Hello people of comicbookmovie.com. Niklander here with an editorial of how I viewed MAN OF STEEL as a comic book fan and as a movie goer.
I am giving my own piece of opinion to the debated movie so if you think I am going to start a flame war by saying MOS is better than IM3 kinda example or vice versa then TURN AWAY!!
Good. Let us begin.
To most of you guys in the USA you had the privilege of watching the movie on June of 14th while I on the other hand had to wait like a whole more week and maybe more till I could find the time to experience the movie.Luckily a friend of mine had secured two tickets from a contest he himself won (both of us are members of comicbookmovie.com and good friends). We saw the movie and we loved it as we called it the best Superman movie ever since the 1978 original starring Christopher Reeve as Supes.
Now if you ask critics or comicbook writers especially Mark Waid,there is an article in the news section I suggest you take a look he liked some aspects of the movie but overall he felt dissapointed as to how Superman was treated in this movie and what actions he committed towards the end (Superman kills Zod to ensure the survival of mankind).Other complaints are is that Superman is stoic and never smiles(Wish I could crack a smile when an alien invasion happens it will make me see the world in a positive way **sarcasm**)
I have to say this that after I read some reviews I really felt buzzled as to how people view Superman.To be honest the guy has been face lifted by writers so many times that it's hard to focus on one version of the story.
Most people say that Superman was Batmanized so it could gather money at the box office. To those guys I say this get off the damn Nolan films sure they have similaritties but come on Superman in MOS felted like Batman to you?!
As we entered the year of 2000(Or back at the end of the 90s I think) people started feeling that comics in general started becoming uinteresting which led writers to start thinking why should a superhero stand up against corruption and the weak!?
I was looking through the Internet until I stumbled this video made by Doug Walker AKA Nolstagia Critic
I watched the video NC mentioned that most of the superheroes are connected to the great Greek Myths in which we had the Greek Gods of Olympus which we are drawn to them because of their powers. But as NC mentioned the longer the gods stayed the more we wanted to know about them.Hence the cautionary tales(Like not flying close to the sun and many others) which also taught us values teaching us about what is right and more importantly what is wrong.
So comic book writers were tasked to stop showing superheroes invulneranable and powerful but to show them fragile and relatable to us which I say has brought us closer to the superheroes we love and care about. That is what MOS accomplishes a vulnerable Superman who struggles for acceptance that was the whole point of the movie.
For example we have Spiderman who after he gets his powers he tries to gain money from them by going to wrestling matches until he sees a thief who just robbed someone but he refuses to help stating ''It's not my job'' afterwards the thief killed Uncle Ben which prompted him to fight for the weak and use his powers for good.
In Man Of Steel and I think I know why people actually trash the movie left and right is because we dont see in MOS the Superman we know you know the confident superhero who we know him to be.In MOS Clark is trying to help people but he is doing it in secret because his adoptive father Pa Kent tells him that people are not ready for him. That's one of the many traits from the classic Superman from the comics.He is always trying to help.
Our protagonist Clark Kent/Kal El is trying to find out whether or not the people are ready to accept him. In the 78 Superman film the people gave a warm welcome to Superman even though it was set in the 70s where technically we still were young and naive. But after 9/11 a lot of things changed or to be honest we remembered that we always were afraid to something we couldn't understand as Jonathan Kent put it in the movie ''People are afraid of what they dont understand''.
Superman has a simillar theme of people not trusting him in comics like Earth One and Superman:Birthright where the character is not welcomed immediately but he has to earn the trust of the people of Earth. Same goes for MOS he isn't gonna win the people's hearts in a second but surely as Jor El has said ''They will stumble, they will fall but they will join you in the sun.''It was never meant that he will change the world in day one. Was the Colosseum or the Parthenon build in one day.No so why Superman sould be accepted in a heartbeat!?That would have made the movie unrealistic and totally wrong for what it was trying to sell.Which is a Superman who has yet to prove himself.
In Man Of Steel we see a Superman who must overcome various obstacles to become the superhero we know( Which he still has to learn in order to become Superman like mentioned above). Mark Waid said this "We thought we were getting a Superman movie, and we got a Superman in training movie, and maybe that’s part of my disappointment, too; maybe my expectations were forwarded that way, but if that’s the case I don’t think I’m alone."
Sure I have to agree that we got a Superman in training but if you think about that where will the fun go if in MOS Superman became the Superman we know?!That woudn't be any remotely fun.
The reason why the 78 Superman film and it's sequel worked is because it had a story to match along with a good villain (FOR THE TIME BEING) which tested his character,everything he learned was tested by Luthor and Zod afterwards we got Superman 3 and Quest Of Peace which failed to meet the standards of Superman 1 and 2 which the only saving grace was Christopher Reeve in a otherwise mediocre follow ups to the first two movies.
Look I cant write stories like Mark Waid or any other talented writer does (I hope that one day I might be a screenwriter) but if you have made the character reach the maturity from the first movie already then no reason to have a sequel at all. I mean what next villain shows up hero saves the the day but yet the hero learns nothing because he has learned what he did from the first story. No challenge and we wouldn't have an attachment to the character which is important for any superhero film not just Superman.
Another example is the Brosnan Bond era. We had Goldeneye the best James Bond movie up to this date and afterwards we got nothing more than sequels where we were shown only a good Bond but no substance (Well The World Is Not Enough was good but still 2 out of 4 movies were good the other two Tomorrow Never Dies and Die Another Day sucked).
That was until Casino Royale came directed by Martin Campbell and starring Daniel Craig as James Bond which broke the formula of the previous Bond films and introduced us to a cold blooded killer Bond who is just promoted to the 00 status and he has been given his license to kill. But Bond had to learn from personal experiences to not trust anyone. It wasn't until Skyfall that we got the Bond we all grew up with back again for more adventures and boy did that last two minute scene ending of Skyfall delivered or what?!
That is my point people Superman in MOS is not yet experienced to become the superhero we know (I believe that a sequel to MOS will give us the Superman we know just like Skyfall gave us the Bond we knew).
Now moving on to the demise of General Zod. General Zod in MOS was given a purpose since birth and that was to protect Krypton (I mean the whole angle of genetically engineered babies is something which I could see happening in the not too distant future and plus it was handled well). General Zod was always in the comics as someone who put Krypton above everything else as he said in MOS "My actions no matter how cruel or how hard they are it's for the greater good of my people". His death I think was the best highlight in the movie because as a character Zod is a warrior and a warrior's death was his only wish if he would have gone down. Zod knew that he had lost the fight and he pushed Kal El to the limit to kill him. In my opinion if we had the original planned ending where General Zod gets sucked to the black hole along with the other Kryptonians it would have been extremely anticlimatic, besides Zod is a once time villain no reason for him to come back to have an another round with Superman
Now for the third and final part and that is the destruction caused in Metropolis and Smallville. People are complaing that too many people died and that Superman should have saved them.
If Superman was able to save all of these lives then the movie wouldn't had an impact on the viewers.Which it was trying to sell to the viewers about a first contact gone bad movie.It is hypocritical to judge on the property destruction on MOS and not judging it in Trasformers or hell even The Avengers.If you watch in the movie when Perry White along with Lamblard and Jenny evacuate the Planet you see a police officer trying to lead them to safety. Who doesn't say that the national guard and the police didn't evacuate the city!?I mean the army was about to cause a black hole OF COURSE they would try and save as many human lives as possible.It's logical.
That was it folks I hope this wont turn into a flame war article but into a reasonable conversation.
That is all