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*sigh*
Let's do this.
I don't hate Man of Steel. I actually kinda like it.
It's probably my second or third favorite DCEU movie.
But, it needed to be amazing, and I don't believe it was.
And if you do, if you love Man of Steel and believe it's the perfect interpretation of Superman, that's great!
Everyone doesn't have to agree on which movies are good and bad,
and as long as you enjoy it, that's fine.
But there are a fair amount of people who don't love Man of Steel.
And even within those people there's a huge range of opinions.
Some hate it, some just think it's a mess. I find myself closer to that second group,
I think Man of Steel is 90% of a good movie.
But that last 10% is a few strange choices that don't ruin necessarily the movie,
but definitely hold it back significantly.
And I struggled to come up with one small change that would address all of my issues with Man of Steel.
But, at the end of the day, I couldn't.
There are so many structural and fundamental problems with this movie that one change isn't enough.
So I'm going to take a shot at rewriting it.
NOW - this isn't going to be nearly as involved as my Justice League rewrite.
Like I said, I think a lot of this movie is pretty good.
However, I think there are two big problems with Man of Steel that you can only fix with a rewrite.
Pacing and character development.
So, I'm going to take another swing at Man of Steel.
I'm gonna move scenes around, cut scenes, and occasionally I'm gonna make bigger changes.
I'll highlight my issues with the original film, explain my changes,
and use the series to speak more generally about character arcs and story structure and stuff like that.
My goal is to stay roughly in line with what Man of Steel seemed to be going for.
No new deaths or extra characters, though I would like to keep a certain character alive.
It's not either of the ones that you think.
And hopefully, when we're done, we will have a version of Man of Steel that everyone
that was and wasn't a fan of the original can enjoy.
Two disclaimers:
First, I wanna make it super clear that I do not think that I am a more talented screenwriter
than the actual writers of this movie.
David S Goyer is clearly an excellent screenwriter who has been writing movies for almost as long as I've been alive.
He's written some of my favorite movies,
like the Blade Trilogy, two of which I contend are some of the most fun superhero movies out there.
Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengence, which I think would have been really well received
if it didn't follow the original Ghost Rider, which he didn't write.
And, most notably, David S. Goyer was part of the team which wrote the Dark Knight trilogy,
which are some of, if not the best, superhero movies ever made.
He is a great writer.
Whenever you get a movie like this, I always chalk it up to studio interference,
which is also maybe too easy of a target.
Suffice it to say, the moviemaking process is complicated and messy,
and 95% of the time, no one person is responsible for an imperfect movie,
and everyone is doing their best to make something special
and it is a miracle that any movies are any good at all.
I have both the benefit of hindsight and, more importantly,
no studio mandates or directives constraining my decisions.
What I am doing is nowhere near as complicated as what professional screenwriters do,
especially for big tent pole studio movies like Man of Steel.
I don't think I'm better than them or anything like that,
this is just a fun exercise.
Two: this video is going to look a little different than my previous videos
because I will be using an extremely minimal amount of footage from this movie,
since Warner Brothers has been really cool recently and copyright claimed my last three videos about the DCEU.
Which is basically their version of saying they don't believe my use of the movies qualifies as "fair use"
even though I believe it is clearly transformative in nature.
So, Warner Brothers has claimed my videos and, not only can I not earn revenue from them,
I don't have any control over what kinds of ads run on these videos.
And they can also probably take them down at any time if they wanted.
So I'm not gonna bother.
In the future, when I make videos about movies from other major studios,
I will continue to edit those videos using footage from those movies,
but, at least for the time being, I'm going to be using pretty much zero footage from movies owned by Warner Brothers.
Sorry.
Okay, now that we got that out of the way, let's begin.
This first video is going to cover Act 1, which is, without a doubt, the act with which I have the fewest issues.
