All Things Superman: An Open Discussion (Spoilers) - - - - - - - - - - - - - Part 93

[Loki882]

So, a movie with Zod trying to iniate global genocide and Superman/US miltary trying to stop him should be light in tone, no. The movie wasn't bleak and depressing to me, I found it hopeful and uplifiting. Bad **** happens, and you overcome it and move on. Also, Superman kept having to move around because he was incapable of not helping people who needed it (Lois even mentions that that is how she found him) so I think the movie did a good job of establishing that Clark cared about life and didn't want to hurt anyone.

 

[Loki882]

People bring up RT. 56% of critics liked the movie, so it got more psositive reviews than negative ones (even a lot of the negative ones that I read just said the movie was meh, not that is was really bad). The audience rating is 82%, so most of the GA liked the film, which is ultimately the biggest factor since the GA makes these movies either succeed or fail.

 

[The Question]

People bring up RT. 56% of critics liked the movie, so it got more psositive reviews than negative ones (even a lot of the negative ones that I read just said the movie was meh, not that is was really bad). The audience rating is 82%, so most of the GA liked the film, which is ultimately the biggest factor since the GA makes these movies either succeed or fail.

But most of the General Audience don't really care that much about movies and will give any film they don't absolutely hate a high score.

Also, we have to acknowledge the possibility that the movie's Rotten Tomatoes General Audience score might be skewed by more of the people who bothered to log on and rate the film being hard core Superman fanboys than not.

Basically what I'm saying is that Rotten Tomatoes' GA ratings aren't the most scientifically scrutinized data gathering polling around, so it's not really that clear what the numbers are telling us.

 

[Loki882]

People keep bringing up RT as a strike aganst the film and I'm pointing out that there is more to it, you can't have both ways. If the GA score was poor, then I bet that you would be bringing it up. Also, we have no evidence that only hadcore fanboys log on, you have ZERO proof of that. Shouldn't hardcore fanboys LOWER the GA score if thet allegedly hated the movie? ALL reviews are opinions and subjective, even the "professional" ones.

 

[Marvin]

As odd as the RT Audience meter is(I agree) there is something to be said for it's seemingly consistency. Notice the Green Lantern score for example. There is at something to be learned if not not all that much I suppose.

 

[Marvin]

Like you said, a lot of this fine scrutiny is down to the democratizing impact of the internet, and that geek is now pop culture. Maybe MoS isn't given a fair crack of the whip, but that's because it's Superman; the expectations are that much higher, rightly or wrongly. And like I said earlier, the expectations are higher still as this story aspires to something more.

I read this Stallone interview the other day from Comic-Con, and he expressed his amazement at how much the mainstream movie scene is centered on San Diego.

http://movies.yahoo.com/news/stallone-schwarzenegger-comic-con-054845474.html

Though I see what he means about the con, I would argue that it takes a lot more to become the new hollywood lol.

And yes, the internet connects people, for better or worse. The danger I think is when this stops being about learning from each other and sharing and more just a propagation of hate culture and god worship(see the "nites" added to certain directors names).
If fans spend 2 years bashing an actor after being cast(as many would have in the past), how does that influence and affect this same audience's perception of a film performance(for better or worse)..The internets.

 

[The Question]

People keep bringing up RT as a strike aganst the film and I'm pointing out that there is more to it, you can't have both ways. If the GA score was poor, then I bet that you would be bringing it up.

I mean, I might. But my opinion or Rotten Tomatoes itself is that it's a fairly flawed polling model that doesn't go in depth and doesn't account for a lot of variables, so what it's data means isn't super clear. If a well marketed film that we know for a fact a lot of people saw has an especially high or an especially low RT rating and the sample of people who gave it an RT rating is very high (like over 400), then that would probably at least indicate the general opinion people had about a film, but even then it would still be inaccurate. And even then the question asked by Rotten Tomatoes is a very simple 1-5 rating, that doesn't give you a very nuanced or in depth idea of what people thought, especially since not everyone will give the same star rating for a film even if they feel the same way about it just because in the different ways people articulate their opinions. And if it's a pre-existing fan property with a fan base then that could throw off the numbers even more because, like I said, we have no way of accounting for which people who rated it on RT had prior biases and which went into the film without any.

Also, we have no evidence that only hadcore fanboys log on, you have ZERO proof of that.

No, you see, my point is that Rotten Tomatoes' system has no way of accounting for that. That's the kind of thing that would heavily skew the numbers away from what the larger population's opinion is, and Rotten Tomatoes has no way of accounting for that kind of thing. We don't know how many of the people who rated the film on RT were people who came into the movie fresh without any particular attachment to the property and how many were already fans with preconceived notions and biases. So, since we can't account for that, we don't have a super clear picture of general opinion.

Shouldn't hardcore fanboys LOWER the GA score if thet allegedly hated the movie?

... no?

That's a very odd and, in terms of a debate, entirely useless claim that I never made.

 

[TheFlamingCoco]

But most of the General Audience don't really care that much about movies and will give any film they don't absolutely hate a high score.

Also, we have to acknowledge the possibility that the movie's Rotten Tomatoes General Audience score might be skewed by more of the people who bothered to log on and rate the film being hard core Superman fanboys than not.

Basically what I'm saying is that Rotten Tomatoes' GA ratings aren't the most scientifically scrutinized data gathering polling around, so it's not really that clear what the numbers are telling us.

