Man of Steel was a great movie, and it was in my opinion one of the best summer movies this year. It was fun and epic.
But I have to say that it wasn’t perfect, and I’m feeling that it could have been much better.
And I think the public will agree, mainly because there are many people who say that the movie wasn’t that good, and I won’t disagree with them, but I will also agree with those who say that the movie was amazing.
The reason is because I think that the movie overall was pretty great and good, but I think the movie never did fulfilled its potential.
So here’s my opinion on how Man of Steel could have been much better.
First thing is the title. I get that they were doing here the title like in the Nolan movies (The Dark Knight), but I wonder what if the movie was called "Last Son of Krypton". Just to start with this.
Now, the villain. Zod was a good villain, but I feel that he didn’t really had much to do most of the movie, so I found a way to make Zod and his army to do something better in the movie, and actually have Zod and only three more Kryptonians with him, as oppose to bunch of Kryptonians who just stand there. So Zod will have only Faora, Nam-Ek (the big guy) and Jax-Ur (the scientist).
Few more things and one of them is some humor. Not saying to make it into a comedy, or make forced jokes like in Iron Man 3. But adding some funny scenes and some more humors stuff could do wonders to this movie. People go to the theaters to have some fun, and this is a summer action superhero movie, it has to be fun. Not every movie has to be the Dark Knight.
So the movie starts on Krypton, but the planet isn’t destroyed by some unstable core. Many years ago the Kryptonians started to explore the universe. Few years back, a young scientist named Jor-El came to Earth to see if our planet could serve as a Kryptonian colony. However Jor realized that Earth is already taken, but Jor got curios, and so he builds the Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic, as an outpost. Jor then goes back to Krypton, classifying Earth as “non-inhabitable”.
Now just to clarify, most Kryptonians don’t know that they are like gods when exposed to yellow sun. And that’s why the Kryptonian council sends their people only to systems that have red suns. Jor knows this secret, but others don’t. In fact the Kryptonian council lies and tells the people that yellow sun is toxic.
Kryptonian’s most powerful solider, Zod and his unit accidently comes across a yellow sun, and then Zod realizes that the sun gives him powers. He learns to control these powers, so as his wife, Faora.
Zod understands that the Kryptonian council lied to the people, and so he goes back to Krypton and leads a revelation.
Zod kills all the members of the council, expect Jor, who is Zod’s best friend, and Zod loves him as his own brother. Zod plans to transform Krypton’s sun, and make it a yellow sun. Because the sun is so big, Zod believes it will give all the Kryptonians god-like powers, and they will crush Krypton’s enemies.
In this point baby Kal-El is already born, and Zod takes him and Lara as hostages, and then he orders Jor to start working on the terraforming of the sun, and Jor has no choice. Also, Zod and Faora have a son too in this point.
Jor is very smart, and with Jax-Ur he creates a machine that will be sent to the sun and turn in yellow (it’s a comic book movie!!!).
However, Jor fears that Zod will enslave other civilizations, and also fears that they might blow up the sun, and kill the entire Kryptonian race (by the way, Zod called all the Kryptonians back to Krypton, so they will be exposed to the yellow sun, all the Kryptonian race is there).
Jor pleads Jax-Ur to stop Zod, but Jax wants to have the god-like powers, and won’t help Jor.
And so Jor knocks Jax out and then fights his guards. After that he damages the machine. Jor then goes to save his family, and then he and Lara plan to get out of the planet. Jor decides to use the faster then light technology that he created few years back, and this Tec is fueled by green Kryptonite (roll with me on this).
Zod and his men find Jax, and he orders Jax to fix the machine. While this happens, Jor is preparing his ship for travel. Jax manages to fix the machine (that also uses green Kryptonite), and Zod powers up the machine, although Jax warns Zod that it’s still soon to do that. But Zod don’t listen and the machine is sent to the sun, and the machine start doing its thing, and the sun starts flashing. For a moment it’s seems like it worked, and the sun starts going yellow, but then the sun starts going bigger and Jor and Jax understand that the sun is going Supernova.
