DC Extended Universe

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with how the scene plays out. The complaint lies solely on the belief that Superman cannot and will never take a life. I've seen so many arguments on this subject that only military or law enforcement have the right to take a life, but actual US law states that if you have the capacity to protect an innocent then you should, and you will be protected by law even if it results in a criminals death.

The movie hints towards this ending repeatedly, Jonathan Kent's entire character was in teaching Clark that his powers carry an immense responsibility beyond simply protecting others, not only to protect himself in the bus incident but whether or not he should retaliate when dealing with a bully. "I wanted to tear him apart." "Would that make you feel any better?" Clark even enters the fight saying affirmatively that he will stop Zod, almost like a child playing hero, and Zod tells him the fight is only going to end one way.

The movie doesn't dwell on the act extensively but it does build up to it and doesn't completely ignore it once it's done.

Again, I couldn't care less if Superman kills or not. There have been various reviewers who explained in detail why the scene doesn't work, and not on the basis of "that's something Superman wouldn't do". In fact, most of them said that they liked the idea, but were put out by the execution.

I sincerely doubt we would be having this conversation at all if it was any other superhero in the exact same scenario. It's a "Superman never kills" belief and then working backwards from there to prove why it doesn't work. Just about any plot point can be "disproven" given enough analysis.

Depends on how the Superhero in question is portrayed in the movie. I tend to judge movie independent from the source material first and foremost, because there are some out there which are really, really bad adaptations but nevertheless pretty good movies.

There doesn't seem to be much upset about the MCU's Iron Man killing, or Captain America, or the Hulk, even though Marvel tried putting a no killing rule on them in the comics. There wasn't even that much upset about Bale-Batman basically killing Ra's al Ghul or Talia, even when his moral code was established in the films. So I don't think it's a case of just objection to Superman doing it because he doesn't kill in the comics. It depends on how the film treated it.

edited 22nd Mar '15 4:12:58 PM by Tuckerscreator

In most of those cases I think it is because the stories gloss over the deaths, making the hero at worst inattentive or conveniently not personally making the kill even though they are still responsible for it. Sending anyone to the Phantom Zone is, for all intents and purposes, the same as a death sentence, and we are just accustomed to the hero finding some sort of trick to absolve them of the moral dilemma of snapping the bad guys neck.

It doesn't really gloss over it...but most of the Avengers are either Soldiers, Spies Warriors. That killing is part of the job is kind of a given. They are more worry about killing the wrong people than killing in general.

Exactly, so why are people so upset about Superman making a single, desperate kill at the end of a long, destructive battle?

Honestly, it's because the movie made it into such a traumatic experience for him that I defend the portrayal so much. Whereas in a lot of other films enemies are killed with a suave Bond One-Liner, comically or a fist-pumping awesome kill ^note Like in the Marvel movies enemies have been punted 30 feet with ragdoll physics, kill themselves because of a close range ricochet, shot through the chest with a quippy "Get up after that!" line, shot with a bazooka mid-sentence, shredded by a rear propeller and more and the hero sees no issue with it.

Most people probably think the DCCU will be needlessly dark and Superman will just kill people left and right. Frankly I think the more logical interpretation of the scene is that Superman will do everything in his power to avoid killing from now on.

Didn't Zack Snyder say that would indeed be the case?

edited 22nd Mar '15 7:07:22 PM by Anicomicgeek

Heck, Dawn of Justice is as hopeful a title as they come, at the very least. It's not like they're subtitling it Twilight with Bloody Doom.

edited 22nd Mar '15 7:18:20 PM by NapoleonDeCheese

It's been sort of a trend ever since Batman Begins to not do a "paint by numbers" adaptation of a character and show them a little raw and NOT going against their most famous rogues gallery right up front. The downside is we never really got the Batman who is a technical and strategic genius as in the comics, but instead the focus was on a Batman who is adapting his strategy on a regular basis, which is often more interesting than someone who "just is."

Arrow has its flaws but one thing I really enjoyed from the show is how it starts off pretty far removed from the classical version of the character only to slowly bring him in line with the classical version.

