Man of Steel

[Green Ranger]

Kind of, it depends on the situation. A number of times Superman has come within a hairs reach of killing someone to avoid dealing with them in the future.

Believing the means justify the ends.

Superman doesn't always look it, but a good writer will point out the constant conflict within Superman. He could kill Luthor without batting an eyelash, but that would destroy everything he was raised to believe.

It's definately not a constant theme though. It's more a case of more and more getting pushed towards extreme measures that only certain writers have really played on. It seems to show a potential that is under-utilized, at least to me.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

For all its faults, Smallville often dealt with that. It put Clark in situations where he had to realize he was a protector, not a god.

 

[Green Ranger]

For all its faults, Smallville often dealt with that. It put Clark in situations where he had to realize he was a protector, not a god.

That's one of the major redeeming qualities of Smallville, in my view. IT really introduced the idea that Superman could be a multi-faceted, complex individual.

 

[Shiuzu]

It's definately not a constant theme though. It's more a case of more and more getting pushed towards extreme measures that only certain writers have really played on. It seems to show a potential that is under-utilized, at least to me.

I will agree with you there, I can't remember which, but there was an animated JL movie that did a good job with that, something with Darkseid.

Also J. Michael Straczynski's work is pretty good. Specifically Earth One.

For all its faults, Smallville often dealt with that. It put Clark in situations where he had to realize he was a protector, not a god.

Yeah, Smallville did have its redeeming qualities.

 

[BLADE]

Re: TDKR

Batman never mastered Gotham. In the one year he was active, from his introduction in Batman Begins to his escape from the police in The Dark Knight, we never saw Gotham accept him. He was a pariah for the other 8 years. They kinda sorta accepted him in that one year, but not really. They were perfectly fine casting him aside the minute a terrorist started killing people. He wasn’t a strongman that they embraced, he was a means to convenience.

This is utter nonsense. First of all, you're using the wrong definition of master. To master does not (and certainly not my definition) imply consent. This is where the discontinuity between Begins (where Batman wants to be a symbol for the city) and the latter two films, where he resorts to force and outright deceit (together with Gordon with whom he arguably forms an informal junta) to get his aims, becomes salient. It may have shattered him emotionally on a personal level, but Batman more or less imposes his will on Gotham (problematic in terms of how it logically happened, but I'm willing to give the movie a free pass on this.)

The movie doesn't even clearly establish that what they did was wrong. Sure Blake gives a speech on it, but talk is cheap. He ultimately tacitly acquiesces to that system, helps to perpetuate it, and the movie itself does not frame this as hypocrisy or even show any real consequences for Gordon, who by all indications is still in a position of power over Gotham.

The only real dissent we see revolves around the internal authoritarian politics of Gotham as embodied by the slick, but no less authoritarian Matthew Modine.

Now, I will give you this. My biggest gripe with The Dark Knight Rises is that it didn’t focus on people. To really get the full intensity of the Joker’s misreading of Gotham in The Dark Knight, you needed the scenes on the ferries. The Dark Knight does not work without its focus on the people of Gotham. The Dark Knight Rises also needed that focus, and it didn’t have it.

That is precisely why it is a fascist work. It abstracts the people as an amorphous, often passive and weak organism that needs the guidance of its betters to come to the right conclusion, be it either from the League perspective, or from Batman's perspective. Batman rose above this in Begins by still relying on the goodness of the city, etc. and even TDK accomplished this (however leaden and technically unnecessary those scenes were.) TDKR does not.

It never dealt with the events’ impacts on people. It didn’t examine how the sacrifice of Batman and his solidification as a symbol impacted the ordinary people and moved Gotham forward. The symbol of Batman lost some meaning in the story because of that.

It lost all meaning, and Gotham never truly got the thematic resolution that it needed as a dramatic entity within the film (and let us make no mistake, Nolan consistently reified Gotham.) Remember, we discussed how Gotham could have mirrored Wayne's journey, how this could lead to a new equilibrium where the entire concept of Batman would no longer be necessarily, thus leading to at least his thematic/metaphorical death.

None of that happened.

I also don’t agree that Bane mastered Gotham. He exploited the feelings of the people in terms of how they were living a lie and not really comfortable with the status quo, but then basically made Gotham shit its pants to the point where people stayed in their homes.

