CLARK: Why am I so different from them?
JOR-EL: Earth's sun is younger and brighter than Krypton's was.
Your cells have drunken its radiation...
...strengthening your muscles, your skin, your senses.
Earth's gravity is weaker, yet its atmosphere is more nourishing.
You've grown stronger here than I ever could have imagined.
Superman was always one of my favorite superheroes.
I think Superman is okay for anyone to like.
He's the king of all superheroes.
He exists, in a weird way, outside of comic-book culture.
The superhero mythology gives us a way of expressing that need...
...to be able to protect, to excel, to inspire.
These are people who we aspire to.
They're more-perfect-than-perfect characters with flaws which we can recognize.
And we want to be these people.
There is something iconic about Superman.
He's an all-encompassing idea...
...that there is somebody to stand up against evil and make things right.
If you're going to tell a Superman story in a more approachable or relatable way...
...you have to treat it as a first-contact story.
Who doesn't wanna believe that there's one person...
...who could come and save us from ourselves?
JOHNS: Siegel and Shuster created Superman starting with the Action Comics No. 1.
No one had ever heard of superheroes when Action Comics 1 came out.
And these two guys really created something completely brand-new.
ZACK: Well, first of all, he's the first superhero that's entered pop culture.
And, you know, it's totally American mythology on, like, an epic scale.
He's an immigrant and he's an orphan.
And he's trying to find his way in the world. And what is his purpose?
He's kind of the strange combination of Old Testament and New Testament.
Because his origin is sort of this amalgamation of the Christ story but also the Moses story.
He's Moses-like in that he's literally kind of the last of his people...
...who's put in this little pod...
...just like, you know, Moses is put in, you know, the basket of reeds...
...and put down the river.
He's Christ-like because it's sort of like God's son...
...and he has to sacrifice himself, introduce himself to the world...
...and certainly that's something we play on in this movie.
You have this absolutely meta story.
You know, Superman is a primal character.
It was designed as a way of dealing with contemporary angst.
It was two kids in New York threatened with the end of the world and World War ll.
So it's absolutely appropriate to make it become a mirror...
...for the contemporary condition.
JOHNS: We see Superman reinterpreted...
...and kind of his mythology expanded every decade...
...in reaction to what's going on there.
You can see the subtext to it all.
But for me personally, the one I live through is the '90s.
And in the '90s, all these new bad-ass, edgy superheroes were coming out...
...and it made Superman look irrelevant.
Like Superman was the Boy Scout. He was the do-gooder.
He wasn't that tough.
And so they killed him.
They did this massive story called The Death of Superman...
...which most people probably read or remember hearing about.
And suddenly they took something away.
And it was the biggest-selling comic book ever. It was huge.
It was like this black bag with this bloody red S.
And everybody demanded to know when he was gonna come back.
You can't kill Superman.
And then the return story was the biggest story in comics that whole year.
It was huge. And it was a great, great story.
It was kind of the most meta-textual take on the character...
...saying that death can't even beat Superman.
Comic books' mythologies are being overwritten...
...and the universes are being rebooted.
I mean, DC Comics did it with Crisis on Infinite Earths...
...which took place in the '80s.
In which they literally said, "Okay, everything that happened before didn't exist.
We're starting fresh."
And they just did it again last year with something they called The New 52...
...in which they sort of rebooted the universe...
...because what happens after 20 or 30 years...
...is these incredibly complicated stories...
...sort of fall apart under their own weight of mythology.
Even for me as a filmmaker...
...and for me as sort of a student of comic books...
...he always was that sort of magic, golden god upon a hill...
...you couldn't really touch.
So when Chris called me and said would I be interested in talking about Superman...
...I thought, "Well, listen, what he and David were able to do...
...was make him relatable in their story."
You could say if I were Superman, that's what I would have done.
Cinematically, prior to Man of Steel, Superman hasn't really changed.
And part of what we had to do is reeducate the audience...
...and get them comfortable with the fact...
...that we were actually gonna change the Superman mythology a little bit.
JOHNS: Superman has entered our culture beyond popular culture.
