So, like I said, I'm just going to talk about what truly caught my attention in the movie. It's just flowing as it comes to my mind so forgive the lack of expertise. You don't have to agree with me of course, it's just me trying to explain why I love that movie.
ZOD:
If Superman is the metaphor for foreigners, Zod is too. But not just "a" foreigner. He is another world and culture. let me explain. In MoS, the whole movie was really about Clark trying to figure out who he is. He's been raised in a culture but came from another culture. He became the best of both worlds. not a "perfect" best of both worlds, but someone who's trying to honor both sides. Just like a foreigner who would settle somewhere and would become a nice mix of both cultures. He's flexible and adapts himself to the country he lives in without rejecting who he also is. Just like you won't ask a mixed-raced baby to choose to be either on his father side or his mother side. he's both and will always be both.
Zod is the opposite. Zod is rigid, he can't adapt to the world (physically maybe, but he would never change his view of the world and try to fit in while NOT betraying his roots.). He refuses to change (he even tried to terraform Earth so it could fit HIM and his needs instead of learning how to breathe on Earth and get used to its customs. He was blinded, stubborn, radical in his methods and thinking. He's like a thousand years old civilization refusing to move on. He's like parents refusing to see their children grow up and become their own person and insisting on keeping them the way THEY see them. He mocked Kal-El and the fact he loved humans and adapted himself. He harmed the planet and was about to kill everyone.
Superman had to choose between two worlds. Two-way of thinking.
-Either he chose Krypton and its rigid, conquering, blood-thirsty and power-hungry ways. He severed his relationship with Earth and embraced a path of destruction that was the Kryptonian way. remember they went extinct because of their ways. they were stubborn and selfish and worked in a system of casts. Zod tried to reason with them but he was shut down (yes, even Zod, who was rigid tried to save his planet and adapt but he was shut down. so he decided to shut down Kal-El too as retaliation for the way he was treated. as repetition too. "you do as you were told. I do what was done to me" kind of behavior.
-Either he chose Earth: his way of life. he would adapt, he would move on. He would keep searching for himself because this world allows him to. He might not be loved by humans, he might scare them away but it's a risk Clark was ready to take. He couldn't condemn himself to a life of solitude and pain and destruction. He had to choose the way that would allow life to be and people the freedom to be too. He chose to be progressist and this is a BIG DEAL. He chose HOPE. the hope to maybe have a better life than he had until then. the hope to finally fulfill his dreams or become something/someone. The CHANCE to have a better life. He gambled on it.
He chose humanity. that's the very meaning of the moment he killed Zod. yes, it was barbaric but necessary. he had to kill the old ways to welcome the new ways.
But he chose not to follow a stubborn and lethal way of life. He acknowledged it wasn't the solution. He could never be like that. Zod showed him what he could have been if he didn't have the life he had and made the choices he made. Zod is the living proof of what extremism can do. of what refusing to adapt to the world around you can kill you.
it's not an easy choice. Because Superman chose to destroy the last remnant of his old world. the last of his kind. Maybe the nostalgia/idealization he had of his world. He had to overcome his fears too. he chose uncertainty over something certified! over a way of life that had worked and could have even though it wasn't adapted for Clark.
that sacrifice goes way beyond just Superman snapping Zod's neck. (and he already killed Zod in Superman 2 so what's the big deal here?)
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