Man of Steel and Superman's code of ethics - or lack thereof

There's been a raging debate going on Google+ and elsewhere on the interwebs about the conclusion to the Man of Steel movie (warning -  Spoilers ahead!).  I wrote a long response to one of the threads there, and I thought I would clone it and expand upon it here on my blog, where I have the advantage of unlimited space and also better text formatting.  Again, there be spoilers below, so stop reading now if you don't want to know how the movie ends.

First of all, as I've said before, I did not like the Man of Steel movie as a Superman film, although I thought that, absent Superman, it would have made a decent action movie.  As Superman fare, however, it was dramatically lacking, and I've already named 10 reasons why.  I'd like to expand on these points a bit, and focus on three scenes in the movie that made me want to walk out.

Walk-out Scene 1 - "Maybe"

As a teenager, Clark is on a bus that ends up sliding down an embankment and into a river.  He sneaks out the door and uses his super-strength to rescue the bus and a drowning boy.  A couple of the kids notice.  Pa Kent takes Clark aside and criticizes him, telling Clark that he must keep his powers a secret because the world "isn't ready" for him.  Clark asks what he was supposed to do. Should he have let the bus go under and all the kids drown?  Pa Kent's answer is "Maybe."

Excuse me? Maybe he should let a bunch of children die? And this coming from Pa Kent, one of the great paragons of small-town integrity in American fiction?  No, I'm sorry... this is not the Pa Kent that I know and love. There is no "maybe" about it. Innocent children are at risk. You save them now, and worry about the consequences later. Clark did exactly the right thing, but he did it against Pa Kent's advice.  Costner's Pa Kent advocated a morally ambiguous "cover your own ass" course of action for his super-powered son.  That is completely alien to the personality of Pa Kent.  Can anyone picture Glenn Ford's Pa from Donner's Superman saying "maybe" here?  Or Eddie Jones from Lois and Clark?  The whole "Smallville ethic" that Superman was supposed to have learned growing up was to help people who need it.  How does "maybe" get this done?

Back in the 1980s, Christopher Reeve was asked in an interview what advice he would give to some actor who, years in the future, would try to re-create the role of Superman.  Reeve said that the key to Superman is that he's a good neighbor.  He helps people because he can.  Reeve identified this as a core early-American value, from the time of the settlers who had no one to rely upon by each other, and who would not have survived if they hadn't been "good neighbors."  Reeve is 100% correct -- Superman is a good neighbor.  And when would a good neighbor watch a busload of innocent children go into the drink, and when someone asks "should we go in and help them," responds, "maybe?"

Walk-out Scene 2 - "Protecting your ID is more important than my life."

Following on the whole "cover your own ass" theme running through Pa Kent's advice in this movie, we see Pa's absolutely ludicrous death scene.  A tornado is coming, and everyone has taken shelter under an overpass (which, by the way, you are not supposed to do, but that's a topic for another day).  Pa Kent runs back to help rescue people but hurts his leg, and cannot get back to the overpass. The Kents all know that Clark could easily save Pa -- he could super-speed out to Pa, pick him up with one finger, and super-speed him all the way to another state in a matter of seconds, if he wanted to.  But when Clark makes a move like he's going to do just that, Pa motions him back and shakes his head.  Pa gives his life... to protect Clark's secret.  Once again, Pa's implicit advice to Clark is "cover your own ass."

Again, I almost walked out of the theater after this scene.  It once again flies in the face of the small-town American value system that Smallville and the Kents are supposed to represent -- the core values that ground Superman when he later becomes a hero.  Rather than teaching Clark that he should sacrifice everything to help people (which, by the way, is what heroes are supposed to do), the Kents teach Clark to cover his own ass, even if it means letting the people he loves die. Nothing is more important than protecting himself, not even the life of his own father. Is this, really, the lesson the Kents should be teaching Superman?

Contrast this with all the other interpretations of the Kents and Superman that have existed over the years.  This "CYOA" mentality is not simply a "new direction" for the Kents, but is at 180 degree odds with everything Ma and Pa Kent have represented since Superman's debut in 1938.  Can anyone seriously picture Eddie Jones from the Lois and Clark TV show making the same gesture? And more importantly, can you picture Dean Cain's Clark obeying it?  Not in a million years would that have ever happened.  Or compare the heart attack scene with Glen Ford in Superman from 1978, and the funeral after, where a distraught Clark says, "All those things I can do... all those powers... and I couldn't even save him."  This statement clearly shows that if Clark could have found a way to save Pa Kent with his powers, he would have done so.

