We’re at an impasse here, because regardless of what you’re saying about SR, Superman: The Movie is my pick for the top of its genre. I’m not sure where the similarities are with Star Wars: Episode II, but I sure as hell don’t see them.
Umm sorry, but besides what Sano wrote in this thread…I haven’t seen what you’re talking about. Was it your blog site? Cuz that didn’t seem to tell me much…
I still plan to watch it eventually though.
Are you looking for a point-by-point analysis? We could do that, but the plot would be spoiled.
My opinion of it, in a nutshell, is that I can see why it would turn some people off, but for what it is, I think it works very well. It’s more of a character study and a drama than an action movie, which a lot of people aren’t prepared to accept in their quest for the latest Iron Man/X-Men/whatever. And it focuses on Superman’s vulnerable side, which is kind of an impediment for people who want to see him punching people in the face.
Anyway, I’ve got a pitch/miniature treatment started for my dream vision of the next Superman movie. Lots of villains, lots of action. It should thrill everybody.
Superman got beat up in the strip pretty good this week oooh… Looking forward to win he turns things around.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/comics/2009-08-18-wednesday-comics_N.htm
With regards to the above note, let’s move to a related topic: This issue: SUPERMAN DOESN’T DIE!
I’m curious what other people’s opinions are, especially since I’m not sure what my own are (well, firmly at least) even after reading the comments.
In a sense no major comic book character really dies for good or even ages that much. It’s just part of the way the medium is. 50 years from now some kid will be reading the adventures of Superman while he’s 20/30 and if I live that long I’ll be in my 80s. Lois, Jimmy, Lex and the rest of the gang will not have aged much either. It’s just part of the sliding timescale that goes along with comics. So the argument that “Superman doesn’t die!” can easily be said about Batman, Spider-Man, etc. Even when they do ‘die’ (like Superman actually has) it’s never permanent.
As far as the article goes I agree with this part.
***"And the thing is, that is actually a fate worth than death for Superman. Because he?s the ultimate survivor ? he escaped what killed the last planet he lived on, and ever since he?s been almost completely invulnerable. For him, failure doesn?t come with the sweet release of death. He?s going to have to live with it. He?s going to have to see that plane crash, that dead body, that burnt-out Earth. And that?s the sort of thing that would actually hurt Superman, not kryptonite lasers.
You can?t pierce his skin because he was born on Krypton, but because he was raised on Earth you can break his heart."***
My mistake. I should have called it the prologue. This week’s entry has the plot summaries for the first two acts of the story proper.
At long last, the big finale of my Superman movie pitch. See how it all ends!
(Cross-posted to the blog thread and movie thread.)
Hey is that the actual Grant Morrison posting a reply to part III or just a poster using that name?
Anyway gonna read the entire thing right now and let you know what I think. Tried to read it sooner but I’m a little short on free time this month.
Probably some comedian who recognized that my goal was to basically reshuffle All Star Superman into a conventional three-act movie structure.
I look forward to your thoughts.
Finished reading it and I think it would make an excellent movie. Favorite part has to be the opening scene with Krypton and its destruction. Myself I’m a very visual person and I think movies work best when they say so much with so little.
The problems of it being made into an actual movie, well, my guess is you don’t need me to tell you these things (and these are not critiques of your actual treatment of course) but Hollywood has a certain way of making superhero movies.
They try to ground them in reality as much as possible. Because it seems like they really want to make these movies not for fans as much but for people who will never pick up a comic book in their lives so they can say “I believe that can actually happen!” Which is silly on so many levels but this is the way they tend to approach things nowadays. I can’t think of a better example than Organic Webbing used in all of the Spider-Man movies. So they put more focus on the relationships with people above all of the fantastic elements. This is also a way to get people to believe / relate to this world where anyone who has ever read a comic before has no problem of doing so from the word go.
