Countdown to Man of Steel – Trailer 4, TV Spots, Posters, Powers and Respecting the S

Since we last checked in here on the Man of Steel countdown we’ve had a number of new posters, banners and footage as the marketing ramps up in to super speed ahead of June 14th. To be honest with you, I have avoided all of the footage – barring the new trailer, which we’ll get to – and thus I cannot really comment on it. That being said, there’s a few bits to discuss, so let’s get to it.

Super Powers & TV Spots

Last week three short video features were released showing off Superman’s strength, flight and speed, along with two new TV spots. Abstaining from these myself, but I hear they’re pretty good.

“Father to a Son I’ll never know. Citizen of a soon to be dead planet. And I will have my vengeance.”

Inevitably, character posters were due, and I whilst I know many don’t like the trend – they’re easily avoidable if you you’re strongly against them – Man of Steel’s have so far been interesting. The first of which is the one which has been most appealing to me: Jor-El. Minus the lens flare (why?), a full on look at Jor-El holding some kind of weapon looks insanely bad.ass! Look at him! Like an E.T. Maximus Meridius. With a Krypton Civil War raging I am hoping, and expecting, that the relationship between Jor-El and Zod will be fully fleshed out to give Kal-El and Zod’s conflict deeper meaning.

“He’s the King Daddy. You should all be bowing down to him”.

Zack Snyder has not been quiet in his appreciation of Big Blue over the past few months, as his love for the character bursts out of him at the seams. Speaking this week, along with Chris Nolan and David S. Goyer, Snyder talked about how Man of Steel is all about trying to, “respect the S”. Snyder also talks of how the film puts a sci-fi spin on Superman, especially when it comes to Krypton. Snyder making a sci-fi film that has Nolan’s quote unquote realism giving those elements gravitas, sounds absolutely perfect to me.

Another gem of a quote is Goyer talking about the relationship between young Clark and his adoptive father, which it appears will have some very natural, very human conflicts.

Trailer 4

“For every human you save, we will kill a million more.” – Faora

A line which perfectly sums up the feeling I get from this trailer – one of dread. With a distinct lack of Zod action in the majority of the trailers – barring the chilling “I will find him” line in trailer 3 – we get a real feel here for just how much of a threat Michael Shannon’s General Zod is going to be. His fellow Kryptonian, Faora, looks incredibly menacing, and her one line is enough to make you seek refuge. What’s interesting to me as we see more of Zod, is his motivations are still not clear. We do not know what he wants with Kal-El nor why. Having avoided every TV spot so far, the image of Zod using his heat vision is a stunning visual – as it is with Superman, but we’ll get there later. What this trailer did reveal is that the Zod viral / TV spot that was released prior to the third trailer is actually part of the film. Which, with the way it was played out in this trailer, really shows how the ‘First Contact’ scenario is being handled, as groups of people gather around TV sets to witness Zod’s message. They aren’t handling this theme lightly, and this will be a very interesting aspect of the film.

Whereas trailer 3 gave us the story, and just a snippet of the action, this trailer hammers the point home: Superman will get physical and the action will be heavy. Some really great shots were in this trailer: Faora attacking the fighter jet, Zod swinging a steel girder at Superman, Superman screaming whilst using heat vision and the most jaw dropping shot has to be Superman sinking in a sea of skulls.

Hans Zimmer’s score is also relentless in this trailer, and the two pieces – presumably the first 50 seconds are Zod’s theme – are brilliant and I shall absolutely be checking the full score out before June 14th.

Well that’s it for this week, when the next countdown rolls around we will be one week away from release, and with that in mind I’ll be recapping what we know about Man of Steel thus far. See you next time.

Martin Deer