Spoilers "Superman & Lois" Season 1 spoiler discussion!

[theenglish]

Anyone else think "Non" when that big bruiser showed up?

My first thought was that it was Orion. And then we got to the end.

I am really waiting for a New Gods connection--if Edge is a multiseason Big Bad then we will undoubtedly get that eventually. I would love for Scott Free to show up.

At this point I am thinking that Luthor and Superman are going to team up against whatever Morgan Edge is up to.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

At this point I am thinking that Luthor and Superman are going to team up against whatever Morgan Edge is up to.

Interesting idea, but the series has Alt-Luthor so single-minded about what the Superman of his world did, that agenda snuffs out reason. That, and now he's likely weaponized Lois' father against Superman, so if that's the case, he cannot just shut down Sam's newfound beliefs.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

So far it's a lot like the first season of Supergirl on CBS. I too like it a lot and hope it doesn't devolve into ultimately what Supergirl became (IE - more concerned about making social commentary then telling a actual story.)

This series will do well if if steers clear of the poison of misguided showrunners standing on a soapbox no one wanted the to mount. That destroyed any potential SG had.

Isn't the Adventures of Superman that show about the Daily Planet that features Superman in the last 10 minutes of every episode? (George Reeves wink)

Yes. That tried "Superman" was merely an accent to the show, with Reeves dialing in his performances.

Thank you. Sick of people forgetting that Superman wasn't in a position to dictate the fight as easily as some people would have you believe.

Well said, and adult minds understand that. Others create a fantasy where the hero has the option to take fights and potential damage wherever he desires. If he had it so easy, there would be no real risk or conflict in the story...like an episode of the Reeves Superman or The Super Friends.

 

[thribs]

I loved the ending to MoS. Never understood the fuss.
I always go by the logic that if we didn’t see anyone die, then no one did.

 

[Tosk]

I always go by the logic that if we didn’t see anyone die, then no one did.

You do see people die. A building falls on a whole bunch of them, just for starters.

I can't speak for anyone else, but any objections I have to MoS don't involve people dying. Superman not saving someone is not the same thing as Superman not trying to save someone.

And that's not a criticism that belongs only to Snyder material. Superman all too often has massive brawls in populated areas. It's just a thing you have to go with for the most part 'cause it's more dramatic. As they said in Not Brand Ecch's Blecchman, “Because it makes good pictures, you dopey kid!”

 

[Mudd]

Loved MoS. Great Superman movie and a better movie, period, than most of the Christopher Reeve flicks.

And I'm no fan of Snyder.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Man of Steel is a favourite of mine. And of course people are discussing it with regard to the new show, by the maker's own statements they copied the look (and one or two of the fight scenes shot for shot)

 

[Skipper]

1) The first scene (the bridge) illustrate clearly why you can't scientifically explain Superman's powers. Unless he had some kind of tactile telekinesis, the bridge piece would collapse as all of its weight was supported by only one hand.

2) Clark Kent's parents must be the only ones in all tv shows' universes to be well adjusted and without a son can that express himself by teenager angst. Wow.

 

[Christopher]

I always go by the logic that if we didn’t see anyone die, then no one did.

But that makes it worse. The sequence was a deliberate evocation of 9/11 imagery, a reminder of a horrific tragedy in which thousands of people died before our eyes, which was horribly traumatic for many of us to watch. To recreate the trauma of watching that tragedy, to shove it in our faces for what felt like hours, and yet strip away the one thing that was most important about it -- the fact that many people died -- is an awful thing to do. It trivializes a great tragedy by reducing it to empty, shallow spectacle. And that was incredibly callous and in staggeringly poor taste.

Even aside from that, it's just inept filmmaking to devote such a huge amount of the climax to an extended orgy of destruction that has literally zero impact on the story or characters, that's forgotten about as soon as it's over (complete with the Daily Planet offices being miraculously intact again). You could cut out all of the city destruction, aside from the parts that directly affected Perry and his group, without losing a single plot point or line of dialogue. And that means, by the most basic laws of competent story editing, that it should have been cut out in the script stage, or else rewritten to have actual consequences.

1) The first scene (the bridge) illustrate clearly why you can't scientifically explain Superman's powers. Unless he had some kind of tactile telekinesis, the bridge piece would collapse as all of its weight was supported by only one hand.

One hand, two hands -- on that scale, it makes no difference. Still, I would've preferred it if they'd at least shown that he needed to keep both hands in place for balance -- say, he starts to move his hand to wave, but the bridge starts to shift so he catches himself (and it) and settles for a smile and a nod. One doesn't expect genuine realism, but one can ask for at least the facade of verisimilitude.

 

[Mudd]

It trivializes a great tragedy by reducing it to empty, shallow spectacle.