Jor understands that they have only few moments before the sun blows up, Zod, Jax, Faora and Nam-Ek go to the house of El. Zod believes that only Jor could stop Krypton’s destruction.
The sun starts sending flares that hit Krypton, which is like a super EMP. We see big ships going down and crash, and all the Tec is stop working. This EMP destroys the ship that Jor was preparing, and so he makes a judgment call to save his family. Jor decides to take a leap of faith, and starts activating the green Kryptonite, believing that it will create enough energy to teleport all of them.
But Jor knows that the green Kryptonite can be dangerous to them, and could kill Kal, so he puts him in a pod, that will protect him from the radiation.
Jor sets a course, and he uses the Fortress of Solitude that he had built years ago on Earth, to create a link so they would teleport to Earth. Jor knows that he and Lara might not make it, and there is a big chance that if they will, they won’t have powers on Earth, but he decides that it worth the risk.
Zod and his men arrive just when the pod is ready. Zod orders Jor to stop the machine from blowing up the sun, but Jor says it’s too late. The green Kryptonite starts working, covers the room with green energy. Zod attacks Jor, while Lara and Faora start fighting, but then Faora pushes Lara out of the energy. Jor screms “NO!”, but it’s too late, the sun goes Supernova, and Krypton is no more.
They all watch in shock, as the energy shields them from the Supernova. Only then Zod understands that his son is gone also. Zod goes crazy and he kills Jor, and Jor’s body falls out of the energy. Zod is starting to approach the pod, but then the energy goes to faster than light, and it takes then to Earth.
Nam-Ek (the good solider he is) uses his big body to shield the other from the green energy. All of them start screaming as the green Kryptonite almost kills them. Their veins and eyes turn green.
We see the green energy appears in Earth’s sky, its starts shaking and blows up, sending Zod, the others and green rocks in the air. The pod start flying by itself. For a moment Zod and the others have powers, and they survive the fall, but then their powers are gone. Kal’s pod keeps going, and then crushes miles away in the Ken’t farm.
Most of all of this is in the first 20-25 minutes, but some of it is flashbacks and also later is explained to Superman by Jor-El and Zod.
I liked most of the stuff with the Kents that was in the movie, the only thing that I hated is how Jonathan dies.
So here is how I would make it better.
So Clark almost done with high school, but understands that the Kents don’t have money for college. He uses his super-hearing to hear Martha talking with Jonathan, and it appears that they have to get some money to pay for the farm or it will be taken from them.
Clark decided to help and goes to rob some money. He uses his powers to steal money from an armored van that carries a lot of money.
Clark goes to his father with the money, and when Jonathan finds out what Clark did, he gets really angry with his son, and tells him that he cannot use his powers to do things like this. Clark gets angry too, and says that Jonathan isn’t his father, so he doesn’t get to tell him what to do. Jonathan gets a heart attack. In his last moments, Jonathan asks Clark to do good with his life, and use his powers to help people, not the other way around, and then he dies in Clark’s hands.
Clark has an emotional breakdown, and he just runs away, with Martha calling after him as he vanishes.
Few years later, Clark is on his Odyssey to find answers, he learns that there is some sound that calls him from somewhere, and so he goes to find out what is that sound, and where is it coming from.
In the same time, we see what is up with Zod and the others. They don’t have powers because of the green energy, and they are mortals. They live among humans. Jax tries to find a way to give them powers, but he fails every time. Faora is going crazy because of her son’s death. Zod slowly develops hatred towards humans.
Going back to Clark. I liked the oil rig scene, only I would add Lois to that scene, as she witnesses what Clark saving her and the other. And this makes her start investigating what she saw there.
Eventually Clark finds the Fortress of Solitude, but no army or Lois is there. The Fortress is hidden well, and only Clark can get to it. Clark meets Jor-El, who tells Clark his origins, and what happened on Krypton. Clark then is being trained by Jor-El in the Fortress, and then he gets his suit, but it’s not the same as in the movie. Well the suit is the same, but it is made by a special material that first is like “silver water”, that covers Clark’s either body, and then transforms into the suit. Jor explains that the suit have observed Clark's DNA, Jor also explains about the symbol. Then Superman flies for the first time in his life.
