Author: Temperance Alden
Length of the book: 186 pages
Verdict: Not what I was expecting, more basic witchcraft than actual facts about the wheel of the year and how to personalize it.
Would I recomend the book? Depends on what you're after. If you are into gardening you might appreciate this book, since she focuses a lot on that - her tips are very basic though (even I knew most of them). She puts a much magickal focus on growning your own food; sometimes as offerings for e.g. Samhain.
Description: I bought this book because I wanted to straighten out some questions I had about the wheel of the year; like, what celebrations do I connect to? How do I want to celebrate them? etc... Since this book advertised about making your own wheel through intuition I thought this would be a perfect fit! Unfortunately consists more than half the book of basic magick, like: what does the elements stand for?/ how do you set up an altar?/ the zodiac... Not really what I was looking for.
What I do appreciate about the book is that the vibe is pretty lax; Temperance writes out rituals, but points out that if there's something in it that you don't vibe with there's nothing wrong in changing it. We love a witch that is pro-personalized craft!! She also brings up blood magick, which is fun! It's a little basic, but still ^^
When Temperance finally starts to write about the different witchy holidays it's only 6 pages at most, and it's almost 100% based on a celtic/ wiccan perspective. The chapters mostly contains a short explanation of the mythology behind the holiday (here's where the wicca comes in, with e.g. the Holly king and the Oak king). After that she'll write something connected to the holiday; at Samhain she writes about ancestor- and spiritual work, and at Lughnasadh she writes about the connection to bread in the french revolution. Temperance rounds up every chapter with a short ritual for the season; like one to let things go, or maybe a dumb (/quiet) supper. Out of all of these her Mabon ritual (pick apples and drink warm apple cider) was the one that spoke to me the most - maybe because Mobon easily passes me by, and now I have something to remember it.
After Temperance has gone through a whole year of how she celebrates she's written 10 pages about how to create your own wheel of the year. Which is a fine setup. I just would've prefered that the where upfront about it - I came here to learn how to personalize mine - not to get to know her wheel. Something I really did appreciate was her philosophy on rituals tho: No witch is on a 100% every minute of every day, so instead she made a wheel that has small acts of devotion regularly - then you don't loose focus even if you don't feel real witchy that month.
A setup I'd have prefered:
1) Cut out all the basic witchcraft - sometimes witchbooks needs to be able to be intermediate/ advanced, and since the basic wheel of the year is easily found on the internet/ in most beginner books, maybe use this one to hone in on personalization. Just be clear in the blurbe that it's not for beginners and it's all fine.
2) Write the wheel of the year, but try to get as many perspectives/ traditions as possible for every holiday. Wiccan, celtic, heathen, hellenistic, atheistic... Bring up other holidays that aren't as common but you/ your friends still celebrate them. The birth of a pet can be a holiday! The first time you see a spring flower in bloom! The first leaf you see falling down!
3) Write more than 10 pages of your main thesis in your book.
For my second review I thought I'd maybe go a bit controversial and pick a popular (or at least one that was heavily featured on witchtube) book that I didn't like. If this is your fave, and you don't want to read some asshole tear in to it, you should probably just stop reading here...
Author: Diane Ahlquist
Length of the book: 6 h 43 min
Verdict: One of the worst books on magic I've read. Directly harmful in some places.
Would I recommend the book?: I mean... If you really LOVE the moon to the point where you want every single waking moment planned after what planet she's currently in... I guess? But I feel like there are other similar books out there (that doesn't recommend you postpone cancer operations until the moon is in waining...).
