DCEU Superman Appreciation 2018

[DochaDocha]

Okay, I'm not a big fan of DCEU Supes, but I feel the judgment of the character at times is entirely unfair. Wonder Woman received so much praise despite all the characters she killed, but Man of Steel got hate from something like half of the audience because he killed Zod.

[SmokeMonster]

Okay, I'm not a big fan of DCEU Supes, but I feel the judgment of the character at times is entirely unfair. Wonder Woman received so much praise despite all the characters she killed, but Man of Steel got hate from something like half of the audience because he killed Zod.

If they had Wondy snap the villain's neck in the climax, and then give out a depressing yell, then I imagine it might have received some flack.

[ekrolo2]

If they had Wondy snap the villain's neck in the climax, and then give out a depressing yell, then I imagine it might have received some flack.

So Superman actually reacting to the fact he had to kill someone with anguish earns flack but Wonder Woman racking up a body count in flashy battles and killing the villain in the same fashion with nary a **** given is okay.

Yeah, this kind of logic is what makes me more convinced that if Superman offed Zod in a "fun" way in MoS, nobody would care. It's how everyone in the MCU has a double digit body count (at least) and nobody from the audience cares because the tones are overall lighter.

[GreatKungLao]

Tony Stark kills his dad's best friend and it was ok.

Wonder Woman kills soldiers and her brother, that's ok.

Superman forced to kill the last of his own kind, who planned genocide and literally cries because he had to killbe him - not ok.

I saw that one of the arguments against that was that "Superman should not have been placed in such situation in the first place", which means that people are so narrow minded that they can't accept Superman without deus ex machina outcomes.

Superman killing Zod at least explores the possibility of him existing as Superman afterwards. What if Superman has to kill at some point in his long life? Is that instantly game over or there is a window for redemption?

P.S. Zod's humanizing portrayal might have been one of the reasons for people not liking the scene. When Superman kills monsters like Doomsday it is considered ok.

[ShaunN]

Like many critics, I think that Snyder just got Superman completely wrong. MoS was not bad as a "first contact" movie; it was a disaster as a Superman movie. There are so many problems with it that undermine the entire point of Superman that I can't go into them, but the single biggest one, I think, was the portrayal of the Kents. The lessons that the Kents teach their son are absolutely fundamental to understanding how Clark becomes Superman. In the movie, his father taught him only to fear and hide. There is no way that the positive, uplifting Superman of legend comes out of that kind of background. In BvS, his mother actually tells him that he owes nothing to the world. These people are the role models on whom the world's greatest hero is based?

In JL, the entire presentation of Superman as a force of hope in the world comes entirely out of left field. There is little to nothing in the previous two movies that establish Superman as a beacon of hope who is so important that the entire world goes into a tailspin when he is gone. This retconning is done so clumsily that there is no way, if someone watched the three films in succession, that the incongruity could be missed. Superman's death, to many people, would have been a relief - especially since his presence was responsible for many of the biggest disasters his world faces.

JL gets the Superman character/persona much better. Unfortunately, it plays up Superman by downgrading and depowering many of the other characters, especially Wonder Woman. Given that she is an icon and her movie is the only really critically successful one in the DCEU, I have to wonder why she was so badly treated in the JL movie. It's almost like the male directors had to "put her back in her place."

[Agent Z]

Tony Stark kills his dad's best friend and it was ok.

Wonder Woman kills soldiers and her brother, that's ok.

Superman forced to kill the last of his own kind, who planned genocide and literally cries because he had to killbe him - not ok.

I saw that one of the arguments against that was that "Superman should not have been placed in such situation in the first place", which means that people are so narrow minded that they can't accept Superman without deus ex machina outcomes.

Superman killing Zod at least explores the possibility of him existing as Superman afterwards. What if Superman has to kill at some point in his long life? Is that instantly game over or there is a window for redemption?

P.S. Zod's humanizing portrayal might have been one of the reasons for people not liking the scene. When Superman kills monsters like Doomsday it is considered ok.

The only time Superman killing is a big deal is when the person is human or looks human.

[GreatKungLao]

In BvS, his mother actually tells him that he owes nothing to the world.

And she is right. Superman never asked to be send on Earth, he didn't asked for his powers and he didn't asked for Zod and his army to invade Earth.

