Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Superman Related Post-Viewing Discussion: Man of Steel movie (SPOILERS)

Actually, from this scene I got the impression that the Army had been chasing Superman around for some time (I'm thinking weeks to months) to "find out where he hangs his cape". And I'm also thinking that by now, it's kind of turning into a game between General Swanwick (and his aides) and Superman. When Superman tells Swanwick that the latter should intercede for Superman in Washington, Swanwick responds with a sort of good-natured exasperation. I think the Army captain is picking up on the lighter atmosphere and that's why she makes that unguarded comment.

Plus, I think he's kind of hot too:

I'd love to see a fanfic from the POV of one of the guys on the oil rig, a few weeks later. They'd just have to realize that hey, this guy that saved them had to be Superman in his civilian identity.

I wonder how they would feel about that after they saw the remnants of the super-battle. On the one hand: saved my life. On the other hand: destroyed Metropolis.

Tzigone had a great comment about this:
I feel the same way.

Originally posted by VirginiaR:
*coughcough* Um, perhaps you should watch "I Am Legend." Or on second thought, don't. Like ever. Suffice it to say that dog dies. Also, a large reason they do that is because people relate strongly to dogs. I can watch people die left and right in live action movies, sometimes done well and other times not, and never be as strongly impacted as when a dog (or animal of sort-- if it's not a dog, then they will use a horse, if you'll notice). I've never cried so hard in my life as with both "Marley and Me" and "Stone Fox" (the latter was actually my third grade teacher's brilliant idea for a class read/follow up movie. She obviously did not consider she'd have 32 bawling students on her hands afterwards.) Psychologically speaking, audience members connect to dogs the most out of anything-- most people have an easy time disconnecting from the main characters and viewing the movie as though they were apart of it by the side of the hero (AKA the dog). We experience the trauma and events, we consider ourselves to be companions with our hero but not the hero ourselves, we sympathize and are affected, and we usually don't die at the end of the movie. :p Thus, it's usually a very bold move to actually have a dog die in the film. The same goes for comedies, except instead of the audience being the dog we are the idiot who asks all of the annoying questions (sometimes a kid).
Have you watched Dr. Horrible? If not, it may only encourage him, so depending on which end of the clark kent-lex luthor spectrum you're shooting for...

In theory Lois should, but after nearly dieing at least twice in a day or so, Lois is probably not thinking clearly, even if she is a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter who figured out Clark's secret faster than I can say "shazam".

It leaves open a way for Luthor to learn of Clark's weakness that does not involve mad guessing.

I think that the voice over was meant to suggest Lois was really struggling at this tracing the lead. I think it would make a lot more sense if it took at least a month.

I would say the movie was a little fast and loose with chronology. I think the makes of the film actually deliberately decided to avoid giving a time frame to how long it took Lois to meet up with Clark in the cemetery, because they wanted to present Lois as competent without her coming off as too super at investigating, so it was easier to have each viewer work out their own timeline.

Plus, movies are really bad at showing time elapse, so they just didn't. I think 5 weeks is probably a reasonable amount of time. I really wish they had put a little more attention into showing that, maybe a few more Perry/Lois discussions about her pursuing this story and him thinking it was totally off the wall.

I really wish we had seen more of Perry. I also wish we had seen more of journalist Clark. I am hoping they do a sequel where we see significant amounts of both.

Perry rescuing Jenny was a good scene, but even that was under developed.

Some people complained about Zod using earth time above.

I have no problem with him saying "24 hours". If he has mastered things about earth enough to broadcast in their own language a massive broadcast to the entire earth, I have no problem with him knowing about hours. If he can speak in English, he can use English terms.

I do see a bigger problem with his back dating his search for 33 years. There I think it is part of their deliberate analogies to Christ dying at 33. Persoanlly, I think that was a bit much. I liked the scene in the Church and thought it was well done, although I did not figure out if the pastor was supposed to have a connection with the flashback of Clark and the bullies or not. I am not sure if it was even clear if the pastor already knew Clark and if the Church was in Smallville or where.

However, I thought their harping on 33 was over much. Especially since neither case did it make sense. Zob may know what our years are, but back-dating his time frame seems a bit much, unless Krypton years are the same, which considering that Kryptonians and humans looks the same, might not require much suspension of disbelief.

On the other hand, Clark saying he lived in Kansas for 33 years was overly precise. Even if he had said "I started living in Kansas over 30 years ago", while some of the gripes about revealing Kansas would still apply, at least he would be trying to be a bit vague. He did not need to be that precise.

