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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Amph "If You Seek His Monument, Look Around You" - The Man of Steel and Announced Sequel Thread

Discussion in 'Community' started by Jedi_Master_Conor, Nov 9, 2006.

  1. I Are The Internets

    I Are The Internets Shelf of Shame Host star 9 VIP - Game Host

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    Nov 20, 2012
    If Roger Corman had released his Fantastic Four, that would've obviously been the best comic book film ever made.
     
  2. Skywalker8921

    Skywalker8921 Jedi Knight star 4

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    Jun 9, 2011
    Took me a while to realize Ayelet Zurer played Lara. She looked familiar, but I couldn't place her until I looked up the cast list and then her filmography. Only other film I've seen that she was in is Angels & Demons.
     
  3. EHT

    EHT Manager Emeritus star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Sep 13, 2007
    This thread just reminded me that I never did get around to seeing Man of Steel.
     
  4. dp4m

    dp4m Chosen One star 10

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    Nov 8, 2001
    Ahahahahahaha...



    WB making fun of themselves... pretty good, actually. :)
     
  5. Saintheart

    Saintheart Jedi Grand Master star 6

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    Dec 16, 2000
    Speaking of that, this is a thing.

     
  6. Violent Violet Menace

    Violent Violet Menace Manager Emeritus star 5 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Aug 11, 2004
  7. I Are The Internets

    I Are The Internets Shelf of Shame Host star 9 VIP - Game Host

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    Nov 20, 2012
  8. Condition2SQ

    Condition2SQ Jedi Master star 4

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    Sep 5, 2012
    Save yourself two hours. I just got around to seeing it a month ago and was extremely disappointed. I had casually followed this thread when the movie first came out and figured that the discussion here about the ethics of the "collateral damage" in the film was a sort of hyper-pedantic JCC discussion, but I was way wrong; I had no idea how excessive, wanton, and indiscriminate it all was. I am not a fan of the comics at all(I don't actively dislike them; I just am completely apathetic towards them) so I can't critique the film from the standpoint of how well it fits into the Superman mythos, but just from a general perspective I thought the film was pretty terrible.
     
  9. Darth_Invidious

    Darth_Invidious Force Ghost star 6

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    Jun 21, 1999

    Sounds like something someone we know would do...except this is slightly better done. :p
     
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  10. Rogue1-and-a-half

    Rogue1-and-a-half Manager Emeritus who is writing his masterpiece star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Nov 2, 2000
    I had no problem with the "collateral damage" aspect of Man of Steel. Unless by "collateral damage," you mean "awful script," "horrible acting," "pretentious, condescending tone," and "meandering pacing." The explosions were the by God best parts, actually, wanton or not.
     
  11. Volderon

    Volderon Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Jul 23, 2007
    Let me guess, you guys loved Iron Man 3 right?
     
  12. dp4m

    dp4m Chosen One star 10

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    Nov 8, 2001

    I did. And I hated Man of Steel -- not actually sure what this says about me.
     
  13. Rogue1-and-a-half

    Rogue1-and-a-half Manager Emeritus who is writing his masterpiece star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Nov 2, 2000
    The first half was good. The second half was dreadful. Right up to, and including, the Mandarin reveal, it was a lot of fun. You know, nobody reading Plato.

    It is interesting to me that Man of Steel kind of flipped the "mediocre comic book movie" playbook. Typically, if a comic book movie is going to be mediocre, it's the first half that's good and the second half, when all the brainless action starts, that sucks (Captain America: The First Avenger & Iron Man 3 are two fine examples). But with Man of Steel, it was the first two-thirds that sucked, with Russell Crowe pontificating pretentiously in endless monologues, Superman giving himself a shave in the Arctic for God knows what reason, young Clark Kent reading Plato, random priests popping up to give cliched advice, Clark sinking into the depths of the sea in Jesus Christ Pose, etc. But the action was phenomenal. The Smallville fight between Superman and Zod's two sidekicks was one of the best action sequences I've seen in years.

    But seriously, Clark is so committed to keeping his powers a secret that he lets his father die, right? And then a punk in a bar annoys him and he ******* hangs his semi from a goddamn pole in public IN BROAD DAYLIGHT. Really? Really? REALLY SUPERMAN REALLY GODDAMN REALLY

    And I said it above, but there is simply no metric for how annoying Russell Crowe is in this movie. This is off the charts. Kevin Costner was really good. I wish all the actors had been that good and all the parts had been that well-written.
     
  14. Volderon

    Volderon Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Jul 23, 2007
    How many times have you watched it? I initially had the same views as you and still do to some degree but I can overlook them a bit. When I first saw The Dark Knight I hated it. Weird eh? It was different from Batman Begins and so that kind of jarred me but when I saw it again and again I ended up liking it more and more.

    When I saw MOS in theatres in IMAX the action scenes were very loud and there were some slow parts at the beginning and I left the theatre feeling kind of like, "That was it?" But then when it came out on Blu Ray I watched it again, and then again about a week later and it grew on me. The collateral damage doesn't bother me. It's to be expected if an alien invasion with super powered aliens occurs .

    As for the father, yeah that was kind of messed up but it just showed you that Jonathan was a man of his word when he was worried about Clark showing his powers to the kids on the bus and said maybe he should have let them die. Clark already had a reputation at that point of something supernatural about him so he couldn't just superspeed and save him or he might be noticed. You have to remember there is a very real threat of the military coming and taking Clark away and experimenting on him. (Flashpoint: Project Superman, Superman: Secret Identity and Action Comics Volume 1 2011). He just wants his son to be safe.

