IT MEANS "HOPE"?

“It Means ‘Hope’”?

A Review of MAN OF STEEL

Directed by Zack Snyder

Reviewed by Ernest M. Whiteman III

Okay, let’s get this out up front. I was never a big Superman fan. I love the character of Batman. Ask anyone. As a child did you ever go though this thing with your siblings of “You can’t like that because I like that!”?

I did. Because of it I could not be a fan of the Oakland Raiders, the Boston Celtics, Elvis Presley and Batman. In those early formative years, this silly childish behavior also molded my individuality. Screw it, I’ll like The Rams, Johnny Cash and Captain Marvel. (Which is why I wore a kerchief around my neck constantly. We have lots of pictures of me as a kid with a gold or red kerchief tied on as a cape.) I think the Celtics was the first time I asserted my own preference in that “Well, I can like them too!”

Because Batman was banned to me as a kid (Thanks Ken.), I gravitated toward Captain Marvel because Superman never really captured my imagination. Or maybe Forrest or Dalco liked him first. But the idea of flying did. Also, what I was into was movies. Again, that was thanks to my dad and his Super 8 projector. I also grew up reading comic books, mostly sci-fi. The few I was able to buy were movie adaptations like “Star Trek the Motion Picture”. (Really.) My first comic book subscriptions were “Star Wars” and “Conan the Barbarian”. (The latter thanks to Ken’s insistence.) But I did not become a fan of Superman until the 1978 Richard Donner film. After that, I bought anything attached to the Superman movie.

It captured my imagination and set the standard of on-screen Supermen for many, many years. I saw all but Superman IV in the theater. By the time Superman VI came out, it was struggling at Golan-Globas and our local theaters for some reason stopped showing the mainstream fare. I think it was due to theatric fees that theaters pay to run the big films. You see, back then, most small towns had local Mom-and-Pop theaters run by local business folk and they paid out of profits for movies. So, many, to keep up in the escalating cost of everything in the eighties, had to paid for the cheap movies. Riverton got what would amount to DTV movies or “direct to video” movies.

But, enough about nostalgia, this review is not about nostalgia. This is a review of Zack Snyder’s “Man of Steel”. There is no place for nostalgia here.

REVIEW

When it was announce that Zack Snyder would be directing the new Superman movie, it sort of made sense to me. I am really not a fan of his movies. His “300” and “The Watchmen” were some of the more trite comic book movies out there. Yet, when I saw his animated feature, “The Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’hoole” I was suddenly struck that maybe he could do something really great, especially with his stylistic flourishes that he is known for. The many flying battle sequences and the attached mythology of the story in “The Legends of the Guardians” made me feel that Zack Snyder was the right director for a Superman for the new century.

We begin again on Krypton with scientist Jor El trying to convince the ruling council to evacuate the planet due to their overuse and stripping of the natural resources that has caused the planet core to become unstable. In the middle of all this, military leader General Zod stages a coup to preserve Kryptonian culture. Jor El then sends his infant son to Earth with the codex of Krytonian genetics in him. For that, Zod kills Jor El but his cronies and he are immediately arrested and banished to the Phantom Zone. Then, Krypton explodes.

Kal El, the son, lands on Earth and is raised by the Kents. Here the movie takes the familiar story and opens it up for examination as we follow Clark in his search to find his place in the world. As a youth he has exhibited great powers, which his adopted father (Kevin Costner) tries to keep secret. But young Clark empathy towards humanity leads him off to walk the Earth saving people as a sort of silent guardian, a watchful protector, keeping his power a secret from the rest of the world for fear of rejecting and attacking him. How much this affects Clark is evident as he is unable to fully integrate into humanity. He remains a loner.

Enter, Lois Lane, Daily Planet reporter on the hunt for this mysterious guardian angel. She discovers Clark’s secret and after hearing his story of why he keeps it secret decides to not reveal him to the world. They meet when Clark finds an abandoned Krytonian ship in the Arctic and it is revealed to him, who he really is.

Zod returns from the Phantom Zone after the destruction of Krypton and for the last few decades has been traveling the depths of space searching for the remnants of their people, which leads them to Earth, having been led there once Clark activated the abandoned ship’s power, which sent a signal into space. Zod arrives looking for Kal El and the Codex and threatens the planet unless Kal El surrenders to him.

