Will it be bigger and dumber, or slightly better, if I see it in IMAX with some twenty minutes of 3D?
One of my huge problems with Superman is that he's maximally powerful in this movie—in the comics, at least these days in the comics, Superman can't piece out every conversation on Earth from a sufficient vantage point or know about every disaster without, at least part of the time, finding out through the news. With a Superman that is in fact a god, like the one we get in this movie, it's problematic that he's sometimes stalking Lois, and not just because that makes him a perv in latex. We know that Superman knows there's a train crashing somewhere in the world when he's flying around the moon with her. The audience certainly knows that Superman knows that some sort of awful crime is happening somewhere while he's working 8 hours a day at a job whose sole purpose now, it seems, is to get him closer to Lois Lane.
Also, Singer/this film killed the love triangle between Clark/Lois/Supes. Lois Lane actively disregards Clark Kent, not disregards him in a romantic sense for otherwise affectionate reasons. This is too bad, since Kate Bosworth, who's only 13, played a fantastic, grizzled careerist Lane, especially given the script that she was.
Lex Luthor only works as a villain for Superman when he has some sort of public legitimacy—either as CEO of Lexcorps or mayor off Metropolis or what have you. Luthor's plan had the appropriate scale, an evil scheme to bend the world to his control, but it didn't make any damned sense for his gain or the world's loss (MY among others pointed out that sending in the Navy would have done the trick here)—and furthermore introduced some wonky metaphysics regarding Supes and kryptonite. No sir, I don't like it.
Lex Luthor only works as a villain for Superman when he has some sort of public legitimacy
I'm not sure how I felt about President Lex.
The biggest thing that bugged me about the movie was that Superman made *such* an unconvincing Clark Kent. He's supposed to be *calculatedly* dopey, not genuinely so. Also, Armsmasher gets the "pervy" thing exactly right. Also, Superman isn't really shown as being extremely intelligent and cool like he is in some other movies. He's so easily outwitted, and he lets himself be overcome by emotion! And then they don't even really do a good job with the emotion! I want to see a Superman that can outsmart his opponents, not one who can win in an arm-wrestling match.
But...but...the Navy wouldn't work against SUPER ADVANCED KRYPTONIAN TECHNOLOGY! Christ, we can't even protect ourselves from North Korea.
Oh, and as far as consistency goes, how is it that Superman can hear conversations from space, where there's no air to transmit the sound waves? And how is it that he can pick up half a yacht will all the support concentrated in a few square areas on a single beam without simple ripping the beam out of the yacht? And rapidly decelerate a whole plane with force applied to a few square inches on the nose? That's like trying catch a vollyball with a needle.
But Luthor never had the advanced Kryptonian technology! Trinidad & Tobogo is a bigger threat to American interests than Lex Luthor.
but did you see how well T&T did in the WOrld Cup? Time to invade to preempt the rise of a Soca Superpower...
5 - Speaking of North Korea, I thought Ezra's take was great:
Reacting to North Korea's missiles that don't fly with a missile defense system that doesn't function seems somehow fitting to me. A return to symmetrical, if incompetent, warfare.
I've pretty much always hated the superman concept. A hero who's all-powerful and has a stupid unrequited crush on a chick at work? boooring.
I've always greatly preferred Superman to Spiderman. Self-pitying poor fool with a misguided since of duty and impossibly bad luck in his personal life? Eww. Although, IIRC, the comics were not nearly as bad about the whole self-pitying dork aspect.
"Asides: couldn't we just lose Clark Kent completely? He's kind of annoying, he couldn't possibly be fooling anyone, and I've kind of lost track of why Superman needs an alter ego in the first place."
Given that comics aren't your thing, I wouldn't really recommend that you check out Smallville. It's intrinsically rather a teenage soap opera (although everyone in it is unbelievably pretty, male and female both, including the astonishingly beautiful Kristin Kreuk), and I can't claim that the writing is brilliant, or that it's some kind of West Wing/NYPD Blue/name-your-favorite-sophisticated-drama, and the plots tend to fall apart logically if one doesn't squint, but, on the other hand, if you like popcorn, and are in the mood for light-hearted fluff, it is fun (if you like the sort of thing that it is -- have I caveated enough yet?), but most of all, Clark Kent is the character; "Superman" hasn't even been invented yet (though Clark does tend to dress in blue and red, and sometimes a bit of yellow shows up), and there's no "Superboy" -- just Clark slowly learning about his powers, and right and wrong, and also the normal parts of growing up, as the years progress over the 6 or so years of the show so far.
