Man of Steel

[Miriel]

Ahh, sorry, was meant to be addressing Vivi22!

[Del Murder]

Overall, I liked it. I thought the beginning and ending were great, but it faltered some in the middle with pacing and continuity issues.

The opening stuff on Krypton was probably my favorite part. It went a little long, but I didn't mind. They did a great job of setting up Krypton as this doomed world, and I loved the brief glimpses of the wildlife to show what an utter tragedy the Kryptonions created for every living creature there. I thought Jor-El (Russell Crowe was great and I didn't mind that he got so much screen time - what a commanding presence), Zod, and Lara were very effective but what was up with the other Kryptonions? It's like they didn't even care, though I guess that was the point. I could probably go see a Superman prequel that takes place on Krypton and stars Russell Crowe. Call it The Fall of Krypton and bam, there's a half billion dollars. You can thank me later, DC.

I would have liked something more chronological with Clark growing up. It was way too disjointed in the film. I will give them some benefit and say it's a lot of time to cover, but I felt it could have been done a lot better. And Jonathan Kent was awful! Kevin Costner is not a good actor but this wasn't as much his fault as it was the writing for his character. Jonathan is not supposed to be this scared man, afraid of what the world might do with his son, willing to let people die to protect his secret. Jonathan is supposed to be Clark's moral compass, he is supposed to be the reason why Clark is the boy scout he is, always standing up for justice, why he turned out to be Superman and not another Zod. This Jonathan did none of that. The dad on Smallville was a lot better.

I really liked the action sequences though I agree the collateral damage was a bit much (but come on, it's Superman). Zod's female henchman (henchwoman?) was an absolute beast and I enjoyed every action scene she was in. The final fight was also pretty epic, though it was very uncharacteristic of Superman to just allow so much destruction haphazardly. Killing Zod at the end was an interesting attempt to have some psychological issues with Supes but it fell flat for me due to having lack of setup.

The kiss scene was the most awful part of the movie and I thought I was watching a Michael Bay movie during that scene. Lois in general was just ok.

I think this is a good cornerstone for the franchise and I'm excited to see where they go from here. I'm sure they want to do a Dark Knight-style villain movie with Lex but I'm not sure how that will work. I did like the Lexcorp logo on some of the destroyed trucks though.

[Depression Moon]

How are y'all still complaining about collateral damage when it's been prevalent in the comics and cartoons for years?

[Miriel]

Because we can't complain about something if it has existed before?

If it helps, [insert complaining about collateral damage in all previous incarnations of Superman, ever].

[Del Murder]

I think the advent of CGI has made collateral damage much more rampant in movies than it has been in the past. Sure, it already existed in the books and cartoons, but when you are seeing settings involving live people it has a different effect.

[The Man]

There wasn't really much Clark could have done to prevent the collateral damage in at least 90% of the cases where it happened. Nearly all the times he went through populated areas it's because someone else threw him there. The film's Clark Kent is not anywhere near fully in control of his powers; in fact, he's brand new to them, while the Kryptonians he's facing have mostly trained for their entire lives. It's also the first time he's ever fought anyone anywhere near his own power level, much less beyond it. As soon as Faora and the other Kryptonians show up, the battle is no longer on his terms, and it continues not to be on his terms for almost the entire remainder of the film.

The other thing worth pointing out is that, for a large chunk of the time he's fighting the Kryptonians, he's also trying to stop them from killing every living thing on Earth. I'm pretty sure that the genocide of every living thing on Earth would be much worse collateral damage than a few falling buildings, and anyone who blames the film's Clark for not saving every single person around him when he was in a race against time to stop a complete planetary apocalypse is thinking a bit myopically, to say the least.

I also don't think the film's collateral damage was particularly whitewashed. It was pretty obvious that large numbers of buildings were completely destroyed. They don't need to see people bleeding out from their wounds for it to be obvious that the conflict was destructive.

This is all addressed in much further detail here.

The film wasn't perfect, but I'd give it an 8/10 or so. I also think this film did a better job capturing what makes Superman special than any previous Superman film I've seen has: not that he believes in humanity, but that his belief in humanity itself inspires others to greatness.

[Del Murder]

Eh, he could have at least gotten them out of downtown or off of main street, 'new' (guy's in his 30s) to his powers or not.