It's now the world's culture. It's primal.
GOYER: When we released the first photo of Henry in the Superman suit...
...there's all this chatter all over the Internet that the Superman suit reveal...
...was trending higher than the debt crisis.
There's a difference between dressing up like Superman and being Superman.
And that was the difference with Henry when he was in the costume.
It's a magical thing. It's like the glass slipper.
Henry put the costume on and he was him.
Henry has given great thought to every aspect of his performance.
And when he's in that suit, he really changes.
He really owns the character, even when the cameras aren't rolling.
One of my first days on set, I was talking with Amy...
...and right then I look over and there's Henry walking towards me...
...I was like, "Holy shit." Ha, ha.
She was like, "Right? Superman."
I made a joke that we weren't filming a movie...
...that we were doing So You Wanna Be a Superhero?
And it was actually a reality show...
...and they were just putting him through every torturous scenario.
And that I was actually the host.
I think it takes someone really special to be able to transform themselves to play this role.
You become a role model to all these kids who are gonna look up to you.
And that's a huge responsibility.
It's an honor to have such a true fan here.
MAN: That means a lot. -Thank you for coming.
The thing which struck me the most and really brought home the importance of this icon...
...is that the people who are wanting to get autographs or photographs...
...were enormous fans of the character.
And their interaction with me was enormously flattering...
...because they look at me in a certain way...
...which make me realize the responsibility that is on my shoulders...
...and how important it is to these people that I do this right.
This is now as much a lifestyle choice as a career choice.
JONATHAN: All these changes that you're going through, one day...
One day you're gonna think of them as a blessing. When that day comes...
...you have to make a choice.
A choice of whether to stand proud in front of the human race or not.
Can't I just keep pretending I'm your son?
You are my son.
GOYER: Typically in the films and the comic books...
...the Kents have been depicted as much older.
We wanted to make a break from that.
We wanted them to be parents and not grandparents.
We deal a lot more in this movie with the anxiety that the Kents have...
...as adoptive parents...
...knowing that they don't know if his real parents are still out there or not...
...or if they'll show up one day.
Superman is the ultimate kind of nature-versus-nurture story.
I mean, that debate is still raging on in our society, you know.
How much of who we are is because of our genetics...
...and because of our upbringing?
CAVILL: Clark is a well-brought-up farm boy.
At the same time, he's ultimately an outsider...
...at all stages of his life.
And the only place he's ever made to feel at home...
...is with Martha and Jonathan.
I think Martha and Jonathan were both rather heroic as parents...
...in that they had to persevere with protecting Clark with his anonymity...
...without instilling shame.
But it was very much them against the world in the sense of this shared secret.
We have a really protective nature for him. lnstinctually...
...when something bad happens, he is able to react.
And when he reacts, he reacts in a way that's supernatural...
...like something nobody has ever seen before. They're not sure what they've just seen.
ZACK: The lucky thing for Clark...
...is that Jonathan gets it kind of on the first bounce.
He understands that he's got certain abilities...
...that are spectacular and strange but otherworldly.
Jonathan understands right away that it's a blessing and a curse.
You know, one of the greatest journeys in this film...
...is that this is the first time we see Superman try and use his abilities.
When he's a kid, they kind of click in there and we've seen this in the comic books.
His x-ray vision goes, his heat vision goes.
It's a strength he can't control.
When the world finds out what you can do it's gonna change everything.
Our beliefs, our notions of...
...what it means to be human. Everything.
When you realize all the capacities that this young being has...
...there is a moral obligation to instill a sense of right and wrong.
In a lot of ways, the theme of the film is he's got two fathers.
He's got Jonathan Kent and he's got Jot-EL.
Goodbye, my son.
Our hopes and dreams travel with you.
ZACK: Understanding the sacrifice Jor-El and Lara have to make...
...to save their child, to me, is also compelling...
...because the idea of these two people on a dying world...
...having to make this sacrifice where they would say, you know:
"We're never gonna see our child grow up...
...but we've gotta put this message in a bottle because it's the only hope we have."