Anyway, it would answer your question, and the answer would be "no": without Clark, there's no character -- just an empty costume.
"I've pretty much always hated the superman concept. A hero who's all-powerful...."
Well, he's not, actually. He was for a time in the early/mid Sixties, but really that was a relatively short time in the history of the character; for decades before that, he wasn't, and since then he never has been. (Although a lot of ignorant babyboomers who know squat about comics beyond a few issues they saw when they were kids remain convinced that that's How Comics Have Always Been, and go around idiotically claiming stuff like that; but as I've blogged many times, they have no idea what they're talking about.)
I like the view of Superman better that Supes is in fact the man, and Clark is his disguise. Though I would like to see a Superman story in which he has to solve a situation using journalism. Lots of heroes can fight Darkseid, but we need someone who can take down Judy Miller.
the astonishingly beautiful Kristin Kreuk
Prefer the blonde. Kreuk is beautiful but empty, and the blonde is pretty and fun.
Funny, Gary, that you bring up Smallville, here and in your post. I like the show, and I like it because the characters are interesting and sympathetic and recognizably human.
But you might think, hey, there's room for a cool small-town growing-up-super story *and* for a big blockbuster movie too, and I thought the latter would work better without all the Clark-being-goofy stuff. (My basic thought is: what could be left out in order to get more good stuff in?) I think I can imagine an all-Superman/no-Clark movie being pretty interesting, even if, as a comic book or series, it wouldn't work.
"Prefer the blonde."
Allison Mack ("Chloe" -- a character with no derivation from the comics, so far as I know) is immensely cute. Yeah, I'd certainly figure that -- were I somehow in their fictional universe -- I'd be far more likely to connect with the cute one than the astonishingly beautiful one, but I'm just sayin'. (Not to mention that they were in high school and have now only been out for two years.) But, hey, teh boys are also pretty for teh girls. (And Michael Rosenbaum's Lex Luthor is undoubtedly the most interesting take I've ever seen on the character, by far; not at all a cartoon, but a deeply rich and complex personality with many facets.)
When I was a kid I wrote a Superman story about Kal-El coming to earth (i.e., leaving Krypton) as a fully grown adult—it was my take on the common Superman-as-an-arrogant-god theme. In my comic he didn't greatly care for Earth's people but took great satisfaction in protecting an entire world from all comers over the centuries. It started with a panel showing Superman, having single-handedly defended the world from the Star Conqueror, flying through the atmosphere in such a way to make a continual light display of red and blue alternating stripes (in a Morris Louis vein, as I recall in hindsight) that last for months as he flies, though the wind currents generated by his speed wreck weather havoc on the hapless population below.
I'm not sure how I felt about President Lex.
I am. It's always struck me as a pretty lame and unbelievable plot device. Lex Luthor's personality doesn't mesh with the kind of constant snivelling accomodation to the public that politicians have to display — particularly politicians trying to cover up a recent history of super-villainy. Better to run LexCorp and take over the world from there. Who cares about public legitimacy when you're moments away from rebuilding Brainiac?
I think the "public legitimacy" thing is slightly off the mark. Superman gets put into positions where he can't defeat Lex not because Lex has the public's endorsement, but because defeating Lex would require Superman to commit an injustice. That Luthor is up to something is never in question. But the problem isn't that the public doesn't yet realize it, it's that "he's up to something" isn't a sufficient standard of proof to justify (imprisoning someone in a parallel dimension|destroying his flying fortress|throwing his latest invention into the sun).
Well, he's not [all-powerful], actually. He was for a time in the early/mid Sixties, but really that was a relatively short time in the history of the character; for decades before that, he wasn't, and since then he never has been.
I donno. He remains pretty goddamn powerful. He's clearly the most powerful regular character in the DC Universe. I'll admit that I'm more familiar with him lately from the JLU TV show than from the books (although I have read some JLA ones recently, at least). But he's still closer to the all-powerful end of the spectrum than not -- for storytelling purposes at least.
