What I Hear When I Hear People Defend "Man Of Steel" Based On Its Visuals ...

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Man of Steel, Episode One: The Phantom Menace Zone

(Quick programming note -- it's been almost two months since my last post, as I've spent the bulk of that time moving to a new city and finding a new job.  So if you begin to notice a distinctly "west coast" quality to my writing, as opposed to the "east coast" stylings of my previous posts, that would be the result of my recent relocation from Manhattan to Seattle.  And now back to your irregularly scheduled program ...)

Me: Hey, so did you hear that new symphony orchestra last night? What did you think?

Other Guy (OG):  Oh man, the trumpets!  They were so loud!  It was amazing!

 (continued below the fold ...)

Me: Well, yeah, I'll give you that, but I didn't think it worked overall as a symphony.  Eventually the trumpets just got on my nerves.

OG: What are you talking about?? It had loud trumpets!!

Me: Yeah, loud trumpets. I GET IT.  But the trumpets didn't really play off the strings or the percussion, or contribute to the larger themes of the symphony whatsoever.  It was all just a jumble of sounds.

OG:  You're crazy, man.  Loud trumpets!!  Remember that symphony we saw a few years ago?  It had, like, NO trumpets.  I've been dying for a symphony reboot so that I could finally hear the trumpets

Me:  I don't know about that, there were trumpets in that last symphony we saw.  They were subtle but they were there.

OG:  Screw that, I want to hear trumpets, man.  That's what I pay to see when I go to see an orchestra play.

Me:  Yeah, but you can hear loud trumpets from a high school marching band or some guy on the street.  Who cares how loud the trumpets are if they aren't played well and they don't work with the rest of the performance?  My ears were exhausted by the end and I couldn't wait for it to end!

OG:  LOUD TRUMPETS!!!

This imaginary bit of dialogue was inspired by a short exchange I had over at the /Film website, which you can find here.  That exchange (and my completely unfair reduction of that exchange above) pretty much sums up my feelings on that film as a stand-alone experience.  Unfortunately for me, it appears that Man of Steel won't be a stand-alone film, as the massive box office success of that movie combined with enough positive buzz to have shaken off the completely unearned stink that had followed the Superman franchise since Superman Returns has convinced Warner Bros. to hand the keys of the DC kingdom over to Zack Snyder ... culminating in the apocalypse-harkening news that they're finally going forward with the Superman/Batman team-up that has been the Holy Grail of DC-fans for decades.

I'll reserve judgment for the time being, but my knee-jerk reaction is that Warner Bros. is learning all the wrong lessons from Marvel's Avengers experience (without any indication that Marvel is taking pointers from the genre-transcending excellence of the Dark Knight Trilogy, which Snyder managed to ape in style without a hint of the underlying substance).  So get ready for the Superman-Batman crossover you've been dreaming of ever since DC realized they could sell more issues by combining their biggest franchise properties into a single title ...