A mediocre film in 2013 is still mediocre even if it came out in 2008.
The point I was making is that the mindset about both superhero films AND movies about Superman specifically was pretty different in 2006-2008. I vividly remember a lot of people complaining about how boring Superman Returns was, and a lot of the filmmaking aspects fans were wishing had been incorporated into their movie actually showed up in Man of Steel.
Movies don't happen in a vaccuum. The cultural context that worked against Man of Steel in 2013 to a small degree would have probably helped it had the movie come out in 2008, because the landscape was different.
You're right in that the faults in the movie proper wouldn't be any different. The herky-jerky pacing, the bad flashback structure, the bad dialog, etc etc. All of it still would have been there. But I do think a lot of superhero fans back then would have been a lot more willing to handwave them or at least shrug them off.
Keep in mind, they were hungry enough for a Superman movie in 2006 that they were willing to shrug off Superbastard, the piano-throwing murderer son of Lifto, the StalkerMan, for months afterwards while pointing at the airplane scene and the opening credits.
inky said:
Yeah, you said "people". As in, people in general would cut him more slack if he wasn't some way or another like it was some common idea floating about people just have.
You quoted the direct sentence earlier. I don't know why you're trying to rephrase it clumsily. There's no need. I essentially suggested people would cut him more slack if he didn't look like a "dudebro." Obviously I'm putting forward the idea there's a contingent of superhero film fans (and to be even more blatantly clear, we're talking about a subsection of a subsection of film fan, further subsected (is that a word?) into those who choose to discuss film at length on forums/facebook/twitter) who unfairly factor his appearance/diction into their judgments of him.
Your hypothesis is the first I've heard of it, never seen it...
There's at least three other posters in this thread since I've brought it up who have said they've seen it themselves.