Description: I was planning on buying this one, then - thank the Gods - I found it on Storytel and listened to it before I threw away my money on That Woman. I was looking for a book that delwed a little deeper in to the symbolism the moon takes depending on which month it is, maybe a deep dive in to the moonphases etc. That was about 1/10 of the book. The rest was... Well, just sit down and get ready. Maybe hold someones hand, cause this shit gets scary at times…
After she - with as few sentenceses as possible - written two very short chapters about what I actually wanted to read about she had a chapter about the moons effect on nature, humans and animals. In the chapter she mixes in personal anecdotes that makes it clear that I would not want Diane in my life; like the fact that she tried to foist her theory about moonphases on to some poor interiour designer that she'd "discovered made much more inspired designs" during the full moon - as opposed to the rest of her designs that was "plain, and something easily done by oneself". Note: This interior designer was not pagan/ spiritual or anything of the sorts. Diane also bribed someone she was vaguely aquainted with to write a sleep journal for FIVE MONTHS, just to prove that the person slept best during the dark moon).
After this Diane wrote a chapter about the scientific facts about the moon. Let's be clear: In principle, I think this is a great idea, and I love mixing science with magick - one can never have to much knowledge imo! However, this chapter was so uninspiring and boring that I - and I'm really not joking here - lost my faith in magick and became atheist for about 20 minutes. Granted, I was hungry at the time, but how does something like that even happen??! I had (at the point of writing this review in my BoS) been a practising pagan for over 2 years, but her writing style was so boring that I lost my faith... This book is something else. After I'd eaten and contemplated some of John Becketts writings (which will probably be a future review) I realized that I'm still pagan, it's just that this woman is insane. With that in mind, I figured it would probably be good for a hate-listening.
Diane feels that you should plan your entire life after the moons phases (and their corresponding weekdays). Not only when to do spells or rituals - but when you should book a dentist appointment, ask someone out, buy a pet - check your moon calender first! Is it a waining moon on a Wednesday? Better not risk it. She writes - in all seriousness - that she thinks you should consult a professional astrologist before you buy a pet.
She brings up how the moon can "help you loose weight" if you only "start your diet in the right phase of the moon", which is something she writes about in total 10 times, of which she at one time characterises it as "smaller moon, smaller waistline". As someone who's recovered from eating disorder, and since then has been an advocate for Health At Every Size - Yuck! I wanted a book about the moon, I don't remember inviting Diane to talk about weight loss?? At one point in the book she claims that the moonphase, combined with the weekday, would decide the gender of the baby. (Doubtful, but ok...) Later she writes about a lithuanian folktradition about the making of babies and comments “no doubt this was to make the boys stardy and the girls slim and delicate”. And why wouldn't one want a stardy girl or a delicate boy? Way to go in the crusty gendernorms D! On the topic of children btw; Diane thinks that the moonfases are so important that you should teach your children about them, so that they can schedule when to meet friends, study for tests etc according to the phases of the moon.
The worst part in the book is what D recommends when it comes to using the moonphases for medicinal procedures. Gods dammit. Anyways. Of course she writes that if it's a life-threatening emergency one should go through with the necessary operations, but in all other cases one should adapt to - you guessed it - the moonphases. One should never voulontarily get an operation when Mercury is in retrograde - which btw is 3 times a year, 3 weeks at a time... So for over two months every year no-one should get surgery unless it's an emergency... Seems like a healthy belief... Diane also want you to keep track on what zodiac the moon is in; this is because the zodiacs represent different parts of the body; If the moon is in the zodiac for the bodypart that you're operating, that means the operation isn't going to go well - you should probably postpone it. She justifice the claim with "we've known this since Ancient Times", and uses in this argument a new definition of "known" for me; since that theory has been completely disproven since the 1800s (at one time we "knew" that bloodletting was the cure-all for any deasise, but I guess that one isn't centered enough in astrology for her). The part about how medicine should be planned in accordance with the moon is so important for her that she brings it up two times in her book. In the latter one she claims that one should schedule when to remove fucking SKINCANCER AND TUMOURS after the moonphases (in waining, since that is when to get rid of things). I would urge anyone that has cancerous growth tho remove it AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, since delaying it can be FUCKING DEADLY.
