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

Awesome!

 

Well I suppose he could have done a choke hold on Zod until he passed out, but given their superhuman powers (and their proven ability to hold their breath even in outer space) it's doubtful that would have been very effective.

Plus Zod was threatening to fry the poor family unless Superman killed him, so it's not like he had a ton of time to think of an alternative anyway.

 

I see. Just like those who criticize NuKirk for not behaving the way TOS Kirk would in a given situation, you fail to account for the fact that, in each case with the new takes on these characters on film, they are JUST STARTING OUT. We're not getting them in their prime, fully formed and battle-tested many times. We're getting them as rookies, stumbling, making mistakes, doing the best they can under the circumstances and showing they still have much to learn.

I get that some people don't necessarily want stories set at that point in the character's history. I get that some people would make different choices as to how they portray those characters at that point in their history. But it's lazy and disingenuous to criticize characters for making rookie mistakes because their more experienced versions wouldn't do so--and such criticisms underlie much of the complaints lobbed at each character's behaviour.

In MOS, Superman is basically at his first day on the job. That bears repeating. His. First. Day. Considering what and whom he has to battle and overcome, it's rather remarkable the destruction was not a lot more significant and that Superman only killed Zod.

We're so used to seeing Superman and Kirk in their prime (the former is overwhelmingly so in the bulk of all his iterations, comics, small and large screen--the latter through nearly 50 years of repetition on the small screen and in most of the print versions) that we have a default expectation of watching them "at their best". In the case of Trek, it seems we can accept them at "less than their best" because, for so long, the same actors played the roles well past what would be expected of heroic characters in terms of age. In NuTrek and MOS, though, it seems some people simply cannot abide the filmmakers' choice to present us with these characters as rookies.

If Superman goes on to snap someone's neck as a matter of routine behaviour in several movies going forward, then fine, it will be worthy of complaining about distorting the character too much. But if it becomes a learning moment on the path to a more polished hero as he gains experience and maturity, then it becomes something of a minor nitpick to complain of it.

In the end, it is far more interesting to watch characters develop over the course of time as they learn from their mistakes and become better at what they do than it is to watch fully-formed, flawless characters who never make mistakes.

 

Guess what? In the original Superman film, we also got Superman on his first day on the job. This bears repeating. His. First. Day. And we got someone who I would proudly call a hero, someone who was well-mannered, heroic, a bit witty, and most of all, someone everyone could look up as a hero. He was also someone who had authority. "Gentlemen, this man needs help."

I'm sorry, that's the character of Superman.. the true hero.. take it or leave.. and Goyer left it

 

After years of instruction from Jor-El, and he eased into things as Superman with very easy undertakings before facing his first major test.

 

Nope. Well, ok. First day (well, really more like first month, but I'll give it to you). But two important caveats. One--Luthor's scheme, while a serious problem, was not nearly the threat that faced MOS Superman--not even close. Two--Donner's Superman spent YEARS (over a decade) in the Fortress of Solitude learning from Jor-El. MOS Superman, about a couple of hours with the holographic AI Jor-El. BIG difference.

 

And this.

 

^^^Also it should be said Reeve Superman had Silver Age powers which include time travel. Something we saw used in Superman 1978, by Superman to change something he didn't like (Lois' Death). Making the whole fiasco of Superman flying around California saving people and diverting Hoover Dam redundant, if Superman could just undo it by travelling back to before it all falls apart, which he does. If MOS had pulled a time travel fix to everything that caused by General Zod and his followers, audiences would have SCREAMED deus ex machina and or plot immunit.

 

TGhe point is, back then trhey knew how to write the character. You don't write Jason Voorhees as a guy with regrets, and you don't write Superman as someone who allows buildings to be leveled.

And that family... how am I supposed to care about that no-name family when Snyder didn't care enough to establish even them reacting to what happened.. or to even show them at all when it was all over. The "family" was a contrived way to to create a circumstance in which Superman would kill Zod and did not evolve organically from a desire to write Superman correctly.

 

Unless Superman took out the world ship more buildings would've been leveled. Taking out the world ship allowed the Krytonians to be removd to the Phantom zone.

 

they wrote the scenario.. and the resolution to it.. one in which the could roll up this classic character like a wad of paper and toss him in the trash

 

No, it came from a desire to present Superman with a difficult choice we don't typically see him make (and yes, killing somebody was clearly a difficult thing that he did NOT want to do), and to make it clear that this is a character who takes this kind of action VERY seriously (given the anguish and look of defeat afterwards that we don't typically see from a Batman or Iron Man after killing their enemies).

And please, most superhero movies are contrived as hell and put their characters into all kinds of ridiculous, unlikely situations in order to "test" them. This one was no different in that regard.

 

This is Superman .. the purest character in all of comic books... they should have owned it, not made it some dark emo conflicted thing.

 

Superman has been many things over the years. The "purest character in all of comic books" lasted about 20 years and represented the most boring period of his run in comics (moreover, it was imposed by overzealous, self-appointed guardians of The Way Things Ought To Be--before and after the most stifling shackles of the early 50s to the early 70s, he was a much more interesting--and flawed--character).

There is no one "right way" to write Superman, or any other character that is not exclusive to one author (even the latter case is not necessarily restricted to "one right way", though the author does have much more say in the matter). You are free to dislike the choices made by these filmmakers but to claim that there is only one way to approach Superman as a character is, frankly, absurd.

 

The animated series managed to do it.

 

No. What they managed was to present one of many possible approaches to the character. In no way did that series have a monopoly on how to present Superman.

 

Why would he? The World Engine was already destroyed. No reason to protect it.

 

He said he'd destroy humanity, and no one has any good reason to disbelieve that.

Superman has gotten a lot more interesting since the Byrne reboot in the mid-80s threw out a lot of the fossilized nonsense that had accreted to the character during the previous three decades. There's no reason at all for filmmakers now to ape the attitudes and portrayal of Superman from the old Christopher Reeve films. This version has a lot more dramatic potential than that.

Which is a good thing, since this is the version you'll get.

 

<shrugs> Doesn't change the fact that the animated series nailed the character. Tons of drama, tons of action, tons of actual heroics, tons of Superman being an actual superman.

Anyone can write a character anyway they want to. Doesn't mean they're doing a good job of it. Such as, you know, taking a superhero that all the other superheroes look up to as the epitome of what it means to be one, and making him a douchebag killer.

 

Well, then stop him from flying back. That's why you're Superman.

Well, I don't need the boyscout depiction either - though I thought when he asked the soldier he'd caught if he was all right that was a nice touch. Being raised as Clark Kent is supposed to have rooted him in that sort of attitude for the most part. Otherwise, what's the point of being raised on Earth?