The Four Color Media Monitor

A writer at Collider claims Zack Snyder's Man of Steel served to improve comics adaptations at the movie theaters:

Few films have proven as unequivocally divisive and debate-worthy as Man of Steel. Just take a look at Letterboxd if you don't believe me where you'll find just as many four-and-a-half-star ratings as one-star ratings, quoting the lack of similarities to the Superman we all know and love, the brooding tone, and the Transformers-level of destruction inflicted on Metropolis as either a fresh take or an abomination. This ain't your daddy's Superman and was never meant to be. Zack Snyder's bombastic take on the Man of Tomorrow's reputation has chilled in our memories, and after Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice it looked pretty good by comparison. However, the current state of comic book movies, not just of DC movies, has been altered ever since. Man of Steel's impact continues to reverberate over the past ten years as powerfully as the World Engine that Zod used to wreak havoc on Metropolis.

Oh, no doubt about that. Whatever one makes of the Marvel movies from then till now, that Snyder would rely as much on darkness as he did - and on PC ingredients by extension - speaks volumes to his lack of confidence in a more optimistic angle, let alone a sense of humor. And then he had the gall to make Batman look like the one to root for, at Superman's expense. It's head-shaking indeed.

And while it may not have been intended to be our father or grandfather's Superman, that doesn't make it inherently legitimate an approach. Mainly because of how the sparsity of humor colored various entertainment products for many years, now of recent, we've even got a situation where a whole flow of horror thrillers have been noticeable in Hollywood for some time, with one of the latest examples being "The Boogeyman". Seriously, do we really need this kind of trash littering the movie theaters?

When The Avengers came out in 2012, Marvel's feat was met with praise and awe, a tough act to follow for DC. Man of Steel came out on the heels of The Dark Knight Trilogy, even going as far as using Christopher Nolan's name aggressively in the campaign. As a result, the movie didn't really have a place: Marvel was at the top of its game when it came to providing fun, quippy, popcorn entertainment, and The Dark Knight Trilogy appealed to a more self-serious audience. In a way, it's clear in hindsight that Man of Steel really had no space to fill in the superhero genre. Had it cosplayed as a Marvel film, it would have been called out as such. Had it leaned even further into gritty realism, it wouldn't have felt like Superman. As a result, Zack Snyder really went all in on his vision with Man of Steel, giving us a slate-gray world with plentiful lens flares, a Krypton that feels more fleshed out than any prior on-screen iteration, and sheer, earnest space-opera grandiosity that served as an antithesis to the MCU's bright Saturday morning cartoon energy.

Man of Steel feels like no other movie that came out in 2013 as a result. It's bigger and louder than any Marvel movie that came out that year, but also asks genuine humanistic questions that no other movies in the genre were asking. Whether it succeeds at answering those questions (or even asking them in an interesting way) is a topic all on its own. What is certain, though, is that the visceral reactions to the film influenced the trajectory of the DCEU and of superhero movies in general. After the summer of 2013, no movie wanted to be Man of Steel. The last thing that any comic book movie wanted to be perceived as, regardless of the studio producing it, was too self-serious, too dour, and perhaps worst of all — NOT fun.

But if memory serves, wasn't the Justice League movie also pretty dark? Okay, I realize that film too was under Snyder's oversight, but still, there's one more example of an adaptation that was dark, and come to think of it, weren't the Dr. Strange movies also fairly dark, much like the comics angle itself? Why, even the Punisher and Daredevil adaptations on TV were. So let's not think that, in terms of live action, a movie like Man of Steel didn't have its influence on the small screen as much as the big.

It seemed that as a result a lot of superhero films that have come out in the past few years have been either a direct or indirect response to Man of Steel and its moody tone. It's not far off to say that if Man of Steel and the Snyderverse hadn't received such a chilly (or downright hostile) reception from fans and critics, we wouldn't be getting the overly corny films in the genre that we're still getting today such as Thor: Love and Thunder and the Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. For the last ten years, comparing a movie (especially a superhero movie) to a Zack Snyder film has been the cinematic equivalent of comparing a band to Nickelback. It's shorthand for calling something loud, dumb, and overly serious. Cut to three years after Man of Steel came out, and you see Suicide Squad attempting to awkwardly fit jokes in MCU-style into the Snyder template and a clear shift away from his visual palette. The overly dark hues are gone, a trend that the majority of modern superhero films continue following — aside from features like Matt Reeves' The Batman. Man of Steel had a very distinct visual look, one that didn't particularly fit Superman as a character. Prior to Man of Steel, it wasn't completely unusual to see superhero movies or blockbusters in general that embraced a darker color palette, such as the first three X-Men films or Unbreakable, but since 2013 very few have embraced this choice, regardless of whether it works for the story or not.

Again, I'm not sure that's entirely so, though it can be argued Snyder's approach hasn't aged well, and didn't serve the Big Blue Boy Scout well in the long run either. Interesting they admit movies like Love & Thunder, and Quantumania are poor, though it's doubtful they'll admit the wokeness noticeable in the former, and possibly also the latter, is just as bad an influence.

But, there's an interesting point to make about what can go wrong with what we used to call "blockbusters" as far back as the mid-1970s, when Star Wars became such a big hit in the movie theaters. Some of these type of films can indeed be pretty noisy and way too serious to find a sense of humor in, and they shouldn't have to substitute even for the kind of dramas Francis Coppola and Martin Scorsese were known for back in the day. Why, judging from how special effects came to define these science fantasy movies at the expense of acting and even making one think, that's one more reason why, when I watch live action movies today, I highly prefer stuff that isn't science fantasy, but rather, the kind of arthouse movies you may see at a film festival, though I realize they're not immune to politicization either.

I have no idea what the next adaptation of Superman planned for the next 2 or 3 years will be like regarding brightness or darkness, but if it turns out to be just as woke as any of these recent comic movies have been, then it definitely won't be worth the wait. Why, one could surely argue Man of Steel was just the beginning of any PC approach we've come to expect ever since. That's why it hardly makes sense to say the film convinced filmmakers to refrain from darkness for the better, if they still won't avoid political correctness. So again, what's the use of spending so much money on "great looking packages" with nothing inside?

Labels: dc comics, history, marvel comics, msm propaganda, Superman, Thor