I Finally Went to "Man of Steel", Here's Nearly 2,000 Words About Why It Doesn't Work for Me
Well, it's been over 36 hours now. And here we are.
Let's put some stuff into context. The ramifications of the Colombian Exchange were beyond staggering. It was one of the few times where the term "total cultural revolution" is actually warranted. After European diseases had spread throughout the Native American population and wiped out as much as 96 percent of the population, European settlers marched in and built their new society upon the bones of the natives. From there, the next several centuries in America would be spent killing off the legitimate heirs to the land, well into the 20th century. Less than a century ago, the United States government took a mountain sacred to many Native Americans and carved it into a statue about how great white people are. You may have heard of it.
The point being, the idea of flipping the script on all of this onto America today is a fantastic sci-fi idea. A technologically superior race landing in the middle ofNew York a major American city and declaring "Fuck all y'all, we're taking over this planet and killing you dudes, because we're just straight up better than you"- as a sci-fi take on colonialism, imperialism, and manifest destiny? That is fucking great. I love it. I would want to watch that movie over and over again.
But why the fuck is Superman in this?
I know, it's not really Superman. He just dresses like him (only without over-underpants) and refers to himself as such. There's potential to maybe being Superman someday, or in a slightly different parallel universe or something, but Jesus Christ. This 'Superman' is a monster, willing to commit genocide, who barely even tries to talk to his opponents. This 'Superman' is so dumb that he never considers covering the eyes of a fellow Kryptonian he has in a headlock, thus preventing the use of his opponent's heat vision, even though he himself is invulnerable and would not burn himself at all. I'm all for thoughtful science fiction, but A.) this script isn't anywhere close to smart enough to do that, and B.) why the hell did they think this was how to do a Superman story?
Superman's moral center is the most important part of the character. Without it, he is the scariest monster you can imagine, a god amongst men who is unstoppable and nearly all powerful. The only thing that keeps that away is the core of the character: that he always does the right thing, no matter what. ALWAYS.
This is not the character presented in this film, and for me, that is a huge problem for this movie and the inevitable DC movie-verse to come.
It's not all bad, but the bad outweighs the good, and not by a small margin. What follows are mostly individual moments/scenes/assorted stuff, and your mileage will likely vary. SPOILERS GALORE AHEAD.
The Stuff I (Mostly) Liked
-Lois Lane drinking scotch, because she’s a writer, damnit. That’s what writers drink.
-Henry Cavill did a really nice job (with what the script gave him)
-I’m not sure whether I loved or hated how they brought back the Superman 2 Zod outfit, but it elicited an emotion.
-The last scene with Superman (as Superman) was mostly okay, but Superman casually destroying a multimillion dollar piece of government equipment felt a little too on the nose for this film's tastes.
-The bar scene where Clark just calmly takes the abuse from the misogynist douche was pretty well done. (But please see the “Disliked” section for a follow up)
-As much as I joked about all the “Deadliest Catch” stuff before the movie came out, the oil rig scene was pretty great.
-“Abs of Steel.” Superman is sexy and he knows it.
-Holy cats, its Wegthor! That is awesome! You can see the broken moon in almost every exterior shot of Krypton. You see, back in the day, Wegthor was a moon of Krypton that was destroyed by evil Kryptonian scientist Jax-Ur, the "worst criminal in the Phantom Zone". The destruction of the moon killed hundreds of people, may have led to the destabilization of Krypton (I made that last part up, but it works for me), and led to Jax-Ur being imprisoned in the Phantom Zone for all of eternity! Man, I love Silver Age Superman references.
-Speaking of classic references, FAORA. Man, she was awesome! And her knife! Back in the day, Faora was a Kryptonian serial killer who tortured men and stabbed them with knives a lot. So awesome to see her wielding one here. (Faora is more Bronze Age than Silver, but whatever. I'm not splitting hairs over it.)
-My friend Patrick was right, the movie is improved by looking at it like Zod is the main character, the tragic hero who is defeated by Superman. Watching the movie like that drastically improves the film, though it doesn't fix how screwed up that notion is in a movie supposedly about Superman (See follow up again).
-I saw some people bitching about the Zod kneeling scene, but it totally worked for me. Zod here is BROKEN. He is a solider bred to do anything to save Krypton, and when he fails, it destroys him. Honestly, I think he wanted to die.
-Superman saves Lois a bunch of times. This is a good thing to me, because Superman saving Lois Lane is basically their whole thing.