This "cover your own ass" mentality that is advocated to Pa Kent, even unto his death, is at odds with everything Superman represents. It's at odds with the small-town values of the Kents. It's at odds with basic human morality, which ought to say that a life is not worth more than a freaking secret identity.  And it's at odds with what heroes are all about, because the whole definition of a hero is someone who risks his ass to help others, not someone who refuses to help others to cover his own ass.

Walk-out Scene 3 - The Killing of Zod

Superman is not supposed to kill.  It's a core element of his character -- he has a "code against killing." So when he snapped Zod's neck and then yelled in anguish, I almost got up and walked out again.

The people defending the film, and especially this scene, argue that killing Zod will teach Superman the sanctity of life.  What utter rubbish! I know killing is wrong, and I didn't have to murder someone to figure it out. What, is Superman an idiot? He can't figure out killing is a bad thing without doing it at least once?

The whole "he had to kill to decide never to kill again" argument is a rationalization.  It's probably how Snyder rationalized putting it in the movie to anyone who disagreed with it. And it's how all the people who liked the scene rationalize it to the people who didn't.  But it's a weak argument, because the vast majority of people on earth understand that you shouldn't kill without having to do it first.  By the way, I also didn't have to steal once before I figured out I shouldn't steal. Or cheat on a test before I figured out I shouldn't cheat.  Or get caught being a Peeping Thom, before figuring out I shouldn't leer at people through their windows.  I mean, come on now.

So to the Man of Steel fanboys: Look, if you like a gritty, vengeful Superman who is willing to kill, then that's fine. But don't try to defend it to those of us who don't like that type of Superman, by claiming that killing is somehow necessary for his personal growth.

"This 'Super' man is nothing of the sort."

In Superman II, General Zod mocks Superman for his heroic actions, saying to Ursa, "This 'Super' man is nothing of the sort." To Zod, the weak exist for the strong to dominate them, and if Superman were truly "super" he would rule the world.

However, to us, what makes Superman truly "super," what makes him a hero, is that he stands for all that is good and true and right. He protects innocents. He defends the weak and the helpless.  He stops crime. He tells the truth. And he always brings in his man, rather than killing.  That is how heroes do things.  That's how George Reeves did them. How Christopher Reeve did them. And how Dean Cain did them.  But it's not how Man of Steel's cast and crew decided to play things. Thus, they took the 'super' out of Superman.

The basic problem is that the people who made Man of Steel don't seem to get the character, and don't understand what makes him tick.  Superman was supposed to have gotten his morality from his adoptive parents' down-to-earth, small-town USA values. He was raised by good, honest people not to hurt others, not to tell lies, and to fight for "truth, justice, and the American Way" because that's what the Kents believe in.  Those values, ingrained into him from an early age, are the stuff heroes are made from.  Superman doesn't take over the world or do other over-the-top things (including killing) because Martha and Jonathan Kent taught him right from wrong.

Or at least... they were supposed to.  But we didn't see any of that in this movie. Instead, Jonathan Kent tells him tells him over and over again to cover his own ass, which is the antithesis of heroism.  Was it out of the urge to cover her own ass that Supergirl died in Crisis 7?   No.  Risking it all to save another person is what being a hero is all about.

And Superman is the greatest hero of all. He should not cover their own ass. He should sacrifice himself to save others.  He should die rather than let one innocent person come to harm. And every other version of Superman that has ever walked across the screen, big or small, has been that kind of hero.

But in Man of Steel, Pa Kent's advice was to let a bunch of *children* drown to protect, not even his own life, but just his secret identity? That's the kind of advice Lex Luthor would give you, not Pa Kent.  And worse, Clark followed the advice and let his own father die when he could have saved him.  There's nothing 'super' about that.

I'm glad they called this movie "Man of Steel." The character in it is not worthy of the name Superman. Or as Terrance Stamp's General Zod said back in 1981, "This 'Super' man is nothing of the sort."  You tell 'em, Stampy.

