Post by Deleted on Feb 9, 2017 5:33:21 GMT
Since the Superheroes and Villains board has become a place where Marvel is constantly put under the microscope, if not outright dismissed, while the DCEU is hyped up and declared brilliant, I thought I'd turn the tables a little bit.
“We learned that people don't like seeing their heroes deconstructed.”
No, we're actually fine with it. It just has to be done well. Problem is, they're not even deconstructing Superman really. They haven't even given us the character to do that with. You can't pick apart Superman if the character that's supposed to be him ACTS nothing like him. A deconstruction takes an established character or the usual tropes associated with a creative property, and applies (quasi-)real life consequences to their usual behavior or tropes within their world. This Superman is not a deconstruction no matter how many times Snyder and Cavil try to convince us he is.
Secondly, Superman has been put in situations where he's had to kill before, except it was done BETTER.
Why would the reborn Superman be more sure of himself? When he comes back he'll be a brain-washed slave of Darkseid and used as a weapon against Earth. When he comes to his senses, confident is not how he'll feel. If anything, he'll be even more convinced that people were right to fear and hate him. And his (stupid) "sacrifice" to save Earth is what left him vulnerable to Darkseid's influence to begin with, so he won't even have that to cling to for comfort.
Back to the topic of deconstruction done right...
Let's use the Revival Era of Doctor Who as our example of how a real deconstruction works. Specifically the second episode of 9th Doctor's tenor, The End of the World. He picks up a new companion named Rose Tyler, a pretty young woman of course, and takes her aboard his ship, the TARDIS, to have wacky adventures across time and space. The Doctor ALWAYS does this. It's expected of him to invite new friends to along with him, but the deconstruction comes in when the writing raises a point about this no prior episode had:
Rose has literally known him for less than a day (when you add up the hours she's been in contact with him). After thoughtlessly hopping in a stranger's vehicle and letting him just take her somewhere, it slowly dawns on Rose that he doesn't really know this guy. Plus, whenever she asks him something about himself or asks about his people, The Time Lords, he becomes defensive. Very questionable behavior. Of course, it all works out in the end, but The Doctor has to work to fully gain Rose's trust again.
Then the show did AGAIN it few episode later in the two-part story, Aliens of London/World War 3. How?
Normal Doctor Procedure: when it's time to drop his companion off at home, The Doctor will literally just park The TARDIS somewhere in the general area they left in, relatively close to the same time they left, with little thought to the specifics. The companions leave the TARDIS, and the series, and we're left to assume that everything sorted itself out.
How Aliens of London/World War 3 Deconstructed This: He sets the Space/Time coordinates to take Rose home, but due to a careless oversight, he accidentally sends them a year into the future from the night she hopped aboard the TARDIS. She didn't tell anyone she was leaving, though. So as far as everyone who lives in linear time is concerned, Rose Tyler has been mysteriously missing for a FULL. YEAR. Oh, and her boyfriend, Mickey, is the chief suspect because he was the last known person to see her. So when Rose gets home, she's made to reap the consequences of leaving without telling anyone where she was going and The Doctor is made to reap the consequences of his own carelessness.
Then even later during the 10th Doctor's run, they touched on the idea of former companions never being able to have normal lives again after they've traveled the universe and history with him.
Then even later during the 11 Doctor's run, they acknowledged the fact that The Doctor has become one of the most feared entities in the universe. Think about it: he's a weird nameless man who will just pop out of a blue box that appeared from nowhere and begin meddling in others' affairs leaving in his wake a trail of death and chaos. Sure, all that violence is just the bad guys doing bad things and The Doctor just reacts in kind to stop them, but he's been at this for a thousand years (from his perspective), being active in all eras and corners of the universe. His name has become legend across the cosmos, and some known him as a hero. Others know him as a demon that needs to be destroyed, because as we all know, it's all about perspective, and things often get muddled in each retelling of a legend. This becomes a mature ongoing story arc in 11th Doctor's tenor and he's forced to face how frightening he can be to others and strives to amend his ways (with varying success).
See? Everything The Doctor does in all these instances are perfectly in-character for him as established by the original series from 1963. The difference is that the writers of the 2005 Revived Series considered the implications of his modus operandi and gave them consequences.
