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

This was a decent movie, nothing special but I don't really get the "worst movie ever produced" reaction on this thread, particularly in a world where the Affleck Daredevil movie exists.

fuck that, Superman's awesome and Superman II is one of my fav flicks ever.

this movie blew because it was just Superman Pathos for the first half and video game action for the second half. I do think it's kinda LOL that it takes presumably hundreds of thousands of civilians dying before Supes thinks it's a good idea to break his 'not killing people' rule.

(xpost)

it wasn't off the rails terrible, no. It was well made in parts and I liked the opening. I think part of my annoyance was that I had many friends that crapped on Iron Man 3 over really nitpicky shit and stanned for this and it was like...really?

Well that's dumb, IM3 was way more fun/enjoyable than this

I liked the opening but otherwise Man Of Steel is one of the worst films I've ever sat through

totally. idk, I'm generally one that hates mining people's thought processes when they like something I don't cuz it feels a bit condescending, but fuck it i'm doing it anyway....

obv it wasn't a critical success, but in regards to the audience-drooling, part of me wonders if some of their love for this film was propped up by how middling Superman Returns was. Superman flicks were events in the 80s, even the shitty ones (I remember seeing Superman IV in the theatre as a 7 year old and being excited about it). The franchise was resurrected in the mid-2000s for this slight, kinda-emo Superman film that has only tentative connections to the rest of the film series and now is relegated to the 5.99 or less bin at MovieStop, and summarily forgotten.

I think it made a lot of people hungry for a more substantive Supes film and this one dared to redo the origin story and had a long-lasting action climax that had more heft than Brandon Routh's final boss battle with a chunk of kryptonite.

(x-post)

Will say that The logic holds up in that the initial esteem for Superman Returns Owing Child Support was somewhat in response to The Quest For Peace

MAN OF SHIT

though the logic of "Superman flicks were events in the 80s, even the shitty ones" being "(I remember seeing Superman IV in the theatre as a 7 year old and being excited about it)" shows that we're all a little skewed on the subject, imo

who can forget when the simpsons had kids excited about seeing the event film barton fink

just fyi

Superman box office: $134m
Superman II b.o.: 108m
Superman III b.o.: 60m
Superman IV b.o.: 15.5m

ouch! knew it was a turkey but didn't know Supes IV did THAT bad!

adjusted for inflation i & ii are still the biggest superman movies ever, but III & IV are well below the reboots

the wikipedia page for peace is awesome

In 1983, following the mixed-to-negative reaction to Superman III, Reeve and the producers, Alexander Salkind and his son Ilya, assumed that the Superman films had run their course.[9] Reeve was slated to make a cameo in 1984's Supergirl but was unavailable; the film was a box-office failure. Two years later, Ilya Salkind sold the Superman franchise to Golan & Globus of Cannon Films.[10]

According to Jon Cryer, who played Lex Luthor's nephew Lenny, Reeve had taken him aside just before the release and told him it was going to be "terrible". Although Cryer enjoyed working with Reeve and Gene Hackman, Cryer claimed that Cannon ran out of money ahead of time and ultimately released an unfinished movie.[11]

In Reeve's autobiography Still Me, he described filming Superman IV:

We were also hampered by budget constraints and cutbacks in all departments. Cannon Films had nearly thirty projects in the works at the time, and Superman IV received no special consideration. For example, Konner and Rosenthal wrote a scene in which Superman lands on 42nd Street and walks down the double yellow lines to the United Nations, where he gives a speech. If that had been a scene in Superman I, we would actually have shot it on 42nd Street. Dick Donner would have choreographed hundreds of pedestrians and vehicles and cut to people gawking out of office windows at the sight of Superman walking down the street like the Pied Piper. Instead, we had to shoot at an industrial park in England in the rain with about a hundred extras, not a car in sight, and a dozen pigeons thrown in for atmosphere. Even if the story had been brilliant, I don't think that we could ever have lived up to the audience's expectations with this approach.

this movie blew because it was just Superman Pathos for the first half and video game action for the second half.

