The Big Picture: The Big Letdown

[Ashley Blalock]

I'm going to have to agree in a summer of disappointments Man of Steel stands out as the most disappointing movie. Other films had problems but Superman just seemed to have more going for it and thus a bigger fall.

It's almost as if the success of the Dark Knight films has blinded them to what makes characters great so instead of going for something different lets just make everyone like Batman. But Superman isn't Batman. Someone mentioned that Superman was just a reflection of the United States and you can't sell that kind of film outside of the US, but Superman isn't that he's the idealistic version of what we hope we could be. Perhaps the single most powerful thing in the DC universe but he always fights for what's right and saving people trumps the glory of victory.

Just seems sad that they had an army of talented people behind the film and a massive budget but the feeling is that the cartoon versions of Superman were so much better than what we got from the live action movie. In this age of body count being so important I'd rather have something like Superman from Superman vs The Elite to show kids that strength and being the good guy can be more than a pile of dead bad guys.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

Not being a Superman fan to begin with, I find all I wanted out of the movie was more ways for the man of steel to hit things as if he were made of steel. I wanted to see someone punch him and near enough break their hand, and I wanted to see someone get hit with something as if it were a baseball bat. I got both accounts, and was going to hold "train engine as baseball bat" as the hallmark for quite some time, but Pacific Rim came out only a few weeks later and they used a cargo ship, which is amazingly better. I weary of Superman as some sort of mythical force of unending good, and I like the idea that he had to kill Zod--because holy shit, did it torment him. Twice in his life, when he's had the power to do otherwise, he's had to let someone die. If I were a betting man, I'd say it would be these things that act as a catalyst to his mania about saving everyone all the time. The best scenes in the movie were when Supes had a moment of fun using his powers (skewering the truck with the poles), and it reminds me that, for a character who's that strong, he sure doesn't seem to enjoy being that strong very much.

How often does he just fly up and scare the crap out of a bird, or try and beat his best time around the world? How often does he just rear back and throw something to the moon, or try and bat something out of the atmosphere? Why doesn't he just have some fun with his powers, instead of needing to be the rigid moral policeman always out to save people? Spider-man can rock the idea that Great Power Comes Great Responsibility, but I'd love to see the similarly colored Superman give a giant whoop or a fantastic yell as he freefalls towards the Earth, only to pull out of the dive at the last second. He has all this power, yet feels burdened by it.

Though, it was funny as all hell when he decided to headbutt the giant gravity laser. No fists, just a giant headbonk. Ha!

 

[Kittyhawk]

I also think in context of MoS, the destruction kinda makes sense. He's just risen to the mantle of the man, and has never fought one of his own before. When you start doing anything new, stuff gets broken and damaged first before you get a grips and master your self control, so the fight felt overwhelming and destructive for all parties.

Zod also getting to grips with adjusting to Earth's sunny climate also highlights this fact that, his power is increasing gradually before the mighty smack down. It was fun to see him during the fight, adjust to jumping then flying, and with his rage came a degree of self control and realizing 'sweet, I can do the same shit he can, round one fight.'

Speaking of 9/11 on 9/11, don't let the symbolism get to you. Its really just highlighting that we are all only as safe as our minds let us believe. Digressing a bit and remember (writing this on 9/11/13), 9/11 was the seed born of poor foreign policy and too much world policing. It needed not have happened were the U.S smarter and learned from British mistakes in empire building and how to correct them properly.

Back on things Superman, I'm looking forward to the sequel and the tale being given the kind of breathing space that Batman got from its trilogy.

 

[Silverspetz]

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 it doesn't do a vary good job of it. It TRIES to be more thought provoking but falls flat every time. It TRIES to paint Jonathan Kent as some great wise man who understands what Clark needs and is even willing to sacrifice his life for it, but he just comes of as a suicidal idiot. It TRIES to paint Superman killing Zod as some great moment of character development but they forgot to establish WHY this Superman would have a massive problem with killing one to save many others, and they outright ignored to show him DEALING with this thing that was supposed to a huge trauma for him. A few seconds of seeing him sob in Luis' arms and then in the next scene he is fine. It also has a huge problem with tone as it keeps TALKING about how Superman is meant to be this symbol of hope that will lead humanity to greatness by example, but the tone shits all over that by having Superman brood all the fucking time. If they want to take the character in another direction then fine, but when you have a movie that SAYS it is about one things but puts something completely different on screen, you just have a bad movie. Then there are just the technical flaws like an annoying shaky-cam in scenes that absolutely doesn't need them, really clunky and awkward dialogue and characters that just act outright idiotically at times. Having characters who brood all the time or quotes famous texts doesn't make a movie deep. Unless they also back it up and make it MEAN something it just makes it pretentious.

