Man of Steel. Nolan Superman Reboot.

Oi, more brooding, angsty and "alienated" Superman. Fantastic.

I'm actually looking forward to see how they do that. Since I haven't seen much of Superman in that characterisation.

(I haven't seen Smallville in ages so I don't have a problem with it unless Smallville didn't do that but it probably did)

Smallville was angst writ large. Which was one of the main reasons why I gave up on it.

Smallville's problem was that it was a limited premise extended beyond its means. There's only so much you can do with Clark Kent pre-Superman before its just too much.

I suspected that was the case. Anyways..

At the end, it was a Superman show begging being about Superman, but railroaded into staying a Clark show.

Also, Rosenbaum's leave greatly affected the dynamics, and the plot had to hop through seriously ugly loops for it.

edited 18th Jul '12 11:51:18 AM by NapoleonDeCheese

Smallville's problem was that it was a limited premise extended beyond its means. There's only so much you can do with Clark Kent pre-Superman before its just too much.

EXACTLY. The show should have ended with Season 5, with the Zod-possesed Luthor finale, as Clark had graduated high school and was ready to leave Smallville and become Superman. The concept of the series had reached it's peak. But instead, the show foolishly kept running for another five seasons, becoming "Superman in all but name and costume", with the town of Smallville itself barely mattering anymore in favor of Metropolis, Clark fighting Bizarro, Doomsday, Darkside, and other villains, while meeting heroes from the Justice League like Green Arrow, all before ever putting on the damn suit. The last scene of the whole show rings so hollow because, well great, he's Superman...what's he going to do now? He's done basically everything important already! He's fresh in his professional career and Lex is already president!

edited 18th Jul '12 11:53:00 AM by ManwiththePlan

I really like the costume texture, actually. Superman's costume is quite hard to pull off in live-action.

So my big question is: how Silver-Agey is the movie's plot shaping up to be? In the wake of All Star Superman, I keep dreading a return of the Fortress of Solitude, Clark-Kent-as-disguise, and secret identity über alles, not to mention Kandor and the rest of the scifi Weisinger-era baggage. Have any insiders given an impression of the movie's overall feel?

Smallville lost me about the time Doomsday showed up. The very premise of the show is Clark's journey to find his place in the world and his place is saving the world from monstrous threats, not just putting on the cape. Once he took on that role the story was over and it limped along for another 4-5 years.

As for this movie, I am cautiously optimistic. I enjoyed Superman Returns for its throwback to more happy superhero times (it refused to follow in the footsteps of X-Men, Batman Begins or even Spiderman) but the story never really came together. The original Superman movie was fantastic for its time but there are other ways of interpreting the character.

I don't like generic angst but showing a Superman who has serious isolation problems would make for a more interesting story of how he embraces becoming an icon of purity. Superman Returns introduces something really close to the concept, the idea that he has to gain the trust of the people again, but once he makes his return everyone seems happy and there is little resolution to that story.

The costume for Man of Steel looks alright in principle but the colors are just too dark for my taste, and the almost chainmail look doesn't do it for me (when designing the Superman Returns costume they mentioned that they wanted to emphasize the fact it was Superman himself who was bulletproof and not the costume, which I agree with).

edited 19th Jul '12 1:11:13 PM by KJMackley

More Superman is questionable. The last movie was decently done but you couldn't give a copy away for free. I've tried, didn't nobody want it, not even school teachers at end of the year we have done all the work we need to do movie day. They chose to pay for such masterpieces as The Day After Tomorrow instead or re-watch independence day.

For whatever reason, people don't want live action superman anymore. A live action Superboy? Smallville seemed to work but I'd rather see more I Am Number Four. At least that was kind of new.

Eh, I don't think its that people don't want live action Superman, as that they don't want *bad* live action Superman. And Superman Returns was bad: bland story that wallowed in nostalgia, and the only times it wasn't? It was "Superman as creepy deadbeat dad." Add to that the relative lack of action. . .

Oh, look, actual footage. Not a whole lot compared to the Comic Con footage, and I was admittedly somewhat underwhelmed. The more I look at it, the more I like and appreciate what's being done. The LOTR music is kinda weird, but nice. Interestingly, there's a second version which has a Russell Crowe VO that seems to reference All Star Superman: Essentially

Man of Steel-

Jor-El: "You will give the people an ideal to stride towards... they will race behind you, they will stumble, they will fall, but in time they will join you in the sun, in time you will help them accomplish wonders..."