It's like Moses in the bulrushes. It's like a universal story.
It's interesting.
It's funny. It's like we're playing "people from another planet"...
...but actually we are playing the metaphor for the core of human life.
JOR-EL: We wanted you to learn...
...what it meant to be human first...
...so that one day, when the time was right, you could be the bridge...
...between two peoples.
One of the things really important to Jor-El to try to communicate to his son...
...whichever way he can is that these things that are different about him...
...these strengths that he has...
...his capacities, it's a huge responsibility.
JOR-EL: You can save her, Kal.
You can save all of them.
CROWE: He's also really telling his son that:
"You are a god...
...and you have the power to create a race in the future."
Partially human, partially Kryptonian.
Hopefully completely ideologically sound...
...and get beyond the mistakes made in Kryptonian terms...
...of where the planet ended up. -Aah!
There's a touch oi madness to Jar-EL.
There's a touch of insanity in what he's doing and massive desperation.
I mean, as far as he's concerned...
...it's the last throw of the dice for the entire race that he's known.
And Zod has a concept too in terms of, you know, keeping Krypton alive.
And I think that's where the two of them agree.
ZOD: Help me save our race. We'll start anew.
We'll sever...
...the degenerative bloodlines that led us to this state.
And who will decide which bloodlines survive, Zod?
You?
Russell's full-on.
I mean, the man knows what he's doing, you know.
He's proven it time and time again.
When I found out he was gonna be doing the part, I was nervous.
I kept trying to wrap my head around how to be his equal.
But I think in the end, we decided that, in a way, he was kind of a mentor to Zod.
Someone that meant a lot in Zod's life, you know, and someone he learned a lot from.
Now, Michael Shannon is exceptional.
I've had a great time working with him.
He's very serious.
He does a lot of thinking...
...and everybody who's in this job knows...
...that it's the quiet contemplation that gives you the edge.
In the comic books, there's Superman: Last Son that reintroduced General Zod...
...and explored the back-story between Zod and Jor-El...
...and how they had a pretty good relationship at one point...
...and the destruction of Krypton was the destruction of their relationship.
But David's taken the kernel of what was started, I think, really in Superman ll...
...when Donner did it and explored it in such a different way.
Someone said once that no villain thinks of themselves as a villain.
They're all the hero of their own story. Well, Zod very much believes...
...in trying to revive Kryptonian culture, Kryptonian heritage.
So he's not a kind of snidely whiplash villain in this film.
He's a very noble figure.
I exist...
...only to protect Krypton.
That is the sole purpose for which I was born.
SHANNON: When Zack approached me about the part...
...one of the first things he said was that he didn't want Zod to just be a villain.
That made the idea of playing the part interesting to me.
If Earth was in such dire straits as Krypton...
...what side would you take? How would you feel about it?
Or what would you try to do to stop it from happening or fix it?
Where is the Codex, Kal?
If Krypton lives again...
...what happens to Earth?
The foundation has to be built on something.
CAVILL: One of the greatest things about what Michael brought to Zod...
...is this sense of, "Why won't you understand what I'm trying to tell you?"
Genuine belief in what he was trying to do. Especially in the scenes we have together...
...which is the idea of, like, how beautiful Krypton is...
...and we can have it again.
SHANNON: When I'm trying to convince Clark to take up with us...
...Zod says some touching things when he says:
"I lost my family and everyone I've ever loved."
That's very powerful to me.
That's what makes him interesting...
...is that you are presented with a character that, from his point of view...
...is striving to do the right thing.
But it just happens to be kind of a slightly broken point of view.
LOIS: Why are you surrendering to Zod?
I'm surrendering to mankind. There's a difference.
You let them handcuff you?
Wouldn't be much of a surrender if I resisted.
DEBORAH: Lois, traditionally, has always been a strong female character.
But she was still always being saved by Superman.
Today, Lois is more proactive.
She goes off and she does what she needs to do.
GOYER: You know, part of the canon is that Lois Lane doesn't know...
...that Superman is Clark Kent.