I dislike the superman concept, and only the previews made me want to see this movie - because it's summer, and it looked fun to watch. I so deliberately kept from thinking too about the plot or consistency, and actually enjoyed it. The biggest problem, that my determined simplemindedness couldn't push out, was the fucking music. Enough already!
That said, the quirks. I don't think Supes was actually in space, just in the outer recesses of the atmosphere. But since when can Superman survive in a vaccuum for 5 years? Last I knew, he still had to breathe. And yeah, the boat thing and the kryptonite island which mysteriously didn't weaken Supes until he was conveniently done with his task, and the apparant lack of the boasted advanced alien technology was all pretty hard to ignore, plus that fact that the krystal soil was pretty unsuitable for farming, and therefore habitation, and also that with so much of the world dead and the world economy destroyed, it would seem Lex's standard of living could only go *down* because of his scheme. You're rich! You have no running water or toilets!
"Funny, Gary, that you bring up Smallville, here and in your post. I like the show, and I like it because the characters are interesting and sympathetic and recognizably human."
Ah, well, interesting. I'd have guessed you, and most folks here, weren't familiar with it, just on general principles.
I've still not yet seen the movie, I'm afraid; a bit loath to spare the $6.50 for even a matinee at present, plus various other reasons it's not been convenient. Could theoretically go today or tomorrow or Wednesday, but I'm also a bit jammed for time (one silly reason is that I have books that have to get back to the library by Wednesday, so either I'll cram to finish them, or I'll return them unfinished, which always annoys me). So dunno if I'll go before Thursday (by which time I might be down to $.40, instead of the vast two figures I have today), or what; depends which anxieties rule, I suppose.
"I think I can imagine an all-Superman/no-Clark movie being pretty interesting, even if, as a comic book or series, it wouldn't work."
Well, certainly there have been long streaks of various issues in various series in which Clark had no place (Superman is off on a mission in space, for instance, or with the Justice League, perhaps, or in Kandor, or whathaveyou). The key thing about Superman, of course, is that like most any major comic character, he's had so many different incarnations, and takes on his character; in different time periods, under the hands of different editors and writers, he's practically an entirely different person. And, of course, he's been around longer than any other comics character, so he really has had some wildly different characterizations, including, of course, being dead, being Red and Blue, being Electric, and let's not even get into the Mort Weisinger or Sixties days when he was constantly with the Red K and getting a Giant Head, or being turned into an ape, or whatever else was the madness that week (the same always happening with Jimmy Olsen -- it would explain a lot to learn that Weisinger was simply nonstop on acid for several years there).
I suppose I'll likely say something when I finally see this movie. On the other hand, I'm still rolling Munich around in the back of my head, trying to decide if I'll write anything about it at some point, or not. I tend to do that a lot with movies: thinking about them a great deal, but only occasionally write something.
As I did blog several times, my great disappointment came quite a while back, when I realized that Bryan Singer was intending to do an homage/extension of the first two Donner pictures, rather than a fresh take on the character a la Batman Begins. That we won't see such a retake on the character, now, in a big budget movie, for decades to come, continues to disappoint me, but, then, as I emphasized in my last post on the topic, Superman does, after all, exist primarily in the comics, so whenever I get access to someone's comics collection to leaf through at leisure, again (man, comics are expensive!), I can always catch up with him there, where he'll almost surely always be vastly better written and more interesting, anyway.
Jeez, I really should remember to preview, and also to close tags. Bad me.
Shazam could kick Superman's ass. (At least, before Infinite Crisis—I dunno if there is a Shazam any more.)
So, so true, Michael. Also, while we're carping, did we need to know that Lex had given Gertrude pleasure beyond her wildest imaginings? That kind of made me feel icky.
My favorite superman story is probably from Astro City #1, where a superman-clone character (named Samaritan) is depicted as a complete slave to his beeper, like a superpowered medical resident, counting up the seconds each day he gets to fly between rescues/disasters/supervillain encounters, because he doesn't have the time to just fly around for the fun of it. Don't think it would work as a plot for a movie, though.
"I donno. He remains pretty goddamn powerful."
Sure, but there's an immense and crucial distance between "all-powerful" and "pretty goddamn powerful."
