The Big Picture: The Big Letdown

[endtherapture]

Man of Steel is great.

Great characters.
Great score.
Great action.
Great visuals.
Great art style.

Bob just wants everything to be like The Avengers and all funny and upbeat and Robert Downey Jr. But we have The Avengers already...so what's wrong with Man of Steel going for a more serious tone? Nothing.

I didn't know what to expect from the film so I went in and thought it was amazing, 3rd favourite superhero movie EVER. Bob obviously wanted more one note villains, and Transformers-but-with-superheroes stuff like in The Avengers, because when you get down to it, Man of Steel inspired me, it felt inspiring and said some really interesting and deep things about society in general.

Food for thought: Clark is reading Plato's Republic at one point in the film, this subtley links into the "failure" of Kypton as a Platonian society in the film, exemplified by Zod. Very clever stuff. But obviously no, it needed brighter colours and more comedy so it was a failure!!

I just don't get how Bob can constantly fellate and praise The Avengers when that was a very shallow film. Man of Steel wasn't anything paritcularly deep, but it was more thought-provoking than The Avengers, why is that a bad thing?

 

[IronMit]

Glad I wasn't the only one that noticed you were more critical in your 2nd vid then your first.

I'm surprised it took you that long to realise how bad the film was, I normally take a few days to mull over a film but I knew 10 minutes in, Man of Steel was up it's own butt-hole with supposed meaningful nonsense- Which was confirmed at the end of the film. I tried to watch it a 2nd time (for free- no way I could pay to see that again) and I had to turn it off 30 mins in.

This http://io9.com/the-most-important-scenes-from-man-of-steel-as-i-remem-516405346

and this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4u-HLm8maE

summed it up for me.

The one thing everyone keeps talking about is Superman killing. Trying to vilify it or justify it. I'm sure there are circumstances that could make Superman even kill a human in a reboot.
I honestly couldn't care less if he kills or not as long as it's explained/makes sense. Superman snapping Zod's neck (after having a fight with no tension because no1 bleeds, or acts hurt), so I didn't even know that was possible in Snyder's universe. They also flew to space, hit a satellite and in all that chaos still managed to find Metropolis on the way down again. Lois somewhere got to where they landed within 2 mins - it looked like it was 3 miles away-no idea how she made it on foot. And in the most painful cliché way possible zod is going to kill some middleclass family so superman has to kill him. What about the 100,000 humans he killed and the promise to kill more? Surely superman should of been trying to kill him all along. This was the mass effect 3 ending for a movie.

Traditionally Superman doesn't kill humans, because humans are children to him- but super powered aliens that are trying to kill humans - superman will kill/destroy them without hesitation.

The entire concept at the start was so much cringe- Krypton is destroyed by 'harvesting the core' because that's what a flawed socialist-communist utopia society would apparently do.... because they have pod babies with no freedom. So let's send kal-el to earth and hope he lands in a capitalist country.

Krypton is so advanced they have many off world colonies....but they can't sustain themselves for 24 years was it? however old Clark is. So they can't grow food and live but they have world engines lying around?

 

[Something Amyss]

These videos are a way for Bob to share his personal opinion, a fact he makes sure to mention often in the videos themselves.

And my post was a way to voice my personal opinion, a fact that shouldn't need to be mentioned due to the stark obviousness of it.

Are you really that bothered that I dared voice my opinion about a perceived trend within videos that are played on a site for entertainment? Or does freedom of expression equal freedom from criticism?

Because if he has every right to harp on his fixations over and over again then we have every right to harp on this stupid redundant complaining over and over again.

Evidently not.

Because we are hoping that it gets better. We hope that it's worth watching, we just end up getting disappointed.

More annoyed in my case. Like, I don't always agree with Bob (truth be told, I usually don't), but I find his TBP vids to be informative and often introduce me to a different chain of thought than I'm used to. He usually makes it interesting, and being exposed to the opinions of others is actually a good thing. It can challenge your own notions (Bob has done this for me on occasions) or maybe even change your mind (Not really so far, but there's always a chance).

