Poll: Man of Steel; Why the hatred?

[Rooster893]

I absolutely loved the movie. Maybe I'm just not fit to be a critic, but I loved everything about the movie. Sure, there were things that could have been better, like the over-the-top destruction in the Superman vs. Zod battle, but at the same time, I liked it, since I think that's what would REALLY happen if two aliens with godlike power clashed in a fragile, urban environment. So, yeah, I loved it... ESPECIALLY the theme.

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The scene where he steps out of the Fortress of Solitude, wearing the suit and cape with a look of inner peace on his face, while Jor-El's words are spoken to us, was an amazing sight. And when he put his fist on the ice... it was powerful. For me, at least.

 

[NihilSinLulz]

Superman killed Zod and was totally okay with it. Him killing Zod isn't the problem. Fast forwarding straight to him dicking around with the military and making it look like it had no effect on him at all was what was horrible.

I was able to forgive everything except this.

There was small glimmer of hope that there might have been some rare Superman character development going on.
"Superman killed a guy, holy shit. This has to have a great impact on the story." Big ooolll'd nope. I'm hoping the next movie focuses on it a lot more. But I really doubt it.

Superman has killed in stories before and there's been times where Superman's had to cross a line to do what he feels is right. The thing is everytime he does it it's a big deal. Even the plot of Gods Among Us or Kingdom Come came entirely from what would happen if Superman broke his own code. But here he just kind of got sad for a second and then seemed to shrug it off.

Not to mention it was never stated that he shouldn't or wouldn't kill. Besides, its not like he had a problem when he was blowing up Smallville and Metropolis...

 

[Hawk eye1466]

Personally I think it just didn't really gel with my vision of Superman.

Superman is a compassionate god living amongst men, he empathises and cares for us so much that he wants to help us and use his powers to alleviate all the problems that we have, which means rescuing people from floods, earthquakes, fires, getting cats from trees etc.

But he sees better than anyone that the main problems humanity faces are ones we create ourselves: War, Genocide, Crime, Greed, Racism, Slavery, Extortion, Hate, Murder.

He is a man of infinite physical strength, but his greatest fight is against the ideological selfishness ingrained in human society. A foe he cannot punch, or intimidate to change. His biggest nemesis is the very minds of the people he wants to save, and he cannot forcibly change it with all the strength in the universe.

All he can do is become a symbol. A symbol of hope, of goodness, of charity, righteousness, humility and kindness, to lead by example and try to drag us out of the mire we have trapped ourselves in.
And still he watches the world turn as it always did, and nothing new appears under the sun. The old Tyrants are overthrown by the freedom fighters, who use their freedom to become tyrants in their turn. The bullied goes out and becomes a bully. The rich and comfortable exploit and steal from those less fortunate to give themselves just a little more. The sun rises, and the sun sets, and nothing of humanity has changed.

I love the dilemma of Superman. He is a man desperately trying to save a world that is wilfully killing itself right before his very eyes, and the people that cry for help one day are the ones causing pain the next. You don't need a super powered villain to fight superman, you just need someone full of irrational hate, who refuses to change, who has no empathy or care for his fellow man. That man can just by his refusal to yield make Superman face the reality that maybe he is ultimately failing to change us. Maybe we are beyond help, and he is only prolonging the pain, because eventually he will die, he's invincible, but not immortal, and one day the world won't have Superman to save itself from itself, and on that day WE will destroy humanity: Not Zod, not Darkseid, not Doomsday, but our own selfish hate will doom us unless he can change our entire way of thinking, unless he can make all of humanity see that they don't need to fight each other, that empathy and care are the best way to live.

So far, he has failed to achieve this, and his biggest reminder is the constant gloating of the most unnecessarily selfish and hateful man of them all. Lex Luthor.

That's my Superman. That's what I want a Superman movie to explore. So far that hasn't happened yet.

Well he said it better than I could have, this is pretty much what I think of superman and if they actually made a film about that it'd be incredibly interesting.

 

[Jarrod Rowlette]

I had two problems with this movie. The first was the way it could beautifully illustrate something without any dialogue, and then for filler, explain it in just dialogue. The other was the breaking of the Cardinal Rule of Superman.

 

[JimB]

I'm amazed by people who criticize Man of Steel for its one Jesus reference and forced, not-in-any-way believable romance angle but think the first Matrix was brilliant.

There are many more than one such reference. During the scene on the oil rig when Kal-El catches falling I-beams, the camera is angled to make it look like he is carrying a cross on his back; his age is the same as Jesus's during most Biblical references to him; in the church, a stained glass image of Jesus is pointing at Kal-El; when the hologram of the ghost of Jor-El frees Kal-El from the ship, Kal-El floats out into space with his arms extended to his sides as in the same pose as a crucified Jesus. There are probably others I have forgotten.

