MAN OF STEEL - Grading & Discussion

[Admiral Buzzkill]

If he can do it, it's a power.

Did you know that there was a time when Superman didn't have "heat vision?" He heated things up with his "x-ray vision."

Back in the day, Flash needed a special treadmill to break the time barrier. Dunno what he's up to now.

 

[Trekker4747]

Back in the day, Flash needed a special treadmill to break the time barrier. Dunno what he's up to now.

Well, he runs around the Earth real fast reversing its rotation through inertial drag...

 

[sojourner]

If he can do it, it's a power.

Not in the sense that it's an "innate ability of kryptonians". It's taking advantage of a side effect of superspeed. He uses superspeed to achieve time travel. He doesn't use time travel to achieve superspeed.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

(which is obvious from the start when see a Krypton that seems to exist more in another dimension or plane of existence than simply a neighboring galaxy).

Never got that impression myself...

Really? Between the trippy space effects, the music, and the design of Krypton as this white crystal heaven in the clouds (which Donner has said in the past was part of their whole Superman-as-Christ theme), I thought it was hard to miss.

I don't think the movies were saying he was literally from another plane or anything, but I think they wanted it to at least feel somewhat like that.

I agree. The problem with movies today is that everything has to be literal. People can't expand in their minds what's implied on screen, and consider the possibilities from there. Unless something is explicitly said, and unless the filmmakers connect every dot, it's not true, and we can't consider it. I always thought, based on various hints, that the Kryptonians have limited control over the fabric of time itself, that they can play with it a bit much like the Builders in The Abyss can plasticize and manipulate water.

 

[davejames]

Hmm, so is this Reeve or Cavill? The people behind the movie still aren't admitting anything (possibly because of rights issues), but it sure looks like more than just a "trick of the eye" to me:

http://i.imgur.com/N4X3eZ0.png
or here:
http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/Mattbracken/news/?a=82258

 

[Trekker4747]

If he can do it, it's a power.

Not in the sense that it's an "innate ability of kryptonians". It's taking advantage of a side effect of superspeed. He uses superspeed to achieve time travel. He doesn't use time travel to achieve superspeed.

Exactly. I mean, almost by the same logic every single one of us are time travelers since your proximity to mass and speed causes you to experience time at a different rate. "Time travel" is a side-effect of Superman going at super-speed, not an innate ability he has. We must also presume it's something that takes great strength and power to do, a "surge of adrenaline", if you will, that he can't just do willy nilly.

 

[Noname Given]

If he can do it, it's a power.

Not in the sense that it's an "innate ability of kryptonians". It's taking advantage of a side effect of superspeed. He uses superspeed to achieve time travel. He doesn't use time travel to achieve superspeed.

Exactly. I mean, almost by the same logic every single one of us are time travelers since your proximity to mass and speed causes you to experience time at a different rate. "Time travel" is a side-effect of Superman going at super-speed, not an innate ability he has. We must also presume it's something that takes great strength and power to do, a "surge of adrenaline", if you will, that he can't just do willy nilly.

Well here's the thing - if you watch the 1978 "Superman reverses the rotation of Earth" Time Travel scenes - it does appear he is causing the Earth to rotate in retrograde - it shows him effectively stopping himself in space; then flying in the opposite direction around the Earth to stop the retrograde rotation. There's also intercut scenes that show events reversing themselves.

It thus appears he's not taking himself back in time - but indeed taking the entire planet Earth back in time somehow.

 

[Trekker4747]

To quote Jerry Seinfeld from an "American Express" commercial featuring him and Superman: "No traveling back in time! Do you know how many people you annoyed with the back in time thing?"

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLuPTg8HcMY[/yt]

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Not in the sense that it's an "innate ability of kryptonians". It's taking advantage of a side effect of superspeed. He uses superspeed to achieve time travel. He doesn't use time travel to achieve superspeed.

Exactly. I mean, almost by the same logic every single one of us are time travelers since your proximity to mass and speed causes you to experience time at a different rate. "Time travel" is a side-effect of Superman going at super-speed, not an innate ability he has. We must also presume it's something that takes great strength and power to do, a "surge of adrenaline", if you will, that he can't just do willy nilly.

Well here's the thing - if you watch the 1978 "Superman reverses the rotation of Earth" Time Travel scenes - it does appear he is causing the Earth to rotate in retrograde - it shows him effectively stopping himself in space; then flying in the opposite direction around the Earth to stop the retrograde rotation. There's also intercut scenes that show events reversing themselves.

It thus appears he's not taking himself back in time - but indeed taking the entire planet Earth back in time somehow.

I think the key image in the scene is not him rotating around the earth and whether it is spinning forwards or backwards: the key image is his rage, and his intensity to do something he is forbidden to do. It would be ridiculous to take the lines of him spinning and the globe itself literally. He is turning back time and the images are a not-so-literal means of illustration.

Unfortunately, people have lost their sense of imagination and wonder and take everything they see on film so damn literally...

 

[Noname Given]

Exactly. I mean, almost by the same logic every single one of us are time travelers since your proximity to mass and speed causes you to experience time at a different rate. "Time travel" is a side-effect of Superman going at super-speed, not an innate ability he has. We must also presume it's something that takes great strength and power to do, a "surge of adrenaline", if you will, that he can't just do willy nilly.

