Saysumthinfunnymike
VOTE!!!
-martha
when someone posts this old ass gif I know they have no retort
-martha
Aight so its like this....
I think the problem was the execution. Like in BvS.... all the "hero" shyt insinuated was pretty much just that, a suggestion
..... nothing was fleshed out.
...
Maybe they assumed people watching BvS had seen MoS?
Superman doesn't even look like he wants to be a hero in BVS though. It comes off like he's being inconvenienced.
Superman doesn't even look like he wants to be a hero in BVS though. It comes off like he's being inconvenienced.
The movie STARTS with him being framed for murdering an entire African village, cut to :
I agree that Superman wasn't cheerful in the movie, but the story didn't call for him to be. There's plenty of comics where he's serious throughout.
You're going off on a tangent, it has nothing to do with him smiling all movie.
That's not what the movie was trying to do at all. BVS was not about Superman, or Batman for that matter. It was about how the heroes are perceived by the world around them. Zack Snyder himself said the third main "character" in the film is the media. With that in mind, the film becomes less of a deconstruction of Superman himself (though there are elements of that), and more of a deconstruction of how media plays with public perception. And how, in turn, the media can influence who we call our heroes, how we view those heroes, and even how those heroes might view themselves. We see this effect in play repeatedly throughout the film. Every heroic action Superman performs is scrutinized through the lens of human law and politics, through moral philosophy and existentialism, etc. Clark, meanwhile, is watching this play out on TV and is effected by it, as the world dumps the responsibility of all of their problems on to him, mythologizing him more and more, when he is in fact "just a guy who wants to do the right thing".
That is why, by the end of the montage, all you see is the silhouette of Superman wreathed in divine light as a woman reaches out to him, because that is how people perceive him at this point in time. That is not the movie telling you that is what he is.
Later on, people see Superman enter the capital building and then the building explodes. Superman helps people out of the building and when he is done, steps back to look at the devastation, and flies away, overcome with guilt.
This is an understandably human reaction, and a reminder that Kal-El is still not a perfect hero yet, that he still doubts his position as Superman, and doesn't know yet how to truly handle a crisis--he knows how to use his powers to help people, but beyond that he is unsure of himself. His heart is still clouded with grief he has yet to overcome, and so he doesn't know how to comfort people on their level, the way you may be expecting from Superman.
Because he is infinitely powerful, he is infinitely scrutinized. The news reports come in that Wallace Keefe blew up the bomb (itself only a half truth), but with the additional question of whether Superman knew about the bomb, and if he did, is he complicit? They question his sudden disappearance as well, but offer no answers, much less the simplest one: he has emotional weaknesses, and felt guilty.
The media practically feeds off of this kind of controversy, the big ol' question mark "Was Superman complicit? Who knows but it's an interesting thought isn't it?" Then the public's perception shifts, as they don't understand what is going on with Superman, they have no answers, and they begin to fear him, and hate him. Effigies of Superman are burned in the streets as people chant "murderer!"
Meanwhile, Superman, who has been built up the entire movie to feel responsible for the entire world, overcome with guilt, now feels as though "Superman was never real". You have to understand that Clark/Kal's journey isn't yet complete. He still hasn't become Superman, not truly, he's still trying to figure out what it means to be Superman, and to grow into that icon you're speaking of. And that's not even my own interpretation, that's Zack Snyder's own statement of the character.
Zack Snyder has said he wanted to get Clark/Kal to a point where he has a reason to be The Superman we all know and love. BVS was the next step in that journey. Superman can use his powers to save people but he didn't know true suffering the way a human might understand it. He looks on at the people suffering from the bombing with horror and uncertainty, feeling as though he couldn't save them from the bombing and so his role as a hero is folly. His idealistic view of the world, and his role as a hero, is challenged.
But at the end of the movie, Batman showed Superman true suffering, made him feel it with the kryptonite (pay attention to Batman's dialogue in the scene, it's important for understanding this theme of suffering and how it relates to Superman). Superman then becomes a hero in a different way. He doesn't use his powers to stop Batman, he uses his heart. He makes an appeal to his own humanity, placing responsibility for the death of a mother, his own mother, on Bruce (someone who lost their mother), and allowing him a chance for redemption. In that moment, he wasn't Superman, he was Clark Kent, a human being suffering the same way Bruce Wayne was suffering, only up until that moment, they didn't see it in each other. They only saw their public personae through the eyes of others.
Superman's powers, his fists, couldn't stop Batman, Clark Kent stops Batman, and that is a very important step in his journey, because it shows Superman's humanity is the most powerful aspect of his character.
So no, the movie wasn't trying to convince you that Superman is only good based on his own self sacrifices. We see him be humble and human and gentle as Clark Kent. We see his sense of morality take charge in the daily planet, as he attempts to persuade Perry White into adopting a more moral journalistic approach. The conflict here is that his humble morality is rejected by the world as Clark Kent, and as Superman all any one sees is power, good or bad. That public perception is wrong, and it is a public perception we see influenced by the media. As we see with the funeral, the Superman is a symbol, but not the actuality of the character. Superman's coffin is empty, his sacrifice is an important symbolic gesture that unites the world, but what the world is rallying around is empty without the man inside. Clark's coffin, meanwhile, has a body in it, illustrating the truth of Superman is not what the masses see him as, not what he does for them, but rather what he was raised as, the lessons he carried with him into life. His humanity.
I predict when he returns, Superman will emerge from the grave of a humble farmer, carrying all the lessons he learned in his previous life, and he will be a true, fully realized Superman, for the first time in the DCEU.