History Headscratchers / ManOfSteel

** Clark is seen reading 'The Republic' by Ancient Grecian philosopher Plato at one point in the story. Capes were a piece of clothing typically worn in Ancient Greece. Philosophers are often seen wearing capes in paintings such as 'The School Of Athens' by Raphael. Philosophers were also important in society as well, so somewhat powerful. This is reflected when Clark is seen standing over Krypto(?). Although it is a very young Clark, we already know he is very smart (Science Fair Winner), so it is possible he would have an interest in ancient times. With the cloak, he is clearly trying to emulate the philosophers.

** There is not that much light, maybe is sunrise in the ocean and sunset in Metropolis. You can actually see that in the final Zod-Superman fight the buildings have the lights on.

** Superman seemed relatively willing to cooperate with Zod until he decided to flat out KillEmAll. There was little in the way of practical reason to use Earth other than Zod just being a dick. Hell, New Krypton could have had a neighboring ally in Earth if Zod hadn't decided to go AxCrazy on them. For the efforts of pointlessly choosing to terraform a populated Earth, Zod lost the codex and the only ships capable of restoring Krypton's population. From a Kryptonian point of view, it ended up as a great big NiceJobBreakingItHero on Zod's part.

** Quoted from Wiki/TheOtherWiki: "Superman's ability to fly under his own power is explained with the concept of "self telekinesis", an invisible telekinetic field that allows him to lift himself off the ground. Any objects that Superman touches are also enveloped by the field and this allows him to move them with the force of his will. In addition, the idea of a supercharged bioelectric "aura" which acts as an invisible "force field" around and within his body was introduced by Byrne to provide an explanation for his invulnerability. Superman's skin-tight aura allows his equally tight costume to come through his fights relatively undamaged, although his cape will tear as it is not protected by the aura."

* When the World Engine is starts up, Dr Hamilton says "Looks like some kind of gravity weapon...Somehow they're increasing the Earth's mass". That's fine as an [[ExpositionIntuition exposition]] but, in-universe, how does he know the Earth's mass is increasing? Increased mass would show as increased gravity (balances weighing "heavy" all over the world, which Hamilton might well be aware of) and increased momentum (which would take a while for anyone to notice). All of the gravity effects can be explained by the presence of, you know, an active gravity weapon. What evidence could Hamilton have had that the Earth's ''mass'' was increasing?

** As a child, Clark figured it out over the course of ''one'' conversation. It's plausible that Clark was simply too green, but that only makes it that much more of a WhatAnIdiot moment.

* In her little villainous rant, she said Superman was weak because he had morality, and her side was better because they didn't. Except... They very obviously '' '''do''' '' have a strong sense of morality, since they're not only loyal to each other, they're risking and sacrificing their own lives to save their people. Theirs is not an equalitarian or liberal morality, obviously, but it's equally clear they aren't just selfish psychopaths. Someone ''truly'' without morality wouldn't give a damn about rebuilding Krypton or resurrecting its people, he'd be way too happy just playing demigod among the PunyEarthlings with his superpowers. ([[UnfortunateImplications Oh, wait...]]) So, what's Faora's problem? Perhaps she doesn't speak English very well, so she mixes up the words and says something other than what she really intended?

[[folder: SPOILER: Zod and the Genetically Engineered Society]]
* So General Zod is the "best warrior on Krypton". We know this because he tells us. He was bred specifically to be this. He has spent his entire life training to be the best, or fighting and being the best. Yet he still loses a fist-fight to Superman at the end of the film. Maybe you can handwave this as a result of Superman being far stronger due to having lived on Earth for 30 years while Zod has only been there for a day. But then at the beginning of the film he loses another fist-fight to Jor-El... who is a scientist. In this movie's universe, he has always been a scientist, and by the rules of this movie it's what he was genetically bred to be. And then he fought his planet's perfect warrior and won. [[FlatWhat What?]]

