Actually while I'm at it, I've been watching the Dark Knight trilogy again over the past couple days and it baffles me how people can say that The Dark Knight Rises is a better movie than Man of Steel. It's like every time I see it (this will be the fourth, I believe, once I'm finished) I find new reasons to dislike it. And after watching Batman Begins again I can probably find just as many problems with it as I did with Man of Steel, yet I still consider it a very solid movie. Hell Batman kills someone in each of the Nolan movies (well Ra's might kind of be a technicality, but he certainly killed Harvey Dent and Talia) and I didn't see nearly the uproar about that as with MoS.

The 2003 Hulk is rated higher than Man of Steel on Rotten Tomatoes, which is just galling.

 

I think you take it a little too serious. You may think it's a bad joke, but no need to get angry at it.

 

It's because most of the "true" Superman fans are idiots who mistook the tyranny of the nonviolence regulations on comics from days past as being some kind of sacred moral high ground, and now can no longer tolerate the idea that Superman might kill a bad guy to save innocent people if forced to make a snap-decision between them.

Man of Steel had flaws, but it wasn't a shitty movie. It was a really good one. The greatest bitching isn't coming from the general public. It's coming from a highly vocal minority of self-proclaimed true fans that cannot tolerate the idea that maybe the path to making a more mature and interesting Superman is giving him a realistic portrayal of morality, as opposed to giving him a black suit, skintight jeans, and a fucking rockstar mullet.

That's right, you cunts. You heard me. I haven't forgotten that, and I won't let you forget it either. Don't make me bring out the comics where Superman ate a thousand pies, and all that other ridiculous shit where they tried to make him relatable. We finally have a Superman that is actually interesting, and worthy of being watched and followed. I'm not going to allow you to fuck this up for the rest of us.

 

And he kind of did a porn video once though I'm not really sure what's your point in bringing it up. Showing that the creators were as misguided in what Superman is about in the past as they are with this movie maybe?

 

Man of Steel had it's faults, it wasn't terrible. It was just a good super hero movie with shitty romance. Also Batman was better, know why? Coz he is the motherfucking Batman.

 

The point in bringing it up is that it's proof of something you aren't willing to accept. Superman is boring. He really is. You say the creators of the movie were misguided, but it's hard to be misguided about a character that has never had any guiding thing about them. There was never anything that made Superman stand out once Silver Age started.

You say they messed up. Well what did they? What is it that makes Superman iconic? Truth Justice and the American Way? Nope, can't be that, Superman resigned his American citizenship, and even if he hadn't, that just puts him in the same boat as Captain America. Only the Captain is better, because he actually has, you know. Flaws.

So it's not TJatAM, then. So just Truth and Justice? Is that was he stands for? That can't be it either. Every C and D list superhero in the DC universe stands for that, and so does the Justice League. It's right there in the freaking title.

So what does Superman stand for, then? Krypton? No, he doesn't. Canonically, Krypton doesn't come up all that often, except indirectly as kryptonite. Superman doesn't have Displacement to make him interesting like J'onn or Captain America do. He doesn't remember Krypton at all in core, because he was just a baby, and in the runs where he gets those memories, they never really change him in any noticeable way. He's not a fish out of water. So no dice there, either.

And that's Superman's problem. Batman is a normal man that became extraordinary. He stands for the everyperson. Diana is the daughter of the queen of the Amazons. She's a child of privilege and the old world, trying to adapt to the new. J'onn is the only martian left. He has memories of his people, his wife, his son, and has to deal with being the last of his kind.

Too complicated? Then let's boil it down more.

Batman wins fights by using his mind. Diana wins fights through bravery and valor. Green Lantern wins through creativity and quick-thinking. Superman wins because he's Superman. His entire character is an endless self-reference. He's good because he's Superman, and he's Superman because he's good. He wins because he has the superpowers, and as long as he has the superpowers, he can't lose. You can defeat Diana or Bruce in single combat if you're good enough, quick enough, or clever enough. You can even do it to J'onn or the Green Lantern of the day, even though they hit in a higher weight class. But you can't beat Superman unless you take away his powers. Even the forever touted and never shut-the-fuck-up-abouted time Batman beat Superman, he did it with Kryptonite. Not cleverness. Not a trick or a trap. He did it by taking away Superman's powers, at which point Superman had nothing left.

And that's exactly why Superman is so boring. Because when you take away his powers, there is nothing left of him. He has zero character. None. Zilch. Nada. You take the Wonder Woman out of Wonder Woman, she's still an alienated princess trying to do the right thing in a world that left hers behind over a thousand years ago. You take away all the powers of the Martian Manhunter from J'onn (which are really just Martian biology, but that's splitting hairs), and he's still a guy who watched his entire species die, including his wife and child, right in front of him, and will have to deal with that until the day he dies, along with the fact that he actually looks like an alien, so he can't even walk around in public without wearing a disguise. You take away the gadgets and the cowl from Batman, and he's still a tireless crusader against organized crime and domestic terrorism, still the spoiled kid that saw his parents die and then shaped way the hell up.

