Man of Steel (Spoilers)

[UNTcrazy727]

Who's seen Man of Steel and what are your thoughts?

I personally really liked it and loved how they ended the movie.

It's also breaking almost every box office record for the month of June, which means a sequel will be on the way with a possible Justice League movie to follow.

[UNTFan23]

Who's seen Man of Steel and what are your thoughts?

I personally really liked it and loved how they ended the movie.

It's also breaking almost every box office record for the month of June, which means a sequel will be on the way with a possible Justice League movie to follow.

What I found most interesting is who knows the "secret" identity of Superman. It's goes against everything Superman but it really made the story in the movie work.

[JesseMartin]

I thought it was hands-down the best Superman movie ever made.

I've always loved comics, write and draw them, and even worked on a few published indie comics. So I know how everybody gets their panties in a bunch if it isn't "true to the comics". But really, many of these characters have had their histories and origins rewritten 5 or 6 times by now just in the comics, not even counting different cartoon and live action TV series and movies.

But even the "purists" usually aren't. If they say they want Superman to have the exact same origin and history as it was the first time around, ask them if he should fly. Most will say yes, but he didn't originally fly. Same with lots of other characters...they want to pick and choose what parts of the original version should stay. Some even want specific storylines used for movies, word for word, and then don't want you to skip over a boring 100-issue run where nothing cinematically useful happened, because they want every single bit of the history told with no changes, even though that would probably lose about half a billion dollars just for a boring-ass trilogy. But it's necessary because, you know, those couple of thousand fans would matter more than the few hundred million that would actually watch something cool.

So if you want this to just be a fancier version of the same Superman movies you saw before, don't waste your time. It still keeps a lot of the same basics, including known characters and villains, but gets more specific about some stuff and skips over others while still telling a completely new story.

For me, what's important are: 1) Does the core quality of the character remain, 2) is it freaking awesome, and 3) is it believable? This has all of that. The ideals of Superman are pushed to the forefront of the plot, which works seamlessly with some of the new stuff they added. The original creators weren't very educated and just wrote something exciting and new at the time (almost 100 years ago), but this retelling (as well as some of what is hinted at but not handed to you on a platter) is more scientifically sound and holds more water in terms of not only how the characters interact, but also how Krypton was doomed and what happened afterwards.

It was more believable, which helped keep you "in the movie" and of course the effects were awesome. When I saw the armor and suits and such, I wanted even more to hunt down the toys to see if they're decent replicas like the ones from Tron: Legacy. And what's best, there's no Lex Luthor! Anybody else kind of sick of him? Superman: Lex Luthor. Superman II: Phantom Zone villains and Lex Luthor. Superman III: another rich guy very much like Lex Luthor, but probably cheaper than Gene Hackman. Superman IV: Lex Luthor. Superman Returns and all of the cartoons: Lex Luthor. Smallville: Lex Luthor, thankfully with lots of others scattered throughout. We get it, Lex is his arch-nemesis. So I'm really glad to see a big movie that was Superman, and not Lex vs. Superman. They did have some "Lex Corp" stuff here and there to show that he's still a part of that world, but even if he's a mastermind behind goings-on, Lex doesn't need to be the primary villain in everything they do.

I think my point behind that last rant is that they always wanted to use smart, human Lex as a foil to strong, alien Superman and just overplayed it. Lex looks for another way to make Clark vulnerable so that he won't stand in the way of world domination. The best part of this new movie is that it shows that humanity isn't defined by vulnerability or mortality, but rather by the convictions of our beliefs and actions for the sake of selflessness.

Or, as I explained to my son, "Superman's secret power is knowing that it's okay to be different or special, as long as you use that to do something good."