Man of Steel. Nolan Superman Reboot.

The truck scene was weird to me on a lot of levels.

For one, the guy was a head smaller than Clark, who is clearly built like... at least a wooden shithouse, if not a brick shithouse. Clark is inherently an imposing figure.

Who works there. It's actually weird the Clark didn't actually intervene since frankly, "help your coworkers" is probably in his job description. How did the guy think it was going to go when he's confronting a clearly muscled guy in his place of work? And then he quits on the spot because... that also didn't make much sense to me. Like, I get the trope of the asshole who picks on the little guy or the guy who can't fight back but in this case, Clark is neither. Unless the café markets itself as "you can harass our waitresses all you like!" there's no way the establishment wouldn't back its employees. It's not like the guy is some bigwig who can do whatever he wants and get away with it. Hell if anything, he hurts her more since from her perspective that nice guy Clark quit because of her being harassed so she may harbor guilt over that. But she doesn't matter. She's a prop for Clark's scene. Yes, he's the main character, but it's apparent from the word go that it's not about making it right for her, but instead she's a tool for Clark's development.

... also the truck was clearly his livelihood. It was an industrial truck. People don't have those for funsies. But moreover, by exacting his revenge in that way, he's doing nothing to actually make the guy change his behavior (since there's no cause/effect from his perspective) and inconveniencing a lot of innocent people. And it is revenge. Nothing more. It's not punishment since the guy doesn't know why it's happening, and the victim doesn't get the catharsis of even knowing what happened to the guy.

And yeah, like Swanpride said, it just is weird how little this paid off. Or rather, how little the clearly intended payoff actually jived with what actually happened. Clearly, the payoff was meant to be "Clark will do the right thing, even if he makes sacrifices in the process, because he does that." Except to anyone actually watching, he's not doing the right thing and his sacrifices are stupid.

edited 22nd Jan '18 12:02:18 PM by Larkmarn

Just to summon it up:

The Truck scene happens after it has been established that Clark tries to lie low but can't help himself rescuing people.

It starts out with a guy harassing a waitress and then continuing to be an a-hole when Clark steps in despite Clark being bigger, more muscular and just overall more intimidating (that's the thing with Christopher Reeve, he always managed to make Clark look awkward and unthreatening).

Clark backs off and takes the humiliation, which is in line with his father teaching him to no retaliate when he gets bullied (speaking of which, John is an a-hole for just watching his child getting threatened), but then suddenly decides to turn the Truck into a pretzel, even though we just established that he is trying to lie low.

None of his actions are in any way helpful. The waitress won't feel better, the guy who harassed her won't know why this happened, and, a-hole or not, he might have a family or someone else dependent on his livelihood, so Clark might have just hurt innocents out of petty revenge. While also drawing attention to himself. Honestly, just breaking this guys bones would have been less obvious.

The scene is confusing because it is not really clear which version of Clark is now the one the audience is supposed to take as a baseline. It isn't even clear if the whole thing is suppose to be funny or something the audience is suppose to question.

The scene never gets referenced again and has no obvious pay-off.

And, for the record, none of this is necessarily related to what Superman should or shouldn't be, it is entirely related to the inner logic of the scene and its relationship to the rest of the movie.

edited 22nd Jan '18 12:02:00 PM by Swanpride

The scene does payoff, frequently. When and how he should use his powers is an undercurrent of the entire movie. People treat him differently when they see him pushing a bus out of a river, or walking through fire barechested and ripping a metal door off its hinges. And that's easy when it comes to dealing with bullies knowing the slightest loss of control still means ripping their head off. And yes, The Napoleon exists in real life, ask any club bouncer and they will tell you to be careful dealing with the little guys. Clark may have been well-muscled but his demeanor didn't intimidate the trucker, who (Right for the Wrong Reasons) figured Clark wouldn't actually fight him. Even still, it might have been an interesting report to the insurance company but there is no reason he wouldn't have gotten a new truck, even assuming he was an independent driver and didn't work directly for the logging company.

And again, it's a fallacy thinking that only good movies make money. I was saying that being a different take on Superman is why MOS was successful at all, regardless of what you may think of the end movie. You make a "good," simpler, traditional Superman movie and I honestly don't think it would have even done what this movie did.

edited 22nd Jan '18 12:06:30 PM by KJMackley

Well, no, Man of Steel as a standalone Elseworlds story and reflection on the burdens of heroing is interesting enough to warrant the price of admission. Man of Steel as the foundation of a shared universe where Superman is the Superhero the world depends on is where it becomes terrible. It's like trying to take The Great Gatsby and turn it into a normal Soap Opera centered around the Buchanans and the people whose lives are ruined by getting involved with them. Or into a Noir series about the misadventures of Nick Carraway, who grows more and more jaded and brokenhearted as the people he encounters keep enticing him with the promise of one type of happiness after another, only to systematically let him down in incredibly disappointing ways.

Some works only function as standalone.

But, yeah, Man of Steel certainly suffers from a lack of fluidity of language. Transitions are disjointed and jarring to the level of a French Arthouse Film. Disorientation and confusion seem to be the movie's themes.

edited 22nd Jan '18 12:57:49 PM by TheHandle

I always saw Man of Steel has having some poor editing choices, not one that was poorly structured from the ground up. It seemed that the final movie was edited based around test audience responses rather than letting the filmmakers make the movie they wanted.