It does make what I believe are a couple of big mistakes and I'm gonna look at those,
but I promise, most of the major changes for this rewrite come in Acts 2 and 3,
since I believe those are far and away the most problematic.
So, I wouldn't blame you if you forgot Man of Steel starts on Krypton.
In this scene, we are introduced to: Jor-El, Lara Lor-van, General Zod, Faora, the Kryptonian Council,
and this guy who I will refer to from here on out as "Big Grey Villain."
We see Clark's birth, Jor-El addressing the Council, Zod coup, a Jor-El fight scene,
Jor-El stealing the Codex, Kal-El's escape, Jor-El's death, Zod's sentencing, and Krypton's destruction.
It's a lot.
This scene takes up nearly twenty minutes of movie and I find it largely unnecessary for two reasons.
One, Superman's origin is pretty simple:
alien baby from a dying planet sent to Earth by his parents so that he could survive.
It doesn't need all this explanation.
We don't need to know what kind of hat everyone on Krypton wore or what Avatar dragons they fly.
Maybe this would be interesting with better execution,
like if everything didn't look like it was filmed in a vacuum cleaner bag,
but I don't really think it's necessary.
And, number two: some of this information is more interesting if we don't learn it immediately.
Martin Scorsese is responsible for my favorite quote about filmmaking:
"Cinema is a matter of what's in the frame and what's not."
What you choose to not show is as important as what you do.
And since this movie is about Clark learning about his past,
it makes more of an impact on the audience if we learn about his past with him.
Especially since some of the things that happen in this intro are not part of the usual canon, as far as I know?
I don't remember Zod killing Jor-El in any comic story, although it's possible I missed it.
I also don't remember anything about the Kryptonian Birthing Codex,
and I especially don't remember it being part of Clark.
So, I think keeping those revelations a surprise is a good way to not only keep casual fans, but die hard fans
on their toes as the movie progresses.
And, if you cut this down significantly,
maybe keep just Clark's birth, Jor-El's warning, Zod's coup, Clark's escape, and Krypton's destruction,
you are able to get the present story faster.
And, that's important, cause there's an unwritten rule that in any movie, especially a move like this,
something exciting needs to happen in the first minutes that gets the audiences' attention.
It usually comes in the form of an action sequence,
think about some of the Marvel movies, right.
Infinity War opens with the Hulk fighting Thanos.
The stakes are set, the audience is engaged.
People watching it on TV and Netflix aren't going to get bored immediately.
And, in Man of Steel, the hook should clearly be Clark rescuing the crew of the oil rig.
However, the Krypton intro lasts for so long that it forces the action hook to also take place on Krypton,
which gives us two scenes:
The first is Jor-El fighting Zod's goons and the second is Jor-El riding his Avatar dragon.
And again, I think execution is a big part of this.
Maybe this would have been more exciting with better looking CGI or more interesting fight choreography,
but I think the big problem here is that the audience didn't come to a Superman movie
to see Superman's dad riding around on a Banshee -
I looked it up, that's they're called -
and doing karate.
We came to see Superman and it isn't like this movie is saving all the Superman for the end of the movie,
since the very next scene is of Superman saving the oil rig workers.
So half of the Krypton action could have been cut, and in it's place,
there should have been an extended oil rig scene.
And all of information we get from this intro, we're gonna get later in the movie anyway.
Most of it is explained to Clark half an hour later by his dad, some of it is explained again by Zod later on.
So we definitely don't need to spend the first twenty minutes of the film
getting information we are going to get repeated several times later in the movie.
So Clark saves the oil workers, we get more background on his character,
I think his backstory can remain largely unchanged.
Even the bit where Jonathan Kent tells Clark that maybe he shouldn't've saved the kids on the bus.
I think that scene gets a bad rep for a few reasons.
The big one being that the conversation was shown in the trailer for Man of Steel,
and was everyone's first introduction to Pa Kent.
It doesn't really line up with his usual philosophy and that made fans of the comics mad, I get that.
