Just got back and Man of Steel has jump to the top of my list of best of summer, enjoyed it!
I had a few issues with it...
This is a film where the more I think about it the less I like it.
One thing which particularly bothered me was the lack of internal consistency. When Sups & Lois are on the spaceship, a big deal is made about it being the Earth vs. Kryptonian AIR that is the source of his super strength - he's weakened on the ship because of the AIR, & only gets strong enough to escape when the AIR is switched to an Earth mix.
But... whenever he's fighting Team Zod down on Earth... oh look, they're wearing their breathing masks to keep them supplied with good old Kryptonian-style air, BUT STILL FIGHTING WITH SUPER STRENGTH AND SPEED.
Um... WTF, Nolan? Lazy storytelling much?
No, you misunderstood that bit. The yellow sun gave them the powers, not the air. The Kryptonian air was toxic to Supes because he wasn't used to it. Two different things.
It wasn't just the yellow Sun, it was also stuff in the air as Zod only gained Superman's powers when he took of his mask. Until then he had only a Krytonian's strength and speed, which I think they tried to explain away by the gravity being different, for them.
But yeah Superman was only weak not due to a lack of sun/earth atmosphere but because he was poisoned by the Kyptonian one.
What I didn't get is why when Zod he learned that Kyptonians that have adapted to Earth, or grew up there had loads of extra powers, he still wanted to Terraform the planet. Surely it would make more sense to keep it like it is, to breed stronger Kyptonians with heat and x-ray vision.
No, you misunderstood that bit. The yellow sun gave them the powers, not the air. The Kryptonian air was toxic to Supes because he wasn't used to it. Two different things.
Well, no. When Sups awakens tied to the table on the spaceship, the doctor specifically tells him that he has no power there. When the Jor-El program takes over the ship, Sups regains his power after 'Jor-El' reprograms the life support to produce Earth-like air - not because of any alteration to the ship's lighting (which would've made much more sense & been easily visible to the audience). That proves it was supposed to be Earth air granting super strength on the ship.
Then when battling Team Zod on Earth we twice see Sups damage or remove their breathers, causing them to breath Earth air. In these cases it leads to them gaining his sensory powers (x-ray vision, super hearing) & being overwhelmed by the input (something he had spent a lifetime learning to handle). It happens twice, & is a big point in both battles where it happens - they were fine standing in yellow sunlight & breathing their own air (& using super strength, contra the situation with Sups on the spaceship), but when the masks came off they suddenly gained super senses.
Both of these are departures from the comics canon
If what you're saying is that the sun gave strength but the air caused Sups to be so sickened that he was as weak as human-normal, then I think we're into the realm of splitting hairs. It walks like a duck, & quacks like a duck, but apparently we're supposed to call it a sick parrot instead?
This is all exactly what I said! Sun gives powers. Krypto air poisons. Masks block sensory stuff.
Yup. The movie largely departs from canon most of the way through.
I don't really know what that duck stuff means, but that's what happened in the film, yes - the sun gave powers; the Krypto air was toxic to Clark. They were pretty explicit about that.