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Constructive criticism: Man of Steel

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With Superman Returns not being the success Warner Bros hoped for, no more sequels that take place in the Superman universe that Richard Donner created have been made since. But since a reboot worked for the old Dark Knight it could work just as well for the big, blue, flying boy scout.
Superman`s movie franchise got a reboot in a movie directed by Zack Snyder and written by David S Goyer. The result was... a little bit divisive. Some loved it, some hated it but never the less it made money, enough to greenlight a sequel... or rather: a bigger, shared movie universe. Not unlike what they were doing over at Marvel.
Personally I kinda, sorta liked it, at least more than Superman returns. But, like I mentioned in my "More thoughts on Frozen" Editorial where I briefly talked about Avatar, I can see it`s flaws. Otherwise it wouldn`t have ended up here.
Where did it go wrong and how could it have been better?

The S stands for SPOILERS

The colour saturation
With the failure of Green Lantern and the success of The Dark Knight trilogy, the film makers came to the conclusion that future DC movies has to be more "Dark and Serious". Just because it worked for Batman it doesn`t necessarily mean that it would work just as well for their other characters. The tone of the story differs a tiny bit from Batman`s because Superman`s image of a beacon of hope rather than justice lurking in the shadows is heavily ingrained in the public`s perception of him. That left the film makers with one thing left to "darkify": The colours of the movie. A little bit more colour wouldn`t have hurt.

The shaky cam
Usually I don`t care (much) about this, but in this case I noticed it while watching the movie for the first time and it bothered me a little. Less of the shaky cam please.

Johnathan Kent`s advice to young Clark
Young Clark: "What was I supposed to do? Just let them die?"
Jonathan Kent: "Maybe."
He`s not saying "Yes! You should`ve let them die!" So he`s technically not giving him bad advice, but he`s technically not giving him good advice either.
He should have focused on teaching Clark to have a low profile. That doesn`t have to mean that he shouldn`t help. He can still help as long as he does it in secret. So instead he could have said.
"If you`re gonna keep doing this, try not to get seen. Think before you act."
Then he could pause and then add: "But at least your heart was in the right place."
If it was my hypothetical kid from another planet with great powers who did something good and heroic I`d want the discussion to end on a positive note to give him the feeling that technically he did not do a bad thing.

Johnathan Kent`s death
Yes, I get that he did not want Clark to expose himself, but still. He died not because Clark couldn`t save him but because he wouldn`t let him. How about: Jonathan dies from a sickness. Yes it is similar to the Donner version but the difference is that in this version it doesn`t happen as suddenly and Clark gets time to say goodbye to his dad on his death-bed. Jonathan can remind him about the "Think before you act" bit, and say something about how he will change the world.

Lois telling Superman about her mindprobing
Movies are a visual medium and there`s a rule called "show don`t tell". Telling through pictures is a more universal language. Instead of Lois telling Superman what she went through they could have showed it in some way. From what I remember we saw what was going on in Superman`s head when they probed him but not what was going on on the outside. Here`s what they could have done: After we have seen Superman`s little nightmare landscape we could see what is going on outside his body as Zod`s voice keeps talking about how he`s gonna revive Krypton. We see him lying in an alien chair with a mindprobing helmet on and his face twitches as if he`s having a nightmare. Move the camera a bit to the right and we see Lois lying in an alien chair going through the same thing. Cut to: close up of Lois`s face, then cut to: inside Lois`s mind: pretty much the same thing we saw in Superman`s head. Cut to: close up of Superman`s face, then we go back inside Superman`s mind.
Yes, I said "lying in a chair". The correct word is "sitting", but I imagine them as kind of like dentist chairs... evil dentist chairs.

Zod showing Superman all that nightmarish landscape
Besides that it would "look cool for the trailer", what reason is there for Zod to scare Superman with that nightmare-landscape? Shouldn`t he try to make Superman trust him and see him as a friend?
How about: Supes is shown what Krypton looked like before it blew up.
Zod: "Behold Kal-El, this what Krypton once was, and what it can be again." Clark wonders what would happen to the people of earth. Zod uses the cold, empathyless logic that "simpler civilizations will have to make way for the more advanced ones."

"Krypton had it`s chance"
I get where they were going with this but still, it sounded a bit too cruel.
This would have sounded better: "Krypton should not live at the expense of Earth!"
Saying it like that would make it open for the interpretation that he does want to see Krypton resurrected, (just not at any cost).

The level of destruction
They could have toned it down a bit. 
Some say: "But this is what realistically would happen if someone with Superman`s powers were to have a big fight."
Someone with Superman`s powers yes. But how about someone with Superman`s mentality?
Yes: most of the destruction was caused by the terraforming machine, but when that destruction was over and it was just Superman and Zod they still plowed through a few buildings.
Let`s forget that it`s Superman. Someone with concern for human life and the ability to strategize, at least a little bit (which Superman is fully capable of doing), should try to direct the fight away from heavily populated areas. Yes, Zod would try to use this weakness and direct the fight back to said populated areas, but Superman would still do his best to keep the fight in safe/safer places.
Plus: The "Think before you act" lesson from his father could come back to play a part here.
"But he was new at this, he was learning to be a Superhero." We saw earlier in the movie that he had been doing this for a couple of years, so he would have gotten the hang of (most of) it by the time he donned the cape.
"It`s the first time he fights other super-powered Kryptonians." I can`t argue that much with this statement, even Supes has limits. On this point the fault is not on Superman as a character but rather the filmmakers who wrote him into a corner and made sure that there was no other way out than to destroy almost more than half of Metropolis. They seem to suffer from a "darker-and-more-action-is-always-better" perception. Not all DCCU movies have to be the Dark Knight.