So if Dawn of Justice is really going down that path that could render a lot of these arguments moot.

I just hope that they don't all give the heroes backstories and personalities like Batman's. Heck, that was one of my main problems with Man Of Steel, as pointed out here:

edited 23rd Mar '15 12:09:04 AM by LDragon2

Oh my God, fuck that review.

Hey, the Mo S review he made was actually fairly well-balanced (granted, that was due to him bringing in someone who liked the movie, but yeah). And the song, while humorous, does make a good point.

@KJ Mackley The audience make a big deal around it because the movie suddenly turns it into a big deal in the scene itself, but then shifts to "yeah, everyone is happy!" And because Superman is not portrayed as a soldier, spy or anything like that up to the point the battle begins, but as a protector, even though the movie is more constantly telling the audience that he is one instead of showing it.

He talked over Joe a lot, put one of his explanations about why he thought a certain scene was good as muffled background noise, and just generally seemed to position the Christopher Reeve movie, and himself, as better than Joe and the Man of Steel movie. The best he could say at the end of this supposed fair review was "It's barbaric garbage, but I guess you're allowed to like it."

^^ Near every story will have the characters move on immediately following the climax, regardless of what personal trauma the hero might have endured during the narrative. Unless the story becomes about the clean up of the city or Superman dealing with the guilt about killing Zod, there is no reason to stick with it.

I think Angst? What Angst? is an interesting idea in principle but overused. Hand-wringing generally does not make for a compelling story and that's why writers prefer to move on. Tony's PTSD following New York in Iron Man 3 is a fine idea, but his frequent panic attacks did nothing for the story.

Dropping a character trait, arc or idea after the climax works best when the movie itself put the time and work in building that up, culminating in the climax itself being the point where that trait is dealt with. Ideally, the end of the movie shouldn't have to dwell on that sort of thing because the climax already has.

Man of Steel runs into an issue there, because the climax is it's supposedly introduced (imo it's not really dealt with at all, but I'm in the minority), not where it culminated to - that's a different situation: situations introduced by the climax that supposedly have lasting effect on the characters should be present in some small way after the climax, unless of course it's not actually all that important.

And even so, in situations where the plotline is resolved by the climax there is rarely anything lost by having the impact of the resolution at least be mentioned in the denouement, to show the Character Development.

Personally, I think the best quick solution would've been to have a short snippet of Clark putting Krypton to rest, so to speak. Like a personal memorial, including one for Zod and the ones they had to kill to save the Earth, in the Arctic where he found the ship. It needn't be any more than a few seconds. It's not a replacement for the lack of character development the film suffered from as a whole, but it would've helped a small amount - plus it would've fit with the movie's overall themes (which were more about the death of Krypton then they were about Clark himself).

edited 23rd Mar '15 2:59:57 AM by KnownUnknown

I can agree with that. Kind of like Luke giving Vader a Jedi Funeral Pyre at the end of Return of the Jedi, a quiet moment to lead into the rest of the ending. There's nothing inherently wrong with adding more, but it could just as easily be a superficial "Let's watch the hero be sad for a minute" and people would still complain he got over it too quickly. Like I said, check out the examples on Angst? What Angst? and you'll see more than half of them have a justification of the character trying to get past their initial grief.

In some ways I like that him having to kill Zod was not heavily alluded to because that actually leaves a bit more of an impact. Excessive foreshadowing can dilute the big twist, as though the entire script is constricted to a spectacularly ironic moment and the audience is beaten over the head with it. It's been said that originally the script had Zod taken into the Phantom Zone with all the other Kryptonians, but they didn't feel it was a strong enough ending and too neat. So they had Zod outside the ship so that the movie ends with some punch to it. That's why I said it feels like a deconstruction of the clever victory that absolves the hero of a moral choice.

Phil Lord and Chris Miller are writing the script for the Flash.

They aren't sure if they will also direct the movie.

FF7 director might direct Aquaman.

Bad news Michelle McLaren steps down as director of Wonder Woman

Well, that's not good.

At least it happened early and not during production.