** Let's pinpoint the geography a bit better. Metropolis and Gotham are said by the [=DCEU=} wiki to be located on the east coast of the USA (as they traditionally have been in most comics and adaptations); specifically, in the states of Delaware and New Jersey, respectively. Now, the Indian Ocean is not constrained to the timezone of the Indian nation, it actually spans from eastern Africa to western Australia. If we look at the antipode of Wilmington, Delaware (disregard the fact that the fictional Metropolis has a vastly larger population than Wilmington) [[https://www.geodatos.net/en/antipodes/united-states/wilmington-de we see that it's off the west coast of Australia]] so this must be where Superman went to stop the terraforming process. And that means that sunset in Metropolis (7:30PM) would be around 7:30AM a few hundred nautical miles or so off Western Australia. Thus, there's more overlap in the time where the sun could be up for both of these locations than if the antipode was presumed to be near Mumbai.

** It is shown that the dad (who is in front of his family) is clearly shocked with fear and/or surprise when Kal get the neck hold on Zod, after all, wouldn't you be frozen if you see a couple of guys crushing from the sky, making a DragonBall-esque crater in front of you, keep struggling and one of them shooting damn death laser beams from his eyes?

** It's not like Jor-El had many other options. it was either letting his race to become extinct or preserving the Codex and hope that his son will figure out a way to rebuild his race without endangering Earth.

** Now this has a clear explanation. Clark trusts the General, and gave the info that he was raised in Kansas to reassure him that he is an American and won't ever turn against his country. He is confident that the General is going to understand (and make the goverment understand) that Supes needs his privacy and that he is an ally they can trust.

** That isn't really the same situation. For a Superman so early in his superhero career, it's vital that the US goverment trusts him enough to let him do his job, and the General is the highest ranking officer he's met so far.

** Not to mention, your original observation. Do you think the military ''didn't'' notice there was a random throwdown in ''Kansas'' of all places? They knew that the Krytonians wanted Kal-El for a reason. Logic states that there was something in Kansas that they also wanted since they had some kind of agenda. Their planes deliberately left their mother ship with a trajectory the military was tracking and went there ''first'' before Clark had even broken out of the ship. If they were tactically going after ''Earth'', they would have started out with the larger cities. It's not a huge jump to think Kal-El's identity might have ties there. He doesn't lose anything by giving the information and gains trust by giving it. We already know what [[SecretSecretKeeper few people in Smallville]] knew about Clark's powers hadn't given him up and legally Clark Kent exists. And he hadn't been there for a long time, travelling the world ''under false identities'', so only life long members of Smallville knew about Clark Kent's oddities. Not to mention Kansas is a decently sized state and they'd have to take into account that he "grew up" there, not that he'd moved away or traveled (which he did). Not to mention the Kansas fight literally spanned ''miles'' and only landed in Smallville (the town proper) because of Clark. If you'll notice at the beginning of the fight, it looks like they have traveled miles away from Clark's home to the actual town, due to the speed he was flying when he was pissed off that Zod threatened his mother. So, to sum up, they know he has connections to Kansas, he grew up there at some point or another (for how long no one knows), and he's been on Earth thirty-three years. Also, he could have lied about growing up in Kansas to make the general feel better, picking Kansas because it's the place the fight occurred. It's not the most brilliant thing to do, but it doesn't lose him as much as you might think.

** Not to mention if we're going by Smallville's(the show) geography, Metropolis is also in Kansas. Even if it's not, judging from the time it took the military to get inbound to Smallville with the Colonel Hardy, the same commander that was there when Clark and Lois left with Zod, the entire movie (aside from the Arctic, Canada and Clark's travelling) may have been set in or around Kansas. Notice when he says it he gestures just to his right. So he could have basically been saying, "I'm from right here, get off my back."

