I'm a bit worried about everything they seem to be packing into this movie. From all the trailers I've seen it looks like a shitload of content, and unless it's a bloody long film I can't see everything being developed to the extent it could be. Thoughts?

 

I had the exact same thought.

 

Its running time is 143 minutes which means about 135 minutes of actual film. That's should be more than enough time to include everything that was presented in the trailers.

~20 minutes - Krypton

~45 minutes - Clark's life and adventures/Lois' investigation

~70 minutes - Zod's invasion

And since this is Nolan's script, it will probably be more like this.

~20 min - Clark doing some odd jobs, he saves someone/introducing Lois investigating this mysterious hero

~20 min - Clark being a young boy, wants to discover who he is

~25 min - Clark finds the Fortress, learns about Krypton's history

~20 min - Zod arrives, the battle in the Smallville

~30 min - Clark becomes Superman, interactions with Lois and the army

~20 min - the final battle

What doesn't fit is establishing Clark's reporter persona, but I expect it to happen in the last 5 minutes, if they will bother with it at all in this movie.

 

I want to see how Kryptonian society is portrayed, if at all.

 

I don't need to know anything other than the fact that kid Superman reads Plato - as shown at 0:54 in this - to know they got it right. Thank you, based Nolan and Snyder.

 

I have no idea what was going on in that movie, who was who, or why they were fighting. But it looked fucking awesome.

 

Am I the only one that thinks this movie will be at best mediocre?

Zac Snyder, the director, has only directed pure shit. And yes, I thought 300 was about as fun as watching a friend play a single player game, while not being allowed to speak. Every film since has been progressively worse.

Additionally, it appears there has been next to no early screening for reviewers or releases overseas. Which doesn't make sense, because it's not like there are many surprises in Superman. You know that he and Lois live. Zod is here and Lex Luthor will probably show up somehow as well. About the craziest things I can imagine happening are Lobo or Maxima showing up in the final third of the film.

In short, I have really low expectations for the film. I'm kind of hoping it is a bomb, just so studios stop flinging money at Zac Snyder.

 

I was indifferent towards 300, but I liked Watchmen well enough. I don't know about his other films.

Well I hope you're wrong. I want people to like Superman again, and that's not likely to happen if this movie fails. Though based on what they've shown so far, I've yet to see a reason to be worried about it.

 

Was brilliant.

Lois x Clark was a bit rushed.

Zod was amazing.

Brilliant film.

That is all.

 

I have been on a Superman kick because of the movie and I am re-watching the Superman Animated Series again for the first time since I was a kid. (http://www.animeflavor.com/)

I am watching an episode where Superman is fighting a female Kryptonian on Earth. They are having this epic battle which is cool and all and she is holding her own against him. Maybe I am thinking of it wrong but if Kryptonian's are normally like regular humans, shouldn't the average male be able to kick the shit out of the average female? So on Earth, while the female Kryptonian would be able to destroy any human, shouldn't there still be the same gap in strength between Superman and this bitch?

My excuse for this being appropriate here is that I saw Superman fight a chick in the trailer...

 

Nope, sunlight from a yellow star is where the powers come from and they fluctuate depending on how much the Kryptonian has absorbed. If she's gotten more than him by any significant amount she could more than easily brawl with him. The two best examples in the comics are, one a recent What If kind of deal where Superman got captured by the government as a baby and almost entirely deprived of sunlight his entire life which made him a significantly weaker walking stick. On the other end of it is DC One Million where Superman spent roughly 15000 years inside a yellow sun and when he reemerged he wasn't just powerful he was for all intents and purposes God.

As for the movie, Im a massive Superman fan so I can't wait to go see it.

 

Thanks for the response. All true, but the thing is that she was locked in the phantom zone for 20 years, all while Superman was on Earth. She had been out and on Earth for about 2-3 days.

It is a cartoon though so maybe I guess that is the real answer.

 

Just came back. As a longtime fan of Superman, I thought it was great. The action scenes were intense and befitting the kind of power Kryptonians can throw around, but it balanced them with good character and world building. It more than makes up for the last few lackluster live-action Superman movies, especially the snore-fest and wasted opportunity that was Superman Returns, and is probably my favorite take on his origin overall, taking ideas from previous versions of it like Birthright and Earth One. My only overt problem was:

Spoiler

Jonathan Kent's death. I think him dying of a heart attack, as in the 1978 version and the more relevant comics, carries far more weight than dying from a tornado. A heart attack is something that Clark has no control over. It's something that, even with all his powers, he couldn't have prevented from happening. It definitively shows him that he isn't a god. Jonathan dying from a tornado that Clark could've saved him from, but didn't because it would reveal his abilities and identity to people, sends a different message entirely.

