‘Superman & Batman’ movie will follow ‘Man of Steel’

[Allyn Gibson]

^ Really? To me, the trailer seems to be painting Batman as more villainous than Superman. But eye of the beholder and all that.

I wouldn't say "villainous." I would use "antagonistic" instead.

My feel of the trailer is that Jeremy Irons' line about "turning good men cruel" is directed at Bruce. And there are a few things about the trailer -- like the crash through the skylight -- that suggest to me that Superman lets Batman wail on him to work out the anger and aggression he's feeling.

 

[HaplessCrewman]

Clark does have a line.
""This bat vigilante is a one man reign of terror."

That's Cavill, spoken off screen, but the follow up line "No one cares about Clark Kent taking on the Batman" line is from Perry White. The way the trailer is cut together makes that tough to discern.

That said, your point is a good one. Donner wasn't afraid to let his Superman speak. Neither was Lester. But Singer and Snyder were.

I thought that was Cavill's voice! I wonder how it is for an actor to be mainly valued for his physical presence. Snyder should give us a chance to get to know the new Superman while he's not smashing into things. But, a point can be made that Superman reveals his character through action and not dialogue.

Yeah, it's that same weird feeling that Singer wouldn't let Routh talk.

 

[HaplessCrewman]

Interesting observation about Superman's character from comics writer Grant Morrison.

From the article -

The most powerful man alive wouldn't be tortured but instead would be the friendliest, most relaxed person you ever saw.

Admittedly, this notion of the character would not work for a film that has a certain amount of devastation that is de rigueur.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/no-one-gets-superman-anymore-2015-7#ixzz3gMrWL3LJ

 

[Ovation]

We could always, and I know it's a radical thought, wait to see the movie before passing judgement.

More and more I find that statement to mean: "You're being negative in a way I disagree with so let's STFU!". No one ever seems to pull this out when people are being enthusiastic about a movie.

I make the same observation to people when they get overly excited about something (book, movie, TV show). And really, it's simple logic--you cannot judge the quality of something without experiencing it. You can let your biases, positive or negative, lead you to your decisions about A) whether to experience the thing and/or B) whether you precede the experience with positive or negative anticipation. You cannot, however, judge the experience itself prior to actually having it.

We could always, and I know it's a radical thought, wait to see the movie before passing judgement.

More and more I find that statement to mean: "You're being negative in a way I disagree with so let's STFU!". No one ever seems to pull this out when people are being enthusiastic about a movie.

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.

Movie studios release all of this pre-premiere publicity precisely because they want us to pass judgment on the movie before we see it. Of course their hope is that our judgment will be positive and we'll buy a ticket. However, it's still an effort to get us to 'judge' the film before we see it.

There is also the silly idea behind this statement that we should just go see every superhero movie that the studios churn out- regardless of whether it looks like our cup of tea- simply because, otherwise, we're "passing judgment" on a movie. That mentality is great for the studios' corporate bottom line but doesn't really tie in with the concept of being an informed consumer.

Go or don't go. Makes zero difference to me. However, you cannot judge the movie (book, etc.) without having experienced it. Sure the studios want to encourage you to have a positive anticipation--it's the job of any seller to do that for the product being sold (either for money or free public consumption--all art that finds its way into the public sphere is "selling" itself in some fashion or another). You can decide from the publicity/spoilers that something does not appeal to you. You can't say "it's fantastic" or "it sucks" until you've experienced it, though. Not with any persuasiveness.

 

[JarodRussell]

Interesting observation about Superman's character from comics writer Grant Morrison.

From the article -

The most powerful man alive wouldn't be tortured but instead would be the friendliest, most relaxed person you ever saw.

Admittedly, this notion of the character would not work for a film that has a certain amount of devastation that is de rigueur.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/no-one-gets-superman-anymore-2015-7#ixzz3gMrWL3LJ

That article is so spot on what I always thought about Superman's character. That's why I can't really get behind any of the newer films.

 

[DWF]

Interesting observation about Superman's character from comics writer Grant Morrison.

From the article -

The most powerful man alive wouldn't be tortured but instead would be the friendliest, most relaxed person you ever saw.

Admittedly, this notion of the character would not work for a film that has a certain amount of devastation that is de rigueur.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/no-one-gets-superman-anymore-2015-7#ixzz3gMrWL3LJ

Grant Morrison must've missed ten seasons of Smallville then. And in any event it's hard to tell much about the movie by watching a few scenes taken out of context.

 

[Mudd]

He may not have missed it; he may simply have disliked it or found it an uninteresting version of Superman.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Interesting observation about Superman's character from comics writer Grant Morrison.

From the article -

The most powerful man alive wouldn't be tortured but instead would be the friendliest, most relaxed person you ever saw.

Admittedly, this notion of the character would not work for a film that has a certain amount of devastation that is de rigueur.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/no-one-gets-superman-anymore-2015-7#ixzz3gMrWL3LJ

While I don't think this should necessarily apply to Superman (though unlike others who seem to only want Superman to be one thing at all times and never have any variation, I also wouldn't mind seeing an occasional story about it), I don't really buy the faulty premise that absolute power instantly makes one happy go lucky and friendly. There have been too many miserable bastards at the pinnacle of power throughout history for me to believe that.

It also hinges on the faulty premise that the Superman of Man of Steel is not the kind of hero would take time to hug a suicidal teen, or who never has a happy outlook on life, when I've seen no evidence of that. Superman tends to handle a lot of big picture stuff by the nature of it being an epic film, but he still took time out to stand up for a waitress who was being harassed. He didn't exactly handle it in the best way, but he was still young and learning. He also put the survival of a family in danger over his own personal values and desires when killing Zod, something which gets endlessly criticized but is a inherently unselfish act.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

The conception of Superman in the 1978 film is certainly at odds with Grant Morrison's characterization. One of the things that ate that version of Superman up the most was knowing that even with all of his powers, he couldn't always save those he loved. Pa Kent dropped dead of a heart attack, and to save Lois he had to break his father's commandment not to interfere in the course of human history, which—out of anguish—he did, literally.