So, to conclude: they actually NEEDED a standard Superman in these films in order to deconstruct him. They needed to pick something about Superman's usual, standardized behavior to absolutely shred.
Superman's unwillness to kill is a good choice to start with and Zod was THE ideal villain to go with for it. He's as mighty as Boy Scout in Blue, but ruthless, xenophobic, and he has mad aspirations of becoming the Emperor of a New Krypton.
Alas, at no point in Man of Steel is Superman The Blue Boy Scout, famous and beloved for his Good Samaritan ways. Thus, the whole delivery fails.
They needed an already established, confident Superman at the height of his game being faced with an new kind of enemy that will not be reasoned with or defeated in the nicest way possible.
In other words, Man of Steel actually works better if approached the same way as Nolan's second Batman film, The Dark Knight, which has an established, confident Batman facing a new kind of enemy that completely sweeps away the comfort zone Gothma's fallen into.
Thus, Man of Steel also needed a preexisting comfort zone for Superman and the people of Earth for Zod to sweep away in the blink of eye. Superman needed to have everything he's ever stood for challenged. He would have to TRY his usual tactics first: trying to reason with them and then trying to non-fatally defeat them only to have them both utterly fail leaving him with fewer and fewer options as the third act approaches. In the end, he would be forced to do something he's never done before: get rough, get nasty, and kill. That's tragedy, in almost the Shakespearean sense.
Then a good version of Batman v Superman would continue Shakespeare's Reversal of Fortune theme by showing Metropolis' destruction on Superman's watch and him betray his principles both have had the effect of making people question this entity they once thought of as almost an angel from Heaven. Heck, the angel analogy could even be THE ongoing thematic term used throughout the film concerning Superman. It'd certainly make for better dialogue between Bruce and Alfred.
Bruce: "People look at him like he's an angel sent by God. They forget that Lucifer, himself, was not only one once himself, but the greatest among them."
Alfred: "You fear he'll become a Fallen Angel, Master Bruce?"
Bruce: "You saw what happened last year when the stakes were down and the Blue Boy Scout was made to act out of his comfort zone, Alfred. You tell me."
“We learned that people don't like seeing their heroes deconstructed.”
No, we're actually fine with it. It just has to be done well. Problem is, they're not even deconstructing Superman really. They haven't even given us the character to do that with. You can't pick apart Superman if the character that's supposed to be him ACTS nothing like him. A deconstruction takes an established character or the usual tropes associated with a creative property, and applies (quasi-)real life consequences to their usual behavior or tropes within their world. This Superman is not a deconstruction no matter how many times Snyder and Cavil try to convince us he is.
Secondly, Superman has been put in situations where he's had to kill before, except it was done BETTER.
Why would the reborn Superman be more sure of himself? When he comes back he'll be a brain-washed slave of Darkseid and used as a weapon against Earth. When he comes to his senses, confident is not how he'll feel. If anything, he'll be even more convinced that people were right to fear and hate him. And his (stupid) "sacrifice" to save Earth is what left him vulnerable to Darkseid's influence to begin with, so he won't even have that to cling to for comfort.
Back to the topic of deconstruction done right...
Let's use the Revival Era of Doctor Who as our example of how a real deconstruction works. Specifically the second episode of 9th Doctor's tenor, The End of the World. He picks up a new companion named Rose Tyler, a pretty young woman of course, and takes her aboard his ship, the TARDIS, to have wacky adventures across time and space. The Doctor ALWAYS does this. It's expected of him to invite new friends to along with him, but the deconstruction comes in when the writing raises a point about this no prior episode had:
Rose has literally known him for less than a day (when you add up the hours she's been in contact with him). After thoughtlessly hopping in a stranger's vehicle and letting him just take her somewhere, it slowly dawns on Rose that he doesn't really know this guy. Plus, whenever she asks him something about himself or asks about his people, The Time Lords, he becomes defensive. Very questionable behavior. Of course, it all works out in the end, but The Doctor has to work to fully gain Rose's trust again.
Then the show did AGAIN it few episode later in the two-part story, Aliens of London/World War 3. How?
