Superman (casting, rumors, pix till release)

Yeah, that's how it went down.

 

Hey, if Alice Eve is playing Ursa, I will gladly kneel before her and let her rule the world.

 

I think that's absolutely true, but I'm somewhat suspicious of the idea that internet chatter is weighted to the negative. It might be weighted toward people who actually care enough to post, but I see as much wild enthusiasm on the net as strong criticism, and really everything in between. For every poster motivated to criticize a given story there is a fan motivated to defend that same story, with endless arguments often ensuing.

Also, some people just like to chat while they're at work or whatever, which makes posting in a thread like this more like a form of casual conversation than anything else. So I'm not even sure if the internet is actually weighted toward "passionate." The extreme comments just tend to get the most attention and spark the most discussion. It's an activity that people participate in because they find it entertaining in and of itself, and in that sense it is very different from a suggestion box or a letters column in a magazine.

Really, posting on the Internet has become such a ubiquitous activity, that I'm not sure it can be easily dismissed anymore than it can be blindly relied upon.

It's definitely not a good idea to use the opinion of fandom as a basis for creative choices, but that isn't really because internet opinion is not representative of fandom, it's because audiences' are not very good at articulating what they want, it is good to surprise audiences, it is better to be faithful to one's own creative impulses, etc.

On the other hand, internet opinion is probably not a bad way of guaging success, in fact it is probably an increasingly good way of doing so in certain respects, as long as a variety of online sources are consulted. If the buzz for your movie on the Internet is really bad, then that is probably a bad sign for your movie's chances of success, i.e. there is unlikely to be some silent majority out there that loves your movie and is just not motivated enough to come talk about it on the internet. On the contrary, if there are people out there who love your movie, that will probably be very clear on the basis of what is being said on the internet because internet forums and various social media are one of the main places people go to express enthusiasm (as well as disdain).

Anyway, somewhat off-topic, but it is a subject I find interesting.

 

I don't think it matters that Zod has been used before.

Nobody complained that THE DARK KNIGHT featured the Joker and Two-Face again . . . and I believe that film did okay.

 

My comment was indeed meant to be a throwaway line and sarcastic to boot. I guess I should have used an emoticon.

 

^^^
Ah, okay. Totally didn't get that it was a sarcastic comment.

There is a difference, though, in that there's been a lot of variety in the Batman villains we've seen on the big screen. There's a hunger amongst Superman fans to see a similar variety in the Superman films. That said, if the film really delivers it has every chance to be a big hit even if the villains are ones who have been used in Superman films before.

 

Oh better not lump in all Superman fans because Christopher will just point out that there is no way to judge the entirety of fandom's thoughts and needs. It's probably just better to say the majority of fans on this board want to see new villains. Even that though isn't accurate enough for Christopher's tastes.

 

http://www.superherohype.com/news/articles/125657-diane-kruger-denies-superman-rumors

Diane Kruger denies Superman rumors...what-a-shocker.

 

Charlize Theron would make an amazing Ursa, but she's already booked for other projects.

 

Well, it may have influenced casting. Henry Cavill does strike me as having a similar look, facial structure-wise, to how Curt Swan drew Superman in the late '60s or '70s.

Not specifically Internet chatter, but any form of feedback or commentary -- letters to the editor in newspapers or magazines, fan mail to TV shows, you name it. In general, people are more likely to speak up about things that they're discontented about, because they have more incentive to do so. This is why statisticians don't trust opinion sampling methods that rely on the respondents choosing of their own volition whether to comment, but instead rely on sampling methods where the surveyor/pollster/experimenter solicits respondents at random.

Yes, you see all those things, but my point is that you can't assess whether the ratio of those things in a sample of self-selected respondents is equivalent to the ratio in a more representative sample. I'm not saying "the Internet is all negative," I'm pointing out a principle of the science of statistics, the difference between a representative sample and a nonrepresentative one. There are many, many ways in which the participants in Internet conversations do not constitute a representative sample of the population. No value judgment, merely a matter of how statistics works.