** The assumption seemed to be that he was trying. Zod was about as powerful as Superman at that point, and they were both pretty beat-up, as far as Kryptonians go. Pulling you head down is stronger than turning it to the side, due to both [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sternocleidomastoid_muscle SCMs]] being engaged together. So Clark trying to keep Zod's head from turning right was probably his viable option. As for flying away or trying to pull him in another direction, you have to keep in mind that Zod's heat vision is obviously an EyeBeam based power. All Zod need to hit his mark is a slight eye movement or twitch of the neck, which would be easier to do in the struggle if Superman tried to move him rather than give everything he had to keep Zod from moving. Even if none of this is the case, though, Zod's simple "Never." to Clark's "Stop!" really drove his determination home: if Superman doesn't stop him here, he's going to keep killing people and fighting until he's down for good, regardless of whether this specific stand-off ends without collateral harm. [[IDidWhatIHadToDo So Superman does what he feels he has to]], [[NeckSnap to save everyone]].

** Clark had enough time to position his hands to grip Zod's head and twist it. With that, he could've punched him away or turned his head. Sure, Zod said it was a death match, but you can still knock the guy out. And I don't think kryptonian's ''can'' fly down as hard as they fly up. In fact, from what I've seen, they seem to have trouble staying grounded in general, seeing how much times kryptonians have been sent flying and actually let themselves hit the ground rather than correct their positioning (but don't quote me on that).

** As it has been pointed out time and again, Zod was going to kill Superman or Superman was going to kill Zod. There is literally nothing on this Earth left of Krypton (stated by Zod), meaning there's no technology that can stop him. If you watch closely, Superman was ''struggling with his entire body'' to keep Zod in that choke hold ''and'' trying to move his head away from the family and ''couldn't''. Zod was actually getting closer to the family by moving his head. So, Superman was also ''losing his grip'' on him, which mean that entire family would have died. In the space of a few days, Superman has fought all of the Kryptonians, he is exhausted and Zod was kicking his butt. He begged him not to hurt those people and to stop with the laser beams and Zod said "No way, Jose." Keep in mind, these people have destroyed buildings and cities with fighting ''each other'' and there is an innocent family at stake. Zod also stated ''he was never going to stop'' even as Superman was begging him to. Since Superman chose humanity over Krypton, Zod vowed to kill ''every living human'' on the ''planet''. Not to mention, Superman probably got lucky with this choke hold considering how devastating the fight was. And Zod is trained and literally has nothing left to lose. Also, to fly it looks as if your entire body needs to be coordinated, not like the easy flight of earlier versions. Clark hovers exactly twice with his hands and feet free, every other time he uses some sort of propulsion. Zod also took moments to do what it took years for Clark to learn (focusing your powers). He has a tactical advantage in that he doesn't care who he hurts or what damage he causes. Not to mention fights happen very quickly and Superman has seen how woefully underwhelming the military is compared to their physiology. So Superman kills Zod. All of the other options have the glory of hindsight, not the fury of battle behind them. He did the best thing he could in ''that'' moment.