10 reasons why Man of Steel was not a good Superman movie

Today, I saw the much-anticipated, heavily hyped superhero blockbuster movie of the summer: Man of Steel.  I thought that, as an action movie, it was pretty good.  However, as a Superman movie, it was pretty darn awful.  What follows will be my list of 10 reasons why I thought this movie didn't do the job as a film about Superman.

Please note there will be TONS OF SPOILERS, so do not read this review if you have not yet seen the movie. You have been warned.

Before getting into the actual reasons, I want to reiterate that I thought, as an action movie, Man of Steel worked fairly well.   There wasn't much plot, but then there never is in action movies.  The explosions looked good. The action sequences were quick and looked reasonably "super-powered." If this movie had been something like "Hancock 2," I'd probably say it was pretty good and just leave it at that.

The problem, however, is that this wasn't "Hancock 2."  It was a movie about Superman.  And that comes with a certain burden on the part of the creators, and a certain set of criteria that simply must be met.  The 1978 movie by Chris Reeve and Richard Donner (Superman: The Movie) absolutely met those criteria.  The characters were three-dimensional, and although there were definitely original takes on both Clark and Lois (among other characters like Lex Luthor), all the characters were recognizable in that movie.

In Man of Steel, hardly anyone other than Ma and Pa Kent and Jor-El is remotely recognizable.  I thought Amy Adams was a great choice for Lois before seeing the movie, but she's got nothing on Terri Hatcher or Margot Kidder.  Her performance is flat and uninspired, though this is not entirely her fault, because her role is so decidedly un-Lois-like.  The other actors turn in passable but similarly uninspired performances.  I found myself wondering, where was the emotion?  The movie had tons of action -- but it had no soul.

To some degree I think all the actors probably had the same issue Adams had -- they were playing characters with the same names we all recognize (Perry White, General Zod, Clark Kent, and so forth), but their lines and characters' actions were not what one would expect for these characters.  Some will say that this is "original" on Snyder's part, but I disagree. If he wants to be original, and not follow the expected patterns for Superman characters, then he should have let someone else direct this movie, and he could have directed the sequel to 300 or something.

I could rant about this forever, but I started out saying I would provide 10 reasons why this was not a good Superman movie. So here they are.  Again, MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW. You've been warned.

The 10 reasons Man of Steel was not a good Superman movie.

1. Lois Lane acted more like a military officer than a reporter. Lois starts out great, following Clark where she shouldn’t and getting herself into trouble, and then writing a story about it. This, unfortunately, lasts all of five minutes in the movie. Thereafter, she acts more like an action star than like a reporter. What the hell is Amy Adams doing in a C-117 programming the retaliation weapon against the Kryptonians? She’s completely out of place in scenes like this, and it destroys her credibility as Lois. 
2. The romance between Superman and Lois is contrived. If you add up how much time Lois and Superman actually spend together the total can’t be more than 10 minutes in the entire movie. And yet by the end of it they are in love? Are we to believe that being in a couple of explosions together is so romantic that now they can't keep their hands off each other? It was totally unbelievable. 
3. Superman hardly saves anyone. Let’s be fair here... Clark saves a number of people early on, before adopting the Superman identity. But once he’s Superman, other than saving Lois Lane time and again, and a couple of military officers, he never protects or saves anyone. Where is the scene where he steps in front of someone and takes a blast for him? Where’s the scene where he saves the lady with a baby? Rescues the cat out of a tree for a little girl? How can he be Superman if he’s not saving people and doing good deeds? 
4. Superman has zero regard for property damage. The Superman I grew up loving would not have just blown villains through buildings, parking garages, and grain silos to do some damage to the villain. He would have been concerned about the people and about property damage. Other than telling the people of Smallville to ‘get inside,’ Superman doesn’t seem to care who gets hurt or how much damage is done so long as he beats the villains. 
5. Where is Jimmy Olsen? What the hell is a Superman movie doing without Jimmy? He’s one of the most important characters in the Superman mythos. Snyder had time to put in some guy named “Lombard” and an intern named “Jenny” at the Daily Planet but not time for Jimmy? Very disappointing. 
6. Perry White is an afterthought. This part makes no sense to me at all. They cast Lawrence Fishburne as Perry White, which is an inspired choice, and Fishburne proves this in his very first scene berating Lois. But he is utterly wasted in a 2-bit part that seems like it was added as an afterthought (“Whoops! We forgot to put Perry White into this movie -- quick let’s shoot a few pickup scenes with him!”) 
7. Lois finds out about Clark too early. This part makes no sense at all. One of the most enjoyable facets of Superman is that brilliant, intrepid reporter Lois Lane never puts 2+2 together about Superman and Clark. Snyder doesn’t even bother to try playing this out. He just has Lois figure it out from day 1, which makes it impossible for him to portray some of the most enjoyable aspects of the Superman story. 
8. Superman is not Clark for enough screen time. The creators of earlier incarnations of Superman, both on TV and in the movies, recognized that you can have too much of a good thing. They were also limited by budget constraints and technology. Those limits were a good thing, because the earlier Superman versions gave us a lot more “Clark time” and only a little “Superman” time. This left us wanting more -- and that’s a good thing. This movie ODs us on Superman, and we get very little Clark time except in flashback. He doesn’t even put on his glasses until the final scene of the movie. 
9. Superman used hardly any of his powers. Except when he is trying to “adjust” to his powers as a child, Superman hardly uses any of his non-brute-force powers. 99% of his power use is to punch, fly, or be invulnerable. But Superman has lots of powers. Where’s his Super-breath? Not used. Frost-breath? Not used. X-ray vision? Only used once as Superman, for a laugh line. Telescopic vision? Not used. Super hearing? Used once. Even super-speed is given short shrift -- he uses it in the movie, in the sense that he goes fast, but he doesn’t use his super-speed to do anything that couldn’t have been done at normal speed. It’s like Snyder forgot he had all these other things he could do. 
10. Superman kills. No no no no no. I don’t care what position Zod put Superman in, the Man of Steel never, ever, ever, kills. Period. This is totally unacceptable and at this point if it hadn’t been so obviously close to the end I might well have walked out. I don’t want to hear “Zod left Superman no choice.” The same could be said in Superman II but Superman still only took Zod's powers away and then dumped him into the snow; he didn’t kill him. This is one of the most fundamental aspects of Superman’s character -- he always finds a way to stop people without killing them, no matter how much (like Lex Luthor) they might deserve it.