 

[Warped9]

The closest modern film I've seen come near the overall conception people at large seem to have of Superman was Captain America: The First Avenger. I think you could have slipped Superman right in there in place of Cap and it would have worked just as well. The characterization and overall tone were pretty much spot on.

Then again it worked partly because of its period setting. A seemingly more innocent time and Marvel's somewhat lighter touch seems to fit Captain American and Superman or at least what many people seem to expect.

But I can also understand that DC might want to take a slightly different tone with its films to distinguish themselves from Marvel's productions. I can't blame them for that in not wanting everything superhero to be of the same flavour. The highly successful Dark Knight trilogy was certainly different in overall tone form the Marvel's offerings and MoS and the rest appear to be basically following that lead even if it's not meant to be of the same continuity as Nolan's Dark Knight films.

 

[eyeresist]

Interesting observation about Superman's character from comics writer Grant Morrison.

From the article -

The most powerful man alive wouldn't be tortured but instead would be the friendliest, most relaxed person you ever saw.

http://www.businessinsider.com/no-one-gets-superman-anymore-2015-7#ixzz3gMrWL3LJ

I don't really buy that. It might be a nice ideal (like Buddy Christ), but I think Supes would feel incredibly alienated due to his god-like powers and alien origin. When he is Clark, he can pretend to be a regular person and people might like him for that, but that's not the real him. The real him is inevitably an object of fear and veneration.

^ Really? To me, the trailer seems to be painting Batman as more villainous than Superman. But eye of the beholder and all that.

Neither of them is a villain. They are both heroes. It is just the old trope: they meet, they fight, they become firm friends.

 

[Mudd]

God's a great deal more powerful than Superman and he doesn't appear to be a particularly laid-back dude.

 

[eyeresist]

"Peace and love, dudes, peace and love! Or I'll crush you like a bug."

 

[Nerys Myk]

God's a great deal more powerful than Superman and he doesn't appear to be a particularly laid-back dude.

He's more on an absentee father.

 

[davejames]

I just still don't get where people are getting this "dark and tortured" thing from when it comes to Cavill's Superman. He may have been a bit conflicted about what to do with his life and powers in the first half (as you would naturally expect someone to be who was told to hide those powers all his life), but he was still a pretty positive and friendly and caring guy at heart, like I would expect a Superman to be.

And for that matter, while MOS definitely gets a bit dark and edgy at times for a Superman movie, I think the description of it as "grim and bleak" is a bit over the top as well. That might describe the final battle pretty well I suppose, but certainly not the entirety of the movie.

 

[eyeresist]

And for that matter, while MOS definitely gets a bit dark and edgy at times for a Superman movie, I think the description of it as "grim and bleak" is a bit over the top as well. That might describe the final battle pretty well I suppose, but certainly not the entirety of the movie.

I blame the music.

 

[M.A.C.O.]

I just still don't get where people are getting this "dark and tortured" thing from when it comes to Cavill's Superman. He may have been a bit conflicted about what to do with his life and powers in the first half (as you would naturally expect someone to be who was told to hide those powers all his life), but he was still a pretty positive and friendly and caring guy at heart, like I would expect a Superman to be.

And for that matter, while MOS definitely gets a bit dark and edgy at times for a Superman movie, I think the description of it as "grim and bleak" is a bit over the top as well. That might describe the final battle pretty well I suppose, but certainly not the entirety of the movie.

I never understood the criticism that MOS was "grim and dark". It's one of those situations where I wanted to say..

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2y8Sx4B2Sk[/yt]


Honestly, i think their complaints were more in the vein that MOS is "dark" when compared to Superman TM, and not the action scifi genre that MOS could be classified as. Superman TM had scifi too, but it's more a whimsical fairytale with super heroics. Lois Lane voice: "Can you read my mind?"


Best comparison I can make would be how people quickly label DS9 as being 'grimdark' when compared to TNG. When DS9 was just taking itself more seriously when it came to the stories they were telling.


It's not like MOS is rubbing shoulders with:

Watchmen: book and movie

V for Vendetta: book and movie

Tim Burton's Batman Returns or Nolan's The Dark Knight

Frank Miller's and or Alan Moore's Batman

1984 Mirage TMNT

Or most recently the Netflix Daredevil series.
Which contains a guy getting decapitated by a car door, spousal and child abuse, human trafficking, drug cartels with blinded workers, suicide bombings and a sweet old lady(in the vein of Aunt May) getting murdered for not leaving her home.


I mean Jesus H Christ, DD was WAAAAAY darker than anything MOS did.

 

[beamMe]

And for that matter, while MOS definitely gets a bit dark and edgy at times for a Superman movie, I think the description of it as "grim and bleak" is a bit over the top as well. That might describe the final battle pretty well I suppose, but certainly not the entirety of the movie.

I blame the music.

Well, that and the colour-drain.
But you are right. The music is so down-beat that it makes the tone of the film very much sombre.

If I remember this right, the first time Superman tries to fly - visually it's played as funny, but musically ... not so much.

 

[darkshadow0001]

God's a great deal more powerful than Superman and he doesn't appear to be a particularly laid-back dude.

I wonder why Superman is always compared to God. Superman is an alien which just happens to have superpowers because of our yellow sun giving him strength. Superman and God are two separate things

 

[Tosk]

He's more like Jesus anyway.