Trailer Superman Full Trailer

[Clint_L]

Yeah, I’m kind of hoping that scene plays out differently in the movie as part of an extended discussion because that struck me as weird. Clark is a reporter as well - he’s not (or shouldn’t be) unaware of the fallout of his actions or the nature of the questions, and his defense seemed kinda childish?

See, I really liked this. My Superman is a massive Boy Scout. He dosn't really do shades of grey. He stopped a war, and those who have a problem for ideological reasons or whatever can go suck an egg.

Ethically speaking, he's a hardcore deontologist.

Snyder tried to give us the morally conflicted, post-Watchmen Superman. It sucked. There are plenty of other heroes to do that with.

 

[jian]

See, that's what I like about it.

Exactly. But we've seen that version. I'm excited to see this one.

The word "must" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Who says he must? As far as I can tell... you?


I'm sure every erstwhile politician has those same thoughts... until they've been in the job for 7 seconds.

You don't want Superman to care what other people think? Caring what other people think is a weakness?

I think not caring what other people think has a medical name--sociopathy. My Superman isn't a sociopath.

Sorry, you’re right (though that’s not even slightly the definition of sociopathy). Caring what other people think about you is part of being human, but letting it stop him from doing what’s right is a narrative weakness for Superman, in that it’s something that stops him from acting for the greater good. If Superman doesn’t save people in a burning building because he’s afraid people will say mean things about him on Facebook, when actually those mean things have no actual consequences for him (unlike for every celebrity and politician) and he doesn’t have to read them, then he’s not Superman.

Should Clark do what other people think he should do (or not do what they think he shouldn’t)? Honestly, I think no, generally - he’s not a democratic hero. He’s a hero with all the power who uses it responsibly because he is also omnibenevolent in a way that society otherwise arguably only ascribes to God - he always knows what the right thing is to do and what he does always turns out to have been the right thing to do.

Which isn’t to say that Superman can’t change his mind, but I’d say that his opinions and decisions seem to generally be based on an internal moral compass and higher (possibly superhuman) understanding of morality, not a collective reflection of social values or what other people around him tend to believe.

My point is that while we can thrill to his adventures and insights, fantasise about having his infallibility, or empathise with his suffering, my view is that Clark isn’t actually human on any level. Of course he’s not human physically, but he also has superhuman morality and willpower, which is very hard to present on screen and which writers will generally want to avoid lampshading or making explicit because we don’t want to think too hard about how alien or divine Clark is.

If Clark is just an unstoppable man with normal human emotions and morality, well that’s great, but I think you’d end up telling a different story. He’s not the guy who’s always right and always uses his power responsibly and infallibly, who always helps as many people as he can and never uses his power selfishly. He’s just yet another person who has much more power and privilege, and much less accountability, than anyone should have; and that makes him potentially both a threat and a liability, like any billionaire.

 

[jian]

See, I really liked this. My Superman is a massive Boy Scout. He dosn't really do shades of grey. He stopped a war, and those who have a problem for ideological reasons or whatever can go suck an egg.

Ethically speaking, he's a hardcore deontologist.

Snyder tried to give us the morally conflicted, post-Watchmen Superman. It sucked. There are plenty of other heroes to do that with.

I sort of agree with this and sort of don’t.

I do agree that Superman shouldn’t care much what other people think - not because they’re not people to him or somehow inferior or irrelevant, but because he disagrees and his opinions won’t be changed by what they say, because he knows what the right thing is to do.

I didn’t like the scene because I’d expect his response not to be angry or upset, but to sigh and accept it calmly. It’s nice they think that, but they weren’t there and he was doing the right thing while the job was in front of him.

Now, that isn’t great for interviews either, because he’s not really explaining himself to the audience, but it’s probably the only place he can go. “I’m sorry some people don’t agree with what I’m doing, Ms Lane, but as long as I’m helping people I’ll just carry on doing it.”

 

[Morrus]

Caring what other people think about you is part of being human, but letting it stop him from doing what’s right is a narrative weakness for Superman, in that it’s something that stops him from acting for the greater good. If Superman doesn’t save people in a burning building because he’s afraid people will say mean things about him on Facebook,

Did you see a different trailer to me? When did he not save people because people might be mean? What are we talking about here?

He showed a bit of frustration in private with his life-partner. That’s it.

Should Clark do what other people think he should do (or not do what they think he shouldn’t)? Honestly, I think no, generally - he’s not a democratic hero. He’s a hero with all the power who uses it responsibly because he is also omnibenevolent in a way that society otherwise arguably only ascribes to God - he always knows what the right thing is to do and what he does always turns out to have been the right thing to do.

Which isn’t to say that Superman can’t change his mind, but I’d say that his opinions and decisions seem to generally be based on an internal moral compass and higher (possibly superhuman) understanding of morality, not a collective reflection of social values or what other people around him tend to believe.

My point is that while we can thrill to his adventures and insights, fantasise about having his infallibility, or empathise with his suffering, my view is that Clark isn’t actually human on any level. Of course he’s not human physically, but he also has superhuman morality and willpower, which is very hard to present on screen and which writers will generally want to avoid lampshading or making explicit because we don’t want to think too hard about how alien or divine Clark is.

“Superpower morality omni-wise Superman” isn’t one I’m familiar with. I mean, there have been a lot of comics and TV shows and movies, and I feel like I’ve consumed a lot of them, but that’s not a characterisation I’ve ever noticed. His story has always been that he got his morality and outlook from his adopted parents. But maybe you’ve read different comics to me!