All-Star Superman-

Jor-El: Your work is done. You have shown them the face of the Man of Tomorrow. You have given them an ideal to aspire to, embodied their highest aspirations. They will race, and stumble, and fall and crawl...and curse...and finally...They will join you in the sun, Kal-El. In time you will no longer be alone.

edited 21st Jul '12 10:05:14 AM by YoungPrometheus

Ah Superman; both very compelling yet frequently astonishingly boring.

The problem with Superman (in the adaptations I've seen, anyway; I'm not a big comics reader) is that the full implications of him being around are never fully explored. What is essentially a super-powered Jesus provides so much possible situations that are very rarely used:

Why does he abandon the chance for a normal, everyday life to do what he does? What's his motivation? How does he take the knowledge that he's not even from this world? How does he manage to become a crime-fighting Jesus figure? How does he react to being in that position? How does the world react to someone like him even existing? How do religious fanatics, conspiracy theorists, scientists etc react to a nigh-indestructible God flying around?

Considering that Superman is kinda boring on his own (being a paradigm of incorruptible moral goodness and being practically unstoppable) these situations do stir things up a bit and create the chance to answer some questions about the characters. Hopefully Man Of Steel takes advantage of that.

Only reason I think Superman is portrayed in that way is because that's how we see him as the model superhero....godlike.

Looks pretty good so far.

Superman's motivation is similar to that of Spider-Man's "responsibilty". If you can do something kind for someone, do it. It shouldn't be that alien of a concept. Pardon the pun.

Speaking of which, I don't find Superman to be boring. He is flawed, but good.

edited 22nd Jul '12 1:50:37 AM by WinterWorlock

Superman also has a nice bit of dichotomy between his humanity, inspired by his upbringing and his life outside the cape, and his alien roots, inspired by his remnants of his father and his abilities.

I hope they keep that in mind in this movie - pretty much all Superman movies deal with the older version of him, who was more Superman than Clark Kent. The Kents get shunted aside in favor of everything being about Jor-El and Krypton, and Clark himself is just a facade. Very Silver Age. I much prefer the modern version of the character, who is in fact extremely human and more Clark Kent than Superman. The irony that Supes is one of the most human superheroes of all - idealistic in mentality at times, but still very human - is what makes him so great in my opinion.

The fact that he doesn't think himself above humanity is very important, just as important as his belief that it is his duty to do everything he can to help mankind, because he unlike others, can.

In fact, the idea of the movie being about a man dealing with the fact that he has this amazing power (and coming to the conclusion that he has to act, because he's the only one who can), rather than about an superpowerful being trying to find his place among humanity (and coming to the conclusion that he has to lead them into the future), would make this an instant watch for me.

Truer words have never been spoken.

That's one of the reasons I've always wanted to see someone like Darkseid in a live action film, who even more so than the Kryptonian criminals, can't understand how someone as powerful as Superman doesn't rule over the humans he's obviously superior to.

edited 22nd Jul '12 7:55:43 PM by BorneAgain

Because he's not a Dictator?

EDIT: Nevermind. It took me a minute to get what you were saying. You want a villain to show Supes why it's not a good idea first hand.

edited 22nd Jul '12 8:02:11 PM by WinterWorlock

I think that a Superman movie might work best if it was episodic in nature, with a series of different conflicts cropping up and being resolved, with an overarcing plot thread that reaches a crescendo at the climax. The 1970's Superman movie kind of did that, with one section about Krypton, one about adolescent Clark Kent, one about Superman establishing himself and romancing Lois Lane, and one about him getting a big confrontation with Lex Luthor. Doing something similar (though hitting different beats to avoid being a retread) would be nice.

The thing is, if you're telling an epic action/adventure story, you usually need a moment when all hope looks lost, when you don't know how the hero can prevail. This impresses the audience with the antagonist's threat and makes it all the more satisfying when the hero rises to the occasion. It's all right there in the Three-Act Structure. But Superman, while he can be challenged and even lose occasionally, doesn't really work as an underdog. Being vastly superior is his main schtick; if you make the threat so big that even Superman seems powerless to stop it, then Superman stops feeling like Superman.

An episodic structure could help circumvent that problem. The bigger your climax is, the bigger the despair moment you need beforehand. So if, instead of one big climax, you have lots of little ones, it's okay if the despair moments are little as well, so long as the biggest one is saved for last.

Additional footage from Comic-con

^Oooooh boy. That's so cool I can't even-

I keep telling myself not to look so much, but...damned if Cavill doesn't look bigger than life. Seriously, that shot when he's leaving the fortress? and when the cape majestically flows behind him? Great. The (possible) Fortress of Solitude looks fairly interesting, though it's still kinda fuzzy looking.

I hope this movie will become part of the Nolanverse.