Poll: Man of Steel; Why the hatred?

[Scarim Coral]

I personally liked the film since I like the portaryal of Kryton and the action film did justice to the Superman franchise as a whole (come on, he got super strength and he has to be super careful with his surrounding!).

Granted the films did has alot of flaws like pacing and plotholes (Kal El is the first natural Krytonian and yet his destiny was already chosen for him to be a savior, what make that different to the other path chosen Krytonians?) and I didn't really see the spark for Lois and Clark to fall in loved with each other.

Lastly I didn't get with the whole butthurt of the ending. I will say is yes Superman is NOT a killer but what choices did he had? You got to asked yourself, since the phantom zone vanish so Zod can't be sent away, how else would you detain a demi god like being especially when krytonite did not appear in the film at all? Even then I was still on with hin killing since he did show great remorse for doing it!

 

[Exterminas]

I don't hate the movie, but it has severe issues. They can be summed up in two points:

1. It isn't a well-written movie.
Certain scenes are visually impressive, but almost every scene with dialogue in it has a plot hole. Here are a few examples:
- If citizens on Krypton are all the product of genetic engineering and life-long training, how come the Lead Scientist Russell Crow was able to kick Zod's ass at the beginning of the movie?

- How come there is no time to evacuate any of krypton but there is still time to put Zod and his gang on Trial and send them away?

- If everyone on krypton wears that power-armor-stuff, how come superman's costume is skin-tight spandex? The only other kryptonian who wears anything like that is Zod when he is sent off to prison and when he climbs out of his armor. Did Superman's daddy just give him a set of kryptonian underwear?

- How did Klark find that military excavation in the middle of nowhere?

I could continue this list. Pretty sure every scene that contains spoken dialogue contains a plot hole like that.

The first half of the movie seems to be missing some important scenes, which make it feel rushed out. And you can constantly ask things like "Why does he know that?", whenever character spout some dumb exposition. My favourite part is when the Kryptonians ask Louis to accompany Clark on the plane when there is zero reason for them to do so.


2. It is note faithful to it's source material.
The movie pisses on a lot of things regarding the superman-lore. Stuff like Pa Kent saying that letting people die is okay as long as you don't shake their precious vision of conformity, the S-Symbol being some dumb sigil-thing on crypton, Superman killing multiple persons with his bare hands, not caring about innocent lives, the horrible Klar Kent-Impression that has zero camouflage-value etc.

This field of criticism might not be important for everyone, but it should be considered when wondering why the internet hated that movie.

 

[Catfood220]

It was alright, I've certainly seen worse movies. I thought the first half of the film dragged, but you know they've got to show the origins story for the one person in the world who has never heard of Superman. And the thing with the dog was so fucking stupid it made me headbutt the screen. But once Zod turns up on Earth, the film gets more interesting and the fight scenes were pretty good. But the only thing I was thinking during the final fight was "so many people have died here".

Its not the worst movie I've ever seen. Hell, its not even the worst Superman film I've ever seen. That honour goes to Superman Returns where everyone loses the ability to use reasoning. "Hey, Superman has been away for a while and so has Clark Kent. Oh wow, Superman is back and so is Clark Kent...Oh no, Superman is dead and Clark Kent is no where to be seen. I can't help but feel that I'm missing something here..." Terrible.

In the end, my opinion of it was that it was a Summer popcorn blockbuster and nothing more. Hopefully the sequel will be better, but going by the extra characters they seem to be shovelling in for no good reason, all I can think is that its going to be awful.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

Man of Steel is a movie I have a very...fluid opinion of.

On one hand, it was rather nice to see such a large scale veritable clash of titans between Superman and Zod; basically any time Faora and Zod got screen time was god damned gold and I felt Henry Cavill was a capable Superman and Clark Kent.


On the other hand, the back and forth switching between flashbacks in the first half or so of the movie is obnoxious to the extreme; I'm not sure exactly how much influence (if any) Christopher Nolan exerted over this whole affair but I wish he'd go the fuck away so I can see actual colour again - oh lordy how Marvel have spoiled me. David Goyer also needs to remember what fun is (make him watch Blade: Trinity again; that was hilarious) and remember to balance the drama with some levity and most of all stop TELLING us that Superman can be this great symbol and SHOW us, you miserable bastard. I know it hasn't aged brilliantly, but the scene in 'Superman' when he catches Lois and the Helicopter - there's nothing like that because all his previous heroics are tainted by a stigma of doubt and fear despite them being rather incredible.

