A trend that I hope and pray comes to an end SOON. I miss the days when we got stories about people who were heroes, plain and simple.
MAN OF STEEL - Grading & Discussion
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A trend that I hope and pray comes to an end SOON. I miss the days when we got stories about people who were heroes, plain and simple.
Problem with that is it only would consists of heroes dressing up and displaying their powers and abilities against the villain of the week. After the day is won they will go home and wait for the next mad man or bank robber to start shit. That formula would get stale really fast. It's how comics operated mostly during the Golden and Silver Age, but now in the books and movies depth and exploration of the character is necessary.
Maybe I should have been more clear. When I said heroes, I didn't just mean superheroes. This meant the guys in space-based series like Star Trek also.
I'm just sick of stories that focus ONLY on people's flaws, and daddy issuses. Why can't people be good simply because they're good? We don't need to see them crying in their beer, or worrying about who's sleeping with who, or not, as the case may be. I'd just like to see a return of stories about good guys vs bad guys, and cut back on all the over-emotinal shit that's been done to death and run into the ground until it's gotten tedious and embarassing.
But that's the thing. Superman is an ideal. That's how he was presented from the beginning. That's the crux of the matter How do you humanize and "flesh out" an ideal that's in stark contrast to Batman and all the other dark and conflicted bunch of superheroes? What's wrong with being a hero?
Taking it as a given that Superman I and II were much better than III and IV and judging from the first two movies alone, the "boy scoutness" of Superman's character and those too good to be true lines of his are precisely why I think Reeve was so outstanding in the part and casts such a long shadow. Very few actors could deliver those boy scout lines and not seem a fool or without sacrificing masculinity. Reeve was ridiculously handsome, no doubt, but he never had that namby pamby teen heart throb quality. Masculine in the purest sense.
Also, I was spoiled by the Richard Donner cut of Superman II that had the Brando scenes. When Kal-El is telling ghost Jor El in the fortress that he's willing to give up saving humanity for Lois, he isn't exuding boy scout altruism in that scene. He asks, "Haven't I given enough?" He's tired at that point and wants what "everyone else has."
I wish the Salkinds hadn't pushed Donner out because they were so keen to cut Brando and his salary out of Superman II. The finished film by Lester was very good, but the Donner cut is better. It's a shame. Reeve and Brando together were great, even if Jor El wasn't in the fortress of solitude in the flesh.
Peter Pan flew with children, Lois, in a fairy tale. Supes could have lured a nun out of the convent with the way Reeve delivered that line. Naughty.
Score for Reeve.Also a great moment. Then again, Reeve made an excellent amoral, villanous character in the Bostonians and in Street Smart with Morgan Freeman. Oh, and in Deathtrap with Michael Caine. God, I loved that movie.
The only actor to have kissed Caine on the lips on film.
Reeve was also awesome as Evil Superman In Superman III.
Annette O'Toole as Lana, the Smallville scenes, and the Evil Superman vs Clark Kent fight, are the only reasons I rewatch that movie.
I did like the junkyard battle with Clark and Evil Superman. Reeve looked demented when Evil Supes was screaming at Clark to come at him. And I loved it when Evil Superman blew out the Olympic Torch when it was about to get lit. What a douche.
Annette O'Toole is pretty much charming in whatever she's in. Love her. It's not that I hated Cavill in the role. Far from it. I'd go so far as to say he's my second favorite Superman, but the second half of MOS really, really could have benefitted from toning down the action.
Emphasis on 'superpowerful'
In the original, the Kents seem not to understand that he's an alien until after his demonstration of superstrength. In Greg's novelization, it seems infant Kal-El's Siryn-like scream is the first explicit demonstration of his superpowers.An interesting question popped into my head while rewatching Superman II: could Superman have just refused to obey his mother, and choose to be with Lois Lane without giving up his powers? It's not like the holograms of Jor-El and Lara could have stopped him, right? They certainly didn't punish Superman when he went back in time to save Lois.
Mini-rant: flawed as it was, I did enjoy Superman Returns. But I can't stand how Lex Luthor was not only able to infiltrate the Fortress of Solitude (again!), but that Jor-El doesn't even recognize that it's not Kal-El.