Nearing the end of the book D walks us through the chinese zodiacs. All different versions, connected to positive/ negative, what animal and what element every year from 1930 to 2044 has. The does not explain anything about how these circumstances affects anything, she only lists them. Like - as a somewhat made up example (since I don't have the enery to look it up) - "1954: Rooster in wood, positive"... Okayy?? And since her spann is huge, this section goes on forever. I understand that isn't as dangerous as recommending to postpone surgeries, but it's also time that I will never get back, and I'd like you to spare a thought for me who had to listen to all of this.
When you see a book named "Moon Magic" one would think that it would be a pagan/ secular witch who wrote the book, and that it would at least share some of your worldviews, but that's a no from me Sir. It feels more like a wannabe hippie appropriates pagan and native american beliefs, and wrote a book about it for those cashinos babey! Because of course she uses the word "smudging" instead of smoke cleansing, but also take it one step further with the sentence “Did your ex just move out? Give it a smudge!” A smudge of what, Diane? More bullshit? Okay, let's go! The Law of Attraction is definetly real (and not remotely an ablephobic, classist grift to make people complacent): So be sure to always think positive thoughts! Don't ever complain or be negative; That's how you bring on misfortune! And heres the thing (sssschhhhhh, it's a secret!); If you make a "vision board" and write extremely clearly and focus on it every day... It will Magically just pop up one day! But make sure that jus extra super very clear - otherwise you might end up with a yellow car instead of a red one (the horror!) - but you will Absolutely get a Mercedes as long as you focus enough, don't experience negative emotions, and use the power of the moon to get it!
Lastly she writes about setting up an altar for the moon, where you are supposed to put something that represents divinity to you. She gives us some different possibilities here, like: 1. The cross, 2. A picture of Jesus, 3. A statue of Buddha, or even... (her words, not mine) 4. A God or Goddess. Wow, Diane, do you mean that I can view divinity in the same way as those who originally worshipped the moon? Thank you, I feel so honored <3
I went to see Man of Steel with my husband last night, and below is my take on it. Stands to reason that there are spoilers ahead.
It figures that the first movie we go see after I get my windfall isn't Iron Man 3, which I still haven't gotten to see, but Man of Steel, which I was on the fence about. It's really, really hard to make a good Superman movie. He's not an easy character to deal with. What can you pull out of your arsenal that threatens Superman? Unless you're back to the Silver Age and it's ten billion different colors of Kryptonite that do funky ass things.
First, I'm going to touch on the movie, and then on the meta. There were things that pissed me off on all levels.
For the movie, I will say that if you walked in not knowing that much of Supes outside the movies that it wasn't a bad movie. It was a reboot, and that's about it. It had some decent moments scattered in there, but my problem with Superman movies is when you have him fighting for his life, it's almost always completely boring. Almost nothing can hurt the guy, so why should I care that he gets thrown through a few buildings and the support beams of a parking lot? There's no emotional jeopardy with Superman when it comes to the life of the character, so stories about him has to focus on his moral code.
Which this movie finally got. With five minutes left.
The entire thing was more or less "here is his past" and "let's beat up Zod." So we'll start at the beginning, which is on Krypton just after you see Lara give birth at a place that isn't a hospital. In a scene almost exactly like Padme's from Revenge, only without the sudden death.
Jor-El is rambling at Krypton's council, who are dressed like they're trying to recall Princess Amidala from star wars. They're not human, I get that. They don't have to wear hats made out of children's mobiles made from shiny glass.
Also, there's an obvious lack of crystals. Of any kind. At all. They're like nowhere. So Jor-El's all like, "Yo, we're all gonna die and I'm Russel Crowe!" and at that moment Zod decides it would be a good time to throw a coup. You know, at the exact moment that maybe the council of fatheads was starting to listen to him. Though it's telling that Jor-El's plan wasn't to save anyone already on Krypton, but to ensure their future by sending their Matrix Baby Bubble ships out into the universe.
Anyway, Zod is all like RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR and then Jor-El manages to get away after saying, "Dude, I totally respect you used to be a decent guy so I'm leaving now." And he goes to get something called a codex which he has to swim through the Matrix Baby Incubator to get.
