Superman doesn't need to know how to use his powers in order to have the "Superman" code of ethics. His ethical disposition doesn't come from knowing how to be Superman. It comes from being raised by good people. Or at least it usually does...in this movie his parents are very useless and damaging.
I could go with this if he were just flat out making tactical mistakes. If he were failing to think of things while Lois Lane was shouting "THROW HIM INTO SPACE, YOU FUCKING IDIOT!" But the mistakes he's making aren't rooted in tactical error, they're rooted in ethical lapse. His first priority should be to minimize the death of innocent people. He should be trying to manipulate this fight so that it can't hurt people. I don't see him even trying to do that. That shot where he just casually floats over the gas tanker while it explodes and destroys a building behind him, and he doesn't even look behind him to see what kind of destruction that caused. The Superman I know would've caught the tanker and put it down safely. If at 33 years old you don't realize that your actions have consequences, ESPECIALLY with the power he obviously knows he has, then you really are a menace and not worthy of trust. He flies at Zod next to the building at top speed, knowing what that kind of impact does to the space around them. He knows it'll just destroy that building, and once it does he just flies away like WHO GIVES A DAMN IM SUPERMAN. Clark is the one who tackled Zod for miles though empty farm land crashing into silos and an 7-11 into an populated area. He punches Kryptonians into potentially populated trains. He crashed Krypton's baby pod ship into buildings and an street. Also, Superman left that girl being harassed by the Trucker to continue to be harassed as he left to passive aggressively take revenge on him by fucking over his job - which doesn't hurt the trucker. He'll be on the road in a few days tops because insurance.
By the way, at no point in the film do they say: Well he's a new hero so he's gonna have some hiccups. That never happens. Everyone is pretty much okay with what Superman did. The whole idea that "well he needs to learn how to become Superman" is ridiculous because they don't portray him as having to learn from any mistakes.
Isn't this from before Superheroes were role models to begin with?
Superman shouldn't accept war as a fact of life, he can see beyond that (that's what hope is). Basically, I like my Superman like I like my Batman: anti-establishment.
http://i.imgur.com/AxJGuBn.jpg (JLA 79)
Agreed.
Sometimes (uh, okay, pretty much constantly) stupid things happen in the comics.
The Superman I want to see isn't the one from all the comics, but the one from the best comics. And TV shows, and movies, and video g- okay not those.
What you're doing is cherry picking 76 years of history that's most defined by his aversion from taking a like. Even his creators wrote him like that. Y'know how Batman has been shown to sometimes be okay with killing the Joker? That's not typical, he's typically defined as being very much against that. And it's funny you put Red Glass up there, I recently read that and nothing that happened in it was real. It was a nightmare an stranded wounded alien was making Superman have so Superman could help it out. There's also comics of Superman doing other awful things like making out with 14 year olds. Would you defend that being in a major block buster movie because it happened in an comic?
So he's perfect and boring. The movie was realistic? I don't get this and I’m convinced people will label any strong and positive traits Superman is suppose to have or will ever display as perfection because they either don’t know this character or are disillusioned with the news and crappy people in their lives.
I think it’s more that it’s easier, especially these days, to overlook the complexity in characters that don’t have an apparent conflict with themselves. That’s just really become, since the 70’s especially, more and more of what we’re conditioned as a culture to immediately recognize and identify with. So characters like Wolverine or Batman are much more accessible to mainstream values, like simply on casual approach. They instantly fit within this outsider or tragic hero or self conflicted hero kind of role that is one of the primary narratives that we’re sold on every day. I mean it’s beaten into our heads with everything we see in ads and movies and song.
At one time, maybe this was flip flopped, and there’s gonna be a resulting counter action to it. The character Superman is not in any danger as long as they hold true to who he is essentially.
The only danger is to accept this association of self conflict with meaning, and to then look at Superman and try to draw out possible self conflicted kind of issues in order to make him more ‘interesting’.
And that is just the wrong way to go. I think the movie tried to do this and it felt forced and for many including myself the whole thing resulted in an fundamental misunderstanding of the entire character.
There’s a lot of depth to him, they don’t need to introduce false drama and trauma into how he works. You gotta watch out with characters like that not to project false issues on them in a desire for complexity. You got to trust that the character is great and will stand up to time if simply treated honestly and allowed to do what they naturally would from the inside to out. And on the inside Superman isn’t perfect or outdated and his life isn’t easy. It’s filled with challenges and hardships that any regular person would experience if they chose to live an deeply virtuous life style. Superman fits perfectly with the world as it is now. For as long as the world needs an example of a completely selfless person who is willing to dedicate himself to the people around him the world will venerate Jesus…and Superman. And he isn't cliched, he's the 1st. The thing that made the globe run out to make their heroes.