Man of Steel. Nolan Superman Reboot.

I'm more concerned about his writers, really. The guy tends to invite a mentality that both treats him as little more than an unimpeachable mouthpiece, and sprinkles a healthy helping of moral myopia to boot. The glory that is Grounded is a testament to just how bad things can get, though at least that one is acknowledged as being awful. Compare it to Kingdom Come, wherein, independent from its central ethical discourse, Superman is still presented as someone who'd retire altogether as long as he's "just" a superhero and not "the" superhero, the standard for everyone to adhere to. It's not that natural disasters or other crises have stopped, it's not that he can't still be helpful far more than the edgy brutalizers that are only that useful against particularly gruesome supervillains. No, he just decides that if he doesn't get top billing, he might as well not be in the show. An attitude not unlike a certain shiny-headed tycoon of his acquaintance. I reckon it's such sobering realizations, and the fact that he's both a staple character of the company and powerful enough in-universe to affect the entire setting, that tend to drive people away from the brand altogether.

Consequently, what makes MOS different is nothing inherently flawed in the story, but that the film was simply too high-profile to be met with the traditional fanon discontinuity that allows incidents like the above to pass relatively undetected. In short, writers spew crappy stories, anyone critical gets fansplained into oblivion, so when big-name projects casually take inspiration from the same fluff that's otherwise ignored or zealously defended by vocal minorities, it's only then that people start wondering what went wrong. Really, the same attitude people complain about in the DCEU has existed as far back as the DCAU, and persists even in the animated films. The same "2deep4U" pretentiousness, the same "serious" debates that ultimately go nowhere lest they endanger the status quo, and the same "my way or the highway" mentality that ultimately drives people toward the competition. It's just that, again, all that would be ignored or rationalized before, so it's only now that it's seen as a problem.

Now it's being seen as a problem because it left a potentially multi-billion dollar film franchise in absolute shambles and generated one of the biggest box office bombs of 2017.

As it stands all characters have their fair share of bad stories, but the longer a character is around, the more people inevitably debate the one "true" direction of the said character.

edited 21st Jan '18 8:40:44 AM by Beatman1

The issues with Justice League have more to do with WB's crappy handling of things behind the scenes than MOS.

Doesn't mean MOS didn't play a part.

What's interesting is that in the overall DCEU, nearly everyone but Superman was pretty well-received. Wonder Woman goes without saying, Batman was surprisingly appreciated even if controversial, even Aquaman got firmly rid of his memetic loser status. It seems the only other characters to be nearly universally disliked were Luthor and the Joker. Now, Luthorberg was an all-around curveball, no argument there. But Leto's Joker seems to suffer from the same backlash as Superman himself, in that there's a rather narrow "acceptable" image to take after, while everything else is summarily ignored. The notion still stands that these particular characters are so "iconic" that there's virtually no viable creative approach to take, lest it scratch a sacred cow or two... that writers don't even have a way of realizing, because so much of the source material is selectively ignored. All in all, I'd say the best course of action for the DCEU right now is to focus on heroes other than the big three, and only return to them once Darkseid enters the stage. Going by the current schedule, that seems to be what they are doing right now anyway, so, good luck.

But Darkseid's name is so dumb.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

3x a very small one if that.

I don't think the range of what people will accept for those characters is actually that narrow. I think that there's a general idea of what the public believes these characters are like (just based on the more widely distributed works - movies and shows) BUT people are generally willing to suspend their disbelief if the movie is done well/explains their point properly.

Basically, if they had used those same new interpretations and plotted the respective movies better (tighter plot-lines, consistency in motivations, etc), they would have been fine. But when there are too many weird things going on (the plot of the movie is weird, the design of the world itself is off, the color-blocking and tone don't match, the pacing is too quick where it should be slow and vice versa, the clusterfuck that was Leto's interviews and whatever nonsense he was pulling behind the scenes, on and on and on), it starts weighing down. The audience is working too hard trying to ignore all of the other problems, making it harder to give anything else the benefit of the doubt.

Those two characters (and the DCEU as a whole) suffer from a ton of Bitch Eating Crackers nitpicks. AKA, the individual problems (eating crackers) may not be so bad on their own but when done by someone already fucking up a lot (a bitch), something innocuous starts seeming more intolerable.

"Yo, those kids are straight up liars, man. All I told them to do was run product. And by product, I mean chewing gum."

it kinda depend of the chararter: people quickly acept Tony bulding ultron because Antman isnt really that know and it actually fit tony better(granted I feel it fuck up some thing here and there but that is to MCU thread), but Superman is "THE first hero" which mean he have a very tight leash on how he should behave, in this asertion Indiana is correct.

Both he is wrong when it come to the joker, leto joker have some issues: one is the fact he dosent really affect the movie at all, which for the joker is a huge no no, second is that Leto didnt really did that much since they cut much of the time he have on screen(something Leto himself complain), third is that his acting is just....weird and way over the top and combine in how little he did it come as off rather than a danger, and for last is nature with Harley is all over the place.

But in general I do thing Superman have less choice of chararterization since he is define by how nice he is, unlike batman who can range for good two shoes(brave and the bold), superman-lite(nolan trilogy) to almost-crazy-steve (BVS).

