Originally Posted by
Ascended
I think Snyder understood the characters in many respects, but not in *every* way. I think where the film stumbles the most though, is in trying to take those base characters and inject them into a grounded setting that isn't designed to operate with a Superman in it.
Like, take the Kents. Everyone bitches about Pa Kent and the whole thing with the bus but his morality and motivations remain the same as always...the difference is he lives in a world where Clark being discovered as a child means Clark dead or manipulated. Johnathan's trapped trying to balance his son's life, mental health and family against the burdens that Clark will grow up to carry. Sit back and think about it; think about what it would mean to be that guy, raising that kid, in *this* world. Gods, imagine what some governments right now would do to a kid like Clark? Worse if it's some corporation or agenda-based organization that get ahold of him. Are you *really* going to tell the ten year old child that doing the right thing is *always* worth the cost, *no matter what?* Even if it ends with your son being dissected in some lab somewhere, or brain washed into obedience?
That's the thing with MoS Pa Kent; comic book John (most adaptations really) lives in a world with a binary morality where moral/ethical shades of gray are, really, fairly uncommon and true vileness is relatively rare. MoS John lives in a world much more compromised, and a lot of the dissonance we experience with the film is due to taking that "black/white" character view and forcing it to contend with shades of gray.
Some scenes were just bad. Bad in concept, bad in execution (John's death for instance). And there's things Snyder doesn't get about the characters, like the fact that Clark has a inborn optimism, nurtured by the Kents, and while sometimes he has his doubts about both himself and us, generally he's always been a dude who looks on the bright side. That, among other character traits, was missing from MoS. But generally I think Snyder understood the characters and his mistakes are mostly found in how he tried to adapt them to a "real world" setting. Interesting idea, and I think he did well with certain aspects of it, but in others....yeah, pretty big miss.
And I think Snyder was actually too subtle about some stuff (odd to say that). Like, everyone bitches about Clark not moving the big fight out of the city. There's actually a couple times you see him fly away, where he seems to be trying to lure Zod off, and Zod just blows up a building or stops him or what have you. Clark was not in control of that fight at all. But Snyder did a piss poor job of making sure it actually registers, it just looks like chaos (and most of it is).
But MoS is still my favorite Superman film and I think it's far better than stuff like Aquaman or Shazam. I liked those films, but I wouldn't call them great. MoS might not be great in every respect, but it at least keeps it interesting.