Besides, what Martha actually tells him is "be their hero, Clark, be their monument, be their angel, be anything they need you to beexperience or be none of it, you don't owe this world a thing, you never did". What she says is that her son has a choice and she trusts him enough to do the right thing not out of obligation, but from his heart. This way we get a much better Superman who decides to be one not because he has to, but because he wants to.

[Agent Z]

Like many critics, I think that Snyder just got Superman completely wrong. MoS was not bad as a "first contact" movie; it was a disaster as a Superman movie. There are so many problems with it that undermine the entire point of Superman that I can't go into them, but the single biggest one, I think, was the portrayal of the Kents. The lessons that the Kents teach their son are absolutely fundamental to understanding how Clark becomes Superman. In the movie, his father taught him only to fear and hide. There is no way that the positive, uplifting Superman of legend comes out of that kind of background. In BvS, his mother actually tells him that he owes nothing to the world. These people are the role models on whom the world's greatest hero is based?

In JL, the entire presentation of Superman as a force of hope in the world comes entirely out of left field. There is little to nothing in the previous two movies that establish Superman as a beacon of hope who is so important that the entire world goes into a tailspin when he is gone. This retconning is done so clumsily that there is no way, if someone watched the three films in succession, that the incongruity could be missed. Superman's death, to many people, would have been a relief - especially since his presence was responsible for many of the biggest disasters his world faces.

JL gets the Superman character/persona much better. Unfortunately, it plays up Superman by downgrading and depowering many of the other characters, especially Wonder Woman. Given that she is an icon and her movie is the only really critically successful one in the DCEU, I have to wonder why she was so badly treated in the JL movie. It's almost like the male directors had to "put her back in her place."

Jonathan told his son to think before he leaps, advice any parent would give their child and one superheroes could actually stand to take everyone once in a while. Martha simply suggested to be a hero if it makes him happy and the complaints against this are kind of hilarious given how many felt this Superman allegedly didn't like being a hero.

And the treatment of the other heroes is a microcosm of the issue when writers supposedly "get Superman right" which more often than not means gassing him up to be a flawless power fantasy while everyone else, not just the heroes, gets thrown under the bus. People who have legitimate fears about him or feel his philosophy is a bit outdated become straw men or villains. Heroes who can rival, if not match or surpass him in power, get jobbed to him. This was the type of thing Snyder (however you feel he handled it) was trying to avoid while still trying to show Superman as heroic and sympathetic.

[Powerboy]

Tony Stark kills his dad's best friend and it was ok.

Wonder Woman kills soldiers and her brother, that's ok.

Superman forced to kill the last of his own kind, who planned genocide and literally cries because he had to killbe him - not ok.

I saw that one of the arguments against that was that "Superman should not have been placed in such situation in the first place", which means that people are so narrow minded that they can't accept Superman without deus ex machina outcomes.

Superman killing Zod at least explores the possibility of him existing as Superman afterwards. What if Superman has to kill at some point in his long life? Is that instantly game over or there is a window for redemption?

P.S. Zod's humanizing portrayal might have been one of the reasons for people not liking the scene. When Superman kills monsters like Doomsday it is considered ok.

While watching the Wonder Woman movie, I thought about that. She's killing people right and left and there seems to be little negative reaction to it from the audience, at best maybe a bit of surprise then a shrug and move on. I'd like to say it's because Superman killing Zod is so front and center. With WW, she seems presented as a character that would not hesitate to kill if needed. With Iron-Man, I'm thinking the audience generally knows nothing about him except what they see in the movies.

It is true that the killing Zod scene intends to declare: "Look! Look! Superman is killing someone! This is NOT the Superman you think you know!" But still, the overreaction to it just shows how locked into a particular mode people's image of Superman is compared to any of the other characters. As someone on these forums put it, people are so locked into a morally simplistic Silver Age image of Superman where he exists in a cartoon world of deus ex machina options that he's somehow invalidated completely because he kills a genocidal homicidal maniac because it's the only way to prevent that maniac from killing some innocent people and because he couldn't pull some deus ex machina BS out of his @$$ to avoid a hard decision.

