You'll Believe A Teaser Poster Can Bore

[filkertom]

The net is agog with wonderment and hosannahs over the new teaser poster for Superman Returns.

My god, this movie isn't grabbing me. I simply cannot believe how much it's not grabbing me.

Last night and this morning, I was rereading some Supes comics I found last weekend while cleaning -- circa 1990-91, Dan Jurgens with Brett Breeding: the Red Kryptonite stuff, Intergang, Lois agreeing to marry Clark/finding out Clark was Superman/getting good with the idea of being married to Superman, the death of Luthor.... great stuff.

I reread Kingdom Come a lot.

I bought the Justice League Unlimited: Joining Forces DVD the other day because it has a (pretty good) adaptation of the classic Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons story, "For The Man Who Has Everything", which I bought when it first came out and which I must have read a hundred times.

I liked Dean Cain just fine. Even though the stories on Smallville haven't grabbed me, Tom Welling has that little something that makes him a convincing Clark/Kal-el.

The Christopher Reeve Superman owns a chunk of my soul.

This skinny kid is not Superman.

I'm their fucking target audiece, and this skinny kid is not Superman.

Comments

[suburbfabulous.livejournal.com]

Agreed on all counts, although I've enjoyed the guest heroes on Smallville.
Even the action figures are unimpressive...the sculpts are pretty faithful to the actor (so yeah, I'm buying the Spacey one.)

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I saw the action figures for the first time last week. Two things stood out: The AF was way more ripped, much more muscular, than Brandon Routh or any shot we've seen of him... and the art gave Superman five-o'clock shadow.

[suburbfabulous.livejournal.com]

Dan Futterman, Last Son of Krypton.

[jhayman.livejournal.com]

The Christopher Reeve Superman owns a chunk of my soul.

This skinny kid is not Superman.

I'm their fucking target audiece, and this skinny kid is not Superman

Understood. But maybe when he ACTS he'll seem bigger than he looks. 'Cause he really does look slight ;-D

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

He'd better be the best actor in history. ;)

[suburbfabulous.livejournal.com]

I've tried acting bigger. It NEVER works.
This kid is 6'2", according to IMDB, but he just doesn't look...manly.

[wormquartet.livejournal.com]

Dammit, I'm 6'4". This means if this new Superman walked past me, I could see his friggin' dandruff. I'm gonna cry now.

-=ShoEboX=-

That's the Best Line of the Day, Man

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Bluntly, Shoe, if we spent six months buffing you up, you could play one fornication of a Bizarro. I say this in all seriousness and with the greatest respect. You could tie the guy in a frickin' knot and shake the dandruff off him.

Re: That's the Best Line of the Day, Man

[wormquartet.livejournal.com]

*puts in for six months of vacation time*

Let's do this thing. :)

-=ShoEboX=-

Re: That's the Best Line of the Day, Man

[suburbfabulous.livejournal.com]

Can I be Darkseid? I'm 6'7" and fairly manly.

[twfarlan.livejournal.com]

Assuming you were to walk past the "real" Superman, you'd still be taller than him. His official height is listed at 6'3".

[suburbfabulous.livejournal.com]

I would like it noted that I have the same specs as the Gray Hulk.
Sadly, I cannot lift 70 tons.

[twfarlan.livejournal.com]

(grin) This would be an interesting meme for LJ, you realize? Find what superhero or villain one most matches physically and post the results.

[suburbfabulous.livejournal.com]

True!
I think I'll post that...now.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

If there's a superhero out there who looks like me, I hope to God he never wears spandex.

"It's Sleep-deprived Paunchy White Dude!"

[sydb42.livejournal.com]

Superman isn't a favorite of mine, so I guess I'm easier to please. I definitely prefer Smallville and Lois & Clark over the Superman cartoons (I don't think I've ever read a Superman comic) because they show more of his "human" side.

As an aside, we have the Justice League Unlimited: Joining Forces DVD, supposedly bought for our 3 year old daughter. ;)

[darkwolf69.livejournal.com]

"For The Man Who Has Everything" makes me cry. :)

I'm actually looking forward to the Superman movie but, as Sydb says, I'm not really so much a fan. I think that Superman is a very noble, good character... but I don't see him as all that heroic. In my world view, in order to be heroic, one must have something at risk. Total invulnerability to damage pretty much negates that.

Yes, Kryptonite can hurt him- and he can HEROICALLY charge into a Kryptonite vault to save Lois from Luthor's deadly supersnakes or whatever... but how many Kryptonite stories can I take?

