Superman

Post by **eddievalient** » March 25th, 2007, 12:26 pm

Just out of curiosity, am I the only one who didn't think Superman Returns was disappointing? Granted, Bryan Singer is one of my favorite directors, but still, I thought it was a very good movie. If you're going to do a new Supes movie after 20 years, you kinda have to do a Lex Luthor story 'cause that's the only one of his villains most of the general public knows about. Also, what's wrong with Superman having a son? He and Lois were together for awhile in Superman II, so it makes sense that something would have come out of it. I guess us comic geeks just don't see problems where most other people do.

Post by **Randall** » March 25th, 2007, 1:44 pm

I'm a comic geek going way back, and I had major problems with the movie. It had its moments, but in many ways was a disaster. I think a lot depends on how you see Superman as a character, but I found his Superman to be much too distant; and I thought the whole 5-year absence thing was badly, badly handled. If Singer does another one, he's got a lot to make up for in my eyes.

Post by **ShyViolet** » March 25th, 2007, 9:25 pm

I think the saddest thing about Supes Returns is that you can see a lot of potential for a great film in there, but it's buried under so much crud and most of all indifference.

There's all the great ingredients for a HUGE summer blockbuster a la Batman 89 thrown thrown in one bowl, mixed up and burnt beyond recognition. OK bad metaphor...

Maybe next time Bryan will use his superpowers for good instead of evil.....

Post by **eddievalient** » March 26th, 2007, 2:43 pm

*snaps* Come on, you guys. With all the bashing, you're starting to sound like GeorgeC (no offense, George). The film was not that bad and if you want to verify that, watch Captain America sometime (if you can find it). Or the Dolph Lundgren "Punisher" movie, even. Sure, SR's not a perfect movie (what is?) but it could have been so much worse (fr'instance, imagine if McG had directed it like he was originally signed on for. That would have been scary). I swear, fans of this kind of film should be thanking their lucky stars that there's been such a glut of them lately (I know I do), but with rare exceptions, every single time one comes out, it seems like all I ever hear is complaints. What would it take to satisfy you? I'm genuinely curious to know.

Okay, rant over.

Post by **ShyViolet** » March 26th, 2007, 4:46 pm

Sorry EV.

I too have to say that there were parts of Supes I liked, but....where was the action? Romance? Drama? The wonderful feeling of good triumphing over evil? It wasn't there. (at least not much of it,, from what I can see. Particularly the romance. Do people really want to watch Superman so they can see a "Well, according to the test results, Clark....you.....ARE the father!!" situation play out? No, they watch Mori Povich for that.

)

In addition, this was from a post on MSN/IMDB, I re-posted it earlier here:

Basically the "top ten" reasons why SR got so many people upset:

Post by **Randall** » March 27th, 2007, 12:18 am

eddievalient wrote:What would it take to satisfy you? I'm genuinely curious to know.

All I really need is for the movie to be true to the character. To me, Superman Returns wasn't about any Superman that I was familiar with. I can cut a movie or TV show a lot of slack for silly dialog, poor plots, bad FX or scattered direction, but in the end I need for it to be about the hero whose name is in the title. If Singer's Superman matched your own vision, or at least didn't go too far astray, then I'm glad you liked it. I could appreciate parts of it, but felt it was way too far off-base overall.

GeorgeC · Post by **GeorgeC** » March 27th, 2007, 1:27 pm

eddievalient wrote:*snaps* Come on, you guys. With all the bashing, you're starting to sound like GeorgeC (no offense, George). The film was not that bad and if you want to verify that, watch Captain America sometime (if you can find it). Or the Dolph Lundgren "Punisher" movie, even. Sure, SR's not a perfect movie (what is?) but it could have been so much worse (fr'instance, imagine if McG had directed it like he was originally signed on for. That would have been scary). I swear, fans of this kind of film should be thanking their lucky stars that there's been such a glut of them lately (I know I do), but with rare exceptions, every single time one comes out, it seems like all I ever hear is complaints. What would it take to satisfy you? I'm genuinely curious to know.