Or certainly, she didn't find out until much later.
And we just thought:
"Well, what if she found out? Would it be such a big deal?"
I'm a huge fan of Superman.
I was a huge fan of the movies growing up.
So when I thought of Lois, there's definitely ideas of what and who that was.
But at the same time, to come at it from a new point of view...
...to me it's very exciting and it's very freeing...
...because she has been reimagined in so many ways over time.
And this is sort of the modern imagining of Lois.
I think it's much more of a partnership than it's been in the past...
...between she and Superman.
In a lot of ways, you know, she is the right partner for Superman.
She's a reason to save the human race, you know.
It's cool that he has that example in front of him.
She is obviously Superwoman in a societal sense.
She opens Kai's eyes to an entirely new way of existing.
He's so used to being private with who he is...
...and finally he got to share it with someone and he could trust her.
And she gave him the concept of a future on the planet.
I think it takes her by surprise that it actually takes...
...this person from another world to actually make her more human.
His humanity actually brings about a change in her.
And I think she comes to really respect and identify more with humanity...
...by her experiences with Clark.
You know, they say it's all downhill after the first kiss.
I'm pretty sure that only counts when you're kissing a human.
FISHBURNE: You have the Kent family, you have the Jor-El family.
I get to play sort of the patriarch of the Planet family.
Having Laurence play Perry...
...is different from the way he's represented in the comic book.
But Laurence is a fan.
He understands the responsibility.
He's like, "Okay, I'm not classic Perry White...
...but I have all these other characteristics...
...all the things you'd want Perry to be." In a lot of ways more capable...
...than the Perry the way he's written in the comic book.
Come on! Stop what you're doing!
Let's go! Everybody, let's go!
Perry White used to be an investigative reporter...
...and that there's still some of that in him.
But because he's running the paper now...
...he has the responsibility of sort of holding everything together...
...and keeping people within the boundaries of good taste, let's say.
LOIS: Print it or I walk. PERRY: You can't.
You're under contract.
I'm not running a story about aliens walking among us.
ZACK: Perry and Lois have this secondary partnership...
...that helps Lois, helps the story, helps the canon in a lot of ways.
You're definitely finding the way in for a modern audience.
HAMILTON: Sir?
- Hi, my name is Dr. E-- SUPERMAN: Emil Hamilton.
I know, I can see your ID tag in your breast pocket.
Along with a half-eaten roll of Lifesavers.
When I work in these DC properties...
...I like to, inasmuch as possible, populate the secondary and tertiary roles...
...with other characters from the DC Universe.
We needed a scientist type, so I thought, "Okay, we can throw in Emil Hamilton."
SCHIFF: Dr. Hamilton does appear in the comic strips starting in 1985...
...and he comes in various incarnations.
First of all, he had a big head of hair.
Um, so immediately I thought, "Oh, good, they're creating a new interpretation."
He was first introduced as a very good friend to Superman who helped him quite a bit.
In other incarnations, he comes back as an enemy.
The attempt to contemporize the story that's been iconic...
...and told and told again for a newer audience...
...is, of course, necessary.
But what's impressive about this production...
...is that they're not losing the very germ of why it was created in the first place.
There were other nods to the comic-book universe wherever it made sense.
LOIS: Pete Ross?
I'd like to talk to you about an accident when you were younger.
A school bus that went into the river.
Pete Ross is extremely different in this version. He's a bully.
In the comic books, he's Clark's friend.
GOYER: In our mind...
...even though we were never explicit about this...
...Pete Ross knew Clark was Superman.
He just never told anyone.
We liked the idea that there were people in Smallville...
...not just Pete, but maybe Lana, who is, you know, his first girlfriend...
...a few others who probably knew Clark was Superman.
Because they'd seen things over the years or they'd heard things...
...and that kind of tracked with when Clark decided...
...to introduce himself to the world...
...that sort of filled in the gaps for them.
And we liked the fact that there probably was this open secret...
...amongst some of the people in Smallville.
Where are you from'? What are you doing here?
Let me tell your story.
What if I don't want my story told?
