75 Years of Superman

*Turo602* · 10-15-2013, 03:50 PM

So this was shown at NYCC and has just been posted today on the web in celebration of Superman's 75th anniversary.

How do you guys feel about the short? Was it a good tribute? Did it fail to capture all of the blue boyscout's high points in his 75 year history? Also, what are some of your favorite memories of Superman?

Personally, I've been a huge Superman fan since I was just a kid; catching whatever I can of the Christopher Reeve films on T.V. when it was on. I was also really into Superman: The Animated Series, which I don't quite remember too well, since it did come out a year after I was born. So it was really vague in my mind for some time, until I was able to watch the series beginning to end when it released on DVD. I still remember some of the action figures I used to have from the series.

As for more recent things Superman, I started watching Smallville around the end of season 5. I watched it every week since then, and it's still hard to believe that it ended over two years ago. I've also kept up with all the animated movie releases which have also been very good. My personal favorite being, All-Star Superman. I'm also quite fond of the latest Man of Steel movie, despite all the crap it has been getting from fans and critics. I know it wasn't a perfect movie, but honestly, I'd say it's the best Superman movie to date.

*snake* · 10-15-2013, 03:54 PM

I liked the short and Man of Steel. I never understood all the hate for it.

*TurtleTitan97* · 10-15-2013, 03:56 PM

I thought it was awesome. My congrats to Bruce Timm and Scott Snyder for making this.

I guess my favorite Superman memories would be watching Superman The Animated Series. IMO, it's the best Superman cartoon to date. Though I hope someday Superman will get another solo cartoon instead of DC continually pumping out more Batman stuff.

*ZariusTwo* · 10-15-2013, 03:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Turo602

I'm also quite fond of the latest Man of Steel movie, despite all the crap it has been getting from fans and critics. I know it wasn't a perfect movie, but honestly, I'd say it's the best Superman movie to date.

I don't think people who say it was a good movie even buy that themselves, and that they're just settling. All-Star Superman's animated adaptation and several episodes of Superman: TAS were light years ahead of that film.

RaphAndDonnie · 10-15-2013, 04:07 PM

I like this short. Its a nice llittle tribute to Superman. I really don't have any fond memories of anything Superman related, as I've only become "aware" of the superhero genre within the last year though I have enjoyed the Fleischer's cartoon, TAS and the first movie.

*Turo602* · 10-15-2013, 04:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZariusTwo

I don't think people who say it was a good movie even buy that themselves, and that they're just settling. All-Star Superman's animated adaptation and several episodes of Superman: TAS were light years ahead of that film.

Settling is exactly what makes anything "the best." We'll always be settling on what we have until we see more. So what's your point? You hate Man of Steel, therefore no one can legitimately like it?

~~Leo656~~ · 10-15-2013, 11:18 PM

Not gonna lie, I got a little choked up watching that. It's a really nice piece of work, for what it is. It could have been longer but honestly it could be a solid 30 minutes and I'd want more. Great stuff.

I've been a huge Superman fan all my life, literally as far back as I can remember. I learned to read through Superman comics and watched the movies and George Reeves show religiously. To this day the only Superman-related product I haven't really liked is Smallville. His character (and that of many others) was just portrayed so wrong, and they excused it all with "Hey, it's early in the mythology", which I don't buy into. I'unno.

I liked "Man of Steel" but I can agree with a lot of the criticism. It was a nice big action movie and it hit all the right beats for that kind of movie, but part of what makes Superman "different" is the heart, and the movie really lacked that. Between the tone and visuals of "Superman Returns" and the action of "Man of Steel", you'd have the perfect Superman movie. Neither movie "nailed it" 100%, but I'd argue "Returns", while slow in spots, *felt* more like Superman.

I WAS hoping the sequel would be a bit lighter and less dreary, and that the tone would be more of the traditional, "Triumphant" Superman feeling, but WB chickened out since MOS "only" made $700 million, so the sequel is gonna be all about Superman getting smacked around by Batman, so my expectations are considerably lower. It should still be a good movie, overall, but I don't think we'll get another "real" Superman movie until the inevitable next reboot in about 10-15 years. That's a shame; I wish we'd get a hand-drawn cartoon show in the interim.