 

[Eric V]

Not really. I don’t know enough about you to be personal. More an observation that his reaction seems pretty mild given what I (and many others; I won’t speak for you) know about how the modern world works. If the movie were being realistic, I imagine that 50% of the public reaction to even simple acts of goodness would be utterly hostile. He’d be a saint to half the world and the devil to the other half, and none of that would really have anything to do with him. Superman (socially, not physically) couldn’t exist in our world. He’d be demonised.

That's exactly what Snyder was going for...and what people hated. Too bad we never saw a Man of Steel 2. :/

 

[Piperken]

Two frequently paraphrased adages:

• Clark Kent is Superman; Batman is Bruce Wayne.
• Clark Kent is who Superman is; Superman is what he does.

Any discussion about Superman's personal character really needs to keep in mind Siegel & Shuster's actual lives, I feel.

I'd also suggest reading "For the Man Who Has Everything," (Moore, Gibbons), if you haven't.

 

[Staffan]

Should Clark do what other people think he should do (or not do what they think he shouldn’t)? Honestly, I think no, generally - he’s not a democratic hero. He’s a hero with all the power who uses it responsibly because he is also omnibenevolent in a way that society otherwise arguably only ascribes to God - he always knows what the right thing is to do and what he does always turns out to have been the right thing to do.

I can't really agree with you there. I think part of what makes Superman interesting is his very human morality. His morality certainly can't be a Kryptonian superpower, because we see that Krypton kinda sucked, and we see other Kryptonians (like Zod) who are by no means "omnibenevolent".

Also, Superman voluntarily suborns himself (mostly) to human, particularly American, law. In most interpretations he's not a tool of the government, and he does reserve the right to deal with things his own way, but most of the time he obeys the laws of the land. He has seen too many people who are convinced of their own righteousness, and who do evil in the name of said righteousness, for him to want to fall into that trap, and the solution is to (mostly) abide by the law. When we have supers who decide that they know better how things should be than governments, we get the Authority or Injustice.

 

[chuckdee]

I think that’s a little cynical. I’d say that if someone (especially a famous someone) does an impressively and undeniably positive thing in our world, the response is generally positive.

Bill Gates announced that he is giving away 99% of his wealth while he's still alive. People still riffed on him for that, saying it was nothing and there was an ulterior motive. It's not being cynical- it's the world that's cynical.

This one sold me on Corenswet(?) where I hadn't been sold before, but still there's something that Hoult lacks in this to me.

 

[jian]

Bill Gates announced that he is giving away 99% of his wealth while he's still alive. People still riffed on him for that, saying it was nothing and there was an ulterior motive. It's not being cynical- it's the world that's cynical.

This one sold me on Corenswet(?) where I hadn't been sold before, but still there's something that Hoult lacks in this to me.

I think the response was and is still overwhelmingly positive, as it has been to Warren Buffett announcing his giving pledge. Sure, people were suspicious and critical, and for good reasons - Gates has done some awful things in his life, he hasn’t given most of his money away, he very much controls what he spends it on, and many people disagree with what he spends it on for various reasons. But I’d say the overall public reaction is still quite positive because he seems to be trying to do good, and is mostly spending on things that don’t benefit him directly or indirectly. There’s always going to be criticism, but 50% is pretty unlikely, even on social media (which, as noted, does not reflect people’s opinions accurately in any way).

Corenswet seems fine but it’s hard to tell. I like Hoult more in the trailer than I thought I would. Looking forward to watching it in July.

 

[jian]

I can't really agree with you there. I think part of what makes Superman interesting is his very human morality. His morality certainly can't be a Kryptonian superpower, because we see that Krypton kinda sucked, and we see other Kryptonians (like Zod) who are by no means "omnibenevolent".

Also, Superman voluntarily suborns himself (mostly) to human, particularly American, law. In most interpretations he's not a tool of the government, and he does reserve the right to deal with things his own way, but most of the time he obeys the laws of the land. He has seen too many people who are convinced of their own righteousness, and who do evil in the name of said righteousness, for him to want to fall into that trap, and the solution is to (mostly) abide by the law. When we have supers who decide that they know better how things should be than governments, we get the Authority or Injustice.

I think Clark submits to human justice (even though handcuffs and prison are generally meaningless to him) and obeys human laws because he thinks it’s the right thing to do. Is his morality human? Difficult to say, but I’d say it’s infallible narratively in a way that human morality isn’t (do/did the Kents have the same narrative protection? Not necessarily, depending on the writer).

Arguably the only other comics character this applies to is Captain America (but let’s not get into a discussion right now about whether Steve is superhuman and if so whether he has superhuman cognitive abilities).

This does also bring us to the importance of the secret identity, which hasn’t had much play in recent superhero films (the best example is Peter Parker, probably, but almost* everyone else has no secret identity worth mentioning). Superman can partly ignore social disapproval because he isn’t a social character; Clark is. Being hated upsets Clark but doesn’t stop Superman from doing what he does, because some of the time he can be Clark and go buy groceries like a normal person, safe from all the worship and vitriol that Superman attracts.

(This is not something (generally) that anyone else with fame and power can do - it’s not a viable option for Barack Obama, Taylor Swift, or Elon Musk. It’s actually a huge real-life problem for billionaires and celebrities, since they can’t easily form effective relationships and social support networks, and that can be very destructive for them and everyone they affect.)

But strip away the identity and Clark/Superman is lost - he has no refuge, no safe connection to humanity, no space to regain balance and sanity. More than Kryptonite, it is his greatest weakness. I wonder how much this version of Superman will consider that.

*Yes, there’s Bruce too, of course.