On the other hand, there was a guy who had just gotten back from a tour in Iraq when MoS came out and the killing Zod scene was what won him over. He had expected the typical story where Superman would be able to always find a way to avoid the hard decision and it's consequences. But, instead, he had to deal with reality. He had to do something he didn't want to do and live with the consequences just like people in horrible real life situations like a war have to do instead of this "Heroes never ever kill because there's always another way" garbage.

[GreatKungLao]

While watching the Wonder Woman movie, I thought about that. She's killing people right and left and there seems to be little negative reaction to it from the audience, at best maybe a bit of surprise then a shrug and move on. I'd like to say it's because Superman killing Zod is so front and center. With WW, she seems presented as a character that would not hesitate to kill if needed. With Iron-Man, I'm thinking the audience generally knows nothing about him except what they see in the movies.

It is true that the killing Zod scene intends to declare: "Look! Look! Superman is killing someone! This is NOT the Superman you think you know!" But still, the overreaction to it just shows how locked into a particular mode people's image of Superman is compared to any of the other characters. As someone on these forums put it, people are so locked into a morally simplistic Silver Age image of Superman where he exists in a cartoon world of deus ex machina options that he's somehow invalidated completely because he kills a genocidal homicidal maniac because it's the only way to prevent that maniac from killing some innocent people and because he couldn't pull some deus ex machina BS out of his @$$ to avoid a hard decision.

On the other hand, there was a guy who had just gotten back from a tour in Iraq when MoS came out and the killing Zod scene was what won him over. He had expected the typical story where Superman would be able to always find a way to avoid the hard decision and it's consequences. But, instead, he had to deal with reality. He had to do something he didn't want to do and live with the consequences just like people in horrible real life situations like a war have to do instead of this "Heroes never ever kill because there's always another way" garbage.

I kind of losing seeing a charm in words like "there is always a choice" from super heroes myself. Well, what if the only choice you will get at the moment is to kill Zod or let him kill innocent family and keep fighting him until non lethal solution could be found? Is saving your morality worth actual lives? I highly doubt that Superman would think this way. In one of the interviews Zack Snyder said that Superman would not allow his "no kill" philosophy cost innocent lives and I would like to agree with that.

[Powerboy]

Like many critics, I think that Snyder just got Superman completely wrong. MoS was not bad as a "first contact" movie; it was a disaster as a Superman movie. There are so many problems with it that undermine the entire point of Superman that I can't go into them, but the single biggest one, I think, was the portrayal of the Kents. The lessons that the Kents teach their son are absolutely fundamental to understanding how Clark becomes Superman. In the movie, his father taught him only to fear and hide. There is no way that the positive, uplifting Superman of legend comes out of that kind of background. In BvS, his mother actually tells him that he owes nothing to the world. These people are the role models on whom the world's greatest hero is based?

In JL, the entire presentation of Superman as a force of hope in the world comes entirely out of left field. There is little to nothing in the previous two movies that establish Superman as a beacon of hope who is so important that the entire world goes into a tailspin when he is gone. This retconning is done so clumsily that there is no way, if someone watched the three films in succession, that the incongruity could be missed. Superman's death, to many people, would have been a relief - especially since his presence was responsible for many of the biggest disasters his world faces.

JL gets the Superman character/persona much better. Unfortunately, it plays up Superman by downgrading and depowering many of the other characters, especially Wonder Woman. Given that she is an icon and her movie is the only really critically successful one in the DCEU, I have to wonder why she was so badly treated in the JL movie. It's almost like the male directors had to "put her back in her place."

I think one of the flaws is that both MoS and B v S seem to completely skip over the process by which Superman becomes this hope for humanity. We go from the devastation in Metropolis to Superman in the next movie being hated by many but worshiped by many others in a celebrity sense of elevating him to godhood like he might as well be Justin Bieber. We are told that most people think of him now the way most people in the comics think of Superman. But, as I said, the process of how that happens is totally skipped.

JL tries to backtrack and explain, in brief, how this situation came about. Superman being interviewed by kids. Instead of just doing what he came there to do and leaving, he sticks around and talks to kids. Okay, he's not just a celebrity but a personable celebrity with powers that nobody else has. He talks about why he's here. Of course, the movie only has a brief window to imply how the public perception of him changed and he became the ultimate hero and inspiration. At the showing I attended, I think that kid's line, "Have you ever fought a hippo?" got the biggest laugh in the movie and emphasized that he is taking the time to talk to a bunch of kids. But it all has to be done retroactively, filling in the gaps from the previous movies.

