Full story for Bryan Singer's planned SUPERMAN RETURNS sequel revealed

[Gaith]

^ Well, he does speed-read a whole stack of newspapers in a SR deleted scene, but I otherwise agree.

I think the main take-away here is that Brainiac is a villain as lame as his name.

[Christopher]

I think the DC Animated Universe established that Brainiac can be one of Superman's most effective adversaries. Superman doesn't really have that deep a rogues' gallery, and Brainiac's near the top of the roster.

As for the name, I think it sounds corny to us because we're used to hearing "brainiac" used as a facetious nickname or insult. But that usage is in direct reference to the character of Brainiac. And the fact that the character's name has become a generic term in popular culture says something about its effectiveness, I think.

[Admiral_Young]

Geoff Johns in my opinion aside from the DCUA has used Brainiac the best, making him truly fearsome and once more restoring his connection to Krypton. The cold, calculating machine aspect of Brainiac, the absolute desire for knowledge is something that is compelling to me.

[Saul]

Christopher wrote:

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Keep in mind that the vast majority of the audience for a superhero film will consist of people who don't read the comics or watch the cartoons.

That is why I was saying a reveal wouldn't work.

Plenty of people who saw Batman Begins had never heard of Ra's al Ghul before, but the reveal still worked for them, because Ra's was established and defined as a character early in the film.

Exactly and also because it was publicised that Ken Watanabe was Ra's and Neeson would be Batman's trainer Ducard. So Ra's is advertised as being in the film. The twist worked because it was two actors playing two different characters and what works with the audience was that the beginning of the movie established Neeson in a more heroic light than Ra's so seeing him come back at the end as the actual villain was a surprise to all.

Having this Krypto guy ordering people about in the world already sets him up as an obsticle to Superman whether or not he becomes Brainiac.

What would work better is having Superman's son being Brainiac all along.

[Christopher]

Saul wrote:

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Having this Krypto guy ordering people about in the world already sets him up as an obsticle to Superman whether or not he becomes Brainiac.

Not if it's handled in a way that he initially appears to be a benevolent figure, which was evidently the intent. After all, a similar story has already been told, as the premiere episode of the DCAU Justice League series. In that story, Superman worked with Senator (and former astronaut) J. Allen Carter to execute a plan for global disarmament, which the world responded to positively (though with some dissenters). Ultimately it turned out that Carter was an alien infiltrator using Superman as a dupe to render Earth defenseless against an invasion. So it's not impossible that a story like this could be structured in such a way that Superman considered the character an ally at first. Again, it's important to remember that what we're reading here is only a secondhand summary of a rough treatment, and its handling of the tale doesn't necessarily represent the tone, approach, or level of detail that the hypothetical movie might have had. There's an enormous amount of room for interpretation here. (Indeed, realistically, there's no guarantee that the final movie would've borne more than the tiniest resemblance to this treatment. Very few preliminary treatments in Hollywood reach the big screen largely unchanged.)

[Captaindemotion]

^Indeed, one only has to consider the amount of changes that were made to Superman Returns itself.

[Anwar]

It's easy, just have a Robot claiming to be Brainiac attack first and then Mon-El helps Supes stop him. Then Mon-El does his thing before it's revealed that HE'S Brainiac and the robot was just a pawn of his.

After all, Henri Ducard WAS a real character from the Batman comics before BB made him into a disguise for Ra's. This movie could do the same by making the pre-existing Mon-El into a disguise for Brainiac.

[Admiral_Young]

I would just have the Kryptonian character be the Eradicator, created by Brainiac as a ruse to set up for his arrival.

[Saul]

Christopher wrote:

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Not if it's handled in a way that he initially appears to be a benevolent figure, which was evidently the intent. After all, a similar story has already been told, as the premiere episode of the DCAU Justice League series.

But who is going to see a movie about two supermen making the world a better place? That might have to be the synopsis of the movie to keep the twist secret. If the audience is introduced to another character as this it is kind of predictable how it might turn out. Another person with Superpowers is just set up for a big battle. Good or bad they'll come to blows.

[Admiral_Young]

The fact is as interesting as this treatment is it still has flaws that have obviously been pointed out already. Debating about those flaws or their intention is a moot point since we're never going to see this movie. JacksonArcher posed the question at the end of his first post if we would rather have seen Singer's sequel or Zack Snyder's "Superman"? I don't really think that was a fair question since we've only now given the full plot from one movie. We still don't know the plot to Snyder's "Superman" only possible snippets. To answer the question though I would say that as much as I would have liked to have seen Singer's sequel I'm looking forward to seeing something new.

[Christopher]

Saul wrote:

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But who is going to see a movie about two supermen making the world a better place? That might have to be the synopsis of the movie to keep the twist secret.

Seriously, do you watch movie advertising these days? Who bothers to keep twists secret anymore? What matters is justifying why Superman and the other characters in the story would be convinced at first.

[Admiral_Young]

There are still films that manage to keep the "twists" of their plot secret still. Hell in some cases we still don't know entire film's plots. The new Spider-Man is a good example, so is Zack Snyder's "Superman", we still don't know the plot to "The Dark Knight Rises". It all depends on the filmmaker and the studio is my thought. In the case of these movies I mentioned the studios already know that they have a built in audience amping for them and don't need to build or create discussion. We already do that ourselves speculating on the little tid bits that get "leaked" out or "reported" on by the various internet sites.

[Saul]

Christopher wrote:

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Seriously, do you watch movie advertising these days? Who bothers to keep twists secret anymore?

Chris Nolan?
I admit it's blooming hard, but I like it if they can pull it off and I can avoid spoiler bombs.

What matters is justifying why Superman and the other characters in the story would be convinced at first.

No argument there. But I still believe that if that's the case then we can just have Brainiac pretending to be a nice guy like the DCU animation (an interpretation of the character I really dig).

[Gaith]

I've said it before, I can say it again.

Superman vs. big-ass, Transformers-like robots.

Done and done.

What's the hold-up, already?!

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Yes, the most recurrent fan demand seems to be that Superman hit some bad guys like really, really hard. And repeatedly. A great movie, this will make.

It would be more awesome if they'd sell DVDs of about 150 million dollars being set on fire in the Warner Bros parking lot. I might buy one of those.