If someone wants to come on here and say "Yes, Man of Steel was crap, and so were the Dark Knight, the Matrix, and all previous Superman movies," then I'll happily admit that I'm wrong and Man of Steel was crap. Until then, I'll maintain my position that Man of Steel's flaws were forgivable.

You are allowed to decide for yourself what flaws you will forgive. I am allowed to decide for myself what flaws I will forgive. So is everyone else, and speaking only for myself, I am not at all willing to trade that right to you in exchange for you agreeing with me that a movie is bad. That is a bad deal.

 

[Tono Makt]

I wanted to like Man of Steel, but I came away with five major issues. Two of which are my perception of Superman, two of which is integral to the Plot, and one which is really nitpicky.

Plot:

1) The conflict in the movie was between Zod and Jor-El. Not Zod and Kal-El, aka Clark Kent aka Superman. In some ways it may seem to be like the conflict between Bruce Wayne and Ra's al Ghul - Ra's al Ghul wants to destroy Gotham but Batman stands in the way, but Batman Begins spent the entire first half of the movie building up the relationship between Henri Ducard (Ra's al Ghul) and Bruce Wayne before the final battle in Gotham. Because the this, there needed to be more build up of Superman and why he's defending Earth.

2) The build up of Clark Kent was underwhelming. It seemed like the writers were expecting that the audience would fill in the blanks and just go with Clark Kent deciding to save Earth because that's just what Superman does. After the great job that Batman Begins did with creating Bruce Wayne BEFORE Batman and seeing that Christopher Nolan was on the Man of Steel team, there was an expectation that we were going to get something on a par with that origin story for Superman. And we didn't get it. This may be an unfair expectation and an unfair criticism, but it's out there.

Personal:

1) I like the idea of Lois Lane being so focused on Superman that she doesn't have time for Clark Kent. That she doesn't know that Superman = Clark Kent. Yes, the "Glasses on/Glasses off" is dumb, but there are other ways to do it. I also like it being difficult for Lois to find out that Clark = Superman. I don't like how they handed the whole relationship between Lois and Clark in the movie.

2) The characterization of Jonathan Kent and Clark Kent rub me the wrong way. Both are too cynical, too pessimistic and too selfish for me, and this depiction of Clark Kent strikes me as more a move to turn Superman into a jaded All-Powerful opponent in a future Justice League movie. "Clark... you just let them all die!" "Yes. (MacGuffin X) was more important than the lives of a few tourists." (paraphrased reference: Clark Kent: "Should I have just let them die then?" Pa Kent: "Yes. No. I don't know.")

Nitpicky:

1) Why did the Kryptonian Evil Doctor have a German accent? Also, the two Kryptonians Superman fought in Smallville, did they have Russian accents? I'd have to watch the scenes again to be sure, but I know the Doctor had a German accent.

 

[King Aragorn]

I'm amazed by people who criticize MOS for its plot holes and irrelevant flashbacks but think The Dark Knight was brilliant.

I'm amazed by people who criticize MOS for its ONE Jesus reference and forced, not-in-any-way believable romance angle but think the first Matrix was brilliant.

I'm amazed by people who criticize MOS for any reason at all without bringing up the far bigger and more numerous problems in the previous Superman movies (TIME. DOES. NOT. WORK. THAT. WAY)

If someone wants to come on here and say "Yes, MOS was crap, and so were TDK, the Matrix, and all previous Superman movies", then I'll happily admit that I'm wrong and MOS was crap. Until then, I'll maintain my position that MOS's flaws were forgivable.

The difference is flashbacks were used properly in The Dark Knight trilogy, they didn't feel jumbled up and made into random cuts inbetween scenes when the CGI guy needed a break. Also TDK didn't have any real plot holes, compared to MoS with the huge mass abortion one being very contradicting to what was stated earlier in the film, specially considering the fact that it's never delved into thus leading us to believe it's just bad writing.

 

[JimB]

There are many more than one such reference. During the scene on the oil rig when Kal-El catches falling I-beams, the camera is angled to make it look like he is carrying a cross on his back; his age is the same as Jesus's during most Biblical references to him; in the church, a stained glass image of Jesus is pointing at Kal-El; when the hologram of the ghost of Jor-El frees Kal-El from the ship, Kal-El floats out into space with his arms extended to his sides as in the same pose as a crucified Jesus.

The church scene is the only one of those that's actually a Jesus reference.

