This is very important to note. Superman generally doesn’t kill in the comics, but when he does, it’s the end of the character. “Whatever happened to the Man of Tomorrow” ended the silver age Superman. Byrne’s “Superman 22” left the character insane and he quit as a superhero. “The Death of Superman” (obviously) killed the character as he murdered Doomsday.
This is a big problem for me in MOS, because his act of murder actually begins his career instead of ending it. He snaps Zod’s neck without any apparent build up of his “no kill rule”, and he’s perfectly fine by the next scene. No consequences whatsoever.
That’s very morbid for a movie that outright calls it’s character a “Symbol of Hope”.
Nice. Reeves is personally my favorite actor who’s played Superman. He got the silver age duality of the character, and brought a lot of warmth to the part. 30 years later it’s still surprising to see Gene Hackman in the movie. An actor of his caliber giving off such good snark and comic delivery. Very fun.
I know, which is why I had issues with the otherwise good interpretation done by Burton.
Byrne! (Picture me saying that the same way that Kirk said “Khan!”). I do get your point about establishing the characters code versus killing and then having it become the catalyst for a third film in a trilogy when he does. I still would not have like it, but it would have been better storytelling. My feeling, however, is that a good story can neutralize Zod without killing him, or even some deus ex machina. Superman II establishes a way of removing Superman’s powers, and then turns the table on the villains. And while it doesn’t matter for movie trilogies, now Zod is alive and can find a way to either re-establish himself without powers or regain his powers. Win-Win.
I could live with him killing Zod; what I did not like about MoS is he did not even make a token effort to protect the people of Smallville and Metropolis. I would have liked some scenes of him at least trying to take the fighting away from the populations or him stopping to help someone.
Hawkeye disabled Loki by knocking him into Stark Tower, where the Hulk took him down for good. Black Widow hijacked a skiff and closed the portal while the heavies were holding back the invasion. They both used their skills to great effect, I thought. Hell, Black Widow was the one who actually stopped the invasion in its tracks.
That’s what makes the Marvel movies so much more enjoyable than Man of Steel and most of the other DC movies: Marvel knows how to use its supers well. Heavies like Iron Man and Thor use their powers in novel ways, rather than just punching buildings down. Lightweights like Hawkeye and Black Widow use their stealth to get things done. Cap’s most useful talent is that he’s a fantastic leader and strategist; he handed out orders to the team to make the best use of their skills, and they listened to him.
Contrast with Man of Steel: Superman broods, makes some sonic booms while flying around, and has a series of boring fights wherein he punches another super and they fly backwards and cause lots of collateral damage. Rise, repeat. Yawn.
In the fight in Smallville, he intercepted Faora before she killed the 2nd fighter pilot, hit her again just before she killed Col. Hardy, and caught a random gunner when he fell from his gunship. But yeah, he was still too carefree about collateral damage - tackling Faora into Pete’s IHOP was just plain irresponsible.
But the ending to Superman II is more problematic than you remember, at least depending on which cut of the film you’re talking about. In the original cut, after Superman tricks the trio into depowering themselves, he straight up murders all three of them, throwing them into the misty chasms of the Fortress of Solitude. A later TV cut restored some cut footage, which shows the Kryptonians weren’t killed by the fall, and are being arrested, which isn’t so bad, but wasn’t even hinted at in the original cut. The worst, for my money, is the recent Director’s Cut, that’s meant to restore the film back to the way the original director, Richard Donner, wanted it. In the ending of that one, he kills the Kryptonians, then reverses time again so that none of the event in the movie take place, making the entire exercise a blatant waste of time.
Although, I think that might be the one version of the film that doesn’t feature Superman’s Date Rape Kiss superpower, so it’s got that much going for it, at least.
I just watched the Director’s Cut for the first time, but I was multi-tasking during the chasm sequence. I thought he trapped them there, but I could easily be wrong. I did hate the reversing time thing (hated it in the first movie and hated it being brought back), though it does undo the killing them.
Random question, but how do you guys think the character development compares in both movies?
