- Jimbot
- Jul 22, 2008
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I figured I'd move my huge freaking effort post on Man of Steel from the old thread to the new thread for fun and discussion. I was going to do one of these for Batman v Superman and I took notes and everything while watching it last but I got distracted by other junk and it got lost in the shuffle. I may do one some day. The original had more formatting but here I just can't be bothered other than for the paragraph splits.
quote:When watching a movie, you have to ask yourself a basic question: what did this movie set out to say and was it successful? In watching the film you seek to find these answers. This is especially important to films based off of existing IPs due to a rich history and expectation. Does the film capture the essence of the character? If it deviated, why? How, through the film-making, does this film tell it story, convey its themes and characterization?
In this examination I hope to answer a lot of these questions you’d typically find a reviewer asking and give examples from the film on how they answered those questions and why it worked. To be upfront about it, I love this film. I have a bias towards it and its filmmaker, Zack Snyder. So I can and probably will assign more credit to the film than others without such attachment or engagement would. But on the flip side I won’t assign politics to the filmmaker that I didn’t gleam from the film itself which someone who hates the filmmaker would do. So this piece will be generally favorable to the film but in a way that I hope conveys why this film hit for me on so many levels and maybe help you see the film in a different light and introduce you to a different perspective that may give you a different appreciation of the film. At the very least, I hope this very long somewhat essay of a review will be insightful and a look into how someone who really freaking loves the film views it.
Krypton, a possible future
The opening shot is that of the hero’s birth, as early of a beginning you can get. But his birth isn’t just important as his beginning but to his origins. It introduces the core theme of this film, its entire thesis: nature vs. nurture; determinism vs. free will.
Our time on Krypton shows the ultimate fate of a society built devoid of free will and chance. The landscape scraped clean, carved out in ribbons like the bones of an animal picked clean by time, the leaders of the world wear elaborate wire-frame headdresses that look like cages, prisoners to their own traditions and status quo. The villain is a product of this society’s most base and natural conclusion – it’s not that this deterministic society that failed it, it is the actors in it that failed; the weak bloodlines, the “degenerate” bloodlines. His goal is to gain control of the “codex”, which holds the genetic data of ever person not yet born, and use it to purge those “degenerate” bloodlines to rebuild a “better” and “stronger” Krypton.
On the other end is our protagonist’s father and mother: Jor-El and Lara. They believe their people’s future is among the stars, free to choose their lot in life. Their hope is with their son, Kal, whose birth was the first natural birth in centuries and runs contrary to how children are normally born: they are created to fill a role in that society. As Jor-El puts it: “Every child was designed to fill a predetermined role in our society.” Kal isn’t shackled by that. He is free to choose who he is and what he wants to do with his life.
In an exciting sequence, Jor-El secures the codex and implants all that genetic data on Kal’s cells, literally making him Krypton’s future. Jor-El tries one last time to convince Zod of this beautiful future for Krypton but Zod, being stuck in his ways, is disgusted by this “heresy” and they fight. In this entire sequence Jor-El, a scientist, is shown to be getting the best of soldiers – people born into that role. This reinforces the idea that this society is broken and wrong. He is stronger because he believes in something better, greater and chooses to break out of role he was created to fill in his society.
Krypton’s society is a possible future for humanity, which Jor-El explains to Kal in an ancient Kryptonian scout ship later on. This society is one of environmental destruction and eugenics. A handful of people standing against it is not presented as a burden upon the unappreciated enlightened to guide this society into the light, like some Randian dream, but as the desperate attempts at some to save what they can with what little time they have. The villain, being collared to the system, takes it in the most extreme direction, simply doing the same things but with more violence, more environmental destruction and more eugenics. While the protagonist’s family take it in a radical direction, something different, something better.
A Superman without a suit
A jump to the future on Earth, an oil rig is on fire. Showing the environmental destruction on Krypton then opening on an oil rig in the first few minutes on earth really paint the film’s position of oil drilling. A voice on the radio proclaiming “forget them, they’re already dead” shows that this system ruining our world also doesn’t care about workers inhabiting it. They’re replaceable, we’ll design more of them in our economic system and put them to work on other rigs. But Kal, now christened Clark, does care and does not give up on them. He proves the voice on the radio wrong; saving all those trapped workers.