I'm not kidding. Apparently why Kal was born at home with his dad and two floating robots and no doctors is there haven't been natural Kryptonian births in over a hundred years. Makes me wonder where Jor learned to deliver babies. Maybe he got one of those for dummies books. Anyway, he swims down and grabs this ominious floating skull with letters on it. This is called the Codex, and I'll just let you in on the WTFery of it right now.
It apparently contains a genetic registery of all life that will EVER BE BORN (as in doesn't exist YET) on Krypton. I'm a firm believer in Clarke's Third Law, and I know Supes is about as far from Hard Sci-Fi as one could get, but I at least like my technology to have an explanation other than "the writers thought it sounded cool." They could have said "randomized genetic code of possible children" and I'd be okay with it, but no, set in stone code of set in stone children that will totally be born!
And Jor steals it.
And then escapes on a flying bug. Like Obi-Wan in, you guessed it, Revenge of the Sith. (Though to be fair, that was a wall walking lizard.) Seriously, just toss in the Force and these idiots were trying to make another Star Wars movie.
Anyway, he goes back home where they're prepping Kal-El for his big flight and his mom doesn't do anything besides be all blubbery about it. Because it's up to the men to be strong and resolute! The women, we just don't want to see our kids live! We'd rather they die with us! After Jor-El convinces her, they put the baby on the thing and put that codex thingie into this blood. Every cell. You think adding all that genetic code would kill an infant (or at very least make him really disabled) but nope, he's fine.
Lara's picked out Earth, Jor is all like "awesome, the sun (highlighted for reasons listed below) there will make him strong as fuck. Our little baby will be a god!"
At this point Zod shows up and is all like HERESY at the idea of two grown people in love having their own babies. Go figure. Lara cowers over by the launch thing while Jor-El has an epic fight that he loses with Zod. Push comes to shove, even though he was a bad ass Jor was still a scientist fighting a genetically engineered super solider. In what has to be the funniest death possible after stabbed, instead of crumbling to the floor in a heap, Russel Crowe falls backwards, stiff as a board with his eyes like O.O. I'm surprised he didn't rattle a bit before settling down on the floor.
Anyway, instead of doing the smart thing, attacking Lara and stopping this launch he doesn't want happening, he tries to talk her down. Her reply is about what you'd expect to someone who just offed her husband, "Haha, fuck you!" she presses the button. They try to shoot Kal's space cradle down, but are stopped when their coup is ended.
Oh, and instead of crystals, all this awesome tech seems to be running on iron filings. I'm glad someone finally found a use for all those magnetic Eiffel Tower statues that made their way to the trash in the 90s.
Anyway, at Zod's trial he goes on about how Lara's son isn't safe, they'll find him, blah blah blah blah. No one else seems affected by the fact that Lara had an actual kid in her actual womb that was born actually. You know this whole idea that natural born is just better is kinda a blow to people who have to resort to fertility treatments. :/
But anyway, they sentence Zod and his crew to an ambiguous 300 cycles in the NEGAVERSE. Sorry, wrong fandom. THE PHANTOM ZONE. Whereupon they are encased in giant space dildos and shot into a black hole generator. I'm not kidding. It's giant SPACE DILDOS. If I had the screen shot I'd show you. It's like their props director just walked down to Fantasy Gifts and said, "Gimme a box of the biggest ones you have."
Anyway, from there on out we're on to Deadliest Catch, the movie. The filmography is even the same. And Clark saves a bunch of guys randomly, which is his thing, yeah, but when he's floating in the ocean we get this long, huge flashback about his childhood. These little bits are actually nice, because it WOULD suck to have your powers start acting up at a young age. It would be terrifying to a child to suddenly have x-ray vision or be able to hear everything for miles.
Pa Kent, bent on keeping his son's secret a secret gives constant, rather OOC advice about how sometimes it'd be okay to let other kids die a horrible drowning death because Yer a Wizard, Harry.
Sorry, I mean, Yer an Alien, Clark.
