MAN OF STEEL - Grading & Discussion

[Greg Cox]

If anyone's interested, another SUPERMAN interview just turned up:

http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/fe...view-with-man-of-steel-novelizer-greg-cox.php

 

[DEWLine]

I don't buy the "5,000" count either. Not with multiple buildings in the first 30 seconds.

 

[JarodRussell]

Now the script of Man of Steel... Christopher brought up a point that if you just read a transcript, you would not know what was going on at the end battle of the film.

How is that battle described in the script? Or did they just write "Superman and Zod go at each other and wreck the city." and the rest was fleshed out in the storyboards, etc...?

Like, in the first Lord of the Rings film, the script only said (paraphrased) "the fellowship makes their way to the bridge of Khazad dum", and the whole sequence with the destroyed stairway was created on the run, so to speak, during the storyboard phase.

 

[Samurai8472]

That's an even bigger pile of bullshit. First, Man of Steel ends in the Daily Planet and everyone acts like nothing at all happened. Second, Avengers was a lot more concerned with the people in comparison. Almost everyone of the Avengers is shown to help innocent bystanders, and at the end of it all, we see a montage of interviews with New Yorkers. And New York isn't even trashed as much as Metropolis either.

Which brings me to the end. Superman goes from screaming his lungs out to swatting a UAV that the Military was using(which we the audience are supposed to chuckle at)


The movie didn't know whether end on a somber note or uplifting note

It's almost a whiplash effect.

 

[DEWLine]

Guessing that we're talking about the passage of some time between those two scenes. Exactly - or even roughly - how much is left unclear. I'd be tempted to say "months", to allow for Clark getting anything resembling enough of a paper trail to qualify as a "stringer" for Daily Planet purposes.

 

[JarodRussell]

The film lacked some sort of montage at the end that shows Superman helping the military and rescuers clearing up the damage, etc... something that shows a passage of time.

 

[TheSeeker]

Now the script of Man of Steel... Christopher brought up a point that if you just read a transcript, you would not know what was going on at the end battle of the film.

I'm sorry, but of all of his complaints that has go to be the weakest of the bunch.

Movies are visual medium, as are comic books. Telling a story without dialogue is perfectly reasonable. We used to have these things called silent movies. Ring a bell?

Even more recently we've had movies like Castaway where there is very little dialogue for long stretches. Going by Christopher's complaint you'd have no idea what was going on there either if you just went by a direct transcript, but unless you are blind you would have known exactly what was going on.

I get that a lot of people weren't fond of the movie, and that's their right, but complaining that you wouldn't know what's going on in a movie based solely on a direct transcript is a pretty weak complaint.

 

[JarodRussell]

Now the script of Man of Steel... Christopher brought up a point that if you just read a transcript, you would not know what was going on at the end battle of the film.

I'm sorry, but of all of his complaints that has go to be the weakest of the bunch.

Movies are visual medium, as are comic books. Telling a story without dialogue is perfectly reasonable. We used to have these things called silent movies. Ring a bell?

Even more recently we've had movies like Castaway where there is very little dialogue for long stretches. Going by Christopher's complaint you'd have no idea what was going on there either if you just went by a direct transcript, but unless you are blind you would have known exactly what was going on.

I get that a lot of people weren't fond of the movie, and that's their right, but complaining that you wouldn't know what's going on in a movie based solely on a direct transcript is a pretty weak complaint.

That it was a complaint of his wasn't even part of my question. I'm just wondering how detailed the script was.

 

[TheSeeker]

Fair enough. I had meant to address that complaint of Christopher's earlier and had not gotten around to it. Your post just reminded me of that.

 

[Corran Horn]

I don't buy the "5,000" count either. Not with multiple buildings in the first 30 seconds.

Yeah, I don't buy that. Multiple skyscrapers were flattened in seconds.

I actually like Synder but he couldn't have been more wrong in using Avengers as an example. As others have posted, there are multiple scenes of the heroes helping people.

Heck, in Superman Returns you see Supes using heat vision to irradiated some debris that's about to hit people.

Personally, I thought the best damn scene in Man of Steel was when he caught that soldier and asked if he was ok and that was in the damn trailer.