After this ordeal we learn Clark is a drifter, looking for purpose. Later on, in a flashback, Jonathan Kent, Clark’s foster father, tells him: ”Somewhere out there you have another father and he sent you here for a reason. Even if it takes you the rest of your life you owe it to yourself to find out what that reason is.” This is compounded by Clark voicing being unsatisfied with what he is doing with his life, shortly before his father’s death and his odyssey beginning.
His purpose isn’t to just save people, he wants to do more than that. Each time he uses his powers to help someone he ghosts and becomes someone new in new circumstances. The one constant between these identities is that he is doing blue-collar or service jobs where he’s around other people. He’s never shown to be holding down a job in an office or a late-shift janitorial job, he’s working with people. Each time we see him at one of his jobs he is helping someone who needs it, either in a big way like saving people from a burning rig or lending a hand to a woman being harassed by a scumbag. There is no problem too small in which Clark won’t help someone who needs it.
Jonathan Kent, the best messy dad
"Can I just keep pretending I’m your son?”
“You are my son.”
Jonathan Kent is an important character in this film. He influences Clark the most and each flashback Clark has he is the primary focus of it. Traditionally, Jonathan is Clark’s anchor to heroism. His folksy wisdom is often about how Clark needs to use his powers to help others, but Man of Steel changes this. Clark doesn’t need to be told he needs to help people, Clark is already naturally inclined to help – he does it on instinct. No, what Jonathan represents is a father with life experience and has a complex view on society.
“When the world finds out what you can do, it's gonna change everything; our... our beliefs, our notions of what it means to be human... everything. You saw how Pete's mom reacted, right? She was scared, Clark. […] People are afraid of what they don’t understand.”
Jonathan tells Clark this in a hurried, breathless manner after he said “maybe” to letting a bus full of children die to keep what he can do a secret. That “maybe” is a point of betrayal for many people but its delivery is pitch-perfect. It comes after a long pause of uncertainty and its whispered out as if Jonathan himself doesn’t believe it, but he has to say it to make his point. Jonathan, above all else, wants to protect his son’s agency; his ability to choose. Instead of an anchor to heroism he’s an anchor to free will. Every action he takes and every line of dialogue reinforces this point.
"[...]You have to decide what kind of man you want to grow up to be, Clark. Because whoever that man is, good character or bad, he’s going to change the world”
In Jonathan’s last earthly duty has a father, he dies protecting his son’s ability to choose. He sends Clark, with his mother, to the overpass to protect the people hiding under it from the tornado while he goes to save the family dog. The importance of this choice cannot be overstated. Remember the dog, we’ll come back to this later. In saving the dog Jonathan is injured and cannot make it back to safety with the others. Looking back to see if the people were safe, Clark was about to run towards his father to save him, exposing what he can do to the world. Jonathan stops him, and dies to protect Clark’s secret from the world; protecting his son’s ability to choose.
”My father believe, if the world found out who I really was, it would reject me. Out of fear. [...]I let my father die because I trusted him. Because he was convinced I had to wait. That the world was not ready.”
Lois Lane and The Superman
Our introduction to Lois Lane in this film is one as an investigative journalist who exposes herself dangerous situations to get a scoop. She talks truth to power and isn’t afraid to stand up to it. Her first words to a representative of the US military is: “Which is why I showed up today. Look, let's get one thing straight, guys, okay? The only reason I'm here is because we're on Canadian soil and the appellate court overruled your injunction to keep me away. So, if we're done measuring dicks, can you have your people show me what you found?"
In the story, she is the first person Clark opens up to and tells her his story. He takes a leap of faith with her. She drops her story and she protects his identity when her safety is threatened. Like his father, she sacrifices her well-being to protect his ability to choose. She shows Clark that humanity can be trusted and is capable of accepting him for who he is. And of all of humanity, she is special to him because just by investigating his life, she was able to completely understand him and by hearing his story, she believed in him.
”Thank you. For believing in me.”
