Meta: The Peanut Gallery

[JulianPerez]

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.

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.

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.

[Uncle Mxy]

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.

[nightwing]

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.

[Klar Ken T5477]

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

[JulianPerez]

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 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.

Same with comics fans; if the Byrne crowd is against this movie, count me in!

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...

[Uncle Mxy]

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?

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.