But I think it's fine since: a) Pa Kent does get moments later in the movie where he says more Pa Kent-y stuff
about how Clark has great power that comes with great-
I mean, Clark is destined to do something special and needs to figure out what that is.
Classic Pa Kent.
And b) I think that reaction in the moment is actually pretty great.
One of lines Zack Snyder uses to defend Man of Steel
is that it's supposed to be a more realistic take on Superman.
What would it be like if he really existed?
And, while I don't think that explanation holds up all that well later in the movie,
I think giving Pa Kent this human moment, where he isn't sure what Clark should do, is important.
Remember, Pa Kent doesn't say that Clark should *not* have saved the kids,
he says that he's not sure.
It shows that nobody has all of the answers and Clark needs to figure this out on his own.
So Clark bums around, he's a waiter, people are mean to him, maybe don't destory this guy's car?
Like, not to nitpick -
not unlike my podcast Mostly Nitpicking
but besides making Clark seem like a dick, this scene also doesn't make very much sense.
Like, how did no one hear Clark doing this?
And how does this guy casually notice?
Did no one else leave the bar and think,
"Hey, I don't think that truck is supposed to be carrying logs like it's playing Kerplunk.
I should mention this to someone."
It doesn't really matter.
But before he leaves, Clark overhears the military men talking about the Kryptonian ship
and Clark sets off to explore it and look for answers.
So, by this point in the film we've established two of Clark's values:
saving people and learning about where he came from.
Introduction to Lois is also pretty much the same.
I know not everyone agrees with me, but I think Amy Adams works really well in this movie.
She's a great actress and I even think she has okay chemistry with Henry Cavill.
And I think in this movie, her storyline fits: she's a plucky reporter who wants the truth about...whatever.
I don't that always works - her magic bullet storyline in BvS was pretty terrible.
But I think Lois' story in Man of Steel helps to develop her character, reveal things about other characters,
and move the plot forward without feeling forced -
which is the best you can hope for in any movie.
So, Clark goes to the ship and in it finds the Jor-El hologram.
He asks the hologram some basic questions.
What's my name? Where did i come from? Why can I do the things I can do?
And Jor-El gives some pretty straightforward explanations.
Clark asks if there are any Kryptonians left.
Jor-El says that there might be some out there, other Kryptonians tried to evacuate,
but he doesn't know if any survived, setting up Supergirl for the future.
But, Jor-El also says that when Clark activated the ship with his little crystal thing,
it sent out a beacon that was just received by someone named General Zod.
Clark asks, "Who's General Zod?"
And Jor-El says that Zod is a radical member of the Kryptonian military
who is obsessed with Krypton's survival.
He was locked up in the Phantom Zone, but must have escaped with Krypton was destroyed.
(Clark:) "Is he dangerous?"
(Jor-El:) "Yes. And he's coming to Earth."
(Clark:) "What should I do?"
(Jor-El:) "You'll need to stop him, or he will destroy this planet."
And, just then, an alarm sounds.
(Clark:) "What's that?" (Jor-El:) "Someone else is here, not from Krypton."
(Jor-El:) "They tripped the alarms and the sentries are coming for them."
Jor-El brings up a visual of Lois sneaking around the ship. Clark notices her from the base.
(Clark:) "Can you stop them?" (Jor-El:) "I can't. They're controlled by the ship."
Clark realizes that he needs to choose now between saving Lois or getting more information from his father.
Clark takes a second and says, "I have to help her."
Jor-El smiles. "Take the key. We'll talk later."
Clark takes the Kryptonian key and goes to save Lois.
This is our next big action scene.
In the original movie, Clark just runs over to this weird floating tentacle monster thing and stops it.
I want this version to be more dangerous and force Clark to actually fight the sentry.
In the process, Lois gets injured and after Clark defeats the sentry,
he takes Lois out of the ship and back to the base so that she can get medical attention.