EDIT: Here's a good scene-by-scene breakdown of the short and the historical significance of each shot. A must-read (even though longtime fans should already know a lot of this stuff!): http://www.dccomics.com/blog/2013/10...-of-annotation

*Krutch* · 10-17-2013, 01:35 AM

Loved it, but... No Lois & Clark? No Superman Returns? Just a Smallville sign? Kinda disappointing.

*Whatswiththeheadbands?* · 10-17-2013, 05:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by snakeweed101

I liked the short and Man of Steel. I never understood all the hate for it.

It's because people can't just move on from the past.

~~Leo656~~ · 10-17-2013, 05:49 AM

That's completely, entirely over-simplifying it. It doesn't deserve ALL the flack it gets but there IS in fact quite a bit wrong with the movie. People who point that out are, in many cases, simply being objective.

*Whatswiththeheadbands?* · 10-17-2013, 05:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leo656

That's completely, entirely over-simplifying it. It doesn't deserve ALL the flack it gets but there IS in fact quite a bit wrong with the movie. People who point that out are, in many cases, simply being objective.

Not arguing here, but most of the complaints people have with this film that I've seen is it's too different from the Christopher reeve films.

~~Leo656~~ · 10-17-2013, 07:16 AM

Regardless of that, nothing can change the fact that the very point of Superman is to help make the world a better place, and by the end of "Man Of Steel" it's certain that the world portrayed in the film would have been much better off had he and his "pals" never shown up at all. I don't care how much they promise the aftermath will be dealt with in sequels, it severely undercuts the spirit of THIS movie.

That's the fatal flaw of that and any other film proclaiming to feature Superman, is you cannot have him be the bad guy, and in this movie every bad thing happens directly because of him and his actions. Even him "saving" Metropolis killed millions of people in minutes. "Year One" this and "Inexperienced" that, I get what they were trying to portray, but they went overboard. WAY more than any comparison to the Reeve films, the thing that most hurts MoS is simply that Superman decidedly leaves everything WORSE than when he found it, and that's a big part of what hurt it for me.

I do like the movie, it's very good and visually it's amazing, but it needed some restraint. And much, much better dialog. And just a tiny bit of humor wouldn't have hurt anything, either. It looked like a Superman movie should look but in a lot of ways it just didn't feel like a Superman movie should feel.

*Turo602* · 10-17-2013, 08:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by whatswiththeheadbands?

It's because people can't just move on from the past.

Even though this is simplifying it, it's true for most critics. From some of the reviews I've seen, a lot of the complaints come from how it's not the Superman they used to know. It's sad to see this movie shunned so hard due to the character's popularity. Come on, one of Man of Steel's faults, according to one review, was that they messed up the meaning of the "S" and that it's supposed to mean "Superman." It's obvious a lot of these critics aren't real fans, since they're just going off of what they know based on the Christopher Reeve films (I know "S" doesn't mean "Superman" in the Reeve films, just an example of the guy's ignorance). So generally, everyone thinks Superman is this one-dimensional good guy who can do no wrong. Personally, I see nothing wrong with the Superman that was portrayed in Man of Steel. It was a good take and nothing that hasn't been done before.

*CyberCubed* · 10-17-2013, 04:05 PM

Did they reference Lois and Clark or Smallville there? Or even Superman Returns from 2006?

I think those 3 got left out.

~~Leo656~~ · 10-17-2013, 08:17 PM

They showed the Smallville water tower, but that was it. Honestly, that's as close to being about Superman as that show ever got, anyway.

"Lois and Clark" and "Returns" could have been squeezed in at the expense of, say, the Andy Warhol reference or the Muhammed Ali fight, but eh, you can't have everything in two minutes. I mean even Luthor and Lois only had brief cameos.