"Avengers" on the other hand, doesn't try for anything particularly thought-provoking, but it does everything right as far as screenplay and general filmmaking does. The dialogue it fun and matches the characters perfectly, the cast has killer chemistry and every single scene whether it is action or dialogue is perfectly paced and acted. THAT is why it is a better movie overall, because it knows exactly what it wants to be and therefore it can take a simple plot and bring it to the big screen almost flawlessly. "Man of Steel" is a movie with some big ideas but no idea whatsoever about what it really wants to be, and so it falls flat in execution.

 

[SuperScrub]

That's right Moviebob irrationally hate some more, feed me your fanboy hatred and rage. It only makes me stronger!

OT: In all seriousness maybe you should just let the movie go. It's only going to make you miserable and cause your heart rate to go up and that's bad for you.

 

[JimB]

We are saying that once he [expressed his opinion], he could move on to other subjects instead of repeating it constantly. We already know his opinion: He already said it. How about moving on?

And I'm saying, why are any of the above statements somehow more applicable to Mr. Chipman than to his detractors?

 

[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 it doesn't do a vary good job of it. It TRIES to be more thought provoking but falls flat every time. It TRIES to paint Jonathan Kent as some great wise man who understands what Clark needs and is even willing to sacrifice his life for it, but he just comes of as a suicidal idiot. It TRIES to paint Superman killing Zod as some great moment of character development but they forgot to establish WHY this Superman would have a massive problem with killing one to save many others, and they outright ignored to show him DEALING with this thing that was supposed to a huge trauma for him. A few seconds of seeing him sob in Luis' arms and then in the next scene he is fine. It also has a huge problem with tone as it keeps TALKING about how Superman is meant to be this symbol of hope that will lead humanity to greatness by example, but the tone shits all over that by having Superman brood all the fucking time. If they want to take the character in another direction then fine, but when you have a movie that SAYS it is about one things but puts something completely different on screen, you just have a bad movie. Then there are just the technical flaws like an annoying shaky-cam in scenes that absolutely doesn't need them, really clunky and awkward dialogue and characters that just act outright idiotically at times. Having characters who brood all the time or quotes famous texts doesn't make a movie deep. Unless they also back it up and make it MEAN something it just makes it pretentious.

"Avengers" on the other hand, doesn't try for anything particularly thought-provoking, but it does everything right as far as screenplay and general filmmaking does. The dialogue it fun and matches the characters perfectly, the cast has killer chemistry and every single scene whether it is action or dialogue is perfectly paced and acted. THAT is why it is a better movie overall, because it knows exactly what it wants to be and therefore it can take a simple plot and bring it to the big screen almost flawlessly. "Man of Steel" is a movie with some big ideas but no idea whatsoever about what it really wants to be, and so it falls flat in execution.

It didn't paint Jonathan Kent as a wise man, just a dad trying to do the right thing as his son.

Superman killing Zod is a great character development. He'd just killed the only other member of his race, and he killed someone. This was a gentle farm boy, I'm pretty sure if you had to kill someone you'd be pretty traumatised. I'm sure this will be character development in the next film. No one knocks TDK for Batman killing Two-Face then having no character development afterwards.

Superman was inspiring to me at least, but yeah that's just personal opinion.

Superman didn't brood at all. He's nothing like Batman in TDK trilogy who was a very broody character.

Avengers was forgettable although enjoyable. Man of Steel I loved so much that I've got it pre-ordered on DVD, but it's all opinion I guess, you prefer bubblegum fanboy crap, I prefer Man of Steel.

 

[wsmieszek]

Too many episodes of this series do not deserve "...and that's the Big Picture" at the end. Because it isn't. This has became increasingly alike an appendix for the other show rather than an exploration of macro issues surrounding pop culture it set out to be.

 

[Britisheagle]

Agree with most of what was said, I liked the film, didn't love it, mainly due to the fact Superman must have killed THOUSANDS by the time the end fight was done and yet it was that little family that drove him to kill Zod. I mean; WHAT?

