As a connoisseur of American cinema, I’d be remiss not to express my concerns over this year’s Summer Blockbusters.

How does Dr. McCoy have room within the confined spaces of the Enterprise to tote around a dead tribble on the off chance he wants to do an experiment? Did The Great Gatsby really need to be in 3D?

My greatest issue lies with, for the first time in my personal cinema history, the violence.

I’m not talking about righteous movie violence with a point, mind you. For instance, the aliens in Independence Day had to blow up all those cities to advance their cause. Similarly, Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum needed to detonate a nuclear weapon to advance humanity’s cause, even if it did kill several single alien mothers who were just working on the Mother Ship to provide a better life for their alien children.

I’m talking about a shocking spike in needless violence.

[Spoiler alert]

Am I the only one who noticed, amid the wonderfully hokey ending of Star Trek Into Darkness, that San Francisco was destroyed?! Destroyed! Is the Federation going to, like, Khan-blood everyone from San Francisco back to life? Can they Khan-blood the critical infrastructure that was destroyed? Did Khan have enough blood to go around? Huh?!

In Man of Steel, how many people would have been working in midtown Metropolis when the Kryptonians deployed the world-builder? Let’s say the damage was limited to a 20 square block radius. Thousands of people would have been trapped in each of those buildings, but at the end of the movie, there’s Clark Kent and Lois Lane meeting in a completely unharmed Daily Planet Building.

That’s absurd, but let’s set it aside. It’s righteous violence: the Kryptonians needed to destroy Metropolis to transform the Earth into a more suitable environment.

Was I the only one who was shocked at how the fight between Superman and General Zod destroyed the IHOP, 7-Eleven and Sears in Smallville? How did their sloppy fighting advance anyone’s cause?

Who’s going to clean up that mess? Anyone from West can tell you FEMA won’t be any help [Edited: FEMA might come through after all].

Here’s a good idea for the sequel: the Smallville city council tries to reach a consensus on how to prioritize repairs in the city’s next bond package. Talk about fireworks!

As we walked out of the theater, I really wanted to buy pancakes, a Slurpee and a riding mower. You’ve won this round, product placement.