Maybe. I need to see it a second time. My sense that it was quicker comes because of how I remember the sequence of events, but I'm not sure I'm remembering correctly (I mostly remember what happened, but have trouble with "when"). As I recall, Perry's story was rejected by Lois, and at that time she did not know who her rescuer was. She spoke to Clark. She came back to work and was punished by Perry for the blog-leak (probably within a week, because if that was old news, he wouldn't be talking about it now). Now, she could have been healed up and doing searching before she turned in her article-that-wasn't-published. But I definitely don't think it was month between the article going to the blog and her finding out the truth, because she was reprimanded immediately upon her return. Idle thought: I should check her clothes during her investigation scenes and see if she's wearing the same outfit in any of them or not (doubt it).

However, if she had already done her research and discovered Clark before she turned in the first article to Perry (and it was rejected), then I could see it taken much longer (and it'd explain why she didn't seem injured anymore). But I don't see why she'd wait a month to publish an article about a spaceship and a super-powered being. And if she already knew who he was it would make more sense to either publish his identity (not respecting his wishes/privacy) or (respecting his wishes/privacy) not publish anything at all about the superpowered probable-alien (at least until she talked to the guy she'd already identified).

I really do need to see it again, because I'm just not sure.

I'd love to see more of Perry. On the little we saw of him, he seemed interesting. Smart, perceptive, and not as over-the-top as some Perrys (which I also enjoy, I admit). I don't care about journalist Clark - this, to me, is clearly one of the versions of the story where journalism is just a way to further heroism. "Hero" is his job description and being at the paper just lets him do his real job more efficiently. It's sorta golden age, and I'm good with that. At this point, I'd be disappointed with the seeing Clark as someone always interested in journalism or as someone who found his calling in that. It seems clear to me that the theme was in Clark choosing his own destiny, despite the words or wills of those around him. What he always wanted was to help people and make a difference and now he's letting himself do that through his abilities. While he could do that through journalism, as well, that's not him becoming "something other than what society intended" the way him using his powers to be a superhero is (since that's what he was told he couldn't do). Does that make sense?

I tend to agree. I wasn't really emotionally invested.

From doing some internet searching, apparently "Man of Steel" has broken all previous records for an opening weekend in June. I think it is pretty safe that there will be a sequel.

I have to agree that Clark was not really qualified. Even if we add in that he did actually get a degree in journalism before doing his odd jobs, and may have even filed a story here or there over the years, it still seems a bit much for Perry to higher him.

I had no problem with Clark killing Zod. It seemed the only reasonable response to the situation. If anything I think Clark waited to long to kill Zod.

I feel the same - Perry must know something's up.

BTW, can anyone tell me if Clark telling Martha about discovering his heritage and her telling him about the reporter coming by are in the same scene or two different ones?

I guess I like journalist Clark from Lois and Clark too much to be able to be fully comfortable with another incarnation.

On the other hand, I am thinking that I may have overestimated the time it took Lois to find Clark.

Still, I think that how Perry reacts to Lois and how long it would have taken her to hunt down Clark going through multiple locations, that do not even start near Kansas, did not quite jive.

I am also thinking that Metropolis is only workably on the west coast. At least it seemed to me that it was earlier in the day at the DP when the message from Zod came in than it was for Clark in Kansas.

from Tzigone
I thought it was rather implied that there weren't a whole lot of planets that could be terraformed and that because of previous failures, Earth was one of the only possibilities they had. I also got the impression that Zod was making Earth "pay" for Jor-El's "treachery".

~~~~~

Someone mentioned that most of the people of Earth didn't know what was happening, but I remember a scene where the terraforming process was being transmitted on TV, so the vast majority of the people of Earth did know that aliens were attacking and trying to take over the planet.

~~~~~

I, for one, did not like that Lois knows so soon that CK=Superman. That just seems to suck a little bit of the romance out of it. I mean I always thought she was smart enough to figure it out, but she was blinded by her love of and caring for Superman.

~~~~~

For the most part, I really liked the movie, but I did think it went a little overboard on the destruction. I couldn't help but be reminded of 911. Maybe that was done for effect for the 3D. I didn't watch the 3D because of a history of migraines.

~~~~~

I liked the beard and indeed the hairy chest!

~~~~~

I felt sorry for Clark because he had to kill Zod, but it was obvious he was upset about it. I thought it was an integral part of the movie. Even our beloved LNC Clark came to that point himself when he nearly killed Nor and would have if the government hadn't stepped in to try to kill him, too.

