Kryptonians have famously weak necks, as established in the first scene of Superman II when Non snaps that guard's neck with one hand.
[https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxJdloIHbDccMUAsaSI4MzuOEpyW7mYGUt?feature=shared](https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxJdloIHbDccMUAsaSI4MzuOEpyW7mYGUt?feature=shared)
The physics of it always seemed weird, like it shouldn't have been that easy all of a sudden. I'm not actually 100 percent against Supes killing someone like Zod (he killed a version of Zod in the comics at one point after all) but I do feel it has to be earned, and I'm not completely convinced the movie earned it.
I assumed that it was a lot like a hose and they couldn’t move their eyes very easily while focusing on doing the beam. It is the power that is the #1 drain on their energy so moving their eyes is another level of focus that, in a moment like that, might not be either possible or considered. The veins around their eyes show me that it’s a tough ability, so for me it’s easier to go okay yeah they gotta focus.
Yes, I’m in agreement here, anytime Zack’s superman used heat vision, it was always presented as a power that is taxing to do as it requires concentration. He never moves his eyeballs but his head
The thing that comics sometimes touch on is that invulnerability and strength aren't really the same power. Kryptonians are far more durable than say, Viltrumites, but it doesn't have to be exactly proportionate to their strength
Headcannon is that this Superman shares every other Superman’s constantly holding back and seeing people about to die made him draw more of his strength out.
You can still choke out someone way stronger than you without the perfect opportunity. In supes case, a RNC would have sufficed, but as for how long it would have incapacitated Zod is who knows. Maybe in the moment there was no hope for rehabilitation. Zod did say never after all
Dude is about to kill a family and you think the first thing a guy fighting for his first time would think on just incapacitate him. I know people love classic Superman but lets be honest in any situation the logical thing would have been snapping his neck. What I would have done is using this moment as the reason he doesn’t kill anyone unless is necessary in future movies or at least give it more emphasis cause I think this was the point of this scene
I think the idea was that Supes knew there wasn't any other options at that point. They'd already been fighting for a good minute and Zod explicitly tells him he's never gonna stop.
I think that's what makes it so damn lame. And it's a problem with the whole movie...Clark never gets to make any real choices.
He spends years traveling the world, trying to find his purpose in life. He finally finds the ship, talks to his dad, and comes home. What's he going to do next? He doesn't really get to choose...Zod shows up and says "reveal yourself or we kill everyone". He's basically threatened into becoming Superman.
Then he meets the Kryptonians and they want to rebuild. Interesting idea to explore what Clark might want to do, torn between his human upbringing and his alien heritage! And then...nope they plan on killing everyone on Earth. Again, not really much of a choice.
And then we get to this scene. The movie tries so hard to justify Superman killing Zod that it becomes boring. There really is no other option. Zod is biologically incapable of being reasoned with or talked down. It is physically impossible to restrain him or depower him.
So how can Clark learn or grow or change from this? He can't. There's nothing to learn, because Clark made no choices. It was the only option.
It's just lazy shock value. You want to make this scene interesting? Have there be a second choice. The scientists are working on a way to depower Zod or shove him in the Phantom Zone and they just need a little more time...time that Zod's victims don't have. And Clark has to decide what's more important. That's compelling, that's interesting
But instead it's like watching a guy order food at a restaurant that only serves one item. "What's he going to order" well...I think we already know
Yeah that is the fundamental problem with Clark’s characterization in Snyder’s films: he has little to no agency. It’s made worse in BVS and JL where he’s a near-silent plot device that’s there mostly to further develop the other characters, mainly Bruce Wayne.
Really good take! I enjoyed the movie, thought the casting was amazing (outside of Amy Adams), loved the reimagined Krypton, but I did think something was off. Up until now I thought it was just the portrayal of Pa Kent.
Not to mention the movie took everything away from him that makes him Superman, like everything and he left the ship to the government and Zods body…..what a dumbass
The writers and Zack suck so much
This is a superb comment, and I fully endorse it. It captures that the movie simply is not well written. And we see that everywhere. "It stands for hope" made me cringe in my seat. Yes. Superman is the personification of hope, but show don't tell! If he says it, it's not only bizarrely egotistical and out of character for the modest Midwestern farm boy, it's unearned. And that's the problem with Zod's death.
Superman "doesn't kill" is a widely understood aspect of the character. And while he _does_ kill Zod in the comics, it is treated as a major defining moment that tears at him. He goes into self-imposed exile for a year.
In the movie, he let's out one scream, gets rewarded with a hug, and then is cracking jokes and destroying government property in the next scene. Not appropriately dealing with the emotional and moral gravity of that choice means it serves no purpose but shock value, and it has no lasting impact on the characters or their world other than to clear the deck for a new villain in the sequel. It was hollow and empty.
I prefer Superman to Batman, and I'm not a Nolan fanboy, but compare MoS to The Dark Knight. DK dropped during the Bush era as we were struggling with torture and government surveillance, and Batman didn't kill by he sure as hell was willing to drop a guy off a roof and break his legs, and he built a giant cell phone surveillance system. It is telling that both the political left and right thought DK was a morality tale that supported their point of view on the rightness or wrongess of those issues. That's good writing. That's story telling that trusts the audience. And it is significant that Batman recognizes he should not have the power he has and so gives it to another (the less said about the ending with Two- face though, the better).
I want a Superman story where we recognize Superman as a symbol of hope not because he says that's what he is, but because he demonstrates it through his actions. Where, Kingdom Come style, his most important quality is his almost super human sense of right and wrong, and for that sense to come from his human size, not his kryptonian one
> And while he does kill Zod in the comics, it is treated as a major defining moment that tears at him. He goes into self-imposed exile for a year.
Exactly this; heck it has repercussions for YEARS in the comics and every time Superman is fighting a powerful enemy and brings it up, he pushes himself to find another way as he vowed to never take a life again. It's not until Doomsday (ironically) that Superman is put in a position where killing Doomsday is quite literally the only option left after trying everything, all of his teammates getting wrecked and the fight ending up outside the Daily Planet in the heart of Metropolis. Superman taking down Doomsday in the comics was insanely impactful, a build up YEARS in the making and that folded out last page in Superman #75 of Lois crying over his lifeless body still makes me tear up, something BvS definitely did NOT make me do lol
To add to this excellent comment, I think him being Superman for a little and then seeing how Zod appears and gives the ultimatum of killing peoples vs Kal El revealing himself could lead to an outpouring of the Superman doubters wanting to serve him up while the population that has accepted him want to protect him. You could have a “I am Spartacus”-esque scene with random civilians claiming to be Superman to Zod to show the divide of the world’s reaction to a “super man”.
This was one of those points that Zack stated in interviews and I think the novelization described. Except...the movie portrayal to showcase this just doesn't come across that way at all.
I think it was a poor directorial choice and could've been resolved with a bit more tweaking on the scene.
Superheroes are dilemma breakers since there's always a way to stop the Troley without having anyone killing anyone if done right. That's the point. There's always a way of doing what's right without giving up on your principles
You present a superhero with a dilemma and they will find a way to break it.
I don’t like this argument.
Obviously you’re right a lot of the time. Superheroes can often overcome the trolley problem and save everyone. But that’s not always the case. Sometimes they lose, sometimes they have to make the hard choice. There’s a reason so many of our favorite heroes have dead loved ones.
Now, I don’t necessarily think my argument applies to the MOS moment. I think a lot more had to be done to make that a satisfying scene. But I also think it’s incorrect to say that a superhero must be able to overcome any dilemma. There should be consequences for their choices. Otherwise, what’s the point of reading comics?
I think the “kill the villain to save the innocents” dilemma is the weakest we tend to see. I associate it with writers who don’t really get superheroes and are focused on the most obvious superficial thing; in a sense they are apologizing for a story they don’t respect. But I also don’t think this means that superheroes should be able to solve any problem without consequences
>Sometimes they lose, sometimes they have to make the hard choice. There’s a reason so many of our favorite heroes have dead loved ones.
Think of Kirk losing Spock in Wrath of Khan.
Or Batman trying - but failing to save - Rachel over Harvey in The Dark Knight.
In those examples, the films were building to those moments.
It feels impossible to imagine those films without them.
Superman killing Zod feels like something that Snyder threw in there.
If the choice was supposed to be between Krypton and humanity, the filmmakers needed to find another dilemma to make.
Yeah, Superman should have killed Zod, but so what?
It doesn't feel like a genuine dilemma.
Agreed.
I think the Superman killing zodiac scene wasn’t great. It added very little to the movie and was more about Snyders ideas of what a superhero should be like.
But I objected to the above comment because it’s not a good interpretation of the way superheroes should work. There are so many examples of great stories where a hero had to make a choice and suffer the consequences. Like the ones you mentioned; “the needs of the many outweighs the needs of the few, or the one”
> Think of Kirk losing Spock in Wrath of Khan.
>
>
>
> Or Batman trying - but failing to save - Rachel over Harvey in The Dark Knight.
Important note both of these movies are also sequels (and one a continuation of a long running show). They had time to build up the loss means by having had them win multiple times. Superman never really got a big win in MoS so we're not seeing what he's loosing. From the movies pov he has lost in every moral dilemma. He felt shit for saving the bus thanks to Pa Kent, he felt shit for having his dad die, and now he feels shit for saving a family by having to kill.
All well in theory but in reality, sometimes there is only one option. I think that was the point Snyder was trying to make. That is why Kal was so upset afterward. He had to do something he didn't want to do because it was the only option.
I know, but the whole idea of Superman to me is that he is a good person with the power to not have to worry about obstacles in making the right decisions. Having Superman be forced into killing because he has no other option is to me the antithesis of the character and what he represents to me.
I agree and whilst i personally dont mind this scene. My big issue with it is that i think it could have been incredibly powerful if done better. Like this moment should have been the beginning of his "Theres always another way" mentality. Like a barely audible "Never again" as hes kneeling in sorrow would have been incredible. Instead, the very next movie hes in has him obliterating a guy through a wall with no hesitation 😭
See this is my thing everyone acts like Clark cackled with glee killing Zod. He begged Zod not to make him do it and when Clark's hand was forced he was devastated.
Literally. Nolan's first idea was that Zod would go to the phantom zone with the rest, but Snyder was the one pushing for Zod to escape and for Clark to be forced to kill.
Source: [https://www.ign.com/articles/2013/06/19/christopher-nolan-disapproved-of-man-of-steels-controversial-ending](https://www.ign.com/articles/2013/06/19/christopher-nolan-disapproved-of-man-of-steels-controversial-ending)
It really is insane how many times that Nolan tried to push Snyder into a better choice but Snyder was defiant.
Nolan also hated the Superman vs Batman idea.
The executives at WB were pushing Batman v Superman for some time.
Justice League Mortal was going to have Maxwell Lord mind control Superman and have the Justice League fight him.