I think Martha Kent was a great portrayal and what she said was that he should do what he truly wants to do, not because he has some obligation to do it because he doesn't. She's not trying to force him to meet some image she sees of him or that the world sees. And, frankly, that is more likely to cause him to become what the world needs than trying to force him through emotional blackmail to conform.

While Jonathan Kent was certainly taken to extremes, the intent was that this is a Post 911 world where huge segments of the population are paranoid and have a bigoted "If one of them did it, they all did it" mentality. He has every reason to believe that the populace is not going to welcome an alien who isn't even from this planet and who has powers beyond any weapon that exists in this world. Of course, he's only half right because plenty of people in Smallville know or suspect and are on his side.

[manofsteel1979]

I've said it elsewhere but the only ultimate difference between DCEU Supes and Donner Supes is that Donner Supes got trained from age 18 to age 30 by his hologram dad and popped out fully formed and already experienced perfect Superman to a world that accepted him and embraced him from moment one. Hell, even Luthor had no real issue with him other than he was in his way.

Cavill's Supes on the other hand had no guidence and pretty much had to learn as he went with half the world being freaked out by a guy who could fly,crush tanks and deflect bullets off his skin.

Of course Reeve Supes was chipper and happy...Everyone loved him and he was already Supes the moment he arrived. Cavill's Supes went through a crucible. Of course he was going to have sad moments! However, once he made it through, his true self came through and he was finally Superman and embraced by most of the world and confident in his power and his mission.

Thus the end result is the same. It just took longer to get there. This was always Nolan and Snyder's Intention. The character we have now is the same guy as before. However thanks to the journey the end result is far more satisfying.

Pity there are many that had no patience or vision and spent the last 5 years stamping their foot and muttering " not muh Superman" like petulant children. Now the films are technically far from perfect and they had their issues, but most of the time the critism of MOS in particular wasn't because it was a bad movie, but because the Superman in that movie wasn't the fully formed " perfect" guy from the comics and the Reeve films and thus, " not muh Superman". That was the point. He wasn't supposed to be. But he was getting there in a setting closer to our own than the cartoons simple world Reeve's Superman arrived in. This was just a different take but the core character was the same at Heart.

Unfortunately Snyder was sort of forced to fold his ideas into movies that became more about growing a cinematic DCU than focusing like a Lazer beam on Supes journey. It's still there in BvS and JL, but shortchanged a little. We should have gotten an MOS 2 really with a less bloated BvS as the last chapter of the trilogy.Then in JL he makes a triumphant return as Classic Superman.


Otherwise I admire the arc that Snyder attempted to tell with these movies. I prefer a Superman who has to work for his supper. I'm glad we finally got one on the silver screen. I just pray we get to see more of him.

[Powerboy]

I've said it elsewhere but the only ultimate difference between DCEU Supes and Donner Supes is that Donner Supes got trained from age 18 to age 30 by his hologram dad and popped out fully formed and already experienced perfect Superman to a world that accepted him and embraced him from moment one. Hell, even Luthor had no real issue with him other than he was in his way. Cavill's Supes on the other hand h

Hit the wrong button by accident, didn't you?

But I agree that the biggest difference between the Reeve and Cavill versions is the world around them. The Reeve Superman, in addition to the training, also rescues Airforce One on his first night and is completely accepted by everyone. Even if Cavill's Superman had rescued Airforce One, the suspicion would be he caused the accident in order to do the rescue. It's just the nature of the world he lives in.

[Soubhagya]

I am among those who defended the killing. But i have said that he should not have been brought to that position. There is a lot of difference between good intentions and results.

I can see the result. In an age when Ant Man is getting its sequel there is no MoS 2 in sight.

I still hope this to happen someday.

[manofsteel1979]

Hit the wrong button by accident, didn't you?

But I agree that the biggest difference between the Reeve and Cavill versions is the world around them. The Reeve Superman, in addition to the training, also rescues Airforce One on his first night and is completely accepted by everyone. Even if Cavill's Superman had rescued Airforce One, the suspicion would be he caused the accident in order to do the rescue. It's just the nature of the world he lives in.

Yep. I was posting on my phone and I dropped it! Anyway I finished my post

And damned straight on your signature message.