Man of Steel (Zack Snyder, 2013)

[captveg]

So no one had a problem with

Spoiler

Superman killing Zod? One of the things that differentiates Superman and Batman from characters like the Punisher and Wolverine is that they don't kill. Big part of the plot in the Batman Begins was about Batman refusing to take someone's life. Some of the best Superman stories from the past 15 years like All-Star Superman, Kingdom Come and Superman vs the Elite have as a central plot the idea of Superman refusing to kill and always finding another way in order to stop the villains. I believe that those Superman qualities should have been preserved in order to show how Superman is not a soldier or a murderer.

Spoiler

No problem here, especially because they both made the situation one that required that exact solution, and because of how it pained SM to doing it. SM has killed in the comics under similar circumstances, and one time that was Zod. It's no different than a policeman stopping a public gunman with lethal force, IMO. Personally speaking, I think DC was getting a bit too finicky about the no kill rules anyway. Sometimes it's necessary to do in pursuit of a lethal threat.

[matrixschmatrix]

Eh, it makes sense with Batman- not killing is always very difficult, and something that causes him extraordinary pain. I always got the impression that Superman's no kills rule is as much as anything because he rarely has any real need to do so- he's Superman, he should be able to manage non-lethal force. For monsters on the order of Zod or Darkseid, he doesn't always seem too concerned.

[knives]

Spoiler

He did technically kill Zod in Superman II as well. Purposely.

Spoiler

Nope. It's a deleted scene, but he just hurt Zod really badly and made him lose his powers. Also while I have problems with the killing in this film it has nothing to do with how the character is supposed to be. The conflict was just not set up at all and there's no reason to think this Superman wouldn't kill Zod to protect the innocent taking all the suspense away from the scene.

[cdnchris]

Spoiler

Really? I've seen that one a lot, though it's still been a few years, but I swear he throws him down the crevasse, or against a column, which does lead to him falling, while Lois took out Ursa, and the big guy fell out of his own stupidity. I don't think I've watched any deleted scenes to the film unless the Donner cut was different, the ending of which I don't remember at all. Whatever the case I'm pretty sure all three were dead when it ended.

Also, I didn't get anything from this film where this Supes would kill without thought, so I'm really not sure where you're coming from on that. Besides his father, his new found desire to protect and so one, the fact he could obviously snap Zod's neck at any moment but didn't suggests hesitation, and he was begging Zod to stop. He only did it when it was obvious Zod wasn't going to stop and even then he didn't seem pleased with that decision. I also sensed a conflict because Superman obviously understood Zod's desire to rebuild Krypton, and I gathered he had the same desire. He just didn't want to go about it the same way Zod did and he tried to talk him down from it a couple times, even when he goes ballistic at the end.

Of course by this point, after an hour of repetitive destruction, I spent most of my time looking for other things to keep my attention. I still think the first half is decent but the last half just falls in on itself.

[knives]

Spoiler

Like I said it is a deleted scene. Essentially it shows all three completely depowered being hauled off by the police. As for this film there's not even an offhand line about pacifism within the movie so there's no reason beyond expectation for the character to believe that he is against murder. The closest we gt is that really heavy handed lazy scene with the bully. That seems to be more about not showing your face than anything else though. It's really weird how they made Pa Kent such a bad role model. With that there's no reason to believe that a pragmatic Superman wouldn't just kill him (though I suppose being able to snap his neck is a bit of a plot inconsistency). It also spills over into camp because after all this mindless destruction what makes this group of people so much more worth saving than all the others that have probably died in all of this smashing. It really is overcooked.

[dad1153]

This man knows.

[dx23]

Christopher Nolan was against the ending.

[matrixschmatrix]

It's fascinating to me that Snyder felt that the audience would need an object lesson for why 'no murders' is part of the Superman ethos

[captveg]

Regardless of his reasoning, I'm glad Zod wasn't just phantom zoned. If they ever get a Justice League movie and have to go against, say, Darkseid, this could help create a bit more dramatic tension between Superman and Batman.