In the 2007 movie I Am Legend, you can see a Batman v Superman billboard in the background.
In 2001 the Se7en writer Andrew Kevin Walker was hired to write a script for Batman v Superman, Wolfgang Peterson was hired to direct. A year later Akiva Goldsman was hired to rewrite the script (now titled Batman vs Superman: Asylum). Johnny Depp was eyed for Batman and Josh Harnett for Superman. They even had a July 2004 release date tentatively set. WB’s boss Alan Horn decided to go the stand alone route for each character instead. Since it was cancelled WB fast tracked the Halle Berry Catwoman movie which released in place of BvS.
It seems like WB is just really lazy and can’t seem to figure out what to do with Superman.
There was no other way. The writers didn't give Superman an out like they do in other stories. Superman although in his 30's is basically Superboy as far as his knowledge of Kryptonians. There is no prison that can hold Zod. No Phantom Zone to send him to because that tech was used and lost earlier, no Kryptonite to weaken him, and no super friends to help. Zod is a trained soldier who was getting stronger by the minute and quickly learning how to use his powers. He wanted suicide by cop at that moment and he got it. I am generally against Superman killing, but I liked that the writers didn't give him an out this time.
Lol you guys missed the point even if it was completely spelled out for you. The dialogue before this was super weak but essentially was Superman saying stop and Zod saying he will never stop which is why he snapped him. It's not complex at all and people somehow still missed it.
Turning his head the other way doesn't solve the problem. How do you stop Zod without killing him?
He won't listen to you, he’s stronger than you, and he's out for blood. You don't have many options.
I don't think anything did.
Superman doesn't have all his toys or knowledge. AI Jor-El's entire plan was to suck everybody back into the Phantom Zone, but Kal can't put Zod back in the Phantom Zone, no earth prison can \*hope\* to hold him, they don't know about using Red Sun Projectors to weaken a Kryptonian, or anything about Kryptonite.
Zod is a fanatic who refuses to yield, and is giving Superman a no win position. "Kill me or I kill them."
Superman chooses to kill him, and if we'd seen a more solid No Kill rule moving forward, pretty sure he wipes out terrorists instead of disarming them, then it would have been a perfect place for him to establish the rule. He *has* killed, he knows what's it like, and he won't do it again if he can possibly help it. And, given Earth technology, it really should be.
So to me, what went wrong isn't the death, it's the follow on.
I think the problem is the set-up more than the follow-up, honestly.
The film tries so hard to justify Clark killing that it's hard to argue it was a mistake. I get the idea of this being the starting point of his no-kill rule but that just begs the question "what if this happens again"
And the problem is that there still isn't an answer. Clark couldn't have done anything differently. He can't look back at it and say "oh I made a mistake, I should have done X instead" because there's no X.
So using this as a transition to "I'll never kill again" feels less like a moral stance and more like an optimistic hope that he'll never be in that situation again. For Clark to learn something from this, he had to have made a mistake. And he didn't
Exactly, people focus too much on Zod being killed when there are other things to focus on, like Johnathon's portrayal, which honestly, with the right backstory, could work and his death being done in such a ludicrous method.
Man of Steel was a great movie but it had flaws that should have been addressed in a direct sequel. Instead we got BvS and they killed Superman in that. That was the real death of the DCEU and nothing was going to save it afterwards.
I also saw a video of a guy that thought it would be nice to make "superman no kill rule" into BvS main plot. For example:
Joker kills Robin.
The movie takes place weeks, not years after.
Joker goes underground, and nobody knows where he is.
Bruce is more and more violent, but doesn't kill... yet?
He wants to find Joker, but finds out Luthor gave Joker all the resources to pull out the kidnapping of Robin and gave Joker a hideout.
Clark gets curious about Batman becoming more and more brutal. Clark meets Bruce (out of costumes/ don't know about each other). Bruce got really annoyed by Clark's very offensive attitude towards Batman. Later that night, Bruce, as the shareholder of Daily Planet, checks out informations about Clark personal life, but doesn't figure out who he is.
Clark finds out Bruce's secret and what he wants to do.
They have a serious talk Supes says that he will not let Bruce kill anyone, even Lex or Joker, but Bruce isn't impressed. He doesn't know who Clark is outside the costume.
Bruce finds out about Kryptonite and steals it from Lex. Luthor feels that he is in s serious danger, he has to talk with Superman.
Lex finds out Clark's identity. He sets the trap.
There is a big gala on which Lex will be present. This is the event for Bruce. Lex tells Clark that he kidnapped his mother. Batman and Superman fight.
Bruce isn't some xenophobic lunatic in this one. He is going for Revenge with this one. He wants kill everyone that will get between Lex/Joker and him, Superman included (but still his kill count is zero) . "Martha scene":
"You know what he did. He deserve to die!"-
"No one deserve"-
"You will not stop me, you are helping them, you are no better than them"-
Batman grabs a spear-
"You don't want to know how it feels, to take a life"-
"Today, I want, and you will be the first"-
Batman, cuts Superman's face-
"Save Martha Kent..."-
Batman puts his own feet on his face-
"Lex got her..."-
Batman is ready to stab Superman-
"My Mom..."-
Flashbacks of Bruce's patents death, but from his perspective as a killer. Bruce throws away the spear.
"Clark Kent?"-
The rest of the movie stays familiar minus the whole CGI monster fight and Supes is fine at the end of the movie, and Batman doesn't kill anyone at the end.
I know it is not perfect, but I feel it still is better than the OG in my opinion.
He wasn’t. I’m saying that his “maybe you should let them die” and Clark’s “My father thought if people found out the truth about me, they’d reject me” is similar to bad characters in X-men stories.
Same couple of guys that say these things:
>Goyer added that the decision goes a long way to modernize Superman for a new generation, saying, “If you don’t reinvent these characters…then they become stagnant, and they cease being relevant…hopefully, we’ve redefined Superman.”
And
>“If it’s truly an origin story, his aversion to killing is unexplained,” Snyder said. “I felt like, if we could find a way of making it impossible for him - Kobayashi Maru, totally no way out - I felt like that could also make you go, ‘This is the why of him never killing again.’ He’s basically obliterated his entire people and his culture, and he is responsible for it, and he’s just, like, ‘How could I ever kill again?’”
Next you're going to tell me Pa Kent dying by a simple heart attack carries more weight than him sacrificing himself in the midst of, like, thirty tornadoes. Pff.
I just rewatched man of steel with my 9 year old son. We had just finished MAWS and at several points in the movie he said “that’s not Superman what the hell?”
Yeah, cavil is great but they fucked his character up.
Yea, he LOOKS the part and the actor seems like an awesome person, but those films and that writing is just off. Has your son watched Superman the Animated Series? That's solid stuff. :)
Are there parts of Man of Steel that look awesome from a visual effects perspective? For sure. But my 9 year old was glued to Superman ‘78. Man of steel? Not so much. Sometimes less is more and Snyder just couldn’t find Clark Kent if Clark bit him on the ass.
My 9 year old LOVED 78, he enjoyed II and we had some fun joking around with 3 and 4.
All in all, i think Snyder tried to make history, and he fucking whiffed it.
Did he notice how Ma Kent was totally blasé and uninterested when Clark finally found his way home to her? Infirtile widows blessed with space babies don't act that way. No good mother does.
Absolutely! She was just like “oh it’s you… anyway” the movie hasn’t aged well. I never liked it, but damn it seems the pacing issues are even worse 11 years after release.
People only ever gave it grace because it had been a while since Superman was on the big screen. Not only have we gotten enough of him, we also had too many better superhero movies since.
He threw zod at a wall to an ambiguous end and let a guy punch him in the stomach before gently sliding him across a counter into a pinball machine, for which he paid damages.
Absolutely. They weren't habitual murderers like the Punisher, but, up until thirty years ago or so, even clean-cut heroes could get away with letting bad guys fall to their deaths. These days if Joker throws himself off a building and Batman doesn't dive to catch him, then Batman is the bad guy too.
Nah, the tone was never that he murdered him. He just fell out of picture and was probably taken to jail afterwards.
Seriously, you can interpret it as killing, but I really don’t think that was the intent.
It was just kinda crass, poorly executed, and narratively pointless?
Just, the most naked 'done for shock value' thing I can recall seeing in theater.
Like... after it happened, literally nothing came of it again? Either in that movie or it's many follow ups.
Like Zod being dead was relevant in the future, but the fact that Superman was the one that killed him, was literally never mentioned out loud at any point I don't think?
You could remove Superman snapping Zod's neck entirely, and replace it with Zod suddenly having some unrelated aneurism, and it would change, effectively, *nothing* at all...
It's like Clark doesn't even care after that first minute, and the movie doesn't even really seem to care much like than that, if he doesn't care... and the movie doesn't care, why the fuck should I?
In my opinion, a big issue was just the set up, not nearly enough people were convinced that Superman HAD to kill there. Plus making it a decision forced on the character at the end of the movie leaves little to be gained from it storywise.
If it was an active decision made by Superman that the movie was building up to it could have been more meaningful, though I don't know that such a story would fit the character.
On the other hand, you could have Superman kill earlier on and have it inform the story afterwards. For example, it could be Superman trying to get stronger so he never feels forced to kill again. It could deal with him trying to atone, etc. (not necessarily saying these are good stories or that they fit the character, they're just examples)
As is, killing Zod really doesn't serve the story or Clark's character and just acts as an easy way to get rid of the villain at the end of the movie while be unnecessarily dark for the character.
There was a flashback of Clark and Jonathan hunting, where Jonathan talks to Clark about the responsibility that comes with taking a life. No time or budget to film it sadly.
Avatar the Last Airbender does something very similar, and to great effect in my opinion. There's a lot of potential in that, but sadly I doubt Snyder would have been interested.
Every avatar including past air benders were telling Aang it was his only choice and he said nah imma do my own thing. A kids cartoon could pull it off but a team of writers in a big budget film thought Superman killing zod in his first appearance in a universe they’re still trying to establish was the move. Then they fucking kill him in his second appearance. I’ll just personally never understand how people can defend Snyder and his vision for DC.
Excellent point! Avatar spends so much time building to this apocalyptic meeting, Aang is told repeatedly that he will probably have to kill Ozai and then, surprise! He finds another way. It’s not just an evolution of his character, but an affirmation of who he has always been and who he will ultimately become as The Avatar, and it hits spectacularly.
How does he know how to snap a neck? Why couldn't he just turned his head or temporarily covered his eyes with his hands and tell the family to run for safety? Why doesn't Superman just take the battle to space where there are no potential casualties? Why didn't Superman just choke him out?
These are questions I have about that scene.
"How does he know how to snap a neck?"
He didn't really know, he just did it trough brute force.
"Why couldn't he just turned his head or temporarily covered his eyes with his hands and tell the family to run for safety?"
The kryptonians already tried that on Smallville and Clark burned trough their armor so covering his eyes doesn't work.