GOYER: It always bothered me in the comic books...
...when Lois Lane is interviewing Superman.
She says, "So you're from Krypton, huh?" And he says, "Yeah."
And she says, I'm paraphrasing, "Cool."
And that's it.
Wait a minute, he's an alien and he just said he's from another planet...
...so there's, like, intelligent life out there in the universe...
...and everybody just kind of accepts the fact, "Oh, yeah. This guy's an alien, and it's cool."
If the world found out that he were an alien on Earth...
...and that there had been, at least at one time, a planet with intelligent life...
...that would in itself be the biggest story that ever hit mankind.
We realized that Krypton was going to play a much bigger role...
...than just being an environment that part of the film takes place in...
...but in many ways is a character.
The canon's always been rich with Kryptonian history and culture and story.
But cinematically, I don't know that it's ever been explored...
...in the way that we had the opportunity to explore it.
JOR-EL: Do you not understand? Krypton's core is collapsing.
We may only have a matter of weeks. I warned you.
Harvesting the core was suicide.
From the comics I've read, I felt like a lot of the dystopian view...
...of Krypton and the Kryptonians which this film heavily rides on at the beginning...
...there were a lot of details that were being pulled...
...from John Byrne's mini series that he wrote and drew in the '80s.
That was a new thing back then.
John Byrne's reimagining was they kind of screwed their ecology up.
They don't have natural childbirth.
You know, their birth is all-- Just like the Genesis Chamber.
It's interesting it's called Man of Steel...
...because that's just what he called his series...
...and it was this nice reimagining that DC Comics relied on for years...
...as the updating of the origin at that time.
It's a very good and appropriate kind of parallel to look at Krypton...
...as the kind of ultimate expression...
...of the way that we see what's happening to Earth.
So you're allowing the audience a way into Krypton...
...in this kind of extreme expression of self-destruction.
We look around us in our world as it is now...
...and regardless of how many people would deny what is fundamentally obvious...
...there's something changing.
We're not just talking about, you know, the gigantic concept...
...of shifting weather patterns, you know.
We're talking about the fundamental things. Like we've screwed up the water sources.
We've actually built buildings on the most fertile land...
...in a lot of countries, you know.
We've made some really stupid mistakes.
But we can turn it around.
And if this film puts that concept...
...into the minds of young boys and young girls...
...the generation's gonna come forward and make the decisions going forward...
...then that's a wonderful thing.
And if that's what, you know, Superman means in this instance, fantastic.
I saw in the newspaper the other day...
...that they found some planet very similar to Earth...
...just outside of our solar system, apparently...
...Kepler-22...
...and immediately, I just started thinking about how, you know...
...somebody's probably gonna try and go out and claim that for us, you know...
...when we're done ruining this place.
It was very interesting to be sitting and reading that article...
...while I was getting my hair done for Superman.
It was a very interesting juxtaposition.
Thank you.
For what?
For believing in me.
We all got into comic books because at one time or another...
...we wanted to escape, get into a different world. Well, Superman's all about freedom.
He represents that truth, justice, the American way.
But really it's carving your own destiny.
Take whatever you're good at and do the best you can with it.
It's resonated for decades in the Superman comics.
It's been there from the beginning. It's there in the film.
He has a good heart, and he tries to use it to make the world a better place.
I can't think of a finer ambition.
No matter what anybody says, I think there's a part of you that wants to be a superhero...
...that wants to do something greater and bigger than you are.
For me, growing up, it was like, you saw that Superman...
...you were like, "Wow, I wanna be that."
You know, I think if you live your life like you're in a movie...
...it will usually inform you of what to do, believe it or not.
People are always talking about movies as being make-believe.
But the truth is movies construct moments where you get to watch the screen...
...and decide what kind of man you are.
Some of the most special heroes we've had throughout history, ancient and modern...
...represent hope and the ability to conquer adversity against all odds.
Superman was designed for that very reason.
It's the one thing that matters most to us...
...because no matter where we are in life, no matter what's going in the world...
...hope always plays a significant part in our lives.