That said I thought Kevin Costner did a good job with the character.

Less severe problems included

Spoiler

Professor Hamilton dying as soon as he did, rather than becoming an ally of Superman's

and some mild shaky-cam that I thought was unnecessary. I stopped noticing it early though. It might've actually just stopped at some point and I didn't notice. It wasn't like Cloverfield or anything, but it was slightly irritating at first.

Spoiler

The end was interesting. Superman kills Zod in order to stop him from vaporizing innocents with his heat vision. Now, if this were Superman just coldly executing him or something I'd have been more than a bit miffed. That's not Superman. But this was a necessary move to save innocents in a situation where hesitation could have cost dearly, and he did what he had to do to save them. And he hated himself for it, appropriately. Killing Zod hurt him more than any of the punches thrown at him in the entire movie.

I don't think Superman or any real hero should enjoy killing, and it should always be a last resort in order to save lives -- I thought in this case they handled that well.

An 8 or 9/10 from me.

Oh, and I don't give half a fuck what Rotten Tomatoes thinks. I've never respected that site, and most so-called critics are pretentious twats in my experience. Watch the movie and form your own opinion.

 

Intense as fuck. Definitely go watch it.

 

Just watched it last night. The score is wonderful, the actors' performances are great, the action is excellent, the story is beautifully written, and it even manages to caught so many audiences off-guard with some twists here and there. It was intense. There were scenes that cut me deep, such as

Spoiler

the scene where it was revealed that the ultimate reason for Zod to did what he had done was because he was engineered since his birth to protect Krypton, that bringing it back - and bringing his people back to life, even if he had to destroy another world - was his only reason to live. He was, in fact, just like every other people of his race, engineered to fulfill the role Krypton wanted them to become. He had no free choice, unlike Clark.

Those fact was actually established from the first hour of the movie, but somehow I didn't remember - or maybe, I didn't took it seriously - until that scene. There were so many other implications from those seemingly simple revelation, like if only Zod and his forces got different role in his society, they wouldn't have been thrown into the Phantom Zone for trying to coup the 'foolish government' of theirs. If only they were chosen for different role, they didn't have to spent so many years searching the remains of their worlds.

And, if only he got Jor-El's role, maybe his son would be on earth, not Jor-El's.

In that moment, I actually sympathized with Zod.

All audience here were laughing in funny scenes. They fell into silence in grave scenes. They cheered when Clark finally able to soar to the sky. And, in the end, the whole theatre gave the movie standing applause. I think those things spoke so much.

Personally, I think Man of Steel is very different than any other recent 'superhero' movies, that comparing it to them is not justifiable. This is not a man in an iron suit, or a man with adamantine claws, or a demigod with lightning hammer. This is not a man who watched his parents died and trained hard to protect the city he loved.

This is a Titan with human's heart. This is Superman. This is his story.

And I love it.

 

I often see movie threads here where a person describes the theatre standing up in applause afterwards.

That literally never happens here. Like ever. No matter how good the movie is the most you get is a quiet but excited chatter as people file out. Normally it's grave silence.

 

Well, in here, that's considered an appropriate thing to do. In theatre here, if you think the movie is good, give an applause to it. If you think it's fucking awesome, give a standing applause to it.

Just for info: in here, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows received the greatest standing ovation I've ever witnessed. The Dark Knight Rises and The Hobbit also received it. Even Oblivion got it, although not by everyone in the theatre.

 

Only one I ever saw was for, of all things, Shyamalan's Signs.

Literally the only place that could happen is in South East London.

 

There was some clapping and whistling in the theater when it ended. I don't really like clapping for something if none of the people who made it are actually there to hear it, but whatever. In The Dark Knight Rises it was annoying because they kept doing it during the actual movie instead of just after. This time I was much more annoyed by the pack of dudebro chucklefucks behind me who were giggling at completely inappropriate scenes and talking amongst themselves.

EDIT: Oh, my brother reminded me of something I forgot:

Spoiler

People actually cheered a bit when Superman killed Zod. What the fuck people. That's a sad thing.

That being the case, I'm honestly a bit worried now that if the general public does start to like Superman again after seeing this, like I wanted, it won't be for the right reasons.

 

Yeah, I wondered what the whole engineered thing was about and whether it was

Spoiler

just another way to make Clark unique, but then they managed to tie Zod's storyline into it and make it relevant was amazing, all those line drops about free choice, choosing what type of man he wanted to be, came together really well

Only film Ive ever seen a standing applause for was Into Darkness.