And there you have it, 10 reasons I thought Man of Steel was a poor excuse for a Superman movie.

I think if you look at the sum total of this list, an obvious pattern emerges.  Snyder and company were so focused on explosions and big budget effects that they forgot that all good stories are about characters, and that characters are the ones who make us cheer, clap, laugh, and cry.  The guys at Pixar know it.  Marvel Studios knows it.  But the Man of Steel team don't seem to have any idea that character is what counts.

I went to see this movie on opening weekend at a matinee, in a theater where 12:30 Sunday showings are usually empty even under these conditions.  Man of Steel was packed.  There was hardly an empty seat in the house.  So it clearly drew a large crowd. This is similar, at least on the surface, to my experience 35 years ago, as a child, watching Superman: The Movie the week it opened with a large crowd.

One thing struck me as this movie drew to a close -- other than some occasional muttering from people who apparently were lost by parts of the plot (I'm not sure why -- the plot may have been soulless but it wasn't confusing to me), the theater was absolutely silent for almost all 143 minutes.  There weren't many laugh lines in the movie, but the few it had, got barely a few chuckles.  Nobody clapped; nobody cheered. The second the screen went dark at the end, people started getting up and walking out.  It felt like the movie made no impression on them.

Contrast this with my experience in 1978, when the theater was rocking.  People started cheering when the big giant "S" graphic came up.  They laughed at the funny lines.  They gasped audibly when Pa Kent died of a heart attack.  They cheered and clapped when Superman saved Lois from the helicopter. They laughed at Ned Beatty's antics.  And when the now much-reviled "turning back the world" scene happened, everyone applauded, even though we knew Superman couldn't time travel -- because we wanted to see him save Lois. The crowd was invested in the movie by then -- they bought that scene hook, line, and sinker.  When Superman flew away toward the sun at the end and the ending theme started to play, everyone cheered again, and people stayed in their seats, wanting to listen to the music and just not wanting it to end.

I'm sure lots of people will claim this new Superman is "better" than Richard Donner's version. It's grittier. More realistic. Has better effects. Had tons more action.  But the problem is that, despite all of that, Snyder's version has no soul, no heart -- and Donner's version has tons. And that's why the audience whooped and cheered in 1978... and didn't utter a sound this afternoon.