Here, Superman makes his first appearance to humanity as he agrees to turn himself to Zod to save lives. Zod then decides to terraform Earth into a new Krypton and using the Codex to remake the Kryptonian race. It is then up to Superman to stop him. In the middle of this, Kal El must choose between the humanity that could reject and fear him or turn to his fellow Kryptonians that only want to dominate the only home he has ever had.

Here is how much the movie impacted me: I had to look up that synopsis on Wikipedia. Overall, I did enjoy the movie. It was the most ambitious attempt at retelling the Superman Origin for new audiences.

What I loved most about this adaptation is its earnest tone. It takes everything about the mythology at face value and explores it deeper that past movies have done. Mostly, all comic book movie stories end up being one story, whether or not they should be the superhero. It works for the normal human granted huge powers and responsibilities, but what about Superman? He has the powers borne in him. That is where Superman differs and where stories about him ultimately fall apart.

Here, they are treating it as a first contact story. Not whether Clark Kent should be Superman but where is Superman’s place in humanity. Some of the Justice League cartoons covered this very well and I am glad to se that the new movie went in this direction.

Its seriousness is in contrast to the beloved Richard Donner film, which got goofy and slap sticky in the third act. The Donnor film and the Burton Batman burdened their films with a wacky, comic villain, a silly, land-grubbing Lex Luthor and a silly, clownish Joker, which Nolan tossed right the fuck out. Here we get another rehashed villain from another past sequel film: General Zod. But here the villain is integrated with the hero’s origin unlike Star Trek Into Darkness where he was just Khan for being Khan’s sake.

The tone, the acting and the music were great. Seeing Superman master his powers was inspiring. Henry Cavill makes a great Superman and a very human Clark Kent. He watches college football and drinks beer! He’s one of us! But faced with the destruction of his new home, he must choose to rise above and take on a greater responsibility in looking after the world now that alien life is proven to be out there.

The downside is that in Nolan’s Batman movies, we were given a caper but he also built towards the ending of every film. Look back at every one of Nolan’s Batman movies and you get some great endings that were dictated by the story being told. Here, Synder just cannot match that. He simply puts everyone where they are supposed to be. With some minor changes to the myth; Lois knows who he is and Superman isn’t interested in protecting the U.S.’ interests. Well, nor should he be, but that is neither here nor there.

So, let’s talk about the controversial ending. I am sure you’ve heard by now and so I will not be spoiling anything for you, in a moment in which he must choose in subduing the villain at the risk of some human lives, Superman kills Zod. Many had a problem with it. “Superman doesn’t kill!” they cried. But this is a different Superman. Besides, that’s Batman you’re thinking of. Here, Superman knows he is responsible for the lives being threatened by Zod, who swore to kill them all. Superman knows he can only hold him at bay since Zod quickly mastered his new earthbound powers. There was only one way to insure that Zod did not do that. It was a crucial moment in the development of this new Superman.

You might cry about all the destroyed buildings and the people lost in those. Yes, there were some casualties, but that lends to the importance of Superman’s decision. Besides, you cannot have two super-powered beings fighting in a city and not see the destruction that would create. More folks say that Superman should have flown somewhere isolated, but they are mixing the old Zod with the new. The old Terrence Stamp Zod was focus on subjugating Superman and only came to harm humans as a means to do so. So, Superman took off to the North Pole. This Zod promised to kill every single human on earth to make Kal El pay. If Superman had flown off, Zod would have stayed and killed everyone.

Then, there is the fight: Since the collapse of “Superman Returns all the Fanboys were saying, “I wanna see Superman punch something!” and guess what, when he does, we see that that gets pretty boring, pretty damn quick. So we complain about the “endless action” that we wanted to begin with and pretend we wanted a good story and characterizations. Lying hypocrites. We got what we wanted and when it turns out to be not-very good, we try to cover it up by pretending we wanted something else. The ending fight did get tedious for me, but what else would happen when Superman fights Zod? My little girl, who saw it with me, declared it “Good, but it had too many explosions at the end. But, that’s Zack Snyder.”

What more could I add to that? “Man of Steel”, it does have a lot going for it and overall I enjoyed it enough to see it twice. I will probably appreciate it more as time goes on and it does make me long for the Superman/Batman sequel despite its casting of Ben Affleck. Because in the end, it is a Superman movie and Batman simply should not overshadow Superman in his own movie. I remain hopeful….

Recommend.

