You Want Superman Revamp? [Also the Man of Steel (2013) thread]

totally understandable, as they don't give any indication that Superman actually cares about killing or Zod's life or being the last of his race or anything

i really don't get why they couldn't have squeezed something about that into the movie, but like i said, this is also the movie where his dad dies saving the family dog

that wasn't so weird. i would run into a tornado for my dog. she is the realest dude i know.

H4A OTM

i'm never sure how a movie ends up this incoherent on the level of character development/design. is there just no real guiding intelligence at work? or was the script just reworked and reworked and edited by committee until it's just a big palimpsest?

i mean, i was wonderfully distracted by much of this movie. i left feeling light enough. but it just doesn't withstand a moment's scrutiny if you're looking for some kind of characterological (yes, that's a word) coherence. i feel much the same about the two nolan batman films i've seen.

aren't screenwriters interested in coherent patterns, motifs, elegant narrative design, etc.? how does a screenwriter sign his name to something like this proudly?

"Man Of Steel: A Redemptive Reading" (by the dude who's been doing an excrutiatingly detailed, pomo deconstruction on all 50 years of Dr. Who)"

http://www.philipsandifer.com/2013/07/man-of-steel-redemptive-reading.html

Preview from the sequel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p671JaPTdbI

xp amateurist, i had this same conversation with someone after seeing dark knight rises. these superhero movies are great in so many ways: perfectly choreographed fight scenes, adept manipulation of the audience's emotions through editing and soundtrack etc. but their screenplays are often deeply incompetent. in dkr, bane's motivation for destroying gotham was totally stupid, considering the fact that he didn't even like ra's al ghul, and rachel wouldn't be around to appreciate him after he blew up gotham anyway. beside that, nothing we saw about bane indicated that he was that sentimental, and even so, it's doubtful someone could have the motivation to plan a terrorist attack that elaborate when they aren't enthusiastic about the governing ideology anyway.

this is strange to me, as it seems like getting a solid batman or superman script together would be the easiest part of the filmmaking process.

the answer probably lies in the fact that it's also the easiest element of the film for everyone involved to fuck with

i would never accuse christopher nolan of creating "perfectly choreographed fight scenes" but you're totally right about bane's ridiculous motivation, i never got why he didn't LOVE batman for killing the guy who kept him away from his true love??

yeah lost me at "perfectly choreographed fight scenes"

Seth Rogen's commentary about Green Hornet seems appropriate here

"It's weird what risks they're willing to take. The script is under great scrutiny, the lines, the characters, the dialogue, he should have a father, it should be this, it should be that. We just wanted to get it made and not waste all this time. And then things like the action sequences, which is really where all the money's getting spent, go under no scrutiny whatsoever. No one looks at it. No one looks at the pre-vis. No one looks at the storyboards. What we spent like literally $50 million dollars on, no one checks out. And that's whats crazy. The way the money was spent and the way the money is spent on a lot of these movies is crazy.

or basically Jon Lewis otm

The script is under great scrutiny, the lines, the characters, the dialogue, he should have a father, it should be this, it should be that

this bit doesn't seem appropriate tbh...

well it's under great scrutiny by people who aren't writers! or creative!

the script SHOULD be under the most scrutiny

by creative people, yes. Not by rando producers and backers and people with no idea how to write a story.

sorry, quote's out of context. Rogen's saying the movie is under great scrutiny by producers/backers/studio.

that seems otm. i don't know if it accounts for the dark knight rises, though, as it was my impression that nolan had a great deal of creative control over that film.

Haha well THAT accounts for TDKR

Man of Steel really reinforces for me that the safest way to make a good superhero movie is to secretly make it some other kind of movie dressed up like a superhero movie. (Which helps to explain why imo TDK > TDKR and Iron Man 3 > Iron Man 2 and, for me, 1.)

what? TDK i guess i could see the argument but Iron Man 3 was a superhero movie to the max

sure but it felt just as much like a standard Shane Black shit-talking buddy cop / action flick to me.

Iron Man 3 had a major 80's action/buddy cop vibe going on

X-post

Iron man 3 had a lot of action/buddy cop stuff but c'mon there were some A+ superhero setpieces, like the mid-air rescue and the suit ballet

woops, sorry, should have read further up - the point being that it was BOTH superhero movie and something else, I get it.

