I’ve read and heard people claim MAN OF STEEL is “too dark.” I held my breath until I saw the movie. Now that I have seen it, and LOVE it, I am convinced more than ever that people, especially geek culture, suffer from short-term memory, and base their judgments on the nostalgia from what little they do remember.
Goyer and Snyder’s Superman is no more “dark” than Siegel and Shuster’s original creation, or Donner’s 1978 adaptation. Henry Cavill’s Superman is just as much of an ideal as any version that came before.
Man of Steel takes place in the “real world” of 2013 just as Superman: The Movie took place in the world of 1978. If Man of Steel is darker than what came before, it’s because the world we live in is much darker. Still, in this world where humans, despite all we know, still fear and kill what we don’t understand, Cavill’s Superman decides of his own free will, and in spite of what we do, to believe in us.
That seem “dark” to you?
People (geeks) are comparing Man of Steel or Richard Donner’s 1978 film, claiming Man of Steel lacks “magic,” even though Donner’s mantra when directing Superman: The Movie was verisimilitude.
veri·sim·i·lar
adjective \ˌver-ə-ˈsi-mə-lər, -ˈsim-lər\
1 : having the appearance of truth
2 : depicting realism (as in art or literature)
People remember Superman: The Movie as a child would, and they judge Man of Steel based on nostalgia. They forget that the world, and our perception of it, was different then. I don’t think the adults of 1978 would agree Donner’s film was “magical.” I think they would think quite differently. After all, while we saw and believed “a man could fly” they saw…
- Zod, Ursa, and Non being sent to prison for eternity for “theft.”
- Krypton being destroyed, its people falling to their deaths as the planet fell apart beneath their feet.
- A butt naked Kal-El landing in a corn field (butt naked even in the movie trailer). Keep in mind, today, you can’t take a picture of your kid in the bathtub without being accused of pedophilia.
- Jonathan Kent dying of a heart attack in front of his family, followed by his funeral.
- Lex Luthor killing a police officer with a subway train.
- Clark Kent changing into Superman in front of, what is clearly, a pimp.
- Superman using his x-ray vision to check out Lois Lane’s panties.
- Lex Luthor stealing a missile, and firing it, causing an earthquake that will sink most of California. Millions dead so Lex Luthor can capitalize on real estate.
- Lois Lane, caught in the California earthquake, her car falls into the extending fault line; she dies being crushed and suffocated.
- Superman defies his father, Jor-El, who decreed “You cannot interfere in the course of human events,” reversing the rotation of the earth, turning back time, to save Lois Lane who he’s known for all of a day.
Intense stuff, right? Mature stuff for a comic book movie just shy of the silver age. 1980’s Superman II kicked things up a notch with three Kryptonian prisoners – Zod, Ursa, and Non – taking over America (The President is forced to his knees and surrenders to Zod). If destroying a small town and attacking the White House wasn’t enough, they hit Superman with a bus full of people! Oh, and let’s not forget Superman and Lois have sex, followed by a powerless Superman getting bloodied in a bar fight with a trucker soon after. All “magical” stuff.
Superman even kills when he has to, as seen in the comics when he killed Zod, Ursa, and Non in Superman #22 from 1988, and he killed Doomsday in Superman (vol.2) #72 in 1993.
Man of Steel is intense, action packed, and in your face, but it’s not a dark movie, and the (new) Superman isn’t a darker hero. Never before on film have we seen a more balanced version of the character. He knows who he is. He knows what he stands for. He knows what he’s meant to do. I don’t see this Superman giving up his powers in the first year so he can bang Lois Lane without putting her through a wall. This is the Superman that will lead the JLA.
For the geeks out there who say “this is not Superman” I can only remind them their Superman DIED a long time ago. He died when he was rebooted post Crisis on Infinite Earths. He died when he revealed himself to and then married Lois Lane. He died when he faced Doomsday, healed, and came back with a long hair. He died when, in Smallville, it took him ten years and 218 episodes before he could fly. He died in the 2006 movie when he let himself get jailhouse shanked by Lex Luthor. Most recently, he died when DC Comics launched the New 52, restarting their entire universe, and Action Comics went back to #1. Superman doesn’t wear cotton anymore; he wears a Kryptonian battle suit.