While this happens, we see Lois Lane trying to find out more information about the mysterious man who saved her on the oil rig a year ago. She begins to investigate, and finds out more and more info about a man with powers that have been saving people all over the world for the last few years.
Like in Man of Steel, Lois figures out that this man is in fact Clark Kent. Lois meets with Martha Kent, like in the movie.
After that, Clark comes back to Smallville, and meets his mom, and we get a very emotional scene between the two, as Clark asks for her forgiveness for Johnston’s death.
Later on Clark meets Lois, and she tell him that she has decides not to run with the story after meeting Clark.
There is a scene of Zod and Faora going in the streets, but then they are attacked in an ally by few gangsters. Because the two have military training they fight the gangsters, and we see how bad-ass the two are, even without powers. Faora kills one of the gangsters in cold blood, and then Zod tells another one, who looking at him with fear, that humans are weak and pitiful, and soon will come the day where they will all be punished, and then he kills him.
Lois is sent by Perry White to West Africa, where a terrorists group has stolen a new powerful bomb, created by LexCorp (but no Lax yet). This bomb is small as a tennis ball, but has a massive power of distraction. Lois and few more Americans (including a male Jimmy Olsen) are being taken hostage by the terrorists that plan to execute them on live TV.
Clark sees this on his TV and he goes to save the day for the first time as Superman.
I felt that what was really missing in Man of Steel is a big revel of Superman. You need a big save scene like in the original Superman movie or Superman Returns (that plane scene was the only good part of the movie).
So the terrorists are about to kill the hostages, the firing squad is ready to shoot one of the hostages, who is Lois, and they actually start shooting, but then the movie goes to slow motion, as we see the bullets flying toward Lois, but then out of nowhere, Superman shows up and catches her just before the bullets hit.
Jimmy is capturing it all on his phone.
Superman takes Lois to safety, and then stands in front the terrorists and tells them to put the guns down. The terrorists open fire, and they are all shooting Superman, who just stands there, just irritated by the bullets. The terrorists stop with the shooting, and look at each other with shock. One terrorist is in a tanks and he fires on Superman, who goes into super speed, and punches the rocket in mid-air. Then Superman, goes to the tank, takes the terrorists out from it, and folding the tank into a small metal ball. The terrorists are about to start shooting again, but Superman punches the ground, creating a shockwave that throws them in the air. Then Superman uses his heat vision to melt their guns. Superman then goes to free the hostages, but Lois runs and warns Superman about the bomb, but it’s too late, as one of the terrorist pushes the red button, and the bomb is about to blow up. Superman grabs the bomb, and put his hands around it. The bomb blows up in Superman’s hands, and all is left is a lot of smoke. Everyone thinks Superman is dead, but he just walks out of the smoke, with no scratch.
Later on, the President gives a speech about Superman, and he says that this “Superman” has been taken into custody by the US army.
But while the President gives his speech, the video that Jimmy filmed goes viral, and the entire world sees what happened, including Zod.
Superman is in an interrogation room, and Superman says he wants to talk only with Lois Lane, saying that the people of the world need to know the truth, and he trust Lois to deliver it to them.
Superman and Lois have their talk like in the Man of Steel movie, and then Superman tells the generals that he is here only to help.
After that there is a montage of Superman saving the day few times, stopping bank robberies and stopping natural disasters.
Going back to Zod, Jax tells Zod that he believes that if they will get only few drops of Superman’s blood, the green Kryptonite effect will pass, and they will get their powers back.
Zod picks a Daily Planet newspaper that has an article about Superman and Lois Lane, and then Zod says: “She will lead us to him.”
Zod and the others meet Lois and threaten her, and Zod tells her to send a massage to Superman, and tell her that General Zod is alive.
Lois says “kiss my a…”, but then Zod grabs her by the throat, and tells her that if she want do that, they will kill everyone.