Suffice it to say that early scene in Smallville with, trying not to spoil much for those who haven’t read, ‘otherworldy elements’ is something a Hollywood flick would spend pretty much the entire film building up to getting joe schmoe to believe that such a thing is possible in this world. Which, in this day and age with all the special effects we have out there is not the best way to go about things. It looks real enough, people will buy it IMHO. At least I will since I consider myself to be a visual person in that regard. These movies tend to not be approached in such a way.
I certainly feel you on not reducing Lois to a damsel in distress. However, and this may be because I’m a heathen, neanderthal or I just haven’t evolved enough as a human being - no matter how many times I see Lois falling and Superman catching her I can’t help but feel good inside. I do think that it’s part of our mental wiring / brainwashing as males (and perhaps females too) who want to see something like this on the big screen. So I’m not sure how such a move like that would be recieved. Ideally I think most modern thinkers want to be the person who is above seeing said cliche for the thousanth time, but perhaps we are not there yet. Or I’m not, I guess.
Going off on a tangent, Lois and Clark’s relationships in the films - I don’t know it always feels a bit akward to me. From a comic book reading view point, you get that Clark is not the real deal so Lois should be falling for Superman. In the movies, for some reason it just always comes across as ‘anyone can fall for Superman hell everyone in the movie minus Lex loves him but you’d have to really love the guy to fall for Clark’ and I wind up routing for Lois and Clark above Lois and Superman. In the older movies, this was aided by Clark having wonderful chemistry with his Lois counterpart. In Returns Lois regards Clark pretty much as a can of paint which… I’m not sure was the best solution. And I did enjoy Returns but this was one aspect I wasn’t too crazy about.
Overall if you are going the sequel’s treatment, I’d move away from Lois being in denile of Clark being Superman like Morrison did in All Star. Again that works more in comics where an artist can draw Supes and Clark differently as opposed to a film where you have to get the audience to suspend belief, that she can’t figure out his identity because of a change of glasses and haircut. Of course, this does fall on Superman’s actor’s shoulders too. For me Christopher Reeves was the best at making Superman and Clark look and seem like different people.
If you already had all of the above in mind then I apologize. Chalk it up to a guy killing time at work before he is allowed to punch the clock and go on his merry way.
Your idea would make a kick ass movie and it is a much needed change of pace for the treatment of superhero movies that I would like to see. Nice going!
I was a bit disappointed that there was no Goku cameo in there somewhere. 
Sorry, if I don’t use a smiley or make a stupid comment like that people will start calling me a Skrull again… 
Which isn’t a bad strategy by any means. The model I’m essentially working off of is the Donner film, and he has made much of how he and Tom Mankiewicz (creative consultant and uncredited screenwriter) made sure to emphasize the romance. In their words, “If we can get the audience to root for these two kids, everything else will fall into place.”
But what they were more successful at doing was balancing that stuff with the fantasy-oriented material, which is something you don’t see so much these days. Not many modern superhero films would have the audacity to tell two complete mini-stories before the tights ‘n’ flights stuff even gets under way.
That’s the wish fulfillment factor, which is present in any superhero story. Siegel and Shuster weren’t shy about admitting it, either. Superman is a dork who can, at a moment’s notice, throw away his glasses and show the girl of his dreams what a catch he really is. That’s the initial draw of the character.
But that does ignore the evolution of the characters and their relationships in subsequent decades. Yes, Lois and Jimmy were originally around so Superman could save them from peril in the nick of time… but we have to be honest. After a while, it makes them look stupid and annoying when they’re constantly blundering into danger. It makes them look as though they’re incapable of learning from their mistakes, which is unbecoming for ace reporter Lois Lane and fast-rising cub reporter Jimmy Olsen.
I think that’s why they gradually went from being one-dimensional fantasy objects to major characters in their own rights. Maybe Joe the Plumber doesn’t know that Lois and Jimmy once had their own comics, but he can stand to see them in more assertive, equitable relationships with their caped friend. It makes them look smarter, and it makes the friendship look more genuine. Superman isn’t just around to help them out of scrapes.