I don't, however, agree that Star Trek 2 was a terrible movie. It had some awful pointless parts but overall it was interesting, fun and visually stunning to watch.

 

[Zetatrain]

I just rewatched a few scenes from the film. Zod says his been preparing for 33 years give or take until Clark conveniently activated the distress beacon on that ship in the ice.
How old was that ship in the ice? hundred? thousands of years? it was at least hundreds .They mentioned it- can't remember exactly.

So this spacefaring species of at least hundreds of years of experience that has many off world colonies, didn't make them self sustaining? They made world engines to teraform planets to make them habitable. Because transporting food across planets is the dumbest thing you could do. They have so many world engines Zod finds one lying around. Yet everyone is dead.

This is what you call a contrivance. The needed Zod to get his hands on a 'world engine' and weapons when he escaped prison, so they made up some rubbish about off world colonies that all conveniently died out in 1-3 decades but left a working world engine. Eventhough none of that makes sense.

There are small plotholes in movies like ' why didn't a character just do this', but this one is the foundation of everything that happens in the movie.

Those colonies were terraformed, but is possible that in the long run those colonies couldn't self sustain themselves due to there being too much of a difference between characteristics of the planet's original state and the environment they tried to create.

As a result they couldn't produce enough food or resources necessary to survive and relied on Krypton for help. Krypton provides help at first hooping that the colonies will eventually sort themselves out but as time goes on Krypton's own resources become strained and they abandon the colonies.

Just because they made a planet habitable it doesn't mean that something didn't go wrong with the planet's environment as time went on. From what I understand there is a limit to how far you can change the characteristics of a planet. If I remember correctly Earth resembled Krypton more than any other planet Zod knew of and therefore had the best chance of being terraformed and being sustainable in the long run.

Now granted I will admit that if Krypton did indeed have hundreds of these colonies at one point then it is a stretch to say that out of a hundred not one of these planets was suitable enough to sustain the habitable environment created by the terraforming process. It also kinda makes them seem incredibly incompetent.

Also, did Zod know the exact location of all the colonies or did he just come across the ones in his travels by chance?

 

[Silverspetz]

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 it doesn't do a vary good job of it. It TRIES to be more thought provoking but falls flat every time. It TRIES to paint Jonathan Kent as some great wise man who understands what Clark needs and is even willing to sacrifice his life for it, but he just comes of as a suicidal idiot. It TRIES to paint Superman killing Zod as some great moment of character development but they forgot to establish WHY this Superman would have a massive problem with killing one to save many others, and they outright ignored to show him DEALING with this thing that was supposed to a huge trauma for him. A few seconds of seeing him sob in Luis' arms and then in the next scene he is fine. It also has a huge problem with tone as it keeps TALKING about how Superman is meant to be this symbol of hope that will lead humanity to greatness by example, but the tone shits all over that by having Superman brood all the fucking time. If they want to take the character in another direction then fine, but when you have a movie that SAYS it is about one things but puts something completely different on screen, you just have a bad movie. Then there are just the technical flaws like an annoying shaky-cam in scenes that absolutely doesn't need them, really clunky and awkward dialogue and characters that just act outright idiotically at times. Having characters who brood all the time or quotes famous texts doesn't make a movie deep. Unless they also back it up and make it MEAN something it just makes it pretentious.

"Avengers" on the other hand, doesn't try for anything particularly thought-provoking, but it does everything right as far as screenplay and general filmmaking does. The dialogue it fun and matches the characters perfectly, the cast has killer chemistry and every single scene whether it is action or dialogue is perfectly paced and acted. THAT is why it is a better movie overall, because it knows exactly what it wants to be and therefore it can take a simple plot and bring it to the big screen almost flawlessly. "Man of Steel" is a movie with some big ideas but no idea whatsoever about what it really wants to be, and so it falls flat in execution.

It didn't paint Jonathan Kent as a wise man, just a dad trying to do the right thing as his son.

Superman killing Zod is a great character development. He'd just killed the only other member of his race, and he killed someone. This was a gentle farm boy, I'm pretty sure if you had to kill someone you'd be pretty traumatised. I'm sure this will be character development in the next film. No one knocks TDK for Batman killing Two-Face then having no character development afterwards.

Superman was inspiring to me at least, but yeah that's just personal opinion.

