Superman, So They Tell Me

[filkertom]

Dammit, I'm still not feelin' it. How 'bout you? (Oh, and, for your own good and sanity: Don't even bother with the comments in the AICN thread below the picture.)

Comments

[atalantapendrag.livejournal.com]

To me, Superman's always gonna be Christopher Reeve. I think I'm imprinted.

[denali1.livejournal.com]

CR was a Superman on and off film. 'Nuff said.

[sdelmonte]

I know what you mean. He just doesn't seem right. And what is with that S on the belt?

Not that I can imagine I won't be seeing this film in the theaters. But my expectations remain as low as yours.

[cwsensation.livejournal.com]

I certainly don't see how that's supposed to make me feel any more excited about Superman. Everything they've done with this movie is practically a demand (or a beg, depending on how desperate you feel they are) to be compared to thr previous movies. The look...Brandon Routh even looks like Chrtistopher Reeve. The trailer...Brando's voice, the original movie's theme.

How am I supposed to be excited about retreading over what was already good, and trying to call it original?

--Jer

[valkyrwench.livejournal.com]

Oh, look - Superman as a Ken doll. How fabulous...

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Thank you. That's the icon of "masculinity" this thin little boy was reminding me of. And there is a difference -- check out this (http://images.art.com/images/-/Christopher-Reeve---Superman--C10101819.jpeg), this (http://images.art.com/images/-/Christopher-Reeve---Superman--C10101860.jpeg), and especially here (http://robogeek.com/2005/04/supermans-new-costume-is-kinda-weird.html).

(The only reason I didn't include any pictures of Dean Cain here is that the Supes costume he's in was... well, it looked kinda goofy. Cheesy. Cheap, even. And he didn't deserve that -- he was a pretty decent Superman. Not Teh Reeve, of course. But pretty good for all that.)

[aylinn.livejournal.com]

yep. it's the chest & shoulders.

from the neck up & waist down I can ALMOST buy it.

But he's way too skinny in the chest. Hit that chest with bullets and they'll go through it not bounce off.

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

As I recall, Christopher Reeve had to work out like crazy to look halfway decent in the Superman suit for the first film. He was a bit ectomorphic for the role and I remember my serious reservations before the film opened. Afterwards... well I got convinced with you and everyone else. [smile]

Yes, I was at the 1979 WorldCon [Seacon, in Brighton, Sussex, UK] where he accepted the Best Dramatic Presentation Hugo, completely winning over the mostly British crowd who were rather loudly rooting for Hitch-Hikers Guide [the first, best, radio version] with the opening of his acceptance speech: "With all due respect to the World Science Fiction Association and the Producers of "The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy"... I think it was fixed!" HUGE laugh from the audience, then he delivered an ordinarily gracious acceptance speech. But big kudos from everyone for defusing what could have been a cranky crowd.

[cktraveler.livejournal.com]

Err ... after many tries, this million-dollar movie studio somehow managed to get one of the most famous costumes in the world mostly right and find an actor who doesn't look embarrassingly bad in it.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but ...

[palenoue.livejournal.com]

I still have to ask "Why?" The Reeve movie is still good, especially compared to many current movies, the special effects aren't lame, the story holds up even after all these years, so why reinvent the wheel? Well, other than the studios are creatively bankrupt can can't come up with anything new if their lives depended on it. While I'm not going to judge this movie until I see it, I still think they could have done better.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Because they're not making enough money on it now. That's why they had to reinvent the Batman franchise, ignominiously killed by Joel Schumacher and Akiva Goldsman. That's why Disney did their own TV versions of The Music Man, Annie, and Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella. That's why they've remade Cheaper by the Dozen, Yours, Mine, and Ours, Fun with Dick and Jane, and a gazillion other films.

They want franchise money, big-property money, Lord of the Rings / Harry Potter money, Finding Nemo money. Spider-Man money. And I'd be very receptive to a new version of Superman, if I thought they had the slightest frickin' clue about how to do it. It's obvious they don't.

[palenoue.livejournal.com]

This is why I keep buying lottery tickets. Not so I can live a life of decadance (Tom, how much would you charge to be a filker-in-residence? ;-) but so I can start a movie/TV/whatever funding organization where the fans can buy shares in projects. For instance, the Red Dwarf movie is having a hell of a time getting funding and they have to jump through flaming hoops just to get rejected (ever read his comments on meeting with a hollywood studio?), but how many fans do you think would eagerly buy a $20-$50-$100 share of the movie? Or if someone has a good idea for a new TV series but the major studios are too stupid to pick it up, like Global Frequency, how many fans would download the pilot episode then buy shares to fund two seasons? And of course, if the project makes money, practically all those fans would spend their returns on either merchandise or shares of new projects. Furthermore, since the fans have a share of the projects, they'd be open for fan re-editing, re-dubbing, music videos, fan fic, and all of those fun things without worrying about RIAA busting them.