 

[TheSeeker]

Despite how much I like Man of Steel I still think my favourite Superman moment is from Superman Returns when he rescues the space shuttle and plane from crashing. The first thing I thought of when I saw that was the space plane scene from John Byrne's Man of Steel mini-series.

 

[Kelthaz]

Personally, I thought the best damn scene in Man of Steel was when he caught that soldier and asked if he was ok and that was in the damn trailer.

I liked when he saved the oil workers.

 

[Skywalker]

I do think the end with Superman destroying the UAV, Clark talking with Martha and then getting his job at the Daily Planet, was all meant to take place at least a couple of months after the battle in Metropolis. The area around the Daily Planet building was just so devastated that I can't imagine everyone being back at work and joking around with each other just a few days later. But the filmmakers could have done a better job of showing us the passage of time. We didn't need a montage of Superman helping to clean up Metropolis, but doing something to make the timeline more clear probably would have cut down on a lot of the confusion/criticism the ending generated.

 

[TheMasterOfOrion]

I like Superman, I think the story can work on cinmea again and maybe needs to be modernized but this was the wrong way to do the movie

honest trailer

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sge5sUNJkiY[/yt]

...

 

[Corran Horn]

Despite how much I like Man of Steel I still think my favourite Superman moment is from Superman Returns when he rescues the space shuttle and plane from crashing. The first thing I thought of when I saw that was the space plane scene from John Byrne's Man of Steel mini-series.

I agree. I've DVR'd it and the kids and I have watched it many times.

Personally, I thought the best damn scene in Man of Steel was when he caught that soldier and asked if he was ok and that was in the damn trailer.

I liked when he saved the oil workers.

I enjoyed that as well, but he wasn't in the suit and it lacked that for a Superman moment for me.

 

[davejames]

Just a simple establishing shot of the city from above, showing construction crews working on buildings or cleaning up debris, would have been enough afterward. No need for a montage or anything.

As for the Avengers comparison, I think what Snyder was getting at was that MOS was trying to take the alien attack a lot more seriously than the one in Avengers, and not give you the sense afterwards that somehow magically only a handful of people ever died throughout the whole thing.

The feeling at the end (at least before the jump ahead in time) is much more somber and heavy, as you would expect it to be. Not fun and jokey with everyone going out for shawarma afterwards.

 

[DEWLine]

When I think of the deleted scenes from Avengers - the ones where the dead civilians and the killing of civilians were shown - that comparison...well. The shawarma scene had the Avengers all looking dead-tired at that dinner table for reasons.

 

[JarodRussell]

When I think of the deleted scenes from Avengers - the ones where the dead civilians and the killing of civilians were shown - that comparison...well. The shawarma scene had the Avengers all looking dead-tired at that dinner table for reasons.

Heck, originally, the film was supposed to start with the aftermath of the battle in New York, with officials wanting to see Nick Fury's head roll. Just like in the real world, the Avengers weren't considered heroes, they were blamed for the destruction. And the deleted scenes show a lot of the civilian's perspectives of the battle. So from Joss Whedon's point of view, it was ALL about the disaster and how the world dealt with it. So Snyder's remark is pretty much ill-informed.

 

[TheSeeker]

Personally, I thought the best damn scene in Man of Steel was when he caught that soldier and asked if he was ok and that was in the damn trailer.

I liked when he saved the oil workers.

I enjoyed that as well, but he wasn't in the suit and it lacked that for a Superman moment for me.

I actually liked that he wasn't in the suit. Aside from Smallville, we've really never gotten to seen Clark do his thing before he became Superman. I always liked the idea that he was a world traveller helping people out wherever he was and was happy to see that aspect of his life on screen.

 

[davejames]

Heck, originally, the film was supposed to start with the aftermath of the battle in New York, with officials wanting to see Nick Fury's head roll. Just like in the real world, the Avengers weren't considered heroes, they were blamed for the destruction. And the deleted scenes show a lot of the civilian's perspectives of the battle. So from Joss Whedon's point of view, it was ALL about the disaster and how the world dealt with it. So Snyder's remark is pretty much ill-informed.

Well sure, maybe they had all that cool and interesting stuff in the deleted scenes. But I'm talking about the theatrical release that everyone actually saw.