Continue the trek north with Clark working odd jobs and at one point trying a guy's truck in a not and running it through with telephone poles because he was a douche to a waitress.
Finally they're in Canada under the ice where there's a ship that's been there for 20,000 years. Lois is there because it's a story, and apparently they send Pulitzer wining authors on trips to the North Pole to investigate unknown things in the ice. She makes it clear she picked this assignment, so whatever. Anyway, she sneaks out after dark to get pictures and sees, with her camera which should not be working in that weather, Clark in a t-shirt going for a walk
Clark, if you're going to try to fit in with the rest of us, wear a coat in the winter in the Arctic. You'll catch death, otherwise. Anyway, screw safe excavation, Clark is heat visioning his way to the thing, which turns out to be an old, old Kryptonian ship with a corpse of doom on it.
Now, a bit of meta on that corpse, apparently in a canon prequel comic, that corpse is Kara Zor-El. Who is Clark's distant ancestor in this universe, because we can't have the fucking possibility that they're might be a female fucking version of Superman running around. That would just be silly! FUCK YOU WRITERS, KARA DID NOT DESERVE YOUR SHITTY TREATMENT.
Anyway, back to the story, Supes slips a graphite rod into a computer terminal and this 20k year old ship apparently has the same operating system that was used when Jor-El made the data store, because it comes on line and he gets to talk to his dad and try to get answers.
But not before Lois pisses off a security bot by trying to photograph it. Clark rips it a new one and then cauterizes her wound with heat vision and leaves her on the ice where she's rescued and Lois racks up her first instance of being saved by Superman. We'll be keeping a tally.
Lois Saving: 1
Anyway, Clark gets the graphite/mercury/what the hell is this metal presentation on Kryptonian history 101, including a bit about Zod and his SAVE KRYPTON BY KILLING SHIT point of few. And is presented with what I like to think is the kryptonian equivalent of footy pajamas.
Fast forward to Lois getting her article about her alien savior published through a leaks website, because Perry wouldn't run it and then tracking down Superman. Getting an amazing story on the way.
She finally catches up with Clark by his dad's grave. (Because they always have to kill off Pa Kent) and here's where Jonathan Kent's character gets shot in the back and left to bleed on the beach.
Pa Kent died during a tornado on a road trying to save the family dog to make a moral point about Clark not using his powers in front of people.
Seriously.
I just could not.
Because earth isn't ready! Never mind that everyone in Smallville has by this point seen Clark do SOMETHING unusual.
Anyway, this convinces Lois to keep his secret, and that likely would've been the end of it if Zod didn't show up a couple days later and broadcast to earth LOL KAL-EL COME HERE OR WE BLOWZ THIS PLACE UP LOL HUMANS U STUPID.
Sorry, the actual message was "you are not alone" followed by a demand to turn in the alien or Earth gets it.
Lois, after being outed by the guy she leaked her story to earlier gets picked up by the FBI, Clark talks to a priest who advises him to 'take a leap of faith' in trusting people. Which, that little bit with Clark is IC for him, when people say he's about as American as you can get, I do picture him being Christian because his parents were. So makes sense.
He also takes the advice to heart and turns himself in, on the condition that Lois go free.
Lois Saving: 2.
They have the conversation that was played over and over again in trailer reels and Supes shows off his x-ray vision and the fact that cuffing him (FRONT CUFFING HIM, WHY DO MOVIES DO THIS?!) didn't do anything by breaking them. He agrees to go to Zod though he muses that Zod can't be trusted.
So the next day he's talking with Lois when the ship comes down to get him and sends her back. Faora comes out and is like, "BTW we want Lois too." They give her a breather mask because apparently Krypton's atmosphere is deadly to humans. Yet, Superman survived as a baby on... ugh. Bad writers.
Anyway on the way to Zod, Clark hands Lois the data chips with his father's avatar on it to keep it safe from Zod, apparently.
There's a scene that's obviously Zod sizing up the son of Jor-El as the air starts to make Clark sick and puking up blood. But don't worry, he'll be okay. Lois is freaking out.
