SMALLVILLE v Arrow, Flash, Supergirl?

[Taylirious]

I was watching this...

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LheNC4HICGA[/yt]

smallville save me

Which goes through the 10 years of SMALLVILLE and the VFX aren't as bad as people make them out to be verses Arrow, The Flash & Supergirl + Legends of Tomorrow.

Thoughts?

ETA: I also saw people hating on the VFX for Supergirl verses Arrow & Flash???

 

[USS Firefly]

I like the VFX from all the show.

 

[Taylirious]

They all have a moment where you are like huh? But overall all shows have great VFX and I forgot Gotham which looks stunning!

 

[DarKush]

I thought Smallville had good FX for its time. Their take on Doomsday looks better than what I saw in the Batman v. Superman trailer. But I also think the other shows do well too. Supergirl not as good as it could be at times, but still I have few complaints.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The new Oliver is so much hotter.

 

[Taylirious]

Justin Hartley is BAE!

 

[dahj]

^^
Can he salmon ladder though?

 

[USS Triumphant]

I like the effects, and I do think the effects in the newer shows are better, but honestly they could run around in cardboard costumes made by children over normal street clothes and make "whoosh" noises with their mouths to indicate they're flying or running really fast as long as they tell a good story. Smallville's Lana and Chloe should both have obvious effects of the brain damage from being knocked out every episode for several seasons so they wouldn't see Clark do Superman stuff. There are minor problems with the new shows, but thank Rao they aren't *that* stupid.

 

[Gaith]

Due in large part no doubt to the relative ease and low cost of rural/small-town filming (sure, you have to get out there, but you don't have to shut down actual city streets), the early years of Smallville had some pretty spectacular filming/production values. I didn't watch its later years, but I understand that as budgets fell and the series became mostly urban, they had to make do with increasingly pitiful city backlot sets and green-screening.

I assume Arrow and The Flash have much higher budgets, and the former has gotten a fair amount of mileage from lots of abandoned warehouse-type shoots, and neither of them have to pretend that they're showing a major American city like Metropolis.

Smallville wasn't conceived as being a full-on Superman show on a CW budget; it only became that gradually and accidentally.

 

[JD]

Smallville had great effects for it's time, but there's no way a show that ran from2001 to 2011is going to be on the same level as new shows.

 

[Taylirious]

I still think it looks good and just don't get the comparing to SMALLVILLE with the newer shows in how good/bad the VFX are. For TV shows they all look great.

ETA: I actually liked the S'ville Hawkman look but I remember people hating it and I didn't care for the Hawkman/Hawkgirl look for Arrow/Flash(& soon Legends).

 

[velour]

Smallville was a wasted opportunity. It could have been really good. And I don't mean the fx. Smallville's fx was good enough. The acting, i.e. Tom Welling's, and the story arc left a lot to be desired.

There was, for the most part, no character development for Clark and Lana during the run of the series.

Clark made sure to hide his superman/boy identity episode after episode. And Lana was frustrated episode after episode because Clark couldn't commit to any kind of romantic relationship with her, because he didn't want to risk revealing his true self. Of course, Lana didn't know better. This created all that teen angst. It was like this season after season. Character development went in circles. It was repetitive.

I have watched all seven episodes of Supergirl that have aired so far. I don't know what the future of Supergirl holds, but it has already put Smallville to shame.

Even though Superman is a popular character and with ten seasons worth of episodes available for rerun, I think it is telling that no channel has aired reruns of Smallville, as far as I know.

 

[Taylirious]

I think there are 5 good seasons of SMALLVILLE on the writing side. 1-3 are decent, 4 meh, 5 & 6 felt like it was getting back and 7 suffered from the writers strike. I have a hard time defending 8-10.

I enjoy Supergirl alot and it is a shame it is getting dumped on for VFX? This is the biggest complaint I have seen and some of the more minor characters like Winn.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Smallville was a wasted opportunity. It could have been really good. And I don't mean the fx. Smallville's fx was good enough. The acting, i.e. Tom Welling's...

While Welling left a lot to be desired, he was serviceable most of the time.

However, Mack, Rosey, Glover, O'Toole, and even Schneider were head and shoulders above anyone on any of the current DC series.