I think it goes into the sense of honor and code respecting Kryptonian heritage and honoring ones parents that Superman had. He could have refused to obey his father and mother but that's not the character. Perhaps too "boy scout" but that's the character. It's pretty much a well worn theme with all the superheroes (save Spiderman) that they can't maintain a secret identity, be a full time superhero and maintain a marriage. It never works. Such is the price they pay.
You can better understand why he did it in the Donner version where it's Jor-El's image that forbids him from being with Lois without giving up his powers. Jor El has such gravitas that its almost as if Kal El is proving himself and his conviction to his father by willingly entering the red sun chamber. The scene bookends very nicely with the later scene when a beaten and bruised Kal El goes back to the fortress looking to undo what he's done after being beaten up at the diner. The scene doesn't cut off when Clark finds the green crystal. Clark screams for his father and his body language is that of a shamed and humiliated child even though he's this great big hulk of a guy. Then Jor El actually appears as more than image and.....it's powerful. Donner fought for Brando to stay in the film, but the Salkinds weren't willing to pay. Shame. It was such a wonderfully human father/son moment. Ultimately Clark pays a heavy price for not having listened to Jor El in that scene. It's my favorite scene in the Donner cut.
You can better understand why he did it in the Donner version where it's Jor-El's image that forbids him from being with Lois without giving up his powers. Jor El has such gravitas that its almost as if Kal El is proving himself and his conviction to his father by willingly entering the red sun chamber. The scene bookends very nicely with the later scene when a beaten and bruised Kal El goes back to the fortress looking to undo what he's done after being beaten up at the diner. The scene doesn't cut off when Clark finds the green crystal. Clark screams for his father and his body language is that of a shamed and humiliated child even though he's this great big hulk of a guy. Then Jor El actually appears as more than image and.....it's powerful. Donner fought for Brando to stay in the film, but the Salkinds weren't willing to pay. Shame. It was such a wonderfully human father/son moment. Ultimately Clark pays a heavy price for not having listened to Jor El in that scene. It's my favorite scene in the Donner cut.
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They did it quite well with Cain and Cavill. They each fleshed out and humanized Superman, giving him a real personality with quirks, all without giving up the upstanding image we expect from the character. A good balance was struck.
Nothing, but real heroes aren't ideals and it's nice to see that reflected in entertainment.
I didn't find Superman III to be as bad as everyone is making it out to be. Sure, it had some extra camp and silliness, but it wasn't a bad movie overall. I think IV was the real stinker.
True about the teen heart throb bit. And I don't think Reeve was bad, I'm just not entirely comforable with his version of Superman right now.
True again and I thought of that even as I made my earlier post but my feeling on the matter still stands. Hell, even that scene, despite trying to humanize the character, still fell flat. It felt more like grandstanding than a real moment.
I saw the Donner cut for the first time a few days ago and was disappointed. I prefer the original cut. I talk more about that in this thread.
It's copacetic, Richard07. We all have different tastes. You make your points very thoughtfully. Don't get me wrong. I didn't dislike the Lester version of Superman II. I just felt the Donner version was more complete. That's mostly due to my like of Brando and his scenes in the film. I actually do prefer the whole Lois jumping into the river at Niagara Falls to draw Clark out as Superman. I can agree with this. It's Superman IV that's bad, per se. III was just a bit disappointing with the campiness but it had some great parts to it, the aformentioned junkyard Clark/Evil Superman battle being one of them. I could rewatch Superman III and enjoy it. IV, best forgotten.
No, real heroes aren't, but Superman isn't real and yes, he was my favorite comic book character as a child so my bias is showing. Batman they can darken up all they want and I'll eat it up with a spoon. The Superman is just a different entity is all. My interpretation, anyway.
We all have different tastes. It's all good. I feel the same way in reverse about Cavill. Like him. Think he did well with what was given. Just uncomfortable with the newer version of the story. At least Cavill isn't all "teen heartthrob" either, praise God. You know who was teen heartthrob? Tom Welling from Smallville, even when he got into his 30s. Reeve was 25 when he filmed the first Superman and he never once seemed like a kid. Today, all the 20ish actors with a few extremely limited exceptions seem like kids. Blech. To me, and I know I'm in the minority here, Dean Cain didn't quite seem to have the gravitas of Superman either. Too......pretty?