But you take the Superman out of Superman, and you're left with nothing, because that's all Superman is.

Which brings us neatly back around to this bit right here.

Man of Steel was not a perfect movie. It had a number flaws that I could point out off the top of my head, and some of mine might even agree with what they're saying went wrong on Rotten Tomatoes and the rest of the internet that didn't like the movie.

That being said, the creators of the movie literally addressed every problem Superman has ever traditionally had. Superman is boring? They gave him a personality and a backstory, not the Krypton-exploding one, but a real one. Superman was a kid who was picked on by bullies, but held back from bending them into pretzels even though he could have, even though he really wanted to. Girls made fun of him. Kids laughed at him. He could hear every single bad thing anyone ever said about him, because of his powers. He was alone and adrift in the world, seeing the worst:fire society had to offer. He pondered not saving people for the sake of his own happiness. He has a temper. He bent that guy's truck around a fucking telephone pole at the diner.

They made him a human fucking being. A real, honest to god person with emotions. He's not shallow anymore. You take away his superpowers, and he's a tormented man that was bullied and picked on for being different, harbors a lot of hatred that he bottles up inside, and tries to do the right thing, even though he wishes sometimes that he could live with himself if he didn't. That alone automatically makes him better than every single X-man ever, to say nothing of better than almost every prior iteration of Superman.

And you bitch about it.

They fixed the power levels. They literally did it in the best possible way. It's Golden Age Superman, when bullets didn't bounce off his eyes and he could get knocked the fuck out by a strong enough punch, but they threw in one Silver Age power (flight), possibly because they thought they couldn't sell a Superman movie where he couldn't fly. Superman isn't immortal or invincible. He can be beaten, broken, battered down, knocked the fuck out, and even outright killed, and not just by alien technology or superpowers, either. He doesn't take bullets, he dodges them, because bullets fucking hurt and might even potentially kill him.

And you bitch about it.

They gave Superman a decent challenge. Nobody cares when Batman beats up some guys trying to rob a bank, because that's completely within his skillset. It's nothing extraordinary. Oh, look, the Flash stopped a mugging. Better dig out the fireworks! By the same token, nobody cares if Superman saves an airplane from crashing or stops a train from running somebody over. He's Superman. That's what he's supposed to be able to do. Nobody is going to applaud heroes doing things they're supposed to.

We applaud them for doing things that are amazing. Things that are incredible. Things that push themselves to the limit.

We applauded that time Batman stopped a gigantic (successful!) gambit of the Joker's to turn all of Gotham into one giant rendition of Lord of the Flies by pushing his gadgets, himself, and his faith in the people of Gotham to the limits and beyond.

We applauded when Tony Stark saved the day in the middle of Iron Man III when he didn't have his suits or most of his technology for it. Someone who should have been completely fucking useless outside of a research lab went commando after everything they owned got blown the fuck up by terrorists, and he got the fucking job done. A gadgeteer saved the day with basically no gadgets. The suits were there for the final quarter of the movie, but he figured out what was going on and successfully interfered with a lot of it with nothing but a flannel shirt and a twelve year old sidekick, so bonus points for that handicap.

Did Superman save a plane? No. Did he stop a robbery? Nope. Did he save someone from a train or catch someone that was about to commit suicide? Not even close. He didn't even throw a bomb into space or disarm a bomb with his laser vision before it could explode.

Superman single-handedly averted an entire alien invasion that would have terraformed Earth completely, destroying the planet as we know it, and wiping out humanity entirely. He did it with Golden Age superpowers, and he did it when the world engines and alien atmosphere were all made out of Kryptonite.

And yet. You bitched.

Superman, the superhero that has never had a point at all, was finally given one by the Man of Steel movie. His power levels were finally fixed, a decent personality was finally added, he was finally given a challenge worthy of applauding when he overcame it with his abilities, and they finally made him someone interesting that you wanted to watch.

And you said they, who addressed every negative point Superman has ever had, missed the point entirely, and that the whole movie was shit because it didn't conform with the Comics Code Authority that so many sad people pretend is actual legitimate morality, when it was just censorship caused by a quack psychologist scaring people into believing that comics made kids into criminals (which shouldn't remind you of anything at all).

Superman never had a point. They gave him one. That makes it a good movie. There's nothing more to talk about, except for how disappointing it is that so many movies see fit to ram in romance subplots where they don't fucking belong.

 

I think you're going a little overboard. What was your previous exposure to Superman before Man of Steel anyway?

 

How can I accept something that you are wrong about? Superman is not boring. I could explain why, but I think there is a better way. If you are unfamiliar with it read All Star Superman by Grant Morrison and if that doesn't change how you think about Superman then probably no argument I can present will.

And personally I think that it's you who are "bitching" and can't accept that some people have different opinion about Superman than you have. But that's just my opinion.

 

I think the line was crossed 8000 words ago.