― getting strange ass all around the globe (Neanderthal), Sunday, April 27, 2014

this is a lot of it, but the other primary objection for me goes deeper: the superman character is, fundamentally, boring. like i said, there are ways to make it interesting (to me, obv.; YMMV), but you just can't take the character that way.

squandering that franchise is pretty sad but they didn't know what to do with superhero films in the 80's.

to think if they'd sold to Golan Globus a few years earlier we coulda had a Supes-Delta Force crossover

i honestly don't think they blew it with Man Of Steel, in that now that his character is established, the sequel could restore his "saves everyone, even the puppy" boy scout qualities, introduce an interesting bete noire in Luthor, and be The Dark Knight to Steel's Batman Begins. Unfortunately they've decided they have to introduce not only a new batman but an entire justice league in the same movie they try to make people like Superman again. Good luck, guys!

why is superman's character interesting? he's basically all-powerful, and a complete do-gooder.

it's an immigrant story - he's a literal alien who's bought the american dream more than most born in american. put him up against luthor - a corruptor of that dream who doesn't think superman has any right to it, and uses techniques that superman can't shoot a heat ray at - and you can get some drama there.

not that zack snyder can conceive of any of this beyond the level of a levi's ad

it's an immigrant story with an all-powerful immigrant who is quickly loved and relied-upon by the entire country he repeatedly saves. there's a fascinating immigrant-story to tell involving a fictitious superhero, but this doesn't sound like it.

they really need to get away from Superman as Jesus IMO

U mad superman is the ultimate immigrant story

Xp

he's all-powerful, sure, but as croupier pointed out above, only to an extent. he's an alien hiding in plain sight by pretending to be a civilian (blah blah monologue from Kill Bill 2), estranged from his people due to a mild case of planet explosion.

Superman's being all-powerful increases the scope of how far Luthor/the other baddies can push him. Batman's mostly confined to Gotham cos well he's human, can't fly, and his gadgets frequently get blown up, plus he gets injured pretty frequently. Supes is based in Metropolis but he's essentially protecting the entire US and Luthor enjoys tormenting him by doing things like sending him back and forth across the country to prevent multiple disasters at the same time.

if anything, being all powerful just increases the scope of his torment because when he fails, it points out that even being essentially invincible isn't enough to defeat the forces of 'evil'.

doesn't add up. he isn't shunned and hunted for all his life, or forced to work in deplorable conditions just to get by; he's superman, who found a way to integrate seamlessly into open society (by putting on a pair of glasses), and beloved by everyone for his heroics.

(xxpostonite)

it's an immigrant story with an all-powerful immigrant who is quickly loved and relied-upon by the entire country he repeatedly saves.

well see you're asking what's interesting about him and then shoving in details that aren't inherent in the story. he CAN be interesting - the fact that he's become this icon when really he's this awkward dude with dad issues - but yeah, he's easily made less so.

xpost he does have to deal with things like fear of his mega Superdick accidentally disemboweling his lovers too

i mean yeah it's a kids story. if you want to say "no, no, it's bullshit, i mean wtf he puts on glasses and no one recognizes him" congrats you've outthunk a comic book

Supes is based in Metropolis but he's essentially protecting the entire US and Luthor enjoys tormenting him by doing things like sending him back and forth across the country to prevent multiple disasters at the same time.

if anything, being all powerful just increases the scope of his torment because when he fails, it points out that even being essentially invincible isn't enough to defeat the forces of 'evil'.

― getting strange ass all around the globe (Neanderthal), Sunday, April 27, 2014

my last post was to shakey. this notion, above, could form the basis of an interesting character, but i rarely see it played out. they did this in the dark knight, too, when the joker ran batman ragged, with decoys and head-fakes.

i mean yeah it's a kids story. if you want to say "no, no, it's bullshit, i mean wtf he puts on glasses and no one recognizes him" congrats you've outthunk a comic book

― da croupier, Sunday, April 27, 2014

don't deny me my greatest achievements.

yes, if it's a kid's story, you're right; don't look deeply into it. that type of story just wouldn't appeal to me. YMMV.

xxpost Luthor essentially did this in Superman 1! after crippling him w/ Kryptonite, he sets off multiple warheads on opposite sides of the US and dares Supes to stop them both! and in fact, Superman arrives too late to save Lois, which woulda been an awesome conclusion if not immediately followed by the biggest motherfucking plot hole in the history of movies.