Superman didn't brood at all. He's nothing like Batman in TDK trilogy who was a very broody character.

Avengers was forgettable although enjoyable. Man of Steel I loved so much that I've got it pre-ordered on DVD, but it's all opinion I guess, you prefer bubblegum fanboy crap, I prefer Man of Steel.

1)And he still went about it in a way that made him look like a suicidal idiot.

2)Those are all reasons YOU came up with. The movie did nothing to establish either of them. Yes, Zod was the last member of his race, but the movie never established that this Superman put any particular value in that, and he didn't seem very torn up about all the other Kryptonians he just got rid of either so it is not a valid reason. And yes, he was a farm-boy and killing someone is a pretty big deal, but the movie never took the time to establish that he had been raised to believe that killing someone for any reason is always wrong so making it out to be some HUGE upset of his values doesn't work as a moment of character development. Because they never took the time to establish what his values ARE.

3)Furthermore, saying that "it will be brought up in the next movie" isn't an excuse at all. A movie needs to stand on it's own and a major upset like this isn't something you can just leave for the next movie. Not only that but the movie DOESN'T set this up like it will be important in the sequel. It doesn't end with Clark being conflicted about what he did to Zod, it just shows him sobbing for a second and then he is acting just like he did in the rest of the movie. The whole thing just comes and goes with no buildup and no payoff, and thus it lacks all the weight it pretends it had.

4)And for God's sake stop using "but this movie did it" as an excuse. Lilani is right it just makes it seem like you have no argument so you try to distract everyone instead. Even if you WERE right about it (and you are not) it wouldn't be an excuse for MoS to do it when it doesn't work. And like I said, you aren't right on that point either because TDK DID take it's time to A) Establish what Bruce sees in Harvey and why it is so important to save him, and B) Show the aftereffects of failing to save him by having Bruce take on the blame for what he did in order to preserve Harvey's reputation and legacy. (Even though that was stupid since they could have just blamed it on the Joker.)

5)Good for you. Me I find it hard to be inspired by a lot of Grey and melodrama.

6)"I believed in it so much that I let my father die"
If that isn't brooding then I don't know what is.

7)What I prefer is a diverse visual aesthetic, characters that are likable, funny, multi-layered without being pretentious, well-acted and have believable character arcs, action that is fast-paced and exciting without being blurry and painful for the eyes, and a director that LOVES what he is adapting rather than ashamed of it. You prefer Man of Steel.

Let's make this clear. You can have whatever opinion you damn well want. It is perfectly fine if you like this movie, but some opinions are more grounded in fact than others. And the facts are that MoS is a VERY flawed movie from a cinematic standpoint. Not really all that bad, but flawed and nowhere near as deep as you make it out to be. If you want to like it more than The Avengers, that's perfectly OK. If you want to claim that it is an objectively better movie than The Avengers, you better start coming up with better arguments than trying to brush of MoS's faults by claiming that better movies have made the same mistakes as if that was even relevant, or using your own headcanon as if they were established parts of the movie.

 

[endtherapture]

snip

All I'm going to say its that it's cool when you have to extrapolate, use your head a bit, and the film doesn't spoon feed you things. I don't need to know every thought in Superman's head to know what he's feeling. I don't need to be shown everything. You obviously do so this isn't the film for you with it's non-linearity. Nothing wrong with that, but it wasn't a bad film just because it required a bit of thought and subtlety in it.

I see Avengers series as fun, brainless films you can have a laugh watching.

Hopefully DC will go for a tone similar to MoS with more gravitas and seriousness, with inspiring moments.

That's cool with me, there's room for 2 franchises.

Man of Steel isn't a bad movie as you keep saying. The score was great, the acting was great, the action was flawless, the visuals and art style was great, so tone back your fanboy rage just because it wasn't the exact adaptation of Superman you wanted.

 

[IronMit]

Snip

This is mind gymnastics to justify all the randomness just so Zod would find a 'World engine' lying around.
If you have off world colonies and a device that converts planet cores in seconds then synthesising if not growing food is a peace of cake. We can do it already in the present

 

[Primus1985]

Whats with all the references to Superman 4 and it being a bad movie? That was one of the better ones IMHO. I'd like someone to tell me whats wrong with that movie.

 

[JimB]

I'd like someone to tell me what's wrong with that movie.