One potential pitfall of my vision is that Superman himself might seem inconsequential if his friends are capable of doing so much themselves, which is why I tried to have them all fighting alongside each other, rather than simply saving each other’s asses.
I think the key here is that Lois and Clark have to be credible as both friends and professional rivals, in spite of her strictly platonic feelings. Lois was pretty chilly in Returns, which kind of mirrors the way she was in the 1970s comics, for what it’s worth. But I digress.
I think Morrison and Quitely incorporated a lot of Reeve’s performance, especially the way his entire body language changed between the two identities. Clark was as big as Superman, but in a clumsier, more uncomfortable way. But the larger issue is suspension of disbelief. If you can’t accept that he can fool his friends into thinking he’s two different people, you’re probably not going to accept the character at all. Superman, if nothing else, is about the secret identity, which brings us right back around to the first point about him ultimately being the dork with the hidden inner quality.
Yeah I don’t think the strategy Hollywood uses for these movies is necessarily bad and I’m not really a person who hates the idea of Organic Webbing or anything. On film it played our really well and PAD invented Organic Webs in Spider-Man 2099 besides, they weren’t necessarily a new idea. And the mini talons Spidey used to stick to walls in the movie were also like the talons Spidey 2099 had, but I digress.
I regard movies as ‘adaptations’ that do not replace anything I’ve ever read. I don’t want them to always be exactly like what I read, because then I know what is going to happen and it becomes a little boring to me. Unless the director, staff and so on uses their own creative touches to show these events in a different light. When that happens and it works everything is gravy.
When these movies are good they put the best aspects of what I read on the screen, when they are bad they are just… bad, I guess. I can’t say I’ve ever been one of these people who basically wishes a comic book movie was just a guy turning the pages of a comic on the big screen. I swear people sound like that sometimes.
Just pointing out the approaches movies these movies tend to use is all, starting off grounding them in reality as much as possible. It’s hilarious but if it’s an animated movie they feel like they can hit you with whatever from jump and you’ll buy it. With live action they go about things another way.
Well great response all around!
Heh, funny timing for this conversation…
Yeah, I was just thinking that. (Re: the thread.)
I used to feel differently, but after some hard evaluation, I’ve come to a similar conclusion: movie adaptations of comics must be treated as their own entity. I think it was Raymond Chandler, or one of those pulp story guys, who was asked how he felt about Hollywood ruining his books. His response was to point at his shelf and say, “There they are. They’re fine.”
That’s not to say there are specific cases for which I’d make exception. I still think the Watchmen movie was a fool’s errand. But there’s a big difference between adapting a masterpiece of form and structure, and adapting an amalgam of different story ideas taken from a variety of source material.
Superman strip came to a close this week, all 12 weeks are up. Not a strong ending IMHO but a fun read all the same. The artwork’s been amazing throughout.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/comics/2009-07-07-superman1_N.htm
Oh go for it if you could please (unless you already did in your blog, inwhich case I’ll go give it a read)
Woah, that’s exactly how I thought of the movie when I first saw it!:party:
I’ll try to get around to watching it this weekend, I’ve had for a couple of weeks but couldn’t get around to watching it ^_^;;;
BTW I read Supes: Secret Origins 1 and I liked it, so screw all the haters -w-
Oh wow, I’m glad I randomly decided to look at this thread. That Chandler quote made my day, but despite that, I can’t agree with him entirely. Like you said, it really boils down to the source material and how it is adapted. Nevertheless, I still feel warm and fuzzy in the fact that no matter how awful, the movie can never truly tarnish the original story. <3
What happened @ the end of Blackest Night:Superman #2?
I read the issue but I don’t remember exactly how it ended. Superman and Superboy / Conner Kent still fighting Black Lantern Golden Age Superman and Black Lantern Golden Age Lois Lane on the Kent farm is all I can recall. I think Pa Kent either came back as a Black Lantern or is about to.