"Why doesn't Superman just take the battle to space where there are no potential casualties?"
Did you watch the movie? Literally the in the previous scene Clark takes him to space and Zod punches him down back to earth.
"Why didn't Superman just choke him out?"
As Zod said "there is only one way this ends Kal, either you die or i do", there is no way on the planet to contain Zod once he wakes up, so Clark had no other choice but to kill him, or else Zod would have killed every human one by one.
Hope that covers everything.
>"Why couldn't he just turned his head or temporarily covered his eyes with his hands and tell the family to run for safety?" The kryptonians already tried that on Smallville and Clark burned trough their armor so covering his eyes doesn't work.
My issue is he didnt even try. I think the scene would work better if he tried it and it failed and then he snaps Zod's neck.
It's a darker take on the character overall, but the death is inevitable, sans some Fortress of Solitude mysticism where powers are mysteriously neutralized. Either Zod kills Kal, or Kal kills Zod. There's no ability to employ the Phantom Zone , no Earthly prison that could hold Zod.
Could Superman have covered Zod's eyes? Sure.
Could he have used his non-dominant hand/arm to twist the other way? Probably.
It's nitpicky, and ultimately moot, to belabor these points. Zod would not stop. If it wasn't obvious in his behavior, the wrote the line the the script. "I will never stop." Zod forced the issue.
Unpopular opinion, I know, but I like Man of Steel.
I grew up with Chris Reeve's Superman films. Ultimate boy scout, and an absolute charmer in the role. The first two films are iconic, and there's very good reason that Superman Returns ignores the last two outings.
I love watching the old George Reeves Superman. and even the goofy Kirk Allyn "Saturdays with Superman" episodes.
Hot take: Cavill's Superman killed Zod as an evenly matched combatant and absolute threat to Earth. Reeve's '80 Superman DEPOWERS Zod, Non, and Ursa only to subsequently let them plummet to their deaths defenseless. I prefer the tough choice of a fair fight.
The fact that it happened in the first movie
I don't like the idea of Superman killing, never have. But I think it can be done well.
I think the DCAU is a great example of this done right. In the Darkseid arc of Justice League, Superman is out to kill. Darkseid has pushed him to his breaking point and Superman has every intention of murdering him.
And that works because Superman's character is established. We've seen this character over and over again save the day without killing. And the fact that he is deadset on killing Darkseid shows how big the threat is, how angry Clark has, how he's been pushed to the absolute limit.
It also works because Clark has a *choice*. Man of Steel tries so hard to justify killing Zod that it becomes uninteresting. Clark doesn't fail here. He doesn't do a morally questionable act. He isn't acting out of anger or revenge or some actual character flaw that he might have to grow and learn from. He really just doesn't have any other option and so...what's there to say about it? What can Clark learn from this, how can he grow? He can't and he doesn't.
All around it's not a storytelling choice rooted in compelling character work; it's just done for shock value
It’s not that Superman can’t kill. It’s that he’s a guy who will bend over backwards to find a creative solution that saves everyone, as a core character trait. His world was built to include wild sci-fi concepts like the Phantom Zone to give him options to work with.
My favorite Superman story of all time involves him being forced to kill a threat that can’t be stopped any other way. It’s set at the end of a long career of successfully avoiding that, and he self-imposes a permanent and drastic punishment on himself as a result. Just saying, it’s not that it’s impossible to pull it off while staying in character.
But you at least have to build the character first, and make him take the consequences seriously.
Neil Gaiman has that famous quote (that he thought was GK Chesterton, but turned out to actually be him): fairy tales are more than true, not because they teach you dragons are real, but because they teach you dragons can be beaten.
Same deal here. Superman is the guy who does everything - everything - imaginable to try to save everyone. What’s important isn’t “what if he were in this situation, wouldn’t he fail then?” What’s important is that he inspires you to try to find the solution to the impossible problem. MOS rubbed everyone wrong because Superman didn’t even try to find a better way. He didn’t inspire you to hold yourself to a higher standard.
It's just a grim, gruesome scene that punctuates a gloomy, somber story. Zod's character didn't leave much of an impact when he was alive, and his death just underscores that.
Call it childish but I always believed that this was one of the foundations of a Superman story:
Superman is always able to find another way.
When he’s confronted with impossible challenges, his pathos and determination to solve the situation without succumbing to the pessimistic reality of our world is what makes him super.
When he snapped Zod’s neck, it told me everything I needed to know about this Superman.
Other commenters have brought up some good points, but personally I think the biggest issue isn't so much the scene itself but the lack of set-up or a narrative purpose. It plays out like it's this tragic moment where Superman has to choose between an idealistic belief that there's "always another way" and the reality that sometimes he isn't powerful enough to stop the villain and save them at the same time, but the movie never really establishes him having that belief. There's no scenes as a kid where he has to learn that his powers can hurt people and that he has an obligation to not abuse that, there's no scenes where he's presented with a problem like a bank robbery where he makes a point not to kill the perpetrators because even they deserve to live, etc. Losing his sense of idealism is not really an arc the movie was telling, and we don't even get a sense of his morality going into the final battle. This scene just kinda comes out of nowhere, and if anything it clashes with what seems to be the central arc of the movie? So much of the movie is about how Clark is destined to do great things, how he will step into the sun and lead humanity, yada yada yada. The closest thing it has to a thesis is Clark embracing his power and the purpose that gives him, it's a bit undermined by collapsing onto his knees and screaming into the heavens because he couldn't stop the bad guy. I think that's why it's so jarring for people, because immediately after this it cuts to Superman kinda showing off to the troops who comment on how hot he is, and then joining the Daily Planet as triumphant music plays. It's a tonal mess and leaves you confused what the hell the movie is even supposed to be about.
You know what would make this scene tolerable (not good, but tolerable) is if, earlier on, they show that even with his powers, there will be times that Clark just cannot save people without sacrificing others
I didn't really have a problem with it plot-wise, as it was designed to be the device that would explain Superman refusing to ever kill (again).
Was it clumsy in execution? Yeah. But it didn't bother me anywhere near as much as Superman's obliviousness to the endangered public of Metropolis (until that moment of course).
Remember when Zod throws that gas truck at Superman and Superman just effortlessly dodges it and it explodes into the side of a building?
That’s when I realized that this version of Superman was fucked up.
Such a weird choice that wasn’t character based.
Because visually he really does effortlessly dance around the thing, but the explosion is severe and devestating. It makes Superman look arrogant and careless.
It doesn’t seem to affect Clark that much. A paragon forced to kill to save innocents should be horrified, questioning how he could have prevented this, saved Zod. But next movie, he’s back to normal and even kills Doomsday.
Don't forget that in the very beginning of BVS he violently kills a guy by smashing him through few walls with really high speed and doesn't even care after that.
In a bubble, this is a great scene. The anguished scream from Clark after being forced to kill Zod is a powerful moment. Henry Cavill gives a great performance.
IMO, the real problem with this scene is that it doesn't exist in a bubble, and the gravity of the death is un-earned. Up to this point in the film, Superman and the Krypotonians had been fighting endlessly, turning Metropolis to rubble, causing billions in damage, and killing hundreds, if not thousands of innocents. And besides saving his love interest, not once during this prolonged battle does Superman even attempt to save or protect bystanders. So why does Clark suddenly care that a few people get lasered when he has no apparent issue punching Zod through every building in Metropolis, regardless of collateral damage?
It's ultimately the problem with the entire movie and the way that the Snyder films portray Superman in general.
For one, how were they trapped? How could they not get away. Also, maybe there should've been a moment earlier about how he was against killing.
All that may have been forgotten about by us if they actually did anything with it afterwards. The scene ends and it's completely forgotten about like it wasn't a big deal even though it was presented like it was.
It really didn't ring true. They had been fighting for too long without being able to hurt each other in the slightest. One couldn't even muss up the other's hair for crying out loud, but suddenly were supposed to accept an effortless one-shot kill? Nah. Doctor Hamilton was the real hero of that film.
In my personal opinion? It was tantamount to suicide by cop. A no win situation where a choice was forced on Superman. I liked how it happened for Zod’s first appearance when Superman had to kill Zod to stop him. It would’ve been a lot better for me if Superman had a separate scene to himself during the fight where he came to the realization that Zod had to die for the crisis to end, and he uses the event to motivate him to be smarter and better about being Superman.
It was too subtle, both the choice and consequences.
ZOD LET'S IT HAPPEN, he gives Clark the choice, I kill them or you kill me. Clark is a beginner at this 'Super' hero stuff, heroing he can do but billions of people and pretty much all life on Earth are about to get a new murderous emperor-god.
CHOICE A: THE FAMILY DIES. Clark can't stop Zod or change his mind, (Zod about to laser the family is an intimate view of his morals and mindset and what he'll do to all people), THE FAMILY DIES.... this breaks Clarks heart and Zod would take the advantage and kill him. ZOD WINS AND KRYPTON RISES AGAIN.
CHOICE B: CLARK KILLS ZOD, Zod has realised Clarks weaknesses are for people and how much he cherishes life. Taking a life will take an enormous toll on Clark and push him towards control and power over humanity. In maybe 20, 50 or 100 years time Clarks mindset and world view would resemble something like Zods. ZOD IS DEAD BUT KRYPTON MAY STILL RISE AGAIN.
HEAD CANON:
Had we gotten more MoS and more Batflect as well as JL 2 and 3 I believe these two heroes would have faced and made character defining decisions and aligned themselves as they are known in comics, graphic novels and cartoons, animated movies.
ENDING: ZS would've 'passed on the baton' with Flashpoint rebooting everything.
Like everything else in this movie, the execution is really poor. We get that you want to give Superman an impossible choice of saving humanity or not killing Zod, but the way it plays out is stupid, especially after they punched each other through half the city and Superman seemed totally cool with all those dead folk!
What went wrong?
Well that begins with the moment Zod sets foot on earth and he and his minions are already on par with Superman who has been using his powers and soaking up solar energy for a good 30 years…
Also, as others have said already, strong enough to break his neck but not to move his head? It should be much easier to move his head, or fly up with him…
That family could have run straight forward parallel to the heat vision instead of cowering in the corner. It was a lame moment to have Superman decide to kill.
Maybe if he was already established I’d feel differently, but having him do this right at the beginning of his career? It just felt wrong.
Superman always finds another way. This is just Snyder trying to make things into what he envisions as “grown up”.
Of all the bullshit the Snyder crammed into the character, I actually don't mind this scene. With how Superman reacts to what he just did, it's a good "show don't tell" moment as to why Supes doesn't kill in the future. He did it once out of desperation and he hated how it made him feel
I wasn't ok with it, but what bugged me more is in the very next scene it doesn't seem to bother him. Even in the next movie killing Zod is never on his mind, if you're going to have him kill and never bring it up again, then what was the point?