The love triangle was completely baseless; the villain fought with silver, Lee press-on nails; the moral of the story is that war happens because people don't wish hard enough that it won't; Superman gains powers at a whim, such as the ability to shoot rays from his eyes that cause bricks to appear in the Great Wall of China; there's a shot-for-shot remake of the flying over Metropolis scene from the first movie; and there's a scene in which the villain flies a human woman through space to the moon, none of which adversely affects her.

EDIT: Oh, and Jon Cryer is in it.

 

[RTK1576]

snip

Man of Steel isn't a bad movie as you keep saying. The score was great, the acting was great, the action was flawless, the visuals and art style was great, so tone back your fanboy rage just because it wasn't the exact adaptation of Superman you wanted.

Let's see:

1) The score was great
- That much I'll agree with, though it gets a little repetitious. Hans Zimmer rarely disappoints.

2) The acting was great.
- For severely undeveloped characters, I'd agree.

3) The action was flawless
- No. No, no, NO.
The first moments of the action were great. Then it went on and on and on. Super-powered people who punch each other without really hurting each other gets old very quickly. And the rest of the action sequences might have had more impact if we actually cared about most of the characters involved.

4) The visuals and art style was great.
- I don't dispute the visuals, though if you like your movies gray and gray this movie was a real winner. But visuals don't make up for:

A) Poor storytelling

B) A lack of emotional connection with the characters

Avengers (a movie you keep bashing) did EXACTLY what it needed to do. This movie did fine on the visceral element, but so did the Transformers movies (you know, the one where the main character is pretty much a blank slate for the movie's target demographic). MoS falters big time on the things that matter the most. It isn't deep at all - it wants you to think it is, but there's no follow-through. There's no connection. It teases you with actual dramatic meat, then gives you empty calories. It is a consummate disappointment.

So YOU can tone down your fanboy fawning because it's not the great movie you say it is.

Or we can agree to disagree.

 

[zeejaybay]

I'm as heartbroken and disappointed as Bob with a big splash of rage. This movie just did not do right by Superman and failed to capture the essence of him completely. That ending was the closest I ever gotten to screaming at the screen. Unfortunately it's only going to get worse from here on.

 

[Strazdas]

That's the thing though...

You and everyone else making the kind of complaints JimB are making aren't making "criticisms" of the actual content in the video. All you're doing is going "stop talking about this subject immediately" over and over just because he's talked about it at length, what, three times (one ETTM/two Big Pictures)? And all 3 were different; ETTM gave it more or less a positive review, Man Of Tom morrow speculated sequel opportunities, and this one was a more critical re-evaluation of a movie that even in the ETTM review he was REALLY trying to convince himself he liked (because opinions ARE allowed to change, ya know).

But of course in the age of hyperbole, everyone pretends like it's been 2/3 straight months of nothing but MOS Big Picture episodes....

Stretch out that attention span a little bit and relax already. He brings up an older movie to make a point about something else sometimes, that's it. Focus on what he's saying in terms of (for a lack of a better term) the Big Picture rather than isolate and nitpick his namedropping of a movie that apparently according to Internet rules we aren't allowed to talk about more than a week after it came out.

Yes, we did criticize the content - his Man of steel repeated hate, that lasted more than 3 episodes, because we do count the episodes where this wasn't the main theme but was still repeated, sort of similarly like how he pushes his book at the end of every movie. Yes, opinions can change, does not mean he must tell us every time he does that.
Yes, we criticize the subject of his videos, not the content, because we disagree with the need to have same subject in multiple videos. Like i said, it is his choice what he makes of this diasgreement, we didnt tell him were going to kill him for it or anything, merely that we did not enjoy him talking about this subject again.
Its not about attention span, its about repetition, we want to hear his though on a different matter in his videos, not the same matter multiple times, hence the comments.
a criticism of the video matter is still criticism.

Capcha: narrow-minded
What, capcha, you going to argue with me too?

We are saying that once he [expressed his opinion], he could move on to other subjects instead of repeating it constantly. We already know his opinion: He already said it. How about moving on?

And I'm saying, why are any of the above statements somehow more applicable to Mr. Chipman than to his detractors?

Becuase he is trying to make a show that he wants other people to watch and listen, wheras the commenters arent making a show that they want to be popular and others to listen to. they are only providing criticizm about the show, which is meant for Chipman and not made to attract readers. the context matters.