JimB said:
DoPo said:
Zod didn't have to kill Kal-El to get the whatever-it-was. As in, that wasn't the only option - otherwise Zor-El must have been a really shitty parent by turning his own child into a sacrifice.
Didn't Jor-El only infuse Kal-El with the Magic Juice (I really like that term) as Krypton's destruction was imminent, and therefore presumably no one would be coming after him for it?
They weren't very clear? But if Zor-El didn't want to at least
try and save the entire race, why bother injecting Kal-El with the Magic Juice at all? I mean, it doesn't help him develop in any way. The only reason to do that, (aside from the obvious plot point of contention for the movie) would be to hope that at some later date Kal-El could use the Juice to repopulate the Kryptonians. If he was willing to let the entire species die, then there is no need to inject Kal-El. And presumably, the method that Zor-El was going to have Kal-El use woulnd't be lethal? I mean, it never comes up, so we can only speculate, but I can think of some more..*cough* natural and manual ways they could extract the Juice from Kal-El....giggity. I never got the idea when I watched it, that it would kill Kal-El. The only issue on that front that I recall them discussing was the whole "Humanity must die, so that Krypton can be reborn." And regardless of how lethal the extraction method was, that was something Kal-El couldn't allow. So they just stopped discussing it at that point and got to the punching.
JimB said:
DoPo said:
The killing part came from two things: Zod had really extreme views, ones that Kal-El didn't agree with, hence Kal-El didn't want to go with Zod. And Zod, being an extremist, saw killing Kal-El as his only other option.
So even though it was possible to extract the Magic Juice non-lethally, submitting to the procedure still would have killed Kal-El just 'cause Zod's evil?
*shrugs* Probably? Zod wasn't really thinking rationally at all. And he definitely had a lingering grudge against Zor-El. Even if he could extract it safely, he'd probably want to kill Kal-El, just to get revenge on Zor-El. "I will end your line, and any of your seed before I die." To quote Wesley Studi from The Last of the Mohicans.
JimB said:
DoPo said:
Yet, the Kryptonian fetuses were the only remaining way of saving the Kryptonian race. Call destroying them what you will, but the movie tried very hard to tell us that.
Shrug. I just can't get upset about this. I do not believe any person has a duty to martyr himself for the sake of someone who hasn't even been born.
Some
one sure, but an entire race? I mean it wasn't just one person, it was theoretically millions, if not billions of people. And it's not like he just refused to allow them to grow,
he consciously chose to destroy them all. Now this is something I don't recall, so help me here. Did they actually extract the Magic Juice from Kal-El at that point in the movie? I don't recall them actually accomplishing the extraction at all. And if the process would be lethal, then obviously they couldn't have taken it. So if they had no Magic Juice, the ship really wasn't any threat at that point to Earth. It could crash on the planet, and assuming the embryos survived the crash (which I'm assuming they did have some good protection), so what? They still wouldn't grow. He could've just left the ship alone, dealt with the crazy zealots, and then talked to Hologram Dad about a way to safely repopulate the Kryptonians. I guess you could say he was making sure that even if he failed to defeat Zod, he would destroy his plan up front. So even if he died, Earth would be safe. And I can see that I guess, but it still meant killing an entire species.
JimB said:
DoPo said:
Ugh, I can't actually remember the reason for having vat-grown babies.
I have a vague idea in my head it's just tradition, to make sure Kryptonians are genetically grown into their castes, but bugger if I remember. It's been two years since I saw the movie.
I'm pretty sure it was because that was the method they were using at the time. The Gattaca approach to breeding. Genetically engineering the children first for their specific roles, and then giving them the Magic Juice to actually start the growth process into fully developed being.
JimB said:
DoPo said:
Regardless, the fetuses were the only means of saving the Kryptonian race - sure, there was a Kryptonian woman and more than one Kryptonian men alive and capable of reproducing, but they can't just repopulate a planet. Not enough genetic diversity there.
Given that their entire species blew up, I think they got off pretty light if a little inbreeding is the worst they have to deal with to repopulate; particularly when the species has the technology to manipulate genes. Unless that technology can only be done in utero and the Magic Juice can't be reproduced and fuck
me this movie is stupid! God!
XD Yes, the movie has some Phantom Zone size plot holes in it.
A little inbreeding isn't the case. Over time, the amount of...recessive mutations (?, I think that's the right term, not a geneticist), would simply kill them off. That's not a "little" inbreeding. XD You would need (at least I read this once, not sure how accurate), at a minimum 2000 healthy, diverse breeding pairs (important note there, 2000 breeding pairs, not elderly or infertile) to be able to sustain a healthy genetic diversity. Interesting note, and TOTALLY sidenote, the amount of people that Schindler directly saved from the Nazis was almost 2000 Jews(I've heard varying numbers, but most are within a few hundred of 2000). Which means, Schindler almost single handedly insured the genetic survivability of the Jewish genome, even if every other Jew died. Which I thought was pretty damn cool.
And yes, you could say they could use the Magic Science machines to just tweak genes, it's not like anything else in the movie is scientifically accurate. But they would probably take the route of "we can only manipulate the same original material so much before it becomes redundant." But i don't know, I'm just speculating here at this point.
JimB said:
Therumancer said:
[Lex Luthor]'s been rebooted so many times, through so many parallel universes, that I'm not even 100% sure what his current motivation is supposed to be.
In Nu52, I believe he's a human supremacist. Fuck aliens! Dey took urr jobs!
Now I'm picturing him having a terrible toupe to cover up his bald head, and possibly running for president or something! xD Wouldn't that be funny?!....wait...oh shit! :O