However, considering his recent response to the Batfleck thing was to show/play a baby crying, and he then turned around and made another dig at TASM, and this week is more digs at The Lone Ranger, Superman (which to be fair, most of it was solid criticism), Star Trek/Into Darkness, etc....Not only is it annoying, it strikes me as a touch ironic.

Apparently, however, we're expected to shut up if we don't like an episode. Or stop watching entirely because we don't like a trend in a few. Not even dislike the overall sentiment, but an undercurrent or recurring theme.

Which is funny, because every time I stop watching something, I get told I'm not giving it a fair shake. This actually happened with Escape to the Movies, a MovieBob program I generally don't like and normally avoid.

 

[Meneth]

The thing that bugged me about MoS was that Zod & Co were stupid. They launched the terraforming attack while Superman was still alive. They could have taken the time to adapt to Earth's environment, gotten their own power levels up to a competitive level, attacked Supes en masse, killing him, and THEN, once there's no one to threaten them, launch the terraformer.

Of course, can't have the bad guys win, even when it's the logical outcome of a premise.

 

[Baresark]

Weird, the more I think about the movie, the more I want to watch it again. Not because it was the best movie, but because it's one of the few movies that came out this summer that required (in my book)a second look. Maybe my opinion of the movie will change. The thing is, the more you think about anything, you're updating the memory. And the more updated the memory becomes, the more full of errors, misconceptions and concoction it actually contains. The only way to get a valid look at this movie a second time around is to actually watch it a second time around. I will always find faults with the criticism that he should have been able to save everyone or that he killed Zod. These aren't things that are wrong with the movie, these are bold steps to a character really coming into what he is. He is at the weakest he will be at any point in his adult life during the finale of this movie. He will only become much much stronger. And at no point in the DC comics is he saving everyone. So, that is not actually a valid criticism. To me, the way I remember it, it's not that he didn't want to save everyone (he saved the entire world at the end, but we can just ignore that I guess), it's that he was incapable of even knowing what he is capable of actually doing. I mean, he didn't learn to fly till halfway through the movie, or that he was even capable of flight.

Meh, I can respect criticism of something I genuinely enjoyed, well enough. But the extent of energy placed on this film and expended criticizing it at this point borders on pure insanity. I mean, no one needed a followup video because it was easy to know where he was going with it. He was going to take his original criticisms of the movie and multiply them by 10 fold. I have criticisms of the movie myself. While the flashbacks were a pretty good way to flesh out the character without showing his childhood, there was too many of them. We needed to see the bus scene and followup, and the death of Johnathan Kent... that's it. These things would mold the character just fine because these would obviously be major events in anyone's life. The movie wasn't as humorless as it was made out to be, but it could have used more. I agree that having the character Perry White in the movie was a waste because they did nothing with him. There should have been more scenes with Lois and Clark to warrant a kiss between them. He at least should have shown up in the daily planet before she is ready to jump in his lap, so to speak. All of these things detracted from the movie for me, but the main point of Superman being Superman and being developed in a way that has not previously been explored in film was great, IMO.

 

[Something Amyss]

Yes but if you don't like the guy discussing his opinions then why watch a show specifically for him to discusshis opinions. It's like going into a pizza place and then complaining about the lack of chinese food.

This is more akin to going to a pizza place and complaining that the pepperoni is stale, funky, and all over your vegetarian pizza.

 

[Ryan Hughes]

Bob, you are right on, but here is why I think Superman should die. Not just in the comics or the films, but just disappear forever from the culture:

Basically, Superman is a representative of Nietzsche's 'ubermench': a man-beyond-man. Which is a fine idea, I suppose, to have a character that is strong because they free themselves from the lower and base needs of human nature, thus becoming a paragon of true strength and righteousness. However, this cannot speak to the current American culture, which is endlessly -and rightly- suspicious of those that claim 'strength' and 'righteousness.' I.E. the post-9/11 culture of warfare-as-retribution for the truly horrible -but limited- terrorist acts we suffered.

After and during WWII, Superman was vital to the culture as something of a father figure. With so many children with either absent or late fathers, he served as a symbol of what young men and women could grow up to be, inspiring literally millions of children.