There's a bunch of superficial shit too like Christopher Meloni and Harry Lennix desperately trying outdo each other in patriotic dick stroking: I get that as US servicemen their first thoughts will be for their home, but a Colonel and General are expected to look at the big picture so the question shouldn't be about America's interests, but the whole world's. Kevin Costner phoning in Pa Kent to an awful degree while being just a bit of a dickhole into the bargain (an issue NOT shared by Ma Kent - she was wonderful) plus the appallingly ham-fisted scene in the Church: new flash Goyer, invoking religious symbolism works better characters who ARE religious - that's why the Babylon 5 episode 'Passing through Gethsemane' is so emotionally involved and resonates with people.

Oddly enough the one person in this whole sordid affair I don't have an issue with was Zack Synder - all the action scenes, especially Faora's, are expertly put together and the utter lack of slow motion was a delight.


It isn't the worst movie I saw last year, not by a long shot, but DC evidently had so little faith in the Man of Steel that despite his movie making north of half a billion dollars, he has to share his sequel with Batman.

 

[prpshrt]

It was like watching Superman returns through a "Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight filter" if that makes any sense. Took itself way too seriously. I think the selling point for the movie was actually the Dark Knight trilogy because of Nolan's involvement in it (Just my opinion of course).

 

[V da Mighty Taco]

Simply put, the movie breaks the cardinal rule of storytelling: Show, don't tell.

For example, Clark's Kryptonian father serves absolutely no other purpose in the movie than to be a plot device and spout exposition. Clark's human father is in the same boat, only even more preachy and nonsensical than the Kryptonian one. Clark himself gets some character development as a child, but as an adult he becomes little more than a brooding mysterious wanderer who's destined to save the world because the writers said so (which is something that got old in anime a long time ago, and that's an often hideously derivative medium). Most of who adult Clark is was merely told to us through other characters rather than us actually seeing his development as a character, with the controversial neck-snap scene being the only one that comes to mind which actually shows us Clark growing as a character.

There's other major issues with this movie, such as the massive amount of plotholes and the fact that other characters talk about Clark like a fanfic writer talks about their Mary Sue (or Meyer about Mr. Cullen - HEYO!!!!), however in the end Man of Steel simply fails as a movie, and even the enjoyable fight scenes (at least when the shaky-cam isn't ruining them) can't fix that.

 

[Sarge034]

I just felt like the movie diverged too much from the known cannon. I have watched at least 5 min of every Superman movie to date and some tv shows when I was younger. I really don't know much about his character, but the things I do know are known universally. In short, all that destruction was so out of place that it just didn't feel like Superman. Ergo, it was a bad Superman movie. Was it a bad movie? I dunno. I would have to watch all of it before I could competently answer that question

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

I liked it, but from what I've gathered these were some of the reasons

- Dull characterization
- Needlessly disjointed story structure
- Superman not really being what Superman is about (which IMO is up to the viewer but whatever)
- The third act being nothing but overwhelming explosion porn
- The invoking of 9/11 imagery in the finale
- The Nolan effect, ie. everything has to be gloomy, dark, washed-out, serious etc. A lack of having fun, if you will
- Lots of the rules the movie has established getting thrown out the window in the finale, like how all of a sudden Zod can fly and breathe on Earth

 

[ISearchForTraps]

For me, Superman killing Zod was on par with Optimus Prime killing Megatron and Sentinel Prime, out of character and needlessly violent. There was a dozen ways he could have incapacitated Zod besides snapping his neck, much like Optimus Prime decapitated Megatron and shot Sentinel Prime to death when he was no longer a threat. Not at all heroic.

 

[tippy2k2]

Simply put, the movie breaks the cardinal rule of storytelling: Show, don't tell.

The more I think about it, the more I think that this is one of the "against" that people have brought up that I do agree with and I'm kind of surprised I didn't notice it. I was a Film Minor in school so a lot of the movie things that normies don't notice wave their hands and yell "LOOK AT MEEEEE!" in my face during the movie. I don't know if it was since I was watching it at home (I was making chili for ze Superbowl so I paused the movie repeatedly) or what but I get where that's coming from.

