Why Man of Steel's brilliance still scares purists
I have talked before about my first experience watching Man of Steel in IMAX on opening day and the cognitive dissonance I felt after watching it. It was different, it was raw, it was powerful and it was unlike anything I had ever seen before in live action with the character of Superman.
I liked it, but I didn’t know how much at first, because I had grown up with the Richard Donner/Christopher Reeve interpretation as my standard, and what Zack Snyder and Henry Cavill had done with the character was very different from anything with those older films.
I’ve said before that multiple viewings of Man of Steel is what led to me consider it the greatest Superman film made to date, but I’ve never really talked about why my perspective changed to that. In honor of its 7-year release date anniversary, let’s dig into it.
For starters, it’s gorgeous. I mean seriously, it is a beautiful film visually speaking. Superman has never looked that powerful and vibrant on the big screen before. There is this belief that certain comic book characters shouldn’t be adapted for film until the VFX technology is available to do them justice, and maybe Superman was one of them, because no matter how many times we could see a man on wires against a blue screen or a cloud background plate, it just doesn’t look as “real” as it does in Man of Steel. When you hear the sonic boom of his takeoffs and flight throughout the film, part of you really does believe a man can fly, more than with any other interpretation of the character.
That leads into the “realism,” which is the biggest reason Man of Steel is such an incredible film to me. Zack Snyder, better than any other comic book film director in my opinion, understands the delicate balance of bringing impossibly larger than life characters to full existence in a world that closely looks, sounds and feels like the one we actually live in. Metropolis isn’t New York in the 70’s and 80’s like it was in the Donner films, and it’s not straight off the pages of classic Action Comics like it was in Superman Returns. It’s a living, breathing city that could plausibly exist in our world today, filled with people and things that we all know, from all walks of life.
Imagine how our world would respond to someone like Superman existing, and furthermore what it would look like if he battled those with his own abilities in the middle of a major American city. It would look, sound and feel exactly like it does in Man of Steel. There would be collateral damage, there would be innocent bystanders gravely affected, and it would be terrifying for anyone that was actually there to witness it.
It’s not romanticized or made to be some kind of prize fight for good vs. evil, like we see with Superman II. The Kryptonians under Zod’s command are trying to violently terraform the Earth into a new Krypton, and Clark, who has been Superman for less than 36 hours total, is trying everything he can to stop them, while also dealing with the fact that the world must now adapt to his existence among them. It’s going to be ugly, it’s going to be scary, and it’s going to be devastating…...just like it would be if it actually happened in the real world.
The fact that Snyder understood this, and took care to build a world and a story that we ourselves would recognize in some form after leaving the movie theater, is arguably the greatest testament to the power of his work with Superman. He wasn’t interested in sugar coating how it would actually happen, he wanted to bring as much realism as he could to a story about an all-powerful alien raised as a human, growing up to become its greatest protector. He grounded it as best as he could and that frightened a lot of people who watched Man of Steel. In fact, it still does frighten them based on the number of opinions that are still heavily critical of it to this day.
What is there to be afraid of, though? Putting Superman in a world that closely resembles our own gives us something to relate to when we watch it. We don’t have to suspend as much disbelief because what we are seeing is pretty close to what it would actually be like if it really did happen, and yet that is exactly what the people fearful of it don’t like. They wanted two hours of escapism and romanticized combat, filled with platitudes about people being perpetually good, and more than safe for all ages to watch and get excited about without any further parental conversations necessary.
They wanted a movie that didn’t remind them how difficult the real world actually is, and when they got it they rebelled against it. I did too at first, mentally, hence my initial cognitive dissonance. What kind of disservice does a movie like Man of Steel do though if it doesn’t present us a world where our greatest superhero is dealing with the same kind of environment and people we deal with all the time? How does it help us to watch something that we can’t relate to at all, even as fantastical as the whole thing is? Just because it’s fictional doesn’t mean it should be out of our personal reach. Arguably the greatest fictional stories are the ones that allow us a glimpse into our own worlds and mindsets, so that we can reconcile how we feel about the place we call home.
That is ultimately what Man of Steel does on every level, including with the character of Clark Kent himself. I had friends that told me before the movie released that Superman was an unrelatable “broken” character. Too powerful, too perfect and too little to connect with on a personal level. Then we see a movie that digs deep into how he was raised as a human, the values he was instilled with by his parents and the human race itself, the things that made him innately human in his actions and his beliefs instead of the alien that he physically presented as. For arguably the first time in live action, Superman was a character you COULD relate to, flawed, imperfect, learning, and ultimately the truest representation of mankind itself and the potential everyone has to be better than they are, which is the ultimate sign of hope for all of us.
These are all the things that I have come to understand, respect and praise about Man of Steel, as not only the greatest Superman movie made to date, but also one of the best comic book movies of all time. That is why it continues to get better with every viewing as the years go on, because it remains just as relevant and relatable today as it did seven years ago when it first released, which is not what those who denigrate it wanted at all. They ultimately wanted a saccharin fairy tale with little to no depth, only surface level understanding, with which they could sit the kids down in front of the screen and let it babysit them for two hours. This is subjectively speaking of course, but it’s hard to argue that its not exactly what they are clamoring for when they continue to ignore all of the hopeful messages and respect for the character that Man of Steel exudes at every turn, in favor of arguing why none of it is there, despite it being right in front of them.
In many ways, you could say that Man of Steel accurately represents the conflict between purists and DCEU fans right now, with those purists embodying the principles of Zod’s purpose to protect Krypton, which in this case would be the Donner films interpretation of Superman, while Superman reminds him that “Krypton had its chance” and then makes the decision to lead humanity forward in a new light, in this new incarnation. This isn’t a new concept and many others have touched on it extensively, but it’s always fascinating to realize when talking about this.
That’s what brilliant movies do, engage the conversation for years to come. Man of Steel is certainly one where the conversations won’t be ending anytime soon, to both the frustration and ultimately the benefit of all of us.