MovieChat Forums > Superman Returns (2006) Discussion > I know what's wrong with this and all fu...

I know what's wrong with this and all future Superman movies


This was too Heavy if Superman had a lighter feel like the 1978 Superman and it's Sequel you'd have a better Superman if a Superman movie with the tone of Iron Man 1 was made that would be a good Superman I bet.

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Well I agree with you, but the serious DC fans dont.

But then to become a serious DC fan in the first place, you have to lack a sense of humor. They like grim and joyless stuff like the Nolan Batman movies, but not "SR". Nobody likes "SR", it's neither fun like the things mainstream audiences like, nor grim enough for the hardcore DC fans. It's just dull.

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Otter, I saw Superman: The Movie when it was first released in theaters, and it was a rousing good time. I led the cheer when Clark/Kal-el peeled back his dress shirt as he raced for the nearest phone booth to save Lois! Chris Reeve was one hell of a capable actor, and I believe he could have played dark or dour if called for, but his Superman was an inspirational bolt of hope in our universe, the Ubermensch on whom we could count and for whom we revelled in cheering. Superman II, for all its production problems, had the same ebullience and the same timeless lines—“Gee [Lois], then we REALLY need to talk” and “General, would you care to step outside?”*—that make some of us tear up unashamedly today. I know that you are saying that DC has changed. I recently saw Man of Steel, again, and I will take S II a million times over MOS, and I bet you would, too. Let’s take the actors out of the equation. We will all stipulate that Reeve mops the floor with Cavill in every respect. Let’s look at the script. I will take every and any version of S II over MOS. Do you think Ma Kent wants her son to murder for any reason? Neither do I.

My point is that DC originally left the comic book pages for motion media with The Adventures of Superman and, a decade later, with Batman, both of them Network TV shows, and both of them corny, good-hearted and fun. DC may have lost its way, but its founding legacy has a heart of hope and inspiration and faith, the three most powerful motivators known to humankind, with the exception of love.


* This may well be the greatest line that will ever be uttered in any comic book movie, past, present or future. I’ve seen all the comic book movies that have the gravitas to make them worth seeing. Marvel can be amusing, when it’s not being lowest-common-denominator, but it’s never inspiring, because snark, edgy, gritty and LCD besmirch the human spirit. Kal-el calling General Zod to step outside and fight like adults (of either gender) is a hero laying him/(her)self on the line with honor and dignity and class. This line was quoted verbatim in the CW crossover event, Crisis On Earth-X as a testimony to its immortalality.

PS Leaving script and the director aside (and, NO, Bryan, no one in his or her right mind thinks Superman’s dual identity is code for homosexuality), Brandon Routh almost looks like Chris Reeve, but he wasn’t Chris Reeve. I’ve grown really to like the guy in (Dear Sweet Lord, please help me and I am serious when it comes to my Lord) Scott Pilgrim, and moreso in Legends of Tomorrow. Routh is too sweet to be Superman, and, when Parker Posey (the BEST thing in SR)’s heart shattered when she watched Luthor’s goons, who were not fit to lick the mud off Superman’s boots, kick the crap out of a literally helpless Kal-el, we could not be helped but moved; but Superman is too noble, too strong, too stoic to let himself be so ignobled. Strong people reply, “Is THAT all you’ve got?” and other words. The film had a bad script and an agenda-driven director, but an actor like Sean Connery, John Wayne or Clint Eastwood would have rejected every bit of pathos in that scene and made it his own personal triumph.

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"I recently saw Man of Steel, again, and I will take S II a million times over MOS, and I bet you would, too."

You win your bet, sir! And yeah, I've loved "Superman" and "Superman II" for many years now, with a deep and abiding, if now slightly nostalgic love. They're just wonderful movies, everything a superhero movie should be. Not that I don't enjoy the heck out of Marvel films, but there was a decency and sincerity to the Donner Superman films that has never been duplicated.

Although... the one decent DC movie that I've seen so far was "Wonder Woman", and it's good because it actually seemed to have paid attention to what made the best superhero movies of all time good. Like the Superman of the eighties, the Wonder Woman of the 2010s discovers what an imperfect world civilized Earth really is, and doesn't despair, but makes it better, and makes humanity better. The ideal superhero should be genuinely uplifting, not someone who comes in and beats up the bad guy, but someone who is a better person than us and who makes the rest of us want to be better persons as well.


PS: Marvel doesn't do that, but part of Marvel's charm is that its superheroes aren't uplifting True Heroes, they're basically ordinary people with all the flaws of ordinary people, who ended up with superpowers. That's fun in its own way.


PPS: Thor excepted. He wasn't born ordinary and given powers, he was born the God of Thunder, Prince of Asgard!