No, they all are. Those things did not happen by accident. People were paid a lot of money to make those things happen. Writers had to determine Kal-El's age and then script dialogue to exposit it; props and effects had to be created for the I-beams, and a crew had to spend time setting up the camera to be beneath Henry Cavill and pointing up at an angle that would create the illusion that something whose weight was in front of him was at a downward angle behind him; people had to rig a harness to make him float out into space, and when the actor held his arms out to the side, the director had to coach him on how to do it right. Further, they almost definitely did multiple takes of all of these things. They were included with a purpose.

I just don't understand your basis for dismissing these things.

 

[Galletea]

I absolutely loved it. Personally, I thought it was one of the best superhero movies we've gotten, on par with "The Avengers".

See I hate Whedon's Avengers too, but that wasn't the question so I'll swallow my fury and get back to Superman.

My biggest problem with it was the lack of character development. There were too many characters that are significant to Superman to put into one movie and expect to create some kind of feeling towards them all. Lois is souless and has no time to really be anything other than generic feisty heroine, and Martha and Jonathan barely have a personality between them, they spout their wisdom and disappear, so it is hard to care about what happens to them. Same with Perry White, he's there just for the sake of being there, a character who's name we know, but again, hard to care about him more than any of the extras.
Secondly there seems to be a necessity for massive cgi heavy fights in these films. It's like they don't have the content for a two hour movie so they fill it out with 45 minutes of explosions and falling skyscrapers and giant metal tentacle things.
It all felt forced, as if it had to encompass everything about Superman and couldn't really develop any idea fully because of that.
Russell Crowe was ok though.

 

[KazeAizen]

Because all the "die hard" fans thought it wasn't what Superman should be.

That and Man of Steel seem to be on most of the people of this forums worst movies of 2013. They're not bad movies (even IM3. Even thought I just can't stand RDJ). All the "fans" are just butthurt because it wasn't exactly what they wanted.

It's like using the argument that Avatar was a shit film because the story was unoriginal. Just because it wasn't original or copied the source material scene for scene doesn't make it a bad film.

Agreed. I don't shower Avatar with as much love as some people but you'll never catch me calling it a bad film. Its perfectly serviceable. I just think its a bit overrated personally.

I think what the fans wanted was some kind of golden or silver age Superman. If they do go lighter though they'll just look more like Marvel. You can go "dark" per say even if the superhero in question usually isn't. If you can still get across what the character is I think it can work. I look at MoS as strictly an origin story. Where as Batman in Begins was an origin story as well about half way through the movie he had gained his "symbol of the night status" people feared him and called him "The Batman". Supes in this movie didn't get his "symbol" status. It was just his origin and it set up enough that if handled correctly in the future movies we can get the Superman that people want with a new twist.

I'm looking forward to World's Finest. Even more so now with all the WTF casting they've done but save for Gal Godot its a pretty legit cast. I've never seen a Fast and Furious movie so I don't know how Gal does in them but hey you must be doing something right I suppose if your character has managed to stay alive for 7 movies in an action franchise.

Man of Steel was a flawed film but its strengths and possibilities make up for them in my mind. Its also a better DBZ movie than the actual DB movie that came out. (Though I don't necessarily hate that movie but that's another story all together)

 

[DoPo]

I'm amazed by people who criticize Man of Steel for its one Jesus reference and forced, not-in-any-way believable romance angle but think the first Matrix was brilliant.

There are many more than one such reference. During the scene on the oil rig when Kal-El catches falling I-beams, the camera is angled to make it look like he is carrying a cross on his back; his age is the same as Jesus's during most Biblical references to him; in the church, a stained glass image of Jesus is pointing at Kal-El; when the hologram of the ghost of Jor-El frees Kal-El from the ship, Kal-El floats out into space with his arms extended to his sides as in the same pose as a crucified Jesus. There are probably others I have forgotten.

Can't quote the exact words, but when talking about giving Superman over to Zod, it was pretty much referred to as him being ready to die for the humanity's sins. So yeah - way more than one.

I'm amazed by people who criticize MOS for any reason at all without bringing up the far bigger and more numerous problems in the previous Superman movies (TIME. DOES. NOT. WORK. THAT. WAY)

Oh goodie - you are complaining about the single most defining feature of the Superman movies that is constantly being picked on all the time right down to this day by pretty much anybody who cares to mention Superman 2. So how is this working out for you then?