So, Smallville works for me, because they present Clark as a teenager who doesn't fully understand his powers and who is still just coping with growing up. He's vulnerable. He gets hurt- not physically, but emotionally. They really play on the psych lims that go along with being a teenager with a sense of responsibility, the power to do more things than most people, but *not* the understanding that superpowers can't fix everything.

</blather>

Sorry. :-)

[foenix.livejournal.com]

I've been grabbed by the movie. The costume is a little off, but I've got nowhere near the mad hate for it I've seen in a lot of other places...

I'm not entirely sold on Brandon as Superman, but I've loved him as Clark. A number of shots in the trailer really made me think he captured that Christopher Reeve spirit for Clark.

As for the poster, my first thought was, "Awww crap. I dropped Lois, again."

J

[sydb42.livejournal.com]

As for the poster, my first thought was, "Awww crap. I dropped Lois, again."

Hahaha, you're right, that is the look. ;)

[twfarlan.livejournal.com]

(checks out the teaser poster)

You know, that could have been a really cool poster. It could still be a cool movie. ... He really doesn't look the part, though.

There's a clip from the last trailer, where Big Blue is walking into a hail of bullets from a gatling gun. He's just walking, with what look like tracer rounds ricocheting off him in every direction. That is a cool Man of Steel moment right there. Of course, it's a distance shot and you don't really see the actor's physique too much in it, so that might actually help...

[barbara-the-w.livejournal.com]

ah, but *are* you the target audience?

Or are the Smallville kids, who only remember CReeve as "that guy in the wheelchair," who know DCain as "that actor from USA network," who *don't* read the graphic novels, who have never bought a comic in their lives....

I suspect that *they* are the target audience.

You, on the other hand, are the audience they *don't* have to aim the movie at -- because you're gonna go see it, regardless.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I will grant that as a possibility. On the other hand, why would they go to such lengths to reproduce as much as possible from the comics themselves -- hell, the cast includes Jack Larson as Bibbo, fer gosh sake -- and yet so completely and deliberately throw away the iconic look of their character?

And they do throw it away. The colors are wrong, the chest logo is wrong, he shouldn't have a belt logo, the cape looks plastic, and Brandon Roush is a skinny Keanu Reeves lookalike. It's like a frat rat dressed as Supes at Halloween.

And the internet went abuzz with anger and disappointment, and the immediate reaction of the filmmakers was, "Wait till you see it". Which was kinda weird, 'cause we were lookin' at it. But we waited, and now I've seen a few minutes of Brandon as Supes, Brandon as Clark, and Superman is one of my favorite characters and I should be so freakin' jacked for this movie and I'm not.

[prince-eric.livejournal.com]

And they do throw it away. The colors are wrong, the chest logo is wrong, he shouldn't have a belt logo, the cape looks plastic, and Brandon Roush is a skinny Keanu Reeves lookalike. It's like a frat rat dressed as Supes at Halloween.

I'm now picturing Keanu having been given the title role, and it's not pretty....

"Superman! That meteor's going to hit the earth! Do something!"
"Whoa."

[dadandgirl.livejournal.com]

Along the same lines, I also suspect the target audience is not you. The target audience thinks "Superman", and they think Christopher Reeve, Dean Cain, Tom Welling and The Super-Friends. "Oh yeah," they'll say. "Isn't Superman a comic book, too?"

From that perspective, your complaints sound outright nuts. The costume? Blue with a red cape. That's Superman. The logo? Big red 'S'. Superman again. The new guy is skinny? So are most of the other Supermen we've got in mind. Dean Cain is a friggin' munchkin in comparison - his bio says he's six foot, but he doesn't look it.

The filmmakers don't want to alienate the hardcore fans, so they'll make it look like they're listening to you, and avoid antagonizing you outright. But the money will roll in from ticket sales to Joe Average, not Joe Comic Fan. In the end, it's not your expectations that matter to these people. This new guy looks kinda like Chris Reeve, and that is what Joe Average expects.

[wormquartet.livejournal.com]

Checked out the pictures on the Warner site...he looks like a wide-eyed cartoon character as Clark Kent, and he's trying so hard to look "cool" as the Man of Steel that he instead exudes a Garfieldian look of boredom.

And the Godlike pose in the poster thoroughly doesn't work, since I could friggin' FLOSS with this skinny-ass little Routh weenbag.

