Meta: The Peanut Gallery

[shazamtd]

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.

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.  

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.

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.

[nightwing]

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.

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.

[shazamtd]

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?

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.  

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.

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

[Super Monkey]

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

[King Krypton]

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?

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.

[Great Rao]

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.

[Super Monkey]

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

[King Krypton]

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.

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.