Superman (casting, rumors, pix till release)

Did I say he was missing any of his powers? No. I said that he was de-powered.

 

so why is there is need to tell it? I personally don't see the need to reboot Superman. It's heyday as a movie franchise was long ago anyhow, of course with the late, great Christopher Reeve. If I were a Hollywood exec, I would have followed on from the Reeve films, and had either Metallo, or even Brainiac as the enemy.

 

So, basically Superman Returns II, then?

 

De-powered how?

I think the fact that Superman has powers is IMO his appeal. A superhero IMO should be somebody who is larger than life, that's the point of the concept of the genre. Batman is boring IMO for not having powers (contrary to most noted comic book superheros, like Spiderman, The Flash, The Hulk, The X-Men, Steel, etc.)

 

Yeah, maybe he wasn't lifting mountains, but I never got the sense he was all that depowered otherwise. Especially with all the ultra-powerful villains and long, massive battles we saw on those shows.

 

In essence, why not? People say Superman Returns was rubbish, but to me it had the feel of the Reeve films.

I don't get the point of a reboot, as it's not as if the franchise was flagging. Most Superman works are (apart from the comics of course) small release films like All-Star Superman or short run animated series such as in the 1990s.

 

We could discuss the fact that Supes isn't wearing a red Speedo.

Just a thought.

There's no need. There's no need for a Superman movie.

Supe's origin is simply a story that really works, again and again. It's a story that lots of people like. It gets retold in the comics over and over not usually because there's a need to bring new readers up to speed but because just about everyone who takes over the title wants to tell it.

Now, once per reboot is probably enough.

 

I don't understand all the complaints about an origin. We kind of should know that this is how all first superhero films are structured now. Kind of how the studio wants to present the character. They don't take into account that hardcore fans are familiar with the concept or the general audience may or may not know Clark Kent's real name or that he's from Krypton. They generally assume he doesn't. Again this will most likely be structured like "Batman Begins" was as a journey story.

 

He couldn't breath in space. He had trouble lifting a plane up.

 

Well that's assuming it's just the simplistic "Krypton explodes/Superman grows up in Smallville" kind of origin.

Most likely, Nolan will want to add a lot of extra elements and use that to make Superman's character and journey a bit more interesting and complex than we've seen before.

 

We're going to go into the mind of Superman! Cities will fold in on itself and a train appears for no particular reason

 

And let's face it, they tried the 'pick up where the Reeves movies left off' approach with Returns, which was viewed as a disappointment, even if I'm in the camp that liked it. So the reboot was inevitable.

 

I liked the Kevin Smith script when it came to that. No origin story. Just Superman from the start.

 

The Kevin Smith script unfortunately was flawed due to Jon Peters constant inane suggestions. Kevin basically had to alter the Superman story he really wanted to tell.

Maybe one day we will get an established Superman story. The first X-Men movie wasn't an origin movie so there are examples. It's also a matter of what kind of story the studio wants told. I'm guessing the starting from scratch mentality has to do with the critical back lash "Superman Returns" got.

 

If this movie does well, we'll get an "established Superman" story with the next one as we did in Superman II, Superman III and Superman IV.

Geez, people, as Admiral_Young has already noted the mechanics of this stuff are pretty obvious.

 

Plus, the previous reboot (Superman Returns) started with an established Superman.

 

I would have liked a movie that started off in that vein. I've used this analogy before, but to use it again, I'd have taken the Goldeneye route, not the Casino Royale one.

But look at it from a Hollywood perspective. Batman Begins, Casino Royale - reboots from the start of succesful franchises, leading to new successful franchises. Superman Returns - not so much. Continuation that underperformed. That's why we're getting a reboot of Superman and a new origin story.

As someone else pointed out, Spider-man is being re-booted, with a new telling of an origin story last seen on the big screen less than a decade ago, as opposed to Superman's 30-something origin movie. So this is hardly an unreasonable way to relaunch The Man Of Steel.

 

I doubt the studio decided on this being a reboot simply because of the performance of SR. Most likely Nolan simply came to them with his story idea, and they decided they'd be stupid to say no to him.

 

^ I thought they tapped him to develop the new Superman franchise.