[drakula]

1938 Kal-El is actually very much a leftish social renegade. Very much a product of Popular Frontism.

How does Superman represent the common man/the working class when the very premise of his character is that he's different from everyone else? Not trying to troll, just want to know more.

[flyonthewall2983]

My guess would be his background and childhood on Earth. Maybe that he has a rather un-extraordinary job at a newspaper.

[knives]

It's a bit more complex than that, but I don't remember the specifics of the argument he is citing.

[matrixschmatrix]

He is someone who was raised as an ordinary man and who, mentally, classes himself very much among them- I believe it's still canonical that he didn't gain any superpowers until his late teens, so it's not entirely accurate to think of him as being inherently different from everyone else. It's also a traditional part of his character that he is essentially Clark Kent, and that Superman is something he becomes at need, rather than being a Superman who disguises himself as Clark Kent.

(This is in distinction to Batman, who is fundamentally and essentially Batman and not Bruce Wayne.)

[knives]

Yeah, essentially that Kill Bill speech is false. We have a young man raised with a strong sense of ethics who utilizes what gifts he has to aid other people. He wouldn't be Stalin's favorite character, but there's a leftist edge to his whole image of using the self to assist the community.

[matrixschmatrix]

Well, that speech is coming from Bill- it makes sense that he is someone who would misinterpret the nature of Superman's character, as he himself has the contempt for the common man he describes in Clark Kent (and the judgment of Kent as being weak and cowardly and stupid is also very much Bill and not part of the world of the comics.)

[knives]

It should be noted that that speech was originally written completely straight faced and Tarantino stole it so somebody believed it.

[dx23]

1938 Kal-El is actually very much a leftish social renegade. Very much a product of Popular Frontism.

How does Superman represent the common man/the working class when the very premise of his character is that he's different from everyone else? Not trying to troll, just want to know more.

It's mostly because he is a Kansas' farm boy who represents "truth, justice and the American Way". That's is how he has been written for the most part and that it why it was so controversial that he renounce his American Citizenship in Superman #700, before the character was rebooted two years ago. By the way, renouncing to his citizenship was incredibly stupid on the writers part, since Superman wasn't an American citizen in the first place, Clark Kent was, and no one, except a few people knew that they were one and the same.

[Numero Trois]

How does Superman represent the common man/the working class when the very premise of his character is that he's different from everyone else? Not trying to troll, just want to know more.

As far as that goes it makes more sense to view the character as the wish-fulfillment product of the respective creators and their times. If he was "leftist" in his earliest incarnation then it's because that was the default perspective of Siegel & Schuster during the Depression.

I don't think it make sense to view the character as a single coherent whole. There's been various interpretations over the years in the comics and film which puts a lie to much of anything being "canonical." The hodgepodge nature of the character pretty much set the stage for that.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

It should be noted that that speech was originally written completely straight faced and Tarantino stole it so somebody believed it.

It's derived from an essay in Jules Peiffer's The Great Comic Book Heroes. The book was published in 1965, when the "Silver Age" Superman himself viewed Clark Kent as a false front (e.g. referring to Clark as a "disguise" in thought balloons). One can debate Peiffer/Bill's interpretation of his motives--Superman's more of a jerk in the Silver Age stories, but then so was everyone else, really. The Bronze Age (1970s) stories generally took the tack that both personae were "real" but that Superman was dominant. Clark as the real identity is primarily a post-1985 notion.

[Siddon]

I thought it was alright, I can't understand how anyone could have a strong feeling towards this movie one way or the other. The film was pragmatic for comic readers this is a good thing, because we know Superman only works when you put him in a world with rules. As a character he's the deus ex machina of Superheros, he really doesn't matter. You set the scene build the characters try and find something interesting and insert him to save the day.

The hope for me as a comic guy is that this world and these idea's of Superman would lead to the great source material that has come out in the last thirty years.

