@TLC:
MOST of the damage, huh? You mean not ALL of the damage? :/
What? You expect Superman to not scrape a building? Even the Avengers were dropping tons of alien carcass on to the people in the streets below.
It's funny how you are making my argument for me. The writers had to conveniently write a family to be out of the way instead of showing Superman stop his fighting for two seconds and protect them. And that's only one family. How many families were NOT lucky to not be in the way? The writers expect us to believe zero well I'm not buying it. More of an issue though is Superman never fought in a way to minimize casualty, no luring or decoy attempts, no trying to minimize destruction of property, there were scenes were he intentionally scraped Zod into skyscrapers! Just because the writers ignored the ramifications of their story telling to give destruction porn, doesn't mean we will.
If there were any civilian casualties it wasn't because Superman leveled a building is my whole point. If you watch the entire fight scene any civilian casualties must have come directly from Zod's hands. Yes, Superman by battling in the city is responsible by association just like the Avengers by battling in the city were responsible for any civilian casualties there too. Afterall, both cities were under attack and by no choice of the heroes were those the chosen/designated battle grounds.
All writers will write the heroes conveniently battling in a majorly populated city without showing us the personal casualties their fighting should be causing. They write so they expect us to believe that, 'Whoa, they just crashed a giant alien worm into a populated museum and no one got killed! Sure!' What's your argument here? Is it_WHY_ the writers do this so the heroes don't get labeled psychopaths because it is pretty obvious.
Besides that, I agree The Avengers did much better in trying to minimize damage and save civilian lives. Of course they had a team, communication, and they weren't going one on one with a dude that could lift tanks but that's besides the point. Superman should have been shown trying to get out of the city or at least shout for people to get out of the way. There was that small scene in the countryside fight where he told people to stay in and lock their doors. Even that would have been better than what happened in Metropolis…kind of, because again, everyone minimizes that the whole climax of the battle was showing how much Superman cared for "these people" by doing exactly what everyone said he wasn't doing. Saving lives! All they can focus on was how he killed Zod and fought in the city rather than he killed Zod to save the city.
And yes, you need to establish that this character has a moral code against killing ESPECIALLY when aforementioned character is a blank slate who never seemed to connect with anyone or give a damn about anyone. Yeah, you can show very rare scenes of him saving people but he never seemed to care when he did, no talking or trying to connect with anyone or asking if they're okay.
So you can show scenes and establish that he goes out of his way to save and help people for much of his adulthood but he still doesn't give a damn about people? He killed someone to save a family but he just doesn't care? I don't understand.
And Clark Kent is an alien from another planet. He doesn't have his Superman identity yet and of course he's not even thinking about being some kind of superhero. He's just confused and looking for answers yet he's not letting his powers go to waste and helps out when he can, but he's not going to save someone from an oil rig and go to them and ask them if they're "OK" after doing an impossible feat when his whole life he's been brought up to protect his identity.
When you're banking that much drama on it, you need to establish it as a thing not just assume it's something everybody knows. Even if we all know, you need to set it up in the movie as a Chekov's gun so when it comes into play, it has far greater dramatic weight. Besides, Captain America is a nice guy who would rather avoid conflict and goes around saving people yet he has no aversion to killing Nazis while Batman is far from a nice guy but has a strict no kill policy which the movie established.
We're just going to have to agree to disagree on this. Not the added dramatic weight. Sure, they could have done that. They can always add more drama. I'm talking about the whole 'Superman should have been established he has a no killing policy' thing.
@Robby:
Superman 2 (THIRTY |FIVE YEARS AGO) went out of its way to establish that Supes' weakness was protecting others. Avengers (and Avengers 2) took great pains to show the leads doing their best to save civilians and avoid casualties. (Most of the Marvel fims in fact have the heroes being… you know... heroic.) Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan has an entire theme built around avoiding death. Stupid GIANT ROBOT MOVIE Pacific Rim did its best to avoid casualties, went out of its way to save lives even at extra difficulty and cost, and constantly tried to keep battles away from the population centers. MoS didn't bother.
You can rationalize away that Zod wouldn't be lured out and that it was all on him, or that "it was his first day on the job" but
1)he's a written character, the writer and director chose to do it that way (And it ignored the lifetime he has on the planet). It wasn't Superman or Zod that decided to go that route, it was Snyder.
2)Supes didn't even try. No taking extra unnecessary hits to protect people, pausing in the fight to try ans stop a collapsing bridge,no trying to avoid collateral, no trying to move the fight outside of the city repeatedly, nothing.
Yeah, as I said before I did have a problem with how it wasn't shown Superman didn't try to get out of the city. I don't believe he had the time to go out of his way and physically move civilians but he could have at least tried to lure Zod away. That wasn't what I'm arguing. I've already said the writers could have done a better job…should have done a better job regarding that. I'm trying to prove Superman isn't some kind of sociopath that doesn't care for people in this movie. Yes, the last fight scene was crazy but that doesn't take away the fact that:
A. Superman was established that he clearly cares about people and their lives
B. Superman didn't choose to fight specifically in Metropolis and it was Zod who was doing most of the damage not Superman
C. He saved people in Metropolis!
Would have only needed one or two examples at the start of him at least trying to save civilians before being overwhelmed and then being forced to fight in the middle of a population center, but there wasn't even a token effort. That you have to freeze frame pictures of exploding skyscrapers and try to pretend "they didn't cgi any dead bodies in there, it must have been clear of civilians!" is… silly. It was a populated city. Buildings and streets are gonna have people in them.
I'm not posting pictures to show that there weren't any bodies in some of the buildings. I posted a picture to show that there were some bodies in the buildings but Superman clearly didn't hit any of them because convenience. I'm not saying people didn't die and realistically Superman gets the blame for that too even though it was Zod who did the killing. I believe that was BvS is going to touch on that actually. It's only fair. The way the writers wrote his character and the direction they took him in is where I'm focused.