Superman Through the Ages! Forum

Administrator's note: this topic has been split from this one (http://superman.nu/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1870).

Well, you can stick a fork in this movie; it's done.

The SDCC footage that was said to have gotten a standing ovation finally hit the 'Net in the 22nd blog at http://www.bluetights.net...and the reaction to the footage was resoundingly negative. Screen caps of said blog can be found here:

http://www.kal-el.org/blog022/

Routh was excoriated in every conceivable way. His looks, his build, his costume, his hair, his voice...he's been condemned as a total pretender to the throne.

Bosworth was trashed for much the same reasons.

Langella was slammed for being too fat and too bald (he keeps his hair cut short).

The unfinished FX shots (a flying sequence and Superman coming out of his Kryptonian travel pod) were flayed for looking phony.

The deco set designs were trashed for being "too dark," "too gothic," "too Batman-like," "too outdated," and "not modern enough."

The hazy Sky Captain cinematography was bashed for being "too ugly," "too rusty and dingy," and "not bright enough for Superman."

The use of the John Williams music has been taking more abuse than ever.

Further, the claims of a "standing ovation" at the SDCC...well, that was just WB spin-doctoring. The real reaction, as proven by the response to the blog, is solid and total rejection. People who were supporters of Singer have fast changed their tune, those who wanted the Byrne version of Superman on film have become more virulent in their protests, the Wellingites are now 100% convinced that WB will make a Tom Welling Superman movie/TV show spun out of Smallville as an apology for SR, and worst of all, the fanbase has gone from championing the JJ Abrams/Jon Peters/McG/Brett Ratner script (which they still want back, by the way) to now demanding the return of Tim Burton and his "darker, more murderous" non-flying Superman with the knife-emblem, Supermobile, and translucent "see my guts" suit. I'm not kidding. They actually want Burton and his Wacko Jacko Supes back instead of a movie based on the pre-Byrne Superman.

The buzz on Superman Returns is now officially WORSE than Catwoman, and it's only going to get worse as the film nears release. This movie's going to be The Island in a red cape.

I've watched the SDCC movie footage from blog 22 (5:19 to 6:08 ) many times.

It's absolutely fantastic.  I give it a standing ovation. :)

:s:

King Krypton writes:



Geez, King, you sure hang out at some negative-minded sites.  It wasn't that long ago you had equally dire predictions about Batman Begins based on internet nay-sayers, and that movie was faring pretty well, last time I checked.

I take anything the fanboys say with a grain of salt.  They get up in the morning looking for things to gripe about; it's their whole reason to live.  Maybe Superman Returns does have the worst buzz since "Catwoman" (though from what I've seen elsewhere, that's not at all the case), but in the end what killed Catwoman was not the opinions of fanboys, it was the fact that it was a bad film.  The general public stayed away in droves, and not because of what comic book readers said about the movie, not because it wasn't "Selina Kyle," etc.  It was because reviews were almost all negative and word-of-mouth from early audiences was even worse.

The truth is the only people who DID see Catwoman were fanboys, comic geeks who will go see any movie based on a comic regardless of how bad it is.  They will complain about the Fantastic Four, but they'll see it.  They'll complain about Constantine, but they'll see it.  The one group Hollywood can count on seeing comic-based movies is comics fans.  The problem comes in when they are the ONLY ones going, because there aren't that many of them.  

In other words, these guys complaining about the Superman movie will be the first in line to see it, if for no other reason than to say "I told you so."  Of course if it ends up being good, they'll claim they knew it all along.

Monkeys with keyboards.

I am perplexed by some of Singer's choices -- the reliance on elements from films the cultural cache of which expired decades ago seems to run against all marketing logic -- but I can't pass judgement today on a film that's not even finished lensing yet!  Some signs are encouraging...I like the glimpses of Metropolis skyline (the "Sky Captain" look is a good idea...I just wish this was a 40s period piece!) and what I've seen of the flying effects is fine.  I'm not as happy about Routh, just because he looks way too young for the part.  But then I thought the same about Matt Damon as Jason Bourne until I saw him action (wow!), so who knows.  His voice is good.  

