Man of Steel. Nolan Superman Reboot.

One of my favorite things about the recent MCU movies is that the superheroes are actually allowed TO LOOK LIKE SUPER HEROES.

I do feel something vital was lost with Jonathan Kent. It's true, he usually gets priority over Jor-El, and that's not right. And Costner's Kent is, basically, a real portrayal of how a midwestern everyman would react: keep your head down, don't rock the boat... and adds more chips to Zod's pile. Are humans even deserving of self-determination?

^ That's something that bugged me about the film in general - I get what they were going with the symbolism, but the general idea when it comes to humanity is that humans are A) naturally repressive to Clark, who is physically and more importantly symbolically greater than they can muster and B) that though they can attempt to defend themselves, they need someone like Superman to truly better and watch over them.

The question of "are humans even worthy of self-determination," is a question the film kind of answers "no" to, though I don't think it was intentional. The film's focus is firmly set on Krypton (I still think the movie isn't even about Superman as much as it's about Krypton itself), and if humanity has sit down and let that be more prominent, well...

edited 18th Nov '13 5:29:24 PM by KnownUnknown

random question: did Supes use his heat vision much in the film?

I don't think so.

He used it mostly fighting the Kryptonians.

For some reason, Zod always gets the hang of the powers quicker.

"I trained my entire LIFE to master my body. Where did YOU train? ON A FARM?!"

It's Rocky versus Ivan Drago again.

when Zod said that, i was just waiting for Supes to retort, "Well, now that you mention it..." ^note you guys should be glad i didn't write the movie; i would've written everyone as a sarcastic smart-aleck.

edited 18th Nov '13 5:42:19 PM by crimsonstorm15

A farm on Earth. Zod lived his entire life on Krypton. It's like when astronauts go to the moon, they fall down a lot, because every motion they make moves them around more than it would on Earth. So when Zod can suddenly pick up a house, it's going to be difficult to adjust.

edited 18th Nov '13 5:43:14 PM by BaconManiac5000

He used the heat vision pretty often I thought. At least, more often than I thought they would for a live action film.

I have to say, I really like the way they adapted the concept of Kryptonite in this one - instead of a radioactive stone, Krypton's atmosphere itself is toxic to someone who grew up on Earth and weakens Clark's abilities as a result.

The downside is that now we won't get all the wacky variants of Kryptonite. The plus side is that there's a whole bunch of really interesting things that can be done from the "let's synthesize the one 'poison' that can harm Superman" angle - it'd be cool if Batman/Superman pulled the "X-villain uses Poison Ivy to control Superman" bit without needing to have, like, Kryptonite dust flying around everywhere.

Soooo, a Joss Whedon movie?

Honestly, why did Krypton get such a firm grip of the Idiot Ball all around? Why are they all violent, hyper-emotional idiots with Skewed Priorities? Why is it okay to exterminate an entire species of sentient beings rather than fucking suffer for a few years?!

I still think the film was awesome. And I liked the costume. That blood-red cape made him look like a Spartan. But it could have stood to be brighter.

At any rate, I can't wait for their Luthor.

Although I kept thinking throughout the movie: "Superman looks like Mika".

As for Kent's behaviour, look up Minnesota Nice and Jante's law

Also, Superman never moped, not even once, in the entire film. The film is dark and moody and tragic, but Superman will never—

edited 18th Nov '13 6:23:42 PM by TheHandle

They are all violent psychopaths because they were all criminals.

What I'm wondering about is why they didn't converge with human society rather than destroy it. It makes more sense to merge with the humans, because you would become the dominant species on earth.

Dude! I set it up for you and everything. You know what you should have said!

Zod's an Ultra Xenophobe. Kryptonian or fuck right off. He all but gave Jor-El a "Master Race" speech.

What was I supposed to do?

edited 18th Nov '13 6:46:09 PM by BaconManiac5000

Actually, apparently Kryptonite will show up in the future, they just didn't want to fall back on it in this movie since every other adaptation is so quick to just throw out the green rocks at a drop of a hat.

@Son of Sharknado: exactly.

Kryptonite is ultimately a very obtuse weakness that will struggle with the more realistic tone the film was aiming for. The reason for his powers are fantastical but still logical as far as Magic A Is Magic A is concerned, but the reason why a glowing rock weakens him but has zero effect (besides the normal effects of radiation) on a regular human stretches belief a little bit further.

Red sun energy is actually a much more logical weakness in general because of already established facts about his powers being yellow sun fueled. Thus the Krypton atmosphere is another logical weakness because he has to adapt to a different environment to where he honed his strength.

It will be interesting if the government or some Mad Scientist synthesizes a "Krypton atmosphere bomb" to neutralize Superman, which only weakens him to allow a little more drama such as with the battle against the World Engine.

As for him using heat vision, that was probably his most visual superpower past flight and strength. The movie never approached cold/super breath (cause logically he might be able to manage short bursts but his lung capacity couldn't simulate a hurricane... although now that's got me thinking about circular breathing some musicians use). It seems to be his most versatile power and one he has mostly mastered. I did like how they made the effect disorienting in excessive amounts, cause otherwise that would be his Game-Breaker power.

edited 18th Nov '13 9:47:56 PM by KJMackley

Speaking of weaknesses: http://www.cracked.com/article_19434_the-6-most-ridiculous-superhero-weaknesses.html

edited 18th Nov '13 9:52:12 PM by BaconManiac5000

Kryptonite ought to be rare ore; more expensive than moon rocks. Otherwise it's difficult to explain why nobody thinks to make kryptonite bullets and load them into a minigun.

The downside [to a lack of Kryptonite in MoS] is that now we won't get all the wacky variants of Kryptonite.

I don't know, that lack of variants strikes me as a good thing. The powers from some types of Kryptonite were pretty lame, as I recall (if vaguely).