Agreed. What it comes down to is "YOU BETTER DO THINGS EXACTLY AS THE COMIC STATES OR ELSE IT'S A PIECE OF ****!!!!!" It's this kind of fanboy mentality that limits the potential of imagination and creativity.
Yeah, I agree with that too... and it's one of the reasons why I feel MOS was a good movie. Not a perfect movie, but so many of the complaints waged against it seem to be, "Superman would never do that! He would do this!" And it's like... the character has been around for over 75 years and if you really went through every single comic book appearance, you'd find a TON of inconsistencies. The Mark Waid Superman would never take a life under any circumstance, but the John Byrne Superman would. The pre-crisis Superman has an overabundance of self-confidence and never doubts himself; the post-crisis one is the opposite (this was even a major plot point of Infinite Crisis).
So while seeing this Superman questioning himself and humanity, being forced to reveal himself due to Zod's actions, making some rookie mistakes and ultimately being forced to kill might have rubbed some purists the wrong way, that doesn't necessarily mean these were bad choices. And it also doesn't mean that Snyder "didn't understand and/or care about Superman."
My criticism of MOS is that it fails on a film level. I don't care if you want to make Superman kill, etc, as long as it's done well and is a good movie. MOS is not a good movie. It's a terrible film. Everything from the editing to the dialogue to the story and underdevelopedness of it. It's not an enjoyable watch. The characters are underdeveloped, the story is underdeveloped, it's emotionally unengaging and I wasn't invested in one thing that happened in it. It did not make me care about ANY of the characters, they were so poorly illustrated, and I am a Superman fan. That is my number one problem with the film; it's a pretty crappy movie. The worst ever made? Of course not. But it's pretty damn bad, especially in comparison to some of the great CBMs we've had over the past ten years, and it's not like this is a C or D character, this is the one that has the most to work with, and they still deliver a terrible film.
My criticism first and foremost with most films including CBMs is whether they are good movies or not. Being close to the source material comes second for me. I am willing to compromise and say "Okay, you can change this as long as you make a good movie" and deliver on that promise. So when I see something like MOS, where I compromise so much going into it with the faith that it will be a good movie; "okay, you can change the costume, Zack, because I believe you're going to make a great film. Yes, you can do away with the secret identity, I trust you're going to make a great film. Yes, you can have Superman kill a man, you still have me convinced it's going to be a great film". And then when the movie doesn't deliver on anything and is really underwhelming as a film, I feel betrayed. I feel like "**** you, dude, you got me to be cool with you changing all that ****, the suit, changing the secret identity stuff, throwing the baby out with the bathwater on the promise that you'd make a good movie, and you didn't". So that's when I say "yeah, your movie sucked, and you know what else? **** you for changing the suit too. Give me my underwear back" because it pisses me off. The movie was really underwhelming and poor so all that compromising was for BULL****.
I'm fine with some departures from the comics so long as we get a great film. An example of this is Batman '89, Spider-Man 1, Superman: The Movie, TDK Trilogy (well TDK and BB particularly) and even V for Vendetta, which I actually prefer to the books believe it or not. I'll make sacrifices for great end products, but ONLY great end products. When they're not great I feel like we've been ****ed over. Does anyone else understand this?
I feel some comic book fans don't know the difference between a good movie and a good adaption. Batman Returns is a great film but it's nothing like the comics. Iron Man 3 (as a movie) is a good film. It's just not a good adaption of the Mandarin in the comics.
Batman Returns is an okay film at best. It feels claustrophobic and cluttered at times among other things and it lacks humanity.
Just because something is closer to the source does not make it a better film. TASM1 is closer to the source than Spider-Man 1 but Spider-Man 1 (while it has aged) is overall a better film.
Spider-Man 1 is much closer to the comics than TASM. Only differences are organic webshooters and the Mary Jane being an MJ/Gwen Stacy hybrid. But it's also an all around better film.
Woah now. See, this line of thought surrounding comic book films tends to make me shake my head. Screenwriting and directing are both crafts that take a LOT of time, effort and dedication to hone. Being a passionate fan does not automatically make one qualified to deliver a good movie. Most fan-scripts are pure garbage.
Which is why I said with the right saavy, tools, and know-how. I'm not just talking about a fan on the internet forum getting up tomorrow and going to shoot something. I'm talking about having all of the knowledge and know-how and equipment and resources that Snyder, Goyer, WB & CO, etc have, and THEN doing it. I know we'd have got a better film from some people here than we did with Snyder & CO at the helm. None of us have the connections or other things I mentioned though. But I think getting the character you're making a film about and having a good sense of story telling are great places to start, and a lot more to start with than Snyder and Goyer when it comes to Superman at least.
But still, I applaud fans who write fan scripts for at least getting through a draft- that's a huge challenge in and of itself. And it's great practice if you're an aspiring writer. Assuming that the average inexperienced fan could do better is assuming a lot and hugely misguided IMO. I say this all as an aspiring writer/director.
I'm not saying Snyder and Goyer are THE be all-end all, most qualified people in Hollywood for the job (I don't think they are). But they're still miles more qualified than your average forum know-it-all. This is just about having a little respect for just how hard it is to write a good screenplay and make a good movie.
But Snyder's MOS isn't a good movie.
It's kind of a miracle that any movie turns out well when you look at all the things that can go wrong when making a movie. And that multiplies exponentially on a huge property like this.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 to a perfect recent example of "getting the character right" but still making a real mess of a movie. Just goes to show that love for a character is nice, but it isn't enough. Mark Steven Johnson loved Daredevil too.
I'm aware of all that, they did a nice job with Spider-Man IN TASM2 as a character, somewhat, although still not as good as the Raimi films did, but the film on the whole was pretty bad. Like a bad episode of a great cartoon series, and most, if not all cartoons, have them, they can still get the character right but do a bad episode.