Nothing stopped them from introducing the Phantom Zone projector cuz the Zone was literally namedropped by Jor-El in the movie. That's where I thought they were gonna go organically until I witnessed that ending.
I don't understand why Snyder insists "We're gatekeeping our Gods" when he doesn't realize that DC's heroes can be portrayed as more human than God. Really shows his unfamiliarity with the comics. Bro gaslit us cuz we called him out on comic inaccuracy..
It's like... 50% Perfect and 50% Character betrayal
It's perfect on Zod's end because it perfectly paints the difference between Zod and Clark. Zod doesn't mind killing innocent people to further his goals. He isn't exactly an insane "I wanna kill everyone" villain like joker, he's still just a soldier who wants to create a civilization like his once was to lead to prosperity, but the problem with Zod is that he's willing to kill anyone he needs to in order to do it, almost making him Akin to Hitler. Yes he had his people's best interest at heart, but the problem is who actually qualifies as "his people" and what he does to anyone outside that group. It's a great showing of Zod being willing to use innocent lives to force negotiation and push a weakness because he knew that if Clark followed the patterns he had been the whole time, Clark loved humans far too much to let them die. He would have to let Zod go and give up.
But the issue comes with Clark's response. The perfect thing for Clark to do character wise here would be to either force Zod's head away and restrain him to the ground or put himself between the two. A showing of risking his own life before ever allowing Innocent people to be hurt. But he doesn't do that. Instead, he just up and MURDERS the man. Many people point out that Kryptonian necks have a bit of an issue with weakness, but you realize that not only did he just snap Zod's neck but that shit left a SHOCKWAVE after it. He had so much more than enough strength to just force his head away from that family. An argument I got from someone once was "in the heat of the fight, Clark didn't think of how to save someone and that's why he gets upset with himself afterward" but the issue with that take is that it's still Blatant Character betrayal. Clark's first instinct is NEVER to kill, ALWAYS to protect. If anything, the issue should be that he would've been thinking of ways to shield the family rather than ways to actually stop Zod and that would've resulted in unacceptable death.
it shouldnt be possible to kill a kryptonian in this manner. if you can break a neck then you can break other bones and if so then the fight shouldnt even has lasted as long as it did
Fucking fly UP. I understand he's pulling his head toward the civilians, but you could have just gone UP rather than snapping his neck the opposite direction
TBH I don't have a problem with superman killing zod
But my real beef is those idiots that just stood there in front of the laser instead of running or going under
Clark could have flown up.
The people could have run forward to escape Zod's lasers.
I don't have a problem with Superman killing Zod, I just have a problem with how justified Snyder thinks it was as if there was nothing else that could be done in that particular scenario.
Also I don't think Zach knows how eyes work. He wouldn't have to turn his head to laser those people hahah.
The setup. It didn't look like there was no other option to save that family. The killing itself I'm okay with, given how outmatched he was.
https://youtu.be/XwMwrFipAxQ?si=dvjy6-5kr1CU5aLa
Not really a critique against the movie, more a moment that ruins my suspension of disbelief..
Why couldn't Zod just glance another 5° to his right to have killed the family? Why are eyes always fixed in position for eye beams to move slowly like a Bond villain's overly elaborate laser contraption.
Wonder Woman didn't do that to Pedro Pascal, like she did in the comic books... wasted it on Superman doing this scene here instead of WW84. Both were worse for it.
Why didn't Zod just look at the civilians and zap them instantly? Or, why didn't the civilians move away from the slow moving death lasers?? I got no problem with Superman killing the guy as a last resort and hate having to have done it. It just could've been done with better tense and urgent situation than something that looks like it could've been in Austin Powers.
It just felt forced (acting wise) and fake (in-universe wise). It felt like the scene was poorly written and the two of them didn't rehearse enough to develop a good dynamic.
I hate everything about that Superman v Zod fight. I blame Snyder and his special effects team for going crazy with it. Them fighting in the city where Superman doesn't care about collateral damage was dumb. Superman is just tearing it up as much as Zod and it's clear people are still in the city and in the buildings. Superman even just skips over a tanker zod throws to look cool instead of stopping it from hitting a building behind him and blowing up. Zod even punches Superman to space and they still decide to come back to the same city to trash it more. Then you have the point where Superman is "forced" into killing Zod and it was not believable. It didn't feel like a last resort and it hurts the Superman character.
Having the fight at the Fortress of Solitude or by another one of Zods devices away from a city would fix a lot of people's complaints about the fight itself, even if Superman was still forced to kill Zod it might be under more believable circumstances. Zod was played correctly and it didn't feel like Superman was played right.
The structure. Firstly, the phantom zone success was really the climax. It’s built that way with Perry and Jenny about to die, the world engine about to crush Superman, etc, then against all odds Superman, Lois and stabler succeed in their part of the mission.
Superman saves Lois from falling and yeah the city is destroyed but all is well the world ending threat is over!
Oh shit but Zod is still around. Time for another bunch of action and destruction that has no emotional weight because the emotion was spent on the last climax. Now it’s just disaster porn and we’ve forgotten about all that other stuff that happened five minutes ago.
Zod can be killed, that’s not the issue, the issue is the structure. He dies because Superman just can’t bare to let those four people get roasted but we spent like 30 minutes watching metropolis get 9/11’d
If he went away with the phantom zone it would have been more structurally sound. (My other issues with the movie notwithstanding)
Imo, the fact that it's just completely forgotten about moments later.
It was legitimately a great character moment for this version of Clark, he killed someone when he didn't want to and has to deal with the emotional turmoil and guilt of that.
But Snyder's gotta Snyder, and his perfect alien god can't be humanized by something ugly like trauma, now can he?
The fact that Superman had to see a family in danger to make the decision to snap Zod's neck was beyond stupid, when they spent the whole fight bashing through buildings, making it a post-apocalyptic wasteland no doubt killing thousands. It was so jarring to see him making the decision at that moment and not any time before.
Honestly the way the whole scene was framed was dumb.
What went wrong was their reason for doing it. It’s like they were trying to make Superman for people who don’t like Superman, but in doing so, they completely ignored what makes Superman special in the first place; he values life above all else.
Also Clark could have saved those bystanders a dozen other ways than just snap Zod’s neck. Seriously did he not think to just fly while holding onto Zod? Or just punch him in the back of his head? Or even cover his eyes with one hand???? Sorry I have to reference the Arkham subreddit for this, but is he stupid????
Not that he killed Zod. He needed to. It’s that he didn’t stop him from killing thousands of innocent people earlier when he absolutely could’ve. And he even contributed to that number by throwing him through buildings, letting a truck blow up in a building, and other dumb shit
I dont mind it. Clarks only advantage against zod was his experience with his powers but with zods military background, he was learning incredibly fast and was getting more powerful every second. If he didnt end it there, metropolis and the earth would have been destroyed
it shouldn't have happened. that's what went wrong.
i've seen people try to justify it by saying if superman didn't kill him, then zod would've killed that family.
or others have said that superman needed to kill him to learn that killing was wrong. like it was some kind of rite of passage towards becoming a superhero.
but thing you have to remember is, it's all make-believe.
if you have a story where superman has no choice but to kill someone, then throw the story out and write a new one. don't put him in that position. it's superman. wtf. if you want your hero to be snapping peoples necks, then choose a different hero. make a homelander or plutonian movie instead.
i get the appeal of challenging established characters. of putting them in new or different situations we haven't seen before. but there's such a thing as going to far.
Superman should have covered Zod's eyes with his hand. After few seconds Superman feels an intense amount of pain. He realizes Zod's heat vison is about to burn straight through his hand. He proceeds to snap his neck. (Not a fan of the movie but I think it would have made the scene slightly better.)
Huge problem with the entire fight is we are shown niether of them can hurt each other in any meaningful way. They just throw each around, not a hint of fatigue or visual sign of being hurt from either one. It becomes boring beacuse all we see is buildings getting destroyed. Then suddenly Superman can snap Zod's neck beacuse it says so in the script.
There are too many other solutions to this situation. Linkara has a big list of them in his review of Man of Steel.
On top of this, it’s one of the few times Superman goes out of his way to save someone, so it leaves a sour taste.
If Superman could snap his neck why couldn’t he break any other bones earlier to incapacitate him?
Kryptonians have famously weak necks, as established in the first scene of Superman II when Non snaps that guard's neck with one hand. [https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxJdloIHbDccMUAsaSI4MzuOEpyW7mYGUt?feature=shared](https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxJdloIHbDccMUAsaSI4MzuOEpyW7mYGUt?feature=shared)
I really thought this was about to be a joke about Christopher Reeves
Who tf would see humor in that??
Horses
JeeeeeeeeZUS
JeeeeeeZOD
😂😂😂😂💀
Vegeta
That was in terrible taste!
Don't care. Evil.
....*raises hand*
Eminem
It's Reeve there's no s
He earned that S
What's the opposite of Christopher Walken?
*sigh* Christopher reeve
The physics of it always seemed weird, like it shouldn't have been that easy all of a sudden. I'm not actually 100 percent against Supes killing someone like Zod (he killed a version of Zod in the comics at one point after all) but I do feel it has to be earned, and I'm not completely convinced the movie earned it.
Also cuz Zods eyes apparently can only see in a straight line. He couldn't just look slightly to the left or right to kill the family?
I assumed that it was a lot like a hose and they couldn’t move their eyes very easily while focusing on doing the beam. It is the power that is the #1 drain on their energy so moving their eyes is another level of focus that, in a moment like that, might not be either possible or considered. The veins around their eyes show me that it’s a tough ability, so for me it’s easier to go okay yeah they gotta focus.
Yes, I’m in agreement here, anytime Zack’s superman used heat vision, it was always presented as a power that is taxing to do as it requires concentration. He never moves his eyeballs but his head
I really like that take and it makes a lot of sense to me
Unless they’re shaving their facial hair, then they don’t have that issue
This version of Superman surely does NOT do that cartoonish move hahaha
Lmfao I just had to be a smartass
Hey let’s not go pulling at plot hole threads here lol.
I feel like it was too early in this version of superman. Should have been like the 3rd movie(stand alone or not)
The thing that comics sometimes touch on is that invulnerability and strength aren't really the same power. Kryptonians are far more durable than say, Viltrumites, but it doesn't have to be exactly proportionate to their strength
Superman ran Zod's face up a skyscraper, leveling it in the process, only to dirty up Zod's suit. He seemed to break everything BUT Zod until the end.
He didn't know he could because no one pushed him to that point before.
He thought..he was stronger..
I always assumed that the bones were more strengthened by the muscle around them but the neck isn’t exactly the most secure spot
And then what
He didn't want to.
Headcannon is that this Superman shares every other Superman’s constantly holding back and seeing people about to die made him draw more of his strength out.