[The Man]

I seriously doubt that. He was pretty clearly having a hard time even keeping up with the Kryptonians attacking him. What's he going to do, step away and tell people to get away? They'd kill other people while he was doing it. Yell warnings? Most of the time they threw him through buildings he had no advance warning they were going to do so, and he was thrown too far for the message to carry anyway.

And yes, he is "new" to his powers as far as actually fighting anyone at a comparable level of skill to him. He has effectively never had to defend himself before. No one was a plausible threat to him. His previous feats were things like rescuing his classmates from the lake and saving the people on the burning oil rig. Not exactly intense combat situations, those.

[Del Murder]

Some restraint would have been nice is all I'm saying. But yeah, he could have stepped away, gone to a nice little coffee shop, or off to Coney Island for a hotdog, etc. It's really disappointing how narrow-minded you're being. These are aliens from another planet. Let's think outside the box here.

[The Man]

I don't see how I'm being narrow-minded. If anything, I don't think you're taking into account how combat actually works when you're against an opponent who is: a. more powerful than you, and b. actively trying to kill you. Clark was doing everything he could to stay alive and prevent the Kryptonians from killing everyone on Earth. In a situation like that, I don't see how restraint is going to be anywhere near approaching a top priority.

[Miriel]

I think you're just making excuses.

Superman can't do anything to help civilians? It MUST be because he has absolutely no way of doing so while in combat. It can't possibly be because the filmmakers simply wanted a massively impressive visual spectacle.

Pssh.

Superman took the fight with Zod away from the farm and INTO town. That was unnecessary. He was able to catch Lois while she fell from the sky, but NO ONE ELSE. And then he has time to kiss! There's probably hundreds or thousands trapped or dying and he has time to kiss! After the gravity thinger was shut down, him and Zod start to go at it in the non-destructed part of town. In the aftermath, I don't remember them even mentioning the destruction and rebuilding or rescue efforts. It was just smash smash smash, which just makes it rather empty.

In the Avengers, you had a quick montage of the missing people wall and the memorials and the questions being asked about how this devastation was allowed to happened. That all took, what, 1 minute? It doesn't take much to just acknowledge the human element in that destruction.

Hopefully in the next film they'll deal with the fact that Superman was part of the reason why so much destruction happened, even if he was the good guy here. Maybe that'll be Lex's motivation.

[The Man]

I think you're just making excuses.

And I think you're just nitpicking.

Superman can't do anything to help civilians? It MUST be because he has absolutely no way of doing so while in combat. It can't possibly be because the filmmakers simply wanted a massively impressive visual spectacle.

Yes because it's so realistic to expect a single untrained farm boy to be a tactical genius who can exert complete control in combat against a cadre of professional killers.

This is the first time that Superman has ever fought anyone. Ever. If anything is unrealistic about the way these fights were handled, it's that he was as competent as he was. The fact that there was lots of collateral damage is completely realistic even if he was trying his hardest to avoid it.

Superman took the fight with Zod away from the farm and INTO town. That was unnecessary.

I wonder if you watched the same film I watched. I was looking pretty damn closely, and I only saw two times that Superman was responsible for something that might have endangered someone. One was when he chucked that enormous dude into the trainyard, and the other was when he smashed Zod's face against the end of the building that Zod was smashing him against. Every other time Clark's actions were potentially putting others in danger, it was because the Kryptonians threw Clark.

Could he have done more to prevent destruction? Probably, yeah, at least if he had been in better control of his powers. But, as I said, untrained farm boy.

From the link in my first post, a thorough overview of the combat in the entire film and Clark's reasoning for the decisions he made:

...this point needs to be made first - this film’s Superman is BRAND NEW to his powers. He’s never fought before, he hasn’t spent ANY of his life as the world’s savior, aside from doing right where he can in small ways, LONG before he gained the ability to fly, and he’s never actually been able to fight ANYONE before these conflicts. So the before you start accusing him of not doing more, remember that he’s BARELY become able to do what he accomplishes in the film. So, now let’s get into the fights themselves. The filme doesn’t give you any of the slow-motion fighting that’s so commonly used in film these days, so it’s easy to assume that things are happening that didn’t, because everything is just full-power, breakneck speed, militarily-trained Kryptonians going all out against Kal-El. We’ll start with the first conflict in Smallville, and work from there.