Me and I my friend were debating about it, and he felt that the characters in STM had no development, while I argued that Clark was developed in the Smallville portion of the movie (as well as with his relationship to Lois)
I wanted to get some opinions on that aspect of the film
STM had plenty of development, pretty much every conversation with Pa Kent advanced the character in some way, with his death being hugely influential.
MoS had less character development of Clark, with Pa Kent’s chief impact not relating to his morals or using his powers for good, but raising him to never trust the government, media, and to some extent humanity in total.
A product of the times, and probably not bad advice. I think Jonathan Kent in MoS knew how Clark was going to turn out, he was just trying to temper him to keep him from being too naive about the world at large.
I can barely remember Superman, but it is certainly better than Man of Steel which I thought was one of the most disappointing movies, that I had looked forward to, for several years. All I can remember of* Man of Steel* is interminable fight scenes between invulnerable, indestructible beings.
That’s what a lot of people go to superhero movies for - basically wrestling with CGI. What MoS missed out on is more of Clark enjoying his powers, STM had sprinkled throughout the film (racing the train and beating Brad to his house “I ran”, his pretending to faint during the mugging with Lois). There’s a vibe in the earlier one that Clark enjoys helping people and being powerful, a joy we don’t see much of in MoS.
Now that you mention it…Man of Steel and the recent Batman movies do seem to feature characters who hate what they do (in contrast to Downey’s Iron Man, for example). I can understand it for Batman, with all the brooding and junk, but character angst gets tiresome, at least for me, and was a sour note in Raimi’s Spider-Man movies.
I’ll mull it over some, but it occurs to me that super-heroes who enjoy being super-heroes (even if their enjoyment is expressed in violence and/or sadism) are more watchable.
Well, I really enjoyed MoS. Didn’t care for StM much. I watched it because I’ll watch any super hero movie, but it was way too childish and cheesy.
I think it’s better for the young Clark to feel some pain and fear with his abilities, and want to be just like a normal kid. A super child with amazing powers is just asking for a demented despot who gets revenge on everyone who every hurt him (emotionally).
MoS’s dad told him punching the other kid wouldn’t make him feel any better, and it’s understood he’d have killed him. So, there’s your “I’m from Kansas!” moment. He doesn’t kill, and he screamed and cried a bit when he was forced to kill Zod. Zod did force him, too. Zod existed purely to serve his people and his people were gone. He wanted to die.
I liked when the soldiers lowered their weapons and the general guy said “he’s not our enemy.” It’d have been better if he’d said something more like, “he’s one of us” or “that’s our boy, cover him!” or something.
I also don’t like the “turn back time” thing, but I want to point out that the Donner Cut of Superman II presents it as he originally intended it as if the first movie was also as he originally intended it. In which case the “turn back time” ending ONLY would have happend in the second movie.
The two films were originally planned to shoot concurrently, Donner filmed most of Superman II before S:TM went into post-production. “Turn back time” was planned to be the end of Superman II and was not the planned ending for S:TM.
The Salkinds (the producers) then got cold feet on the whole “film both movies at once” plan and they decided a first film should be completed and released, putting the second movie on hold until they could evaluate the success of the first one. The planned “big ending” for S:TM was to be a cliffhanger as Zod & Co. were seen to be released from the Phantom Zone (cause by the outer space explosion of the nuclear missile that Superman thrust out of Earth’s atmosphere). The cliffhanger ending was dropped since the release of a sequel was no longer a guaranteed plan. So, they needed a new “big ending” and the Salkinds decided to reappropriate the “turn back time” ending originally planned for the sequel.
So, the inclusion of the “turn back time” ending in the Donner Cut of Superman II represents how Superman II would have been if neither of the two movies had been tampered with.
Since there is no Donner Cut of S:TM (he actually did see that movie to completion, so the movie as originally released actually is “The Donner Cut”), playing S:TM back to back with the Donner Cut of Superman II means you have to watch the same stupid ending twice. Unfortunate. But it’s not so much that they “did it again!”, it’s the “turn back time” ending sequenced as it had originally been planned.