*Krutch* · 10-28-2013, 05:26 PM

My buddy asked me a few weeks ago what my favourite superhero movie was of all time, and then asked if it was Superman Returns. I was quick to go, "Oh, no. God, no. Compared to Dark Knight, Batman Begins, X2, Turtles... not a chance." But it kept lingering in my mind and popping up every now and again. And yeah.. I think I'm gonna finally say it... I'm pretty damn certain Superman Returns is my favourite superhero movie of all time. And I remember leaving theatres a bit disappointed. But based on sheer fascination, and how many times I've watched it(tooooons more than any other, even Turtles 1).. I don't know. There's a uniqueness to it. Theres a very different perspective being told with very risky additions to the mythos, like them or not.

~~Leo656~~ · 10-28-2013, 08:55 PM

I hear ya, man. The only two things "wrong" with "Superman Returns" at all are 1. It's a bit slow and talky in parts, and 2. The addition of the kid was totally unnecessary and so controversial that all by itself, it made people not like the movie. That's despite the number one complaint about super-hero stories (and Superman stories specifically) usually being, "Nothing ever changes, the story never moves forward". This was a perfect example of WHY it's like that - because when storytellers TRY to do anything different, fans sh*t on it. "That's not how it goes! Superman doesn't have a kid!" It would have been resolved in a sequel, for sure, but just enough people bitched just loud enough for them to scrap the next two movies they planned.

It also didn't help that the sh*t-storm that was X-Men 3 came out three weeks earlier, and it was one long fight scene, mostly, and all my friends who liked that awful, awful movie more than SR all had the same complaint: "No fight scenes!" F*ck that noise, man. It wasn't that kind of movie and didn't need to be. It was all about emotionally manipulating the audience, and to me, it worked great. By contrast, MoS often failed to make me feel the appropriate emotions in any given scene, usually because of the lousy dialog.

SR is a great movie, man. History will vindicate it. The visuals, music, and some of the action scenes are by far the best of the Superman series, even including MoS. It's not perfect, but again, like the Star Wars prequels, a LOT of people really liked it until the internet told them not to.

*CyberCubed* · 10-28-2013, 08:57 PM

Superman Returns had a terrible Lois. Considering this was supposed to be a sequel to Superman II, how on earth they picked the actress they did to play Lois...who doesn't resemble the original one at all is beyond me.

**Jester** · 10-28-2013, 09:04 PM

Um...Leo...what about Kryptonite in SR?

*scurries away*

~~Leo656~~ · 10-28-2013, 09:19 PM

CC: I'll agree, actually. At the time I didn't mind her but Bosworth was pretty bad as Lois and I think that's something else that hurt the movie. In both looks and personality, Lois has to be absolutely dynamite, because she's the one girl "American Jesus" falls for above all others on Earth. The guy who used to run Superman Homepage wrote a lengthy review when the film came out, pointing out that "Lois" in SR was really just Lana from "Smallville", a completely unlikable bitch who everyone was in love with for no good reason because she treated everyone around her like sh*t. Superman saves her from dying in a f*cking plane crash, and she's all, "F*CK YOU!" There was nothing likable about her at all, and I think that was a big flaw, too.

Bryan Singer only cast her because he had some kind of weird "thing" for her despite the fact that he's gay. Like, that she was a "classic beauty" in the style of Audrey Hepburn, was what it was. They never auditioned anyone else, she was his only choice, and that was that. WB was letting him do whatever he wanted at that point, since the two X-Men movies made huge bank. In retrospect, almost anyone would have been better. It didn't bother me that she didn't look like Margot Kidder -frankly, Kidder was never attractive enough to be Lois, IMO, shallow as that is that's just me being honest, I never liked Kidder as Lois at all - what bothered me is she's a wooden actress and her character was so bitchy.

As for Kryptonite, Jester, it's never portrayed consistently anyway in any medium, so I can forgive a lot for the sake of drama. Sometimes just being near it robs him of his powers for a time, often it's lethal, other times it just makes him really weak - it's always different depending on who's telling the story. In this case, the fact he absorbed a massive charge of solar rays right before he lifted the Kryptonite Asteroid into space was no accident, they entirely intended it to run that way, which is why they reminded the audience earlier that he gets his power from the sun. Plus, it DID take almost everything he had and almost killed him. And at the end of the day, it's a f*cking movie, and do we really need the amazing visual of him carrying a small continent into space and then crashing to Earth half-dead to be ruined by nitpicking? It LOOKED great, and that was the point.