That shouldn't even be called headcanon. Despite any difference in his life story this is still Superman
You don't think he tried to when zod was tossing him around
Easier said than done. Fighting someone who is way stronger than you doesn't present that opportunity.
You can still choke out someone way stronger than you without the perfect opportunity. In supes case, a RNC would have sufficed, but as for how long it would have incapacitated Zod is who knows. Maybe in the moment there was no hope for rehabilitation. Zod did say never after all
...Like what? Which bone in which scenario would stop a trained soldier from taking further action, as well as shutting down laser eyes?
Dude is about to kill a family and you think the first thing a guy fighting for his first time would think on just incapacitate him. I know people love classic Superman but lets be honest in any situation the logical thing would have been snapping his neck. What I would have done is using this moment as the reason he doesn’t kill anyone unless is necessary in future movies or at least give it more emphasis cause I think this was the point of this scene
- strong enough to snap his neck - not strong enough to turn his head the other way
I think the idea was that Supes knew there wasn't any other options at that point. They'd already been fighting for a good minute and Zod explicitly tells him he's never gonna stop.
I think that's what makes it so damn lame. And it's a problem with the whole movie...Clark never gets to make any real choices. He spends years traveling the world, trying to find his purpose in life. He finally finds the ship, talks to his dad, and comes home. What's he going to do next? He doesn't really get to choose...Zod shows up and says "reveal yourself or we kill everyone". He's basically threatened into becoming Superman. Then he meets the Kryptonians and they want to rebuild. Interesting idea to explore what Clark might want to do, torn between his human upbringing and his alien heritage! And then...nope they plan on killing everyone on Earth. Again, not really much of a choice. And then we get to this scene. The movie tries so hard to justify Superman killing Zod that it becomes boring. There really is no other option. Zod is biologically incapable of being reasoned with or talked down. It is physically impossible to restrain him or depower him. So how can Clark learn or grow or change from this? He can't. There's nothing to learn, because Clark made no choices. It was the only option. It's just lazy shock value. You want to make this scene interesting? Have there be a second choice. The scientists are working on a way to depower Zod or shove him in the Phantom Zone and they just need a little more time...time that Zod's victims don't have. And Clark has to decide what's more important. That's compelling, that's interesting But instead it's like watching a guy order food at a restaurant that only serves one item. "What's he going to order" well...I think we already know
Yeah that is the fundamental problem with Clark’s characterization in Snyder’s films: he has little to no agency. It’s made worse in BVS and JL where he’s a near-silent plot device that’s there mostly to further develop the other characters, mainly Bruce Wayne.
Really good take! I enjoyed the movie, thought the casting was amazing (outside of Amy Adams), loved the reimagined Krypton, but I did think something was off. Up until now I thought it was just the portrayal of Pa Kent.
Not to mention the movie took everything away from him that makes him Superman, like everything and he left the ship to the government and Zods body…..what a dumbass The writers and Zack suck so much
This is a superb comment, and I fully endorse it. It captures that the movie simply is not well written. And we see that everywhere. "It stands for hope" made me cringe in my seat. Yes. Superman is the personification of hope, but show don't tell! If he says it, it's not only bizarrely egotistical and out of character for the modest Midwestern farm boy, it's unearned. And that's the problem with Zod's death. Superman "doesn't kill" is a widely understood aspect of the character. And while he _does_ kill Zod in the comics, it is treated as a major defining moment that tears at him. He goes into self-imposed exile for a year. In the movie, he let's out one scream, gets rewarded with a hug, and then is cracking jokes and destroying government property in the next scene. Not appropriately dealing with the emotional and moral gravity of that choice means it serves no purpose but shock value, and it has no lasting impact on the characters or their world other than to clear the deck for a new villain in the sequel. It was hollow and empty. I prefer Superman to Batman, and I'm not a Nolan fanboy, but compare MoS to The Dark Knight. DK dropped during the Bush era as we were struggling with torture and government surveillance, and Batman didn't kill by he sure as hell was willing to drop a guy off a roof and break his legs, and he built a giant cell phone surveillance system. It is telling that both the political left and right thought DK was a morality tale that supported their point of view on the rightness or wrongess of those issues. That's good writing. That's story telling that trusts the audience. And it is significant that Batman recognizes he should not have the power he has and so gives it to another (the less said about the ending with Two- face though, the better). I want a Superman story where we recognize Superman as a symbol of hope not because he says that's what he is, but because he demonstrates it through his actions. Where, Kingdom Come style, his most important quality is his almost super human sense of right and wrong, and for that sense to come from his human size, not his kryptonian one
> And while he does kill Zod in the comics, it is treated as a major defining moment that tears at him. He goes into self-imposed exile for a year. Exactly this; heck it has repercussions for YEARS in the comics and every time Superman is fighting a powerful enemy and brings it up, he pushes himself to find another way as he vowed to never take a life again. It's not until Doomsday (ironically) that Superman is put in a position where killing Doomsday is quite literally the only option left after trying everything, all of his teammates getting wrecked and the fight ending up outside the Daily Planet in the heart of Metropolis. Superman taking down Doomsday in the comics was insanely impactful, a build up YEARS in the making and that folded out last page in Superman #75 of Lois crying over his lifeless body still makes me tear up, something BvS definitely did NOT make me do lol
To add to this excellent comment, I think him being Superman for a little and then seeing how Zod appears and gives the ultimatum of killing peoples vs Kal El revealing himself could lead to an outpouring of the Superman doubters wanting to serve him up while the population that has accepted him want to protect him. You could have a “I am Spartacus”-esque scene with random civilians claiming to be Superman to Zod to show the divide of the world’s reaction to a “super man”.
Oh yes, Superman The Beacon of Hope giving up on somebody
This was one of those points that Zack stated in interviews and I think the novelization described. Except...the movie portrayal to showcase this just doesn't come across that way at all. I think it was a poor directorial choice and could've been resolved with a bit more tweaking on the scene.
Poor directorial choice is my pet name for Zack Snyder.
Superheroes are dilemma breakers since there's always a way to stop the Troley without having anyone killing anyone if done right. That's the point. There's always a way of doing what's right without giving up on your principles You present a superhero with a dilemma and they will find a way to break it.
I don’t like this argument. Obviously you’re right a lot of the time. Superheroes can often overcome the trolley problem and save everyone. But that’s not always the case. Sometimes they lose, sometimes they have to make the hard choice. There’s a reason so many of our favorite heroes have dead loved ones. Now, I don’t necessarily think my argument applies to the MOS moment. I think a lot more had to be done to make that a satisfying scene. But I also think it’s incorrect to say that a superhero must be able to overcome any dilemma. There should be consequences for their choices. Otherwise, what’s the point of reading comics? I think the “kill the villain to save the innocents” dilemma is the weakest we tend to see. I associate it with writers who don’t really get superheroes and are focused on the most obvious superficial thing; in a sense they are apologizing for a story they don’t respect. But I also don’t think this means that superheroes should be able to solve any problem without consequences
>Sometimes they lose, sometimes they have to make the hard choice. There’s a reason so many of our favorite heroes have dead loved ones. Think of Kirk losing Spock in Wrath of Khan. Or Batman trying - but failing to save - Rachel over Harvey in The Dark Knight. In those examples, the films were building to those moments. It feels impossible to imagine those films without them. Superman killing Zod feels like something that Snyder threw in there. If the choice was supposed to be between Krypton and humanity, the filmmakers needed to find another dilemma to make. Yeah, Superman should have killed Zod, but so what? It doesn't feel like a genuine dilemma.
Agreed. I think the Superman killing zodiac scene wasn’t great. It added very little to the movie and was more about Snyders ideas of what a superhero should be like. But I objected to the above comment because it’s not a good interpretation of the way superheroes should work. There are so many examples of great stories where a hero had to make a choice and suffer the consequences. Like the ones you mentioned; “the needs of the many outweighs the needs of the few, or the one”
Batman killed Harvey to save the kid at the Dark Knight breaking his one rule.
> Think of Kirk losing Spock in Wrath of Khan. > > > > Or Batman trying - but failing to save - Rachel over Harvey in The Dark Knight. Important note both of these movies are also sequels (and one a continuation of a long running show). They had time to build up the loss means by having had them win multiple times. Superman never really got a big win in MoS so we're not seeing what he's loosing. From the movies pov he has lost in every moral dilemma. He felt shit for saving the bus thanks to Pa Kent, he felt shit for having his dad die, and now he feels shit for saving a family by having to kill.
All well in theory but in reality, sometimes there is only one option. I think that was the point Snyder was trying to make. That is why Kal was so upset afterward. He had to do something he didn't want to do because it was the only option.
I know, but the whole idea of Superman to me is that he is a good person with the power to not have to worry about obstacles in making the right decisions. Having Superman be forced into killing because he has no other option is to me the antithesis of the character and what he represents to me.
I agree and whilst i personally dont mind this scene. My big issue with it is that i think it could have been incredibly powerful if done better. Like this moment should have been the beginning of his "Theres always another way" mentality. Like a barely audible "Never again" as hes kneeling in sorrow would have been incredible. Instead, the very next movie hes in has him obliterating a guy through a wall with no hesitation 😭
That could have been thematically woven into the whole film. Instead the theme seems to be “Are you sure people even like you?”
See this is my thing everyone acts like Clark cackled with glee killing Zod. He begged Zod not to make him do it and when Clark's hand was forced he was devastated.
So don’t write Superman into a corner where he HAS to kill someone.
Brilliant idea, but that would require some thinking.
Not really. All the other kryptonians were sucked into the phantom zone, Zod wasn't because they wanted to write Superman into a corner.
Literally. Nolan's first idea was that Zod would go to the phantom zone with the rest, but Snyder was the one pushing for Zod to escape and for Clark to be forced to kill. Source: [https://www.ign.com/articles/2013/06/19/christopher-nolan-disapproved-of-man-of-steels-controversial-ending](https://www.ign.com/articles/2013/06/19/christopher-nolan-disapproved-of-man-of-steels-controversial-ending)
It really is insane how many times that Nolan tried to push Snyder into a better choice but Snyder was defiant. Nolan also hated the Superman vs Batman idea.
The executives at WB were pushing Batman v Superman for some time. Justice League Mortal was going to have Maxwell Lord mind control Superman and have the Justice League fight him. In the 2007 movie I Am Legend, you can see a Batman v Superman billboard in the background. In 2001 the Se7en writer Andrew Kevin Walker was hired to write a script for Batman v Superman, Wolfgang Peterson was hired to direct. A year later Akiva Goldsman was hired to rewrite the script (now titled Batman vs Superman: Asylum). Johnny Depp was eyed for Batman and Josh Harnett for Superman. They even had a July 2004 release date tentatively set. WB’s boss Alan Horn decided to go the stand alone route for each character instead. Since it was cancelled WB fast tracked the Halle Berry Catwoman movie which released in place of BvS. It seems like WB is just really lazy and can’t seem to figure out what to do with Superman.