The poll is looking neat and partially confirms what I thought (or at least my bias allowed me to say that it confirms what I thought )

The vote seems to be pretty much split like and hate but the people that liked it thought it was good to alright but the people who don't like it really really don't like it (therefore are much more likely to speak up).

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Its rushed, jumbled and to condensed, it should have been 2 films the first one focusing on Kent becoming Superman and doing typical superman things and then Louis lane figuring it out near the end if ever.

 

[gorfias]

This was not a good movie. Dark and gloomy. These guys need to understand that Superman is not Batman. And he is not Jesus. He is a corn fed Ultimate Immigrant full of hope. He has lots of friends. His dad's death is iconic. His dad is supposed to die of natural causes to show him, with all his powers, he is only a mortal. There are things that are beyond him and are supposed to be.

Sure, we don't really know what happened to the bad Kryptonians in Superman II anymore than we understand what the hell that flying S was. We just understand... for some reason... he isn't murdering them cheerfully. (In an out take, they are taken from the fortress by the cops.) But Superman doesn't kill. A time I can think of (Against an evil version of Mr. Mxyzptlk) was a career ender for him. He knew he'd crossed a line.

But again, Superman is not Batman. And yet,

 

[Nadia Castle]

I thought it was a perfectly fine film, but then again I've never been particularly invested in DC outside of the animated universe (I generally prefer publishers other than the big two). I think the hate has stayed so vicious because the movie was never outstanding nor was it a Transformers 2 level abomination. Awful movies fade fast, merely good ones get picked apart for a long, long time. No-one bitches about the truly awful 'Attack of the Clones (minus the last 20 mins) to the same level they do about the Phantom Menace which was an okay film, just not remotely special.

 

[Seracen]

I enjoyed it on the level of a good popcorn movie, a summer action blockbuster. Of course, that's why it's a disappointment. As a film, it's fine. As a Superman film, it lacks heart and inspiration, which are iconic to the character.

I'd have added 10 minutes of Clark being Clark, and maybe 5 more minutes of him learning to be Superman. Moreover, I'd have cut out that "tentacle robot" scene (plenty of ways to add drama and struggle in that scene). Not only would this have afforded me the time I need for the other cuts, it would have let the other fights shine more.

Fatigue factor sets in when you have that much action without rest. It's why I always use the example of Crank vs Shoot Em Up, where I enjoy both, but feel that Crank was better crafted (well paced downtimes).


I feel that these changes (which aren't that major, in the grand scheme of filmmaking), would have dispelled the critique everyone seems to have. Furthermore, the "Jesus imagery" and killing Zod weren't things that bothered me either, and not something worth noting if the film had no other faults (which is not the case currently).

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.822081-Man-of-Steel-Impressions-possible-spoilers#19873721

Since then, just after having seen it, I've decided it actually wasn't a good movie. Basically, my problems with it are: everything is very cliche and very typical to the point where you have no interesting detail or characterisation, the lens flare is atrocious, regular people are inexplicably wise and badass, there is a significant military fetishism element that results in a number of stupid fuck characters with stupid arcs that don't need to be there, there's no small talk, and (related) the dialogue is horrible. Amongst other things. Which is essentially the opposite of the Avengers, because while both have contrived bullshit plots, the Avengers has really good interplay of characters, which is what in my opinion makes the movie as a whole so good. What I will give you is I'm glad they at least showed Krypton, and the fights and accompanying effects were good. But Zod is unsympathetic bordering on stupid, and everything that took place on Krypton suffers from the exact same problem as the rest of the movie: cliche.

And I don't even like goody-two-shoes Superman or have the sense of betrayal that would no doubt accompany that.

 

[JimB]

My problem with the movie boils down to this: Man of Steel lied to me, and I resent it when people think I'm too stupid to notice that.