Did he accomplish his goals? Did he more or less impose his will on Gotham?

The answers are yes. Ergo he mastered Gotham. There was no locus of resistance to Bane aside from the police, and that is in itself a distressing and disturbing message, particularly since the movie gave itself the choice and the chance to at any moment dramatize such a scenario. In fact, what little we saw of the people showed them invariably as opportunists, which is not really true to life (there would be some assholes and some good guys in the mix) or weak, or entirely non-existent.

Notice the street scenes after Bane takes over. There’s never anyone there other than Gordon, Blake, and other police rebels. They didn’t accept a strongman, they ran away and hoped they didn’t go boom. I see that not as an endorsement of a strongman, but as a condemnation of how revolutions can often be hijacked by people with their own agenda’s.

There's never really anyone on the streets before or after Bane. Gotham comes across as very sanitized and lifeless, save for a few scenes with Blake at the boy's home.

As for Blake’s speech about being bound by rules, I don’t view that as fascist. I view that as being central to Batman. He spoke about structures becoming shackles and how you can’t always do what’s necessary by following the rules. That’s not an endorsement of OMG HITLER, it’s an endorsement of a vigilante -- of Batman. If you disagree with that, within the realm of the story of course, I don’t see how you can accept even the premise of Batman. Whatever libertarian or constitutionalist ideals are put onto Batman in individual stories, one fact remains: he’s a vigilante who has chosen to operate outside the law because the structures of the status quo have become shackles that prevent others from saving Gotham.

All of that is relative, and at least TDK dealt with this premise of escalation. Batman is willing to go outside the law, for example, but not willing to extrajudicially kill (at least until this movie.) At the end of TDK though, he endorses what is basically a sweeping police state (how did the police so thoroughly root out the mob/all organized crime, for example?) and this structure is never challenged or overturned. Rather it becomes the new normalized median from which vigilantism then follows. Blake has already shot and perhaps killed people in the line of duty. He does not have even the same moral strictures as Wayne did.

That is my point. The movie endorses a continuum of acceptable vigilante responses (and there are contexts in which vigilantism is acceptable just as there are contexts in which it is not) that is shifted entirely to an authoritarian space. Where do you go from "the police have infallible police powers to dismantle huge organized crime which therefore implies authoritarian police powers?" What sort of space is left to a vigilante that we can still more or less morally endorse? If that was at least the point of the movie, then that would be thoughtful and novel, but the movie doesn't frame it this way, but lazily endorses it as Batman's legacy or some other trite and treacly bullshit.

Mind you, this is not getting into the failings of the movie artistically which your argument implicitly brought up, like the awful pacing that did not allow us to get a sense of Gotham's unease, that dramatized essentially no real consequences from Bane's action (did any named characters die, aside from Matthew Modine's guy?), that stepped all over itself thematically, that had choppy editing, poor sound mixing, terrible writing, especially for its female characters (true to Nolan form, all females are either temptresses, traitors, or dispensable fodder for the male hero to brood over), etc.

Seriously. TDKR is one of the worst failures in modern blockbuster cinema. The Burton Bat-films are superior. Batman Forever has a serious argument to make as a more coherent and thoughtful movie. Even Batman and Robin manages at least one scene more effectively and treats its own pathos more effectively and respectfully than TDKR, which had one of the worst and least logical endings in movie history.

And that's not getting into the plot holes, the incongruous acting moments, etc.

 

[BLADE]

That's one of the major redeeming qualities of Smallville, in my view. IT really introduced the idea that Superman could be a multi-faceted, complex individual.

Superman: The Animated Series. Seriously. Go watch it. It does an awesome job of getting Superman's emotional conflicts there. Justice League and Justice League unlimited a fortiori.

 

[Phil]

Batman: The Animated Series and Superman: The Animated series.

Can't really express how I feel about these shows other then awesomly done.

 

[Malcador]

Superman: The Animated Series. Seriously. Go watch it. It does an awesome job of getting Superman's emotional conflicts there. Justice League and Justice League unlimited a fortiori.

Especially the Justice Lord related episodes.

 

[Kaeb]

I think you're being a bit quick to judge Kaeb.

