Man of Steel vs Destruction of Metropolis

DIEGO'S NOTE: Stuff like this is why I hate deadlines (especially ones I give myself). Sometimes we just get bombarded with so many different ways to discuss a topic, we end up with a small idea giving birth to a dozen other ideas! Maybe that's what happened with this movie.

After my last bit on Man of Steel (if you can call a thousand words "a bit") I felt satisfied with what I had to say about my repeat viewing of the movie. I do still have more to say left over from previous viewing experiences but my previous article is kinda required reading so I don't repeat myself too much here. We know where this is headed: the destruction of Metropolis in Man of Steel.
Simple and Clean: The destruction in Man of Steel simply doesn't work because of how the movie (sort of) attempts to portray Superman. It doesn't help when your movie can't decide which inspiration of the source it wants to translate from text to screen.

As I touched on in the previous article, Man of Steel suffers the same issues as Zack Snyder's Watchmen in that it has an unrelenting love of the source material, but no idea how to adapt it in a different medium, while vital aspects get left behind in translation. If we're following the idea of Man of Steel using our presumed empathy to texturize Clark with characterization, shouldn't that same presumption lead to his not causing careless destruction?

Now let's not get crazy and think that I'm anti-violence in movies. It's not that the action and destruction don't belong in a superhero movie, it's that they don't belong in THIS superhero movie and surely don't belong here without consequence. Action in movies need to have purpose in the context of the story being told. Action should always have consequence. So what is the consequence in relation to this version of Superman's story?

rip in peace

In the opening on Krypton, we get bombarded with a plethora of subplots and exposition. The world of Krypton seems like a science fiction wet dream with designs that would flourish if they weren't held back by the grim gray color palette (if this entire universe is just covered in a grey filter). We spend around 15-20 minutes on this alien planet but so much of the time is an exposition dump, we don't grow attached to any of the happenings.

The opening destruction of Krypton would have been 100x more effective if we grew to understand what this world had hoped to achieve. To be honest, it looked like it was in pretty bad shape, but we never got to see it thrive. It's a simple error the movie can't stop manufacturing with every explosive action sequence.

After being told through the first half of the movie that Clark will grow to be a symbol of hope for humanity to strive towards; he'll be a god to us (Old Testament God, I guess). The movie follows up that first half with Zod's arrival, Superman attempting to win the trust of the military, before turning into an all-out brawl for the finale (which clocks in around the final 45 minutes). And it's a spectacular brawl! Snyder's visual flare continues to astound as the superhero version of 9/11 unfolds before our eyes.

It's a highly mixed signal your sending the audience with how you want us to use our assumed empathy to embrace this symbol of hope, while also using the character to enter a super powered punching contest, at the expense of an entire city. Yes, I know "Zod caused the destruction" but, again, I'm not saying it's not necessary, it's that the final confrontation is as tonally confused as the rest of the movie.

It's more than just a comparison from page to film that makes the climactic destruction uneasy for me. It's the narrative of the film that doesn't support the destruction in a meaningful capacity, and only uses it as bells and whistles to an emotionally empty climax.

So let's address the concerns with the destruction from a movie standpoint. I've already covered why characterization doesn't really work for me in the previous post, but the main detriment of the destruction of Metropolis is the lack of responsible building in Man of Steel's own central conceit. The thing is, you can have mass scale destruction if you use it to compliment the story at hand. How our hero deals with such a defeat at the hands of his first nemesis is ripe for exploration. Having a hero beat down with such force is good storytelling. What's not good storytelling is to ignore the destruction for the sake of a few off-hand jokes and a smile/fade to credits. And you don't need to be a Superman hater to think it's odd that Lois/Clark's first kiss is amidst the DC Universe equivalent of 9/11's ground zero, just as Jenny Olsen, covered in debris, says "He saved us." Jenny, a large portion of the city is literally flattened like a pancake. He saved like 4 people. When all the rest of the destruction has already happened, there's no reason to care about these people in particular.

I'm going to play MAJOR Diego's Advocate here so brace yourself. Superman was right to kill Zod. From a character standpoint, if a warmongering invulnerable alien goes about trying to commit further genocide to humanity – and he very much did succeed in committing genocide, just not to the lengths he intended – it's Superman's job to stop him at any cost.

As far as the movie is concerned, there's not a single line of dialogue that illustrates his conflicted feelings about wanting to avoid killing anybody. All you need is a little line of dialogue where Jor-El or anybody close to Clark says "The only way to stop Zod is to kill him" and having Clark respond with a "WHAT" look on his face. Take a moment to follow that dialogue piece with a scene of Superman pondering what it means to take a life, especially after he realizes he's no longer the only one of his kind.

This would set a good precedent for future films where Clark no longer wishes to take a life after having to kill the last of his kind to protect humanity. Going back one more time to my previous post, we don't know what humans mean to Clark. We don't know what he feels about his Kryptonian origins. On humanity, there's no purpose behind Clark's heroism beyond just a general consensus of what is good. On his Kryptonian heritage, Clark spends the first half of the movie just floundering about until he is addressed by Jor-El's hologram on where he came from and who he really is. There's no greater sense of how this affects the world around him.

Since we're talking about the action here, what is the escalation? Building momentum in action is like preparing food or having sex. You can dive right into the main course and indulge yourself, but you'll probably be disappointed in the final outcome. It's infinitely more gratifying if you properly build your way to the climax (so that's mostly just relating to sex but food is just so good).

Man of Steel is so focused on the loud "BOOM" moments in the conflict, without a proper story structure to support the ideas, it becomes exhausting by the end of it.

The Dark Knight is basically the template for the DC Cinematic Universe, and I think it's a pretty good example of how to make action influence the narrative. The entire conceit of the fight between Joker and Batman is the battle for Gotham's soul. Joker makes Gotham, and the city as a whole, go through rigorous tests in an attempt to bring about total anarchy. The final confrontation isn't even a physical fight between Batman and the Joker. Yeah, they duke it out in an earlier scene but the final conflict is between Gordon, Batman, and Harvey Dent and how far they each had fallen within a few days because of the Joker's actions. When it comes down to it, The Dark Knight, one of the most revered movies of our generation, is all about a handful of characters and their conflicting ideologies on how to perfect Gotham (Joker's vision is less than humane).

So what does the destruction in Man of Steel mean? There are some arguments that the decimation of Metropolis will be dealt with in the following movie. While that is almost certainly true, how does that help this movie here and now? The problem remains in the idea of Kal-El/Superman as a symbol of hope isn't followed through in the finale, and like the majority of the other ideas are left up in the air.

TLDR; The destruction in Man of Steel doesn't work because it's a betrayal of our presumed empathy and is a disregard of the themes it attempts to portray.

I've got one more behemoth topic to discuss about Man of Steel (this was initially supposed to be one post): Comics vs Movie version of Superman. Stay tuned.