Okay, rant over.

Excuse me?

But how many stories have your read with Superman?

Superman Returns had a LOT of problems starting with the premise that Superman would EVER up and abandon Earth.

Again, it depends on your perspective, but a RESPONSIBLE person, let alone the world's GREATEST superhero, wouldn't do that. Score a check against Bryan Singer for not even undnerstanding this part of Superman's character.

Secondly, there's the matter of how Superman acts around Lois in Singer's movie. Since when was Superman EVER a stalker in the comics?

I'm not even going to touch the subject of Superman fathering a kid out wedlock, but suffice to say that was a BIG touchy issue with a lot of traditionalists and a lot of other people DIDN'T like the way this issue was handled inthe movie.

Singer displays a basic lack of understanding of the characters as well as bad scripting. It's the schmaltziest WB/CW-style scripting that was begun with Dawson's Creek and continued through Smallville!

This is a basic problem with most of these "superhero" films. Besides all the unnecessary basic characterization changes -- face it, most of these guys are basing characterizations on past movies and NOT the original comic book sources --, the scripting is limited to the level of junk you see on 90% of melodramatic television.

The thing is that anybody doing stories with these characters ought to be taking very good care to respect the tradition of these characters. They've been around for over 50 years in most cases. I'm not against doing ANYTHING new with them, but at least at be courteous and actually read the original comics to get a basic understanding of them. This is something the Hollywood people haven't been doing in most cases and they've ended producing films that are only superficially like the characters that have existed for over 40 years.

It shouldn't be a big surprise that the best received movies (the Spider-Man movies) and TV shows (1990s Batman, Superman, and Justice League animated) have been done by people who were FANS of the original comics and actually analyzed the comics.

Post by **eddievalient** » March 28th, 2007, 11:40 pm

GeorgeC wrote: It shouldn't be a big surprise that the best received movies (the Spider-Man movies) and TV shows (1990s Batman, Superman, and Justice League animated) have been done by people who were FANS of the original comics and actually analyzed the comics.

Kind of off topic, but that's why Daredevil is such a good movie too (well, the director's cut is, anyway), 'cause Mark Steven Johnson is a big DD fan. And yet, that film gets one of the worst raps despite being true to both the character and, mostly, to the classic Frank Miller stories.

Oh, and to answer your question about Superman leaving earth to look for Krypton, he did the exact same thing in the animated series episode "Little Girl Lost" which, if you think about it, may have been where Bryan Singer got the idea. Nobody ever questioned it back then, so why all the outrage now?

To answer your other question about him having a child out of wedlock, the entire point of the film was that he left soon enough after he and Lois were together, and was gone for so long, that he had no idea the child was his. He and the audience found that out at the same time. Also, the reason he chooses not to interfere once he discovers the truth is because he knows it will only cause pain for Lois's family and, like any good hero, he doesn't want to do that.

So, really, what is the problem everyone seems to have with this movie? All the major points of contention can be explained logically enough, so what's the deal?

Post by **Randall** » March 29th, 2007, 12:02 am

In "Little Girl Lost", he didn't disappear without a word to anyone for five years. The two stories don't compare in the least.

As for the "out of wedlock" thing, you haven't countered that argument at all either. The child was conceived of and born out of wedlock, regardless of whether he knew of the child or not. You present a defense only for him not being a deadbeat dad, but the kid was most certainly born out of wedlock--- unless there's a marriage we don't know about, which would hardly make his leaving any better.

Again, I'm glad you love the movie without reservation, but I think we have some valid reasons for disliking aspects of it.

Post by **eddievalient** » March 29th, 2007, 10:33 am

I'm not gonna argue anymore. I guess we'll just agree to disagree.