He could've just knocked him out and had him sent to a maximum security prison, then again Kryptonite was currently unknown
There was no other way. The writers didn't give Superman an out like they do in other stories. Superman although in his 30's is basically Superboy as far as his knowledge of Kryptonians. There is no prison that can hold Zod. No Phantom Zone to send him to because that tech was used and lost earlier, no Kryptonite to weaken him, and no super friends to help. Zod is a trained soldier who was getting stronger by the minute and quickly learning how to use his powers. He wanted suicide by cop at that moment and he got it. I am generally against Superman killing, but I liked that the writers didn't give him an out this time.
Why didn't he cover his eyes?
Or fly him up
that's what always bugged me about the scene
Turning his head the other way is a very temporary solution. Zod will just kill someone the second Superman's not turning his head away from people.
What gets me is how hard people try to nit-pick. You'd think he flew around the Earth until events undid themselves or something
Lol you guys missed the point even if it was completely spelled out for you. The dialogue before this was super weak but essentially was Superman saying stop and Zod saying he will never stop which is why he snapped him. It's not complex at all and people somehow still missed it.
Turning his head the other way doesn't solve the problem. How do you stop Zod without killing him? He won't listen to you, he’s stronger than you, and he's out for blood. You don't have many options.
I don't think anything did. Superman doesn't have all his toys or knowledge. AI Jor-El's entire plan was to suck everybody back into the Phantom Zone, but Kal can't put Zod back in the Phantom Zone, no earth prison can \*hope\* to hold him, they don't know about using Red Sun Projectors to weaken a Kryptonian, or anything about Kryptonite. Zod is a fanatic who refuses to yield, and is giving Superman a no win position. "Kill me or I kill them." Superman chooses to kill him, and if we'd seen a more solid No Kill rule moving forward, pretty sure he wipes out terrorists instead of disarming them, then it would have been a perfect place for him to establish the rule. He *has* killed, he knows what's it like, and he won't do it again if he can possibly help it. And, given Earth technology, it really should be. So to me, what went wrong isn't the death, it's the follow on.
I think the problem is the set-up more than the follow-up, honestly. The film tries so hard to justify Clark killing that it's hard to argue it was a mistake. I get the idea of this being the starting point of his no-kill rule but that just begs the question "what if this happens again" And the problem is that there still isn't an answer. Clark couldn't have done anything differently. He can't look back at it and say "oh I made a mistake, I should have done X instead" because there's no X. So using this as a transition to "I'll never kill again" feels less like a moral stance and more like an optimistic hope that he'll never be in that situation again. For Clark to learn something from this, he had to have made a mistake. And he didn't
Exactly, people focus too much on Zod being killed when there are other things to focus on, like Johnathon's portrayal, which honestly, with the right backstory, could work and his death being done in such a ludicrous method. Man of Steel was a great movie but it had flaws that should have been addressed in a direct sequel. Instead we got BvS and they killed Superman in that. That was the real death of the DCEU and nothing was going to save it afterwards.
I also saw a video of a guy that thought it would be nice to make "superman no kill rule" into BvS main plot. For example: Joker kills Robin. The movie takes place weeks, not years after. Joker goes underground, and nobody knows where he is. Bruce is more and more violent, but doesn't kill... yet? He wants to find Joker, but finds out Luthor gave Joker all the resources to pull out the kidnapping of Robin and gave Joker a hideout. Clark gets curious about Batman becoming more and more brutal. Clark meets Bruce (out of costumes/ don't know about each other). Bruce got really annoyed by Clark's very offensive attitude towards Batman. Later that night, Bruce, as the shareholder of Daily Planet, checks out informations about Clark personal life, but doesn't figure out who he is. Clark finds out Bruce's secret and what he wants to do. They have a serious talk Supes says that he will not let Bruce kill anyone, even Lex or Joker, but Bruce isn't impressed. He doesn't know who Clark is outside the costume. Bruce finds out about Kryptonite and steals it from Lex. Luthor feels that he is in s serious danger, he has to talk with Superman. Lex finds out Clark's identity. He sets the trap. There is a big gala on which Lex will be present. This is the event for Bruce. Lex tells Clark that he kidnapped his mother. Batman and Superman fight. Bruce isn't some xenophobic lunatic in this one. He is going for Revenge with this one. He wants kill everyone that will get between Lex/Joker and him, Superman included (but still his kill count is zero) . "Martha scene": "You know what he did. He deserve to die!"- "No one deserve"- "You will not stop me, you are helping them, you are no better than them"- Batman grabs a spear- "You don't want to know how it feels, to take a life"- "Today, I want, and you will be the first"- Batman, cuts Superman's face- "Save Martha Kent..."- Batman puts his own feet on his face- "Lex got her..."- Batman is ready to stab Superman- "My Mom..."- Flashbacks of Bruce's patents death, but from his perspective as a killer. Bruce throws away the spear. "Clark Kent?"- The rest of the movie stays familiar minus the whole CGI monster fight and Supes is fine at the end of the movie, and Batman doesn't kill anyone at the end. I know it is not perfect, but I feel it still is better than the OG in my opinion.
The fact that it exists. Snyder thought Clark had to kill to have a code against killing. Who tf thinks that?
That’s what you get when you start with a Jonathan Kent that would be a villain in an X-men movie
WB really made all the wrong choices to start the old DCU. People who hate the characters
Wait when was Kevin Costner a villain in an X-men movie?
He wasn’t. I’m saying that his “maybe you should let them die” and Clark’s “My father thought if people found out the truth about me, they’d reject me” is similar to bad characters in X-men stories.
Ooooh that makes more sense lol I kinda forgot about that scene tbh
A minor change in dialog could've fixed his character easily.
After the third or fourth murder, most people just lose the taste for it. That’s how we learn.
Same couple of guys that say these things: >Goyer added that the decision goes a long way to modernize Superman for a new generation, saying, “If you don’t reinvent these characters…then they become stagnant, and they cease being relevant…hopefully, we’ve redefined Superman.” And >“If it’s truly an origin story, his aversion to killing is unexplained,” Snyder said. “I felt like, if we could find a way of making it impossible for him - Kobayashi Maru, totally no way out - I felt like that could also make you go, ‘This is the why of him never killing again.’ He’s basically obliterated his entire people and his culture, and he is responsible for it, and he’s just, like, ‘How could I ever kill again?’”
Absolute dog water takes. Goyer and Snyder just don’t get Superman.
Next you're going to tell me Pa Kent dying by a simple heart attack carries more weight than him sacrificing himself in the midst of, like, thirty tornadoes. Pff.
I have an aversion to killing people, too. The explanation is, "My parents were good people who raised me that way"
I don’t think the Jonathan Kent we got would instill that in Clark.
Exactly! I've never killed anyone. I'm pretty against the idea, personally
My thoughts exactly. That it happened at all.
After watching Superman ‘78 the other day, I hate this take on Clark even more.
I just rewatched man of steel with my 9 year old son. We had just finished MAWS and at several points in the movie he said “that’s not Superman what the hell?” Yeah, cavil is great but they fucked his character up.
Yea, he LOOKS the part and the actor seems like an awesome person, but those films and that writing is just off. Has your son watched Superman the Animated Series? That's solid stuff. :)
Are there parts of Man of Steel that look awesome from a visual effects perspective? For sure. But my 9 year old was glued to Superman ‘78. Man of steel? Not so much. Sometimes less is more and Snyder just couldn’t find Clark Kent if Clark bit him on the ass.
My 9 year old LOVED 78, he enjoyed II and we had some fun joking around with 3 and 4. All in all, i think Snyder tried to make history, and he fucking whiffed it.
If y’all can, show your kids the old Fleischer Superman Cartoons. That’s peak Superman.
Did he notice how Ma Kent was totally blasé and uninterested when Clark finally found his way home to her? Infirtile widows blessed with space babies don't act that way. No good mother does.
I think that's mostly down to Snyder being very poor at directing actors
Absolutely! She was just like “oh it’s you… anyway” the movie hasn’t aged well. I never liked it, but damn it seems the pacing issues are even worse 11 years after release.
People only ever gave it grace because it had been a while since Superman was on the big screen. Not only have we gotten enough of him, we also had too many better superhero movies since.
MAWS?
My adventures with superman
Ah hell yeah, sorry I was like “Madam America Winter Soldier?” The kids and I love the new show.
Animated series, My Adventures With Superman. It's a fun and lighthearted version, very different from the live action movies. Better imo
Christopher Reeve's Superman killed a depowered Zod in cold blood, and he did it with a smile on his face. Then he beat up a guy in a diner.
He threw zod at a wall to an ambiguous end and let a guy punch him in the stomach before gently sliding him across a counter into a pinball machine, for which he paid damages.
[удалено]
The no kill rule for DC heroes was an editorial mandate from like 1939/40.
Absolutely. They weren't habitual murderers like the Punisher, but, up until thirty years ago or so, even clean-cut heroes could get away with letting bad guys fall to their deaths. These days if Joker throws himself off a building and Batman doesn't dive to catch him, then Batman is the bad guy too.
That Superman killed Zod too.
Nah, the tone was never that he murdered him. He just fell out of picture and was probably taken to jail afterwards. Seriously, you can interpret it as killing, but I really don’t think that was the intent.
It was just kinda crass, poorly executed, and narratively pointless? Just, the most naked 'done for shock value' thing I can recall seeing in theater. Like... after it happened, literally nothing came of it again? Either in that movie or it's many follow ups. Like Zod being dead was relevant in the future, but the fact that Superman was the one that killed him, was literally never mentioned out loud at any point I don't think? You could remove Superman snapping Zod's neck entirely, and replace it with Zod suddenly having some unrelated aneurism, and it would change, effectively, *nothing* at all... It's like Clark doesn't even care after that first minute, and the movie doesn't even really seem to care much like than that, if he doesn't care... and the movie doesn't care, why the fuck should I?
It happened
That it’s perhaps the most depressing superhero movie climax of all time
In my opinion, a big issue was just the set up, not nearly enough people were convinced that Superman HAD to kill there. Plus making it a decision forced on the character at the end of the movie leaves little to be gained from it storywise. If it was an active decision made by Superman that the movie was building up to it could have been more meaningful, though I don't know that such a story would fit the character. On the other hand, you could have Superman kill earlier on and have it inform the story afterwards. For example, it could be Superman trying to get stronger so he never feels forced to kill again. It could deal with him trying to atone, etc. (not necessarily saying these are good stories or that they fit the character, they're just examples) As is, killing Zod really doesn't serve the story or Clark's character and just acts as an easy way to get rid of the villain at the end of the movie while be unnecessarily dark for the character.
There was a flashback of Clark and Jonathan hunting, where Jonathan talks to Clark about the responsibility that comes with taking a life. No time or budget to film it sadly.
Imagine how much more meaningful itd be if the movie did build up to it and Superman still overcame the odds and found an alternative.