However, we have moved to a much more jaded and callous approach to overt strength, and this is what the film was trying to avoid: it attempted to reconnect Superman with his humanity, and discard the ubermench qualities that he previously displayed in an attempt to evade the more overt notions of endless righteousness he has been associated with in the past. This did not work, nor can it really work without changing the fundamental aspects of the character.

Rather than try to change him so much, it is best to just let him die on a cultural level.

 

[Rect Pola]

Hey MovieBob,

You've pointed out times you were too kind before, but have you ever looked back on a movie you didn't like and realized you later were too negative? Like you didn't see something that puts it in a different light. Sorta like how you pointed out concepts in Sucker Punch to us.

 

[Carbo]

Bob just wants everything to be like The Avengers and all funny and upbeat and Robert Downey Jr. But we have The Avengers already...so what's wrong with Man of Steel going for a more serious tone? Nothing.

Yes, clearly that's why one of his favorite super hero movies of all time is The Dark Knight and also why he admits that if Man of Steel was actually as good as that, it wouldn't have been a problem.

People never stop projecting on Bob just because he's disappointed in certain (comic) movies do they? Lighten up - no need to trash talk his opinion just because he's reasonably arguing why Man of Steel is flawed. He's a critic and analyst, it's his job to talk about this stuff. Additional analysis and criticism on media that can't be summed up in five minutes is good.

In the words of Yahtzee: "it's worth remembering that all reviews are subjective personal opinion and if you enjoy the [media] it really shouldn't get to you. Unless there's a despicable little niggling doubt in the back of your mind that maybe you aren't having as much fun as you've convinced yourself that you're having, which doesn't go away no matter how many times you slap it down with a flannel of wet excuses like this one."

 

[IronMit]

Only Zod (thanks to Michael Shannon's overacting) brought some much needed life into this film and was closet to having a definable character. I understood his motivation, I got understood goals, I even got his BACKSTORY from all that time spent on Krypton. And ya know what, he actually DID STUFF to go about achieving said goals. As far as I'm concerned, HE'S the main character of the movie and this movie was his Shakespearean tragedy...

You are right.
Zod was the closest character to behave like a human with motivations, emotions etc. How ironic. But even then he was only half way there.
Half of what he said in the movie was downgraded to contrived techno-bable and exposition. And logic was also not on his for the other half. He finds out Superman is the only person who can stop him and he insists on deploying the world engine immediately. Why not wait? 2hours..lure out superman. Kill him and then deploy the macgiffin.
He want's to convert Earth because he got a bit of a headache. Doesn't seem very warrior like. If he were to put up with it for a bit longer he could have super powers. Kryptonite doesn't seem to exist so no problem there.
Why couldn't he say 'yo superman.You know those many off world colonies we have I will just go there - 100% chance of success. Just let me suck out the codex from you'. end movie.

 

[Baresark]

I will give Man of Steel one thing in how it changed the (cinematic) version of the character: it decoupled Superman from America (albeit in very blunt matter).

As I noted long ago on this site [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.178046-More-Dark-Knight-Talent-Arrives-to-Save-Superman#5148153], the image of Superman as the embodiment of America's moral and strengths means that a movie in the vein of the original comic or prior movies just wouldn't work in a world where people look at the US as coming down from decades of partying and arrogance. The earnestness that Bob wants to see doesn't represent the US today, now suspicious of its own power and what it has become.

Do I think they could have done it in a better manner than having him literally chuck a drone at a general in an obviously tacked-on scene? Of course, but they at least tried.

That is actually a bit of a misunderstanding of the character. He was always coupled to tradition pre-WW2 value and as an American character he had that whole truth, justice and the American way thing. But the post WW2 character, or even mid WW2 character never subscribed to America's interventionist foreign policies. He never intervened in any wars. He never chose sides in a conflict between foreign nations. That was actually the biggest criticism of the character during WW2. He never fought the Nazi's (and one of the main reasons Captain America was one of the most popular comic book characters of that era). The only thing the final scene actually did was decouple him from the Military, which was always his default position. Just as always, he is distrustful of the people in power and all for the average Joe, as any would be American was during the formative years of actual Superman character. Don't fall into the hype, there were always people who didn't like American foreign policy going back to WW1, both foreign and domestic.

