>First off, stop with the "you're trying too hard to find
>fault" nonsense.

I'll do that when it's not happening, sure. I don't find it to be nonsense at all.

>To act like you're being open-minded and then
>just dismissing complaints as not being legit is the epitome
>of disingenuousness.

Nope. Not at all, actually. I don't pretend to be open minded, I just have a reasonable perspective on the movie that doesn't need every last detail explained, especially in light of the fact that so much IS being explained.

It wasn't a mere dismissal either. I gave a reason for it. It's one thing to debate the merits of that reasoning, but to imply that I'm just doing it willy-nilly is to be every bit as disingenuous as you claim I'm being :)

>Our hero lets his father die

It's a bit more complex than that, for starters. Our hero heeded his fathers wish. He didn't simply let him die, he respected that wish in that moment.

>and then, with his secret still
>safe due to his father's sacrifice, abandons his now-widowed
>mother so he can go out and find himself while hiding from
>people.

Please, explain why that's such a stretch.

>That is both non-heroic and nonsensical and probably the
>opposite of what Pa Kent envisioned when he let himself get
>taken by the tornado.

Please, explain how it's unheroic and nonsensical.

Worse, you're conjecturing what Pa envisioned. Pa told him he'd have to make a choice one day. Pa told him he'd have to choose a side one day. Did you think that would be some moment free of any preceding conflict?

>On top of that, Pa Kent's supposedly earth-shattering death
>changes nothing but Clark's location. He goes from a kid who
>helps people in Kansas in spite of the fact that it outs him
>as superhuman, to being an adult who yells at his Dad that he
>should help people in spite of the fact that it outs him as a
>superhuman, to being a drifter who helps people in spite of
>the factthat it outs him as a superhuman.

So, in other words, he behaved the exact same way the entire time... which pretty much deads any thought of him doing it after Pa's death as nonsensical, since he did the same things as a child.

Tell me again where the fault is in my logic, because I haven't actually seen it yet.

>And then, before he can ever choose whether he should heed to
>his father's wishes or do what he believes is right and make
>himself and his power known so he can help people, he's called
>out by Zod and pretty much the whole discussion is made moot.

His father knew the day would come! He didn't want him to hide forever. He acknowledged that course simply wasn't in the cards repeatedly.

So, please explain exactly when an appropriate moment would have been for him to do that?

Please, detail a scenario sufficient to make this acceptable.

>This isn't about what people want. Or what people expect.

Sorry, but that just means you haven't been reading all of these reviews. It's not really up for debate.

It's
>about basic storytelling and character development.

Yes, and this was well done in the movie. The lack of them spelling out the moment he left home, as though that's not a normal part of damn near every mans life in this country, isn't an example of poor development. For all this talk about that being a key part of the story, it's something so common and standard in the lives of everyone that it's minutiae to fret over the lack of a precise explanation.

>The key
>moment in Clark's life did little-to-nothing to change him as
>a person.


Furthermore, the only reason you even need most of
>that in the story is that it is what gets Clark in a random
>bar in the middle of nowhere so he can hear about the
>spaceship.

No, it's merely the course of events. They didn't "need" any of that to get him in that bar. He could have heard that anywhere. He could have heard that on the news. This is grossly over thinking this in a bad way. No, I'm not going to stop that, because it's true.

>And then the big climatic moment is about Clark killing
>someone (which I agree is a stupid complaint because it was
>never brought up as much of an issue, especially during the
>destructive fights beforehand. The only people who think it
>was a moment are Superman fans) and that he might have killed
>the last of his kind (which is never an issue for Clark
>throughout the movie and is more about Zod vs. Jor-El).

Sorry, you meandered like crazy here. What's the actual point?

>So in a film in which every flashback deals with whether or
>not he should help people, we're now dismissing his actions as
>a "snap decision to help because he could"? Basically
>everything we ever saw his father, his guide, his mentor, say
>to him didn't even cross his mind?

Ahem: his actions were always a snap decision prior to turning himself in. It's not a dismissal, it's what actually happened. The school bus was no less a snap decision than the rig was. It's not a dismissal, it's what happened.

>My point was that everywhere he went, he just went back to what
>he believed. The drifter Clark Kent's sense of duty was pretty
>much exactly the same as the grade school Clark Kent, except
>now he flies the coop when he does something rather than
>having his parents try to dismiss it as the other kids seeing
>something.

I'm not seeing a point being made here. What are you saying, exactly?

>In the end, these issues aren't something that jump out and
>seem horrible but they are the reason so many people see the
>film as disconnected and not engaging.

Nah, some people just aren't very smart and need everything spelled out to the nth degree while others need to nitpick the smallest detail. That's the bulk of the reviews I've read on this.