Patrick Sun
Senior HTF Member
- Joined
- Jun 30, 1999
- Messages
- 39,669
Imma just going to dispense with spoilers at this point, as most people reading this thead knows the main sticking points.
Spoilers below:
So I saw this film a second time on Friday with a larger group of friends. And it didn't really get any better. Actually, I got even more annoyed whenever I'd hear the "Pa Kents lays down some weird life's lesson flashback" piano cue.
Pa Kent vs. the tornado continues to be an eye-rolling scene. Even in Smallville (the TV show), Clark's heroics were ascribed only to someone known as "the Blur", could Clark be that idiotic and let his daddy die like that? Preposterous! That's about when I checked out of the movie. The biggest lesson that this particular Jonathan did not teach Clark is that you fight the good fight, you don't just do nothing because you're not done "baking" (sorry about the Buffy reference). You show your son how to find a way to save people surreptiously if you're scared of having Clark whisked away by the government, mobbed by people and paparazzi, etc. This scene fails the "Come on, man!" test.
I suspect Clark was not taught the game of chess by Pa Kent. Clark is never shown to think 1, 2, or even 3 steps ahead. Did Clark not realize that punch-plowing Zod into the corn fields left his mother with Faora and the other military dudes? Did he think they'd be playing tiddly-winks with Martha? So dumb. And the lack of any scenes to show that Clark was concerned with collateral damage when engaging the other Kryptonians was lazy writing. The writer or director never even tried to play up the tension, as it hand-cuffs Clark's attack options. No, he just has Clark go full-tilt boogie with his assaults.
One of the major problems I have with Snyder the director is that he's not a story-teller, he's a spectacle-teller. But his spectacles rarely have any resonance to them, so the amazing action set pieces exist in a vacuum, all sound and fury, but rarely signifying anything of consequence or substance.
Why didn't Clark try to figure how to replicate the Kryptonian atmospherics? Or come up with a red sun solution? Why was Lois even asked to go onboard their ship? It made no sense from Zod's POV. To maintain some sort of leverage on Clark? Or if the Jor-el key was in control of the ship, why does it only focus on opening and closing doors for Lois (my group of friends mocked Jor-el's posture and hand gestures quite unmercifully), and not simply disable the ship, or put it on a course for a nearby sun to burn it through and through?
Hated the eyerolling use of the instant universal communicator technology that Kryptonians must have had in order to not only speak English, but understand it as well. Yes, they make it a point to show up with the "You are not alone" in all languages broadcast around the world, But given they have those 3D printable "screens", how would they even know to interface with TV signals at all (or pump it through to smartphones thousands of years behind their own technology)? Again, if you go for realism in this version, you don't get to pick convenience when it suits your story-telling. Plus, why would Zod refer to earth time units to express how long they've been adrift. Are we to believe the 20,000 year old Kryptonian homing beacon is ansible-ready (i.e. instantaneous communication across the cosmos, regardless of distance). How would Zod know if Kal was living below the radar on Earth? For all he knew Kal could have been totally accepted, a celebrity, perhaps, but old news by now. The script presumes a level of omniscience that is hard to swallow for Zod. I know, a lot of nitpicks.
What was with all the fortune-cookie-spewing dialogue from Faora on morals? How is Krypton amoral? By creating a military genetic caste system to reflect Krypton's morals, Kryptonians have asserted their form of morals on their society. Perhaps their form of colonization is amoral compared to primitive Earth's own experiences with colonization by different countries planet-bound. Did it make Kryptonian military folks ruthless, sure, amoral? I don't know. If Krypton was amoral, they wouldn't be using the phantom zone for somatic re-conditioning. Krypton valued life to continue their species survival, just not choice for the individual.
As far as the final Zod solution arrived by Clark, that was simply terrible writing. Never do we think Clark is prepared to sacrifice himself to save humanity (did anyone think he wasn't going to get out of the Indian Ocean hentai-inspired tentacled diversion?). Clark takes the easy way out with Zod. He could had simply flown him and Zod to the dark side of earth, even though the gravity is less on Earth, Clark has been exposed to the sun for 33 years, Zod, maybe a few hours at best, even after figuring out how to fly. Tire Zod out. Pummel him to a pulp. Or, turn his own heat vision on Zod's cranium, perhaps lobotomizing him in the crucial moment in the train station. Unfortunately, the writer wanted Clark to be faced with the ultimate "kill or be killed" confrontation situation by taking away all of the Kryptonian technology options that could have been used to deal with Zod. And no one is clamoring for a followup movie with Zod and no Clark, so guess who's winning this battle? The "kill or be killed" scenario isn't all that interesting if there are truly no clever ways to side-step it if you are hero-myth-building. No, this was the writer's nihlist view on heroism. One void of joy, and exhilaration, even if the hero finally triumphs, he is now forever tainted with the weight of having to kill to serve a greater good, the survival of humanity. And if faced with similar circumstances, he will kill with a lesser burden on his heart. Been there, done that.