She gets a good look at him, which forces Clark to run away.
He wants to learn about his past, but he can't get caught by the military, who are not yet aware of his existence.
And then this is the end of Act 1. Like I said, not all that different.
The big change is that Clark has way less information, and he was forced to make two difficult choices,
which help establish his character.
Clark chooses to save Lois instead of learning more about his past, because he truly loves saving people.
But, Clark also chooses to run instead of staying around and possibly learning more from his father.
And Clark isn't going to go back to the Kryptonian ship for a while,
which means he's also missing something he has in the original movie at this point.
I think that's important.
And, like at the end of any Act 1, Clark has crossed a threshold.
He is going from a world that is relatively safe - dealing with different disasters in his spare time -
to one where he will have to figure out how to solve a problem that is coming for him, in General Zod.
But I said earlier that one thing we really need to define in Man of Steel is Clark's character arc.
I tweeted the other day - twitter.com/NandovMovies, please follow -
asking what you guys thought Clark's character arc was in Man of Steel.
And some answers came up a lot.
Many of you thought Clark's arc was about deciding to become Superman,
a bunch of the rest of you thought it had to do with Clark choosing Earth over Krypton,
some of you said that he intentionally didn't have one,
others thought it was less intentional.
Some people even said that it was just whatever Jesus's character arc from the Bible was.
And whether you agree with any of those or not, I think the diversity in opinions at least proves
whatever the arc was, it wasn't communicated incredibly well.
So I want to change that.
The character arc is traditionally built around three things:
a goal, a lie, and a truth.
We'll get to the goal and the truth later,
but I think it's important now to start by determining what the lie is.
The wrong think that Clark believes that drives his decisions.
And, in the original, and in this Man of Steel,
the lie is that Clark believes if he reveals himself, society will see Clark as a monster.
This is already well established in the original movie where Pa Kent is worried about how the public will react to Clark.
In this version, Clark's choice to give up the information about his past so that he can keep his existence a secret
proves that he still believes that lie.
And that's going to cause problems.
And things are only going to get worse in Act 2, when Zod arrives
and Clark is forced to make bigger choices with more serious consequences.
So, I have to thank my Patrons, you guys are incredible.
This video is actually the result of a Patreon poll.
I do them every so often. This one was a choice between five-ish different videos I've been thinking about.
And, this video won by a mile.
So I decided to start writing it and then it turned into a couple of videos in a series,
so thank the Patrons for that.
And if you want to vote in polls, get access to videos early, see your name up here, other cool stuff,
throw in literally any amount of money at patreon.com/nandovmovies
You have no idea how much I appreciate it, except you probably do if you've seen these videos,
but honestly, I know I say it everytime, but I really mean it you guys are the best.
I know I plug the subreddit a lot - reddit.com/r/nandovmovies -
but I want to give a shoutout this week to the Discord server.
I've been working with some of the mods and the admins
who have been amazing on giving the server kind of a soft reboot.
If you're never used it, Discord is kind of a big message board, discussion-ary thing with different channels
where people talk about things like movies or TV shows as they premiere, or just whatever.
And nandovmovies Discord server is full of cool people talking about the kind of stuff that shows up in these videos.
So, like I said, link is in the episode description. Get it a look.
And, as always, gotta plug my twitter - twitter.com/NandovMovies
It's where I put information about videos, it's where I put information about my podcast, Mostly Nitpicking
Or stuff like stickers that I make for Orm the Ocean Master that Patrick Wilson thinks are cool.
Or his social media manager or whoever. Who cares it's positive.
Also, I put up polls about which Avenger is going to die in Avengers: Endgame.
Sorry, Captain America, everyone is pretty much definitely sure you are going to die.
Because of your character arc and everything that has lead you to this point in the movie.
Yeah, I think that's probably pretty accurate.
So, you can follow me at twitter.com/NandovMovies
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That's all I got, I'll see you guys in Part 2.