Man of Steel - All that Needless Destruction!?

A part of a series:

Man of Steel, Small-Large Steps on the Path to Superman

SPOILER - WARNING (havent seen the film? Please disregard this unless you do not mind spoilers)

All that needless destruction in this film. Superman is so careless that he pretty much destroyed Metropolis single handed right?

I beg to differ. There is a "world machine" as they call it, that is terraforming planet Earth, which has landed right in the middle of Metropolis more or less. There is an invasion from an alien race that is as strong as Superman within planet Earths' atmosphere trying to kill off every last single human being, and there is a General Zod. The anti-hero of the film and anti-superman at that as well in all but strength.

With the stakes being that high and the entire planet pretty much at risk, people are angry with the destruction caused to a portion of one city from the fight? Or are they?

It all just seems like an excuse to bash on a film that was put together in almost a flawless fashion. And further more, it seems like a hit on Snyder once more and his clear underlying love for Mythology and even more so Greek Mythology.

With regards to all that destruction in Metropolis, I myself found it quite fitting for the themes portrayed. Man of Steel came out with a bang. No little villains and small starts and what not. Like a Lex Luthor that is simply a criminal. So Supermans' rival is a genius or mastermind criminal? Really? No matter what his genius, which is hardly ever truly portrayed in most films, Lex Luthor remains to be a criminal with a plan that Superman stops even when he is up against Kryptonite, etc.

To compensate for this in the comics, Lex Luthor gets himself that Kryptonite exoskeleton battle suit, and there things get a little more interesting I admit.

Man of Steel brought us on the go General Zod and the invasion of the last surviving Kryptonians (was that pronounced right?), and with doing so they fittingly get that story done with, open the reboot with a great start and also tie it in greatly with the origin story for Kal El. Downplaying such an important villain would have been wrong.

Furthermore, such an invasion would not take place without it being as devastating as it was.

Back on the matter however of Supermans fight destroying the city and killing innocents', it is clear that the casualties are minimal if any during this fight. A fight mind you that is taking place between two equally powerful foes one of which is an uncontrollable force, General Zod, having now lost everything, bent on destroying and killing off all of or as much of humanity as possible.

To add to all this, Supermans' choice and dilemma on killing Zod to protect innocents for many seems out of place. Why would he all of a sudden care about people when he was content on destroying the city during his fight right? Wrong.

Here is the breakdown to further show what happened:

1) Half the city had evacuated at the point, the largest portion of casualties had been the result of the terraforming process which was hardly Kal El's fault. He was after all on the other side of the globe trying to destroy the second counterpart to the machine in cooperation with the military to destroy the 1st part.

2) During the fight, few if any casualties are shown and the closest we get is citizens simply getting a "close" look at the fight from what small amounts had not managed to evacuate from the city already. Coming to the conclusion that many died from this fight is just as easy as coming to the conclusion that few died.

3) Kal El was fighting Zod to stop him. How was this not a concern with the livelihood of innocents not for Metropolis alone but for the entire planet? The true dilemma being that Kal El did not want to kill Zod and the fight was a chance to stop him through avoiding the outcome of death. Zod was uncontrollable clearly, and Kal El realised throughout the fight he would never stop and never give up. No matter how many punches, Zod was a force that could not be contained by any means on planet Earth and he would never stop until one of the two would die.

So what was Kal El to do over an uncontrollable force? Sit there in his cheesy 80's voice and tell Zod "hey hey Zoddy, not so fast there fella. There are civilians in this part of the city. Lets take the fight 'outside' and settle this like men. Thank you for your cooperation". Highly unlikely.

4) The dilemma makes enough sense and all the actions of Kal El work towards him trying his best to protect the innocents. The fight reached the point of no return. Before him he had the option of seeing innocents die at his own hands mostly because he is too much of a chicken to do that which a true hero should do and stop a greater and uncontrollable evil, or man up and do the one thing he clearly does not want to do in the service of saving innocents.

This dilemma and Kal El killing off Zod is an entire subject of it's own, but it plays well into showing us that the fight had purely kept going from Kal El's desire to not kill whilst also putting a stop to all this. Something he found was not possible and never the less an honourable thing to try and accomplish.

All this could easily be interpreted as a means to bring Lex Luthor into the picture in the next film and thus be the starting point of Lex building a support and idea against Superman. Bruce Wayne could also become a part of the next film based on this destruction and innocent lives lost. Although Kal El is not the reason to their deaths, he is a factor of it as the Kryptonians would never have come to Earth in the first place was it not for him.

Hardly a reason to blame Superman for all this, but it is human nature after all and that is what makes for a morally great story as well. Having sides to which each a person can actually see something they could relate to and find the right to both sides of the story makes for great screenwriting and complex themes. This could very well play off as a great kick-off into the sequel.

Snyder's reply however on all this left a lot of people unsatisfied.

He went to express that it was in the honour of Mythology, and that in Greek Mythology or even Japanese Mythology we see these great events of destruction that the people cannot explain or find reasoning too. America has no such mythology of its own apart from something like Superman perhaps, and this fit in greatly to the reboot.

I agree to this, many do not. But opinions aside, this does not in any way presume that the events will not be used for the sequel regardless. And I doubt Zack Snyder would simply come out and say something the likes of "Yes, that is the idea, we want in the next film to bring Lex Luthor in like this, and Batman like this, and make Supermans tale take place like this, etc" and in the process spoil the premise of an entire film that they are still in the process of making.

I find it hard to believe people are really against half of the things they say they are with regards to Man of Steel and see this all more of a biased mindset against Snyder. Something which I have seen growing more and more as time passes.

The casualties in all ways were a result to the invasion, even from the fight itself. And whilst people have a problem with this in Man of Steel, they are cool with it in a film like the Avengers? Comparing the two invasions, the alien invasion of the Avengers is truly a mediocre attempt by comparison of strength. Making the premise to Man of Steel a much greater threat from which a larger destruction is understandable. All of this which aims towards a more epic story and an immersion I did not feel for one moment in the Avengers.

I mean come on, the cliche "army is nuking" the city plot? And Iron Man taking the nuke through the portal? Who can honestly say they did not expect him to come back from that?

The Man of Steel plot far outweighed in plot structure other films of its likes, and made the destruction feel more relate-able and threatening as well. Even such shots as innocents caught in the rubble are very well placed to make the threat even more relate-able.

We praise Godzilla for taking out another monster, who barely cared for the city to begin with and simply wanted to remain the Alpha monster, destroying anything in the way during the process, yet we come to complaints with Kal El doing all he did to both save innocents as well as maintain his humanity? That sounds a bit off.