Racerx1969 said:
Man of Steel (2013) My initial impression is "Why are we rebooting this?" I remember enjoying the Christopher Reeve/Margot Kidder treatment. I guess Warner/DC felt the need to amp up the CGI and destructiveness of the fights to match MCU. It actually distracted from the story for me. I do like the examination of Clark/Kal-El's struggles with dealing with his abilities. But, the massively destructive fight scenes didn't feel like Superman to me--they seemed more in line with Nolan's other works in the Dark Knight trilogy. Taken on its own, it's a decent super hero movie, but with the decades of history of the Superman character, there's lots of "um...wait, wut?" moments as he lets buildings drop on bystanders and effectively destroys Smallville, then Metropolis.
With Marvel paving the way, the reason to reboot is simple: don't leave money on the table. Superman was (and is) arguably the most-recognized superhero in the world, and even a bad Superman movie would probably be a net gain just for all the merchandising and spin-off cartoons, toys, etc. they could launch.
Of course I'm not totally cynical and I recognize that everyone involved must've thought they could contribute something to make it a good project, so I reckon they thought A. It's been nearly 40 years since the Reeves movies...this generation deserves their own Superman films. And B. we can update this and do it much better now. Those last Superman movies were not very good, and even the first two were very...shall we say "of their time".
That said, they were pretty wrong. Their vision of Superman is (as you said) a significant departure from the core of what has defined the character since the 1930s. Superman is the best of us; he is not only what we aspire to be, he
inspires us to be that. He's the guy that not only zips around the world to give aid in natural disasters or help astronauts, but also keeps a watchful eye on the firebrand reporter he loves and isn't above rescuing a cat from a tree. When faced with an impossible decision, he
finds another way.
Snyder's version stole a script from a famous Wonder Woman comic, and the story was great
for her. That ending doesn't fit at all for Superman. Add to that the Akira-inspired wanton city destruction, and the fan outcry was so large that they actually wrote it into the sequel. Batman's whole reason for opposing Superman is because his actions destroyed so much of Metropolis. That wasn't from the comics and wasn't planned, that was written after the reaction to the first film. You've got to give DC credit for listening (a little)... but then they throw in crap like "Martha"....ugh. How stupid do they think their audience is? ...Nevermind, don't answer that.