The movie bangs on and on and on about hope, but at no point is hope ever displayed in the movie. Kal-El (I will not call him Clark Kent, because if the character chooses to define himself as an alien, then I will do so too) never dares to hope that he will be accepted by humanity, and instead wanders the Earth like Bigfoot. Jonathan Kent never dares to hope that during cover of a tornado, a goddamned superbeing can save him without anyone being sure what happened, so he commits suicide. Perry White never dares to have even the cynical and self-serving hope that reporting about an alien from outer space will make him shitloads of money. The military never dares to hope that an alien whom they have no evidence of having ever done anything wrong* will maybe be a good guy. Kal-El never dares to hope he could maybe just knock out or reason with someone who is very obviously trying to bait him into killing him instead of just, y'know, taking the bait and killing him.

Jor-El says Kal-El can bridge the gap between two worlds. Kal-El then destroys every remaining survivor of that other world he's supposed to be a bridge between.

The movie does everything in its power to convince me that Kal-El is Jesus, and Jesus is a symbol of salvation and redemption. However, Kal-El does goddamned little saving or redeeming, because he's too busy punching CGI hentacles while thousands of people are dying on the other side of the world. Then he kills a dude instead of redeeming him.

The movie keeps saying one thing and doing another. That is the source of my resentment. It does not respect itself and it does not respect me, and I can't tolerate that.

The movie also has a bunch of technical flaws--for instance, it really should be an either/or choice as to whether you're going to show us Krypton's destruction or have the hologram of the ghost of Jor-El tell us about it; pick one and stop wasting my time--but I probably would have forgiven those if I hadn't been pissed off at the movie for lying to me throughout. That is its chiefest sin.


--

*Never mind that we, the audience, have plenty of proof of him doing things wrong. "A guy spilled beer on me? Fuck him! I'll inflict eighty thousand dollars of property damage to the vehicle by which he supports himself and his life, and in the process inflict a few thousand dollars of property damage on the parking lot of the establishment that bears no responsibility for the indignity I suffered all because I wasn't willing to duck or step aside or grab his hand before he could splash me!"

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

My problem with the movie boils down to this: Man of Steel lied to me, and I resent it when people think I'm too stupid to notice that.

The movie bangs on and on and on about hope, but at no point is hope ever displayed in the movie. Kal-El (I will not call him Clark Kent, because if the character chooses to define himself as an alien, then I will do so too) never dares to hope that he will be accepted by humanity, and instead wanders the Earth like Bigfoot. Jonathan Kent never dares to hope that during cover of a tornado, a goddamned superbeing can save him without anyone being sure what happened, so he commits suicide. Perry White never dares to have even the cynical and self-serving hope that reporting about an alien from outer space will make him shitloads of money. The military never dares to hope that an alien whom they have no evidence of having ever done anything wrong* will maybe be a good guy. Kal-El never dares to hope he could maybe just knock out or reason with someone who is very obviously trying to bait him into killing him instead of just, y'know, taking the bait and killing him.

Jor-El says Kal-El can bridge the gap between two worlds. Kal-El then destroys every remaining survivor of that other world he's supposed to be a bridge between.

The movie does everything in its power to convince me that Kal-El is Jesus, and Jesus is a symbol of salvation and redemption. However, Kal-El does goddamned little saving or redeeming, because he's too busy punching CGI hentacles while thousands of people are dying on the other side of the world. Then he kills a dude instead of redeeming him.

The movie keeps saying one thing and doing another. That is the source of my resentment. It does not respect itself and it does not respect me, and I can't tolerate that.

The movie also has a bunch of technical flaws--for instance, it really should be an either/or choice as to whether you're going to show us Krypton's destruction or have the hologram of the ghost of Jor-El tell us about it; pick one and stop wasting my time--but I probably would have forgiven those if I hadn't been pissed off at the movie for lying to me throughout. That is its chiefest sin.


--

*Never mind that we, the audience, have plenty of proof of him doing things wrong. "A guy spilled beer on me? Fuck him! I'll inflict eighty thousand dollars of property damage to the vehicle by which he supports himself and his life, and in the process inflict a few thousand dollars of property damage on the parking lot of the establishment that bears no responsibility for the indignity I suffered all because I wasn't willing to duck or step aside or grab his hand before he could splash me!"

Pretty much this. If you want to see the quintessential Superman on the screen then watch Superman vs. The Elite. It tackles the issues of Superman in the modern, everything-has-to-be-gritty-world and shows why Superman should never be like that while Superman is actually a symbol of hope in that movie.