Normal Doctor Procedure: when it's time to drop his companion off at home, The Doctor will literally just park The TARDIS somewhere in the general area they left in, relatively close to the same time they left, with little thought to the specifics. The companions leave the TARDIS, and the series, and we're left to assume that everything sorted itself out.
How Aliens of London/World War 3 Deconstructed This: He sets the Space/Time coordinates to take Rose home, but due to a careless oversight, he accidentally sends them a year into the future from the night she hopped aboard the TARDIS. She didn't tell anyone she was leaving, though. So as far as everyone who lives in linear time is concerned, Rose Tyler has been mysteriously missing for a FULL. YEAR. Oh, and her boyfriend, Mickey, is the chief suspect because he was the last known person to see her. So when Rose gets home, she's made to reap the consequences of leaving without telling anyone where she was going and The Doctor is made to reap the consequences of his own carelessness.
Then even later during the 10th Doctor's run, they touched on the idea of former companions never being able to have normal lives again after they've traveled the universe and history with him.
Then even later during the 11 Doctor's run, they acknowledged the fact that The Doctor has become one of the most feared entities in the universe. Think about it: he's a weird nameless man who will just pop out of a blue box that appeared from nowhere and begin meddling in others' affairs leaving in his wake a trail of death and chaos. Sure, all that violence is just the bad guys doing bad things and The Doctor just reacts in kind to stop them, but he's been at this for a thousand years (from his perspective), being active in all eras and corners of the universe. His name has become legend across the cosmos, and some known him as a hero. Others know him as a demon that needs to be destroyed, because as we all know, it's all about perspective, and things often get muddled in each retelling of a legend. This becomes a mature ongoing story arc in 11th Doctor's tenor and he's forced to face how frightening he can be to others and strives to amend his ways (with varying success).
See? Everything The Doctor does in all these instances are perfectly in-character for him as established by the original series from 1963. The difference is that the writers of the 2005 Revived Series considered the implications of his modus operandi and gave them consequences.
So, to conclude: they actually NEEDED a standard Superman in these films in order to deconstruct him. They needed to pick something about Superman's usual, standardized behavior to absolutely shred.
Superman's unwillness to kill is a good choice to start with and Zod was THE ideal villain to go with for it. He's as mighty as Boy Scout in Blue, but ruthless, xenophobic, and he has mad aspirations of becoming the Emperor of a New Krypton.
Alas, at no point in Man of Steel is Superman The Blue Boy Scout, famous and beloved for his Good Samaritan ways. Thus, the whole delivery fails.
They needed an already established, confident Superman at the height of his game being faced with an new kind of enemy that will not be reasoned with or defeated in the nicest way possible.
In other words, Man of Steel actually works better if approached the same way as Nolan's second Batman film, The Dark Knight, which has an established, confident Batman facing a new kind of enemy that completely sweeps away the comfort zone Gothma's fallen into.
Thus, Man of Steel also needed a preexisting comfort zone for Superman and the people of Earth for Zod to sweep away in the blink of eye. Superman needed to have everything he's ever stood for challenged. He would have to TRY his usual tactics first: trying to reason with them and then trying to non-fatally defeat them only to have them both utterly fail leaving him with fewer and fewer options as the third act approaches. In the end, he would be forced to do something he's never done before: get rough, get nasty, and kill. That's tragedy, in almost the Shakespearean sense.
Then a good version of Batman v Superman would continue Shakespeare's Reversal of Fortune theme by showing Metropolis' destruction on Superman's watch and him betray his principles both have had the effect of making people question this entity they once thought of as almost an angel from Heaven. Heck, the angel analogy could even be THE ongoing thematic term used throughout the film concerning Superman. It'd certainly make for better dialogue between Bruce and Alfred.
Bruce: "People look at him like he's an angel sent by God. They forget that Lucifer, himself, was not only one once himself, but the greatest among them."
Alfred: "You fear he'll become a Fallen Angel, Master Bruce?"
Bruce: "You saw what happened last year when the stakes were down and the Blue Boy Scout was made to act out of his comfort zone, Alfred. You tell me."