GeorgeC · Post by **GeorgeC** » April 3rd, 2007, 4:09 pm

RandCanuck wrote:In "Little Girl Lost", he didn't disappear without a word to anyone for five years. The two stories don't compare in the least.

As for the "out of wedlock" thing, you haven't countered that argument at all either. The child was conceived of and born out of wedlock, regardless of whether he knew of the child or not. You present a defense only for him not being a deadbeat dad, but the kid was most certainly born out of wedlock--- unless there's a marriage we don't know about, which would hardly make his leaving any better.

Again, I'm glad you love the movie without reservation, but I think we have some valid reasons for disliking aspects of it.

Yeah,

It comes down to how you believe superheroes and real-life people should act.

Do you believe that a person with power SHOULD BE RESPONSIBLE and act for the BETTERMENT OF HUMANITY, or should that person get off behaving like your typical celebrity idiot?

It's a damning indictment of society when we accept the ultra-wealthy, celebrity sports figures, and entertainers who routinely cheat on their spouses, beat other people up, and routinely get away with breaking the law as the norm. They routinely DENY RESPONSIBILITY for their actions and blame others. Sad to think that there are people who think these guys are HEROES, too.

Post by **Meg** » April 3rd, 2007, 4:57 pm

It's a damning indictment of society when we accept the ultra-wealthy, celebrity sports figures, and entertainers who routinely cheat on their spouses, beat other people up, and routinely get away with breaking the law as the norm. They routinely DENY RESPONSIBILITY for their actions and blame others. Sad to think that there are people who think these guys are HEROES, too.

Marry me!

I just can't stand it when people look up to those jerks. Ugh.

Post by **ShyViolet** » April 3rd, 2007, 10:23 pm

Yeah...I still can't get my head around how Paris, Nicole, Kevin Federline not to mention a ton of other "famous for being famous" people get so money and "fame" for doing, well, NOTHING.

Get a job, people!! Stop wasting our time.

Post by **Ben** » April 4th, 2007, 2:08 pm

Meg wrote:Marry me!

Ahhh, our first marriage!

Seriously, the word is that we'll get an extended SR whenever and if ever a sequel is made. This has been confirmed within WB at least, and I am probably breaking some kind of stupid law by leaking it here, but I hated, <I>hated, HATED</I> SR and can't be bothered to keep anything about it secret.

I loved the top 10 IMDB problems with it. SR, is, beyond s*** in so many ways it is unbelievable.

GeorgeC · Post by **GeorgeC** » April 4th, 2007, 9:13 pm

Ben wrote:
Seriously, the word is that we'll get an extended SR whenever and if ever a sequel is made. This has been confirmed within WB at least, and I am probably breaking some kind of stupid law by leaking it here, but I hated, <I>hated, HATED</I> SR and can't be bothered to keep anything about it secret.

I loved the top 10 IMDB problems with it. SR, is, beyond s*** in so many ways it is unbelievable.

Forget Superman and Batman. They've been done to death, or in the case of Superman one guy's so iconic it's going to take AT LEAST another generation before the part can be seriously recast.

The next superhero franchise SHOULD be Green Lantern.

I'm still shaking my head as to WHY few people realize the potential of the Hal Jordan version. That monthly comic is one of the few I bother to keep up with now. As much as I think it sometimes clunkers around in story arcs, the ideas and plots from the past 40+ years of that character's history would make for a GREAT series of science fiction-based motion pictures. It has elements reminiscent of the Lensmen, Jedi Knights, Star Wars, etc., etc., and a bunch of other things in it, but it IS ORIGINAL.

Mind you, I STILL think the movies should focus on the Silver Age character, Hal Jordan... NOT the Golden Age Green Lantern, Alan Scott, or Guy Gardner or John Stewart (the Black guy) or Kyle Rayner.

The 1950s/1960s Green Lantern has that something to him, that "Right Stuff," that the others just don't have. He's the iconic Lantern despite the fact that he's the SECOND version of the character.

Same case with The Flash, too.