 

[Henkie36]

I didn't like this movie very much, and all of it is directly relatable to the characters, or more specifically, the dialogue. Nothing of what they say sound like what or how an actual human being would say it (the most infamous is Kevin Costner's ''Maybe you should have let them die''). There is too much overblown action scenes, the strong emotinal moments feel like they are playing on fast forward and many of the subplots don't end up really mattering that much. The Jesus comparisons didn't bother me that much (it's not like everything else Superman related doesn't do the exact same thing) and I actually thought the infamous neck-breaking scene worked. On top of that, the action scenes are cool, if dramatically uninvolving the production design (especially the parts set on Krypton and the ships) are gorgeous and it had a fantastic score by Hans Zimmerman. Where does that leave it for me? At the same heap as Transformers, The Rock, The Transporter movies etc. The reason it is truely hated, I think, is that we were led to believe it would be a Dark Knight level good movie and it wasn't. It was just mediocre, which they could have gotten away with if this wasn't Superman.

 

[Something Amyss]

"The fights in the third act are too long"

Oddly enough, my complaint about the fights is that they can't hold a camera angle for more than 2 seconds, like they're desperately afraid we'll notice just how shallow they are if we have more than a second to process it. And while they are shallow, I found them to be enjoyable. More enjoyable than most of the rest of the movie.

I'm not going to do a full critique of the movie, so I'll just focus on the thing that seems to piss people off the most:

Superman kills Zod.

Personally, I don't care if Superman kills. I think the idea of holding that as sacred is ridiculous. Superman has changed with the cultural zeitgeist. What bugs me is that the scene is just stupid and poor. Superman has just endangered thousands or millions of people as a willing accomplice to Zod's rampage, but the choice between a couple of people and Zod is this horrific, soul-tearing concept. Superman angsting about killing has no established purpose and comes abruptly out of nowhere. It is then forgotten. It seems this happens a lot with the movie: they ignore their established ideas, pop something out of nowhere, and then forget about it. It's a Big-lipped alligator moment, but not as fun.

The Avengers comparison is one that is probably worth talking about. The Avengers had some incongruities and the like, but I was having too much fun with the movie to notice. Man of Steel was not on that level. I mean, that's sort of my criteria. I consider a movie or show good if it keeps me involved enough to not notice or at least not care about logical inconsistencies or flaws. Avengers? Good. Batman Begins? Good. Transformers? Bad (And honestly, how do you screw up big stompy robots fighting other big stompy robots?). Man of Steel? Ehhhh...Not that good. I don't think it was bad, but I certainly didn't like the overall package.

 

[Ashley Blalock]

I hated the film because while they might have thrown in the Superman powers and the stupid New 52 look still has some classic elements there just wasn't the little things that make Superman the greatest hero instead of just the most powerful hero.

To me Superman is more than just a cool set of powers. Superman is the greatest because where other heroes couldn't find a way to save everyone Superman does. If you were attempting to be a moral person then what would Superman do used to be a good question for finding the morally correct answer. He's the sort of hero can move mountains but still finds the time to get a cat out of a tree or keep some poor guy on street from getting squished by part of a falling building during the big fights.

In the past the Kents have been salt of the Earth sort of people. Several stories have explored what if Superman had different adopted parents and it keeps coming back that Superman is the most morally upright hero because the Kents were always about the very best of humanity. To have Pa Kent even suggest Clark should have let the kids die just so out of character it's mind blowing. A stupid line like that made it seem like no one in the production team knew anything about Superman beyond his list of powers.

Then the lack of screen chemistry between Lois and Superman.

Ouch and the scenes on Krypton were trying so hard to be like Star Wars I imagine if you put some Star Wars music into the background people would have thought it was part of the Star Wars prequel films. Krypton felt too much like it was coping other films than feeling like a fresh take on the planet and it's people.

As other people have said there also wasn't that feeling of hope. Superman the Animated Series and Justice League had Superman question himself and had Superman struggle with issues but hope was always there.

Doesn't really help that I'm over the dark and gritty stuff with every damn film that comes out just because Batman sold a boatload of tickets. Yea fine make a dark and gritty Batman but I don't need characters like Superman and Optimus Prime attempting to be Batman. The only thing holding Man of Steel Superman back from being Batman was that he never said to a villain "I'm Superman".