It's a cynicism that has seeped into modern super-hero story-telling that leaves this viewer less invested in the central character for this franchise going forward.
Spoilers below:
So I saw this film a second time on Friday with a larger group of friends. And it didn't really get any better. Actually, I got even more annoyed whenever I'd hear the "Pa Kents lays down some weird life's lesson flashback" piano cue.
Pa Kent vs. the tornado continues to be an eye-rolling scene. Even in Smallville (the TV show), Clark's heroics were ascribed only to someone known as "the Blur", could Clark be that idiotic and let his daddy die like that? Preposterous! That's about when I checked out of the movie. The biggest lesson that this particular Jonathan did not teach Clark is that you fight the good fight, you don't just do nothing because you're not done "baking" (sorry about the Buffy reference). You show your son how to find a way to save people surreptiously if you're scared of having Clark whisked away by the government, mobbed by people and paparazzi, etc. This scene fails the "Come on, man!" test.
I suspect Clark was not taught the game of chess by Pa Kent. Clark is never shown to think 1, 2, or even 3 steps ahead. Did Clark not realize that punch-plowing Zod into the corn fields left his mother with Faora and the other military dudes? Did he think they'd be playing tiddly-winks with Martha? So dumb. And the lack of any scenes to show that Clark was concerned with collateral damage when engaging the other Kryptonians was lazy writing. The writer or director never even tried to play up the tension, as it hand-cuffs Clark's attack options. No, he just has Clark go full-tilt boogie with his assaults.
One of the major problems I have with Snyder the director is that he's not a story-teller, he's a spectacle-teller. But his spectacles rarely have any resonance to them, so the amazing action set pieces exist in a vacuum, all sound and fury, but rarely signifying anything of consequence or substance.
Why didn't Clark try to figure how to replicate the Kryptonian atmospherics? Or come up with a red sun solution? Why was Lois even asked to go onboard their ship? It made no sense from Zod's POV. To maintain some sort of leverage on Clark? Or if the Jor-el key was in control of the ship, why does it only focus on opening and closing doors for Lois (my group of friends mocked Jor-el's posture and hand gestures quite unmercifully), and not simply disable the ship, or put it on a course for a nearby sun to burn it through and through?
Hated the eyerolling use of the instant universal communicator technology that Kryptonians must have had in order to not only speak English, but understand it as well. Yes, they make it a point to show up with the "You are not alone" in all languages broadcast around the world, But given they have those 3D printable "screens", how would they even know to interface with TV signals at all (or pump it through to smartphones thousands of years behind their own technology)? Again, if you go for realism in this version, you don't get to pick convenience when it suits your story-telling. Plus, why would Zod refer to earth time units to express how long they've been adrift. Are we to believe the 20,000 year old Kryptonian homing beacon is ansible-ready (i.e. instantaneous communication across the cosmos, regardless of distance). How would Zod know if Kal was living below the radar on Earth? For all he knew Kal could have been totally accepted, a celebrity, perhaps, but old news by now. The script presumes a level of omniscience that is hard to swallow for Zod. I know, a lot of nitpicks.
What was with all the fortune-cookie-spewing dialogue from Faora on morals? How is Krypton amoral? By creating a military genetic caste system to reflect Krypton's morals, Kryptonians have asserted their form of morals on their society. Perhaps their form of colonization is amoral compared to primitive Earth's own experiences with colonization by different countries planet-bound. Did it make Kryptonian military folks ruthless, sure, amoral? I don't know. If Krypton was amoral, they wouldn't be using the phantom zone for somatic re-conditioning. Krypton valued life to continue their species survival, just not choice for the individual.
As far as the final Zod solution arrived by Clark, that was simply terrible writing. Never do we think Clark is prepared to sacrifice himself to save humanity (did anyone think he wasn't going to get out of the Indian Ocean hentai-inspired tentacled diversion?). Clark takes the easy way out with Zod. He could had simply flown him and Zod to the dark side of earth, even though the gravity is less on Earth, Clark has been exposed to the sun for 33 years, Zod, maybe a few hours at best, even after figuring out how to fly. Tire Zod out. Pummel him to a pulp. Or, turn his own heat vision on Zod's cranium, perhaps lobotomizing him in the crucial moment in the train station. Unfortunately, the writer wanted Clark to be faced with the ultimate "kill or be killed" confrontation situation by taking away all of the Kryptonian technology options that could have been used to deal with Zod. And no one is clamoring for a followup movie with Zod and no Clark, so guess who's winning this battle? The "kill or be killed" scenario isn't all that interesting if there are truly no clever ways to side-step it if you are hero-myth-building. No, this was the writer's nihlist view on heroism. One void of joy, and exhilaration, even if the hero finally triumphs, he is now forever tainted with the weight of having to kill to serve a greater good, the survival of humanity. And if faced with similar circumstances, he will kill with a lesser burden on his heart. Been there, done that.
It's a cynicism that has seeped into modern super-hero story-telling that leaves this viewer less invested in the central character for this franchise going forward.
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