After saving Lois from the broken escape pod, Kal-El rushes over towards his home, and tackles Zod. This is the first building that Kal-El himself destroys. He plows directly through two grain silos, and drags Zod through a cornfield while punching him in the face and yelling at him for threatening his mother. The grain silos are more than likely unoccupied, as they’re just storage facilities. Zod rolls out and hurls Kal-El through an occupied gas station, causing people to flee. You’ll note that Zod comes walking out of the flames in the building, as Kal-El is lying on the pavement well outside the store. Considering that he’s fighting against militarily trained Kryptonians, there isn’t much he can do about that type of thing occurring. This is the first of many, MANY times that Superman gets used as a projectile that causes collateral damage, and one that’s easy to MISTAKE for him CAUSING the damage through his own action. Zod leaves with his mask broken, but Faora-Ul & her ENORMOUS Kryptonian compatriot step in, and Clark tells everyone to stay inside or leave.

The moment that the military arrives, and essentially locks in the conflict’s location within the town. Clark manages to save a man from falling to his death after the big Kryptonian hurls a van into his helicopter before the fighting REALLY breaks out, but after that he doesn’t have a moment to spare. In addition to the fact that the military is treating him like a threat, the two Kryptonians tag-team him and hurl him through buildings, or just smash him into the ground at just about every turn, and he’s barely managing to hold off their assault, let alone have enough time to leap to anyone’s aid. This is a battle that ISN’T on his terms - not to mention that he hasn’t even fought anyone before, let alone tried to micromanage combat and rescuing people. He gets hurled through buildings into a bank vault, pummeled relentlessly through an IHOP, and back to where he was before. This leads to the SECOND human structure that Clark destroys - he tosses the big Kryptonian into a train yard. Again, this is another area that’s likely abandoned (he would have had a pretty good view of it from the air, and ought to have been able to tell), but like the grain silo, it’s hard to say for certain. After, knocking down Faora-Ul, she delivers a rather heavy threat, “For every one you save, we’ll kill a million more.” and with these people, Kal-El can’t take his attention away from them, even for a moment, because they’re better than he is, and his biggest advantage here is that they’re not adapted to our atmosphere. After getting hit by a train hurled by the big Kryptonian from the aforementioned yard, there isn’t anything else significant that comes to mind that Clark is involved in (various gunfire, and Faora-Ul blocking a missile fired at her are collateral damage that he’s not directly involved in because he’s otherwise detained). This weakness leads to the next big conflict that deals in HEAVY collateral damage - Metropolis.

The World Engine is activated in the Indian Ocean, and is slaved to the Kryptonian’s Ship hovering over Metropolis. The World Engine is generating the gravity wave that’s causing the destruction and also serving as a protective barrier around their ship. In addition to this, the longer that the World Engine remains intact, the bigger the gravity wave will get, and the more of the atmosphere will be converted into Kryptonian-friendly and Earth-deadly fumes. This means that Superman HAS to tackle the World Engine first, in order to allow Lois and the military to send the rest of the Kryptonians into the Phantom Zone, as well as to ensure that it causes the least amount of damage possible.

Let me be clear here - by fighting that gigantic machine, Superman is saving more people than if he’d gone immediately to Metropolis - that ship is has somewhere around eight Kryptonians who we already know pose a threat to him if there’re just two of them fighting him. Two, even if he defeats them, the World Engine would be wrecking Metropolis THE ENTIRE TIME, if not causing global-scale damage. The World Engine is increasing the Earth’s mass, in order to make the world’s gravity more like that of Krypton (which is some sketchy science, but that’s something else entirely), and that ship is just localizing the effect to use it as a shield/weapon. Not to mention that after a fight against a whole slew of Kryptonians in fluctuating Gravity, he might not even be strong enough to break down the World Engine at all (since he barely managed to hold up against the gravity level where it was at when it was his first target, and it would be significantly stronger if he attempted to combat it later - not to mention, without the focus, it might just spread the effect across the entire world if they destroyed the Kryptonian ship first which would cause Global damage). So, now it should be clear that, Superman is saving more people by being halfway around the world than by being in Metropolis at the time, despite the fact that it feels counterintuitive.

