Man of Steel - Your thoughts — Page 2

I thought Synder did as good as could be expected.

It's not a literal remake but who needs one of those when the original is still as fresh as the day it was made?

Like the official Night Of The Living Dead remake it played with expectations and came up with the best opening 15mins of any running zombie story in any medium.

It's the best Resident Evil film by a long chalk (lots of fun with exploding fuel cans and chainsaws going astray) and Synder's best film (he has made some clunkers but there is usually something worth looking at in his movies even if the actual direction is sometimes plodding).

ray_afraid said:

Ronster said:

 

I also admire what zack snyder did with Dawn of the dead

You are dead to me.

I'll be honest I have the trilogy DVD sitting there and I have seen the original but I need to watch this one again... But I enjoyed the fresh take It was not a bad film although yeah the point got lost of the zombie metaphor but It was not about that it was a different take

ray_afraid said:

Ronster said:

 

I also admire what zack snyder did with Dawn of the dead

You are dead to me.

The remake was ok. In a good waste of an hour and a half type way. Not a patch on the original though, which is in my top 5 horror films of all time.

That is the thing I like about the Dawn of the Dead remake, it can happily co-exist with the original. It is more of a homage to Romero's classic than a retelling of it. The stories are extremely different, and feature completely different characters. There are very few similarities beyond the title, the zombies, and the iconic setting of the shopping mall, which I think it is a good thing. 

I love the original, IMHO the best of Romero's films, with the exception of the original Night of the Living Dead of course. And I also love Snyder's Dawn of the Dead. I feel like it is one of the best made, if not the best made, modern zombie movie out there.

Oh yeah, and freaking Sarah Polley! I've had a sort of thing for that girl since the first time I saw The Adventures of Baron Von Munchhausen (before you find that icky, I should say that the actress is older than me, and I was about eight years old the first time I saw that film, which is about the age she was when it was made). 

If I were to list five essential zombie films, it would be Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, 28 Days Later, and Snyder's Dawn of the Dead remake/homage.

The big question that looms is from what you have said CP3S will it be the same as that Dawn of the dead film?

Not a replacement but a piece that can co-exist quite hapilly?

My top 5 horrors of all time.

1. The Exorcist

2. The Shining

3. Evil Dead (original)

4. Dawn of the Dead (original)

5. Funny Games (remake) 

So did anyone bother going to see this and was it any good?

Although I think I know the answer to the second question....

I will see it Tues.  It appears critics are not big fans but real people are.  Interesting.  I wonder why it appeals to the general populace and not the cinema proletariat.

I do pay attention and absolutely love Beasts of the southern Wild... Thought it was fantastic... I have the artist to watch it's in my huge DVD stack

But what I mean is you need to wade through the titles to find the "good stuff"

Of which these days there is a lot less of.

@captainsolo I thought as much glad I did not bother

Yeah I'm glad I didn't see this film. Snyder has a talent for making the adaptation more violent than the source material; I remember my Dad walking out of 300, and he wanted to see it!

I think I just don't like superhero movies in general (except for the Dark Knight trilogy), and I might of seen this if Snyder wasn't in the director's chair. Plus, the origin story has been done to death by now, and Hollywood is on an irreversible decline anyways, so they'll keep pumping out terrible superhero movies for decades to come.

Ronster said:

The big question that looms is from what you have said CP3S will it be the same as that Dawn of the dead film?

Not a replacement but a piece that can co-exist quite hapilly?

I grew up watching the Reeve's films and loved them as kid. I tried to watch them again a few years back, and decided they were better left as fond memories.

I am not sure why they couldn't co-exist happily, or why it should even be an issue. In order to like the Nolan Batman films, do you have to throw out Burton's film? I never really cared for the two Burton Batman flicks, but I know a lot of people who do and still enjoy the Nolan films a great deal. Why should it ever have to be either or? It is even more puzzling to find this a conundrum when you consider Superman has been around a very long time and there are already dozens of versions of his origin story out there.

Superman, for being as popular as he once was, has been getting the short end of the stick in recent years, with far less influential characters getting title films and remake after remake. Superman Returns was extremely terrible, tried too hard to tie into the Reeve's films, which was an awful mistake to start with, and then portrayed the character of Superman as a total creeper, which couldn't have been more at odds with the portrayal of Superman in the Reeve's movies.