Well here's the thing - if you watch the 1978 "Superman reverses the rotation of Earth" Time Travel scenes - it does appear he is causing the Earth to rotate in retrograde - it shows him effectively stopping himself in space; then flying in the opposite direction around the Earth to stop the retrograde rotation. There's also intercut scenes that show events reversing themselves.

It thus appears he's not taking himself back in time - but indeed taking the entire planet Earth back in time somehow.

I think the key image in the scene is not him rotating around the earth and whether it is spinning forwards or backwards: the key image is his rage, and his intensity to do something he is forbidden to do. It would be ridiculous to take the lines of him spinning and the globe itself literally. He is turning back time and the images are a not-so-literal means of illustration.

Unfortunately, people have lost their sense of imagination and wonder and take everything they see on film so damn literally...

^^^
I would accept that if they hadn't made a point of having him stop in space and then fly around the Earth in the opposite direction (along with showing the Earth's rotation changing direction as a result.

 

[Trekker4747]

The problem is you still have to explain the "mechanism" by which he's traveling back in time. They wouldn't have to do this if they hadn't put that bit in there of him going back the otherway, seemingly, resuming Earth's normal rotation (and the normal flow of time.) Without that scene there's no question, well at least fewer questions, on what is happening. He went back in time "somehow." But he didn't do it by (stupidly) reversing the Earth's rotation which many would likely deduce to not only not reverse time but would be devastating to everyone and everything on the planet.

The re-reversing thing ruins everything.

Also until then we can accept that Superman wasn't fast enough to get both missiles but then we see he was more than fast enough to do it.

I like the Donner movie but that causes problems.

Then there's the memory-erasing kiss in the second movie. Ugh. Something else that could've been solved by, I dunno, just seeing making a vial of "something" in the FoS, Lois seeing and asking what it is and Superman saying, "Oh, nothing." And then after the kiss we see him looking at the empty vial in his hand.

Instead we have questions. Hell, why not kiss Lex Luthor and make him forget everything he ever knew so he's not a problem anymore?

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Also until then we can accept that Superman wasn't fast enough to get both missiles but then we see he was more than fast enough to do it.

As has already been said, going that fast meant disobeying Jor-El.

 

[Trekker4747]

Also until then we can accept that Superman wasn't fast enough to get both missiles but then we see he was more than fast enough to do it.

As has already been said, going that fast meant disobeying Jor-El.

No, going fast enough to reverse time and to change the course of human history meant disobeying Jor-El, not going fast enough to get between Point A and Point B in a split second.

 

[davejames]

Then there's the memory-erasing kiss in the second movie. Ugh. Something else that could've been solved by, I dunno, just seeing making a vial of "something" in the FoS, Lois seeing and asking what it is and Superman saying, "Oh, nothing." And then after the kiss we see him looking at the empty vial in his hand.

Instead we have questions. Hell, why not kiss Lex Luthor and make him forget everything he ever knew so he's not a problem anymore?

I don't know. Superman cooking up potions and pouring stuff into vials doesn't really seem to fit the style of the movie all that well.

And besides, it appeared to be very much a last second idea of his anyway. He saw that Lois was torn up and an emotional wreck because of having to keep his secret, and decided to use his powers to make her forget.

I thought it was a fun little scene, and very much in keeping with the kind of powers he had in the comics of the time (although I do think it works better when you see their emotional "break up" scene in the Donner Cut; without it her breakdown seems to come out of nowhere).

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Also until then we can accept that Superman wasn't fast enough to get both missiles but then we see he was more than fast enough to do it.

As has already been said, going that fast meant disobeying Jor-El.

No, going fast enough to reverse time and to change the course of human history meant disobeying Jor-El, not going fast enough to get between Point A and Point B in a split second.

We saw how fast he could go, when he wasn't cutting loose and turning back time. It wasn't fast enough. Cutting loose was a whole new level that he didn't even have any experience with. Jor-El had basically forbidden him from exercising that much power, and Pa had discouraged him too.

If you want to judge the film, based on the idea that Superman can go any speed he wants, no problem, with as much effort and precision as turning a knob, then be my guest!

 

[Trekker4747]

I don't know. Superman cooking up potions and pouring stuff into vials doesn't really seem to fit the style of the movie all that well.

No it doesn't but him just suddenly being able to erase memories with a kiss doesn't really fit either.

And besides, it appeared to be very much a last second idea of his anyway.

As a matter of fact, I believe it very much WAS a last second idea.

 

[Dream]

The one thing that Superman III has over the first two movies is that he doesn't use any stupid powers in it.

But the writers went ahead and gave Superman his "Rebuild the Wall of China" vision in the next movie.

 

[The Old Mixer]

^Not to mention Ring-the-Doorbell-from-the-Inside Vision.

But his time travel in the comics isn't a power per se. It's a side effect of his ability to travel at great speeds. Same as The Flash. It's not like they snap their fingers and appear in another time.

Nor did Superman do so in the 1978 film. His travel through time was also achieved by flying very fast, in circles around the Earth....the best way to go very, very fast without going far away in space.

 

[davejames]

Huh, hard to believe MOS has already made more in 2 weeks ($223 mil) than STID has in 6.

Ok, sorry, back to the STM talk.

 

[marksound]

Huh, hard to believe MOS has already made more in 2 weeks ($223 mil) than STID has in 6.

Ok, sorry, back to the STM talk.

I don't think it's that surprising.