Superman in JL movie (contains SPOILERS)

[Ascended]

Anyone who thought to include the broken moon of Krypton did his due diligence of research, as far as Im concerned.

[Lokimaru]

Anyone who thought to include the broken moon of Krypton did his due diligence of research, as far as Im concerned.

I'll bet if you scub through the Krypton footage you can probably see the Firefalls or one of the other classic land marks from the silverage.

[Dolores - The Worst Poster Ever]

Actually Snyder did do extensive reading you should hear the massive levels of **** the studio wanted him to change about Superman. Some wanted him to lose Smallville, the Kents, I'm talking John Peters level giant spider bullshit.

I wasn't referring to comic related stuff.

[Powerboy]

I wasn't referring to comic related stuff.

I assumed you were alluding to things like the Christ metaphors that permeate the movie. It was really Superman the Movie, to the best of my knowledge, that started Superman down that road. But in StM, it was a mention by Jor-El ("I have sent them you, my only son") and Jor-El's "You must not" [Thous Shalt Not] as he changed history.

Going through a crisis of realizing the beliefs I had been raised on didn't remotely stand up to reality at the time I saw the movie, Superman breaking from God the Father's alias Jor-El's twelve years of conditioning and defying him beat all the other arguments about time travel and turning back the world and made that scene a fantastically dramatic one for me.

Superman Returns mentioned it but trivialized it. He knows the world is crying out for a savior. In orbit, he must hear starving children crying and horrible injustices being done but he ignores them but shoots back to earth to stop two-bit robberies.

Man of Steel skips over the how of it. Between MoS and B v S, Superman became some sort of a quasi-deity and at least hero worshiped. How? How did this divisive figure that even a judge "held accountable" become a hero and a religious figure? Oh, groupies, cultists and Celebrity worshipers, sure. But how did it happen with ordinary people? What did he say? What did he do? And, between B v S and JL, his death brought about a world in chaos that was losing itself and falling back into a hatred and despair without his resurrection. But, again, why? What did he ever say or do that was significant enough to become this savior and for the world to fall so deeply from his loss? The movies just skip over that and expect we'll accept that it happened even when we get almost the opposite of what we are expected to accept.

I don't necessarily know if that equals a lack of research or if it just means he wasn't interested in exploring the very heart of his own premise: Superman as Savior/ Christ in real detail.

[Dolores - The Worst Poster Ever]

I assumed you were alluding to things like the Christ metaphors that permeate the movie. It was really Superman the Movie, to the best of my knowledge, that started Superman down that road. But in StM, it was a mention by Jor-El ("I have sent them you, my only son") and Jor-El's "You must not" [Thous Shalt Not] as he changed history.

Going through a crisis of realizing the beliefs I had been raised on didn't remotely stand up to reality at the time I saw the movie, Superman breaking from God the Father's alias Jor-El's twelve years of conditioning and defying him beat all the other arguments about time travel and turning back the world and made that scene a fantastically dramatic one for me.

Superman Returns mentioned it but trivialized it. He knows the world is crying out for a savior. In orbit, he must hear starving children crying and horrible injustices being done but he ignores them but shoots back to earth to stop two-bit robberies.

Man of Steel skips over the how of it. Between MoS and B v S, Superman became some sort of a quasi-deity and at least hero worshiped. How? How did this divisive figure that even a judge "held accountable" become a hero and a religious figure? Oh, groupies, cultists and Celebrity worshipers, sure. But how did it happen with ordinary people? What did he say? What did he do? And, between B v S and JL, his death brought about a world in chaos that was losing itself and falling back into a hatred and despair without his resurrection. But, again, why? What did he ever say or do that was significant enough to become this savior and for the world to fall so deeply from his loss? The movies just skip over that and expect we'll accept that it happened even when we get almost the opposite of what we are expected to accept.

I don't necessarily know if that equals a lack of research or if it just means he wasn't interested in exploring the very heart of his own premise: Superman as Savior/ Christ in real detail.

The religious and philosophical elements, yes.

It's not even just skipping parts but how some if it just doesn't match up. The scene in Man of Steel that takes place in Superman's mind or whatever after he's held prisoner by the Kryptonians is supposed to be the temptation of Christ, only with Superman standing in for Jesus and Zod standing in for Satan but it doesn't actually reflect the temptation. Snyder's movies only feature stuff like that on a superficial level, e.g. Superman is 33 in Man of Steel, crucifixion poses, is pierced and then dies for the sake of others, etc.

[Osiris-Rex]

The religious and philosophical elements, yes.

It's not even just skipping parts but how some if it just doesn't match up. The scene in Man of Steel that takes place in Superman's mind or whatever after he's held prisoner by the Kryptonians is supposed to be the temptation of Christ, only with Superman standing in for Jesus and Zod standing in for Satan but it doesn't actually reflect the temptation. Snyder's movies only feature stuff like that on a superficial level, e.g. Superman is 33 in Man of Steel, crucifixion poses, is pierced and then dies for the sake of others, etc.