-Zod learning how to use his powers. That worked for me. (This is also to be followed up in a minute)
-Harry Linnox. Because he is always awesome in everything.
-Superman learning to leap before he can fly. Nice reference to the earliest incarnations of the character.
-Superman loves his mom. If only he wouldn’t start fights to defend her in the middle of the public square…. And that moves us nicely into-
The Stuff I Disliked/Hated/Wanted To Murder People For
-For a movie about outer space dudes who fly around wearing capes and punching each other, that was all… a bit… dull, wasn’t it? A bit of a bore, really.
-Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus, we get it!!! Even though Superman-as-Jesus is a Donner era misinterpretation that just won't go away and-JESUS! The stained glass scene made me groan out-loud, it was so heavy handed.
-So. Much. Shakey-cam. UGH. I'm sure there's some nice action sequences in this thing, I just can't really see them.
-Krptonian tech is now powered by those things they use in paperweights that you can mold to your hands and write messages and stuff in? That’s even dumber than the Donner-era crystals.
-The excuse for why Zod wanted Lois on the ship…. Oy vey. A.) It would have been better if we had seen it, and not just heard about it 20 minutes later, and B.) If they read her mind, shouldn’t the Kryptonians have known that Lois had the data crystal with the ghost-dad on it?
-Why are all of Superman’s dads awful?
-With all these military personnel about, the lack of General Lane seemed a bit conspicuous. Its not awful, or anything, but it would have given Lois a better excuse for all that time she spends with army dudes.
-THAT SCENE. You know the one. I’d known about it for 2 weeks, and I still wanted to scream at the screen, break something, and send threatening letters to the production team. 2 days later, I can't even type out a thin description of what happens without rage in me building to Hulk levels.
-While the tornado scene was really, really dumb, Kevin Costner being blown away in 1997 seemed an apt metaphor for his career.
-Lois taking her own photos, without a single Jimmy Olsen in sight. Sad boosh.
-Superman’s penis is way more obvious without the inside-out underpants than it ever was with them.
-The “It won’t go in!” scene made me laugh so friggin’ hard, but I don’t think it was supposed to.
-The final scene in the (magically better now) Daily Planet? Utter rubbish. A total cop-out, so that fans couldn’t complain that it wasn’t there. When the hell did this Superman get a degree in journalism? Did he fake it? What is the deal?
-On Lois and Superman…. These are not love interests. These are two people who have experienced severe trauma and are working through their fucked up emotional baggage together (poorly).
-After the bar scene? The semi-truck of the misogynist douche wrapped around the telephone pole? Kind of left a sick feeling in my stomach, and completely undermines the previous scene. Much like a similar scene in Superman 2, this isn’t Superman being a pinnacle of virtue, it’s Superman being a bully.
-So, Superman is now directly responsible for the destruction of his entire race? Yes. Superman is basically Lobo now. That is appalling.
-“He saved us!” Lady, you are (understandably) in shock. He saved like five of you. Thousands upon thousands upon THOUSANDS of people died there.
-I guess the US military just decided that blowing up a small town was okay? Off camera? Or something?
-Speaking of Pentagon decisions determined off camera, apparently Clark Kent’s identity is now a government-secret conspiracy, because they clearly just covered it up. It is the only rational explanation.
-Poor Pete Ross. He never gets to catch his break.
-So, back when he was Superboy-but-we-don’t-call-
-The bullying scene? Ridiculous. They pushed a dude who is invulnerable. This might be a minor annoyance to teen-Superman at best. The “I want to break his face for that” speech was a little much.
-So, Superman’s magic costume with crotch-starring powers was… buried in a spaceship that was 18,000 years old. And it had his family crest on it, which is not an “s”, all along. Because staggering coincidence is the driving force behind this plot. (To be fair, THAT does sound awfully comic book-y.)
-"On my planet, it means 'hope'." No, on your planet it means "s", because your planet is Earth. You were born on Krypton, sure, but you have no recollection of it whatsoever. All the "memories" you have are what ghost-dad tells you. And I'm so sick of Superman's ghost-dads in movies and TV shows that are supposed to be about Superman.
So… I guess if you really wanted to watch Superman 1 and 2 without Luthor, time travel nonsense, and no date-rape kissing; but also updated with new effects and a mopey, confused and depressed Superman… Then here you go. I look forward to the inevitable sequel, in which Lex Luthor tells us that Superman is a threat to the entire planet, and we can all nod our heads knowingly, because he is absolutely right.
As I've implied, most Superman films are terrible. But for my money, if you had to go with a Superman film, I’d stick to Superman 3. At least drunk Superman is genuinely entertaining.