Lois now gets really scared, and she goes to Smallville to warn Superman, but she meets there only Martha. Lois doesn’t know she has just lead Zod there.
Faora starts to choke Martha and Zod is demanding her to bring him Superman, and saying the “I will find him!” line.
Superman hears that with his super hearing, and he flies to save his mom.
Superman lends near them, but Faora takes out a knife, threatening to kill Martha and Lois. Superman looks at Zod with shock, saying “Zod?”, and then he is about to attack, but then Zod throws a green Kryptonite knife, which hits Superman right in the gut. First Superman keeps going, but then he collapses.
Zod tells Jax to begin the procedure, and Jax starts taking some blood from Superman’s wound, and he puts in a special device (let’s call in the cure device). Superman asks “What are you doing to me”, and Zod says: “I know it’s a vulgar action, but we don’t have any choice, you father seen to it”.
Zod explain to Superman about the effect of the green energy on them, that took their powers away, and now Superman’s blood will clean their blood from it, and they will have powers again.
Zod, standing over Superman, says: “Almost makes me feel like those monsters that this insignificant race has created, Vampires. The truth is, humans are no better than Vampires, they have been given this beautiful planet, but they have sucking its blood, slowly killing it.
Zod asks Superman why does he protects the humans, he can be a God to them, and they all need to kneel before him. Zod says the humans are like sheep, and they need a shepherd.
Zod says that he failed to save Krypton, and his father, Jor, killed their entire race, including his son. Zod says he will honor their race, and become the General of Earth, and the Kryptonien race will rise again. Zod says to Superman that he is either with them or he will die.
Superman says he will never let this happen.
Zod says that he has no choice, if he tries to stop them, his human mother will die, every single person he cares about, will die. Zod says they will kill millions if he tries to stand in his way. Zod asks Superman how could he live knowing he is responsible to the death of a human.
Superman says that Zod is a monster, and he won’t let him do this. Zod says that the only reason why Suprman is still alive is because Zod wants him to witness this. Zod says that Jor-El made him watch his entire people parish, he made him watch his own son die. Zod says Superman will suffer, but no physically, he will suffer knowing that all of his precious humans kneel before Zod.
Jax says that the cure is ready, Zod tells Jax to give it to him, but Jax says it better to first see if it works. So Jax gives it to Nam-Ek. It first seems that the cure doesn’t work, but then Nam-Ek grabs a truck, and he throws it in the air, and the truck lands on the Kent’s house. Jax then gives the cure to Faora, who gets her powers.
Faora then grabs Jax, and starts choking him. Jax asks with fear why is she doing this, and Faora says that the only reason she let him live all this years is because they needed him, but she will never forgive him for his failure on Krypton. She says Jor was responsible for what happened, but Jax is just as guilty. Faora says she will avenge her son’s death.
Zod grabs Faora by the shoulder, and tells her: “We need him!”
While Zod tries to stop his crazy wife, we see Lois going to help Superman, and she takes the knife, and throws it away. In the same time, Faora drops Jax, and lets him to live.
Superman stands up, as the sun starts to heal him. Jax is about to give the cure to Zod, but then Superman flies into Nam-Ek, and punches him with super punches, then he throws him in the air.
Superman blast Faora with heat vision, and then Superman punches the ground, and that send Zod and Jax flying in the air (keep in mind that the two still don’t have powers).
Superman grabs Zod, and he is about to punch him (maybe even kill him with rage), but Faora flies into Superman and she takes him away from there. The two crush into a gas station, and then Nam-Ek joins the party.
We get the Smallville fight scene from Man of steel, and the military also joins the fight, but it all ends in a different way.
After Superman is able to take Faora down, he then fights one on one with Nam. Superman flies with Nam in the air, but then Superman grabs Nam and slams him with massive force to the ground.
Nam-Ek’s mask drops, and it’s seems like he has some kind of a seizure, we see his veins turning green, and so as his eyes. Superman tries to help him, but he can’t move forward because it’s green Kryptonite. Nam-Ek starts to shout in pain and then he just blows up, creating a big crater.
Faora also starts shaking, so she takes off.