I'm wondering if Snyder did this on a conscious level? The story of Jesus borrows from a lot of characters in other mythologies. There are a lot of parallels between Jesus and Hercules, for example.
Was the son of a god and a mortal woman, performed many miracles, had a large following while on Earth. Rose to heaven to join his father when he died. Was regarded as a god after he died. Many temples
were built in his honor after his death. So maybe some of this is just coincidence, just another version of mythological beings that have been in literature almost as long as there has been literature,
or people are just interpreting what they saw and it was not actually intended to mean that? Did Snyder ever actually say he intended Superman to be a Christ figure?

[Dolores - The Worst Poster Ever]

I'm wondering if Snyder did this on a conscious level? The story of Jesus borrows from a lot of characters in other mythologies. There are a lot of parallels between Jesus and Hercules, for example.
Was the son of a god and a mortal woman, performed many miracles, had a large following while on Earth. Rose to heaven to join his father when he died. Was regarded as a god after he died. Many temples
were built in his honor after his death. So maybe some of this is just coincidence, just another version of mythological beings that have been in literature almost as long as there has been literature,
or people are just interpreting what they saw and it was not actually intended to mean that? Did Snyder ever actually say he intended Superman to be a Christ figure?

100% intentional.

https://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/14/s...eel/index.html

When we started to examine the Superman mythology, in the most classic sense, I really wanted to press upon the film the 'why' of him, which has been 75 years in the making," Snyder told CNN. "The Christ-like parallels, I didn't make that stuff up. We weren't like, 'Hey, let's add this!' That stuff is there, in the mythology. That is the tried-and-true Superman metaphor. So rather than be snarky and say that doesn't exist, we thought it would be fun to allow that mythology to be woven through.

[Agent Z]

The religious and philosophical elements, yes.

It's not even just skipping parts but how some if it just doesn't match up. The scene in Man of Steel that takes place in Superman's mind or whatever after he's held prisoner by the Kryptonians is supposed to be the temptation of Christ, only with Superman standing in for Jesus and Zod standing in for Satan but it doesn't actually reflect the temptation. Snyder's movies only feature stuff like that on a superficial level, e.g. Superman is 33 in Man of Steel, crucifixion poses, is pierced and then dies for the sake of others, etc.

How does it not reflect it?

[Dolores - The Worst Poster Ever]

How does it not reflect it?

It isn't even temptation.

Zod tells Clark that Earth is going to become the next Krypton, and that everyone on Earth is going to die. There's nothing the scene has in common with the temptation of Christ, other than good guy talking to bad guy. Maybe, the skulls at the end which are supposed to represent the death of the human race is supposed to allude to Satan showing Jesus all the kingdoms of the world but it would still mean nothing as far as the scene supposed to the temptation of Superman as it were.

[Adekis]

Zod thinks of Krypton as an end in itself. Knowing that Kal knows that he fully intends to destroy every human life, Zod pleads for a dead world, "If you do this, you destroy Krypton," to which Kal, not sharing Zod's zealotry, responds that Krypton is already dead, and what's more, it died of its own faults. Jor-El tells Dru-Zod that he's going to commit genocide, regarding it as an obvious, self-evident evil- but to Zod, the genocide might be regrettable, but still necessary. It doesn't occur to him that any crime could be worse than Krypton's lack of existence. It's easy to condemn, but I think scarily relatable when you transpose the civilizations. If Earth died through its own faults, but you could easily see how it might have lived, and you had one chance to bring it back at the price of a planet of barbarians-- how many of us wouldn't consider Zod's view?

My headcanon of the "temptation scene", though I have to admit that before today I never thought about it like that, is that Zod isn't in control of the mindscape during that scene, Kal's mind is in control of the visuals. Zod might not even be able to see everything Kal sees, just be able to insert certain concepts like "world engine" and "Kryptonian garb". He says, he thinks reasonably, that "The foundation [of New Krypton] has to be built on something. Even your father recognized that," but Kal's mind inserts a sea of skulls, which Zod doesn't know about. He only knows that Kal's responding negatively, and pulls him out of the mindscape to try the talk in real life. That doesn't work either. He tries to get Kal to think his birth-father wanted the genocide, not understanding the obvious lack of relationship between them. He unexpectedly restores some of Kal's faith in Jor-El by revealing that he killed him personally, and regrets it, which only undermines his position more. Then he tries to say "I have a duty to my people that overrides everything else," as if to say, "don't you see, Kal-El, they're your people too, it's your duty too." Kal's connection with humanity hardly seemed noteworthy to Zod, of no consequence except as something to rise above as a founding father of New Krypton. Obviously, Kal cares far more about his adopted homeworld than he does about Krypton, which Zod cannot guess or understand.

In other words, if it's a temptation scene, Zod is a thoroughly inept tempter, but in a way that makes sense due to his own bull-headed mindset. There was no other way for that to go. Zod thinks he's being persuasive, he's just... not.