This is what blockbuster movies do. I'm surprised you didn't know that.

 

[Tosk]

1) The first scene (the bridge) illustrate clearly why you can't scientifically explain Superman's powers. Unless he had some kind of tactile telekinesis, the bridge piece would collapse as all of its weight was supported by only one hand.

Superman extends a field around anything he touches, reinforcing it's structural integrity and giving it more enhanced damage resistance. There, done.

 

[Christopher]

And of course, any time Superman is saving a collapsing bridge, there is inevitably a school bus on it. Now, that's an inviolable law of physics.

 

[BK613]

And of course, any time Superman is saving a collapsing bridge, there is inevitably a school bus on it. Now, that's an inviolable law of physics.

His first real save in Man of Steel is a school bus. That drove off a bridge.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

This is what blockbuster movies do. I'm surprised you didn't know that.

Seriously. One womders how many how much film history someone missed, as great tragedies, whether it was the Lincoln or JFK assassinations, the Manson Family crimes, Pearl Harbor, the Peoples Temple, etc., have been visual inspirations for TV and film for generations. Whining about it in one film is just that--whining based on an agenda, yet no one seems to care that Californians might have been traumatized by the '78 Superman's earthquake scenes, since they (and I) suffered through numerous, earthquakes of mass destruction and lost lives in the same decade as the film. I guess that was A-Okay to use.

 

[theenglish]

This is what blockbuster movies do. I'm surprised you didn't know that.

It's interesting that you say that. In most action movies I can more or less accept the level of destruction but in a super-hero movie I expect more because super-heroes should be held to a higher standard than Rambo or The Terminator, or even James Bond in terms of acceptable losses. I am reminded of the jokers Johnson and Johnson from Die Hard--there are no acceptable losses of life, unless your movie is about an anti-hero.

Looking at another classic superhero film, the whole point of 2002's Spider-Man was that a hero's responsibility is to save everyone.

And that is about the writing. Snyder could have chosen to write the film differently, but he didn't and it showed that he doesn't understand what comic book superheroes are all about. Unintentionally he wrote a critique and deconstruction of the superhero genre which is ironic considering he completely misunderstood this point in his adaptation of Watchmen.

 

[Christopher]

It's interesting that you say that. In most action movies I can more or less accept the level of destruction but in a super-hero movie I expect more because super-heroes should be held to a higher standard than Rambo or The Terminator, or even James Bond in terms of acceptable losses. I am reminded of the jokers Johnson and Johnson from Die Hard--there are no acceptable losses of life, unless your movie is about an anti-hero.

Looking at another classic superhero film, the whole point of 2002's Spider-Man was that a hero's responsibility is to save everyone.

Exactly. As I've said before, if a whole city gets destroyed in a Godzilla movie, then the character you came to see is succeeding at his job. If a whole city gets destroyed in a Superman movie, then the character you came to see is failing at his job. It's a fundamental difference.

And that is about the writing. Snyder could have chosen to write the film differently, but he didn't and it showed that he doesn't understand what comic book superheroes are all about. Unintentionally he wrote a critique and deconstruction of the superhero genre which is ironic considering he completely misunderstood this point in his adaptation of Watchmen.

I think it was entirely intentional. The problem is that he thought every superhero movie should be Watchmen/The Dark Knight Returns. Those are not templates for superhero stories, they're reactions against them. Doing a Superman movie in the style of Watchmen or TDKR makes as much sense as doing a James Bond movie in the style of Austin Powers.

At the very least, if you're going to deconstruct Superman, at least construct him first. A deconstruction makes no sense as the character's debut. A story where the hero fundamentally fails in his goals is not a good origin story, certainly not for Superman.

 

[F. King Daniel]

A deconstruction makes no sense as the character's debut. A story where the hero fundamentally fails in his goals is not a good origin story, certainly not for Superman.

It does if the character is being moved from a fantasy land where he's always smiling, slapstick comedy happens every day and he's implicitly trusted by everybody to a somewhat more realistic world. The film highlighted the flaws with Superman's older movies.

 

[Christopher]

It does if the character is being moved from a fantasy land where he's always smiling, slapstick comedy happens every day and he's implicitly trusted by everybody to a somewhat more realistic world. The film highlighted the flaws with Superman's older movies.

Saying Snyder's films are "realistic" is a joke. And I don't want to rehash this tired argument for the four millionth time, so I'll leave it at that.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Saying Snyder's films are "realistic" is a joke.

The sharp divide between people who saw him as a saviour and those who wanted him gone in BvS is pretty much exactly how I see our world reacting to Superman.

 

[Christopher]

^Again -- I'm sick of this argument. I'm sick of the way people on the Internet keep dragging threads off topic to relitigate years-old arguments they've already had countless times. This is the Superman & Lois thread.