Bryan Singer: Why 'Superman Returns' Didn't Work
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Don't blame everything on Singer. He didn't even write the actual screen play...he just helped come up with the story. I think it's more likely that his writers Dougherty and Harris deserve most of the blame for the limpness of the Superman and Lois relationship.
As and I others have said before, they were just as wrong for a Superman movie as they were right for X-Men movies. They handled romances just fine in the X-Men flicks because the problems between Rogue and Iceman or the love triangle between Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Wolverine were simpler and less prominent in the story.
In X-Men movies, the romances were subplots while human politics and the plans of Magneto and other villains were the main concerns of the plot. Those writers just weren't up to the task of handling a relationship as potentially complex and intriguing as that of Lois and Superman and using it as the strong foundation for a story.
As and I others have said before, they were just as wrong for a Superman movie as they were right for X-Men movies. They handled romances just fine in the X-Men flicks because the problems between Rogue and Iceman or the love triangle between Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Wolverine were simpler and less prominent in the story.
In X-Men movies, the romances were subplots while human politics and the plans of Magneto and other villains were the main concerns of the plot. Those writers just weren't up to the task of handling a relationship as potentially complex and intriguing as that of Lois and Superman and using it as the strong foundation for a story.
^That's a point that blew my mind. I LOVED X-Men 1 and 2! I thought Singer "got it", even with the minor differences in characters from the comic. Overall, the films felt right. but SR felt so completely wrong, it was hard to believe it sprang from the same creative mind(s).
That was an explicitly presented silly joke, the self-evident ludicrousness of which is much more of a jab at anti-gay commentary than an anti-gay commentary in of itself. Moreover, in a snarky world, true equality will only come when the occasional harmless snark can be either lightly dismissed or even enjoyed as such.
Of course Singer has the talent and ability to conceive of and direct a story that focuses on romantic heterosexual love. After seeing five of his movies, that doesn't strike me as being a primary interest of his, but that's fine by me. Now, let's all share a group hug, shall we?
Well, the thing is that you're talking about two different comic book tones. The X-Men has in itself some "dark" and mood tones and plays as a bit of an allegory to prejudices humanity has from those who are different. But none of that translates well to Superman (DC) which is a very black-and-white universe where Superman doesn't have issues, inner turmoils our doubts, he's all that a hero is supposed to be and someone everyone should look up to.
Exploring how a man made of pure virtue would deal with an illegitimate child is well worth exploring, or a man who has lost the "love of his life" but, nope. S:R was bogged down a bit too much with emotion and bitterness which, well, just doesn't fit with Superman.
Y'know, the premise of a "darker" Superman story -- even one that deals with soapy melodrama like love triangles and having children out of wedlock -- isn't necessarily a bad idea. It's simply that Singer's version was so thoroughly unremarkable that very few people cared about the characters or the story.
Yes. Yes it is. That isn't Superman.
Well, I'd say that the premise of a "darker" Superman story isn't necessarily bad, but that it is necessarily bad for a Superman movie. There have been plenty of dark Superman comics published over the years, for instance, but the difference there is that they're published with the understanding of both the creators and the audience that that individual comic issue is only one in a huge, huge Superman heritage and doesn't define the entire Superman mythos.
Whereas, if you're doing a Superman film, it's important to have a story that reflects the fundamental nature of the character and his larger mythos, because Superman films are by definition more limited in number and need, therefore, to more accurately reflect the overall tone of what Superman is.
Taken on its own terms, Superman Returns is a fine film. The problem is, you can't take it on its own terms the way you could a dark Superman comic book like, say, Superman: Red Son. You have to approach a Superman film on Superman's terms, and that demands are more optimistic film. By the same token, the idea of a campy Batman story isn't bad in and of itself, but it is bad to try to do a Batman film that's campy. That's why 1997's Batman & Robin doesn't work while 2008's The Dark Knight does: Batman & Robin doesn't approach the mythos on Batman's terms, but The Dark Knight does.
Superman isn't known for having dark elements, but that doesn't mean that he can't. They just have be interesting and entertaining.
Yes, but that doesn't make it appropriate for a movie whose job it is to encapsulate the ethos of the entire Superman heritage rather than one small element of it.
I mean -- it's Superman! The essence of the Superman story is in its moral simplicity, its optimism, its "You'll believe a man can fly" feeling. He's not Batman. You can do dark Superman stories, sure, but a Superman movie's job is to reflect, to embody, to exemplify the mythos's basic nature. And it's just not in Superman's basic nature to be dark and melancholy. And that's why people didn't flock to that movie the way they did to, say, The Dark Knight two years later.
They understood, intuitively: Batman is supposed to be melancholy. Superman is not.
Oh I agree Sci, I'm saying saying fans shouldn't automatically dismiss the notion of a "dark" tale. It's a complicated issue because the character in question doesn't emulate darkness. I've flirted with some interesting fan fic ideas about a "dark" Superman story before. Perhaps they best translate better literally rather than on film where fans want to see the more traditional depiction of the character and rightfully so.
Why must a movie "encapsulate the ethos of the entire Superman heritage"? Sounds like drastically unrealistic expectations to me. Shouldn't the job of a movie be ... to create a good movie? Again, I agree that it's a surer bet to forge a good Superman movie by eschewing unnecessarily dark elements within his character -- but that's not a prerequisite, IMO. And I wouldn't dismiss out of hand a film story that took a chance to push the envelope. I'll give Singer credit for trying to do so ... but I'll take all that credit away and then some for crafting a film that was just too dull to care about in any case.
