MAN OF STEEL: A Retrospective

When Man of Steel dropped in theaters on June 14, 2013, I didn't fully know what to make of it after seeing it. I liked it and wanted to watch it again, but it was different. Very different.

Somehow, throughout countless rewatches, the movie has improved with every viewing, which is more than I can say for every other comic book movie I've watched.

That's not to say the others haven't gotten better on rewatches. It's just saying that Man of Steel is the only one that is STILL getting better, and it took me a while to realize why that was the case.

Growing up as a millennial, or rather as part of the "Oregon Trail generation," my first connection to Superman was Christopher Reeve from the 1978 film. We had his first three Superman films on VHS in the house, and I watched them all a ton when I was younger, so that was the version of the character I built my expectations from, like so many others also did.

I also dug Superman Returns in 2006 because I appreciated all the easter eggs and connections it made to the original film and continuity. I enjoyed that it erased Superman III and IV from continuity...to an extent.

So when Man of Steel dropped in 2013, it was mind-blowing. For several reasons. I had never seen Superman portrayed that way on the big screen before, with such grandiosity and visceral power at its core. It was jarring, but not in the wrong way. I knew I liked it, but it was messing with my head at first.

The term for what I was feeling is called "cognitive dissonance," which is "the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioral decisions and attitude change."

My years of being used to Reeve's Superman portrayal, directed by Richard Donner, conflicted with what I saw from Henry Cavil and Zack Snyder. My mind was stubborn about clinging to Reeve and Superman '78 because I connected strongly to that version.

So I HAD to watch it a second time because expecting Superman '78 when I walked into that movie theater wasn't a fair thing to do. The trailers and TV spots hadn't changed my mind, so I went into Man of Steel with a lot of Superman '78 nostalgia. I realized this was intentionally different because of the creative approach.

Oddly enough, my other half Shonda helped me open my mind further. She didn't grow up with the Reeve movies as I had, but she had seen Smallville and liked the Superman character, so she loved Man of Steel from the beginning with a fresh perspective on Cavill and Snyder's vision. I later showed her Superman '78, and she was unimpressed by it, not surprisingly.

The second watch of Man of Steel clued me into what Snyder and Cavill were doing and the direction they were taking with Superman, and I enjoyed it significantly more than the first viewing in theaters. This movie wasn't a lighthearted, family-fun romp with an epic yet playful score from John Williams. It was a vibrant, powerful vision of what Superman and his most dangerous rogues might look and feel like in the real world, driven by an atmospheric composition from the modern maestro Hans Zimmer. I felt every sound, every impact, and emotional beat as though it was telling an ancient myth I had only heard in passing but was now privy to see for myself.

The third watch was when I appreciated the chronological structure of the film.

The fourth watch is when I realized how fantastic Michael Shannon's General Zod was.

The fifth watch is when it became clear that Man of Steel was the best Superman film I had ever seen in my life to this point, and it has only gone further up from that level since then, if possible.

Many people my age and older grew up with Superman '78 as I did but are genuinely unwilling to open their minds to the very different interpretation of the character that is Man of Steel. That's likely either because they don't want to discard their nostalgia or refuse to accept other interpretations of Superman. They have every right to feel that way, but I also have every right to pity them, subjectively speaking.

What Zack Snyder, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Antje Traue, Harry Lennix, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Russell Crowe, Ayelet Zurer, and many others did for Superman in 2013 is still the pinnacle of live-action Superman interpretation in my humble opinion. I have yet to find a single comic book movie that continues to improve upon itself with every viewing as Man of Steel has for nearly a decade.

I'm hoping I never find one either because Man of Steel is just that damn good.