The Season 1 finale of "Lois & Clark" had Lex trap Superman in a Kryptonite cage for a ridiculously long period of time, when earlier in the season just being close to it took his powers away for several days. Go yell at THEM about being consistent, that's a much more egregious offense.

Ultimately, it's since come out from several reputable sources that Singer was WAY high on crystal meth while making the movie, and that had a lot to do with some things being done that maybe shouldn't have been done. Particularly the editing of the film; many people have said it's cut poorly and some scenes jump too abruptly. During the post-production, Singer was out at the gay clubs until 4 or 5 a.m. almost every night, getting drunk and high on meth, and was totally wiped out during the editing sessions. So the lesson here is, Stay Sober, boys and girls.

10-15-2013, 03:50 PM	#1
Turo602 The King of Kings Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Chicago Illinois Posts: 2,931	75 Years of Superman So this was shown at NYCC and has just been posted today on the web in celebration of Superman's 75th anniversary. How do you guys feel about the short? Was it a good tribute? Did it fail to capture all of the blue boyscout's high points in his 75 year history? Also, what are some of your favorite memories of Superman? Personally, I've been a huge Superman fan since I was just a kid; catching whatever I can of the Christopher Reeve films on T.V. when it was on. I was also really into Superman: The Animated Series, which I don't quite remember too well, since it did come out a year after I was born. So it was really vague in my mind for some time, until I was able to watch the series beginning to end when it released on DVD. I still remember some of the action figures I used to have from the series. As for more recent things Superman, I started watching Smallville around the end of season 5. I watched it every week since then, and it's still hard to believe that it ended over two years ago. I've also kept up with all the animated movie releases which have also been very good. My personal favorite being, All-Star Superman. I'm also quite fond of the latest Man of Steel movie, despite all the crap it has been getting from fans and critics. I know it wasn't a perfect movie, but honestly, I'd say it's the best Superman movie to date.

10-15-2013, 03:56 PM	#3
TurtleTitan97 Space Cowboy Join Date: Dec 2011 Location: Speed Force Posts: 7,043	I thought it was awesome. My congrats to Bruce Timm and Scott Snyder for making this. I guess my favorite Superman memories would be watching Superman The Animated Series. IMO, it's the best Superman cartoon to date. Though I hope someday Superman will get another solo cartoon instead of DC continually pumping out more Batman stuff. __________________

10-15-2013, 11:18 PM	#7
~~Leo656~~ Banned Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: nWo Country Posts: 27,703	Not gonna lie, I got a little choked up watching that. It's a really nice piece of work, for what it is. It could have been longer but honestly it could be a solid 30 minutes and I'd want more. Great stuff. I've been a huge Superman fan all my life, literally as far back as I can remember. I learned to read through Superman comics and watched the movies and George Reeves show religiously. To this day the only Superman-related product I haven't really liked is Smallville. His character (and that of many others) was just portrayed so wrong, and they excused it all with "Hey, it's early in the mythology", which I don't buy into. I'unno. I liked "Man of Steel" but I can agree with a lot of the criticism. It was a nice big action movie and it hit all the right beats for that kind of movie, but part of what makes Superman "different" is the heart, and the movie really lacked that. Between the tone and visuals of "Superman Returns" and the action of "Man of Steel", you'd have the perfect Superman movie. Neither movie "nailed it" 100%, but I'd argue "Returns", while slow in spots, felt more like Superman. I WAS hoping the sequel would be a bit lighter and less dreary, and that the tone would be more of the traditional, "Triumphant" Superman feeling, but WB chickened out since MOS "only" made $700 million, so the sequel is gonna be all about Superman getting smacked around by Batman, so my expectations are considerably lower. It should still be a good movie, overall, but I don't think we'll get another "real" Superman movie until the inevitable next reboot in about 10-15 years. That's a shame; I wish we'd get a hand-drawn cartoon show in the interim. EDIT: Here's a good scene-by-scene breakdown of the short and the historical significance of each shot. A must-read (even though longtime fans should already know a lot of this stuff!): http://www.dccomics.com/blog/2013/10...-of-annotation Last edited by Leo656; 10-16-2013 at 12:18 AM.