Because people have certain expectations for what a Superman movie should be, and because a Superman movie by definition does not have the opportunity to explore every nuance of the mythology. It has to reflect the general tone of the mythos, not every nuance of every little story ever published.
Because a Superman movie is inherently supposed to be an iconic Superman story. They're supposed to be archetypical, because they don't get the chance to do archetypical Superman stories in live-action in the comics.
Now, if there was a Superman movie coming out every six months, I'd agree with you. But when you only get one movie every decade, or half-decade? Then it's important to capture the essence of the mythos before you start doing variations on a theme.
Okay, but at least for the now, there seems to be a trend in doing more than one film. So with the first, an iconic take, the classic story - then mix it up a bit? Perhaps Singer's mistake wasn't in trying to do a moodier Superman tale, but in doing one without first establishing the brightly colored apple-pie-and-American-flag tale people were looking for (since Donner had done so decades before)?
I would suggest that the general audience would have to get really, really used to apple-pie-and-American-flag Superman movies on a very regular basis for a while before it would be time to go in a darker direction.
Hell, I'd say the first Superman movie to come out in a generation needed to be as "true" as possible and in the second movie released a few years you dick with the expected norms.
In good story telling you take a character from his starting point, to a point where he has to make a choice, from there you tear the character down until he has nothing left to hope for and then he pushes on to become a hero.
In SR? Superman mopes for the whole movie and never goes through that process and doesn't act like Superman in any way that I expected or am familiar with. In the second movie, sure,you can do that. But your first movie should lure people in and the only way to do that is by giving them what is expected in seventy years of the character's use. Let them see the Superman they want to see and then in the second movie, or at the end of the first movie, you can switch the cards.
Let's look at "Batman Begins"
We see Bruce Wayne going through tough times in his life, his parents dying -in part- due to his fault, him becoming a bit of a loaf of a teenager who is doing little to live up to his family's name, he then travels the world for a while learning criminal ways and martial arts before coming back to Gotham after making the decision in the temple on who he wants to be. End of first act.
In the second act we see him trying to "build up" to the Batman persona with varying degrees of success before his brazen and brash ways leads to his family name being even more tarnished and the loss of the family manor. Bruce Wayne is now at his low point.
In the last act he takes that low point, spins it around, figures out the hero he really needs to be and ends up saving the city.
Then three years later The Dark Knight comes out and we really kick the character in the balls by facing him with an enemy that almost destroys everything Bruce has worked for over the intervening year and pushes Bruce to his limits including the death of a childhood friend and romantic interest. In Batman Begins he is now Batman having shaken off the angst he went through in the previous movie and now is the right persona, save the "brash, care-free, billionaire" one he puts on for the press the movie even ends with him having to ruin his own reputation in order to live up to his own expectations and retain the integrity of everything he has worked for in fighting crime.
Superman Returns? Our hero starts the move off pretty much already beaten up, never faces a "go one way or the other" challenge, never has his plans or future destroyed only for him to have to push that all to the side in order for him to be a real hero. He spends the whole movie pining for a woman he elected to leave years earlier, looking dour, and really even the bad-guy plan doesn't pose too much of a challenge.
I don't think the story or the way it was pulled off works.
As a comparison look at Superman 2 where the pattern better fits the one I outlined above where Superman makes a "one way or the other" choice in getting depowered, discovers that it isn't who he is and he cannot do what he needs to do without them, repents his foils and then flies off to be the hero he's destined to be. Simple, classic, story structure that's even more powerful when the first movie is lumped in which contains most of the "building him up to that choice" moment though the "living with the choice before turning it around" isn't that long of a portion and the change is a bit rushed, more time with Superman living depowered would have gone a long way.
By saying "encapsulate the ethos of the entire Superman heritage" aren't you, in effect, saying that the films have to embody the totality of the Superman mythos from the comics? And even if you're not, when you say "a Superman movie by definition does not have the opportunity to explore every nuance of the mythology" you are, in essence, leaving open the possibility of exploring parts of the Superman mythos that have not yet been explored on screen.
I'll say it again: while I agree that it's preferable to have more lighthearted fare for Superman, the problem with Singer's S:R is not that he chose to portray a "darker" variation of the character -- it's entirely with his execution of the concept. It's not a prerequisite to be dogmatic toward the character and have to treat his "boy scout" persona as gospel. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that blind adherence to preconceived bias about Superman's character is part of why the franchise hasn't successfully taken the leap out of the 1980s and into the 21st century. Put simply, there's nothing noteworthy anymore about a character that has no flaws, no faults, and always does the right thing. Insisting that Superman must be portrayed as such a persona is to doom the cinematic franchise to mediocrity at best.
But that's my point: they already are at a general cultural level, and all it really takes is one film to establish that. Superman's entered the realm of King Arthur, Robin Hood, and Sherlock Holmes by this point, IMO.
The noteworthy thing about Superman is, IMO, not so much he himself, but the people around him and how he relates to them and keeps them safe or (as with other heroes) interacts and cooperates with them. World of Cardboard Speeches and contrasting him with both Batman and Captain Marvel - though likely not to be done in a live-action movie - are also good ways to make Superman himself interesting.
Unless you're doing a somewhat different take on the character a la Superman: Red Son or Kingdom Come.