“It didn’t make much of a difference in the end”
“It did to me.”
The film comes ahead, and the first leg of Clark’s journey is completed, when he enters an ancient Kryptonian scout ship and uploads an AI of his dead birth father, Jor-El. Here we learn of Krypton’s history, how their society fell into ruin and eventually destroyed itself and what he and his wife, Lara, hoped for him and his life on earth.
”The symbol of the House of El means hope. Embodied within that hope is the fundamental belief the potential of every person to be a force for good. That's what you can bring them.”
It is here that Clark finds what he was sent here to do and in his acceptance of this he dons the classic Superman suit and cape. The music swells as the doors to the ship opens up and emerges, into the sun, a man with a purpose: the Superman. What follows is one of the best sequences in the whole film. Clark, taking his father’s advice to push the limits of what he can do, leaps huge distances and attempts to fly before falling back to earth. In a voice over that ties his struggle to fly to the eventual struggles of humanity following him he says:
”You’ll give the people of earth an ideal to strive towards. They’ll race behind you, they’ll stumble and fall. But in time, they’ll join you in the sun, Kal. In time, you’ll help them accomplish wonders.”
In which Clark immediately takes off in flight for the first time in life, accomplishing something he didn’t think possible. One day, through struggle and failure, humanity too will accomplish something thought not possible. They now have the guiding hope to show them the way.
Martha Kent And How I Love My Mom
On a personal note, I grew up in a single parent household. My mother raised my brother and I by herself. In this film, and especially the follow up Batman v Superman, Zack Snyder treats Clark’s mother like a saint. Someone who is always there and always supportive, regardless of how the world feels. Clark’s relationship with his mother is both touching and special. In an early flashback, triggered after Clark is cast in to the ocean after saving the workers on the oil rig, is of a himself as a child having his super senses run amok. He cannot handle the stimulation and runs out of his classroom and hides in a closet. Martha arrives and helps Clark through this episodes. ”The world is too big, mom!” Clark cries out ”Then make it small. Just focus on my voice. Pretend it's an island out in the ocean. Can you see it? […] Then swim towards it, honey.” his mother comforts him with. That flashback ends with him awakening to the sound of his mother whispering his name and leads into the sound of a mother whale swimming with her calf, visualizing their special relationship.
Martha has the same fears as any parent, she tells Clark that when the world finally learns of who he is and what he can do they’ll take him away from her. Despite that she believed they’d eventually see that the truth about him is beautiful and not something to be feared. The film establishes how much Clark cherishes his mother. So much so that when she is threatened by Zod, he tackles him with reckless abandon and throws what could have been his first punch in his life. To him, she is an irreplaceable part of his life and will do anything to protect her.
”It’s only stuff, Clark. It can always be replaced.”
“But you can’t be.”
A Crisis Of Faith And of Nonlinear Storytelling
”All of these changes you are going through one day you’ll think of them as a blessing and when that day comes you’re gonna have to make a choice – a choice to whether to stand proud in front of the human race or not”
Before Clark makes any decision on what to do after Zod issues an ultimatum to Earth to hand Clark over to him, he visits a priest seeking advice. He confesses that he doesn’t trust Zod but doesn’t really trust humanity either. In the background and occupying the other half of the frame is stainglass window depicting Jesus. On top of it being memorable and striking imagery, it conflates Clark’s trials and tribulations with Jesus’s. His love of humanity, despite his mistrust, is unmistakable and comparable with one of the world’s religion’s messiah figures.
The priest offers him this advice: ”Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith first. The trust part comes later.” Something Clark already knew, but simply just needed to hear. He already took his leap of faith with Lois. He was already going to surrender to humanity.
Throughout the film there are various flashbacks and they are a point of contention with some critics and youtubers. They are seemingly placed randomly, without much thought, in the film in no particular chronological order. However, the film masterfully ties each flashback with an action that happened. Each one is either triggered by a familiar sight or sensation, a similar situation or a story being told. They show us a glimpse of Clark’s past, growing up, and the problems he faced not being born of this world and the effect his powers had on the people around him.