Here's what I think happened: Warner Bros. hired someone to find them an actor to play Superman. The someone in question (let's call him Orlick) was thoroughly unfamiliar with the character of Superman, so he picked up a few old comics to familiarize himself with the character. Since Orlick didn't have much time to make his decision, he flipped through the comics far too quickly, and ended up with the mistaken impression that the "Before" guy in the Charles Atlas beach-bully-kicking-sand-in-face ad was in fact Superman.

Thus, Brandon Routh.

-=ShoEboX=-

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Routh. Routh. I can't even get his name right. Nothin'.

[jss]

Maybe you shoulda said "DiMagio"?

[sdelmonte]

Supes' face in half in shadow. Yes, I love having a shot of Superman in space. But Supes is the guy who's in the sunlight. Whose face you can see. Shadow? That's for Batman.

[avt-tor.livejournal.com]

Right, like, if anybody would have a morning routine, it would have to be S-man. Though maybe he can't find an alloy that will shave the super-stubble...

[jonnorthwood.livejournal.com]

But Tom, c'mon: a plastic cape, duck boots, and a stretchy uniform that's seen better days sitting atop a body with no muscular definition and a bad haircut just screams Supes, doesn't it?

Or maybe it's just me the producers.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

Unless word-of-mouth raves about it, I expect I'll be waiting for the DVD, if that.

[adamselzer.livejournal.com]

I'll bet Wilson Bryan Key and his Subliminal Message Maniacs are going NUTS over the placement of Florida in that poster.

[suburbfabulous.livejournal.com]

I am seized by nostalgia for The State:
"The Everglades? I wanna dip my BALLS in it!"

[firedrake-mor.livejournal.com]

He has no chest, skinny legs, and the pose makes his stomach pooch out. My icon shows what I looked like in high school -- I had better shoulders -then-!

I'm only 6'2", but I could still rip this guy a new one.

That's just the blue pill talking

[anansi133.livejournal.com]

All this means, is that your secret gullibility classification has upgraded itself. You are no longer the target audience, someone more gullible than you is.

It remains for you to find the yummy things you'll like as much as you used to like Superman. If the orbital mind control lasers are doing their jobs, you'll find it harder and harder...

[markbernstein.livejournal.com]

Last night and this morning, I was rereading some Supes comics I found last weekend while cleaning -- circa 1990-91, Dan Jurgens with Brett Breeding: the Red Kryptonite stuff, Intergang, Lois agreeing to marry Clark/finding out Clark was Superman/getting good with the idea of being married to Superman, the death of Luthor.... great stuff.

I haven't regularly followed Superman comics for a long time, but the story that's running now in Action and Superman is good stuff so far. (They've published five chapters out of eight, to date.) It's called Up, Up, and Away, written by Kurt Busiek and Geoff Johns, and drawn by Pete Woods. Spot-on characterization, good pacing, and a few "Yeah!" moments.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

As long as they keep Chuck Austen far away from it.

Heart & Soul of Superman?

[gypsy1969.livejournal.com]

From what I've read this actor really, really, really wanted to be Superman. He was crushed when Tom Wells beat him out for the Smallville part. Maybe his heart can win out where his physique does not. But then I'm not holding my breath, I'm just thankful they've finally done something new.

[raendrop.livejournal.com]

Of all the superheroes, I've always liked Superman the best. But what makes me very uneasy about this new movie is that in the preview I saw, I was left with the very strong impression that they were making Kal-el out to be some Jesus figure.

*shudder*

I mean, if nothing else, weren't the original creators Jewish?

But even so, I seriously dislike it when mainstream, ostensibly secular things are (suddenly) given a religious slant. I consider that a form of shoving unsolicited religion in my face, and I resent that intensely. The final episode of The X-Files turned me completely off to the whole series -- and I used to like it very much, despite a number of questionable episodes.

I'm going to wait until people I know have seen the movie before I decide to see it. The last thing I want is some random proselytism to ruin Superman for me.

Christopher Reeve: THE Man of Steel

[denali1.livejournal.com]

Tom, I'm with ya. Christopher Reeve was a flippin' forkin' hero, both in Real Life(tm) and in the movies. If you ever need a definition for determination, CR is the man.

And to be honest, like you, when I think of the Big Screen Superman, I think of Christopher. What can I say, I'm a child of the 70's and 80's.

I saw the trailer for Superman Returns. Like you, I was underwhelmed.

Now, you know what REALLY bakes my noodle? These turd hearders at Legendary now have the Warcraft license. I could just cry.

If they hire Uwe Boll to produce, I swear my head will explode.