Yeah, exactly. TDK worked for me 'cause Nolan was cribbing hardcore from Heat and stuff like that while merging it pretty well with a comic-book universe. Helps that the outside influence seemed to ground the action sequences somewhat. Whereas TDKR and MOS play it too straight. (Not their only problems, obv.)

Man of Steel did try to play up the scifi elements of the Superman mythos which was kind of interesting but like everything else in the movie it gets lost among the endless scenes of destruction and superpunching

So u guys arr saying a superhero movie has to keep its identity secret

Heh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF2ayWcJfxo

totally off-topic but having not listened to that song in over two decades, how did this lame revamp of groove is in the heart/bust a move get airplay

savvy arsenio hall tie-in iirc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uSSxNpJy_0

xxpost and megasuperhero flick THE AVENGERS was of course cribbing from

http://img3.douban.com/view/photo/photo/public/p790329864.jpg

wow, roseanne had a prime time cartoon? completely forgot about that

the problem with the last few arguments is that _all_ of the nolan batman movies have terrible scripts.

I did love the cheesy moment when scientist guy had to explain to everyone else in the room what "terraforming" was. Guessing in Metropolis world, it was some alternative reality where nerds and nerd-lit didn't exist.

I also loved restaurant bully's reaction to seeing his destroyed Semi atop a telephone poll, as his reaction is more "damn I shouldnta ticked THAT guy off" rather than "HOW THE FUCK DID MY TRUCK GET UP THERE"

haha.

haha ya that made no sense, you want to see superman use his powers in some witty "wha?????" way, not just like trash a dude's truck

this is good imo: http://samkriss.wordpress.com/2013/06/19/superman-man-of-steel-or-hot-xxx-drone-on-drone-action/

it really bugged me when superman finally learned that he could fly and is just kinda like "oh word?" and starts zooming around. i mean i wasn't expecting it to be like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r56yFhT_lxY
but what a blown opportunity to give him a lil personality. it's the number one coolest superpower and in this movie it's just another "and then..this happened" moment.

i didnt even realize until that moment that he didnt know he could fly.

'for some reason I float for really long periods of time when I jump. Oh how I wish I could fly. I already am able to perform superhuman feats of strength and seem to be unkillable but this ONE TALENT evad....OHMG WHAT IS HAPENING I CAN FLY? FUCK WHY WAS I TAKING THE BUS TO WORK THE LAST 33 YEARS"

Wow, that long H4A post is A+, belongs in the canon.

supergirl is a terrible movie but making superman a lady is a good idea. it could certainly make for a more interesting backstory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4C4NiVKrXk

bald amy adams would have made a better lex luthor than lois. or bald amy ryan at least.

the problem with the last few arguments is that _all_ of the nolan batman movies have terrible scripts.

― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Tuesday, July 2, 2013 4:01 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

i think TDK does what it needs to do pretty well on that level. i'm not saying it's perfect, but on basic stuff like the Joker having a believable motivation, there being clear and immediate stakes, it having a nice propulsive quality that keeps the thing moving so you dont linger too much on the parts that don't work, plus the novelty of situating batman in a michael mann-style sprawling crime epic - it's good stuff imo, and definitely a step or two above the languid and dramatically inert TDKR

Wow, that long H4A post is A+, belongs in the canon.

― Doctor Casino, Tuesday, July 2, 2013 6:40 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

a bunch of those observations are my friend's. i kinda had this vague feeling that the movie was anti-human and creepy but he crystallized it for me w/how all those little moments add up

i think TDK does what it needs to do pretty well on that level. i'm not saying it's perfect, but on basic stuff like the Joker having a believable motivation, there being clear and immediate stakes, it having a nice propulsive quality that keeps the thing moving so you dont linger too much on the parts that don't work, plus the novelty of situating batman in a michael mann-style sprawling crime epic - it's good stuff imo, and definitely a step or two above the languid and dramatically inert TDKR

i haven't seen (and won't see) TDKR but I thought the cross-cut climax of TDK was just horrible