Then again, isn't that more or less how the temptation scene in the Gospel goes? Christ is tempted by hedonism, by materialism, by egotism, and only responds with disdain, but there's nothing else Satan can offer, nothing else he can understand.

[Lokimaru]

100% intentional.

https://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/14/s...eel/index.html

Well since Jesus was just an update/reboot of the Moses myth according to scholars I guess it came full circle since the creators of Superman were Jewish.

Then again, isn't that more or less how the temptation scene in the Gospel goes? Christ is tempted by hedonism, by materialism, by egotism, and only responds with disdain, but there's nothing else Satan can offer, nothing else he can understand.

Well since Satan or rather Hassatan translates to "The Adversary" what else could Zod be?

[Dolores - The Worst Poster Ever]

My headcanon of the "temptation scene", though I have to admit that before today I never thought about it like that

This goes to heart of the problem.

Snyder doesn't effectively communicate it as a temptation scene, so fans are left trying to make sense of it. Snyder is alone in this case, it's called headcanon for a reason, but this goes to what I mean when I say ambition isn't enough, and that the end work is jumbled mess.

What Snyder wants to do and what he succeeds at doing are two different things. He's expressed frustration that he's seen as a visualist whose movies have no meaning but he doesn't seem to realize the problem lies with how he makes his movies, not his critics.

Even when you trying to make sense of the temptation scene doesn't work as per it supposed to be alluding to the temptation of Christ, because how you describe it, in his mind Zod's intentions are good, while this wasn't the case with Jesus and Satan. This is ignoring that Superman was already standing in a field of skulls before he realized Earth becoming Krypton meant the end of the human race.

As for how the scene actually plays out, it's an ultimatum not a temptation.

If we were to dig deeper into the comparisons, Snyder's temptation scene doesn't work at all as supposed to be alluding to the temptation of Christ. So even if were to say it does work as a temptation scene, it still wouldn't work with the whole Jesus Superman thing Snyder was going for. It's just another movie scene where the bad guy fails to tempt the good guy.

Snyder isn't a subtle filmmaker, he does stuff like having people dressed as skeletons on the Day of the Dead surrounding Superman as he looks troubled by it as symbolizing the people that were killed in MOS. Or in MOS, where he as Superman standing right in front of a Jesus figure, in a church, while discussing sacrificing himself for the sake of the Earth. Unless he's shining too bright a light on this stuff, it isn't communicated at all.

I've seen people defend 300 as satirical, but Snyder actually admires the Spartans quite a bit (he even snuck in a reference to the Spartans in MOS).

We can rationalize things in movies in order to make them work best for us personally, but we shouldn't confuse that with the competency of the filmmaker. People have tried to do the same thing with the Star Wars prequels, did you know those movies were actually genius because the Jedi were the bad guys and blah blah blah. Since I brought up Michael Bay in a previous post, I was reminded that in the 2nd Transformers movies that whole plot point with people having forgotten about the existence of the Transformers was supposed to be alluding to, and I'm 100% serious about this, Hurricane Katrina.

What I get from your post is that you're a better storyteller than Snyder.

There are filmmakers that are polarizing, decisive, but Snyder isn't like them. The people that hail him as a genius or visionary, almost all of them come from geek culture. There's a big difference between the kind of defense Snyder gets, compared to people like Sofia Coppola or Terrence Malick.

Snyder's way in over his head, while the others are capable but might also be prone to messing up.

[Dolores - The Worst Poster Ever]

Well since Jesus was just an update/reboot of the Moses myth according to scholars I guess it came full circle since the creators of Superman were Jewish.

Superman wasn't actually based on Moses, but that's a whole other discussion.

Whether Superman should be a Jesus figure is a separate issue. What we have is Snyder only dealing with Superman as a Jesus figure in a superficial way, which is what he's done throughout his career.

When people say Snyder's movies are good, ok whatever. People watched them, got something out of them, good for them I guess.

When people say Snyder's movies are smart and that people, particularity those that harshly criticize his films, just don't get it. That's a problem.

[Agent Z]

It isn't even temptation.

Zod tells Clark that Earth is going to become the next Krypton, and that everyone on Earth is going to die. There's nothing the scene has in common with the temptation of Christ, other than good guy talking to bad guy. Maybe, the skulls at the end which are supposed to represent the death of the human race is supposed to allude to Satan showing Jesus all the kingdoms of the world but it would still mean nothing as far as the scene supposed to the temptation of Superman as it were.

Zod was trying to tempt Clark with bringing Krypton back and giving Clark a place to feel like he belonged since Clark felt rather distant from humans due to his differences. It's when Clark realizes Zod plans to kill humans that Clark turns on him.

[Dolores - The Worst Poster Ever]

Zod was trying to tempt Clark with bringing Krypton back and giving Clark a place to feel like he belonged since Clark felt rather distant from humans due to his differences. It's when Clark realizes Zod plans to kill humans that Clark turns on him.

Zod offered an ultimatum, not temptation.

But like I said to Adekis, even if we take it as temptation, it still doesn't work as the temptation of Christ.