Soldiers surround Superman, pointing their guns at him. Colonel Nathan Hardy (Christopher Meloni) shows up, and telling his men to drop the guns, saying they won’t help anyway.
Hardy says that from where he comes from, one someone saves your life that means something (if you remember, Superman saved his life from Faora).
Hardy then asks Superman what the hell happened to Nam-Ek. Superman says that from where he comes from, trust means something too. Hardy says: “well, from where ever you come from, it’s seems we are not that different”.
Superman flies from there, and goes to the Kent farm to check on Lois and Martha.
Lois tells him that Faora showed up and took Zod and Jax with her. Superman says he has to stop them, buy Lois says that his mom is hurt. Superman understands that he can’t just leave them, so he takes them both to the Fortress of Solitude.
Superman then speaks with Jor, who says that Superman must kill Zod and the others, because they will never stop. Jor says that Zod is Krypton’s most powerful warrior, if he gets his powers, he will be unstoppable.
Back with Zod, we see Zod is furious about what happened. Jax is too scared to be angry about what happened before. Jax explains that Nam-Ek blew up because of he was exposed the most to the green energy, but the Kryptonite affected them all. Jax says that it is better to wait and see is Faora survives before Zod uses the cure. Zod agrees.
Back in the Fortress, we have a scene with Superman and Lois, and Superman tells Lois that for a moment there he wanted to kill Zod. He says that he was so angry that he wanted to hurt him for what he did to her and his mom. Lois says: “but you didn’t”, but Superman says that he can’t cross that line. Lois asks why, and Superman says that he already caused the death of his own father, and he can’t be responsible for taking more lives.
Superman then tells her about what happened with Johnston, Superman says he could never forgive himself for what he did. Martha comes and says he can’t blame himself, and Jonathan loved him more than anything, and he will be so proud to see him now. Superman says he must now go and stop Zod, Lois asks him will he kill him, but Superman doesn’t answer and just fly away.
In the White House, the President is advised by general Sam Lane to attack the aliens that showed up in the last few days. The President says that he doesn’t believe that Superman is the enemy, but Lane says that they can’t trust any alien in this point. The Presidents asks his VP what does he thinks, but the VP is shocked as he stares outside, and then the Presidents see Superman hovering near the White House.
Superman tells the President to not attack Zod, because they have no weapon that can hurt him, and Zod will kill millions. Lane tells Superman that they won’t give up without a fight. But Superman looks at the President, and asks him to let him handle this.
Superman goes to space, and then he uses his super hearing to track down Zod. Superman hears him, and goes to super flight.
Superman crunches into Zod’s headquarters, Zod and Jax are there, and Superman goes to attack them, but then he falls down. The place is filled with Kryptonite, and Superman is down.
Zod stands over Superman, and gives a small speech about what is going to happen to the people of Earth. Zod then says to Superman that he is a solider, and nothing will stop him. Zod orders Jax to use the cure on him, and then Zod gets his powers.
Zod battles the effect of the Kryptonite, and he is flying away from there, leaving Jax with Superman, who starts to bleed from his ears and nose.
Zod and Faora go to the Daily Planet to find Lois, and they confront Perry White and few others. Zod orders White to get a transmission, and he gives a speech to the world about who is he, and he says that mankind must kneel before him, or die.
Superman is bleeding, and Jax stands near him. Superman pleads Jax to help him. Superman says he saw what happened on Krypton, he says that Jor-El asked Jax to help him stop Zod, and because of Jax feared Zod, Krypton was destroyed. Superman says that Jax knows that Zod is a monster, and he tells Jax that this is chance to do the right thing. Jax starts to think about it, but he is still won’t help Superman.
The military goes to Metropolis, Zod and Faora attacks the soldiers, who have tanks and jets.
In the Fortress, Jor tells Lois and Martha that the Superman’s suit has a link to core of the Fortress, and Jor says that Superman is dying.
Because Martha is still injured, Jor tells Lois to get into a pod (there are few in the Fortress), and that pod will take her to Superman’s location. Jor also gives her a Kryptonite rock, to protect herself against Zod and the others. The pod lunches, and takes Lois away.