Look, everyone! It's Superman's package!
Let's put some stuff into context. The ramifications of the Colombian Exchange were beyond staggering. It was one of the few times where the term "total cultural revolution" is actually warranted. After European diseases had spread throughout the Native American population and wiped out as much as 96 percent of the population, European settlers marched in and built their new society upon the bones of the natives. From there, the next several centuries in America would be spent killing off the legitimate heirs to the land, well into the 20th century. Less than a century ago, the United States government took a mountain sacred to many Native Americans and carved it into a statue about how great white people are. You may have heard of it.
The point being, the idea of flipping the script on all of this onto America today is a fantastic sci-fi idea. A technologically superior race landing in the middle of
But why the fuck is Superman in this?
I know, it's not really Superman. He just dresses like him (only without over-underpants) and refers to himself as such. There's potential to maybe being Superman someday, or in a slightly different parallel universe or something, but Jesus Christ. This 'Superman' is a monster, willing to commit genocide, who barely even tries to talk to his opponents. This 'Superman' is so dumb that he never considers covering the eyes of a fellow Kryptonian he has in a headlock, thus preventing the use of his opponent's heat vision, even though he himself is invulnerable and would not burn himself at all. I'm all for thoughtful science fiction, but A.) this script isn't anywhere close to smart enough to do that, and B.) why the hell did they think this was how to do a Superman story?
Superman's moral center is the most important part of the character. Without it, he is the scariest monster you can imagine, a god amongst men who is unstoppable and nearly all powerful. The only thing that keeps that away is the core of the character: that he always does the right thing, no matter what. ALWAYS.
If you don't understand why this page is so important, you probably should not make a movie about Superman.
This is not the character presented in this film, and for me, that is a huge problem for this movie and the inevitable DC movie-verse to come.
It's not all bad, but the bad outweighs the good, and not by a small margin. What follows are mostly individual moments/scenes/assorted stuff, and your mileage will likely vary. SPOILERS GALORE AHEAD.
The Stuff I (Mostly) Liked
-Lois Lane drinking scotch, because she’s a writer, damnit. That’s what writers drink.
-Henry Cavill did a really nice job (with what the script gave him)
-I’m not sure whether I loved or hated how they brought back the Superman 2 Zod outfit, but it elicited an emotion.
-The last scene with Superman (as Superman) was mostly okay, but Superman casually destroying a multimillion dollar piece of government equipment felt a little too on the nose for this film's tastes.
-The bar scene where Clark just calmly takes the abuse from the misogynist douche was pretty well done. (But please see the “Disliked” section for a follow up)
-As much as I joked about all the “Deadliest Catch” stuff before the movie came out, the oil rig scene was pretty great.
-“Abs of Steel.” Superman is sexy and he knows it.
-Holy cats, its Wegthor! That is awesome! You can see the broken moon in almost every exterior shot of Krypton. You see, back in the day, Wegthor was a moon of Krypton that was destroyed by evil Kryptonian scientist Jax-Ur, the "worst criminal in the Phantom Zone". The destruction of the moon killed hundreds of people, may have led to the destabilization of Krypton (I made that last part up, but it works for me), and led to Jax-Ur being imprisoned in the Phantom Zone for all of eternity! Man, I love Silver Age Superman references.
-Speaking of classic references, FAORA. Man, she was awesome! And her knife! Back in the day, Faora was a Kryptonian serial killer who tortured men and stabbed them with knives a lot. So awesome to see her wielding one here. (Faora is more Bronze Age than Silver, but whatever. I'm not splitting hairs over it.)
This movie has many sins, but you are not one of them, my sweet.
-My friend Patrick was right, the movie is improved by looking at it like Zod is the main character, the tragic hero who is defeated by Superman. Watching the movie like that drastically improves the film, though it doesn't fix how screwed up that notion is in a movie supposedly about Superman (See follow up again).
-I saw some people bitching about the Zod kneeling scene, but it totally worked for me. Zod here is BROKEN. He is a solider bred to do anything to save Krypton, and when he fails, it destroys him. Honestly, I think he wanted to die.
-Superman saves Lois a bunch of times. This is a good thing to me, because Superman saving Lois Lane is basically their whole thing.
-Zod learning how to use his powers. That worked for me. (This is also to be followed up in a minute)
-Harry Linnox. Because he is always awesome in everything.
-Superman learning to leap before he can fly. Nice reference to the earliest incarnations of the character.