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I myself am a huge fan of the Donner Superman films. They still stand as the best Superman films to date. Nothing comes close to topping or even matching them. I will be fair it is a tough act to match the brilliance of Donner's films.

I think I know the pitfall though. I honestly think that producers, writers and directors keep on trying to go over story blueprints Donner has already done. Superman Returns is a sequel pretending like Superman 3 and 4 do not exist. The problem with this is it confuses modern audiences but beyond that why do Clark and Lois look like they just graduated high school and are barely college age?

Anyhow it basically is a poor imitation of Donner's Superman. Is it awful no just dull. It does not come close to the inspiration that Donner had. Also the whole land grab scheme Lex had yeah we saw that in the first film. Even the lines what did my father say to me? Mind over muscle etc. Then came Man of Steel which while it is a reboot is basically a modernized Superman 2. It is basically Superman the movie and Superman 2 rolled into one film just simply remove Lex. Oh and splice in Batman Begins in there as well. The whole flashbacks and out of order sequence stuff. Change the tone as opposed to lighthearted and inspiring it is now dull dreary and gritty. That fits Batman that does not fit Superman. Can Superman be darker than the Donner version yes but it still needs to be inspiring.

When they made Man of Steel I was like okay it is a reboot of the origin which I was already skeptical about, but I was like okay who is the villain? Once they said Zod I was like oh my hell are you kidding me? I was against doing the origin again anyway because Donner did it so well you will not top it. However couldn't they at least have given us a new villain? I don't know like Brainiac? He is perfect he ties into the krypton mythology and is a physical as well as mental threat. I knew the reason they wanted Zod was action beats cause you know the only reason people hated Superman Returns was because it had no action... It was not the unengaging story...

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Everyone and their dog knows Superman's origin story. You have to take a completely new direction with the series. Amazing Spider-man made this same mistake. Raimi's Spider-man came out it was a critical hit as well as a cultural hit. Batman Begins worked because Batman's origin was never told. Burton's Batman only ever alluded to it it never delved into it. Therefore when we saw Batman Begins it was a completely new story blueprint.

Spider-man Homecoming I was not crazy about, but it showed you do not need to do an origin story in order to make a reboot. This same thing needs to be applied to Superman. Pivot with Brainiac as your villain. A villain that has so much potential and yet has never been utilized.

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Everyone hated SR because the story was a retread of "Superman", a vastly inferior retread. And it was terribly dull.

I really disliked "MoS" and " BvsS" etc., because in a way they were they were the opposite of the films I love, and not just in terms of quality Instead of a Superman who uplifts the world, they gave us a Superman who is dragged down by humanity's awfulness. That is SO wrong, it completely misses the point of Superman! No, Batman is the only DC hero who can get away with being little better than his opponents. Superman exists to be better, how the hell could Snyder miss that.

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Otter and moviefanatic, you both write very well and with conviction. You put yourself into what you write. I wish that we had more posters like you two: people who write instead of post. In the Wonder Woman section here, I wrote an essay, A Passionate Appreciation of Wonder Woman, where I suggested that Wonder Woman was a direct descendant of Superman II, with the same uplifting tone and the faith that the word can be made BETTER. I’d been just about to write that maybe the world today has lost the hope and just-plain goodness that informed the Donner films (including one of my favorites, Ladyhawke), but then I remembered Wonder Woman—which made a ton of money, so the audience for hope and faith is out there. (Disney’s Once Upon A Time series was ALL about hope and was a big hit until its final season.) I believe we can continue to hope for super movies that are more uplift and less mindless bombast!

(I saw The Avengers for the first time last week and nearly fell asleep. It was ALL fighting fighting fighting with no discernible story. Meta-porn.)

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I didn't mind the heaviness necessarily but it was just boring. I appreciate Singer's obvious reverence for the Donner films's style but there was no sense of urgency or much in the way of action.

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And the interpersonal relationships between the main characters were completely uninvolving. It's pretty much an all-around failure of a film, neither fun nor moving. It's probably the worst film Bryan Singer has ever made, he may be a horrible human being but he's a very good director and has made some excellent movies.

Okay, there's a hot guy in spandex to watch, which is something, but the Routh has so little charisma that his good looks aren't enough to keep me watching.

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Best part of the movie: Superkid kills the bad guy with a piano; plus Parker Posey. Other than that, not much. Oh, and no one wants to see thugs kick the toadstools out of a helpless King Of The Superheroes. Nobody.

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Parker Posey. She would had been an excellent Lois Lane and they give us the finger by making her the ditzy moll.

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I completely agree, and have always thought, that Posey should have been cast as Lois Lane.

Great minds think alike😁

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Yeah, keep Superman more upbeat, with a little more lighthearted feel of wondrous adventure. Keep the dark, pretentious stuff to Batman.

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