It's also important to remember that while the movie was made with a world audience in mind, he was raised as your typical red blooded American boy in Kansas. What Bob wants to see is actually very much part of the character, even in modern day.

 

[endtherapture]

Bob just wants everything to be like The Avengers and all funny and upbeat and Robert Downey Jr. But we have The Avengers already...so what's wrong with Man of Steel going for a more serious tone? Nothing.

Yes, clearly that's why one of his favorite super hero movies of all time is The Dark Knight and also why he admits that if Man of Steel was actually as good as that, it wouldn't have been a problem.

People never stop projecting on Bob just because he's disappointed in certain (comic) movies do they? Lighten up - no need to trash talk his opinion just because he's reasonably arguing why Man of Steel is flawed. He's a critic and analyst, it's his job to talk about this stuff. Additional analysis and criticism on media that can't be summed up in five minutes is good.

In the words of Yahtzee: "it's worth remembering that all reviews are subjective personal opinion and if you enjoy the [media] it really shouldn't get to you. Unless there's a despicable little niggling doubt in the back of your mind that maybe you aren't having as much fun as you've convinced yourself that you're having, which doesn't go away no matter how many times you slap it down with a flannel of wet excuses like this one."

The Dark Knight is so good that it doesn't even count as a superhero movie. It could do away with the Batman characters with original, real world characters and just be a brilliant thriller instead. It's that good.

Why people get angry about Bob is that he just continually dicks on something in every single thing. It happened to Spider Man. Now it's happening to Man of Steel. Yahtzee doesn't continually compare every single thing he reviews to the current thing he dislikes. Bob does, and it comes off as petty and unprofessonal, which is why I've had to stop watching his reviews, I'm just sick of him constantly dicking on Spider Man/Man of Steel whilst constantly fellating The Avengers.

 

[Calibanbutcher]

I disagree.
For me Iron Man 3 was the biggest dissapointment of the summer.
I expected a fun action-flick starring Iron Man and the mandarin and got the worst Marvel-movie this side of the Hulk franchise.

 

[Scarim Coral]

I take the destrustion of Metropolis battle over the actionless Superman Return anytime! Sorry but I always feel that one of the reasons why that film suck was not having a proper battle in general. Sure Bob raise a point that it's not in Superman character but come on! Those battle scene truly did the film some justice to Superman as a whole as it was incredible to watch!
Glad to know that the film was a dissapointment mainly due to Bob high expectation over it as I still enjoyed it as a whole.

 

[Ishal]

I just don't get how Bob can constantly fellate and praise The Avengers when that was a very shallow film. Man of Steel wasn't anything paritcularly deep, but it was more thought-provoking than The Avengers, why is that a bad thing?

Because... its super man? I say this with a question mark because I'm no comic fanboy.

But this is superman. The premise is God in tights... not really all that thought provoking. Superman never was a gloom and doom character until the 90s, apparently. And that one seems to be almost universally panned. Wanton destruction isn't what superman is supposed to be about, I'm not even a fan and I know that. Nothing wrong with having both, but expect people like Bob to criticize it.

Avengers was more lighthearted and family friendly. It takes more talent to cast a wide net than a small one. A small one for 25-30 something misanthropes who apparently aren't happy unless cities are being leveled and tons of people are dying on or off camera.

 

[endtherapture]

I just don't get how Bob can constantly fellate and praise The Avengers when that was a very shallow film. Man of Steel wasn't anything paritcularly deep, but it was more thought-provoking than The Avengers, why is that a bad thing?

Because... its super man? I say this with a question mark because I'm no comic fanboy.

But this is superman. The premise is God in tights... not really all that thought provoking. Superman never was a gloom and doom character until the 90s, apparently. And that one seems to be almost universally panned. Wanton destruction isn't what superman is supposed to be about, I'm not even a fan and I know that. Nothing wrong with having both, but expect people like Bob to criticize it.