-Superman loves his mom. If only he wouldn’t start fights to defend her in the middle of the public square…. And that moves us nicely into-
The Stuff I Disliked/Hated/Wanted To Murder People For
-For a movie about outer space dudes who fly around wearing capes and punching each other, that was all… a bit… dull, wasn’t it? A bit of a bore, really.
-Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus, we get it!!! Even though Superman-as-Jesus is a Donner era misinterpretation that just won't go away and-JESUS! The stained glass scene made me groan out-loud, it was so heavy handed.
-So. Much. Shakey-cam. UGH. I'm sure there's some nice action sequences in this thing, I just can't really see them.
-Krptonian tech is now powered by those things they use in paperweights that you can mold to your hands and write messages and stuff in? That’s even dumber than the Donner-era crystals.
-The excuse for why Zod wanted Lois on the ship…. Oy vey. A.) It would have been better if we had seen it, and not just heard about it 20 minutes later, and B.) If they read her mind, shouldn’t the Kryptonians have known that Lois had the data crystal with the ghost-dad on it?
-Why are all of Superman’s dads awful?
-With all these military personnel about, the lack of General Lane seemed a bit conspicuous. Its not awful, or anything, but it would have given Lois a better excuse for all that time she spends with army dudes.
-THAT SCENE. You know the one. I’d known about it for 2 weeks, and I still wanted to scream at the screen, break something, and send threatening letters to the production team. 2 days later, I can't even type out a thin description of what happens without rage in me building to Hulk levels.
-While the tornado scene was really, really dumb, Kevin Costner being blown away in 1997 seemed an apt metaphor for his career.
-Lois taking her own photos, without a single Jimmy Olsen in sight. Sad boosh.
-Superman’s penis is way more obvious without the inside-out underpants than it ever was with them.
-The “It won’t go in!” scene made me laugh so friggin’ hard, but I don’t think it was supposed to.
-The final scene in the (magically better now) Daily Planet? Utter rubbish. A total cop-out, so that fans couldn’t complain that it wasn’t there. When the hell did this Superman get a degree in journalism? Did he fake it? What is the deal?
-On Lois and Superman…. These are not love interests. These are two people who have experienced severe trauma and are working through their fucked up emotional baggage together (poorly).
-After the bar scene? The semi-truck of the misogynist douche wrapped around the telephone pole? Kind of left a sick feeling in my stomach, and completely undermines the previous scene. Much like a similar scene in Superman 2, this isn’t Superman being a pinnacle of virtue, it’s Superman being a bully.
-So, Superman is now directly responsible for the destruction of his entire race? Yes. Superman is basically Lobo now. That is appalling.
-“He saved us!” Lady, you are (understandably) in shock. He saved like five of you. Thousands upon thousands upon THOUSANDS of people died there.
-I guess the US military just decided that blowing up a small town was okay? Off camera? Or something?
-Speaking of Pentagon decisions determined off camera, apparently Clark Kent’s identity is now a government-secret conspiracy, because they clearly just covered it up. It is the only rational explanation.
-Poor Pete Ross. He never gets to catch his break.
-So, back when he was Superboy-but-we-don’t-call-
-The bullying scene? Ridiculous. They pushed a dude who is invulnerable. This might be a minor annoyance to teen-Superman at best. The “I want to break his face for that” speech was a little much.
-So, Superman’s magic costume with crotch-starring powers was… buried in a spaceship that was 18,000 years old. And it had his family crest on it, which is not an “s”, all along. Because staggering coincidence is the driving force behind this plot. (To be fair, THAT does sound awfully comic book-y.)
-"On my planet, it means 'hope'." No, on your planet it means "s", because your planet is Earth. You were born on Krypton, sure, but you have no recollection of it whatsoever. All the "memories" you have are what ghost-dad tells you. And I'm so sick of Superman's ghost-dads in movies and TV shows that are supposed to be about Superman.
My reaction is similar to Zod's, basically.
So… I guess if you really wanted to watch Superman 1 and 2 without Luthor, time travel nonsense, and no date-rape kissing; but also updated with new effects and a mopey, confused and depressed Superman… Then here you go. I look forward to the inevitable sequel, in which Lex Luthor tells us that Superman is a threat to the entire planet, and we can all nod our heads knowingly, because he is absolutely right.
As I've implied, most Superman films are terrible. But for my money, if you had to go with a Superman film, I’d stick to Superman 3. At least drunk Superman is genuinely entertaining.
Oh my god, I forgot the clothes stealing part! That was awful too. Ugh.
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