10 Screenwriting Lessons You Can Learn From Man Of Steel

5. It Helps If We Can Get Into The Same Mindset As Our Protagonist

Man of Steel One of the biggest flaws inherent to Man Of Steel was in its failing to get us into the mind of our protagonist, Clark Kent. Given that the character is a natural pillar of righteousness and idealism, one might believe that it comes with the territory, and that we should naturally side with Superman anyway, because, hey, he's Superman. Fact is, though, Goyer doesn't make nearly enough of an attempt to help us understand Clark Kent - he thinks that we should automatically align ourselves with this man, and forgets that it's his job as a screenwriter to convince us. The reasoning is simple: we don't get any clear sign of Clark's motives or agenda, whereas we get a lot of that stuff from villain General Zod. Clark is reactive, in the sense that he reacts to the situations that are thrown at him, but it's Zod who is driving the narrative, which makes him far more interesting - especially when he lays out genuine reasoning for his evil deeds. When Clark Kent refuses to allow Earth to terraform into the next Krypton because he supposedly loves the planet, it doesn't feel right: we've only seen Clark bullied and picked on by the people of Earth. Can we really believe that he still thinks it's a great place? It's hard to buy that. We were supposed to fall back on what we know of Superman already in order to accept his mindset, but the movie never makes a convincing case as to why Kent thinks the things that he does. And in the last moments of the movie, when Kent kills Zod in order to save a random family, I found myself feeling conflicted. It didn't feel right, for some reason - that's likely because Goyer's script didn't give us the opportunity to understand Clark as a character. He's paper thin. And if we're expected to follow our protagonist on a journey, it helps if we're able to understand why they do what it is they do. "His aunt and uncle were nice people" simply isn't enough. In the case of your own screenplay, then, it's essential that you give the audience reason enough to follow your main character, and to give us an idea as to why they're willing to do the things they're willing to do. Superman is a tough character to deal with in this regard, because of his inherent good intentions, but I feel like Goyer wasted a good opportunity to delve deep into Clark's psyche here - especially if this was supposed to be a "realistic" take on the character. When it comes to protagonists, we want (need, even) to get inside their heads.
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