I'll be interested to see how Singer brings it all together, if indeed he can.  But I'm not concerned about what the Byrne fans, the Welling fans or the post-Crisis crowd thinks.  None of us will get 100% of what we want, and that's probably not even possible given all the faces Superman has worn over time...your Supes is likely not my Supes.  But if there's one constant over time it's that fans resist change.  I had trouble with Chris Reeve replacing George Reeves and Michael Keaton replacing Adam West.  Today's boards are full of people insisting Keaton can never be outdone by Bale.  In ten years whoever replaces Routh will face the same complaints.  Yadda yadda yadda.  The point being, no matter how much this fan or that one dislikes one choice or other, it doesn't guarantee the film will fail.  None of us wanted Keaton as Batman, but the movie did huge business.  More recently, almost no comic fans had anything positive to say about "Fantastic Four," but it did well and a sequel is in the works.

Bottom line: every comic fan on Earth can hate Superman Returns, but if the rest of the world likes it, it will be a hit.  Conversely, every comic fan can love it, but if the rest of the world is indifferent or opposed, it will fail.  Let the fans rant all they want on message boards, in the end it is the only power they have.

The film will speak for itself when it's done and on a big screen and that will be how most people know Superman anyway - not from comcis but from TV & movies.

All the naysaying on that happened when it was looking like the movie might actually be good. But when it turned out the film was just recycled Burton-Schumacher tripe with a stupid-looking DKR Batmobile, well over a year before the film' release (set pics and script leaks providing the evidence), the praise was fawning and incessant. The minute there was an actual reason to complain, the fans became slaveringly loyal, and any legitimate gripes with the way things were going were skinned alive in the name of Frank Miller. Batman Begins deserved to take brickbats, and instead it's being treated like the Gospels. Fans don't want quality. They want recycled bilge. The state of the comics is proof of this (Trinity and Birthright belly-flop, but "For Tomorrow" is a monster smash), and the reaction to Batman Begins exemplifies it.

Superman Returns, on the other hand has not experienced anything like that. The buzz has been getting increasingly worse the more things are revealed about the movie, and most of what's been shown hasn't deserved it. But when fans fawn and coo over blatant rip-offs from the Schumacher entries in the Batman series just because it's the DKR Batmobile and Bale's baggy-necked cheapo Halloween suit has no nipples, it's a losing battle. I'm just going to cut my losses now before I toally wind up with egg on my face for sticking up for Routh, Singer, and et al.

I will be amazed if this film breaks even, let alone succeeds. It'll be lucky to do Wild Wild West business at this rate, especially with a $250 million price tag. (Yeah, I thought that was overkill, too. No Superman movie needs to cost THAT much, no matter who's directing it.)

Well, if you're right that fans only like "Begins" because it borrowed elements from the Burton films, then maybe Singer thinks so too and that's why he's borrowing from Donner's Superman?

Again, I think you're overestimating the importance of fan opinion, which I place somewhere between little and none.  Superman is bigger than comic book readers, he belongs to the general public.  Radio put him on the cultural radar, 50s TV put him over the top and movies put him back again.  What the average Joe knows about Superman comics would fill a thimble.  In the end, if this is a good movie, it will do well and if not, it won't, period.  

As for the price tag, I don't know if the whole $250 mil is going into the production.  What I heard a few years ago is that they were already $100 mil in the whole after paying for all the screen treatments that went nowhere and paying off Burton, Cage and others who had "pay or play"-like contracts that came to nothing.  So maybe they're counting that sum in the total.

King Krypton, I read through the forum on bluetights.net that you refer to - and I didn't see anyone complaining at all.  In fact, the footage got a lot of praise and seems to have generated a lot of positive excitement.

So just where are these alleged nay-sayers?

:s:

On the Smallville forums. The naysayers tend to be

a) Smallville fans who either think it's stupid to have anybody playing Superman other than Tom Welling, or just don't like Superman

or

b) Post-Crisis comics fans who want to see Superman bleed all over the place and fight Doomsday, or are concerned about Lois being seen with a baby

or

c) highly illogical people, who are scared that the movie will have 70s special effects

Have you even seen Batman Begins?  If you have you must have seen something I missed.  It's actually being hailed as one of the best movies of the year.  And it's not just the fanboys praising it.  