Before the scene with the priest in the church, Clark has a flashback of being bullied and expressing frustration on wanting to hit the bully. As with all flashbacks Jonathan is there to ask him if he did, would it have made him feel better. Despite all his frustrations that being different presents Clark, he has shown to never have taken out his frustration or anger on those people. But what triggered this flashback? The priest. The last time he came face to face with this person was when he was bullying Clark as a child, but because of our capacity for change and be a force of good and comfort, the bully become something better and was able to help Clark through his uncertainty.
The Alien And Overcoming Fear
Every fight in every film usually tells a story. Action that pushes the characters and story forward, in a way. Fights that explore and reinforce the themes of the film. The Smallville fight is such a fight. Before the fight Superman surrenders to humanity. He is framed against the bright sun and blue sky, in the middle of the day as he dictates he terms before he is taken through a sickly green hallway, handcuffed, to a holding cell. How each of the shots is lit contrasts how Superman is and how he is seen by those he surrendered to.
”You asked for the alien, you didn’t say anything about one of our own.”
Colonel Hardy says the Kryptonian representative, Faora, when she tells them Lois must come with them too. This is the attitude they all have of Clark. He’s an alien that doesn’t belong and they fear him because they cannot control him. After an exciting sequence onboard the Kryptonian ship, it leads to a huge brawl in the town of Smallville. Superman inadvertently lead Zod and the Kryptonians there after Zod threatened his mother. Here the US military does what it does best and brings effective destruction with ineffectual results. The Kryptonians annihilate them while Superman, despite also being targeted, helps the soldiers he can while trying to keep the Kryptonians at bay.
At the end of the fight, after the IHOP and Sears were destroy before they brought ruin to the local businesses, the Kryptonians retreat and Superman emerges from some rubble to the surviving soldiers who now look at him differently – as a friend. The colonel Hardy, standing in front of the US flag, proclaims ”This man is not our enemy.” after which Superman flies off to check on his mom.
Krypton’s End
While aboard the Kryptonian ship, Zod shows Clark the vision of Earth’s future… of becoming Krypton. It is built upon the bones of humanity and the complete destruction of the environment. Clark rejects this future and refuses to be part of it. He then sinks into a pile of human skulls visualizing that then he, too, will be buried with the humans he sided with. Clark was always going to go against the Kryptonians. They wear all black suits while his is in color. They were designed and created to fill a role in society, while he was naturally born. Above all else he chose to be where he is, they never known choice.
The Kryptonians send down a machine called the “world engine” that begins to terraform the planet into Krypton, with their main ship acting as an anchor on the other side of the world, on top of Metropolis. People and property are violent destroyed in its wake. Superman flies off to stop the world engine while the US military intercepts the main ship so they can drop the ship Clark arrived in to imprison the Kyrptonians back into a shadow dimension called “the phantom zone”. There the US military does what it does best and brings effective destruction with ineffectual results.
Seemingly beat by the world engine and the Kryptonian atmosphere it is created, Superman stands one last time and flies up to meet the machine to destroy it. This inspiring sequence is inter-cut with Perry White and an intern from the Daily Planet, Jenny, holding hands as she is trapped under rubble – him refusing to leave her side and potentially dying alone and scared. In that moment of kindness and solidarity it gives Superman the strength to annihilate the world engine and stopping the terraforming process, saving everyone.
”Krypton had its chance!”
This is what Superman shouts before he destroys the ancient scout ship and the artificial birthing pods contained within, piloted by Zod above Metropolis. The Krypton that destroyed its own planet, whose society gave its citizens no free will and that was in the process of colonizing earth was stopped by Superman. He rejected that society. If it was going to come about at the expense of another then it should remain gone. Moments after the plane carrying Clark’s ship crashes into the Kryptonian mother ship and everyone onboard gets sent to the phantom zone.
This entire sequences was a battle for humanity’s future. Krypton is a possible future for earth. Through a series of choices not yet made, Earth may one day become Krypton. Humanity has yet to make those choices and with Superman, may not make the same mistakes the Kryptonians did. Everyone who fought and died did so in the service of giving humanity that option to choose.