~~~~~

I think they could have had Clark save the bus load of kids without revealing his secret. He wouldn't have needed to come up out of the water so quickly that Pete Ross and Lana Lang saw him. I think they just wanted Pete and Lana to know. As for Jonathan saying that Clark should have let the kids die, if you think about it, that is what someone might say before they think. Like if they said it in anger. But that isn't what they did in the movie - Jonathan was quite calm.

~~~~~

I do think Clark could have saved Jonathan without anyone noticing. As for saving the family dog, I can see Jonathan going back for the dog and thinking that he had more time. Plus the dog also dies. Having a child die in MoS probably wouldn't have been a good thing and would have garnered negative attention - thus the dog.

~~~~~

On a side note, I've been hearing on the Weather Channel that heading for an underpass during a tornado is a bad thing because the wind is actually worse and can suck you right out from under the underpass, so don't do that.

~~~~~
From Mouserocks:
That was the first time he had flown.

~~~~~

I don't think it's a given that Clark had no credentials to be given the job at DP. Even in LNC, he traveled around the world after he got his education, and I was always thought it was assumed that he did not always work as a reporter in those travels nor did he always use his own name. He would not necessarily need to have a degree in journalism. A degree in other things could also work. Perry could know something is up or maybe not. Big companies do sometimes give people jobs that don't have any or much experience - otherwise, how would people get experience?

~~~~~

I didn't notice this. I guess I'd have to see the movie again. I would not like moving Metropolis to the west coast (just as I didn't like it being in Kansas in Smallville).

Um... no. The dog survives. Jonathan is able to let it out of the car, and it runs towards the group under the overpass. But Jonathan is stuck in the car due to the other car hitting the top of it. Finally, he's able to free himself and then realizes that he can hardly walk, let alone run away from a tornado. The dog he releases from the car is the same one still living with Martha all those years later.

Really? I totally missed that. I thought the dog died. I remember turning around and looking at something behind me at one point. That must have been when I turned. I knew that he ended up being injured and couldn't walk.

I didn't get that impression, because it seemed to me that the other planets were successfully terraformed at one point. It was just they couldn't stand alone after Krypton withdrew support. I mean, if they can change gravity and atmosphere, I don't really see why another planet wouldn't do. But I might have missed something, I admit.

I don't recall it being transmitted, but I'll take your word for it. But unless we saw a spokesperson telling them what was happening, I'm not sure most of the population would know the planet was being terraformed (as opposed to some weird alien weapon) or that that (instead of some other reason) was why the alien in blue was fighting them. I mean, even the military didn't consider him on their side at first, and that was after he turned himself in to save the planet.

I think Clark couldn't have saved them discreetly, but that's for storytelling reasons, not logical ones. Thematically, he needs to be going against "society's wishes" (the Kents, in this case) when he's saving people to fit the theme of choosing his own destiny instead of doing what he was always told he should do. Also, he's 13 and doesn't have much time to think about these things in the heat of the moment. I'll say discretion doesn't seem to be something this Clark ever learned. He just does what he has to as leaves afterwards. I think the reason is for the audience to see that repeatedly he's faced with the decision of revealing himself or letting people die and chooses revealing himself (the bus, the oil rig, Lois), because that's what he is. Except that one time Jonathan convinced him otherwise (in scene I'll admit doesn't work for me - may improve on a second viewing).

As far as I can recall, Clark never uses his powers surreptitiously in this movie. It's like the idea never occurred either to him or his family.

I agree Jonathan was calm when he said that. Maybe troubled, I'm not sure on that account. I will say he says "maybe" instead of "yes." I guess he doesn't know all the answers, either. I think of it as "I don't want anyone dead/hurt, but if it's their lives v. my child's..." and others think he's got a "greater good" mentality for the planet. I guess we really don't know. I do think he'd probably be less careful if it were his secret. And I wonder if he just can't understand how it feels to Clark in these situations. It's kind of interesting, really, the contrast between this and the '78 movie, where Jonathan absolutely understands how Clark feels, but Clark's only motivation to use his powers is to win football games and show up bullies (he's not exposed to life or death situations).

For me, didn't mind Superman killing Zod. He was written into a corner where there was no other way, and it's okay for Superman to kill under that circumstance, to me. I'm glad he was conflicted and so so broken up about it, of course. Loved the hug scene aftewards. But it'd they wanted Zod sucked into the Phantom Zone with the others, I'd have been okay with that, too. It wasn't necessary to the movie, to me.

I always thought Clark did use his own name in his travels in LNC, but I can't be sure of that, of course. This Clark may well have a degree, but I don't think he's done journalism before - there's no indication of it. But again, I guess we can't know.


Yeah, I think he manages to kick open a stuck door, and the dog runs free, but then Jonathan is limping. Can't swear that's the way it goes down, though.

It was extremely brief (milliseconds) and there weren't any words that I can recall - only a screen shot. It was mentioned at the DP that it was on TV. Perhaps I read too much into it that they actually understood what was happening, but with the later talk of terraforming, and with the involvement of the TV news people these days, I took it that they did indeed know what was going on.