I agree.  A few thousand people who already hate the movie before they even see it aren't even going to make a dent.  Not when there are millions of movie goers who don't even read the comic books who are going to see it.

I almost wish this movie wasn't being made at all.  I would have thought that a movie about our favorite hero would bring everyone together and everyone would be excited.  Instead there's been nothing but animosity and hate.  Luckily I haven't seen any of either on this message board.  The fans here have a pretty healthy attitude.  I've seen other message boards that have had people just outright arguing.  It's nasty.  And it's all because things aren't being done exactly their way.  That's life.  They're not the ones making the movie.  I'm sure if they were there would be the same kind of reactions Singer is getting on the message boards.  You can't please ALL the people ALL the time.  Some people are never pleased.  

Personally I like what I've seen so far.  I realize that everything that's been shown is out of context and I'm anxious to see how everything comes together.  I haven't really seen anything I object to.  There are a few things that I would do differently but I'm not the one in charge of making the movie.  I'm excited and I'm not going to let someone with a bad attitude ruin mine.

Can you imagine what it would have been like if the internet had been around in 1977?  Imagine all the outraged fans who would have been up on their digital soap-boxes.  Donner turned Krypton from a Flash Gordon utopia into a barren ball of ice, Jor-El and Lara were too old to have conceived a child, Kal-El's rocketship looked like a Christmas ornament, there was no Superboy, the Phantom Zone was a spinning mirror with only three prisoners, Ma Kent survives to old age, etc etc.  What would the fanboys have made of all that?

Keep in mind this was back in a time when comics had REAL continuity (explanation for modern fans: "continuity" is when facts and events are consistently portrayed and built upon for more than two months in a row).  The Superman legend did not get a reboot every year and a half...Donner was messing with sancrosanct stuff!  And yet, by most accounts, what he ended up with was just fine, if not great.

It's funny to me that modern fans want a film to adhere to Byrne's run, or Smallville, or whatever, given that those versions are themselves reboots of the legend.  For that matter, the Weisinger era I love was a huge reboot from Seigel and Shuster's original vision.  Sooner or later, if you stick around long enough, you see that it's possible to tell an old story in a new way and make it interesting again.  Of course, it's also possible to screw it up, but better to be hopeful, I figure.

Comics are funny...the emergence of semi-organized fandom in the Silver Age probably saved the industry.  Adding letter columns made fans feel they had a real voice in the direction of their favorite books.  But eventually, in my opinion, it went too far.  Every fan out there seems to think he or she has some "ownership" of characters just by virtue of buying a certain number of issues of their books.  And they figure that if they can get enough fans to echo their opinions, then DC and Marvel "have to" listen to them and do what they want.  And a lot of times, because DC and Marvel know this nutty subculture is their only audience left, they bow to pressure and give in.  So then when a major studio makes a film, the same fans think they can push them around, too.  But Hollywood's a whole different world, boys and girls.

I still remember Trek fans threatening to boycott "Wrath of Khan" because it killed off Spock. Heresy!  And in the end not only did they line up to see the film, they -- for the most part -- now consider it the best in the series.

Bottom line:  fans are often too close to a subject to see it objectively. And there's usually a reason they're fans and not pros.  If they want to muck up Superman (or Batman or whoever), let 'em do it the old-fashioned way...get a paying job at DC.

I thought of this the last time I watched Superman: The Movie.  It cracked me up.   :lol:   I think the fanboys would've had a bigger fit than they're having now about the costume.  



The fans nowadays take everything personally.  If something isn't their way they take it as an insult.  They need to relax.

..and grow up

Everywhere other than Blue Tights, which is affiliated with WB. They've got the blogs, their siterunners are doing publicity for the movie. Superhero Hype, DC Comics.com, Superman Homepage, AICN, JoBlo, The Kryptonian...pretty much every other comic book and movie site has a patronage with a grudge against this movie. Blue Tights is working with WB, sof course they're going to be on the defensive, and they've been nailed to the wall over it.