2013 Ernest M. Whiteman III

His pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking

He is intelligent, but not experienced.
His pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking

 Review of Star Trek Into Darkness

Directed by JJ Abrahms

Reviewed by Ernest M. Whiteman III

“Space, the final frontier….”

Star Trek used to mean something in the golden age of television. It was a joke to network executives and they cancelled it after its third season, sold off the rerun rights for cheap and in the intervening 20-odd years of syndication, went on to become one of the largest worldwide franchises with a tested and faithful fanbase that supported it to extreme ends. Hell, they even got a space shuttle named “Enterprise”.

One of the mainstays of the series, which is why many Nerds glommed onto it, was its particular use of actual scientific principles in the telling of the story. Yes, Star Trek is the start of the blurring line between Geek and Nerds. I just suddenly realized that.

For those of you who do not know, Gene Roddenberry had to severely dumb down his idea to get the pilot sold to NBC. Its original pilot episode (which never aired) “The Cage” was deemed “too cerebral”, “too intellectual” and that it was too slow with “not enough action”. It was rejected for series but a second more action-packed pilot was ordered and based on that, the series was put into production by NBC.

The original pilot was about the captain of the Enterprise, Christopher Pike being caged in a zoo and expected to procreate. So as you see, not too action-packed. It featured Jeffrey Hunter in the lead, with Majel Barrett as the second-in-command in a time when Women’s Lib was barely a movement. The crew and story was later integrated into the series in the two-part “Menagerie”, where Spock hijacks the Enterprise to save his friend and first Captain, Pike. Pike has since gone onto to mythical status in Star Trek lore.

I must say here that I am in no way ‘nostalgic” for the 1982 Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. While I do hold it up as the best of the Star Trek movies, I can easily state that it is general “nostalgia” for the movie that ruins the current Star Trek Into Darkness. The branding of the new Star Trek movies has reached an absurd level that the movie itself I could not take serious at all.

“Star Trek Into Darkness” is the follow-up to 2009’s “Star Trek” which was a sort of continuation/reboot of the Star Trek film franchise. First of all, Benedict Cumberbatch is Khan Noonien Singh. I am not spoiling anything with that, I mention it now because it adds absolutely f*ck-all to the movie. It means nothing. Except that maybe Oh-VER uh-NUNN-see-AY-SHUN takes the PLAYs of ACH-ting. (Purse your beak.)

So, we begin with a quick-paced race to save Spock’s life from an erupting volcano, which leads to Kirk getting demoted because Spock would not lie for Kirk. They are not friends yet.

A terrorist attack on a TOP SECRET SECTOR of Starfleet (read: conspiracy) leads to the possibility of militarizing Starfleet which leads to another attack that kills off my favorite character in the Rebootiverse: Pike. Which leads to Kirk and Spock tracking Khan to Klingon space. Because revenge. (And so we can finally see the New Klingons! And they look… just like Klingons… huh.) They end up capturing Khan which leads to the revelation of the conspiracy to militarize Starfleet which means that Starfleet was complicit in those said attacks to accomplish that. Still with me? Good. Because all of this mean f*ck-all as well.

They go attack the escaped Khan who blasts the hell out of the Enterprise because we loves us a space ship battle. People get double-crossed. Then Kirk saves the crippled Enterprise by irradiating himself and effectively, well, MOSTLY killing him and Spock gets to scream KHAAAAAAN this time and fights Khan on a moving something before realizing that Khan’s magic blood can save Kirk and all of this leads up to them being friends. Finally.

Told you all that conspiracy nonsense meant nothing. Too bad all those people had to die in those attacks just to make sure that Spock cannot quit Kirk. Going through non-stop action takes the place of character building I guess. They are exactly the same people after the events of the movie as at the beginning but they are simply friends now.

That is it in a nutshell.

All of the charm and goodwill gained with the first movie is completely lost on an unimaginative, empty follow-up. It is like wearing a fantastic Spider-man shirt to school and everyone thinks you are cool. So, you wear it over and over again.

For the longest time, Bad Robot and JJ Abrams told the public that they would not rehash Khan in their new Rebootiverse and that we might get something, dare we say, original. Fans of the television show were happy that while this might not be “their” Star Trek, the public can now see what they have seen this whole time: a science fiction series that proliferated that idea that the best of our humanity was still ahead of us and should be something to strive for and how it affects our exploration of the cosmos and dealing with new life and new civilizations without the shackles of our worst instincts and without the shackles of past TV and movie continuity. We would boldly go and explore strange new world with these new movies that now have a modern sensibility that could capture the imagination of the youth of today and steer them to question and inspire them to explore without the shackles of our worst instincts.

