I've seen the movie twice now, once regularly, and once in IMAX 3D. I really enjoyed it for the most part, though I had enough nits that went too far beyond simple suspension of disbelief requirements for me to label it as my favorite Superman movie.
Now for the innocent bystander death: In Superman II, Zod and company were throwing Superman and various vehicles around the city, endangering the civilians. What did Superman do? He flew away to somewhere remote to continue the fight in order to spare the bystanders. In Man of Steel, he just continues throwing punches in the middle of IHOP in Smallville. He throws the other Kryptonians through skyscrapers. How many buildings collapsed that day? How many people worked in those buildings? Enough damage had already been done to Metropolis by the world engine; Superman acted like it was his responsibility to finish off the rest of the city by throwing people through buildings or being thrown through buildings himself. He should have taken the fight away from the city.
This was my primary problem with the climax of the movie. I had no problem with him killing Zod in the end, because it was made clear that that Zod was a super-powered, fanatic nutball and that killing him was the only option. However, the movie didn't show one iota of Superman even
attempting to get Zod and his cronies away from the population. Even if Superman had failed, I would have been appeased because they'd have shown him trying. It would have taken maybe an extra minute of screen time.
Worse still, like you, I felt like Superman was going out of his way to cause
extra destruction by tossing Zod through buildings. Then he insensitively kissed Lois and made jokes in the middle of the killing field. Was he even affected by the death and destruction around him prior to his anguished "I killed Zod OMG!" scream? I didn't see any evidence of it.
2) The madness of Zod. Only a crazy person - or one who's been pushed over the edge of sanity - will fight for a destroyed and totally unobtainable goal. Zod's actions don't even rise to the level of honorable suicide (i.e., kamikaze), especially at the last fight between him and Kal-El. The movie portrayed an insane man who was lost in a reality inhabited by no one else but himself as he strove to recreate and reshape his home planet.
I really liked this, particularly for the thought provoking aspect of what happens when your entire existence is engineered around something that is later taken away from you?
4) Both of Clark's fathers (Jor-El and Jonathan Kent) played Robin Hood in previous movies. No wonder Clark was so into the truth and justice thing.
Bwahaha! I hadn't noticed that. That's funny!
5) Lois greeting Clark at the very end when Perry introduces Clark as the new stringer: "Welcome to the Planet." Terrific double-entendre (they're not all dirty) to welcome Clark to the organization and Superman to the world at large.
I think that was my favorite line in the whole movie
1) Jonathan Kent would know that the absolute worst place to hide from a tornado is beneath an underpass. The wind currents get compressed and speed up, sending all the debris sailing at the people and objects in its path. They should have dived into the ditch on the other side of the bridge, or even climbed into the ends of the horizontal drainpipes. But you have to be careful there, too, because if a flash flood happens along - not rare with tornadoes - drowning is a real possibility.
Maybe he watched that news special in 1991 where the reporters in Kansas hid under that underpass and survived a tornado. That one news special is largely where the idea that overpasses were safe came from.