    The truck on the pole didn't bother me because well, the diner scene in SII. We've already seen Superman curb stomp jerks before. And I think that scene was at night when he walked out of the bar.
     
  15. dp4m

    dp4m Chosen One star 10

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    Nov 8, 2001
    The diner scene in Superman II was so apples and oranges to what happened in Man of Steel that I'm not really sure why it keeps coming up other than it involves a scenario with Clark in disguise and a bully.
     
  16. darth-sinister

    darth-sinister Manager Emeritus star 10 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Jun 28, 2001
    Exactly. No one witnessed Clark doing that and was already gone by the time it was discovered.
     
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  17. dp4m

    dp4m Chosen One star 10

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    Nov 8, 2001

    If... that's your only takeaway of the differences therein then... yeah...

    The order of magnitude in damage in disruption in Man of Steel from the retaliation is so far above and beyond what occurs in Superman II I don't know why they are compared. Plus, Clark (in the first instance) attempts to confine the damage and disruption to the actual attacker and allows him to damage himself, then pays off the damages for the rest.
     
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  18. Volderon

    Volderon Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Jul 23, 2007
    Superman II Clark was also older and more experienced than MOS Clark. MOS Clark has no experience and is impulsive.
     
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  19. dp4m

    dp4m Chosen One star 10

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    Nov 8, 2001

    Yes, one of my main complaints with the film -- the whole point of the Superman mythos is that he's a godlike, alien being who is taught morality and justice by his human adoptive parents. There's none of that here -- none of that humanity, especially in his wanderings. He saves people because he can (I guess if he can stay hidden?), but he's a pretty awful human being.
     
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  20. darth-sinister

    darth-sinister Manager Emeritus star 10 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Jun 28, 2001
    In the second film, when Clark first confronted Rocky, he did so out of instinct rather than common sense. He was very much angry at Rocky for what he said to him. The second confrontation was only confined to Rocky because he could justify what he did as, "I've been working out". In MOS, Clark knew that he could seriously hurt someone with his strength and because he had to keep a lid on his anger and his powers, he opted not to do that, but he could do something else such as go after the truck. It punished the drive while at the same time made it clear that he got off lightly. It's more elaborate in MOS because the budget allowed for it, while Donner was going off of what he had in budget, but even then he wasn't certain of what he could spend.

    That doesn't make him awful for using his powers like that. Nor choosing to remain hidden. The former is a more common, realistic display of characterization. That he has to work at controlling his temper. The latter is what Clark did in the Post Crisis era until he was forced to go public and create a dual identity.
     
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  21. Volderon

    Volderon Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Jul 23, 2007
    Clark sticking up for a waitress, saving people on the oil rig, saving people on the bus, saving some of the military during combat, saving Lois, saving his mother. What a terrible human being!

    Saving people because he chooses to save people is what makes him a good human being. Like his father said, you can choose who you want to be.
     
  22. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

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    Feb 18, 2001
    Yeah you keep saying that dp, and no matter how many times you repeat it you'll be 100%, comprehensively wrong too.

    There's a scene towards the end where Clark and Martha are at Jonathon's grave and she says how he wanted to make sure that when Clark decided to share his powers with the world that Clark would be ready to shoulder that responsibility. It sums up his lessons perfectly, and people who say Pa Kent told Superman to hide his powers and never show them are idiots.

    Pa Kent consistently prepares him by teaching him restraint. Just because he can do something doesn't always mean he should, and he should act with clarity and not impulse. Jonathon knows that the world will distrust Clark when they see him for who he is, and that Clark has to not fall back on any human responses to that - defensiveness, anger, resentment. He doesn't know what that looks like, but he knows that to spare Clark that pain he should law low until Clark himself figures that out.

    What happens though is that what Clark was missing, and would always miss, was what the Jor-El AI gave him - an explanation to why he's different. And that makes sense; Jor-El unlocks the side of Superman that helps him soar whilst Jonathon Kent keeps him firmly grounded. The decision to trust humanity to turn him over to Zod; that's the sum total of those two influences guiding Clark. Caught between a rock and a hard place, he does what is right regardless of the personal cost.

    I just rewatched this film on blu-ray and I think, as a lifelong Superman, it will never beat the Donner film in my mind but it is a far more complex and compelling take on the hero than many of you, expecting Donner Mk2, seem to allow it.
     
  23. dp4m

    dp4m Chosen One star 10

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    Nov 8, 2001

    No, that makes him Hancock.


    Yeah, well double-dumbass on you too!

    See how opinions work. :p
     
  24. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

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    Feb 18, 2001
    You are correct regarding my level of dumbassery. But that doesn't disguise the fact your analysis purposefully ignores key events ostensibly because they contradict you. You're not saying "I don't think they go far enough to show it", you're saying "they don't show it". That is, the framework for making Superman whole is laid out and as I said in my previous post, you have to view the Jor-El/Pa Kent input as simultaneously teaching him how to soar whilst keeping him grounded. He couldn't be Superman without those ingredients:

    1) Jonathon Kent's lessons in morality, responsibility, sacrifice and restraint.
    2) Jor-El's explanation that Kal is not cursed or there's no randomness to his power, it's an innate response to Earth's solar radiation.
    3) The trial by fire that was his first outing.

    It's like you refuse to see a forest and instead complain about getting trees.
     
  25. Volderon

    Volderon Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Jul 23, 2007
    I think some people, critics and whoever sees the movie, have this notion in their heads that they can't like MOS because they like the Donner version more. You can like both movies. It's allowed. I love both movies for what they bring to the character, Superman 1978 will always be special bacause I loved it as a kid and love it still. MOS is just a different version with some complex and compelling issues.