Adam Graham's Blog: Christians and Superheroes - Posts Tagged "man-of-steel"

I'm definitely feeling bearish about the new Batman-Superman movie after the report that Gal Gadot was cast as Wonder Woman.

This is no reflection on Ms. Gadot who may be a fine actress. This is more a reflection of the fact that the production team appears to be biting off far more than it can chew.

This has been behind at least a couple critically dubious superhero films.

Andrea and I liked the first Fantastic Four movie and just recently watched Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. The production crew took elements right out of the comics. Indeed, if you read Essential Fantastic Four, Vol. 3, you'll find the basis for the book's biggest plot points: The Weeding of Reed and Sue, the coming of Galactus and the Silver Surfer , and Dr. Doom stealing the Silver Surfer's powers. Each of these were great comic stories. But if you try and shove them into a movie, the result is a mess. Particularly if the film is taken up by additional concerns such as the military making fun of Reed Richards for not playing football in High School.

Same thing with Spider-man 3. While the film was actually decent in my opinion, it did have problems and chief among them was that there was too much going on: We had Peter wanting to get married, Harry Osborn (the New Goblin) getting amnesia and regaining his memory, the Sandman appeared and Peter found out the Sandman was the one who really killed Uncle Ben, and you had the Venom symbiote merging with Peter and then fighting with Peter.

You had way too much going on and that led to some weak points such as the battle with Venom were not really treated like they deserved.

Compare these films to the recent Disney produced Marvel films. They're all fairly straight forward in terms of plots with the notable exception of Iron Man 2 which was the worst of them. The individual movies knew it was their job to create a movie origin for the main character. The Avengers took four featured characters we already knew and had them fight one villain we also already knew and developed the relationship between them

The problem as I see it with this new project is you have way too many elements . Here are the things the movie needs to do:

1) Establish what normal is for Superman, something we didn't get from Man of Steel

2) Introduce the new Batman to audience.

3) Introduce Wonder Woman and her origins

4) Introduce the villain

5) Set up the villain's plot and execute it. And that plot has to be big enough that all thee heroes are needed to take it on.

There is no way that they're going to do all these things and do to them well, even in a 3 hour movie.

Of course, viewers of The Avengers will recall that the Black Window (i.e. Natasha Romanoff) was introduced with very little fanfare or plot digression as was Hawkeye (Clint Barton).

With respect, neither one of these characters is Wonder Woman. It was possible to give them short shrift because they're not well know outside of comic book fans. However, Wonder Woman is one of DC's flagship character who along with Superman and Batman is the only character to have been starring in her own magazine without interruption since the 1940s.

She also has a big fan base that will expect her to get a lot of attention. Unless, she appears at the end of the movie after the action in a cameo that will set up her own film, the producers have really set themselves up for a lose/lose situation here.

Speculative Faith posted it's Eight Part Series on The Man of Steel with E Stephen Burnett and Austin Gunderson singing the praises of the 2013 film. I posted my series on the versions of Superman, and that's all background for this post on The Man of Steel.

It's an interesting series that shows their dedication and thought to the topic and it's a good collaboration. And I have to admit they make some good points. Still, I think they may overstate a few things and understate a few others, so I'll offer my thought.

I originally wrote my review for Man of Steel on Caffeinated Thoughts and I enjoyed the film. I thought there were some superb performances particularly Amy Adams as Lois, who played her as really heroic. The parts on Krypton were superb. They really had to work to tell a story that has become so incredibly familiar to Americans.

However, I had the same problem many had with the film: Superman's lack of protection for the innocent and the killing of Zod. The difference is how I viewed the movie and Superman. While I didn't care for these elements, the positives of the film made up for them, but for others they were dealbreakers. I thought and still think the good points of the movie far outnumber of the bad.

I kept in mind there are many different versions of Superman. No one portrayal can capture them all and this film captured Superman's overall decency as well as his willingness to sacrifice himself to save Earth. There was even a hit of the Golden Age Superman's more rowdy personality when Clark Kent did a number on the truck of the guy who was harassing the waitress.

Still, that's where much of the debate was centered and I didn't really go into my thoughts, because I was only writing a brief film review for CT, so I'm going to offer my extended thoughts.

My objection to killing him Zod was different. Given the circumstances, killing Zod was understandable maybe even necessary because that was the position the screenwriters put him in. However, I have a problem with doing this in the first movie because it really raises a lot of questions for the Man of Steel.

The point is made that Superman did kill Zod in Superman II. Emphasis on II. Superman: The Movie established how Superman normally worked and how he usually did things and preferred to. Then Superman II pushed him outside of what he preferred to do. John Byrne also had Superman kill Zod in the Comics, but this didn't happen in the early comics, Byrne established the status quo and then pushed Superman over the edge. It'd be fair for the viewer to wonder is killing the villain going to be always on the table. That may be more specifically addressed in the next film, but doing it in film one is awkward.