The latter leaves plenty of room for him to be constantly challenged in endless issue after issue, by a thousand different types of threats, including even characters who are approximately as strong as he is (Mongul), or even stronger (Doomsday), but also including loads who simply threaten him asymetrically (Parasite, Darkseid, magically, mentally controlling him a la Maxwell Lord, endless aliens, simply being too clever for him, or posing an over-complicated threat [OMAC], etc., etc., etc.).
"But since when can Superman survive in a vaccuum for 5 years? Last I knew, he still had to breathe."
The Sixties version could; the John Byrne-and-post version, since 1986, can't (survive in a vacuum without a breathing apparatus for longer than he can hold his breath).
re: the breath holding -- I don't think that was actually a plot hole. He crashes back to earth along with some gigantic chunk of crystal, which he later assures Ma Kent that he's buried. I couldn't figure out what the hell it was (maybe I missed that line of dialogue), but a crystalline Kryptonian spaceship seems like a reasonable guess.
(The Astro City is my favorite Superman story aside from this classic, of course)
wreck weather havoc
So, he prevented weather havoc? That was nice of him, though it's an odd choice of words to be sure. Or perhaps you meant that he wreaked havoc?
It's nice of you to take a break from live World Cup festivities to BSALB, Ben.
I like Clark Kent, for the Kavalier and Clay reason---he's exactly the kind of goyisher American a certain kind of mid-century Jewish Brooklyn kid would have chosen to be. Hmmm. Here:
... they're all Jewish, superheroes. Superman, you don't think he's Jewish? Coming over from the old country, changing his name like that. Clark Kent, only a Jew would pick a name like that for himself.
But Clark is how Superman imagines Americans to be---a little naive, but importantly decent, and worth saving. Superman is thus himself naive, and also a rebuke to us.
Superman can't be Jewish. How would you circumcise him?
33: Heat vision. Or a magic scalpel.
Superman can't be Jewish. How would you circumcise him?
Let's not dive back into the debate about the minimum requirements for Jewishness.
Michael Rosenbaum's Lex Luthor is undoubtedly the most interesting take I've ever seen on the character
I've literally seen no more than five episodes of Smallville, but isn't this just because he's not cast as the primary villain (in ones I've seen either his father was more villainous or there was (what looked like) a one-shot villain).
25: I've only read the first two volumes of Astro City (a few years ago), but they were great. Of course, Marvelman/Miracleman is another obvious interesting take on the situation of the character.
"Superman can't be Jewish. How would you circumcise him?"
John Byrne had him shaving every day with reflected heat vision from a mirror (I forget if the mirror came from metal of the Kryptonian spaceship, or what; it's been twenty years since that revision, after all). Plus he could be cut under the light of a red sun, under the influence of Kryptonite, magic, alien science, an alternate dimension, yadda yadda yadda. It's not as if he hasn't had plenty of broken limbs, injuries, or died, etc., etc., etc.
Although I don't think there's ever been an issue in which Zod, The Kryptonian Mohel, arrived and announced that since Kal-El hadn't been circumcised before he left Krypton, the job must now be completed....
"I've literally seen no more than five episodes of Smallville, but isn't this just because he's not cast as the primary villain (in ones I've seen either his father was more villainous or there was (what looked like) a one-shot villain)."
Not really. First of all, back in the Sixties comics, Superboy (who now has no longer existed in continuity since 1986 and the Crisis On Infinite Earths, except for the various later versions that did then come to exist, except... oh, never mind) and Lex were boyhood pals (this is not the "original" Luthor continuity, either; Luthor has also had ~85 different versions and continuity).
But also Smallville exists in linear time, and things and relationships and people change, to varying degrees, over the course of a seaon, and from season to season. That's about all I can say without giving away spoilers, save that the trajectory of the thing is perfectly obvious and not meant to be otherwise. But the evolution of characters and relationships is one of the things that keeps the series mildly interesting. (Virtues of modern tv drayma.)
I've just finished translating a George Reeves Superman episode from the 60s, which turns out to be pretty awesome.
I think part of the reason Luthor works so well in Smallville is that you know (or at least you're almost sure) what he's going to grow up to be, but he's not there yet. And so you look for the seeds of the future villain in this guy who's basically pretty decent, if extremely egotistical and self-absorbed and somewhat callous.