 

[SycoMantis91]

A lot has to do with the image. It's basically the Dmc: Devil May Cry of the series. It's clearly pandering to the younger audience with a fairer skinned, mopey Superman, and it feels very disingenuous. The action was fairly entertaining, and the plot/dialog was very lazy and sometimes totally nonsensical. I don't hate it per say, put it's not a good movie. Honestly, I haven't seen one live-action Superhero movie these last few years that got me as hard as most people. Captain America was horribly boring, Thor was good action broken up too much by trying to make him a romantic figure (but given his love interest, I can't blame him), all the Iron Man and Batman movies are good and enjoyable but not amazing, and The Avengers was above average with some neat affects, and Hulk hurling that hammer was epic.

 

[KazeAizen]

I had two problems with this movie. The first was the way it could beautifully illustrate something without any dialogue, and then for filler, explain it in just dialogue. The other was the breaking of the Cardinal Rule of Superman.

You see Zack actually explained that in an interview. He doesn't believe in this kind of "Meta" story telling. Established "rules" for characters that the audience inherently knows but the character or story themselves don't explain the rules. I found it ballsy but I understood.

Zod was never going to stop and since this is the first time a supervillain had appeared in their world. No special jails or prisons built specifically for containing them. Thus unless Superman wasn't constantly by Zod's side knocking him unconscious they were screwed. Therefore Superman really didn't have any other choice.

 

[geminipop22]

There were just a lot of conceptual problems in this movie that stuck out horribly, and everyone has a different opinion on how to represent 'hope,' but on some level I can't help but think that the writer/director/producer ( the holy trinity ) didn't really 'get it.'

For one, we don't get to understand who Clark is, and what his motivations are. Why is he helping? Oh, because he has to. But what about his feelings? Does he, himself, dwell on any of it without some other character telling the audience what he should be feeling?

Second, he doesn't pass himself off as something the audience should be inspired by. If you pay attention, he does a lot of really questionable things when none of the rest of the cast of characters isn't watching. For example, we're told that the kryptonian ship that his space dad AI gives him even more exposition on, is holding a cloning facility. Something that could resurrect his entire species. Later on in the movie, Zod steals the ship, Superman flies in, and without a single word starts 'chargin his lazor.' Zod pleads with him to stop, and Superman responds with 'Krypton had it's chance.' Way to be an inspiring figure of hope and goodness by damning your species based on the 'crimes' of a dead kryptonian counsel and a guy you never made the effort to communicate or reason with period ( Zod himself ).

The washed out colors. This might be considered nitpicky, but it made it too easy for everything to bleed together.

Product placement. Did we really need to see the great big SEARS as he pulls himself out of the wreckage? Really takes away from any emotions your trying to convey when SEARS YOU MUST BUY FROM SEARS is shoved in your face.

Plot holes. There were a tremendous amount of these, too many to actually list, but the biggest and most pointed seem to be :
- Why doesn't Clark/Superman once attempt to talk/reason with Zod? Hasn't he been told repeatedly to find the good in all things? Like... five times or something?
- Why does Zod recover from the 'atmosphere problem' so fast? Didn't he say it'd take years?
- Why did Clark/Superman go to a priest for no reason, and not go to his space dad AI Russel Crowe when Zod threatens the Earth. I mean, let's be entirely honest this scene cribs from Boondock Saints ( the scene where Whillem Dafoe goes to the church when drunk ).

Pa Kent as a character isn't all that bad, I can see where people would draw problems with the 'let kids drown on a bus' thing, because it's honestly a question with no right answer, and as a father he has to try to answer to something he's never dealt with before. However, the motivation of his death being some big thing to Clark could've been communicated a lot better had he say, fallen from a really high building or got caught in a nasty car crash with Clark nearby and the car almost about to explode. The 'Can't have an animal be harmed in a movie' trope is painful... 'Gotta save Boomer!'

Oh, and the Jesus Symbolism. It could've been far far more subtly, a lot more subtly. It felt like someone in the holy trinity meetings of writer, director, and producer all sat down with some comic books of Superman and all went, ' so there's jesus alegory in this character right? 'yeah' okay, let's play that up.'

Finally, the death of Zod. I'll be entirely honest, I expected Zod to die. My panties didn't get into a bunch about that. What did get my panties in a bunch was the 'emotional moment' he had when he killed Zod. There are a lot of problems with this. It feels rushed, it makes no sense, how is he suddenly feeling bad about killing Zod -now- when all this time he's been actively trying to 'stop' Zod but ... explain again to me how he's planning on 'stopping' Zod? What method? What process? Did he at any point -think- about the plan to stop the World Engine? Did he feel -anything- for the kryptonians he was actively participating in -KILLING- with the 'blackhole?' Did they matter to him? And then, let's be honest, after he drove Zod insane by destroying the cloning machine, he only now feels bad for having killed Zod? And then Lois Lane shows up out of no-where ( and she's a pile of problems in and of herself, 'let's have a big 'make-out session while floating down to the ground surrounded by the falling ashes of -DEAD PEOPLE-' ), and we end the movie with some quips about the price of predator drones and superman's butt. Classy.