Anyway, the next scene is totally in Clark's brain as Zod explains what he wants to do. Build a new Krypton with the codex (where is it!) on Earth (where's the fucking codex, Kal?) and is totally okay with the fact that this will kill all humans (gimme the god damn codex you little brat!) and Clark should be too because he's not REALLY human (CODEX, NOW) and is showing earth as a pile or rubble and human bones (aren't I friendly? GIMME THE CODEX YOU FUCKING BRAT).
Superman, after this wonderful presentation of New Krypton, aka Earth with lots of human bones, responds as any person raised here by a human family they love and adore would. "Fuck you, Zod." Though not in so many words.
This would have been a perfect point for Kneel Before Zod, but it wasn't there. Though I haven't started this counter above, we're now at two times they passed a perfect Kneel Before Zod instance.
Missed Zod Yelling: 2
No one in the theater seemed to mind me yelling it out randomly though. I will say at this point that I was mostly still there because Chuck is a cheap skate who stayed through the entirety of the newest Die Hard movie because he paid three fucking dollars for it. And besides, when your spouse is enjoying yourself sometimes you just grin and bear it and MST the crap out of the movie.
Anyway, pan to Lois in her cell where she puts Clark's data stick in a hole and Jor-El shows up and acts like the clip from Microsoft word. "Would you like to save the earth?" "Creating new user profiles is easy!" "Shoot that guy!" "Here's an escape pod. And here is how, step by step you stop General Zod. (did you mean grod?) Would you like to save your progress?"
Missed Kneel Before Zods: 3
So yeah, she gets out and then the changing of the atmo that the data ghost of Jor-El does gives Superman back his powers. Because despite FIRMLY STATING IT WAS THE FUCKING SUN earlier in the god damn movie, they changed their mind. It's the AIR, people. The AIR gives Superman his powers! Apparently this is a thing in the nu52. Just another reason to hate that steaming pile of shit. If you're going to make a Supes movie, at least stick to the basic. Nice guy, flies around, works at a paper and GETS HIS POWERS FROM THE FUCKING SUN.
But anyway, once all the air gets shot out into space when Superman opens a hole in it, he's still fine and his Dad shows up and is like, "Would you like to Save Lois Lane?" And he flies out into space to save her in her escape pod which was damaged by Faora.
Lois Saving: 3
Anyway, when they land Supes flies off to find the Kryptonians accosting his mom for the codex which isn't on the ship because Jor was a snotty little bastard and decided to risk genetic instability by shoving all that extra DNA into his son. Seriously, what kind of plan WAS THAT, Jor?
Anyway, Clark tries to punch Zod's face off for messing with his mom, during which he gets exposed to Earth Air, which totally fucks him up and overwhelms his senses. Kal gloats. Zod retreats and leaves Kal to fight Faora and some random guy.
I will say this for the movie, Faora is fucking AWESOME. She is no nonsense, takes no prisoners and doesn't seem to have any feelings for Zod. She's a solider, through and through.
What follows is tearing up Smalltown like it's made out of tissue paper as the army happily fires on a civilian city to stop three alien badasses - it should be noted at this point they're taking shots at Kal, too. So yeah, at the end the town is in tatters and Faora and her guy retreat after Supes rips off her mask, making her get all wiggy as the air starts giving her super powers. Though she was flash stepping all over the place snapping necks and spines.
Anyway, Superman goes with the army so they can find a way to stop Zod. "Superman is with us sir." "Who?" "That's what they're calling him, sir. The uh, alien. The good one."
Anyway, by this point Zod has figured out where the codex is and promises to rip it right from Kal's dead body to the dataghost of Jor-El. And they deploy the World Engine which terraforms the planet. Because apparently the idea of "hey this place gives us super powers" doesn't appeal to Zod. It has to be New Krypton, built on the skulls of dead humans, because no evil throne is complete without skulls.