Gary, is a complete disregard for the physics of structural integrity a common feature of all Superman iterations?
41: The dude can fly. Granted, it's easier to suspend disbelief when the mechanics are so mindblowingly unfeasible all the violated laws can hardly be enumerated, but I don't think the plane scene required an unacceptable suspension of disbeliefs. It all looked kind of awesome and American.
Shazam could kick Superman's ass.
In a fight, all Superman would have to do is start a comment with "Well, . . ." and Shazam's power would be reduced by 10%.
"Gary, is a complete disregard for the physics of structural integrity a common feature of all Superman iterations?"
To mildly varying degrees. For a period back in the Seventies/Eighties there was an attempt to explain Superman's powers as actually primarily telekinetic in nature -- I think this may have been Elliot S! Maggin's conceit, but I don't recall for sure -- which thus explained why, in that period, his costume would be indestructible (an idea later tossed out), and, most of all, why he could hold up huge structures without them collapsing, as physics would otherwise dictate -- his telekinetic force field held them together, you see.
But that was sufficiently far afield from the general gist of Superman that it didn't last, and was never really pushed in a major way, I think (mind, I'm the furthest thing from a real expert on this stuff; I keep repeating that I last bought comics when they were twelve cents), and was dropped by the mid-Eighties at the latest.
Mostly DC and Marvel physics, and science in general, despite occasional half-assed attempts to explain them, just can't really be made very reconcilable with the real world. Not beyond some occasional hand-waving, anyway. (It's all mutant powers!)
40 gets it exactly right.
The same complaint (disregard for the physics of structural integrity) always bothered a friend of mine about Spiderman. Spidey's real super power was somehow causing drywall not to break off in foot-sized chunks.
42: I don't think the plane scene was as bad as the boat scene. But for some reason they decided that the plane's wings couldn't support the requisite force, and so they got ripped off as superman attempted to use them to stop the spin. Pretty realistic, no? And then there's not so much as a dent in the nose of the plane.
Also, if Superman can fly so fast, why did it take him like twenty seconds to get from the space shuttle back down to the plane? What a slacker.
The greatest example of the structural integrity fallacy has to be back during his peak All-Powerful era in the early/mid-Sixties, when he could literally push planets out of their orbit. I seem to recall seeing him doing this by engaging in what most of us would think of as standing on his hands; naturally, this resulted in his moving the whole planet, rather than, you know, plowing into and through dirt and rock.
Given that at other times in the same period he could blithely tunnel through the entire planet, it's a tad unclear how he could alternate the effects. Willpower, I guess.
But they gave up all that shit in the 1986 Byrne restart. (Which was subsequently revamped a few times, anyway, but he's never gone back to that Utterly All-Powerful God-like scenario, much though a lot of boomers who haven't looked at comics since their childhoold don't realize it.)
Of course, the original Superman that Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster (two oft-misspelled guys) created could only leap tall buildings, not fly, and could be staggered, though not harmed, by a bursting shell; he wasn't remotely as powerful as he was later made in the Fifties and Sixties. (For that matter, much of his famous surroundings (changed in later years, anyway) weren't invented in the comics, but in the newspaper comic strip (such as the "Daily Planet"; it was the "Daily Star" in the original comics), or in the radio show (Jimmy Olsen, Perry White, Inspector Henderson; in the Seventies Clark moved to Galaxy Broadcasting and tv, but then that was retroactively wiped away, and, well, don't ask).
"it's a tad unclear how he could alternate the effects."
In the latest movie, he plows into the earth at one point, and they show him spinning extremely quickly, as if a drill.
"In the latest movie, he plows into the earth at one point, and they show him spinning extremely quickly, as if a drill."
He does that in the Donner films, too.
Of course, in the Donner films, Kryptonians could also shoot beams out of their hands, and give kisses that cause amnesia.
At least they didn't have to fight polar bears.
14: There's an episode of the animated series the WB did a few years ago where essentially Superman gambles with someone's life because he's curious to see whether Clark Kent can actually save the day.
Also, FL, there's a Television Without Pity summary of an episode of Smallville I think you might enjoy.