The explanation for why Zach Snyder had Superman kill Zod beggars belief because Snyder though the reason why Superman has a "no killing rule." Apparently in the twenty-first century, that he was raised to be a decent person and has a strong moral code isn't enough explanation. You need to have killed to have a rule against killing. Of course, most people have a "no killing rule" without having snapped anyone's neck.

The second problem is more substantive and that was the lack of care for bystanders and effort to get Zod away from populated areas, even when efforts could have been made to do so.

It was part of the Man of Steel that played into my story Ultimate Mid-life Crisis when a villain mocked Powerhouse's concern for innocents who would have been harmed by his scheme, I’ve been to the movies. Bystanders are cannon fodder to you super gods.”

It was an awesome spectacle, but it felt like Zod and Superman were battling Greek gods and the tiny mortals of Metropolis and Smallville were ants and individually irrelevant to the battling titans including the good guy.

Comic Book legend Mark Waid, who wrote some of the source material on which the movie was based, eloquently suggests that Superman's lack of effort to save people undermined the death of Zod:

...I realized that it wasn’t so much my uncompromising vision of Superman that made this a total-fail moment for me; it was the failed lead-up TO the moment. As Superman’s having his final one-on-one battle with Zod, show me that he’s going out of his way to save people from getting caught in the middle. SHOW ME that trying to simultaneously protect humans and beat Zod is achingly, achingly costing Superman the fight. Build to that moment of the hard choice…show me, without doubt, that Superman has no other out and do a better job of convincing me that it’s a hard decision to make, and maybe I’ll give it to you.

Waid goes on to explain that we don't just expect Superman to save us, we expect him to protect us. "Once he puts on that suit, everyone he bothers to help along the way is pretty much an afterthought, a fly ball he might as well shag since he’s flying past anyway, so what the hell."

In essence, Waid says, "If you want me to buy that Superman killed Zod because he cared about preserving life than you have to show some effort to preserve life in the course of the prior forty minutes."

You can find justification for Superman killing, but not for failing to save life. Unless Superman's under the influence of Red Kryptonite, there's no precedent to support his indifference to "the little people" of the world. It's a fundamental violation of character. It's not enough to overwrite everything good about the movie, but it's also a problem. And it's not enough to merely say, "It'll be fodder for people to debate in the next movie, just like people are debating it outside the movie." It's a violation of character whether you're talking TV, Cartoons, Comics, or other medium. It's a legitimate point.

The best that could be offered what a footnote pointing out that Superman and the Kryptonians had a similar free-for-all in Superman II. This isn't argument that Burnett and Gunderson pursue but it has been on the Internet and it's worth responding to. You can watch the Superman II scene on You Tube.

There are several big differences between the scene in Superman II and Man of Steel. First, the tone of the movie and of the fight. While, there's peril there, it's ultimately minimal sort of fantasy comic book violence with a light tone and people standing in the street cheering Superman on as he punches out Zod. To use Superman II to defend Man of Steel's actions feels like trying to have you cake and eat it too. Because they've defended Man of Steel for taking death far more seriously than Superman II. You can't then turn around and say, "It was okay for Superman to put people's lives in danger in Man of Steel because he did it in Superman II." Because you're comparing risk to civilians in a realistic film v. one that took death and risk to human life about seriously as an episode of the A-Team. And even then, Superman is far more engaged in protecting lives in Superman II than he is in Man of Steel.

In many ways, my feelings on Man of Steel are not unlike my feelings on Spider-man 3. I enjoyed the film, but there were serious flaws such as the way Venom was handled, the length of the movie, and some of the silly and stupid things in the movie. That doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it, but it does mean there are some serious flaws for the film and I think the same applies to Man of Steel.

I also think that Burnett and Gunderson do give short shrift to concerns have about the tone of the movie. While it wasn't overwhelming to me, I get where people are coming from.

The idea they offer is that people have drawn a limited idea of what Superman is supposed me from Superman: The Movie and there are many ways to portray Superman. Still, people have expectations of a production with Superman in it.

They expect something lighter, brighter and uplifting. That's been ingrained from childhood from 1940s Comic Strips to the 1950s TV show to the Super Friends to the Superman movies to Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman to Superman: The Animated Series. There may be some direct to video releases that were as dark as Man of Steel (Superman: Doomsday stands out) but that's the exception.

While they're right that films can deviate from expectations, they have to do so with caution. You could make a version of The Pink Panther that made Inspector Clouseau a hard-boiled serious character. You could do it well and the new Pink Panther would be a brilliant neo-noir Story. However, no matter how good of a noir thriller it was, it'd be a story that fans would be under no obligation to like or enjoy because it'd be such a radical departure from what people loved about Clouseau.

The same can be true of Superheroes and Superman in particular. Films are a service industry. When people go to the movies, they're expecting an experience. If they're looking for a movie to be hopefully and they leave feeling it's joyless, they'll be upset and that explains a lot of the reaction to the film.

Of course, as I've said, I did enjoy it and I still stand by that. But I also said I was looking forward to the sequel. Do I still feel that way? I'll continue that in my next piece.