Zach Snyder

Don't understand the dislike some people have for 300 - it was a great action movie; the gripes about Snyder "not caring for the characters" also aren't a big concern here since story about Thermopylae was all about the battle and the Spartans themselves, not any specific character.

If people went in there expecting a historically accurate movie about Thermopylae then that might be what the problem is - but I never got that vibe from the promotional artwork anyway - unlike films such as 10,000 BC for example (with a name like that you think it'd be slightly more accurate than the Flinestones).

I actually like Snyder. It was a very well executed action movie. I would not call it a great action movie because i would not rank the relationships and the character moments too highly. It had interesting action for when it came out.

It's one thing for an action movie for emphasise action over plot and characterisation, but it's another thing to emphasise it to the point where it becomes so irrelevant that there's barely any reason to care about the action in the first place. The characters are cookie-cutter stereotypes who we have barely any reason to care about beyond a flimsy "rebels-versus-empire" narrative, the film adds in a whole sub-plot about Spartan politics on the home front to pad out its source's extremely thin story, which also makes me think that it exists simply to break up the action when it gets too repetitive (which it does because of its lack of variation - fight scene after fight scene after fight scene...), and the film's widely-praised visual style feels a lot like it's over-compensating for the severe lack of quality in just about every other aspect of the film. Compared to all this, historical inaccuracy is actually the least of the film's problems.

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So I decided to give MoS a shot - I'd rate it a C+ but not so much for the reasons you mentioned. The film did have a fair share of plot-holes such as:

*Zod is a terrible general - he shows up on a plant of 7 billion people with an "army" of about 12 henchmen - and his first instinct is to just threaten loudly that he's gonna destroy the world instead of negotiating? (Not to mention that they didn't even have full superhuman powers when they first arrived on earth) Even if Superman wasn't there to save the day, the military couldn't just nuked Zod's group into oblivion once things got too hot and heavy.

*The romance between Lois and Superman was very rushed - he wasn't even working at the Daily Planet when they first met, and they'd only met twice on-screen before the entire Zod incident went down. And what about Lana? They showed her a few times in the flashbacks and then she's never heard from again.

*The "humans don't trust Superman" thing felt like it was forced into the film more than anything - I mean, the soldiers know the Kryptonians are strong enough to take down A-10 Warthogs with their bare hands, yet they decide to fire at Superman anyway knowing he's the only one strong enough to fight them?

*The film had a couple awful lines - for example when Zod's henchwoman tells Superman that they're stronger than him because they have no 'morality'. Since when do villains "admit they've evil" outside of Saturday morning cartoons? Not to mention Zod goes off on several rants about how he's supposedly doing it 'for the greater good' of the Kryptonians. So basically this line is like the villains saying "Oh all that stuff we said about the greater good of Krypton is ******** - we're really just evil comic book bad guys who love killing people".

*How did Clark find the fortress of Solitude anyway?

*The flashback scene where Superman destroys the drunk *******'s truck is pretty crazy. I mean, Superman decides not to punch him to avoid giving his powers away - and decides that tearing up a semi truck with his bare hands is more descreet? The guy is going to know that if anyone did it it was Clark, and Clark works at the diner - so when the police investigate it he's going to become a suspect sooner or later. If he wanted to be discreet, he could've just crushed a beer bottle with his bare hands and told the guy he was a 3rd degree black belt in Jiu Jitsu, or something.

*They also need a better explanation for Clark keeping his identity a secret other than the glasses - in the 21st century with smartphones, mass media, and Google, someone somewhere besides Lois is going to recognize him as Superman. If they make a sequel, they could ret-con it so that Superman's suit has a technology that makes his face unrecognizable to humans while wearing it - or something.

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*After seeing it though, I think the gripes you have about Supes siding with the humans aren't the biggest faults of the movie. Even if his earth father told him not to trust humans, he still had met his Krypton father in a vision who told him his purpose for him was to be a hero to earth; not to mention Superman knew that Zod had murdered his real father, and tried to harm his mother - so why would Superman side with his father's killer anyway? If nothing else, siding with the humans just to get revenge on Zod still would've made a lot more sense than siding with Zod. The tone also wasn't nearly as bleak and gritty as The Dark Knight - it wasn't as light-hearted as a lot of the Marvel flicks, but other than using the same color scheme, it wasn't nearly comparable.

I love 300. I think it's a fantastic movie and it delivers exactly what it intends to.

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All of the above. I don't think he really has an approach to characters. He certainly doesn't emphasize character moments. Watchmen is, IMO, his most watchable film, but it's only strong moments exist because the comic book is just so freaking good. Even in that film, though, most of the character stuff is rushed which is part of the reason I think they should have not stuck so close to the comic. They had a chance to make it into something interesting but they just copied the comic.

Have you ever watched a Snyder film and felt a genuine moment of catharsis? Have you ever felt anything at all?

Then I don't think films should intend to deliver whatever that is.

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This was well before Smith was a stoner, and John Peters I think was just loopy.

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I watched the original film and it was the same there though, he put on his glasses and Lois didn't recognise him...

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The plot in this one differed from the traditional "glasses" thing - Lois finds out he's Superman early on in the film, before he even works at the Daily Planet.

I just think that since the film (and films in general of this era) are going a more realistic route than the campier route from back in the 60s though 80s, they need a more believable explanation for how he can keep his identity a secret other than just a pair of glasses.

Hey, hoping you'll take the time to reply to my critique of Man of Steel above and tell me your thoughts on the points I mentioned

I don't remeber too much catharsis, but i felt plenty of emotions when i watched the Dawn of the Dead remake, or Watchmen, even Sucker Punch.

Alright now you've crossed the line.

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The racial and class structure commentary that was Goerge A. Romero's essay on modern commercialism "Dawn of the Dead" was second to the remake where the highlight of my last viewing involved me asking "Hey, isn't that Phil?"...


As a side note: Try to watch "Diary of the Dead" and catch the scene where they are filming the Mummy chasing the actress. Definitely worth a laugh.

Some people just want to make fun movies.

Sometimes they succeed.

"Fun" and "smart" are not mutually exclusive.

What's your opinion on the points I made above on MoS - you agree or disagree with my points about the plot holes?

Yeah, just because something is intended to be lightweight cinematic fun doesn't mean it is automatically exempt from criticism, especially when the criticism is that it doesn't even manage to be lightweight fun in the first place.

I am all for "fun" movies. That being said, it was not an original idea. He intentionally stripped away all of the thoughtful criticism of American commercialism and replaced it with fast running zombies (he was NOT the first to do this; eg. 28 Days Later).


When you take source material and make a direct remake, it is not unfair to ask that it maintain some of the original intention.

What if that's not were mind and politics were at? Was he supposed to fake it that he had a problem with commercialsim and consumerism?
So, there is a market for dumb and fun, fun and smart, smart and depressing....
A lot of people found it engaging otherwise he would not be working anymore.