Now let’s move on to his fight against Zod, which takes place in the non-ruined parts of Metropolis. Zod throws Kal-El through a LOT of buildings which are possibly and even likely occupied. We even see people near where debris is falling, but Superman isn’t doing anything to save them - this is again because this fight isn’t on his terms (and this isn’t the Superman who’s been using all of these powers to save people around the world before). Zod is a battle trained warrior who adapts to the issues Clark faced on Earth in a matter of hours. Clark is fighting as hard as he can just to get even a momentary advantage here. If he runs to try to change the battlefield - Zod probably won’t chase him, he’ll just start murdering people by the thousands, so he stays as close to Zod as possible, but that doesn’t do him any favors. He gets tossed through buildings, punched into space, and relentlessly pummeled. There is ONE SINGLE TIME DURING THIS ENTIRE FIGHT that Kal-El damages a building or any other structure that may have resulted in human injury - Zod is dragging him against a building (the same way Kal-El dragged him through the cornfield), and he flips around and drags Zod against the outside of the building for the last few feet. Aside from that, Kal-El DOESN’T DIRECTLY CAUSE ANY DAMAGE WITHIN METROPOLIS. There’s even a whole sequence of him punching Zod through the sky, moving through the city (assumedly in an attempt to move out of it), where he doesn’t hit Zod into anything and even specifically avoids all of the buildings, before Zod gets the better of him again. Overall, despite how it looks, Kal-El takes every opportunity to save people when he can - which is almost never, and when he can’t, he’s trying to ensure the least amount of damage possible. (On a related note, this is likely why this Superman takes up Metropolis as his ‘home city’ - because he feels that he owes them for everyone that he couldn’t save from the Kryptonian’s attacks).

He was able to catch Lois while she fell from the sky, but NO ONE ELSE. And then he has time to kiss! There's probably hundreds or thousands trapped or dying and he has time to kiss!

It's almost as if you expect Superman to be a robot or something. He just went through a near-death experience. Are you honestly expecting him to exhibit Samaritan syndrome at this of all times? Kryptonians aren't Vulcans. And, for that matter, even Vulcans aren't as robotic as people think they are.

In the Avengers, you had a quick montage of the missing people wall and the memorials and the questions being asked about how this devastation was allowed to happened. That all took, what, 1 minute? It doesn't take much to just acknowledge the human element in that destruction.

Man of Steel made it pretty goddamn obvious that a troutload of buildings were collapsing. I don't think they need to beat you over the head with the fact that people are going to die in a situation like that. That's verging into Viewers Are Morons territory. Not that I'm complaining about the way the destruction was handled in The Avengers, since there was a good artistic purpose for it, but I see nothing to complain about in Man of Steel's treatment, either.

Hopefully in the next film they'll deal with the fact that Superman was part of the reason why so much destruction happened, even if he was the good guy here. Maybe that'll be Lex's motivation.

Superman was only "part of the reason why so much destruction happened" if you blame him for being inexperienced and emotional. The actual reason so much destruction happened was the other Kryptonians. But, yes, I wouldn't be surprised if Superman gets blamed for the destruction anyway.

[Pant Leg Eater from the Bad World]

I agree with everything The Man has said on all points. The rest of you are nitpicky butttards.

I agree that Superman is going to get a big blame for everything. I also think that Lex might be a big part of rebuilding Metropolis. It would make for an interesting introduction to his character I think.

[Miriel]

The excessive collateral damage is the most common and consistent criticism I've seen of this film.

And obviously, it's been mentioned enough times, by enough people to the point where someone felt that they had to write a damn essay trying to explain it all away. Just think about that for a sec.

There is a lot to nitpick about this movie if you really wanted to. Tons of stuff that just didn't make much sense. But the excessive collateral damage is not one of them. It's not a nitpick if it's a glaring obvious thing that many many viewers and critics noticed.

I seriously can't fathom how people can take a general criticism (and as far as I can tell in this thread, the people who mentioned it LIKED the movie!!!!!) and turn it into all these random explanations that just go on and on. Some of the stuff... I don't even want to touch it.

Why try so hard? Seriously? Are you guys literally incapable of enjoying a film if you can't do mental gymnastics to explain every single action? Do you experience some sort of cognitive dissonance?

Here, enjoy some Henry Cavill eye candy. Maybe that will keep you from spending time writing essays about this crap.

[Shiny]

I am not sure what I find more annoying. His constant frown/determination face Amy Adams' or consistent bitchface. Oh well, at least he has nice man breasts.

Also that girl from that horrible movie Zero Dark Thirty would make a better Lois.