Man of Steel was a fine enough choice to build a Shared Universe around. I would say it is even better than Iron Man in that sense, as the movie featured a genuine, world shattering event that would change the status quo. And BVS, for all its flaws, still had that the premise that the world was changing and there are other heroes in the world. The MCU was more about The Greatest Story Never Told until The Avengers, which is when the entire franchise became more continuity oriented. MOS was also a reasonable enough financial success, indicating they had a decent fanbase to work with. Now Amazing Spider Man made little sense for a shared universe, because of limited characters to work with, mediocre box office and the story being primarily about the personal issues of a handful of people and not genuine Worldbuilding.

There is little worth in shattering the status quo before you have even established it. The destruction of Metropolis for example would have had way more impact if Metropolis had already been established in some way.

For what is worth, I do think that the angle could have worked, if the approach had been less cynical, the story better structured and the themes more consistent. Oh, and if the characters had actually been likable. But an interesting concept doesn't make a good movie.

Except if you say "there's payoff because it ties into the 'does great power mean great responsibility' thing," it's severely undercut by the fact that A: We know he chooses the responsibility thing because of the oil rig, and B: the sheer illogical decisions in the diner completely undermine everything about the dilemma. Remember, he elects to exact petty revenge on the guy rather than choosing to help the victim or even do anything to encourage the guy to clean up his act.

My issue is the later movies feel like they're actively trying to undermine this shattering of the status quo. Wonder Woman's been a figure for decades. The decision to go with "Old Bats" means that he, and by extension his rogues gallery has been active for some time. Suicide Squad opens with Waller saying "everything changed the day Superman flew across the sky" except that other metahumans have been around for a while now.

edited 22nd Jan '18 1:58:12 PM by Larkmarn

The oil ring means he is helping people, but not that he acept is destiny(Being súperman) which he reject at first, the truck is just him showing is dificult To be just clark: he cant push that jerk and at best he can do is some Pay back which come as Hollow.

And no, Diana did a thing on WWI and that it, while bat have fight snd failed i. His war around Gotham and súperman pretty much shatter is world view, MOS really change the status quo.

He did help the woman, or at least tried to. She told to leave the matter alone. And frankly, this seems like an awful lot of hemming and hawing over a guy who sexually harasses people. Who cares if he changes his ways? He got what was coming to him.

edited 22nd Jan '18 2:17:27 PM by windleopard

On paper, perhaps, but in execution, I don't think so. And in fact doubly so for BVS. When that movie first came out, I watched a Midnight Screenings review where one of the reviewers said that this was not going to be the huge launching point WB was hoping for, and the fact that it was being used as a lead in to a Justice League film was probably not very smart. He ended up being proven correct, as the opening weekend for Justice League attested.

That's the problem with trying to launch a universe like this without much of a prior foundation. If everything is hinging on one movie, your audience actually has to like that movie enough to want to see a universe built around it. BVS and Man of Steel weren't the only movies to fail in that regard though; it's what ultimately killed Sony's grand plans for an Amazing Spider-Man Cinematic Universe after people hated The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

edited 22nd Jan '18 2:29:48 PM by comicwriter

Maybe we should discuss Moviebobs "Really that Bad" now that he finished it. I refrained from linking it so far because, well, for one they are three really long videos and two, I didn't want to inflame the discussion again. But he makes a number of really good points regarding why the structure Bv S doesn't work, which also apply to Man of Steel. And he brings up some good points about why WB made the decision they did (though I wished he had examined the question more instead of apologizing to Snyder every five minutes).

And the monster universe died with the very first movie. Again.

edited 22nd Jan '18 2:56:39 PM by Swanpride

The assumption with most movies is that they are Like Reality, Unless Noted. It's through the events of the movie itself that they explain how things are different from reality. Unless either A) Superman is one of many other heroes publicly known or B) they start In Medias Res, the status quo should most definitely change when Superman arrives. That's what the status quo means, that which is typical up until the events of the story.

Frankly, when a movie starts off saying "This is a comic book world" that's when I tune out. Amazing Spider-Man 2 started off with a car chase where criminals had stolen nuclear materials and Spider-Man was juggling them comically, I wondered how they expected us to take the story seriously at all if that's what is how we are brought in.

Edit: Also, the idea that Superman struggles to find a balance between helping people in trouble and fighting off bullies, being a public figure and having a private life is a major part of the Superman mythos. To complain about it is to pick apart the character of Superman, not just this movie.

edited 22nd Jan '18 3:49:57 PM by KJMackley

Again, we aren't complaining about the themes, we are complaining about the execution.

Also, I am totally okay with starting at the beginning, but then start at the beginning instead of going in medias res with the next movie. It is confusing. If we assume that Batman has been around for decades and gone up against all kind of crazy villains, and that there are villains like the Enchantress running around, mutated people, the notion of Superman shouldn't be that far out.

Batman isn't superhuman and Enchantress is depicted as an ancient being from another dimension that faded into legend for over a millennia and hasn't interacted with humans in that time. She wasn't just running around, most people didn't even know or believe she existed. Killer Croc can be dismissed as a guy with a weird skin condition and even then he is not on the same level as Superman. This really is not a difficult concept to grasp.

I was talking purely about MOS, since that is this thread. But even still, early in BVS there is a conversation that other superhumans probably exist, with talk of the metahuman thesis, which is demonstrayed with Wonder Woman presence Suicide Squad expands on that by explicitly saying that everyone was turning over rocks looking for another Superman. So far nothing has contradicted the idea in MOS that public knowledge of Superman would be a game changing event, as it is made extremely clear in all films that it was. I'm guessing that Justice League was supposed to bring that premise to it's natural conclusion and from then on the public is fully aware that superheroes exist now, but that got lost in all the post production trouble.