When will the nostalgia end? Probably at least not until we've seen a better live action portrayal of Wonder Woman or Superman, respectively. Sure it's true, for some it won't end even then. However, to date, Carter and Reeve are still widely considered to be the definitive live action portrayers of their characters.
I don't know about definitive, so much as they were the ones we saw at that starry-eyed age when you have no interested in the petty criticisms that bug you when you are older and more jaded.
So, all future portrayals are naturally measured against those yardsticks.
But see, this makes no sense to me. Why should they be measured against those yardsticks? And what makes anyone think that anyone except the people of our generation would insist on such a thing?
For many people, including me, making this sort of comparison is not blind nostalgia. The blind aspect comes from being too closed minded to even view a future remake. Also, there is a distinction between holding fondly to one's memories of a happy time, between crapping on younger peoples' happy times possibly being had now, and between crapping on older peoples' happy times they may have had way back when. There is nothing wrong with the first. I personally choose the first, while keeping an open mind about future remakes, and doing my best to avoid the second or third.
I apologize if you find my comments "crapping on" anything. That was not my intention and I thought my comments about them were as complementary as they were critical. I work with children and see them, just like us, wide-eyed and adoring of certain versions and portrayals of these long-beloved characters. I also see them view the versions we loved so dearly and still cling to, with eyes very fresh and it has taught me that they are not nearly as perfect as we may think - they are simply
ours, and so we love them. I'm just trying to remind myself and others that we can put down that 30 year old yardstick. It gets tiresome to hear the constant comparisons - the very thing that keeps these characters vital is the fact that they can be reinterpreted for each new generation, and that inevitably means that details, and even major issues from the previous generation's version, have to go.
And personally, I disagree with you emphatically about Christopher Reeve, especially in the first film, as I still rewatch it regularly, and about his costume, as it was all but completely faithful to the comics, but that's really another thread. I'm somewhat older than nine.
No offense, but I'm not surprised to be emphatically disagreed with on this score - and I would expect it to be someone of my own age group who would do so, not a 9 year old because they are generally less impressed with these efforts from the 70s. I believe it takes a rather extreme amount of effort to see these portrayals clearly if you have loved them dearly for 30 years. In
Superman: The Movie, Reeve is frequently awkward, the writing is frequently lame, and, I'm sorry, but his trunks in that flick - are god awful. The spandex suit, that plastic yellow belt, the boots - look just as much like a rented Halloween costume as the WW outift being discussed here. Which is not to say I don't have a very fond place in my heart for all of them and the movie in general, which manages to rise above its, sometimes considerable, flaws.
All I'm really saying is - it wouldn't hurt any of us to try to give a contemporary production the latitude we give the 70s productions. We might enjoy them a lot more that way.