Supes & Co come up with a plan to drop the ship he was sent here in on the engine Zod's ship uses to create a mini black hole and send them back to the phantom zone. To my great dismay the physist in the group doesn't even bring up the possiblity that this could do a lot more than suck in that small localized area. I guess no one in the writing staff even considered that. Kal is on his way to stop the world engine, but he'll be mostly powerless around it as THE AIR OH GOD THE AIR THE AIR IS HIS POWERS THAT AIR. Yeah, I'm mildly peeved about that one.
Anyway, Kal eventually beats the shit out of the world engine while people are trying to fly his cradle into Zod's ship. The plane with the cradle on it has Lois and the scientist, Emil. They can't get it to activate. Of course it's the guy that figures it out just after Faora attacks. They activate it.
During this time, Metropolis is getting pounded, literally, with a gravity beam. Half the city goes and Perry and company are trying to run away with buildings all over, it's a real mess. It was just... was that much property damage even necessary? They couldn't think of another way to make us feel for what was going on? Sigh.
Anyway, Kal blows the shit out of the world engine and they're clear to drop the package. Faora is there fucking them up and the pilot decides to fly the plane into the ship, echoing the line she gave him earlier in the movie, a good death is it's own reward. Lois goes flying out the back of the plane, screaming as a black hole opens up above her.
Superman swoops in and, well, we know the drill by now.
Lois Saving: 4.
He puts her down and they start making out in the wreckage. Zod shows up, all upset that well, he has nothing left now, but will start Krypton again anyway with the Matrix Babies on the ship!
Missed Kneel Before Zods: 4.
He and Kal fight, and he's all like, Kal we iz your people while inside the ship and that he should want to start Krypton over and screw those damn human things! Kal screams, "KRYPTON HAD IT'S CHANCE" and fries the ship.
Zod completely loses it and has nothing to live for, thus starts the last fight of the movie where most of the city is ruined as Zod and Kal duke it out. One of us has to die, Zod points out, that's the only way this will end. Oh, and in the 30 minutes he's been exposed to Earth's air he's gotten all of Superman's powers.
He gloats about it while pulling off his power armor.
Missed Kneel Before Zods: 5.
The last fight takes them all over and at one point, Zod does his best Cyclopes impression. After that, Superman has him in a head lock and Zod starts turning the heat beams on people. Kal begs him to stop. Zod's last words are "NEVAH" as Superman snaps his kneck to save a bunch of humans in the corner. Now, I'm not agianst Superman having to kill, he has before. Generally as a complete last resort, which this was, but the way it was handled seemed stilted and just... wrong. Better ways to go about it, you know?
Anyway, Zod is dead and Lois comes over because the only aid she can be to Superman despite the cool promos where she's just as important as him is emotional. Awww, she hugged him! Movie ends with Superman getting a job at the Daily Planet, because he didn't have one to start out with. Roll Credits.
Now, on a meta level, where the fuck do you go from here? Zod is a big name villain and they ruined half of the city. They want to get two more movies out of this? They should have started with Lex, and not movie!Lex with his real estate obsession, but more like he is in the comics from the 90s and the DCAU. The corrupt business CEO who actually has a very valid point. Humanity should not be depending on an alien to solve OUR problems, we should do it ourselves. Of course, with Lex it's never that clear cut and he goes about his goals in obviously evil ways. And in a plot like that you can actually show off Superman being a smart guy. The only hint we got of it in the movie is a frame or two of him reading Plato as a kid.
So I would've liked Lex. And if they don't go with Lex for the next two movies, how can they get them to be bigger to draw people back in? Apokalypse maybe? I mean, Darksied would be cool, but I'd only go for an Apokalypse story line if they got Ed Asner to play Granny Goodness like he did in the cartoon. Best Granny. They were also talking about Power Girl, but as awesome as Peeg is, I have to wonder if they prefer her over Kara because of how much cleavage that you can get Peeg to show off. :/
So yeah, that's about it. If you're a fan of the comics, don't go see this movie. If you only know the movies and the live action Smallville, it's an okay flick.
