After giving Man of Steel another recent rewatch, I can’t believe I’d forgotten just how unhinged its opening moments actually are. As the movie that kicked off the DCEU timeline and the DC cinematic universe to pre-date the DC Universe, Man of Steel naturally has an important place in superhero movie history. Though the DCEU eventually came to an end in 2023, this hasn’t dampened the significance of the film in the wider landscape of Superman’s movie history – as, indeed, this has arguably made many parts of Man of Steel feel more notable thanks to them being in a now-complete franchise.

A prime example of this comes in the DCEU’s very first scenes, as the sequence that opens Man of Steel is one of the most intense sequences in the franchise’s history, and a point of its timeline that feels even more of an exciting risk of sorts looking back with hindsight in mind as we can now. That said, remembering just how unhinged the literal first moments of Man of Steel are – and how they tie into Superman’s on-screen story – arguably serves to make the DCEU movie and its place in the overarching franchise seem even better when given the ability to look back at it now.

Man Of Steel’s Opening Sequence Is One Of The Wildest Parts Of The Entire Movie

With it now being 12 years since Man of Steel first came to our screens – and the DCEU having actively concluded since then, after releasing a whole 15 DCEU movies released between then and now – it’s easy to forget some of the nuance and strengths of specific parts of the DC movie. Given so much of the film’s story naturally centers around Clark’s time on Earth and struggles with General Zod and his forces, it’s also easy to lose sight of the scenes that kick everything off, especially since Superman’s origin story is such well-trod ground at this point in time.

However, rewatching Man of Steel today helps underline that the movie’s opening sequence really kicks things off on a truly intense note. This is both in that the sci-fi elements of the film are dialed up to eleven – complete with an Avatar-esque cybernetically enhanced alien-dragon hybrid known as a war kite that Jor-El uses to fly on – despite the movie otherwise being understandably far less grandiose in its science fiction elements from this point onwards, and in that the film begins with us immediately seeing Clark’s birth from the perspective of his parents, which provides a pretty drastic 0-to-100 first seconds for the story also.

While starting a movie or story with a character’s birth isn’t exactly unheard of territory, starting off with an immediate birth, a version of Krypton that undoubtedly cost a considerable chunk of the CGI budget, a full alien species we never see again in the movie, and the reveal that the rest of Krypton’s babies for the past decades have been born from seaweed-like artificial pods certainly provides an opening that is willing to take some big swings. However, it’s this swing that is arguably its biggest, if only because it provides such a sharp contrast in many ways to the rest of the movie’s story.

Though much of this intro ties closely into the plot – namely in terms of Clark’s natural birth being a key part of his origin story and a detail that brings him into contrast with General Zod, who feels as though he has to try and wipe humanity out to bring back Krypton because he was literally made to be a soldier – not every detail is strictly necessary, which makes the decision to go all in even more striking. Indeed, the decisions that weren’t a required part of the story Man of Steel tells are arguably its most interesting, since their purpose is essentially just to begin things on as weird and exciting a note as possible.

Man Of Steel’s Opening Being So Intensely Sci-Fi Makes It All The Wilder To Revisit After Watching The Rest Of The DCEU’s Movies

Now Man of Steel is set to be the DCEU’s only solo Superman movie following the ending of the franchise after Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom, the film opening as intensely as it perhaps possibly could looks decidedly different. While the DCEU wasn’t afraid to delve more into dramatic sequences that embraced the larger-than-life side of its lore, the fact this ends up as essentially one of the few chances the franchise actively got to delve into space and its larger universe means the choice to go as big as this opening sequence does feels all the more special, even if this can be a bittersweet feeling.

Similarly, this intensive opening serves to be reflective of the strengths of Zack Snyder’s distinctive take on the DC mythos. While not a director whose superhero works were universally beloved, Snyder kicking off the DCEU in such style shows he was entirely capable of maintaining the careful balance of exposition and action that superhero movies ostensibly need, with the alien war kite flight and eye-catching futuristic visuals of these moments being equaled out with a sort of sci-fi Game of Thrones cold opening exploring Krypton’s history and current crisis.

The fact that so much of Superman’s later DCEU story is so different to this sequence also makes this opening a decidedly striking feeling one. While we obviously know Clark’s backstory involves the epic and tragic destruction of a far-off world with technology far beyond our own, actively being introduced to this in a way that underlines this story could have been its own epic movie – but that is ultimately cut short to then begin Superman’s actual main plotline in the movie – certainly reinforces both the epic nature of the narrative at hand, and how big the DCEU’s universe felt from its literal first seconds.

Looking Back Now, I Love Man Of Steel’s Opening Even More

After rewatching Man of Steel, the idea I ever forgot just how hard its opening moments hit feels almost like a crime. Some of this, though, appears to be reflective of how it feels to view the movie once again now the DCEU is over – as where a viewer’s focus is naturally on what could happen next when watching a film like this any time between its release and the announcement the franchise would be ending, different things instead can have this focus after the DCEU’s conclusion.

This kind of altered perspective – and no doubt a healthy dose of nostalgia – helps the scene that began an entire shared cinematic world and its decade-long run have that little extra dose of movie magic, and remain one of the most gripping scenes in the entire franchise even all these years after Man of Steel first hit the big screen. Hopefully, the DC Universe’s own exploration of Krypton can learn some important lessons from this sequence going forward, too.