Zod, The Last Remnant of Krypton
”I exist only to protect Krypton. That is the sole purpose for which I was born. And every action I take, no matter how violent or how cruel, is for the greater good of my people.”
General Zod is not a complex character. He is dogged in his pursuit to protect his people. Every cruel and violent action he takes he uses his society’s systems to rationalize. He has no morals because the system he grew up in didn’t require him to have any – just purpose. Despite all that. Despite being a product of a society that destroyed itself, one without choices or chance, when robbed of his purpose “his soul” as he puts it… he chooses.
He chooses to violent act out against Clark and proclaim ”I’m going to make them suffer, Kal. These humans you adopted. I will take them all from you, one-by-one.” To what end and purpose? He has none but still chooses as to what to do with his life. He refutes his entire society’s dogma of determinism by having free will enough to choose violence when violence was not necessary.
What follows are two gods fighting among a city made of cards. It is brutal and destructive. Superman is inexperienced, Zod doesn’t have full mastery over his powers… yet. The buildings Superman hits Zod through are unoccupied husks near ground zero, while Zod throws him through multiple buildings, destroying a few floors in the middle of them, corner offices in the others and a lot of damage on the sides.
Superman makes mistakes, like being hyper-focused on Zod and not stopping the tanker truck when Zod kicked it towards him and being distracted by the ensuing explosion. Zod has the upper hand the entire battle and dictates the flow of it, especially when he learns to fly. Yet despite this, Zod never goes after people, like he said he would. Instead he focuses entirely on Superman. This is something I haven’t noticed before and it puts the fight in a whole different light – Zod wants to either kill or be killed by Superman. Whatever he wants to do to humanity is secondary to this goal.
The fight ends when, faced with either killing Zod or letting humans die, he snaps Zods neck after begging for him to stop. He falls to his knees and cries out, having taken a life. Zod was a genocidal fascist but even Superman valued his life and mourned what he had done. Lois arrives and comforts Superman at his must vulnerable moment in the film, mimicking how his mother was there for him when he was at his most vulnerable as a child.
Man of Steel
Man of Steel is a film about free will. At every opportunity the film shows the virtues of choice, the strength ones gets from fighting for others and ideas, and how a society without it will die. Superman, in this adaptation, does not have to be taught to help and his foster father, Jonathan, knew that. In the last flashback, we see a young Clark in a cape standing heroically over the family dog – the same one Jonathan sacrifices himself to save. To a being like Clark, humanity can seem like it’s nothing more than a pet, much like a dog is to a human. But for a human to sacrifice themselves for a dog isn’t unheard of because we can and do care deeply for them and Jonathan reinforced this value to Clark.
He is a deeply human character despite his alien origins. The film shows that he has an incredibly strong impulse to help people at the expense of himself. The moment is dons the classical Superman suit, his entire demeanor changes to that of a gentle, friendly giant. Wearing a friendly and reassuring look on his face when talking to others, to make them at ease and comfortable around him. He is also demonstrates that he belong to all of humanity, not any one nation. He tells a representative of the American empire that they will never control him and his help will be on his own terms – he won’t be involved in their imperial wars or oppression and will oppose them in the pursuit of helping others visualized by him destroying a US drone in front of General Swanwick.
Clark is an everyday guy with phenomenal powers. He’s vulnerable and needs the help of others for reassurance or to even just tell him outright what he already knows to be true – much like anyone out there. He struggles to be the perfect Superman of established and perceived canon, much like Jesus is seen as a perfect helper of humanity with no flaws. Through his trials against the Kryptonians, the harsh reality of the destruction and death those battles wrought, and the murder he had to commit showed him the limits of his power and how he has a long way to go to be the Superman people desperately want and need.
This story is about him choosing to stand proud and declare himself in front of humanity rather than to remain as a ghost where he helps people then disappears. He held crap minimum wage jobs and when he was at home he helped his mom with the dishes while watching a game and drinking a beer. He felt anger and frustration, made mistakes but has an unshakable desire to help those who need it.
In this film, he was always Superman and by its end he chose to be humanity’s Superman.
”Welcome to the Planet.”
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May 20, 2023 03:16