On the fence: Jenny
First I thought that she had a last name, and that it was Olsen. So I thought she was a genderbent Jimmy Olsen. But last time I checked (on imdb) she didn`t have a last name. Could she be an original character created for the movie? I`m OK with that. But I want to talk about what I feel about if they were to change Jimmy`s gender.
This makes me feel like the film makers haven`t bothered to check the comics that the movies are based on. Not because of the change, but some seem to think that there are only four people working on the Daily Planet: Clark, Lois, Perry and Jimmy. The majority of the people that I mentioned are male so I agree that there could be at least one more woman. But instead of changing one of the characters they could just pick one from the comics. How about Catherine Grant? Or Alice the intern? And if you`re looking for a black character, how about Ron Troupe?
Sorry for being a purist, but I feel that if you want to add a little diversity, look for a character that has what you are looking for in the source material before changing one or some of the other characters.
That`s why  I hope that we in future DCCU movies get to see Maggie Sawyer and/or Renee Montoya.
How do I feel about Perry White? Well, he`s played by Laurence Fishburne. So I`m good.

On the fence: Superman killing Zod
When I heard about it at first I thought "Oh come on! Superman doesn`t kill!" But then again, he could be pushed to a point where he would have no other option. Then I thought "If he`s gonna kill someone he should at least feel bad about it." And he did, so I guess I`m OK with it. But still, the way they did that scene made me feel like there was more that could be done before they went in for the kill. Technically, Superman could have just knocked him unconscious. And then there`s the film makers`s explanation: "He needs to kill so he learns that it`s wrong to kill." I haven`t killed anyone and I know it`s wrong to kill.
I think the real explanation is: He needs to kill because the movie needs to be dark, because DCCU movies needs to be dark to be good, because it worked for the Batman reboot. The thing is: Nolan`s Batman had a little thought put into it. Man of Steel`s darkness didn`t have much thought behind it.
A light-hearted, silly and campy movie with a bad script is a movie with a bad script. A dark, gritty and serious movie with a bad script is still a movie with a bad script.
If I were to change this, here`s what I would do: Zod and Superman are flying around, fighting each other. The spaceship (that was sent far away thanks to Clark`s babyship`s warp drive) is still on earth. Superman punches Zod so hard that he is knocked back onboard his ship. The warp drive is activated and Zod and his friends are warped to God knows where.
I also want to point out that I´m not too crazy about when they kill characters that have played an important part and/or has been in the comicbook  a long time. That`s why I`m a bit critical not only to Zod`s death but Prof: Emil Hamilton`s as well. (Though he may not be dead.)

Yes, there are other things wrong with this movie. But if you did the changes that are mentioned here, I personally wouldn`t care about those other things

I want to finish with two things that, while they aren`t constructive criticism, are at least Superman related.

Joe Quesada`s reason for not liking Man of Steel
As a comic book fan, I wanted to love that movie so much,” said Quesada. “I wanted to love it so much, and I didn’t love it so much. Again, there are little things here and there that you could pick at and things like that, but I just think at the end of the day, Zod was the hero of the movie to me.
Interesting defenition of a hero you have there.
He wanted to save his race, and Superman didn’t let him."
Oh poor Zod, all he wanted to do was to rebuild his planet at the cost of billions of lives on an already inhabited one. It`s not like there were any other Earth-like planets in the solar system, suitable for terraforming, like Mars or Venus. No. Clearly Superman was the bigger badguy here.
I was in the mood to watch that Superman movie, and afterwards I was just angry,” said Quesada.
Well, I, and many others, felt similar after reading One More Day so I guess that makes things even.

In defense of the Clark Kent disguise
I`m sure many of us has questioned that no one can recognize Superman in his Clark Kent disguise just because he wears a pair of glasses. However, here are some examples from real life:

An author who interviewed Marilyn Monroe later wrote of an incident that occurred when they were walking down the street talking. The author was confused that, although they were in plain sight, no one seemed to recognize her. Monroe then said, "Do you want to see her?" She changed her posture, walk and way she was speaking to what she used in the movies and suddenly people saw Marilyn Monroe, movie star and sex symbol, and reacted accordingly.

Shakira
, a famous singer, managed to spend an entire summer at UCLA posing as a normal person. She went by her middle name and dressed up in a cap and pants. The fact that it hit the news after she was done with the classes proved how effective her disguise was.

Comedian Groucho Marx painted on his famous mustache with grease paint for most of his career. He was surprised to find a large crowd of fans who had gathered to see him at a train station completely ignored him when he got off the train. Realizing what had happened, he ducked into his car and smeared on a grease paint mustache, and was instantly recognized.

So you see, real people are pretty stupid too. ^_^


I`ve realized that I use the phrases "at least" and "a bit" quite often.

When I get Photoshop I`m gonna make title cards to my editorials. The ones that have already been posted will be updated with title cards too.

What if Man of Steel was in color (from youtube by VideoLab)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Du-eYi…

Joe Quesada`s complaint
www.comicbookmovie.com/fansite…

Paper-thin disguise
tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php…
Clark Kenting
tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php…

Other Superman related stuff I`ve written
My thoughts on Superman movie villains
Constructive criticism: The Superman film series

Edit 27-05-2015: Added the "Lois telling Clark about her mindprobing" part.

This is a Non profit editorial.
Superman was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster and belongs to DC comics.

Have to go now. I have to kill a guy so I`ll learn that it`s wrong to kill people.
© 2015 - 2024 81Scorp
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