Man of Steel

[The Dark Knight]

A pretty good video going over all the behind the scenes stuff pertaining to Superman in the DCEU post-MOS.

It's a great tragedy what happened after Man of Steel. I adore Dawn of Justice and the Snyder cut, but I do envision a world where Cavill appeared in a couple more sequels before anything else happened with a shared universe. I like how Man of Steel has the general genetics of the first two Reeve films in terms of plot, which gives the audience enough familiarity as an entry point. But it does something completely different with it. Man of Steel is an all time great Superman product but also a frustrating glimpse of what else could've been.

[The Laughing Fish]

Clay Enos uploaded this brilliant photo of Cavill's Superman and Shannon's Zod.



While I'm at it, I saw watched this video analysing the theme of restraint in the Snyderverse, specifically in MOS. The best observation is when Superman surrenders himself to the military, as he restrains himself in order to gain their trust.

[The Laughing Fish]

Jay Oliva tweeted these really nice storyboard sketches from MOS. A lot of these shots were replicated in the final cut quite well.

[The Laughing Fish]

More storyboard sketches uploaded by Jay Oliva. It includes Superman fighting the tentacles of the World Engine, the Kryptonian giant Nam-Ek rampaging against jet pilots, and what appears to resemble Faora approaching from the pilot's point of view, moments before she was struck by Superman.

[The Laughing Fish]

I came across a bitter anti-Snyder critic on YouTube complaining about Kal-El's apocalyptic dream sequence in MOS, where Zod reveals his intentions to terraform the Earth with the Codex. He believes one of the problems is Snyder went way too dark with the image of Superman sinking into the pit of skulls, and thought it was too morbid.

I think any complaints about this scene being too morbid is rather petty because it overlooks the fact that Zod was a genocidal villain who justified his horrific actions by doing whatever it took to restore the Kryptonian race. In my opinion, the scene had to get a strong reaction from Kal-El to understand what was at stake, and playing down the doomsday scenario wouldn't have made the scene all that effective. Besides, I don't find that scene to be any more morbid than watching the Kryptonians screaming and falling to their deaths, as their planet collapses and explodes in front of them in S78. Growing up as a kid, that scene frightened the hell out of me, together with Lois getting suffocated to death when her car sunk into the earthquake. One might argue that Donner was too gratuitous in showing the terror and destruction of Krypton, but I disagree with that too. The Kryptonian council was too ignorant to take Jor-El's warnings and advice seriously, and we had to see the disastrous consequences of not listening. We had to feel and see what was at stake, otherwise, the experience would've been much poorer if it cuts off to baby Kal-El leaving Krypton and in the next scene the planet exploded.

Just because Superman is held to some standard as some feel-good mascot, doesn't mean his filmography and comics is all bright and sunny.

[thecolorsblend]

Also, I interpreted that scene as a vision that Zod was forcing on Superman. It wasn't actually a "dream". It was more like "enhanced interrogation techniques" employed by Zod.

Is there something wrong with the bad guy BEING a bad guy?

[The Laughing Fish]

Also, I interpreted that scene as a vision that Zod was forcing on Superman. It wasn't actually a "dream". It was more like "enhanced interrogation techniques" employed by Zod.

Technically it might not have been a real dream, that's true. But Zod probing Kal-El's unconscious mind definitely gave him a nightmarish vision of what was about to come.

Is there something wrong with the bad guy BEING a bad guy?

Well, you'll be surprised at how some people still complain about the action in the movie. Jay Oliva replied to somebody who made some petty remarks about Superman flying over the petroleum truck because Snyder "prioritised cool shots instead of story", explaining why he storyboarded the scene the way he did.

I had superman fly over because I needed a way for the parking structure behind him to collapse so that in the next part of the fight cars would fall down on both of them. One car would temporarily stun Superman leading to Zod getting the upperhand. It's called fight story.

This would lead to Superman getting knocked up the side of the building and leads to Zod eventually learning to fly. There's nothing "pointless" about it. If you've ever choreographed a fight you know that you need to tell a story with the choreography and bridge the main points.

I've done hundreds of superhero fights in my almost 30 year career from marvel characters to DC ones and every one of my fights are memorable. thanks for watching! I've done enough of these to know how to choreograph and shoot them well! 

https://twitter.com/jayoliva1/status/1520920799221215232

By the way, you remember about that anti-Snyder critic I mentioned in my last post? It turns out he is the same guy who tried to lecture and talk down to Oliva over that scene, how Superman "destroyed buildings rather than saved people" and called the scene "weak connective tissue". This is Oliva's response:

"weak connective tissue" .. The events lead up to Zod learning to fly which opens up the next part of the fight and raises the stakes. The one thing Superman had as an advantage throughout the movie is taken away. That "contrived" idea was in the script written by Nolan and Goyer

https://twitter.com/jayoliva1/status/1521078050942640129

It's amazing to me, how YouTube nobodies who barely even gain 1k views for their videos and hide behind an anonymous avatar to lie about how they work in the film industry, go on and talk down people like Oliva, who put themselves out there. Talk about delusion of grandeur.

[The Laughing Fish]

Snyder has uploaded fourteen photos of actors in their MOS costumes, leading up to the hype of his Snyderverse convention later this month.

[The Laughing Fish]

Russell Crowe looks back on MOS, and spoke about how he would've liked to do a prequel show about Jor-El.

[The Laughing Fish]

Michael Shannon was rather honest about his thoughts about The Flash before it came out, and even revealed he asked for Snyder's blessing to appear in the film because he didn't feel comfortable about the troubles that happened between him and WB:

"I'm not going to lie — it [The Flash] wasn't quite satisfying for me, as an actor. These multiverse movies are like somebody playing with action figures," Shannon said. "It's like, 'Here's this person. Here's that person. And they're fighting!' It's not quite the in-depth character study situation that I honestly felt 'Man of Steel' was."

"I was hesitant [to come back] because I wasn't really happy about what happened to Zack Snyder in that whole deal," said Shannon. "I talked to ['The Flash' director] Andy Muschietti about it, and I said, 'Andy, look — I just want to get Zack's blessing on this because it just doesn't feel right without that.' And Zack, to his credit, was very understanding. He gave me his blessing, and I went to do it."

https://variety.com/2023/film/news/michael-shannon-the-flash-general-zod-wasnt-quite-satifsying-1235639997/