Cant save his adopted dad from dying, ultimately always alone, cant bring back his home planet or people, has to hide his true nature all the time

plenty o pathos to be mined here if thats what u need. If yr primary concern is "its too easy for him to beat bad guys", I dunno thats kind of minor, and there are plenty of canonical bad guys that confound Supes' supposed innate superiority. Metalli, Brainiac, the Tyrant Sun, the sillier ones like bizarro and mxyzpltlk...

Many xps

(now I will fully admit I am speaking solely from the movies and the 30s-40s era comics of Supes I read, so I more than welcome someone with more of a vested interest to step in)

XPOST BEFORE ZOD

comic book stories feature absurd, inexplicable things (like a guy who can stop power locomotives) and (ideally) resonant dramatic allegories. if one negates the other for you, tough shit your movie theaters gonna puke 'em at for you the next decade

Metallo

i do wish snyder would find the gritty, more "realistic" way for superman to re-employ his "spin the world backwards and turn back time" power.

anyway w/ his 'abilities', Superman ultimately isn't supposed to be merely an 'action hero' guy, which is where the latest film I think got it wrong by basically turning the 45 minutes into Kryptonians turning a city into mush. I mean, yeah, when you make a Supes movie, you gotta have montages of him showing off his powers, that's a given. Supes I and II managed to keep the balance between that and his Kent persona nicely, so that by the time you arrive at the Kryptonian Royal Rumble at the end of Supes II it's been built up to and is riveting, and yet the climax is basically Superman being smart enough to protect his city by moving the fight away from the civilians!

Luthor essentially did this in Superman 1! after crippling him w/ Kryptonite, he sets off multiple warheads on opposite sides of the US and dares Supes to stop them both! and in fact, Superman arrives too late to save Lois, which woulda been an awesome conclusion if not immediately followed by the biggest motherfucking plot hole in the history of movies.

― getting strange ass all around the globe (Neanderthal), Sunday, April 27, 2014

was this the christpher reeves movie? been so long since i saw that, i can't even remember it (except that reeves and the lois character had real chemistry).

plenty o pathos to be mined here if thats what u need. If yr primary concern is "its too easy for him to beat bad guys", I dunno thats kind of minor, and there are plenty of canonical bad guys that confound Supes' supposed innate superiority. Metalli, Brainiac, the Tyrant Sun, the sillier ones like bizarro and mxyzpltlk...

― How dare you tarnish the reputation of Turturro's yodel (Shakey Mo Collier), Sunday, April 27, 2014

you're right; the he let-his-dad-die thing was interesting.

comic book stories feature absurd, inexplicable things (like a guy who can stop power locomotives) and (ideally) resonant dramatic allegories. if one negates the other for you, tough shit your movie theaters gonna puke 'em at for you the next decade

― da croupier, Sunday, April 27, 2014

like i said, fair enough. but the batman movie was interesting, especially the michael keaton ones, to me, because of the tortured and unwell mental state of the character. the iron man movie was interesting to me because of how the character's arrogance potentially got in the way of his heroics. so there's a lot to be done with superhero films, i think. but yes, i think the world would be a better place if we had a 10-year moratorium on superhero films.

though man even supes II has that "haha pulled a switcheroo on ya somehow, now to throw you into the random death oits i've got at my house"

death PITS, i meant

xxpost c'mon even by comic standards the time turning thing was ridic - I mean if he had that power why not keep doing it til like he arrives in 1930s Germany and kills Hitler or something. basically any time he fails he can just spin that world backwards and go 'oops do over'.

not to mention, how many other people died the first time around in that lil disaster that he didn't go back and save after time was 'restarted' simply cos they didn't look good in a nightgown.

man it's embarrassing how much more poignant dad's stroke in Superman was than Kevin Costner being a dick in a tornado was in Man Of Steel