Durance was either really good or horrible.

*Whenever Glover and Rosenbaum were on screen together, magic happened. And there's nothing on these shows that remotely comes close.

 

[mswood]

Smallville was a wasted opportunity. It could have been really good. And I don't mean the fx. Smallville's fx was good enough. The acting, i.e. Tom Welling's, and the story arc left a lot to be desired.

There was, for the most part, no character development for Clark and Lana during the run of the series.

Clark made sure to hide his superman/boy identity episode after episode. And Lana was frustrated episode after episode because Clark couldn't commit to any kind of romantic relationship with her, because he didn't want to risk revealing his true self. Of course, Lana didn't know better. This created all that teen angst. It was like this season after season. Character development went in circles. It was repetitive.

I have watched all seven episodes of Supergirl that have aired so far. I don't know what the future of Supergirl holds, but it has already put Smallville to shame.

Even though Superman is a popular character and with ten seasons worth of episodes available for rerun, I think it is telling that no channel has aired reruns of Smallville, as far as I know.

It's been heavily rerun on cable TNT or is hit TBS. it stopped being run daily just last year. It aires now every so often. But for several years was getting two broadcast each weekday.

 

[velour]

Smallville was a wasted opportunity. It could have been really good. And I don't mean the fx. Smallville's fx was good enough. The acting, i.e. Tom Welling's...

While Welling left a lot to be desired, he was serviceable most of the time.

However, Mack, Rosey, Glover, O'Toole, and even Schneider were head and shoulders above anyone on any of the current DC series.

Durance was either really good or horrible.

*Whenever Glover and Rosenbaum were on screen together, magic happened. And there's nothing on these shows that remotely comes close.

When I was watching this show during the later seasons, I often wondered how the series would have fared if it had a better actor to play the lead of Clark Kent. Someone who was not a lightweight actor that Welling showed himself to be.

I thought that Welling's weak acting was really exposed during those scenes where Clark went up against Lex or Lionel. Rosenbaum and Glover demonstrated that they were far and away superior actors. Welling didn't hold his own against them.

The superhero looked weak compared to those villains. That shouldn't have been the case.

Superman is suppose to project strength, among other things. Welling wasn't able to do that. It was too bad the show didn't have a strong actor as Clark.

 

[Guy Gardener]

It's not that his acting is weak, it's who Welling considered his Superboy to be, or who he was told that his Superboy is. Unwaveringly direct forthright and honest... Which is very good for the 1940s, but not so for modern times.

Maybe less than ten years down the line Tom could have developed a more articulate character to play, but it's too late, it's who the character is and to change it so late in the game would mean that Clark Kent is no longer the same person anymore.

Episodes of note where Tom got to play someone other than Clark Kent.

Early season three Lionel Luthor swaps bodies with Clark and tries to #### his mum Martha Kent.

Season 8 had a Bizarro who looked just like Clark with out being such a dick, who spent two months making Lana's toes curl.

In season 10 Clark time traveled a few years up stream, and his bespectacled olderself had nothing but contempt for his loser Red Blu Blurr self. 30 year old Clark hates 25 year old Clark just like we do, for probably mostly the same reasons.



Okay there was this once where Clark lost his powers, but he still had his stupid personality, so he stands up to these well armed mobsters, insisting that they were baddies doing bad and that he was a goodie doing good, so that they had best admit that they had the moral low ground and surrender... Clark was shot in his non-superhuman chest four times.

If you want nuance, well, that's Lex, Chloe and Oliver.

Clark is a lost cause.

 

[USS Firefly]

In my opinion Cassidy Freeman acted also very good in Smallvile

 

[Servo]

To be fair, the VFX on the current shows hasn't always been stellar. Atom Smasher from Flash 2x01 springs to mind as a particularly poor example. But then King Shark looked fantastic. Swings and roundabouts.

Smallville had some great VFX for its time, and a lot of it still probably holds up today. Pity the same couldn't be said for the writing in a lot of cases.

Oh, and that video represents the first time I have ever heard the full Remy Zero track. I still don't like it.

 

[CorporalClegg]

They need to get that show on Netflix, already.