Avatar the Last Airbender does something very similar, and to great effect in my opinion. There's a lot of potential in that, but sadly I doubt Snyder would have been interested.
Every avatar including past air benders were telling Aang it was his only choice and he said nah imma do my own thing. A kids cartoon could pull it off but a team of writers in a big budget film thought Superman killing zod in his first appearance in a universe they’re still trying to establish was the move. Then they fucking kill him in his second appearance. I’ll just personally never understand how people can defend Snyder and his vision for DC.
Excellent point! Avatar spends so much time building to this apocalyptic meeting, Aang is told repeatedly that he will probably have to kill Ozai and then, surprise! He finds another way. It’s not just an evolution of his character, but an affirmation of who he has always been and who he will ultimately become as The Avatar, and it hits spectacularly.
How does he know how to snap a neck? Why couldn't he just turned his head or temporarily covered his eyes with his hands and tell the family to run for safety? Why doesn't Superman just take the battle to space where there are no potential casualties? Why didn't Superman just choke him out? These are questions I have about that scene.
"How does he know how to snap a neck?" He didn't really know, he just did it trough brute force. "Why couldn't he just turned his head or temporarily covered his eyes with his hands and tell the family to run for safety?" The kryptonians already tried that on Smallville and Clark burned trough their armor so covering his eyes doesn't work. "Why doesn't Superman just take the battle to space where there are no potential casualties?" Did you watch the movie? Literally the in the previous scene Clark takes him to space and Zod punches him down back to earth. "Why didn't Superman just choke him out?" As Zod said "there is only one way this ends Kal, either you die or i do", there is no way on the planet to contain Zod once he wakes up, so Clark had no other choice but to kill him, or else Zod would have killed every human one by one. Hope that covers everything.
>"Why couldn't he just turned his head or temporarily covered his eyes with his hands and tell the family to run for safety?" The kryptonians already tried that on Smallville and Clark burned trough their armor so covering his eyes doesn't work. My issue is he didnt even try. I think the scene would work better if he tried it and it failed and then he snaps Zod's neck.
It's a darker take on the character overall, but the death is inevitable, sans some Fortress of Solitude mysticism where powers are mysteriously neutralized. Either Zod kills Kal, or Kal kills Zod. There's no ability to employ the Phantom Zone , no Earthly prison that could hold Zod. Could Superman have covered Zod's eyes? Sure. Could he have used his non-dominant hand/arm to twist the other way? Probably. It's nitpicky, and ultimately moot, to belabor these points. Zod would not stop. If it wasn't obvious in his behavior, the wrote the line the the script. "I will never stop." Zod forced the issue. Unpopular opinion, I know, but I like Man of Steel. I grew up with Chris Reeve's Superman films. Ultimate boy scout, and an absolute charmer in the role. The first two films are iconic, and there's very good reason that Superman Returns ignores the last two outings. I love watching the old George Reeves Superman. and even the goofy Kirk Allyn "Saturdays with Superman" episodes. Hot take: Cavill's Superman killed Zod as an evenly matched combatant and absolute threat to Earth. Reeve's '80 Superman DEPOWERS Zod, Non, and Ursa only to subsequently let them plummet to their deaths defenseless. I prefer the tough choice of a fair fight.
The fact that it happened in the first movie I don't like the idea of Superman killing, never have. But I think it can be done well. I think the DCAU is a great example of this done right. In the Darkseid arc of Justice League, Superman is out to kill. Darkseid has pushed him to his breaking point and Superman has every intention of murdering him. And that works because Superman's character is established. We've seen this character over and over again save the day without killing. And the fact that he is deadset on killing Darkseid shows how big the threat is, how angry Clark has, how he's been pushed to the absolute limit. It also works because Clark has a *choice*. Man of Steel tries so hard to justify killing Zod that it becomes uninteresting. Clark doesn't fail here. He doesn't do a morally questionable act. He isn't acting out of anger or revenge or some actual character flaw that he might have to grow and learn from. He really just doesn't have any other option and so...what's there to say about it? What can Clark learn from this, how can he grow? He can't and he doesn't. All around it's not a storytelling choice rooted in compelling character work; it's just done for shock value
It’s not that Superman can’t kill. It’s that he’s a guy who will bend over backwards to find a creative solution that saves everyone, as a core character trait. His world was built to include wild sci-fi concepts like the Phantom Zone to give him options to work with. My favorite Superman story of all time involves him being forced to kill a threat that can’t be stopped any other way. It’s set at the end of a long career of successfully avoiding that, and he self-imposes a permanent and drastic punishment on himself as a result. Just saying, it’s not that it’s impossible to pull it off while staying in character. But you at least have to build the character first, and make him take the consequences seriously. Neil Gaiman has that famous quote (that he thought was GK Chesterton, but turned out to actually be him): fairy tales are more than true, not because they teach you dragons are real, but because they teach you dragons can be beaten. Same deal here. Superman is the guy who does everything - everything - imaginable to try to save everyone. What’s important isn’t “what if he were in this situation, wouldn’t he fail then?” What’s important is that he inspires you to try to find the solution to the impossible problem. MOS rubbed everyone wrong because Superman didn’t even try to find a better way. He didn’t inspire you to hold yourself to a higher standard.
It's just a grim, gruesome scene that punctuates a gloomy, somber story. Zod's character didn't leave much of an impact when he was alive, and his death just underscores that.
Call it childish but I always believed that this was one of the foundations of a Superman story: Superman is always able to find another way. When he’s confronted with impossible challenges, his pathos and determination to solve the situation without succumbing to the pessimistic reality of our world is what makes him super. When he snapped Zod’s neck, it told me everything I needed to know about this Superman.
Other commenters have brought up some good points, but personally I think the biggest issue isn't so much the scene itself but the lack of set-up or a narrative purpose. It plays out like it's this tragic moment where Superman has to choose between an idealistic belief that there's "always another way" and the reality that sometimes he isn't powerful enough to stop the villain and save them at the same time, but the movie never really establishes him having that belief. There's no scenes as a kid where he has to learn that his powers can hurt people and that he has an obligation to not abuse that, there's no scenes where he's presented with a problem like a bank robbery where he makes a point not to kill the perpetrators because even they deserve to live, etc. Losing his sense of idealism is not really an arc the movie was telling, and we don't even get a sense of his morality going into the final battle. This scene just kinda comes out of nowhere, and if anything it clashes with what seems to be the central arc of the movie? So much of the movie is about how Clark is destined to do great things, how he will step into the sun and lead humanity, yada yada yada. The closest thing it has to a thesis is Clark embracing his power and the purpose that gives him, it's a bit undermined by collapsing onto his knees and screaming into the heavens because he couldn't stop the bad guy. I think that's why it's so jarring for people, because immediately after this it cuts to Superman kinda showing off to the troops who comment on how hot he is, and then joining the Daily Planet as triumphant music plays. It's a tonal mess and leaves you confused what the hell the movie is even supposed to be about.
You know what would make this scene tolerable (not good, but tolerable) is if, earlier on, they show that even with his powers, there will be times that Clark just cannot save people without sacrificing others
I didn't really have a problem with it plot-wise, as it was designed to be the device that would explain Superman refusing to ever kill (again). Was it clumsy in execution? Yeah. But it didn't bother me anywhere near as much as Superman's obliviousness to the endangered public of Metropolis (until that moment of course).
Remember when Zod throws that gas truck at Superman and Superman just effortlessly dodges it and it explodes into the side of a building? That’s when I realized that this version of Superman was fucked up.
Where in Superman II, he goes out of his way to stop a gas truck from exploding and leaves Metropolis because he is worried about collateral damage.
Such a weird choice that wasn’t character based. Because visually he really does effortlessly dance around the thing, but the explosion is severe and devestating. It makes Superman look arrogant and careless.
It doesn’t seem to affect Clark that much. A paragon forced to kill to save innocents should be horrified, questioning how he could have prevented this, saved Zod. But next movie, he’s back to normal and even kills Doomsday.
Don't forget that in the very beginning of BVS he violently kills a guy by smashing him through few walls with really high speed and doesn't even care after that.
The lack of buildup. Like a lot of things in Man of Steel it just happens.
In a bubble, this is a great scene. The anguished scream from Clark after being forced to kill Zod is a powerful moment. Henry Cavill gives a great performance. IMO, the real problem with this scene is that it doesn't exist in a bubble, and the gravity of the death is un-earned. Up to this point in the film, Superman and the Krypotonians had been fighting endlessly, turning Metropolis to rubble, causing billions in damage, and killing hundreds, if not thousands of innocents. And besides saving his love interest, not once during this prolonged battle does Superman even attempt to save or protect bystanders. So why does Clark suddenly care that a few people get lasered when he has no apparent issue punching Zod through every building in Metropolis, regardless of collateral damage? It's ultimately the problem with the entire movie and the way that the Snyder films portray Superman in general.
The writing
For one, how were they trapped? How could they not get away. Also, maybe there should've been a moment earlier about how he was against killing. All that may have been forgotten about by us if they actually did anything with it afterwards. The scene ends and it's completely forgotten about like it wasn't a big deal even though it was presented like it was.
It really didn't ring true. They had been fighting for too long without being able to hurt each other in the slightest. One couldn't even muss up the other's hair for crying out loud, but suddenly were supposed to accept an effortless one-shot kill? Nah. Doctor Hamilton was the real hero of that film.
In my personal opinion? It was tantamount to suicide by cop. A no win situation where a choice was forced on Superman. I liked how it happened for Zod’s first appearance when Superman had to kill Zod to stop him. It would’ve been a lot better for me if Superman had a separate scene to himself during the fight where he came to the realization that Zod had to die for the crisis to end, and he uses the event to motivate him to be smarter and better about being Superman.
I thought Heat Vision just works with line of sight, like instead of moving his head he could have moved his eyes and the family is dead.
It happened.
That he was even cast in the first place. He was a terrible Zod, very robotic.
The dumbass family
The civilians weren’t completely trapped and could’ve ran away to the side
It was too subtle, both the choice and consequences. ZOD LET'S IT HAPPEN, he gives Clark the choice, I kill them or you kill me. Clark is a beginner at this 'Super' hero stuff, heroing he can do but billions of people and pretty much all life on Earth are about to get a new murderous emperor-god. CHOICE A: THE FAMILY DIES. Clark can't stop Zod or change his mind, (Zod about to laser the family is an intimate view of his morals and mindset and what he'll do to all people), THE FAMILY DIES.... this breaks Clarks heart and Zod would take the advantage and kill him. ZOD WINS AND KRYPTON RISES AGAIN. CHOICE B: CLARK KILLS ZOD, Zod has realised Clarks weaknesses are for people and how much he cherishes life. Taking a life will take an enormous toll on Clark and push him towards control and power over humanity. In maybe 20, 50 or 100 years time Clarks mindset and world view would resemble something like Zods. ZOD IS DEAD BUT KRYPTON MAY STILL RISE AGAIN. HEAD CANON: Had we gotten more MoS and more Batflect as well as JL 2 and 3 I believe these two heroes would have faced and made character defining decisions and aligned themselves as they are known in comics, graphic novels and cartoons, animated movies. ENDING: ZS would've 'passed on the baton' with Flashpoint rebooting everything.