Worrying about the possibility of this not meshing with, or not being able to co-exist with the Reeve's Superman films strikes me as odd as not being able to enjoy The Avengers because the Hulk portrayed in that film doesn't mesh with and is unable to co-exist with Lou Ferrigno's Hulk. 

Essentially, Superman is a piece of American mythology. Myths and legends can be retold in any number of ways, ultimately it is the fun in telling the tale that matters.

generalfrevious said:

Yeah I'm glad I didn't see this film. Snyder has a talent for making the adaptation more violent than the source material; I remember my Dad walking out of 300, and he wanted to see it!

300 more violent than the source material? The source material was extremely violent. The Superman comics have gotten fairly violent at times too over the years.

darth_ender said:

I will see it Tues.  It appears critics are not big fans but real people are.  Interesting.  I wonder why it appeals to the general populace and not the cinema proletariat.

My wife didn't like it, and she's real...as far as you know. ;-)

CP3S said:

generalfrevious said:

Yeah I'm glad I didn't see this film. Snyder has a talent for making the adaptation more violent than the source material; I remember my Dad walking out of 300, and he wanted to see it!

300 more violent than the source material? The source material was extremely violent. The Superman comics have gotten fairly violent at times too over the years.

Well, when I saw Watchmen a few years back it seemed to embellish the sex and violence more than in the graphic novel (don't forget the added emphasis on Dr. Manhattan's penis). Maybe I'm wrong about the 300 adaptation.

Added emphasis on Dr. Manhattan's penis? I'm not sure how they put emphasis on his penis, he's naked throughout the graphic novel, and he is naked throughout the movie. I don't feel like any emphasis was present in either, it is just there, which was the point. He is so out of touch with being human, he doesn't understand a need to wear clothes, he isn't naked for any sexual reason, he is naked because he simply doesn't care to wear clothes. It wasn't like they were zooming in on the thing, or showing it in great detail. It is actually pretty blurry and low on detail throughout the film.

All of the sex scenes in the movie are also in the graphic novel. There is that one sex scene that I have always felt went on a little too long (mostly so they could play a decent amount of Hallelujah during the scene), but it is there in the novel and happens in the same way.

Have you even read either 300 or Watchmen? 300 the graphic novel, on top of being filled with gore and blood splatter throughout, also depicts the Spartans running around naked half the time. That book has more exposed dong in it than an all gay college fraternity's frat house.

I'm going to go see Man of Steel on Wednesday with some friends. I'll be able to give some real opinions on the film then.

SilverWook said:

Superman, at least on tv and film has always been an optimistic positive view of the world. In other words, it's not Batman. Sure, you might get mugged in Metropolis, but odds are you're more likely to get mugged in Gotham in broad daylight.

You would have said the same about Batman prior to the 1989 Burton film. I remember my parents trying to decide if they should take me and my sister to see it or not, and people telling them that it was really dark and violent for Batman (at this point the Adam West serial was still playing reruns on ABC and was what everyone thought of when they thought of Batman). Eventually they decided to take us to see it, then were surprised to find out it was a lot darker and a lot more violent than they expected it to be even after being warned.

I am sure nobody made that mistake with Batman Begins, because since then it has been well established through the 90's via the Warner Bros. cartoon series and the Burton/Schumacher films that Batman is kind of dark and violent. Prior to that, outside of the comics, Batman was as fun, positive, and squeaky clean as Superman had always been.

The Superman on TV and film that you talk about having an optimistic and positive view of the world are products of the 1940's through the 1970's, including the old serials and movies, cartoons, and the Christopher Reeve's films. Even Superman III and IV, made in the 80's, are a little bit darker and more violent (and yet also more campy).

CP3S said:

Have you even read either 300 or Watchmen? 300 the graphic novel, on top of being filled with gore and blood splatter throughout, also depicts the Spartans running around naked half the time. That book has more exposed dong in it than an all gay college fraternity's frat house.

I did read Watchmen before watching the film version, and to me it felt a little off. I understand that all the sex and violence in the graphic novel were there, but Snyder seemed to magnify those elements in the film. It's probably just me putting the book above the movie, and nitpicking the movie if it doesn't seem to look right to me (Just like fans of Harry Potter, LOTR, Superman, Batman, Spiderman, etc. not liking the film versions of those works)

Oh yeah, doesn't Snyder like slow-motion shots as well? How many were there in Man of Steel (if any)?