~~~~~

Nor did I. As you noted, he was backed into a corner and had no choice. And it wasn't a decision he entered into lightly (thus his tears).

~~~~~

No, I didn't get the impression he'd ever worked in the field either, but that doesn't rule out a degree in journalism (which I'm doubting in this case). If he has a degree, it's likely in something else.

From Classicalla

To be quite honest, I have grown to HATE the speech by H.G. Wells about this. It is the sort of thing that could go REALLY bad if Clark wasn't THAT good (and for the LnC version it did multiple times before Clark.) I was really very happy that they bypassed that.

"Blinded by love" doesn't work for me on multiple levels. Caveat that I don't remember the actual speech from Wells at all. But I don't like the concept of that. Firstly, a love with so much root in deception isn't a good thing for me. Being blinded by love usually goes with loving someone unworthy and that blindness enabling very bad things to happen. Also, I don't think there was convincing love-at-first-site, so that Lois didn't see because she was in love doesn't make logical sense to me. If she'd known Clark for months and developed a trust with him or love for him, then Superman showed up on the scene, it'd work better for me, because then I could think she'd have more of a reason to think that she really knows Clark and not see Clark in this other person (or the reverse if Supes showed up first). But I've not known that to happen in any version of Superman. And lastly, I think seeing a person as they really are in their entirety and loving them for that is far more romantic than than being blinded by love. Give me clear sight any day - to see all the flaws and all the strengths and still love.

As I've said I love Lois knowing from the start. I like the trust and honesty from day one. It's a stronger foundation. And really like that we don't have to watch Lois making an absolute fool of herself chasing after Superman like a teenager with a celebrity crush while he's cool as cucumber. It opens the way for a much stronger, more substantial relationship than the one seen in the earlier movies (not to mention not having the massively unequal power dynamic). It also highlights her awesome investigatory skills.

On a psuedo side-note, I actually really kind of like how neither one of them really noticed the other when they met, because both were busy with the alien spacecraft. And then when Lois did notice him, it wasn't in a starstruck kind of way, and that was nice.

On a really side note, but still MOS, I did read a post today that made me think of something in a new light. I caught that the bully was Pete Ross, so I didn't think of it in these terms, because I know of him from the comics and Smallville. But it was pointed out that after Clark saved a bully, the bully became better towards Clark when others bullied him. It can work as Superman showing people the way to be better. He inspired the good in the bully. Not sure if it really works, since it's only Clark we saw him behave well towards, but it's a nice idea and fits well with Superman inspiring others.

And I did notice originally that human beings got to do things in this film, got to be heroes, too. The military were essential in sending the Kryptonians back to the Phantom Zone (and Lois was too, of course). And on the oil rig - Superman didn't just carry them over to the helicopter, but instead the helicopter came to get the stranded workers. And wanted to get that "last guy", too. And our first "rescue" on earth was someone else trying to keep Clark from getting splattered, wasn't it? I liked that.

Something I just realized...

Lois wasn't expecting to go back when they were making the decision to open the Phantom Zone. If I remember correctly it pulled the whole plane into it. She would have been lost had she not fallen out of the plane.

People have been highlighting this scene (on other forums and reviews) as "proof" she's a damsel in distress in this (again) when I'd say she was being a hero in her own right (going above and beyond her duties as a journalist.)

That's not quite right, I don't think. Originally, they were all expecting to come back. Or at least that they might. They were originally supposed to drop one phantom drive out of the plane and onto the spaceship. But that plan didn't work out because they couldn't get the code key inserted right and Hardy was going to try the kamikaze route, but Hamilton got the phantom drive on their plane activated, so the portal-black-hole-whatever-it-was opened.