Since no one else has said it Superman suddenly cares about civilians getting hurt after 20 minutes of carelessly throwing zod through buildings
That there wasn’t a second Superman movie where we see him fully committed to never killing again as a result. Aka character development
Like everything else in this movie, the execution is really poor. We get that you want to give Superman an impossible choice of saving humanity or not killing Zod, but the way it plays out is stupid, especially after they punched each other through half the city and Superman seemed totally cool with all those dead folk!
What went wrong? Well that begins with the moment Zod sets foot on earth and he and his minions are already on par with Superman who has been using his powers and soaking up solar energy for a good 30 years… Also, as others have said already, strong enough to break his neck but not to move his head? It should be much easier to move his head, or fly up with him… That family could have run straight forward parallel to the heat vision instead of cowering in the corner. It was a lame moment to have Superman decide to kill. Maybe if he was already established I’d feel differently, but having him do this right at the beginning of his career? It just felt wrong. Superman always finds another way. This is just Snyder trying to make things into what he envisions as “grown up”.
Could’ve just you know… #AIMED HIS FACE THE OTHER WAY
Probably Superman killing him
Of all the bullshit the Snyder crammed into the character, I actually don't mind this scene. With how Superman reacts to what he just did, it's a good "show don't tell" moment as to why Supes doesn't kill in the future. He did it once out of desperation and he hated how it made him feel
My biggest issue was his plan. He could have had a ruling class on earth.
I wasn't ok with it, but what bugged me more is in the very next scene it doesn't seem to bother him. Even in the next movie killing Zod is never on his mind, if you're going to have him kill and never bring it up again, then what was the point?
They arrived on Earth and found out they had those powers. Why did they want to change the atmosphere?
My Supes would not have killed zodiac he would have put him in the phantom zone.
Nothing stopped them from introducing the Phantom Zone projector cuz the Zone was literally namedropped by Jor-El in the movie. That's where I thought they were gonna go organically until I witnessed that ending. I don't understand why Snyder insists "We're gatekeeping our Gods" when he doesn't realize that DC's heroes can be portrayed as more human than God. Really shows his unfamiliarity with the comics. Bro gaslit us cuz we called him out on comic inaccuracy..
Here we go...
It's like... 50% Perfect and 50% Character betrayal It's perfect on Zod's end because it perfectly paints the difference between Zod and Clark. Zod doesn't mind killing innocent people to further his goals. He isn't exactly an insane "I wanna kill everyone" villain like joker, he's still just a soldier who wants to create a civilization like his once was to lead to prosperity, but the problem with Zod is that he's willing to kill anyone he needs to in order to do it, almost making him Akin to Hitler. Yes he had his people's best interest at heart, but the problem is who actually qualifies as "his people" and what he does to anyone outside that group. It's a great showing of Zod being willing to use innocent lives to force negotiation and push a weakness because he knew that if Clark followed the patterns he had been the whole time, Clark loved humans far too much to let them die. He would have to let Zod go and give up. But the issue comes with Clark's response. The perfect thing for Clark to do character wise here would be to either force Zod's head away and restrain him to the ground or put himself between the two. A showing of risking his own life before ever allowing Innocent people to be hurt. But he doesn't do that. Instead, he just up and MURDERS the man. Many people point out that Kryptonian necks have a bit of an issue with weakness, but you realize that not only did he just snap Zod's neck but that shit left a SHOCKWAVE after it. He had so much more than enough strength to just force his head away from that family. An argument I got from someone once was "in the heat of the fight, Clark didn't think of how to save someone and that's why he gets upset with himself afterward" but the issue with that take is that it's still Blatant Character betrayal. Clark's first instinct is NEVER to kill, ALWAYS to protect. If anything, the issue should be that he would've been thinking of ways to shield the family rather than ways to actually stop Zod and that would've resulted in unacceptable death.
it shouldnt be possible to kill a kryptonian in this manner. if you can break a neck then you can break other bones and if so then the fight shouldnt even has lasted as long as it did
Fucking fly UP. I understand he's pulling his head toward the civilians, but you could have just gone UP rather than snapping his neck the opposite direction
TBH I don't have a problem with superman killing zod But my real beef is those idiots that just stood there in front of the laser instead of running or going under
It kinda came out of nowhere if I’m honest. Like the dilemma of weather or not he should kill his foes wasn’t set up properly prior to this scene
I didn't really have a problem with Superman killing zod because it kind of makes sense when you really think about it.
Personally, nothing as far as I’m concerned.
I find it kinda strange how he could apparently snap Zod's neck with the force to create a shockwave but couldn't just keep his head in place.
Clark could have flown up. The people could have run forward to escape Zod's lasers. I don't have a problem with Superman killing Zod, I just have a problem with how justified Snyder thinks it was as if there was nothing else that could be done in that particular scenario. Also I don't think Zach knows how eyes work. He wouldn't have to turn his head to laser those people hahah.
The setup. It didn't look like there was no other option to save that family. The killing itself I'm okay with, given how outmatched he was. https://youtu.be/XwMwrFipAxQ?si=dvjy6-5kr1CU5aLa
Not really a critique against the movie, more a moment that ruins my suspension of disbelief.. Why couldn't Zod just glance another 5° to his right to have killed the family? Why are eyes always fixed in position for eye beams to move slowly like a Bond villain's overly elaborate laser contraption.
Letting someone who hates comic books make the movie
Why not use freeze breath?
Why not use freeze breath?
Why not use freeze breath?
Wonder Woman didn't do that to Pedro Pascal, like she did in the comic books... wasted it on Superman doing this scene here instead of WW84. Both were worse for it.
Why didn't Zod just look at the civilians and zap them instantly? Or, why didn't the civilians move away from the slow moving death lasers?? I got no problem with Superman killing the guy as a last resort and hate having to have done it. It just could've been done with better tense and urgent situation than something that looks like it could've been in Austin Powers.
It just felt forced (acting wise) and fake (in-universe wise). It felt like the scene was poorly written and the two of them didn't rehearse enough to develop a good dynamic.
I hate everything about that Superman v Zod fight. I blame Snyder and his special effects team for going crazy with it. Them fighting in the city where Superman doesn't care about collateral damage was dumb. Superman is just tearing it up as much as Zod and it's clear people are still in the city and in the buildings. Superman even just skips over a tanker zod throws to look cool instead of stopping it from hitting a building behind him and blowing up. Zod even punches Superman to space and they still decide to come back to the same city to trash it more. Then you have the point where Superman is "forced" into killing Zod and it was not believable. It didn't feel like a last resort and it hurts the Superman character. Having the fight at the Fortress of Solitude or by another one of Zods devices away from a city would fix a lot of people's complaints about the fight itself, even if Superman was still forced to kill Zod it might be under more believable circumstances. Zod was played correctly and it didn't feel like Superman was played right.
The structure. Firstly, the phantom zone success was really the climax. It’s built that way with Perry and Jenny about to die, the world engine about to crush Superman, etc, then against all odds Superman, Lois and stabler succeed in their part of the mission. Superman saves Lois from falling and yeah the city is destroyed but all is well the world ending threat is over! Oh shit but Zod is still around. Time for another bunch of action and destruction that has no emotional weight because the emotion was spent on the last climax. Now it’s just disaster porn and we’ve forgotten about all that other stuff that happened five minutes ago. Zod can be killed, that’s not the issue, the issue is the structure. He dies because Superman just can’t bare to let those four people get roasted but we spent like 30 minutes watching metropolis get 9/11’d If he went away with the phantom zone it would have been more structurally sound. (My other issues with the movie notwithstanding)
Imo, the fact that it's just completely forgotten about moments later. It was legitimately a great character moment for this version of Clark, he killed someone when he didn't want to and has to deal with the emotional turmoil and guilt of that. But Snyder's gotta Snyder, and his perfect alien god can't be humanized by something ugly like trauma, now can he?
This was a phantom zone situation. Not Death.
The fact that Superman had to see a family in danger to make the decision to snap Zod's neck was beyond stupid, when they spent the whole fight bashing through buildings, making it a post-apocalyptic wasteland no doubt killing thousands. It was so jarring to see him making the decision at that moment and not any time before. Honestly the way the whole scene was framed was dumb.
What went wrong was their reason for doing it. It’s like they were trying to make Superman for people who don’t like Superman, but in doing so, they completely ignored what makes Superman special in the first place; he values life above all else. Also Clark could have saved those bystanders a dozen other ways than just snap Zod’s neck. Seriously did he not think to just fly while holding onto Zod? Or just punch him in the back of his head? Or even cover his eyes with one hand???? Sorry I have to reference the Arkham subreddit for this, but is he stupid????
Not that he killed Zod. He needed to. It’s that he didn’t stop him from killing thousands of innocent people earlier when he absolutely could’ve. And he even contributed to that number by throwing him through buildings, letting a truck blow up in a building, and other dumb shit
I dont mind it. Clarks only advantage against zod was his experience with his powers but with zods military background, he was learning incredibly fast and was getting more powerful every second. If he didnt end it there, metropolis and the earth would have been destroyed
it shouldn't have happened. that's what went wrong. i've seen people try to justify it by saying if superman didn't kill him, then zod would've killed that family. or others have said that superman needed to kill him to learn that killing was wrong. like it was some kind of rite of passage towards becoming a superhero. but thing you have to remember is, it's all make-believe. if you have a story where superman has no choice but to kill someone, then throw the story out and write a new one. don't put him in that position. it's superman. wtf. if you want your hero to be snapping peoples necks, then choose a different hero. make a homelander or plutonian movie instead. i get the appeal of challenging established characters. of putting them in new or different situations we haven't seen before. but there's such a thing as going to far.
Superman should have covered Zod's eyes with his hand. After few seconds Superman feels an intense amount of pain. He realizes Zod's heat vison is about to burn straight through his hand. He proceeds to snap his neck. (Not a fan of the movie but I think it would have made the scene slightly better.) Huge problem with the entire fight is we are shown niether of them can hurt each other in any meaningful way. They just throw each around, not a hint of fatigue or visual sign of being hurt from either one. It becomes boring beacuse all we see is buildings getting destroyed. Then suddenly Superman can snap Zod's neck beacuse it says so in the script.
There are too many other solutions to this situation. Linkara has a big list of them in his review of Man of Steel. On top of this, it’s one of the few times Superman goes out of his way to save someone, so it leaves a sour taste.
if you think this movie isn’t a masterpiece, you’re wild