I mean, I agree on the no-killing shit but that fucking tract on the nature of Superman is hurting my eyes. (Which is ironic because I've had a few eye-crossingly long posts)

 

http://movies.yahoo.com/news/official-superman-sequel-feature-batman-203738998.html

I'll just leave this here...

 

Interesting. With that quote it suggests that maybe they'll have Batman and Superman fight, but then again they did say that they won't necessarily be using The Dark Knight Returns as a source. Though that Bat symbol they're using looks very much like the one from TDK Returns too.

I'm hoping they do a sequel to Man of Steel before a Batman/Superman crossover movie. Superman needs another movie to flesh him out more before they start branching into the rest of the DCU.

As for how to portray Batman, I think I said it before in The Dark Knight Rises thread about a year ago, but following the example of the Arkham games would be the best way to go about it: borrowing from comics, cartoons and other adaptations while balancing it with a fairly grounded tone. Those games are pretty popular too, so it wouldn't be a dramatic shift. I say fairly grounded because the Nolan films, especially The Dark Knight Rises, seemed to get too mired in realism sometimes, and I feel that embracing the source material instead of trying to reshape it would've helped. As for casting a new Batman, someone suggested Michael Fassbender once and now I can't get it out of my mind. I think he looks a hell of a lot closer to Bruce than Christian Bale does.

---------- Post automerged 07-21-2013 at 02:26 PM ---------- Previous post was 07-20-2013 at 07:58 PM ----------

Okay, so apparently this Batman/Superman movie is Man of Steel 2 according to this. Well that changes things a bit. I was hoping to see Lex and/or Brainiac before delving into the rest of the DCU. Unless we get both Lex and Batman, which would be interesting.

If Batman and Superman fight we're going to need to finally see the Batgod in all his glory on-screen, preptime and everything, or else it's going to be a very short fight.

 

Don't know how Bats vs Superman is going to work since they have removed Kryptonite from the equation. Supes can be harmed by a significantly powerful punch but I don't want to see TDKR end fight rehashed in all honesty.

 

Kryptonite not being in MoS doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't exist. I guess they made the shifting between different atmospheres function a lot like it, but it's still not quite the same. You can't carry a different atmosphere in your pocket or anything to spring on Superman or make a bullet out of it.

Maybe Kryptonite could still be used, but with an alternate origin: rather than being a chunk of Krypton, it's a synthetic material created by Lex or the government as a weapon to counter Superman should he go rogue. You might not call it "Kryptonite" in that case, but it'd be functionally the same. In order to prevent the "Kryptonite Creep" where it seems like everyone has some they'd have to make it clear that it's incredibly expensive and difficult to produce.

Or, you could still have normal chunk-of-the-planet Kryptonite and explain its presence with Brainiac having collected it before coming to Earth.

 

On watching for the second time, it occurred to me that the World Machine (or whatever it's called; that thing he destroyed in the Indian Ocean) was apparently pumping out all sorts of shit to make the Earth and its atmosphere more like Krypton's...I'd lay good money on there being a significant chunk of green space rock under the ocean in the sequel.

Actually, that might make for a good plot for the Batman/Superman aspect of it. Wayne Industries and Luthor's company are vying for mining rights in the area. Supes tries to stop anyone mining there, having realised that he's going to be vulnerable to it, and Bats tries to stand against him. Eventually, they team up once they realise that Luthor getting hold of it is a *really* bad idea.

 

So Ben Affleck will play Batman.

Not someone I really would have thought of for the role, but... mitebcool?

I imagine the diehard Nolan fans are pissed that Bale isn't returning or that they aren't using the Nolan movies as a base, but after TDKR that's a good thing in my eyes. And while I liked Batman Begins and TDK, the Nolan fans should realize that those movies weren't the end-all, be-all for Batman.

 

Interesting. I can certainly see him as Bruce Wayne; picturing him as Batman is a little trickier, but we'll see. I do think he's a good actor, and I even quite liked Daredevil - not a great film, but not as bad as it's said to be.

And yeah, hopefully they'll be having some significant changes from the Nolan era, even if he does still have a guiding hand over it all.

 

Aaaaaand there go my hopes for the movie.

 

Why? He showed in Argo that he can play it straight in adult roles. I mean, I'm a HUUUUUUUUUUGE fan of the Nolan Batman trilogy, and even I support this casting.

 

Yeah, I liked him in Argo. And besides, a lot of these kinds of surprise/unlikely castings have turned out pretty well lately. I think he's worth the benefit of the doubt.

---------- Post automerged at 02:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:13 AM ----------

Now there's the possibility that Bryan Cranston has been cast as Lex Luthor.

Interesting that they'd go for someone who's significantly older, Luthor's typically Clark's age. Though hopefully this means they won't go the "Luthor and Clark used to be friends in Smallville" route, I've never liked that.

 

I can see Affleck as Bruce Wayne, as mentioned, because he can pull the whole cocky, rich attitude. But I don't think he has a Batman face. Seriously, wtf?



By the way, I literally just saw Man of Steel for the first time. I'm fighting down a (manly) squeal.