Do you have statistics to prove that's "really" the case, or does it just seem that way to you because it's common within your own social circle? This is why we need objective statistics -- to identify and cancel out sources of bias. Yes, posting is common among certain segments of the population, but how widespread is it really?

The TrekBBS currently has 5558 members, according to the Members List. Do all of them post regularly? I think probably there are a few hundred people who post frequently, a larger number who post infrequently, and an even larger number who are basically just lurkers. So the people who actively post on a BBS aren't necessarily even a representative sampling of that board's own membership, let alone society as a whole.

The difference, I think, is that Zod was initially a rather more minor character in the comics than the Joker or Two-Face ever were. In the '60s and '70s he was just one of many Phantom Zone villains, though he tended to be the most prominent one. But he wasn't on the level of Luthor or Brainiac, only showing up maybe once or twice a year across the various Superman comics. It was the movies that really elevated Zod to a major player, though they changed his character considerably from the uniformed military man he'd been in the comics. He mostly disappeared from the comics post-Crisis before making a comeback (in various forms) in the past decade or so.

And Ursa, the role that's being rumored for casting in the new movie, was created for the Reeve movies, and only later added to the comics.

http://alankistler.squarespace.com/journal/2009/4/2/kistlers-history-of-general-zod.html (Cool article but a little out of date)

Also, it's a fair point that to date we've had no live-action Superman movie villains other than Luthor, Zod, and a couple of lame movie-only characters. Batman's rogues have been far better represented on the screen. So it would be nice to see someone else for a change.

 

I think that's probably a poor analogy for internet chatter, which is in many ways more closely analogous to casual conversation (in which participants are as likely to present positive as negative views) than it is to a feedback channel that people with a desire to complain are more likely to use.

This is because internet forum discussions have a social component that feedback channels do not, and are a form of entertainment in and of themselves, which feedback channels are not.

Certainly forum discussions are not analogous to casual conversation in all respects, due in large part to relative anonymity, but as an activity, it's closer to a form of social interaction than a form of feedback.

If anything, a lot of forums of this type are probably skewed toward positive opinions on a variety of topics, since fans who are excited about upcoming movies, for example, will congregate as a way of savoring that anticipation and expressing that excitement. And posters are likely to be drawn to a particular board because of their pre-existing interest in a given topic.

For example, this forum would not be a good place to come to get a good sense of the general population's interest in Star Trek or sci-fi/fantasy, but not because the responses you would get are going to be skewed negative.

So, the idea that we cannot assume that a given internet forum, or even the internet taken as a whole, is representative of the general population is a given. The same would be true of any non-random segment of the population, on or off the internet. However, that is distinct from the question of whether or not we can assume that the internet, or a given internet forum, skews negative like the comments/suggestions box in a restaurant. I see no strong reason to think that we can assume this.

 

Whether the slant is positive or negative is beside the point. I was merely using that as an example of the ways in which a self-selected sample can have an inbuilt bias.

 

^ Do you have ANY fun when you post?

 

More recycling. Maaaaaarvelous.

 

Sigh. Zod.

My disappointment is that Superman has so much to choose from in the villains, but here we are seemingly again going back to what Donner did.

Hopefully this is a red herring or a cameo or something. Otherwise, they may as well have let Singer film another fan fiction.

 

I don't have a problem in theory with reusing Zod, but much like with Montalban's Khan, there's no possible way you could ever top or compete with what Stamp did with the role.

 

I don't know. Just to play devil's advocate, Jack Nicholson as the Joker was a tough act to follow, but Ledger made the part his own.

Or, going back a few years, Christopher Lee playing Dracula in the shadow of Lugosi . . ..

 

Yeah, and like the Joker the way to go if Zod appears again is to make the character substantially different from the earlier screen iteration.

 

Just because the rumor is Ursa is in it, doesn't mean Zod will be.
It could LEAD to Zod coming, in a sequel, etc.

Perhaps Ursa is just a sign of what is to come....

 

^^^
True, there are any number of possibilities, plus it's all rumor at this stage anyway.