10-28-2013, 09:04 PM	#19
Jester Rat-faced Dude-guy Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Arkansas Posts: 26,301	Um...Leo...what about Kryptonite in SR? scurries away __________________ "Clearly, you're Ninja Turtling incorrectly." - Leo656

10-15-2013, 03:54 PM	#2
snake Disgusting Join Date: Jan 2013 Location: Outer Heaven Posts: 12,231	I liked the short and Man of Steel. I never understood all the hate for it.

10-17-2013, 01:35 AM	#8
Krutch Like, stupid rich. Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: The Rawkzone Posts: 2,808	Loved it, but... No Lois & Clark? No Superman Returns? Just a Smallville sign? Kinda disappointing.

10-17-2013, 05:49 AM	#10
~~Leo656~~ Banned Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: nWo Country Posts: 27,703	That's completely, entirely over-simplifying it. It doesn't deserve ALL the flack it gets but there IS in fact quite a bit wrong with the movie. People who point that out are, in many cases, simply being objective.

10-17-2013, 07:16 AM	#12
~~Leo656~~ Banned Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: nWo Country Posts: 27,703	Regardless of that, nothing can change the fact that the very point of Superman is to help make the world a better place, and by the end of "Man Of Steel" it's certain that the world portrayed in the film would have been much better off had he and his "pals" never shown up at all. I don't care how much they promise the aftermath will be dealt with in sequels, it severely undercuts the spirit of THIS movie. That's the fatal flaw of that and any other film proclaiming to feature Superman, is you cannot have him be the bad guy, and in this movie every bad thing happens directly because of him and his actions. Even him "saving" Metropolis killed millions of people in minutes. "Year One" this and "Inexperienced" that, I get what they were trying to portray, but they went overboard. WAY more than any comparison to the Reeve films, the thing that most hurts MoS is simply that Superman decidedly leaves everything WORSE than when he found it, and that's a big part of what hurt it for me. I do like the movie, it's very good and visually it's amazing, but it needed some restraint. And much, much better dialog. And just a tiny bit of humor wouldn't have hurt anything, either. It looked like a Superman movie should look but in a lot of ways it just didn't feel like a Superman movie should feel.

10-17-2013, 04:05 PM	#14
CyberCubed Overlord Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 43,878	Did they reference Lois and Clark or Smallville there? Or even Superman Returns from 2006? I think those 3 got left out.

10-17-2013, 08:17 PM	#15
~~Leo656~~ Banned Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: nWo Country Posts: 27,703	They showed the Smallville water tower, but that was it. Honestly, that's as close to being about Superman as that show ever got, anyway. "Lois and Clark" and "Returns" could have been squeezed in at the expense of, say, the Andy Warhol reference or the Muhammed Ali fight, but eh, you can't have everything in two minutes. I mean even Luthor and Lois only had brief cameos.

10-28-2013, 05:26 PM	#16
Krutch Like, stupid rich. Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: The Rawkzone Posts: 2,808	My buddy asked me a few weeks ago what my favourite superhero movie was of all time, and then asked if it was Superman Returns. I was quick to go, "Oh, no. God, no. Compared to Dark Knight, Batman Begins, X2, Turtles... not a chance." But it kept lingering in my mind and popping up every now and again. And yeah.. I think I'm gonna finally say it... I'm pretty damn certain Superman Returns is my favourite superhero movie of all time. And I remember leaving theatres a bit disappointed. But based on sheer fascination, and how many times I've watched it(tooooons more than any other, even Turtles 1).. I don't know. There's a uniqueness to it. Theres a very different perspective being told with very risky additions to the mythos, like them or not.

