Amph Waiting For Superman: Gunnverse DCU/Elseworlds (New Trailer!)

I had friends with comic books, which gave me some peripheral awareness of them. I would even read a few on their recommendation. However, you're correct that my introduction to superheroes came through other media. Having said that, I'm quite familiar with most of these characters background and histories before seeing their films.

I can appreciate that you enjoy the little callbacks to great moments. I think I had a similar experience with I, Robot which apparently a lot of others around these boards disliked. For me, it was neat to see the way they worked in elements from the robot detective novels, or some of Asimov's more interesting attempts at pushing the boundaries of the Three Laws.

The thing is, I don't think this sort of thing is enough to make a movie stand on its own. Even with comic book movies. That's where my insistence comes from. I know they can be more than this, because so many of them have before. The first two entries in the Spiderman, X-men, and Batman trilogies are all great examples. So unless they can transcend nostalgic appeal and be genuinely good in their own right, I don't much appreciate them.

Finally, did you really mean that post? You seemed to be implying that you enjoyed Iron Man 2. I'm not asking this sarcastically. While I know that I had a particularly bad reaction to it (it was easily in the top 5 most negative film experiences I've never had for something that I didn't walk out of) it was my understanding the popular and critical reaction was also pretty lackluster too.

 

You were saying?

(1) I'd call the fact he led a team of people across the galaxy for thirty years looking for the Codex and/or a new home a pretty potent demonstration of leadership and management of limited resources.
(2) Define how the attempted coup was stupid.
(3) He freaked out Earth sufficiently that they agreed to hand over a refugee to him. Pretty damn impressive work for a guy with one ship against roughly eight full nations on the earth all armed with nuclear weapons.
(4) Hs lieutenants showed superior fighting skill to him because they're bred to fight.
(5) Antagonists don't need to be the most uber fighter on the field.

 

LOL to be fair that was the movie version of LOTR. In the novel universe it took the elves and men years to win the battle at Mount Doom and the siege of Barad-Dur lasted seven years until at last Sauron came out of his castle and killed both kings and other soldiers.

But yes I agree with your points. Military leadership doesnt necessarily mean prowess in battle.

 

Oh, also on the whole "ANTAGONIST MUST NOT BE DEFEETED AT START OF MOVIE THING"--



Zod seems to be revelling in his victory here, don't you think?

 

Sauron didn't get beaten up badly, instead we saw how powerful he was when he was crushing the armies. Still it cost the humans the elves dearly, they did it only because they were aiming at Sauron's weakness. Both Gil-galad and Elendil were kiled. Zod? No, he didn't show how powerful he was by crushing army, nor did Jor El pay any price to beat him badly.

What other choices do they have?

They didn't capture the council as hostage, instead went to chase Jor El and he asked his troops to blow the codex up.

Because their technology is far much more advanced than the humans. Nuclear weapon is nothing to their weapon.

General Zod: I was bred to be a warrior, Kal. Trained my entire life to master my senses. Where did you train? ON A FARM?

So is Zod.

They need to be the biggest threat, and clearly the movie, because it focus on fighting scenes so much, didn't have the space, or even the intention to make Zod a mastermind.

 

Very very few movie would let the antagonist got beaten so badly in the beginning, because that would demonstrate their menace.

Zod was able to kill Jor El because Jor El was not paying attention to him.

Zod made clear he was bred to be a warrior, he had spent his whole life to train his senses.

 

Hardly. I believe children and families deserve a better Superman than the one who appeared amidst Snyder's sound and fury.

Shame on DC and Warner, for stripping an American icon of charm, humor and inspiration.

 

Slowpokeking please edit.

 

Jor-El paid for it with his life, in case you hadn't noticed.

Lie down and die. Or lose hope. It is heavily implicit that Zod kept them from doing either.

You don't see what Zod's troops are doing away from Jor-El, mainly because Jor-El is this wonderfully complex thing called the Point of View character. As in, Jor-El is the focus of the audience's attention. For all you know, the Council could well have been secured inside Zod's ship. Just because someone does not take a crap on film does not mean that person lacks an anus. Chasing Jor-El is fine because Zod is bred to defend Krypton and the Codex. Zod does not ask his troops to blow up the Codex; he says only to bring the Codex's ship down. He is trying to recover the Codex at all stages. Once again, define how the attempted coup was "stupid".

Zod can't necessarily know that. Even Jor-El's scan of Earth points to the civilisation on it being "apparently" civilised. And superior technology does not necessarily dictate superiority in battle -- as anyone who's ever fought in Afghanistan knows.