That's why I keep buying lottery tickets.

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

Warner Bros. has not showed a lot of their vaunted Franchise Savvy in recent years, have they? "Harry Potter" was a big fat pig-in-a-poke, what with the last 3 books yet unwritten when they took possession. They might have marketed it Very Differently if they had realized that it was not really a children's series.

At least Disney knew how the Narnia books ended. [wry grin] So far, that's making money.

[skalja.livejournal.com]

It wouldn't bother me so much if the red weren't, er, the color of dried blood (because that's SO Superman), or if it wasn't supposed to be in the same continuity as the first two Reeve films.

Nah, me neither...

[lizard-sf.livejournal.com]

Picture just doesn't do it for me. For some reason, they can make a Batman costume which looks good on screen, but they can't find a version of the blue tights which makes the transition to cinema successfully.

Re: Nah, me neither...

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I think the fan films Grayson and World's Finest do just fine. Dammit. Just because Bryan Singer is a fan doesn't mean he knows everything.

[eibii.livejournal.com]

Also underwhelmed. The only bit of the trailer at HP I found compelling was the stuff already existing from the original Donner flick.

[james-rayner.livejournal.com]

it feels -wierd- to be more excited than all of you put together are. But maybe that's because I wasnt around when Reeves showed the world how a man could fly. I, personally, am willing to give this movie a fightin' chance - Im excited in that It's Superman. And with me, it's reeeeeeally hard to go wrong with Superman.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I truly hope it works for you as well as Reeve worked, still works, for us.

[darkwolf69.livejournal.com]

I read the comments down to the Tom Welling Rules/Sux argument.

*sigh*

I liked Christopher Reeves as Superman. The only problem with the movies, in my mind, was that the writers didn't seem to be taking the story or the characters seriously. In the name of all that is holy, they had Gene Frickin' Hackman- a fine actor, capable of playing a serious, impressive role- playing Lex Luthor in the first movie and all they did was make him comic relief! Lex Luthor, one of the most brilliant and politically adept minds on earth wouldn't be associated with the thugs he hired in this movie. They pulled Lex's teeth by taking away his brain and putting him in clown shoes. It was very disappointing.

I have to admit, Superman stories are hard to sell to me. Superman- particularly an experienced Superman- is totally impervious to just about any threat except for the diablo ex machina of Kryptonite. I can only take so many "But the villain/location has Kryptonite!" revelations before I start to look for something more interesting. The only way to get around Superman in novel ways is to outthink him and/or threaten his DNPCs- Ma and Pa Kent, Lois Lane, etc.

Smallville is entertaining to me because, despite Clark's superhuman nature, he's inexperienced both with his powers and with life in general. He's vulnerable, and that makes the threats more credible and the stories more compelling.

In my mind, heroism requires risk. If the hero risks nothing, than how can he show himself to be heroic? This may be why I gravitate to the darker, lower powered heros, like Daredevil, The Punisher, or Batman. Street level heroes. Heroes that have to go home at night, nurse their wounds, and heal up just like the rest of us. Heroes that actually put their lives on the line to do what's right. Superman can inspire me, under the right circumstances, but give me the Bat any night of the week. :)

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

There's a lot of revision that's worked very well in the Superman mythos. The Crisis of 1985, and John Byrne's codifying of a lot of disparate thoughts people had had about Supes and his world, depowered him without depowering him, if you know what I mean.

Because of that, there are more foes on Kal's level these days. My idea of the ultimate Superman villain is Mongul. Smart, tough and arrogant as all hell, and you've got to be Superman-level to do more than slow him down. And he always snarls about how he's gonna just wipe Supes out, no sweat... but it's obvious he's sweating, and it's obvious that he's going after Superman because Supes is the one guy who can stop him.

And, though I didn't care all that much for Byrne's first draft of him, Luthor has become one of the best characters DC has. A truly foul and greedy man, so obsessed with getting rid of the "threat" of Superman that he can even convince himself now and then that he truly has the good of the world at heart, when all he really cares about is himself.

My problem with Smallville is neither the concept nor the characters, but the scripts, which seem to have huge, gaping, MST3K-quality holes every episode I've watched. I'm probably gonna have to sit down with a season and just plow into it.

And, yeah, the Batman is one of the greatest heroes simply because he doesn't have any powers -- just brains, athletics, fighting prowess, gagdetry, and blind luck. But I think they've taken the Miller psychoses too far lately. In his own way, Batman is currently risking as much as Superman risks all the time: different aspects of their psyches. In Kal's case, he worries that he may take the rest of the world for granted, and become the oppressive monarch or destructive force he easily could be. In Bruce's case, he's becoming more and more the Grim Soldier, and I think he's losing the point of his war.