I watched the finale again recently and I still really enjoyed it, it was a bit heavy in the plot stuff and it took Clark way too long to do something about the ball of evil crashing into the planet, but in the end I still enjoyed the "reveal" of Superman.
There was just something about the way it was set-up (with Superman being the only one who could inspire the darkness out of the population) and watching Clark/Superman rescue the plan then flying to stop Apocolypse was just... nifty.
I do wish we had gotten that "inspirational" moment with maybe Clark coming back down after pushing away the ball, landing on top of the Daily Planet in front of the globe, doing the Superman hands-on-hips pose and then the population cheering and the "darkness" being inspired away, us only seeing "Superman" from the perspective of the street people looking up at the bold figure on the building partly shadowed by sunlight, the camera then could've tracked up and behind Superman to show him from behind with the cape blowing in the wind with the Welling-like figure standing there still mostly in shadow due to the sunset; the camera continues to turn to show off Superman in all his glory and as it does we fad/dissolve to the comic-book picture of Superman, rather than actually seeing Welling as him.
I think a more inspirational/Superman moment could have been shown. I "get" that Superman wasn't supposed to be fully seen, or that Welling wasn't ever supposed to be Superman because that's not what Smalllville's journey was about but I also think a bit more could've been shown and that "inspiring the darkness" moment could've been better. The people of Metropolis pretty much see "The Blur" fly by and then the "asteroid" simply moving away, hard to fully understand how they were inspired when not much was seen of their hero.
But I still am satisfied with the ending and the "typical Superman" scene at the end along with the one, and only, Superman theme playing was just pure geekdom awesomeness.
The video posted above show typical nerdy types panting, and OMG'ing over those moments and, well, I was doing that too. Not out loud, not obviously, but during that last scene I was just reminded of how awesome Superman is.
I think the "reveal" of Superman was fairly well done overall, maybe an 8 out of 10, but it could've been a bit "more" inspirational in showing him off.