I knew you'd pull that one out, which is why the answer is easy: you really expect Zod to be telling the truth? He's already lied to Kal-El. And that speech is as much to intimidate Kal as it is any statement of fact. If the statement contained objective fact, logically Kal-El would not have defeated him. You're still clutching at straws on that one. Not to mention the whole point of the movie is implicitly to run the theme that selective breeding is, y'know, wrong and inferior anyway.

Zod is the biggest threat of the movie, unless Brainiac is of course invisibly manipulating the whole thing behind the scenes or something. He controls the forces that are determined to more or less destroy Earth. Villains don't have to be cardboard cutouts of either big bruisers or big brainers; they can come in any variety of shades between those extremes and still be a convincing antagonist.

 

Only because he wasn't paying attention to Zod, this added nothing to Zod's strength, only probably lowered his personality.

So they don't have other choices but to follow Zod.

He didn't ask

Again, don't speculate, give proof of your theory that Zod was taking the council as hostage.

The weapon was aiming at the ship, how would the codex be untouched after it was shot and the ship crash down?

He knew, Krypton had sent scout ships to Earth 20000 years ago, since he also knows how to hack the network of humans and speak their language, he clearly understand what technology level are they on.

They have superior technology to easily destroy the whole planet's lives, their individuals have god like power on Earth, and they still lost.

Give proof to show he was lying, Kal-El bathed more sunlight and he adapted Earth's environment better, I remember Jor El made it clear to him he was more powerful.


Again, don't speculate, give proof.

http://dccinematicuniverse.wikia.com/wiki/Dru-Zod

Zod was born on the distant planet Krypton genetically engineered as a commanding leader and fierce warrior. He was one in a long line of warriors all who served in Krypton's military rising all the way to the rank of 'General' from which he was formally known as "General Zod" from now on. Zod was placed in charged of the Warrior Guild on Krypton and was fiercely devoted to his duty and his 'people'.

He didn't show superior fighting skill or mind, villains don't but antagonist need to show why are the the biggest bad guy.

I like the characterization of Zod, about he tried everything to protect his people, but he could have been better if they make him more powerful.

I will stop here, let's just keep our opinion.

 

They have a choice to kill themselves, as you might kinda expect as a possible reaction maybe from a group of people who've just seen their planet explode.

He didn't ask

Again, don't speculate, give proof of your theory that Zod was taking the council as hostage.

The weapon was aiming at the ship, how would the codex be untouched after it was shot and the ship crash down?[/quote]



If you're really going to be a pedantic idiot over this one, fine: count up the number of troops on screen that Zod has with him when he enters the council chamber, and then count up how many troops escort Jor-El away from the chamber. Not to mention that Zod does not go with Jor-El, so there musta been something rather more important he needed to do with his time that he couldn't go with Jor-El personally. Would you like to provide an assertion, with backing proof of course since you've demanded it of me, for what Zod was doing during all that screen time?

EDIT: as to the shooting at the ship bit: it's possible to disable a ship without destroying it. Subjecting myself to your Rigourous Demand For Proof (TM), Zod only orders his pilots to bring the ship down, not destroy it.

He knew, Krypton had sent scout ships to Earth 20000 years ago, since he also knows how to hack the network of humans and speak their language, he clearly understand what technology level are they on.

They have superior technology to easily destroy the whole planet's lives, their individuals have god like power on Earth, and they still lost.[/quote]

If so, then Zod had no reason to negotiate with Earth or give Kal-El time to surrender. He could've simply marched in and taken what he wanted.

First up, I couldn't give a rat's ass what a random Internet site says about a character's backstory. And you shouldn't either if you're going to start thumping the table demanding "proof" in terms of what's on screen, because that's all that counts. Unless you want me to start quoting where you've demanded that people don't bring in other incarnations of a character to judge a different interpretation of that same character.

Second, the proof that Zod is at least exaggerating comes from his mental state to that point and the fact he's in hand-to-hand combat with Kal-El throughout that scene. If you really want to go pedantic idiot again, let's focus on the fact that Zod says he's only trained to control his senses - not his muscles.

 

I was waiting for that to happen.

 

I was going to post it myself but felt it would be too obvious. Noobie awkwardness and all that.

 

I feel like it's either going to be fantastic or atrocious, with no other alternatives.

Of course, it's not like there's much left of Johnny boy to still wreck, these days.

 

No one talked about this when I put it up.

But wow DC wants everyone to have a piece of them (CW, Fox, and NBC all with DC shows on or in development).

 

Of course! It perfect start twenty different universes that are not connected and people will for sure love it.

 

Don't really want to jump in here at length, but wasn't he also bred to fight? Isn't that the whole point of the caste system they seemed to hint was operating on Krypton? Otherwise, what was the meaning of all the garbage about Kal-El being able to choose his destiny because he was natural born? His father, a scientist, out-fought many Kryptonians who were born and bred to be soldiers. Zod, a soldier, did serious scientific work in reconstructing viable interstellar travel?