Avengers was more lighthearted and family friendly. It takes more talent to cast a wide net than a small one. A small one for 25-30 something misanthropes who apparently aren't happy unless cities are being leveled and tons of people are dying on or off camera.

It wasn't doom and gloom. It wasn't constant wise cracking but that's because Superman isn't a character like Spiderman who is built on his humour.I don't get the criticism that Superman wasn't saving anyone, or that he did nothing to establish himself as Superman.

This movie portrayed Clarkas a nice,sincere,helpful,strong confident, young man even before he even put on the suit or learned his origins.

He helped drowning kids from a school bus, even swimming under water to bring the bully to the surface.
Was being bullied by a bunch of dudes, but held back even though he knew he could whoop their arses.
Stood up for that waitress in that diner when the dude was harassing and groping her.
Helped those guys in that oil rig fire and held off the beam and flames long enough for them to escape via helicopter.

This film surely showed Superman without his suit and it humanized him and showed you the traits of a strong confident young man who stood up for others when no one else would.

And Superman learning to fly was one of my favourite scenes in a superhero movie ever...how could you not love that?

They definitely did go overboard with the destruction in the latter half of the movie, but it was only slightly worse than The Avengers, and it wasn't really disaster porn like 2012 or The Day After Tomorrow. People are just selectively remembering bits of the film.

 

[IronMit]

That is actually a bit of a misunderstanding of the character. He was always coupled to tradition pre-WW2 value and as an American character he had that whole truth, justice and the American way thing. But the post WW2 character, or even mid WW2 character never subscribed to America's interventionist foreign policies. He never intervened in any wars. He never chose sides in a conflict between foreign nations. That was actually the biggest criticism of the character during WW2. He never fought the Nazi's (and one of the main reasons Captain America was one of the most popular comic book characters of that era). The only thing the final scene actually did was decouple him from the Military, which was always his default position. Just as always, he is distrustful of the people in power and all for the average Joe, as any would be American was during the formative years of actual Superman character. Don't fall into the hype, there were always people who didn't like American foreign policy going back to WW1, both foreign and domestic.

It's also important to remember that while the movie was made with a world audience in mind, he was raised as your typical red blooded American boy in Kansas. What Bob wants to see is actually very much part of the character, even in modern day.

Interesting. I'm unfamiliar with this so that was an interesting read. So superman never went the way of Transformers where they were downgraded to fighting arabs in one scene. You would think sentient space robots wouldn't get into petty earth conflicts.
There's that superman vs batman comic that's being talked about a lot. Batman takes on and defeats superman because superman becomes a Patsy for the president. How does that fit into the superman's average joe mission? I'm guessing superman gets lead astray and batman knocks some sense into him?

 

[Dunesen]

the harping on the same movies over and over again is sort of making him harder and harder to watch.

Then don't.

These videos are a way for Bob to share his personal opinion, a fact he makes sure to mention often in the videos themselves.

All of you, complaining about his opinions or fixations being grating... Why are you watching his videos then?

Because a) his other videos are supposed to be about different things, but he keeps bringing up this or The Dark Knight Rises or other things only tangentially related because he personally has problems with them and, I don't know, maybe he thinks he can bring everyone around to his point of view through sheer repetition. It's one thing to use, say, The Phantom Menace as a go-to reference for a major movie that people hated because it has a horrible reputation. But Bob sees TDKR as the worst thing ever and he's... not alone in this, but the accepted view of TDKR isn't as bad as Bob treats it,

and b) it's possible to express an opinion once, get it out there, and let it stand. Repeating it over and over implies he has nothing more to say about anything. And if that really is the case (I don't believe it is) he should just end The Big Picture.

As I said last week, I hope Bob has taken this opportunity to get everything off his chest and he won't keep harping on it again later. But given his handling of The Dark Knight Rises or South Park, I'm skeptical.

 

[Gone Rampant]

Man of Steel is great.

Great characters.
Great score.
Great action.
Great visuals.
Great art style.

Bob just wants everything to be like The Avengers and all funny and upbeat and Robert Downey Jr. But we have The Avengers already...so what's wrong with Man of Steel going for a more serious tone? Nothing.

