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Rob Bricken v. Man of Steel


Not quite as funny as his takedown of Transformers because the source material was better here, but still funny.  The bit about the children on the bus is probably the best.  

I still think Man of Steel was great, though.  

Comments

  1. I really liked man of steel. I'll go watch the sequel on opening weekend.

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  2. I'm a huge Superman fan, but I've yet to have the heart to see Man of Steel. I've read about the big, pivotal spoiler near the end of the movie and I'm sorry. That's just not my Superman. I don't want to see a movie that has that kind of Superman.

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  3. I've been a HUGE Superman fan all of my life, and I didn't have a problem with it. It's been mentioned (and also argued over) here before, but it's not the first time Superman did what he did at the end of the movie, on the big screen or in comics.


    It happened in Superman II, it happened in the post-Crisis Byrne era in the comics, and it'll probably happen again in the New 52. And having seen the movie, emotionally, it made perfect sense to me as a moment.

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  4. I felt like he was trying too hard with this one, maybe because I actually saw this movie as opposed to the Transformers takedown (which had me in stitches). I believe he did one of these for Green Lantern, too, which I thought was spot on. The Man of Steel piece though was more eyeroll-inducing than anything else.

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  5. You can name less than half a dozen examples throughout the 75 year history of the character where the character did it. I can name tens of thousands of examples throughout that same history where he didn't. And that's my whole point. There are far too few instances to call it a precedent.


    Superman should be better than that. He should always find a better way to deal with it. There are heroes out there already who solve problems that way. Superman shouldn't be one of them.

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  6. Hey were you reading that AV Club comment thread too?

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  7. It's not like he didn't do the same EXACT thing in Superman 2 or anything.

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  8. There was an article that had a funny line of Superman standing for "Truth, Justice, and the Americans that got in the Way."

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  9. The point that I was making, though, is that in the past, the same action was used as a way to MAKE HIM better than that. "Holy crap, what did I just do?!? I can never do that again!" And my interpretation of the scene is that they can very easily make that point. Man of Steel was an origin story, and the ending will hopefully set up his moral code for future films.


    Again, many of your tens of thousands of examples (especially anything that came after 1986), the reason why he found another way was that one time he didn't. You may dislike the fact that it happened, but it doesn't change the actuality that it did.


    If Man of Steel 2 has him punching his fist through people's hearts to solve his problems, then you are absolutely right, it's atrocious, but the end of this movie isn't a defamation of the character at all. IN my opinion, of course...

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  10. It should be pointed out that Zod was NOT killed at the end of Superman 2.

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  11. Zod had his powers taken away, one hand crushed to powder, then Supes picked him up over his head and threw him down a nigh-bottomless trench.


    And you're saying he lived. Really.

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  12. In the Richard Donner cut there is a deleted scene showing he lived. I know it wasn't in the original version but I always lean toward the directors original vision.

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  13. It clearly wasn't DONNER's intention to kill Zod off, but was originally shown in theaters (and survived as the only official version of Superman II for 2 decades was basically Superman killing Zod. And then smirking.

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  14. Deleted scene = didn't happen.

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  15. I'm really bitter about the new Superman movie, I loved the human elements I thought the Superman parts were passable, but they didn't update him for the 21st century to give the franchise any legs to be a legitimate draw in the long-term. A touch of realism of logic if such a person were to live on this planet needed to be implemented and the 'wearing glasses' being a journalist thing just killed the whole movie for me, playing the audience as IDIOTS again. The 21st century is defined by technology and social media.... how long would it exactly take for ANYONE to figure out that Clark is Superman? It's ridiculous, dumb and insulting.... he spends his whole time prior trying to not get found out moving from isolated job to job with fake identities and moves on.... then goes to work for the biggest nosiest newspaper in the world... ONCE Superman is apparent to the planet. I just did a STUPID STUPID STUPID Randy Orton rant at the end of the movie. So basically Superman is STILL the same boring one dimensional guy he always was, a relic of the 20th century, where he belongs.

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  16. It made perfect sense to you as a moment? That a guy who has just participated in the destruction of an entire city, killing at least tens--if not hundreds--of thousands of people, while making no effort to save innocent bystanders, is so desperate to save the lives of these four people that he violates his moral code and executes Zod? Was it really those four that broke the camel's back after the innumerable thousands? If life is so precious why not, say, kill Zod BEFORE your fight with him destroys an entire city and kills hundreds of thousand of people? Even if we accept that Superman will kill under the most extreme of circumstances, that moment was totally and completely unearned in Man of Steel given Superman's demonstrated lack of regard for human life in his fights in Smallville and Metropolis. It was just plain bad storytelling.

    And to say that Superman 'had' to under the circumstance, regardless of the laughable inconsistency I've pointed out, acts as though these events really happened and weren't the product of writers. They could've simply chosen to NOT put Superman in a position where he 'had' to. In fact, in the original script, he didn't. He sent Zod back to the Phantom Zone with the others. Because it's fiction, and in fiction, that's what Superman would do. He'd find the 'third option' that saves the day, because he's Superman and that's what he does. But Snyder found that ending too unsatisfactory, so he and Goyer cooked up the new ending against Nolan's protests. To say that Superman 'had' to completely absolves the writers. They went out of their way to make him 'have' to because they explicitly wanted a movie where Superman kills.

    Snyder's rationale to Nolan is that we've shown the nuts and bolts of everything that makes Superman Superman, but we haven't shown why he doesn't kill. So, let's have him kill Zod, and be so broken up about it that he won't kill anymore. Wait, what? Is Snyder a sociopath? Does one have to first kill in order to find out whether they like it or not? I don't know about you guys, but after I killed my first homeless guy, I was like, that's it for me. Never again. It's such a bullshit rationale that exists solely to justify Snyder's desire to see Superman kill. And to do so indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of the character that taints the entire movie. Superman didn't need his parents gunned down in front of him, or to be indirectly responsible for his uncle's death in order to fight crime. He does it because he's a good person. That is what makes Superman unique and interesting amongst the pantheon of superheroes.

    Do we live in such an ass-backwards fucked up world that the thought of someone not being corrupted by absolute power, and instead using it to save us, is unrealistic? Stop the planet spinning for a second, because I want to get off.

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  17. This post is actually the first I've heard about the alternate ending with the Phantom Zone, and the change because it wasn't "satisfactory." Maybe I haven't been reading up as much as I thought I was. Would I have preferred that ending? Yes, but I also don't have a problem with the movie as presented.

    In terms of the fight scene through Metropolis, I wasn't a fan. I don't know how anyone can be all that comfortable with it post-9/11, honestly, but as I watched the movie, I assumed that people were evacuating, minimizing the damage. Yes, they should have shown that to make it less uncomfortable, but I'm OK letting my imagination give a better life to the people in the movie.



    Like I said, I'm looking forward to seeing where the new DC theatrical universe goes, and I was OK with the way Man of Steel set that up, but I get the points of others saying they didn't like it.

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  18. The "dark and tortured" line had me rolling, as well as the argument about Zod moving his eyes, and "Stay here until Russell Crowe shows up!"

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