Remembering the past is good, but not if it keeps you from enjoying the present, or looking towards the future.
JPG.
What they meant was that it was dark and grimm was that Superman never smiled even in his personal life (ok i exaggerate) never expressed joy in having his powers (which is hypocritical).
The movie made it look like that super powers will give you clinical depression.
Also i have no problems with the “scaly dark battle suit”
but why the goth blue so blue its almost black?
Why does it look like a las vegas custome?
Why is it so goth?
Thanks for reading, Bong!
I recently sent an email to fellow MAN OF STEEL warrior, John Campea, from AMC Movie Talk on AMC Theaters YouTube channel. The title of the email was “Is MAN OF STEEL Causing Mass Delusions?”
It read: “I’d like your take on the mass delusions people are having about MAN OF STEEL. First, people complained the movie is “too dark.” I watched the original 1978 film, and its sequel, and found just as many “dark” things in them (for that time period). I even reread John Byrne’s “Man of Steel” 1986 mini-series, which much of the movie seems based on, and Byrne’s issues of Superman and Action Comics that followed. John Byrne’s 1986 reboot of Superman was just as real world as Goyer and Snyder’s. Now, people are blaming Superman for a multitude of unseen deaths during the fights in Smallville and Metropolis. These claims blatantly ignore Superman warning people off the streets and saving soldiers in Smallville. They also ignore that Metropolis wasn’t destroyed by the Superman/Zod fight, but by the terraforming world engine. Superman was on the other side of the planet when that happened. When he fights Zod, the damage is done. Superman doesn’t kill anyone during the Smallville or Metropolis fight. It’s not seen onscreen, and to suggest it’s implied is insane. As if DC Entertainment, Warner Bros, Zack Snyder, and David Goyer would allow such a thing to happen. I understand if people don’t like the movie, but to make things up is going way overboard…What the hell is going on, John?!”
Sorry, Bong, but while I respect your opinion, it is the latest in the line of “delusions.” Didn’t smile? Didn’t enjoy his powers? What about when he learned to fly for the first time, and the 10-minute sequence that followed? What about when he returned to his mother, elated, and telling her, “I found them!” What about all the times he met Lois Lane, when he saved her in Metropolis, the kiss, and the joke that followed? What about the last sequence, when he downed the spy drone, and made the joke about growing up in Kansas?
There is a line from Robert McKee’s screenwriting book, STORY, that instructs writers not to make their story so “high brow” your audience can’t figure it out, but not so “low brow” it’s too easy to see where it’s going. You have to walk the middle path. The problem is “too smart” or “too easy” is really subjective. In the case of MoS, some people understood, just because Snyder didn’t film 100 close-ups of Henry Cavill smiling and winking at the camera, it didn’t mean Superman was morose. Meanwhile, some people need that. It’s like Eddie Murphy said in his interview with Arsenio Hall back in the early ‘90’s. He said: “Just because I’m a comedian, people expect me to smile all the time. If I don’t, they say ‘Oh, don’t be like that!”
If MAN OF STEEL did one thing wrong, it was subtly. Goyer and Snyder used the art of subtly thinking people would get it. They don’t. People still don’t understand subtly, not in movies, and not in life.
At the beginning of the movie, Clark Kent isn’t sad, he’s a man searching for who he is, and where he belongs. He’s focused – a man on a mission who saves people whenever and wherever he can. When he finds out who he is, puts on the suit, and becomes Superman, you see the difference in him. He doesn’t hide anymore. He openly uses his powers. He races home to his mother. He confronts Lois Lane. He reveals himself to a priest and gives himself to the military in a dazzling display of power. He stands up to a Kryptonian army. He saves lives. He saves the world. Everything we want is there.
As for the color of the suit, I blame technology. I’ve seen images of the suit, and it looks lighter and brighter in pictures than it does on screen. When the blu-ray comes out, I bet it will look lighter there too. Besides, the tone of the Superman’s suit has always changed, in comics and on the small and large screens – gray, blue, royal blue, cotton blue, shiny spandex blue, black instead of blue, etc. In “Kingdom Come” his suit was visibly darker. Maybe that’s what they were going for? The last thing I’m concerned with, really.
Thanks again for reading and commenting!