I don't love the costume, and I'm not thrilled about rehashing the origin again, but it looks like it could be decent.
Again?
The last time a SM movie went over the origin story, it was 1978.
I figure 34 years is a decent amount to wait on a reboot.
Again?
The last time a SM movie went over the origin story, it was 1978.
Seems like only yestreday...
The article I was looking for was "an" not "the". I'm just generally sick of revisiting these origins every time a studio thinks they might be able to squeak out a new series of films. It'd be alright if they didn't have a tendency to dwell overlong on them.
Seems like only yestreday...
The article I was looking for was "an" not "the". I'm just generally sick of revisiting these origins every time a studio thinks they might be able to squeak out a new series of films. It'd be alright if they didn't have a tendency to dwell overlong on them.
And considering how things go these days, we should expect the next Superman reboot in... 2016?
An origin story can be interesting if there's a new take on it. Batman Begins had one.
As for the limited choice in villains. Well the public at large aren't generally well versed in comic book villains. Superman it's Lex Luthor and Zod. Batman has the big four people remember from the 60s version, Joker, Ridler, Penguin and Catwoman. When you are pouring money into a movie you fall back on formula that you know worked once before in the past. Recognizable supporting cast, established villain and SOP origin plot.
I think the notion of how a "strange visitor from another planet with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men" would be seen as the world's greatest threat is a notion I welcome.
Its not a proper CoH community thread about Superman until people start working out which of the CoH origins he'd fit into.
Supes Now, what Archetype and power sets do you choose? Tank, Inv/SS, is my take on it, of course. :)
He'd be an ice tank - DCUO says so.
A rant on another gaming forum that I went on back when this project first got announced:
Personally, I got a lot of enjoyment out of Superman Returns. As someone who grew up with the Christopher Reeves films, it was exactly what I would've expected out of a Superman film. It captured the look and feel of those movies, right down to the "3-D" 'flying at your face' opening credits. But I have a feeling it would've taken more than just a different directing style to put Superman at the top of the box office. I always hear nothing but whines about Superman, and this is long before SR came out. It's not much of a stretch to say that "Nobody likes Superman." And IMO it's for a simple reason... society sucks. Now before anyone slaps a fanboy label on me, let me clarify that. I'm saying "Nobody likes Superman because society sucks", not "Society sucks because nobody likes Superman."
First of all, a great deal of Superman was obviously taken from old mythology, more specifically, half-human/half-God characters like Hercules (or in Supe's case, half-alien). Such characters were, no big shock, VERY powerful. Having one parent who was a deity will give you that kind of immortality. This also brings with it a form of jealousy that you typically won't see with other more 'human' superheroes. It's already been said once or twice in this thread. "He's too powerful!" This is even touched upon in Superman Returns, when Lex Luthor says "Gods are selfish beings who fly around in little red capes and don't share their power." Obviously, having Superman beat to within an inch of death and hospitalized on full life support wasn't enough to supress the audience's hatred of his powers.
Jealousy is far too petty of a reason for all the 'hate mail' Superman recieves though. For a great deal of storytelling history, superheroes were people that society could look up to, and aspire to be more like. Even if we couldn't achieve the same great power of the superheroes, we could still follow their example, and do what is within our capabilities. The problem here (and this is where the hatred of Superman really comes from) is we no longer want that. To aspire to be like a Superhero forces us to look into ourselves and see how we can improve. Superman makes us look bad... really bad. He has enough power to bring humanity to its knees without even breaking a sweat, yet he treats us with all the gentle handling and etiquette of a boyscout helping an old lady across the street, regardless of how stressed out he might be. Of course nobody in modern society likes that. We'd much rather have Michael Douglas in "Falling Down." We want a hero who would do exactly what we would do. We want our idols to tell us that we don't need to improve. Apparently turning Superman into a deadbeat father who fornicates with Lois Lane just before abandoning Earth for a few years wasn't enough to change anyone's opinion of his 'pansy-assed personality' or his 'flawless moral code.' Maybe if he'd beat the living pancake out of Lex Luthor in a police interrogation room the way Batman did to the Joker, people would be more accepting of him. In fact, I'd bet my money on it. Superman simply isn't made of the stuff that an impulse-based society can relate to. The same goes for his main character flaw: lonliness. In a reality where we will do anything, ANYTHING to fit in and be accepted, how can we possibly relate to an orphaned alien living on a foreign world who won't abandon his concept of good & evil no matter what? Quite obviously, we can't.
Perhaps it really would be better if the franchise were just abandoned instead of relaunching whatever "as dark as the characters will allow" version of Superman they have in mind. Who will be deciding how dark the characters will allow? If it's audience surveys or the producers (who again, will do anything, ANYTHING, to appeal to the general population), all we'll get out of this reboot is a sick perversion. Better to bring on Doomsday with the present incarnation and bury him, never to grace the silver screen again. Superman would rather die than lose his identity just to be fashionable. But that's what Superman would do. That's not what we would do.
In short, most of what makes Superman interesting isn't his power, but his inner struggles. And nobody wants to go to a blockbuster film to see a superhero meditating on emptiness in his ice castle. They want to see him smash, smash some more, smash some more stuff, give us a moral lesson that takes less than 1 minute of screen-time to deliver, and then get back to the smashing.