"What's So Funny About Truth, Justice & the American Way?," by Joe Kelly

The story was largely conceived as a response towards the popularity of the Wildstorm Comics series The Authority, a deliberately provocative work that explored the moral responsibilities of human beings powerful enough to overturn tyrannical regimes single handed, and which became incredibly popular and influential within the comic industry during its original 29 issue run. "What's So Funny About Truth, Justice, and the American Way?" is largely seen as a rejection of the principles presented by Warren Ellis and Mark Millar, who wrote the original Authority series regarding the super-hero genre of comics.

A story adapted in animated form in Superman vs Elite (which made my top fifty animated films list)

Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? by Alan Moore

The story was an imaginary tale which told the final story of the Silver Age Superman and his long history,[1] which was being rebooted following the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths, before his modern introduction in the John Byrne series, The Man of Steel.

or even

The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller

The story that leads to the battle between an old Batman and a still young but military Reaganesque puppet Superman.

Now will we just end up with a dumb Lex Luthor and then Lex Luthor lite films maybe. But the first step to telling the best stories happened with this film. And I'm not angry...plus I saw Green Lantern....god did that suck.

[Luke M]

Just wanted to make a quick comment on something regarding the ending. I was watching On the Waterfront for the umpteenth time last night with a friend who had never seen the movie and commented how (spoilers here) the ending was disappointing because Johnny Friendly didn't die nor go to jail. I argued he lost all his authority amongst the dock workers and that was powerful enough. But quite clearly, my case couldn't convince my friend. It just made me think how audiences have sorta been conditioned to expect the villain to die. And to a larger point how we've come from these pacifist Christ-like heroes in Terry Malloy or To Kill A Mockingbird's Atticus Finch to 2013 where even Superman has no choice but to execute. /quick comment

[RossyG]

Good point, Luke.

In the 80s and 90s, not only did the baddie have to die but in a spectacularly vindictive and vicious manner. A quick, clean kill from a gunshot - as in Dirty Harry - was now considered unsatisfying. They had to be impaled on chains and lowered into furnaces or hung on missiles and fired into helicopters, usually while the hero delivers a pun.

I think this is still common in a lot of action films.

[colinr0380]

Watching some of those Hong Kong and Bruce Lee films from the 1970s, I was also struck at the way that often while the baddie has to die or be made to pay for his crimes (fulfilling the vengeance part) the hero, despite transgressing for all the supposedly 'right' reasons (and often doing so because nobody else is going to 'clean up the streets'), often has to be seen at the end of the film going to jail for having killed someone! That was an interesting cultural difference on display.

That recent Last of Us video game provides an interesting example of this too as:

Spoiler

Our hero Joel saves the, infected but immune, girl in his charge from the scientists who are going to kill her for the wider goal of extracting a cure for to save the rest of humanity. The woman in charge was also the girl's surrogate mother and has a speech telling Joel that she desperately loves the girl but some things are more important. As Joel escapes he has a final showdown with her (all in cutscenes, not in anything the player can affect, but I digress!) and while she begs for mercy, injured but alive, Joel kills her saying that "you'll only track us down" if he lets her live.

I'm not complaining too much about the Last of Us from this (in fact I'm hoping that the ambiguity that this throws over Joel's character at the last moment was intended to some extent as it makes the 'happy ending' that follows play much more darkly) but I wonder whether, based on that and the above comments, whether there is a certain sense of absolutism in moral judgement creeping into recent action/adventure products.

[knives]

I think the terribly underrated The Last Stand is also an interesting point of comparison

Spoiler

since it shows Schwarzenegger going by the book as much as the situation will allow and in fact does not kill the villain, but instead arrests him so that he can stand trial which I thought was an incredible choice by the film makers and one I respect tremendously when it is so much easier now a days for the villain to just be killed.

[domino harvey]

Discussion of the Last Stand moved to its thread