Cavll desperately needs for the writers and directors to lay off the destructive, Transformer type actions scenes. It would serve the character well.
And written for children
Because they're no longer written for children
Well, I've got some bad news for you.....that's not going to be happening. This..."trend"....has been going on since the mid to late 60's, or about half the time super hero comics have existed. So....yeah....
Yep, it's how comics operated when they were written for children, but depth and exploration of the character is necessary because the comics buying audience is now 99.99999999999999999999999999999999% adult for whom those types of stories just don't work.
Superman in the beginning was presented as an ass kicking brawler who was out to battle the corrupt status quo. A status quo made up of and maintained by corrupt politicians, slumlords, and greedy businessmen. He wasn't a boy scout and he wasn't "safe". The more popular the character got, the more sanitized he became.
Emphasis on 'superpowerful'
I addressed the super-powerful part in the remainder of my post which is cut off in the quote above. Martha and Jonathan were aware of all of his powers except flight (because he hadn't learned it yet), which Martha only became aware of when he returned.
As far as Superman: The Movie goes, he walked out of a spaceship. I think the Kents understood he was an alien right away. It's just that his super-strength also took them by surprise a moment later when he lifted the pickup.
There really wasn't any need to show the scene of the Kents discovering Clark as a baby since everything we need to know about it is implied and was already shown in Superman: The Movie anyway. We know they found the spaceship with him in it in their field from Clark's conversation with Jonathan in the barn. We know they had Clark from infancy since Martha mentioned his difficulty breathing as a baby. We saw a variant on the pickup lifting scene with young Clark lifting the schoolbus out of the lake, so an earlier scene wasn't really needed.
Those flashbacks and discussions had a purpose in that they not only showed Clark's growth, but foreshadowed scenes with Zod and his followers; Zod's adaptation to his new superpowers, the Kryptonian's difficulty breathing in Earth's atmosphere (and Clark in their's) and thus their need for the world engine, and Clark's hesitation to reveal his powers based on how the kids on the bus and their parents reacted (some with fear, some with friendship).
Oh they are fans, all right-but of most of the kitchen-sink independent fare like this from the following companies:
Fox Searchlight
They also love to gush over indie movies generally: The Best Indie Movies of 2013 So Far, According to Criticwire
That`s why they`re not so enamoured of this one, or of others, or at least are wary, or at least have a guarded liking of some of them.
I'd disagree and say critics tend to be happier with comic book movies than fans are. The Raimi Spider-Man movies and Singer X-Men films were panned to shit on every superhero online message board, yet were raved about by critics.
Obviously, I'm referring only to the first 2 Spidey films.
Obviously, I'm referring only to the first 2 Spidey films.
I don't know. Most of the fans I know really liked the first couple Spidey and X-movies. X2 is still one of my favorite superhero movies.
Different worlds, I guess. On a literature forum I visit, the Raimi Spider-Man films are generally discarded as total shit, with the X-Men movies being seen as underwhelming Wolverine-solo films.
It's the mainstream critics and audience that seized them more than the fans did. The Christopher Nolan Batman movies are the only ones in memory that seem to have pleased fans and casuals equally.
I'm a huge horror fan, the critics definitely hate that genre. The idea they feel the same about superhero films rings as false to me, and seems entirely without merit. They're not nominated for awards or anything, but most of the big ones get good reviews.
I still like the first two Raimi Spidey movies. This bizarre change of opinion from fans on the first two movies, probably has something to do with the Amazing Spider-man movie. It seems some fans don't realize you can be a fan of both the old and the new.
Well, Wolverine really DID get focused on too much in the X-men movies. Those really suffered a bit because of that. Calling them "Wolverine and the X-men" movies would be accurate.
I would have preferred a more team movie, like how Joss handled Tony Stark in the Avengers. Singer just isn't good with team movies.