And things have not gotten better in the last few weeks. The battle lines are becoming more clearly drawn, especially with the new pictures run in Newsweek and the leaked publicity stills that WB put an unsuccessful recall on. (Doctored versions of the leaked pics can be found at the Caped Wonder site.) Every bit of publicity WB tries is being condemned as a salvage operation on a Catwoman-level failure. So what do you do in a situation like that, where the fanbase is out to bring the movie down for the most selfish of reasons? The complaining has made the rounds, with some magazines commenting on it in general (Newsweek) or trying to mock it (Empire claimed that one of the fanbase's complaints about the movie was "I've never seen a woman naked!"--they took it in the teeth for it). Like it or not, it's being acknowledged. WB's going to have to pull a major trick out of their hats in order to shut the fanbase up. Either that or sell out, which probably isn't an option since the movie's almost finished shooting.

King Krypton, the Bluetights.net site may indeed be affiliated with WB, but they certainly allowed your criticisms to stay in the forum, so I doubt they deleted anyone else's.  Everyone else there seems pretty excited about it.

No one here at STTA that I know of is criticising the movie.  As near as I can tell, people are also pretty positive about it; the people on the Superman Homepage forum also seem to be excited about the new movie.

Unless you can post direct links to any of these alleged negative statements on any of the other forums, I'm going to take your comments with a big bucket of salt.

:s:

Superman Homepage seem to be pretty darn excited about this film, I couldn't find any bad reviews on Superman sites.

I haven't been criticizing the film. I've been criticizing the bashers who've been tearing this thing apart ever since it was made clear that Welling wasn't going to change his mind about playing Superman. If you choose not to believe that there's been constant naysaying and attacks on this movie, that's your problem. There's nothing stopping you from seeing for yourself how bad things are at those sites, save your own denial.

As it stands, the endless complaints have killed my enthusiasm for the movie altogether. I probably won't be seeing it. However, you won't hear me gloating if the movie doesn't do well. Nor will you hear me gloating if its succeeds. At this point, I don't care anymore. I wash my hands of the whole affair. Whatever's going to happen is going to happen.

Post a link to someone bashing, and then I will believe you.

:s:

Im gonna wait, see it and judge for myself.

No matter what it is, its Superman and its OK with me.

But, didn't you hear what some loser iron age fan boys said at some mystery website, it's not worth it! You better not watch.

I hate that this thread is called "More Pics of Routh as Superman".

 :D

Everytime I see there is a new post, I hesitate to read it because my brain is saying --"Why would you want to look at more pics of Routh as Superman?"

I fail to see how DC Comics, AICN, SHH!, The Kryptonian, and other such sites qualify as "mystery" sites. I do agree about the "Iron Age losers" comment, though.

However, if there's anything I've learned from both fan and personal experience, it's that the power of stupid people in large groups isn't to be underestimated. An old axiom, but a sadly accurate one.

I don't get it, why should we care about what they say again?

Why do you even go to those sites in the 1st place? I don't see the point.

Some of the sites are sources of information on the film (set pics, articles, etc.), so they serve purpose in that capacity.

The feedback on said information...well, that's another thing entirely.

Do yourself a favor and skip the feedback, then.

I have the same issue with "Newsarama"...an occasionally useful site if you don't follow up the articles by reading every Tom, Dick and Harry's useless opinions posted at the end.  I'm all for the great things the internet has brought us as far as blogging, message boards, etc but the downside is that now everyone thinks their opinion is needed, and worth hearing, on every stupid little thing that gets written anywhere.  And once it's posted, in a way it carries as much weight as the article itself ("Hey, look!  I've been published!").  I used to enjoy occasionally reading letters to the editor in the local paper because people are so insane, but at least they had to go to the trouble of typing a letter and buying a stamp, which kept out a lot of the true loonies.  Now any goofball with a keyboard and 30 seconds to spare will put in his two cents on any old thing, and the net result, really, has been a mountain of content on the Web with maybe about 1 tenth of 1 percent of it being of any value whatever.

Anyway, I think all these opinions are suspect.  It's easier to criticize than to praise; if you're enthusiastic people make fun of you but if you're critical it makes you seem more "worldly" and sardonic.  This is the same principle behind most movie critics; they think they sound "smarter" bashing a film, so that's what they do.  In other words, the "opinions" people give at these sites may be nothing of the kind; it may just be mere posturing and puffery based on what they think smart people are supposed to sound like. And there are also always the guys who say something just to upset everyone.  It may or may not be what they truly believe, but it's enough to stir the stick and that's all they want.