So, yeah, TL;DR, didn't overly -hate- the movie, but I can't like it because it's too... bleh.

 

[hermes]

It was better than Superman 3, 4 and Returns. I will give it that.

Other than that, the reason people hate it is because it has breaks from the idea of Superman. It is dark, edgy and gloomy. Superman only smiles a single time in the entire movie...

Johnathan Kent writing was terrible. In their pursuit to make it look like the opposite of Jor-El (who is altruistic and spiritual), they turned it into a villain (selfish and pragmatic), to the point he instructs Clark to let a bus full of kids drown before risking being exposed by some of them.

I am among the people that feels Adams appeal as Lois Lane is non-existent.

Overall, it just looked like no one enjoyed being there.

 

[tzimize]

It was the best of the Superman movies so far, but not by much, and that's a pretty low bar to begin with. Its flaws were forgivable and shit got blowed up real good.

I'd put it between "okay" and "good".

Personally I like a LOT better both Superman The Movie and Superman Returns.

They both encompass in a MUCH better way what Superman should be. In Man of Steel, superman might as well have been a US marine. Sure, he's "at odds" with the military, but only insofar as to show them he's not theirs to command.

His fights are more or less without thought for the surroundings and the final scene where he kills Zod is the polar opposite of what Superman should be.

Superman is an extremely boring superhero. He is extremely powerful (to the point that nothing can really be a threat to him if we consider him to have at least a BIT of intelligence) and he has no "dark passanger" like Bruce Waynes paranoia.

The most interesting thing about Superman (if you want to study him as a character instead of having him smash buildings) is that he IS in fact an alien and is completely separate from humanity. This, combined with Clark Kent being sort of Supermans critique on humanity (I fail to remember who pointed that out to me) is what can be used to make him interesting.

The only other thing he has to do, is be a great example. In short, this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CuJ08nwJpA

This little trailer is the PERFECT image of what Superman should be. He should be the one who always does the right thing. He should be the one that always tries to find the peaceful solution. Who gives people a second chance. Who makes us be better than what we thought we could be. THAT is his most important superpower. The power to show us exactly how far we could go if we aim for his standards.

Man of Steel...MEH. The way they handled him was doomed to fail imo. Sure, if Zod was thrown into the phantom zone again that would be stupid as well, since Zod was clearly the superior strategist and should know his technology a lot better than Supes. By killing Zod they MAY set up the character arc for Supes that molds him into what he should be...but I doubt they can pull it off, and we still have to deal with Man of Steel as a stand-alone set-up movie.

Thinking about the next Man of steel/Batman...Batman actually might come off as the GOOD guy in that duo. He has not killed anyone as far as I can remember. Imagine that. Batman being the "nice one". Its WROOOOOOOOOOOONG.

If Superman is willing to go to the extent to take a life, nothing is stopping him from continuing down the rod to becoming earths supreme ruler. Because "he knows best". Or "he has to protect us from ourselves".


Captcha: Goody two shoes. EVEN YOU GET IT CAPTCHA! THATS SUPERMAN!

PS: Sure, the effects were brilliant and the action pretty awesome but so was Pacific Rims, and that was a fucking train-wreck of a movie.

I had two problems with this movie. The first was the way it could beautifully illustrate something without any dialogue, and then for filler, explain it in just dialogue. The other was the breaking of the Cardinal Rule of Superman.

You see Zack actually explained that in an interview. He doesn't believe in this kind of "Meta" story telling. Established "rules" for characters that the audience inherently knows but the character or story themselves don't explain the rules. I found it ballsy but I understood.

Zod was never going to stop and since this is the first time a supervillain had appeared in their world. No special jails or prisons built specifically for containing them. Thus unless Superman wasn't constantly by Zod's side knocking him unconscious they were screwed. Therefore Superman really didn't have any other choice.

This is absolute bullshit (what Zack says). If he wants to tell a story where the character does something fundamentally different than what the actual character would ever do, he should write a story about ANOTHER CHARACTER.

The entire point of telling a story about a specific character is to USE that character. If you're going to change him fundamentally....MAKE UP SOMEONE ELSE.

Its like saying: So, I got this idea for a new batman movie. Lets get rid of the gadgets, they are so old. Also, his parents dont die. He grows up in a happy home and hey, lets make him a twin for laughs. What if he's a soldier instead of a superhero? Or a soldier IN SPACE!

Thats not Batman! Why are you making that story! Make a new character!