This is just as flexible as modern human society. Slowpokeking doesn't always make the strongest arguments, but I think he's correct that on the issue, the movie basically undermined its own plot points, and came off look incredibly stupid.

 

Did Zod reconstruct viable interstellar travel by himself, or did he have a small cadre of his own scientists to assist him with that task? Notably that rather bald and sinister-looking fellow who intones that it's not necessary for Kal-El to be alive for the Codex to be extracted from him?

As to Jor-El outfighting "many" Kryptonians born and bred to be soldiers -- on my count he outfought three in hand-to-hand combat: the two holding him at the start of the film, and then Zod one on one. And the two holding him were blinded by Kelex's flashbang. I seem to remember he also shot two of them at his Citadel, but I'd have to go back and check, remembering he's also wearing that odd armour at that point. The donning of the suit has some screentime made of it; I presume it might have some functions beyond straight protection, be it targeting or steadying the limbs or whatever, not that it (QED) was much good at the protection task anyway.

It's also notable that while Jor-El talks about something similar to a caste system, we don't have the precise dimensions of what that means - whether soldiers are bred to be more violent, scientists bred to be more analytical, or whether it amounts to simple changes in muscle formation. I'd say it's a bit of both, with the ossifying social structure that if you were bred for one purpose, you were forbidden by Krypton's law from seeking any other destiny - thus Jor-El's explanation about "What if a child aspired to become something more than what society had intended for him; what if a child aspired to be something greater."

My main point was that Zod doesn't have to be the most uber fighter on Krypton in order to lead Krypton's armies: that's the Authority Equals Asskicking trope, which it is not clear the writers were making out here. Zod was as much bragging, exaggerating, and drunk on power after his anti-heroic BSOD as stating some sort of truth when he said that line to Kal.

EDIT: I also found it personally satisfying for Jor-El to have some individual capabilities that ordinarily would be denied him in Kryptonian society, viz. martial arts training. After all, he's the last member of a house that believes in potential and going outside societal norms; he and Lara have already broken Krypton's law by (amusingly, reversing the Catholic injunction) having a kid sex solely for procreation rather than entertainment; he's the only guy on the planet (it seems) who thinks outside the box enough to turn the Phantom Zone into a transporter.

 

I'd rather that than a shoehorned and forced shared universe.

People forget that Marvel's cinematic universe was the result of A) plans that could be amended or dropped as need be and B) a hell of a lot of luck. And honestly, the push for DC's films and TV shows to share a universe is getting really tiresome. Constantine was just picked up by NBC, Fox has the Gordon show, and WB has Arrow. If they want to make reference to other characters and events, fine, go for it, but I'd really prefer it if they focused on creating good, compelling shows, movies, and stories rather than a bunch that smile and wink and drag out guests and references from other shows.

The thing is that maybe DC fans should spend more time demanding that this stuff not suck.

 

Well, I have to assume that it did involve significant preferential breeding in addition to job assignment. Otherwise, what was all the crowing about a natural birth for? And for that matter, why go through all the extra effort to completely outsource one's method of reproduction if one were just going to leave the results to the same random chance that characterizes natural birth? While there was obviously a social control element, they implied pretty heavily that it was undergirded by actual genetics.

As for the thin looking fellow, that just sort of counts as another confusing point. He looks and acts like a scientist. But the coup seems to have been restricted to the military. After all, Jor-El, his supposedly close friend (at some point, anyway?) didn't even have any clue what was happening. Further, Zod was stated to only really have cultivated the intense loyalty of his troops, so I'm not sure where one random guy from somewhere else would even have entered into the picture. So where their scientifically oriented military officers? Or were science officers assigned posts in the military? Or????

In any case, I understand and agree with you main point that someone isn't stronger just because they have a higher rank. But I do think that Slowpokeking still stumbled onto on of the actual weaknesses of the film in discussing the flimsy nature of the whole caste business.

 

On the coup thing, the impression I had was that Zod's group of dissidents weren't only restricted to the military, mainly because Jor-El says to Zod that he has "abandoned the principles that bound us together". I took from that line that Zod and Jor-El had originally been part of a "cross-caste?" group concerned about Krypton's future. Or even that they were part of the same group right until that moment, until Zod took what he thought were necessary steps to institute a coup and what Jor-El could not countenance. Jor-El even says he will honour the man Zod once was, which implies they held what each thought were similar principles. One point of difference between them seems to think that Jor-El believes that the caste system is inherently doomed, while Zod thinks the caste system is flawed but functional -- thus "degenerative bloodlines", etc, etc.

I agree the caste thing isn't explained thoroughly, but on the other hand neither do I think the film's internally inconsistent.