10-28-2013, 08:55 PM	#17
~~Leo656~~ Banned Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: nWo Country Posts: 27,703	I hear ya, man. The only two things "wrong" with "Superman Returns" at all are 1. It's a bit slow and talky in parts, and 2. The addition of the kid was totally unnecessary and so controversial that all by itself, it made people not like the movie. That's despite the number one complaint about super-hero stories (and Superman stories specifically) usually being, "Nothing ever changes, the story never moves forward". This was a perfect example of WHY it's like that - because when storytellers TRY to do anything different, fans sht on it. "That's not how it goes! Superman doesn't have a kid!" It would have been resolved in a sequel, for sure, but just enough people bitched just loud enough for them to scrap the next two movies they planned. It also didn't help that the sht-storm that was X-Men 3 came out three weeks earlier, and it was one long fight scene, mostly, and all my friends who liked that awful, awful movie more than SR all had the same complaint: "No fight scenes!" F*ck that noise, man. It wasn't that kind of movie and didn't need to be. It was all about emotionally manipulating the audience, and to me, it worked great. By contrast, MoS often failed to make me feel the appropriate emotions in any given scene, usually because of the lousy dialog. SR is a great movie, man. History will vindicate it. The visuals, music, and some of the action scenes are by far the best of the Superman series, even including MoS. It's not perfect, but again, like the Star Wars prequels, a LOT of people really liked it until the internet told them not to.

10-28-2013, 08:57 PM	#18
CyberCubed Overlord Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 43,878	Superman Returns had a terrible Lois. Considering this was supposed to be a sequel to Superman II, how on earth they picked the actress they did to play Lois...who doesn't resemble the original one at all is beyond me.

10-28-2013, 09:19 PM	#20
~~Leo656~~ Banned Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: nWo Country Posts: 27,703	CC: I'll agree, actually. At the time I didn't mind her but Bosworth was pretty bad as Lois and I think that's something else that hurt the movie. In both looks and personality, Lois has to be absolutely dynamite, because she's the one girl "American Jesus" falls for above all others on Earth. The guy who used to run Superman Homepage wrote a lengthy review when the film came out, pointing out that "Lois" in SR was really just Lana from "Smallville", a completely unlikable bitch who everyone was in love with for no good reason because she treated everyone around her like sht. Superman saves her from dying in a fcking plane crash, and she's all, "FCK YOU!" There was nothing likable about her at all, and I think that was a big flaw, too. Bryan Singer only cast her because he had some kind of weird "thing" for her despite the fact that he's gay. Like, that she was a "classic beauty" in the style of Audrey Hepburn, was what it was. They never auditioned anyone else, she was his only choice, and that was that. WB was letting him do whatever he wanted at that point, since the two X-Men movies made huge bank. In retrospect, almost anyone would have been better. It didn't bother me that she didn't look like Margot Kidder -frankly, Kidder was never attractive enough to be Lois, IMO, shallow as that is that's just me being honest, I never liked Kidder as Lois at all - what bothered me is she's a wooden actress and her character was so bitchy. As for Kryptonite, Jester, it's never portrayed consistently anyway in any medium, so I can forgive a lot for the sake of drama. Sometimes just being near it robs him of his powers for a time, often it's lethal, other times it just makes him really weak - it's always different depending on who's telling the story. In this case, the fact he absorbed a massive charge of solar rays right before he lifted the Kryptonite Asteroid into space was no accident, they entirely intended it to run that way, which is why they reminded the audience earlier that he gets his power from the sun. Plus, it DID take almost everything he had and almost killed him. And at the end of the day, it's a fcking movie, and do we really need the amazing visual of him carrying a small continent into space and then crashing to Earth half-dead to be ruined by nitpicking? It LOOKED great, and that was the point. The Season 1 finale of "Lois & Clark" had Lex trap Superman in a Kryptonite cage for a ridiculously long period of time, when earlier in the season just being close to it took his powers away for several days. Go yell at THEM about being consistent, that's a much more egregious offense. Ultimately, it's since come out from several reputable sources that Singer was WAY high on crystal meth while making the movie, and that had a lot to do with some things being done that maybe shouldn't have been done. Particularly the editing of the film; many people have said it's cut poorly and some scenes jump too abruptly. During the post-production, Singer was out at the gay clubs until 4 or 5 a.m. almost every night, getting drunk and high on meth, and was totally wiped out during the editing sessions. So the lesson here is, Stay Sober, boys and girls.