I didn't know what to expect from the film so I went in and thought it was amazing, 3rd favourite superhero movie EVER. Bob obviously wanted more one note villains, and Transformers-but-with-superheroes stuff like in The Avengers, because when you get down to it, Man of Steel inspired me, it felt inspiring and said some really interesting and deep things about society in general.

Food for thought: Clark is reading Plato's Republic at one point in the film, this subtley links into the "failure" of Kypton as a Platonian society in the film, exemplified by Zod. Very clever stuff. But obviously no, it needed brighter colours and more comedy so it was a failure!!

I just don't get how Bob can constantly fellate and praise The Avengers when that was a very shallow film. Man of Steel wasn't anything paritcularly deep, but it was more thought-provoking than The Avengers, why is that a bad thing?

This. I'm one of a very small number of people at my place of work who actively likes Man of Steel, even though I admit it has flaws like Johnathon Kent as an entire character (The fact that I haven't taken Bob seriously since he essentially spent his entire Amazing Spider Man review whinging about how the movie didn't follow the Ultimate Comics to the letter or his review for Star Trek Into Darkness being forgettable BS helps me get through this), and when people whine to me about how "It's too dark and serious!" I just tell them to watch fucking Avengers again (Still great, which I don't agree with the quote above mine).

 

[IronMit]

I also don't get the criticism that Superman wasn't saving anyone, or that he did nothing to establish himself as Superman.



This movie portrayed Clark/as a nice,sincere,helpful,strong confident, young man even before he even put on the suit or learned his origins.

He helped drowning kids from a school bus, even swimming under water to bring the bully to the surface.
Was being bullied by a bunch of dudes, but held back even though he knew he could whoop their arses.
Stood up for that waitress in that diner when the dude was harassing and groping her.
Helped those guys in that oil rig fire and held off the beam and flames long enough for them to escape via helicopter.

This film surely showed Superman without his suit and it humanized him and showed you the traits of a strong confident young man who stood up for others when no one else would.

And Superman learning to fly was one of my favourite scenes in a superhero movie ever...how could you not love that?

warning! my subjective opinion of why the parts you liked were horrible for me..just so you know where some of us are coming from;
These points were positive but they were just done in such a cliché way and were kind of broken too;

His dad kept telling him not to save anyone, but he was going to be a symbol of hope/hero. A bit Contradictory. How can you possibly teach someone to be a good person whilst simultaneously telling them to let everyone die no matter what. You can justify it and fill in the blanks yourself if you do some mind gymnastics but it's something that should be flushed out. Even smallville season one finale did a better job of handling Clarks secret and the issue's of morality and secrets; Jonathan flirts with the idea of killing the journalist to protect clarks secret, but doesn't because his a good person and to set a good example for Clark.

The waitress and the bully scene. wow so original. This ties into superman making the difficult 'kill decision' at the end of the movie. But if Clark were to actually hurt the annoying weak 'humans' at the beginning of the film that would make him a psycho evil villain nutter. We shouldn't be praising his humanity for not going on a killing spree.
Whereas in Batman begins, Bruce had initial motivations of anger and vengeance. after he 'grew' a bit, got slapped by Ms Cruise and trained with the league of shadows he was told to kill and risked his life not to go along with it.

oil rig help scene; nothing terribly wrong with it. But that's THREE convenient key disasters to show us his development and character. They re-used the same format 3 times in 30 minutes. And this method of a convenient disaster they reused is the most cliché one ever. Seriously, do disaster's follow this guy around? Spiderman is annoying when girls keep walking down the wrong alley but this was on a different level.
In other better super hero movies the disaster often has more to do with the main plot and character origins;
Green goblin attacks the shareholders of the company that had the super spiders- a bit less contrived
Tony Stark is betrayed by his business partner who he makes weapons with in the middle-east. Stark gets captured and goes back there when he makes his proper suit. No convenient disaster rubbish.

superman learning to fly was the lamest thing ever. It's like his jet pack was failing at the start or something. He should either fly immediately like in the original movies...or it should be a bit more drawn out like in spiderman. a 20 second learn to fly montage is probably the worst time they could of allotted.