What we got instead was a well-made piece of pop nostalgia branding with lots of s’plosions. The series is dumbed-down once again to appeal to a bigger audience. JJ Abrams shows some real skill in making a movie but shows little understanding of the series he is making. Hence the quote describing Khan, which is quite apt here, “He is intelligent, but not experienced. His pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking.” JJ does not understand the series he supposedly “saved” and why it had a specific appeal.

When I was growing up I was called a “Math Nerd”. I never gave that label to myself. I earned that from the ire of fellow schoolmates by being at the top of the class in all my math classes at St. Stephen’s Indian High School. “Fucking nerd,” they would say when I refused to let them cheat off me. Believe me, there was once a time when being called a Nerd was NOT a good thing. It was a passive-aggressive attack on your intelligence and self-esteem. It was meant to humble you to the point of actually wanting to stop being smart and being absorbed into the regular crowd and that give an excuse for others to beat up on you and make fun of you. But I liked math too much, as much as I loved reading, drawing, movies and comic books. I was a nerd in math and English and a geek about movies and comics.

Lately, there seems to be this pervading usurpation of term “Nerd”, which I feel, stems from this egotistical need to look both humble and intelligent at the same time without really accomplishing the intelligence. Now, look at the first 42 seconds or so of thisvideo as it sort of sums up the issues rather well. You can tell that this guy was probably never called a Nerd in his life. (Or maybe he was as a child, I don’t know.) But no one would ever call him one now. But because of his admitted love of comic books, for some reason he is allowed to take up that title. He calls himself "a nerd" simply because he likes Batman.

Milhouse from “The Simpsons” had the correct definition of being a geek versus being a nerd. “Nerds are smart”. Geeks tend to be geeky about specific things that have nothing to do with intelligence (Or, higher intelligence, to not be insulting.) – comic books, movies, sewing, costuming, D&D, science fiction, fantasy, board games, action figures, swords collecting, trading cards and the list goes on. Hobbies. Nerds were only into one or two things that had a lot to do with math or sciences, with intelligence – chemistry, astronomy, physics (both theoretical and applied), computer technology, calculus and so forth. All are subjects that deal with knowledge and intelligence and they were outcast due to their devotion to such subjects.

But somewhere along the way we mixed both of them together and because we did, when certain people find themselves “into” such things as comic books, sci fi and the like, they feel qualified to call themselves nerds though that label has no bearing. We should be doing away with labels all together but there is also this thing out there: the egotistical victimhood of fighting a status quo. (Which I will write more about in a future edition of Wisdom of the Sages and how it pertains to Native American identity and protests.)

Remember when Congress was holding hearings on that Internet Piracy Bill? They wanted to understand how the Internet worked and would state things like “It’s time to call the nerds in to explain this.” Remember? Well, they we actually using the label right because it was attached to a form of education and science and it was used to insult the intelligent. Can you imagine that guy in the motorcyle video showing up and saying “I’m a nerd ‘cause I likes comic books.”

See my point?

Even now, celebrities tend to garner attention for being into The Avengers or Star Wars or all those ladies who dress like Wonder Woman or Slave Leia from “Return of the Jedi” or jocks wearing Boba Fett shirts or hipsters wearing Power Rangers tees (But can never tell you their favorite story line from the comics or shows). It is all a façade to boost our egos into trying to look like humble little nerds that like science fiction without ever having to crack open a real science book.

My solution: do away with both labels and let people be into what they are into without invoking ire or causing those to be outcast simply because they are smarter than the rest of us. Which is another reason we are usurping that title. Our society is on a downward curve, it is actually dumbing down in almost all arenas of society and it is simply too difficult to be smart. We would rather hide behind superstition and myths rather than face the real world.

Now, I know what you are thinking right now. You read most of this before. Also, with such a great build up to getting a good, in-depth review about the new Star Trek movie, all I gave you was shallow, sarcastic fluff piled on top of something you already were familiar with.

Congratulations!

You got exactly what I got out of Star Trek Into Darkness.

Do Not Recommend.

2013 Ernest M. Whiteman III