Superman (casting, rumors, pix till release)

[Christopher]

DarthPipes wrote:

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Who wants to see a movie about Krypton being destroyed? The amount of time spent on it in the first Superman film was more than enough. Not even close to enough people are going to want to go see a Superman movie where a bunch of intellectual aliens are waiting around for Krypton to be destroyed.

See, you're making the mistake of assuming that the way Donner portrayed Krypton is the only way of doing it. Have you ever seen the first episode of Superman: The Animated Series? It focuses entirely on Jor-El and Krypton, and it's an action-packed thriller all the way. The portrayal of Kryptonians as cold intellectuals is pretty much limited to the Donner movie, the John Byrne comics reboot, and their imitators. The Krypton of the Silver Age comics was a far livelier, more human place, as was the Krypton of S:TAS.

And really, Jor-El's story fits the classic template for a disaster movie: a lone, crusading scientist tries in vain to convince the hidebound establishment to listen to his warnings, he's proven tragically right when the disaster strikes, and then he takes the lead in dealing with the consequences and trying to preserve some survivors. It's only at the ending where it diverges from that template, because usually in a disaster movie there are more survivors than a single baby.

[Stone_Cold_Sisko]

Viggo would be pretty cool casting as Zod. I could totally see him being a sneering badass general.

[Satyrquaze]

Well, Cavill looks the part...

[davejames]

Stone_Cold_Sisko wrote:

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Viggo would be pretty cool casting as Zod. I could totally see him being a sneering badass general.

I'm having a hard time seeing it myself. He's obviously a superb actor, but his energy and style just seems way too quiet and reserved to be convincing as a comic book villain.

Especially in the kind of bombastic, hyper-stylized Superman movie Zach Snyder is almost certain to make.

[Admiral_Young]

I can see Viggo as the General Zod used recently in the Superman books. He's based on the DonnerVerse Zod but looks nothing like Terrance Stamp. I think Viggo with his short hair cut and a goatee with a little black cap and leather uniform would look great.

[DarKush]

DarthPipes wrote:

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I have no issue with an origin story if its a character that never been in the movies before. But anything more than once is a complete waste.

I know that Superman's villains aren't that impressive past Lex but the films need to move on from Lex.

I think this is a common perception, one I once held until I actually started watching the Superman animated series (WB) and reading more of his comics. Superman has a decent rogues' gallery, it's just that movies and TV shows have relied too heavily on Lex Luthor, excluding the other villains too much. Metallo, Bizarro, Parasite, Brainiac, Doomsday, Eradicator, Darkseid, Mongul, Jax-Ur, General Lane, could all be great movie villains. Even Intergang, Livewire, Toyman, Silver Banshee, Prankster, Mr. Mxyzptlk (with the right approach, like in Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?), Atlas, Titano, Ultra-Humanite, could all be good secondary challenges, if the new films went the route of multiple villains per film like the Nolan Batfilms have.

Perhaps it was just because Lex is the archenemy, he's the best known enemy, and his look is pretty affordable. I mean, it would cost a lot to do justice to some of Superman's other villains.

[Christopher]

DarKush wrote:

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I think this is a common perception, one I once held until I actually started watching the Superman animated series (WB) and reading more of his comics. Superman has a decent rogues' gallery, it's just that movies and TV shows have relied too heavily on Lex Luthor, excluding the other villains too much. Metallo, Bizarro, Parasite, Brainiac, Doomsday, Eradicator, Darkseid, Mongul, Jax-Ur, General Lane, could all be great movie villains. Even Intergang, Livewire, Toyman, Silver Banshee, Prankster, Mr. Mxyzptlk (with the right approach, like in Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?), Atlas, Titano, Ultra-Humanite, could all be good secondary challenges, if the new films went the route of multiple villains per film like the Nolan Batfilms have.

Except that a lot of the Superman: The Animated Series villains were either retooled to make them more effective (like Toyman), invented outright for the show (like Livewire), or borrowed from other comics. Darkseid wasn't really a Superman villain until TAS made him one. And the reason they made him one was because Superman simply didn't have any top-tier archnemeses once you got past Luthor and Brainiac.

I could see Metallo working as the main threat with Luthor controlling him from behind the scenes, like in Metallo's first S:TAS episode. Parasite could maybe work if they used the thing about him gaining people's knowledge, so that he'd learn Superman's identity. You could get an effective psychological-thriller thing out of that; the Parasite could make Clark's life a living hell. Though I'd rather see something bigger like a Brainiac or Darkseid story -- maybe a story featuring Manheim and Intergang with Darkseid revealed as their string-puller and coming into play in the third act.

But Jax-Ur is basically Zod (at least, the version of Zod made famous by the movies and imitated in more recent works is something of an amalgam of the Silver Age Zod and Jax-Ur), and Zod has more name recognition these days so they might as well go with him. And Eradicator might as well be merged with Brainiac, since that's kind of what the S:TAS character already did. Bizarro or Mxy or Toyman would be hard to do without sinking into goofiness and camp.

But not Doomsday, please. Doomsday wasn't a character, just a cheap gimmick. The only times he's been remotely interesting have been in the adaptations where they gave him some personality and intelligence, particularly Smallville's version.

[Captaindemotion]

Admiral_Young wrote:

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I think Viggo with his short hair cut and a goatee with a little black cap and leather uniform would look great.

Dude, leave your fantasies out of this!

(Sorry, that was just too much innuendo for me to leave alone)

[Jax]

Despite not being a big comic book fan, am watching Smallville at moment and plan to re-watch Superman Returns and for the first time watch the Richard Donner cut of Superman II...

Its all making me rather interested in this new re-boot I also agree Viggo would make a good Zod.

[Dark Gilligan]

Daniel Day Lewis is being mentioned for the Zod role as well, though I see him more as Jor-El.

[Aragorn]

Jax wrote:

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Despite not being a big comic book fan, am watching Smallville at moment and plan to re-watch Superman Returns and for the first time watch the Richard Donner cut of Superman II...

And Smallville isn't keeping you from being a comic book fan?

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Christopher wrote:

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I think it's time that movies started moving past origins, or covering them only briefly, and getting right into the thick of things.

The "hitting lots and lots of things real hard" part. Gotcha.

The reason that the "last" Superman story could be reasonably good is it was permitted to transform and resolve decades of repetitious story tropes. Not one superhero comic in five thousand moves the character permanently from one place in their life to another - they're episodes, tales...ultimately, macaroni and cheese.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Dark Gilligan wrote:

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Daniel Day Lewis is being mentioned for the Zod role as well, though I see him more as Jor-El.

Kneel to YOUR MILKSHAKE!

[Captaindemotion]

^ I don't support the idea of using Zod in this movie but if they had to use him, I'd prefer to see Viggo than DDL. Daniel is a better actor IMHO but he would be too similar to Terence Stamp. Viggo at least would give a much different, quieter and less theatrical take on it.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I...DRINK....YOUR... ZOD!