Back in Metropolis, Faora rising havoc, she takes down few jets and kills people, while Zod stands on top of the LexCorp tower, enjoying the view.
In the white house, General Lane tells the President that they must start thinking about a nuclear attack. But the President tells Lane that they must give Superman a chance.
The pod takes Lois to where Superman is. She finds him near many green rocks, but then Jax grabs her.
Superman sees that, and starts crawling with pain to help her. He is now barley able to move, but he keeps going, showing us that he is a true superhero.
Jax tells Lois to stop fighting him, and tells her that he can’t let her save Superman, and its better they all do what Zod wants, or he will kill them.
In Metropolis, Zod and Faora hear that via super hearing, and Zod tells Faora to go and handle this, telling her they don’t need Jax anymore.
Faora lands, but the Kryptonite start affecting her, but she stays far away enough from the rocks to not get sick, but she loses her powers again.
Faora grabs Lois, and throws her away. She then goes to kill Jax, who puts up a fight. But Faora is the better fighter, so she starts to toy with him.
Lois then attacks Faora from the back, and Faora gets pissed and goes to kill Lois. Jax grabs a knife and stabs Faora, she looks at the knife with disbelief that he did that, but then she takes the knife out of her stomach, and stabs Jax.
Jax falls, and Faora keeps going, she turn back to Lois, and starts attacking her. Lois runs away, but then she falls down (because of her heels), and Faora jumps on top of her.
Lois starts looking for a weapon, but Faora starts choking her. In his last afford, Superman uses his heat vision, which graze Faora’s shoulder, making her drop Lois. Lois gets her hands on the cure device and she uses it on Faora, who gets an overdose of the stuff, and starts going all green.
Lois runs to help Superman, and she drags him out of the Kryptonits. Superman understands that Faora is about to blow up, so he has no choice to find the power the get out of there, and save Lois.
But he is too weak, so Lois starts to drag him, but there is no time, so Superman has no choice to grabs Lois and he “super-jumps” out of the place, just as Faora blows up.
Superman collapses and Lois starts to cry, thinking that he is dead, but the sun does its trick, and Superman wakes up. Lois is so happy that she kisses him.
Superman understands he must stop Zod, and he takes off, flying to stop Zod.
Zod finds out that his wife is dead, and he goes to find her. Superman and Zod meet half-way, and start fighting in the desert, and the battle is now more like the original Goku and Vegeta fight in Dragon Ball Z.
Superman manages to take the fight to space, and the two fight there. Zod starts going green, but he fights it, and he takes Superman back to Earth, and they crush in the city. They fight a little there, but Superman tries to minimize the collateral damage.
The fight is now in the train station, and Zod falls on his knees, and he is about to blow up. Superman realizes that there are people all around the place, and if Zod goes boom, all of them will die. Superman fights against the effects of the green Kryptoniet (a green like smoke comes out of Zod). Superman falls on his knees, as he starts to bleed. The sad song plays in the background, and Superman hears his father telling him: “it will be a huge burden for anyone to bear. But you are not just anyone, Clark. And I have to believe that you were sent here for a reason. And even if it takes you the reset of your life, you owe it to yourself to find what that reason is”. Superman grabs Zod, and he goes to space.
Zod starts shouting, as his eyes turn green. Superman keeps flying, going to the sun. Superman tells Zod he is sorry, and says he wished this will end differently, but he has no choice. Superman goes directly into the sun with Zod, and then we see a big green flash. The people of Earth see in in the sky.
Then we go to space, and we see Superman floating there, with his eyes closed. The sun heals him again, and he opens his eyes, and flies back to Earth.
Later on the movie end pretty much the same as it ended.
But before the credits, we see General Lane in some underground place, with Nam-Ek’s body. He is joined by someone that tells the General that he is happy that someone in the government understands that someone must protect the world from these aliens. Then that man picks up a green rock, and then we see its Lax Luther.
In a post credits scene, we see Batman watches some footage of Superman fighting Zod in space.