We don't know anything about the story or how it's going to be presented. Trailer's shouldn't have to do that, trailers should make you want to see the movie, then discuss how everything went. Judging it on a minute and a half of clips has always seemed stupid to me. Same with the new Star Trek teaser, there's no story in there, all it's meant to do is tell us who is good, who is bad and to drum up interest. Nowadays if I know I'm going to see a movie I'll try to avoid trailers or just not bother.

You're setting up your expectations to be something the movie might not be, then when it comes out all you'll do is disappoint yourself.

tl;dr Trying to judge the movie by the trailer is silly and why bother if you're already going to see it.

I was judging the trailer, not the movie. Pay attention.

 

[Demiurge]

Somehow I knew this trailer would have a shaky reception here.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

Actually, the only muted reception came from Pros and Kaeb. It's otherwise overwhelmingly positive.

 

[Kaeb]

Actually, the only muted reception came from Pros and Kaeb. It's otherwise overwhelmingly positive.

Alright, cool your jets Bac, we all know you've been masturbating to the trailer furiously since it's release.

I just don't like the generic ship designs, I'm not big on the glimpses of the Kryptonian designs that I've seen and the melodrama nearly gave me nausea.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

Alright, cool your jets Bac, we all know you've been masturbating to the trailer furiously since it's release.

I'm not sure why you read anything other than a statement of fact into that. o_O

 

[Kaeb]

I'm not sure why you read anything other than a statement of fact into that. o_O

It just seemed a little overly defensive, but in a casual sort of way.

 

[BLADE]

To be fair, the trailer didn't really change anything for me. I'm still expecting it to be terrible. I'm just cautiously hoping that it isn't.

Actually, one thing did change for me. Henry Cavill has more or less convinced me he's right for the role. Good casting choice.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

It just seemed a little overly defensive, but in a casual sort of way.

Eh, not particularly. Whether people like a trailer or not is a good discussion to have, because it focuses not on film quality but on marketing strategy -- which is a far more objective topic than the quality of a film.

 

[Demiurge]

I just don't like the generic ship designs, I'm not big on the glimpses of the Kryptonian designs that I've seen and the melodrama nearly gave me nausea.

I'm just going to assume you're hyper-observant, since I there were barely two scenes that even showed the ship (neither that clearly iirc), but why would you say it, and the Kryptonian designs you've seen (also ?) are generic?

 

[BLADE]

It's worth noting that the trailer itself is not necessarily a good way to judge a movie. No one expected Prometheus to be as laughably bad as it was based on the trailer, for example. Just the opposite. That's why I don't make any concrete judgments based on this trailer aside from some very impressionistic takes. It did remind me of the first half of the Superman Returns trailer, though. So take from that what you will.

Edit: Actually, some people had misgivings about Prometheus, so I'll just say that I didn't expect Prometheus to be as bad as it ended up being based off of the trailer. Seems fair.

 

[Kaeb]

I'm just going to assume you're hyper-observant, since I there were barely two scenes that even showed the ship (neither that clearly iirc), but why would you say it, and the Kryptonian designs you've seen (also ?) are generic?

The design of the Kryptonian Armour worn by Zod, the design of the ships we see throughout the trailer, the design of the ship interior we see Clark inside of, the House of El symbol he's holding looks like a prop from the first season of Smallville and the design of the ships we see throughout the trailer lack any kind of iconic design to them. I much preferred the original crystal ship designs, because they were striking and impressive. This whole thing was just bland as shit.

Although I'll agree, Cavill certainly looks the part.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

It's worth noting that the trailer itself is not necessarily a good way to judge a movie. No one expected Prometheus to be as laughably bad as it was based on the trailer, for example. Just the opposite. That's why I don't make any concrete judgments based on this trailer aside from some very impressionistic takes. It did remind me of the first half of the Superman Returns trailer, though. So take from that what you will.

Some concerns started to be raised about Prometheus, such as by Kaeb, when it became clear that the trailers were basically giving away the entire movie.

The design of the Kryptonian Armour worn by Zod, the design of the ships we see throughout the trailer, the design of the ship interior we see Clark inside of, the House of El symbol he's holding looks like a prop from the first season of Smallville and the design of the ships we see throughout the trailer lack any kind of iconic design to them. I much preferred the original crystal ship designs, because they were striking and impressive. This whole thing was just bland as shit.

Although I'll agree, Cavill certainly looks the part.

Shows how much you know. That House of El symbol wasn't introduced in Smallville until season 6.

HA!