The part of the machine in the Indian Ocean must have caused tsunamis. It wasn't meant to be an unpopulated area, either; they showed a fisherman there. Must have been horrible destruction.

In Avengers, the heroes contained the destruction to one part of the city, saved as many people as they could, and helped direct the rescue of others. In MoS Superman and Zod just leveled the city. Supes only saved Lois, and the strategically-placed family he killed Zod for. The problem, to me, is not that there was collateral damage; it was how unnecessary much of it was, and how unconcerned the hero seemed to be about it.

Does it bother anyone else that none of it was necessary at all? Zod could have had what he wanted if he'd simply asked Superman to give him the Codex. He could have gone to another planet -- he'd already visited dozens of planets that were obviously suitable for Kryptonian life -- and re-started his people. Why wouldn't Kal have wanted to help him with that? Why did Zod spend the first part of the movie talking about how they could do better, only to do horribly worse himself? Zod could just as easily have come down and said, "Thank Krypton-God we found you! We've been looking for years! Come with me, I'll tell you all about your people; we'll find another planet and you can help us bring our world back to life!" I mean, yes of course, he'd gone mad and he didn't care about us, but that was a writers' choice too. It wasn't inevitable; it didn't have to happen that way.

I haven't seen the movie, ZK, so this may very well be stupid-- are you saying that the character didn't have to do that once he'd gone crazy? Or that the writers shouldn't have made him crazy?

Zenkitty,

Well, Zod started off wanting to get revenge for something something Superman's father did in sending the codex away, even though dad was right and the codex would have perished a short period of time after Zod went all final solution on the ruling government. So he was aggressive and murderous when he approached Earth. You'd think 33 of our years might have chilled him out, but I guess he took lessons from Khan during the intervening years.

What you describe is the potential for a very interesting movie. What if he searched for Superman without posing a clear threat. Feigning kindess. Superman gets ready to leave with them and then sees the message from his father. Boom. Then have a mid-space fight on a nearby Krypton outpost and spare us all the PTSD fodder.

LeN, your last paragraph sounds like a movie I would have really enjoyed!

ita !, it's a problematic stance. Zod is written as not behaving rationally from the very beginning of the movie, so expecting him to behave rationally at the end is unreasonable. Obviously we wouldn't have the movie if Zod hadn't tried to conquer/destroy Earth. It just bugs me that Zod's reason for invading Earth is irrational, and not one person, including Superman, ever addresses the fact that the invasion was unnecessary, or the fact that what Zod really wants is a legitimate desire. Even if Zod wasn't about to listen, Superman could have said, look, all you want is your people back, we can totally do that, you don't even need my adopted planet.

But I may not be being reasonable there.

except...

Superman didn't know where the codex was. knowing what we know now, I am not sure Superman could give them what they want, or that the process was easy.

But they knew where it was, and it could be retrieved without hurting him -- Jor-El wouldn't have made it impossible or even painful to get it out of him. And if anyone were behaving rationally, they could have worked together.

I know, I know. I'm a dreamer. Wanting people to behave rationally and work together. Where's teh drama.

That was a huge problem I had, actually. What, exactly, was Jor-El's plan for the future of Krypton? He encodes the Codex into Kal-El's cells, and then....what? Are we just supposed to assume that there was more information on the Super-USB drive about how to get it OUT of his cells and into a format that could result in more Kryptonians?

Presumably, since that ship in the arctic was designed to colonize a new planet and had one of those Matrix-style Genesis Chambers, that could have been used to recreate the Kryptonian race on earth once Clark found the thing. Zod certainly seemed to want to use it for that purpose, albeit with negative concern about how the process would affect Clark's wellbeing.

The part of the machine in the Indian Ocean must have caused tsunamis. It wasn't meant to be an unpopulated area, either; they showed a fisherman there. Must have been horrible destruction.

They said that it was using gravity to simulate increasing the earth's mass. It may be that the sudden return to normal once it was broken would generate tsunami tides everywhere when the world's oceans suddenly stopped being compressed by the additional weight.

Wait, so the good guy's plan was the one that didn't make sense?

I am cast in mind (unfavourably) towards Transformers, where the best I could work out was that in order to beat the guys who want to steal the thingy, you've got to give them the thingy. And, without irony, you will win and we will all be safe.

Perhaps it's fairer to say that no one's plans made sense in that movie, but here it at least sounds like crazy angry guy wants something that's reasonable to want.