He doesn't use his real name. One of the people Lois approaches with his pictures in her investigations says "Yeah, that's Joe." So at least in one circumstance we know that he's not really using his real name.
Yes, those records are falsified (Lois says so in the voiceover for her article), but that was the job that got him close the spaceship, so it might be different with the other jobs where he was just drifting. I personally think he was using fake names there, too, given the other hints.
Also, the scene where he's first in the suit and flying means he didn't fly before, right? So he literally was travelling the old fashioned way around the world. He could jump, but flying wasn't an option. Or at least that's how I interpretted it? [Huh]
I agree. It was only when Jor-El told him to start testing his limits (something the Kents weren't big on) that he tried jumping as far as he could which led to him realizing he could fly.
BTW, am I misremembering or did Jor-El not talk about Kal-El being great and wonderful in this version until after he was grown and Holo-Jor-El met the man he became? If that's correct, I like it.
My sister brought up an interesting idea. She thought maybe the reason Jonathan was telling Clark not to risk his secret was to further the theme that Kal-El didn't have to choose the role society would choose for him. Not sure if that really works, when combined with Jonathan's "change the world" talk, though.
Given Superman's status in society, I'm not convinced that the movie needed to cover his origin in the first place.
For
this movie, I think the origins were a necessity. Zod and Kryptonian society factor in too heavily to not be addressed/explained earlier on. And if Lois is supposed to know who Superman is before he's Superman, then we need to see that on-screen instead of being told about it later - departs to radically from the story the broader public is familiar with.
This movie raised the question "How will the people respond to Superman's existence?" but we didn't get an answer. "Superman" hasn't even been introduced to the public yet. I'd love for the next movie to pick up just a couple weeks after this one ended. On the one side, you have Lois' editorials in the Daily Planet endorsing Superman. On the other you have someone (Luthor?) raising sentiment against him. Not sure if I'd have the government play in. You could either have villain raising negative sentiment (framing Supes for something?) or just the general populous. In MOS, he was intentionally given a far murkier intro. He wasn't established before the action, no one knows who he is - to the public, he's an alien, not "Superman". Zod wouldn't have come to Earth if not for him, so you can see why people wouldn't like him. And while the military knows that Superman fought Zod to save the planet, the general population may just see it as two aliens fighting each other, not knowing much about the attempted terraforming. I'm sure Lois will try to clear thing up, but she might not universally trusted. And how much will the government cofirm/deny her story? I'd think the movie would with Superman's acceptance and his birth as the public hero we're familiarly with him as.
So many things I want to follow up on there. I'll be very, very disappointed if they skip all that.