Contrary to popular belief, not everyone's opinion is as valid as everyone else's.  Further, very few people's opinion on most things matters one whit anyway.  Just read the news and skip the rest.  I know from running a site myself that providing the ability to leave feedback is just a trick to keep people coming back and keep those page hits high.  The webmaster doesn't care how stupid they are, just so they keep coming back.

My instinct is to defend the fans - the fans, after all, keep something going, and preserve it in memory, and ultimately, they are fans because they LOVE something, and that is not something to sneer at. Popular culture has the attention of a mayfly, but fans are immortal and indivisible.

That said, I just do not understand fan reaction to this film. Here we have a film that looks to have everything one would want from a Superman movie excepting possibly Kandor and giant robots, and the response is suspicion.



What is offensive about movie critics is not that they say that they DISLIKE films, but that they find unworthy films to lionize.

There is definitely an "Emperor's New Clothes" mentality around movie critics with regards to movies like TITANIC and COLD MOUNTAIN, sentimental schlop that critics, if they were being honest, could not possibly have been won over by. They fear that if they gave an honestly bad review to a film, they would be impugning their own ability to function as critics, the one thing that gives their opinion any kind of weight: their professional reputation. "He said TITANIC wasn't great, so what kind of critic is he?"

Lest everybody think I'm getting off topic, one can say that the same thing is ALSO true of comic book critics. NotSuper once asked why I disliked WATCHMEN, and I owe him a much more complete explanation I'll have to type later. But my point is this: there are some works in comics you are just not allowed to dislike, which is vexing because you can't express your honest opinion - a different matter than just sheer contrariness.

Superman flies off for years to "find himself", after spending a decade or so doing that with Jor-El.  Clark is where exactly?

Lois gets married to someone else and had a kid in her absence?  This is so original that Lana Lang did about the same thing in Superman III.

Lex Luthor did what during Superman's away time?  If not "the same thing he did every day, Otis, try and take over the world", why didn't he succeed?

If elements like this are to be believed, I can't blame fans one bit for being skeptical, and I'm leery as well.  

I'm less concerned about the look of the movie and more about the story and plot, which sounds more like swiss cheese than Superman.

I find the best way to take movie critics is to get to know their likes and dislikes and make your plans accordingly.  If you see a couple of films you like and the critic hated them, then you can assume that a thumbs down from him in the future is your call to go see a film.  ("Hey, if Rex Reed hates it, it's GOT to be good!")  Same with comics fans; if the Byrne crowd is against this movie, count me in!

The only time this falls apart is when you get a critic like our local one (like Mikey, "he hates everything") or ABC's Joel Seigel, who's apparently so giddily happy to get paid for watching movies that he loves everything, no matter how bad it is.

I agree with Julian that it's hard sometimes to be a "voice in the wilderness" and admit disliking something that seems universally liked.  I'm trying to think of an example in comics, though, and I'm coming up empty.  I know there's something...

As for "Watchmen," I have to admit it gets a "Meh..." from me.  Not bad, but hardly the genre-defining classic it's made out to be.

I think Superman is returning from his life in turnaround. :wink:

I can understand why they'd want to keep a lid on these things - after all, these are major plot points that would be revealed in the course of the movie. We can't say for sure whether or not these are "holes" unless we know where they're going with them. Lex Luthor may have been spending the intervening years coming up with a clever plan that WOULD take ten years to properly execute. After all, the guy's got the time and the patience. Who knows?

Now, if the movie is released and it turns out that their explanations are incredibly harebrained, that would bother me.



Hee hee hee. :)

I typed something like this above: if Byrne thinks it's terrible, that's probably a sign that there's something TO it...

Well, does the Superman you know and love bail on planet Earth for a few years to 'find himself', under any circumstance that's not hare-brained and makes sense in a ~2 hour "Hollywood" movie?  Where's the motivation?  That's the crux of my problem with what I've heard thus far.  All the other wrong-sounding junk  derives from this premise.  If the explanation comes out and you can accept it, great.  If you're thinking "But the Superman *I* know wouldn't do that", then you're in for a trainwreck.