** Clark knows where his powers come from; the Jor-El A.I. told him. The composition of Earth's atmosphere & the absorbtion of yellow sunlight from Earth's sun. But really, there is no realistic, established way to imprision Zod and/or remove his powers left at the end of the movie. Zod is a superpowered alien now capable of everything that Superman can do, there is no believable way of keeping such a being unconcious in what could take months or years, at least a few weeks to give the government "some time to think of something" (it would be laughable if the superpowered Kryptonians could be taken out with common anesthetic gases or drugs). Introducing Lex Luthor at the tail end of the movie wouldn't have been a smart move (unless it was an aftercredits scene) since it would have taken away the movie's "Zod vs the House of El" theme and would leave the audiences grumbling that they wasted Luthor on a few minutes; that's why the shoutouts to Luthor in the movie were all low-key. The only way the movie established that a Kryptonian's powers can be lost is if they are in the natural or simulated settings of Krypton's atmosphere, which can no longer be done with the destruction of '''all of the Kryptonian ships'''. Between stopping Zod from causing any more casualties and surely knowing full well that nothing now can stop '''him''' let alone Zod, Clark had to make his actions... [[WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender decisive]]. After all, he can't very well remove Zod's powers with a heretofore unmentioned spiritbending in the last moments, leaving him a broken shell of the man he once was, right?
** WesternAnimation/SupermanVsTheElite... it wasn't any better there. An after-credits scenes would be fine. It would at least set-up Lex's intellect and that he was capable of harming kryptonians. SequelHook is a trope, after all. Mainstream audiences seem to like Zod in this film, so only comic readers would be annoyed that they 'wasted' Luthor, and even then, it's not like you can only use a character in one film. Look at Scarecrow in ''Film/TheDarkKnightTrilogy''. The "Zod vs House of El" conflict was done when Supes snapped his neck, or more specifically, defeated him. While it would rob the film of a more conclusive feel, the film was meant to not only be the start of a trilogy, but the launching point for the DC Cinematic Universe, and having it be an after-credits scene would solve that conclusive feel-problem, as the Marvel movies don't seem to suffer for having them (there's a large enough gap between the main feature and the after-credits scene for it to not impact the tone of the movie).
** Realistically, the only thing that Luthor can do in an after credits sequence is just show up and tell the audience "This is who's gonna play Lex Luthor". And it might not even matter since he might ''not'' be the villain in the sequel. He might show up and maybe antagonize Superman, which could lead to him being the BigBad in Man of Steel 3 or the ''Justice League'' movie, whatever comes first. Scarecrow in the DKS were nice continuity nods, but his appearances in the second & third movies were merely cameos, which wouldn't really work with a big character as Luthor. Of all of the Superman movies, Lex Luthor has been in four of them (I, II, IV, Returns) so even non-comic book readers would know how big a player Lex Luthor is. ''Man of Steel'' was written to be self-contained, with the sequel plans (as well as the later announced Flash & Justice League movies) finalized '''after''' the movie proved to be a hit since the first attempt to make the DCCU, ''Green Lantern'' was a false start (Amanda Waller would have been the Nick Fury equivilant), Warner Bros. needed to see if audiences would take to this new universe first. So that's why aside from a few super quick cameos (the LexCorp shoutouts and the Wayne Industries satellite), the movie didn't dare go beyond the origin & Zod stories, not even for an aftercredits sequence. Will there be one in MOS II? Probably, but remember: even Loki had to have a movie (Thor) to become the major player he is in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Avengers, Thor II). Lex needs more than a few mere minutes.

** It is shown that the dad (who is in front of his family) is clearly shocked with fear and/or surprise when Kal get the neck hold on Zod, after all, wouldnt you be frozen if you see a couple of guys crushing from the sky, making a dragonball's kind of crater in front of you, keep struggling and one of them shooting damn death laser beams from his eyes?

* Okay, I admit to being a SpoilerHound (I was '''not''' ''at all'' impressed by ''Film/TheDarkKnight'' and wanted to see how much DarkerAndEdgier things went) and having not yet watched the film, but why ''exactly'' does Zod need Kal-El's ''corpse'' to extract the Codex from his cells? Can't he just take a bucal swab and sequence the DNA or something?

** I think what the OP was saying that by taking a bucal swab, Zod could sequence the codes from the cells taken from there, with no need to kill Supes. There probably wouldn't be enough information to create enough Kryptonians for Zod's tastes, though.

** Let's pinpoint the geography a bit better. Metropolis and Gotham are said by the [=DCEU=} wiki to be located on the east coast of the USA; specifically, in the states of Delaware and New Jersey, specifically. Now, the Indian Ocean is not constrained to the timezone of the Indian nation, it actually spans from eastern Africa to western Australia. If we look at the antipode of Wilmington, Delaware (disregard the fact that the fictional Metropolis has a vastly larger population than Wilminton) [[https://www.geodatos.net/en/antipodes/united-states/wilmington-de we see that it's off the west coast of Australia]] so this must be where Superman went to stop the terraforming process. And that means that sunset in Metropolis (7:30PM) would be around 7:30AM a few hundred nautical miles or so off Western Australia. Thus, there's more overlap in the time where the sun could be up for both of these locations than if the antipode was presumed to be near Mumbai.