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"

About the scene with the Truck driver....the problem is not that he might have destroyed this guys livelihood (though that doesn't help) or that this is an unnecessary public display for someone who wants to stay undercover (though that doesn't help either), it is that in this moment he isn't protecting anyone. The moment with the waitress has already passed, destroying the truck is nothing but revenge. I actually thought that the scene was supposed to establish that Superman has a temper (which would be very un-Superman, but okay), and that is kind of in line with him basically destroying Smallville to attack Zod while leaving his mother alone with two dangerous aliens, but then the movie never addresses that acting in anger might not be the best decision if you are that powerful and instead goes "oh, it's just stuff". So if the idea is not to say "oh, he has a temper he has to keep in check" why is the scene even there in the movie? What is the point?

You have a very limited view of Superman if you think the guy doesn't have a temper. And seeing someone attack your mom and being angry at it has nothing to do with a temper. That's just a reaction to be expected.

The issue is not that he is angry about his mom being attacked, the issue is that by focussing on Zod instead of focussing on protecting her puts her in further risk. He is lucky that Zod's people didn't kill her while he was busy wrecking Smallville.

He reacted on instinct and pushed Zod further than he intended. He'd never been in a fight before and wasn't entirely able to control his strength in dealing with Zod.

And can we stop acting like Zod just stood around while Clark smashed things or that the military didn't contribute to the destruction at all?

EDIT: Actually, didn't we have this conversation before? Honestly, forget it. Every time this or the Bv S thread get necro'd it's just a repeat of the same tired arguments with nothing new to contribute.

edited 22nd Jan '18 1:35:38 AM by windleopard

Not that I disagree (it happens occasionally), but that's another thing you can chalk up to the myriad of other writers who have used Supes as their proxy for petty vandalism against their personal acceptable targets. If it helps, you can imagine the trucker was a meat-eating alt-righter who doesn't recycle and donates to the NRA. It'll still be more dignified and mature than some doozies in the books.

I mean, Supes' debut was as a Wife-Basher Basher.

Now imagine what would happen if the following took place in a Superman story:

edited 22nd Jan '18 2:13:44 AM by TheHandle

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

I am sure that every stupid think which can be done with Superman has been done with him at one point in the comics. Also, none of this answers my question what the actual point of the truck scene is. What is it supposed to tell the audience, how does it add to the movie, does it pay off in any way?

"I am frustrated and can't properly express myself, so I do modern art with the materials donated by the people who annoy me. Also, while my actions come from a sympathetic place, you are right to fear me, you punks. I could hurt you so much if I let myself."

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Pretty much, yeah. More to the point, this isn't quite Superman doing it, it's Clark Kent who's still trying to figure out what he is. The very concept of the film is him becoming Superman while lacking just about all of the usual conveniences, so I'm more inclined to let this one slide... though that's about as far as I'd go. I'm somewhat perturbed by fans not simply tolerating but outright defending similar outbursts in the comics, and from the full-fledged Superman at that. He's actually far less violent in the DCEU as a whole, and overall uneasy about dropping unannounced into third world countries for all but the direst of emergencies. That's something Mr. "Citizen of the World" from the comics could really learn from.

Why isn't Martian Manhunter better at Supermanning than Superman? He's basically identical, except better, and much more fitting as a World Hero.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

By Supermanning, you mean?

How?

edited 22nd Jan '18 4:36:19 AM by windleopard

Not a comic book reader, so please don't assume what I would defend and what I wouldn't. A lot is about context anyway.

I assume you don't even know who he is. Read his page, then come back to me.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

I know who he is. I'm asking why you think he's better than Superman or what "Supermanning" in this context means.

Superman has had a long history of playing pranks on people with his powers and having fun with the knowledge that no one knows Clark Kent is also Superman, and that includes the modern comics. It's a good portion of what they catalog in Superdickery. If anything, the truck incident was certainly an amusing sight but was still played as a bad thing, a temper tantrum he was embarrassed over. That's why he doesn't do things with a smile.

The honest reality is something similar to Spider-Man: Homecoming, however good the movie may be in comparison to the previous reboot, the audience is aware that it is a reboot of a franchise and the freshness factor of the character himself is in question. I think Man of Steel did as well as it did because it was such a different take on Superman (the approach of him as an outcast and yes, the apocalyptic level destruction), if it was a cleaner "more traditional" Superman I doubt that alone would result in improved box office performance.

It's not a pleasant thing to point out but despite Superman being considered the greatest superhero, his comics have been selling well into the double digits of any top 100 list. So when people are saying "He's Superman, he should be trouncing all other superhero movies" it's ignoring the reality that having something new and fresh will often beat out the old standby's.

But the problem is not that it is a different take, the problem is that it is simply a badly structured movies. Isolated scenes work fine, but they don't work in the context of the movie. Like the Truck scene. As I said: What exactly is the scene supposed to tell me and does it pay off? And I am not sure what it is supposed to tell me (am I supposed to laugh? Note that he lost his temper? Consider him heroic? I have no idea) and it never pays off, it is just an isolated scene...which goes contrarian to what was established beforehand, that Superman wants to lay low and isn't supposed to use his powers.