I would have...
- Spoiler: show
- 1. Not made the opening the busiest half-day in Kryptonian history. they have a birth, a rebellion, two fight scenes, a dragon riding scene, a quick swim over to the Matrix, resolution of the rebellion, a trial, and a volcano party in less time than it takes to read a Dr Seuss book...leaving most of the more important character points no more than a sentence or two's worth of time to be established. But the thing is, societal and environmental decay are incredibly easy to show as contextual backdrop. You can even make them seem more overwhelming by doing it that way, as opposed to slapping them in our faces with hurried and silly scripted dialog. So just give us a planet on the verge of moral and natural collapse, and focus the storytelling on Zod's desperate, misguided planning, his resultant attempts to win over Maximus to his thinking, and the Master and Commander's efforts with his ladyfriend to save their remarkably well-behaved child. Then, launch the Superpod to the backdrop of the earliest stages of an explosive rebellious war and murky reminders of grim environmental conditions. Fill in the details later with Zod's dialog and the holo-history, and we're good. Bonus: instead of seeing Master General Shannon swiftly defeated by old men and then beat up by a singer in a rock band, we are witnessing his horrible rise to power....and seeing him as much more of a threat. Later on, we can learn that Krypton failed to survive the war, and he and his most loyal took to the skies in the last remaining Buy n Large cruise ship, or something.
2. Ruined the lives of some child actors. The school scene bothered me. The moment where a young child has a massive breakdown, locks himself in a hall closet, and has to have his mom called to coax him out is a traumatic one, and it is very intimitely resolved in the movie....except why the fuck do we have a swarm of ten year old onlookers? If, for obvious reasons, either the teacher or mom (mom!!!) shooed the gossipy gawkers away, its not like Clark wouldnt still be able to still see and hear their taunts from down the hall. You gained nothing but cheese by having these oh-so concerned adults totally cool with the peer observation team sticking around.
3. Had Clark stand up for himself. Honestly, this would be such a great moment in his early journey, it's almost like they forgot to film it. He's a child, for crying out loud, with a child's sense of right and wrong. He could, for example, decide to corner the bully when no one else is around to see and teach him a lesson. Maybe the bully was picking on someone else for a change, and that's what snapped Clark's frustration. Regardless, things could then go very, very badly...maybe he almost seriously hurts the guy. Maybe there's no almost. Regardless, this incident and the resulting horror works great alongside Pa Robin Hood the Elder's mumbly fears and admonishments, and does a LOT to give weight to Muscleclark's later confusion (as well as his willingness to stop cos the hand says stop, and not save his da). It would have tied so many of the half-messages found in the first hour together. "I...I saved all those kids on the bus, and it SCARED people. I tried to stop the bully, and I almost killed him. I did nothing, and my dad died. What am I supposed to be??" Added bonus: this could make the rig scene a crucial moment and something of a revelation for him. I tried to help and I actually helped...no consequences, no accidents. Maybe Earthdad was wrong....maybe I'm gonna be a goddamn comic book.
Anyway, unless he's got that reason for hesitation at some point along the way, Russell the Crow's little speech about becoming Superman is totally unneeded. Clark's already just sort of that guy...all Rus does to help is whip out mysteriously well-fitting peejays and interrupt the soundtrack.
4. Run with that shit. When Dark Lord Shannon drops his armor near the end (presumably because it's not hindering him at all) and initiates what amounts to a very hectic pajama fight, he has just told Clark that he took his soul from him. So use that. Have him say something to the effect of "I'm going to take from you what you took from me,"(a very creepy thing to have a rapidly disrobing Michael Shanon lisp at you) and start putting humans into the mix of the fight. He's got nothing left to live for, yeah? But he wants to make Superman kill him. He wants to cost him his soul. Then, when we reach the point where he's about to fry cook that whole family, Superman howls in frustration, and then Lois swings in with a Kryptoknife off of one of the corps-suits or something and ends the villain. Leave our hero with a goddamn weakness or soft spot that isn't a fear of extreme shade or giant worldeater type stuff, please.
5. Explained less. The scientist picking up on the terraformer thing was Michael Bay level hilarious and totally unneeded. Also, the whole "what? Oh, this. Yeah, it's a spaceship. Not really made for big space travel, cos it's a spaceship, you know, but we just threw some more horsepower in it and headed for earth. In our spaceship. This." that's a world engine, and that's a spaceship. We get it. We know what they're probably for. We're not going to grumble if you lose the "I failed Science class" exposition. also, explaining all that turns "alien weird" into "human future," which is what the Kryptonian stuff looked and felt like in this movie.
6. Destroyed less. A 40% reduction of collatoral damage would still have been more than a lot of movies have, and would have made the same point. If you only destroyed fourteen buildings and showed eleven soldiers/civies dying painfully, nobody would have walked out going "What a pussy fucking movie! Money back!" How is it that people involved in making Dark Knight mistake mindlessly murderous for psychologically intense? As it is, they are so hell bent on causing adequate action movie-style damage that they have our people-loving Superman grabbing the villain from a relatively isolated area and purposefully hurling him through a crowded gas station, a parked car at a pump, and into the center of his own populated hometown. Also, he helps bring buildings down in what he knows are still-populated areas.
On that note: shows bouts of non-empathetic behavior, does not cry (even smiles a little in a weird way) when remembering his father's death, hypersensitive to certain stimuli, does not connect well with people, no body fat (clearly not eating enough...inidicative of a lack of hunger awareness)....methinks Superman has autism.
7. Made it rain, bitches. Even in Kansas, Tornado Out of Nowhere is never, ever, ever on the end of the day headlines. How did it help this scene to have it be tornado surprise, rather than a reasonable rainstorm that happened to develop bad conditions? Also, where was all that traffic from? When has there ever been that much traffic in ANY place where a believable Kevin Costner character might live? I also would have tried to find a less "you didn't mind this part because you can't count to ten" excuse for Elliot Ness to die in the 'nado (I'd still snuff him because, frankly, him looking his 28 year old teenager in the eye and holding up his hand was one of the most powerfully human moments of the entire movie). Kill him, yeah, but Hollywood needs to deal with the fact that this conversation has never ever happened:
"Ya hear about Ted? Bought it in that tornado what went through the area last week."
"Shit. Ah told him to stop leaving his goddamn dog in the car all the time."
"Yup."
8. Iron Man'd the shit out of this thing. Specifically, let Superman explore his human side a bit. The guy's lost in the emotional wilderness. Imply that he's not above conjugating some women, as he moves from town to town. Or, at least, give us more indication that he WANTS to. And I bet the dude could drink like nuts if he wanted to....at this point he's a confused young guy who doesn't know what he wants to be when earth grows up, and he's lived a life of socially isolating loneliness. Go to the bar, get drunk, show off a little...the way this movie played out, there was no journey for him to take. He was just sort of always this guy, and he had to wait for Michael Shannon to show up and his Spacedad to suit him up properly.
Also, I'd use the Iron Man cheat of having him not hide who he is at the end. Not with the flash, mind you...this isn't that kind of character. But while the glasses thing is great...it's turned into a very fun and playful chance to laugh at how silly it is that nobody figures out that person A is person B...it doesn't really fit this movie.
