to keep the Legion history (which they later jettisoned and even later than that restored) If so, the physical makeup of Kryptonians and the effects of Green K would be indistinguishable from that of pre-Crisis.
That's the thing about DC continuity: if there's some element you don't like, no worries, it's likely to be changed in the next Crisis
What kind of sigh?
If I remember correctly (it's been a while for me, too), the pocket universe and everyone in it were a creation of the Time Trapper rather than the actual pre-Crisis Superboy and Smallville.That's true, but wasn't the point of that story that Superboy was the actual pre-Crisis version through the machinations of the Time Trapper? It's been a long time since I read it, but I thought it was a continuity patch to keep the Legion history (which they later jettisoned and even later than that restored) If so, the physical makeup of Kryptonians and the effects of Green K would be indistinguishable from that of pre-Crisis.
That's the thing about DC continuity: if there's some element you don't like, no worries, it's likely to be changed in the next Crisis
This scene is dreadful in the new cut. Now we punish people for things they did in a different timeline?
I think at the time Byrne’s retcon was that there was no actual pre-crisis Superboy, it was always a creation of the time-trapper, although it’s arguable that is just how post-crisis Time Trapper remembers it.
This later gets retconned in various ways and a detailed discussion here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/comicbooks..._app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1
Nero approves.
Well, they're bad people.
He doesn't need to say it. Others say it for him.
( Bonus points for calling him "the Superman".
)
That's ... less defensible, but I tend to put it down to structural problems with the reshuffled cut rather than the scene itself.
Yes. It made no sense to put the time-reversal ending in the Donner Cut. The intent was supposed to be to approximate what the completed film would've been under Donner, but the decision to put the time reversal at the end of the first film was already made before the second film was shot. So it violated the goal of the project to reuse it there. It was the biggest misstep they made.
The Donner cut was an interesting hypothetical, but it was a sequel to a Superman movie that never existed. The Donner cut is a sequel to a Superman movie in which the Salkinds do not fire Donner, and Donner does not choose to use time reversal as a finale.
I think the Donner cut would have been more effective if there had been an alternative cut of the first movie included with it, one in which Superman does not reverse time and ends with the missile cracking open the Phantom Zone and the criminals escaping with a To Be Continued title card, which was Donner's initial plan.
I think the Donner cut would have been more effective if there had been an alternative cut of the first movie included with it, one in which Superman does not reverse time and ends with the missile cracking open the Phantom Zone and the criminals escaping with a To Be Continued title card, which was Donner's initial plan.
Except that's not how the timing worked. Donner wasn't fired until three months after the first film was released. It had already been decided before Donner was fired to put the time-warp ending onto the first film and give S2 a different ending. That's why it was a misrepresentation to tack the time-reversal ending onto the Donner Cut. It is not the ending the actual film would have had if Donner had completed it.
I think it was in Donner's commentary or in some interview released around the time of the Donner cut that he described the initial idea of the first movie ending with the missile cracking the Zone and the To Be Continued card, and the subsequent decision to punch up the ending of the first movie with the time reversal and leave off the tag with the villains.
In his commentary on the Donner cut, when asked how he would have ended the movie had he not been fired, Donner responded that he didn't know as it had not been decided yet when he was fired.
In making the Donner cut, he prioritized making use of everything he had completed versus utilizing the Lester material which he did not hold in any esteem. Personally, I would have not used the time reversal and simply allowed the movie to end when Superman returns Lois to her apartment and eliminated the smiling flyby at the very end, which would have been a bit of a downbeat ending but still narratively sound given the events of the movie. It would also have been better than the nonsensical amnesia kiss.
In his commentary on the Donner cut, when asked how he would have ended the movie had he not been fired, Donner responded that he didn't know as it had not been decided yet when he was fired.
In making the Donner cut, he prioritized making use of everything he had completed versus utilizing the Lester material which he did not hold in any esteem. Personally, I would have not used the time reversal and simply allowed the movie to end when Superman returns Lois to her apartment and eliminated the smiling flyby at the very end, which would have been a bit of a downbeat ending but still narratively sound given the events of the movie. It would also have been better than the nonsensical amnesia kiss.
Yes, I know that was the original idea, but the point is that that plan was already changed during the production of the first movie -- which is quite obvious since the first movie, which is 100 percent Richard Donner's work, includes the time-reversal ending. It's a mistake to conflate that change with the different, later set of changes that resulted from Donner being replaced with Lester.
But the indisputable fact remains that it would certainly not have been the time-reversal ending, because they'd already used it in the first one!
Interesting -- that's my choice too. It would mean the film ended with Lois still knowing Clark is Superman, but that's good because it means her mental integrity hasn't been forcibly violated. And Superman III uses Lois so little that it's ambiguous whether she knows or not. In fact, her jealousy of Lana at the end makes more sense if she does remember. (It does contradict The Quest for Peace, but I don't care.)
It matters because you asserted it as an unambiguous fact that Superman killed Zod, and built a whole argument around that revisionist assumption:
This argument is invalid because the foundation it's based on is invalid. It is egregiously false to claim that the movie presents death as something to be celebrated, because it's egregiously false to claim that it explicitly depicts death at all. It is egregiously false to claim that nobody objects to the appearance of Superman killing, as the past few pages of this thread have explicitly demonstrated. So the conclusion you draw about the film's message based on that incredibly clueless misreading of the text is pure pretentious claptrap. "Framing" is irrelevant if you're incorrect about what's inside the frame to begin with.
It absolutely does matter whether your arguments are based on a valid premise or not. Nothing matters more. Garbage in, garbage out.