Agreed, and the audience rating is 77 percent satisfied. Which is adequate and guarantees a sequel, but isn't a GREAT satisfaction ranking.

 

[FlawlessVictory]

Agreed, and the audience rating is 77 percent satisfied. Which is adequate and guarantees a sequel, but isn't a GREAT satisfaction ranking.

Yup and 7.9 audience rating on Metacritic and 7.7 on IMDB which is pretty damn good.

 

[TheFlamingCoco]

Yup and 7.9 audience rating on Metacritic and 7.7 on IMDB which is pretty d*** good.

Those can be "adjusted" by the fans to give a higher score. HOWEVER, there arevery high, considering that it's an origin, that Nolan didn't direct it (I think it's safe to say his films and The Avengers are the only ones that get over an 8 on IMDB) and with the potential backlash for Zack because of Sucker Punch.

So I think this film was relatively well-received, though if the writing and editing is better done on the sequel, and the story doesn't go in some awkward places that don't really make sense, we could have a killer sequel.

I'm dying to see Snyder's Batman, even if I'm skeptical of the whole meeting to begin with.

 

[DigificWriter]

Ah, the scope. Ok, thanks, I got it. Yeah, I can see superheroes coming forward, the Justice League forming after this world threat, after Superman's huge reveal to the world.

A Batman can definitely exist in this continuity. A bit harder to picture a Wonder Woman and Green Lantern because their backstories and worlds are more fantastical in nature's, given the tone of MoS. Will be interesting to see, though.

Maybe we had a different interpretation of MoS, but I don't think it was any more 'realistic' than the Marvel movies, Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy, the X-Men films, and TASM 1 are. There's a certain 'grounded in reality' vibe to them, but that's different from them being 'realistic'.

 

[TheFlamingCoco]

Maybe we had a different interpretation of MoS, but I don't think it was any more 'realistic' than the Marvel movies, Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy, the X-Men films, and TASM 1 are. There's a certain 'grounded in reality' vibe to them, but that's different from them being 'realistic'.

I'd even go as far as to say that it felt less realistic than the first Iron Man movie

 

[PacificBoy]

And yes, the internet connects people, for better or worse. The danger I think is when this stops being about learning from each other and sharing and more just a propagation of hate culture and god worship(see the "nites" added to certain directors names).
If fans spend 2 years bashing an actor after being cast(as many would have in the past), how does that influence and affect this same audience's perception of a film performance(for better or worse)..The internets.

Yeah, that's the sucky part of the net, and there's really no getting away from that in any form of democratization; the bitter has to be embraced along with the sweet. But I can choose to either learn and share or indulge in hatingz -- that's the freedom of choice most anyone has on the net.

If I want extreme, infantile fanboyism, I'd head down to the IMDB boards. If I want informed, thoughtful dialogue and discussion (for the most part), I come on right here. Sure, two years of non-stop bashing of a casting call would indubitably influence my view, but it's also up to me, the individual, to exercise the necessary self-discretion.

 

[DigificWriter]

I felt like MoS had all the trappings of a traditional Science Fiction movie that just do happened to be about one of the most iconic superheroes in pop culture history. Good Sci-Fi often makes you believe that the world it presents could actually exist, and that's what I felt like MoS did.

 

[PacificBoy]

I'd even go as far as to say that it felt less realistic than the first Iron Man movie

Yup, which is why, I feel, made Iron Man quite the brilliant movie. It made a genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist in a suit of flying armor seem believable.

 

[Marvin]

I'd even go as far as to say that it felt less realistic than the first Iron Man movie

I think the military response alone argues otherwise, but that's me.
That car battery arc reactor thing in the heart thing is alot less believable than any of the alien tech in MOS. Punisher is probably the most real lol.

 

[Loki882]

Considering that the tech is Alien, I agree that it may very well be out there somewhere, we simply don't know.

 

[Loki882]

IM was fairly grounded (man in armor, terrorists, etc). Yet when we get to TA, he's fighting alongside a Norse God, a SS from WW II who was frozen in ice for 70 years, a nerdy scientist who turns into a big green rage monster, and their opponents are an army of aliens led by another pissed off Norse God wielding a device of unlimited power and working with a genocidal purple alien warlord who is in love with death itself. Given all this, WW could exist in MOS's world.

 

[The Question]

IM was fairly grounded (man in armor, terrorists, etc). Yet when we get to TA, he's fighting alongside a Norse God, a SS from WW II who was frozen in ice for 70 years, a nerdy scientist who turns into a big green rage monster, and their opponents are an army of aliens led by another pissed off Norse God wielding a device of unlimited power and working with a genocidal purple alien warlord who is in love with death itself. Given all this, WW could exist in MOS's world.

I never felt like the other Marvel heroes were impossible in the world of Iron man 1. Fury's scene at the end I feel set the stage for a larger world we hadn't see yet.

 

[TheFlamingCoco]

I never felt like the other Marvel heroes were impossible in the world of Iron man 1. Fury's scene at the end I feel set the stage for a larger world we hadn't see yet.

And yet, no magic for IronMan 3 :P

 

[The Question]

And yet, no magic for IronMan 3 :P

Well, seeing as how there was never magic involving The Mandarin to begin with I don't see why that's a problem.

And either way, it's about conservation of detail. If you spend too much time explaining things in a story then you need a simpler explanation. The alien rings would have taken a lot more time to explain than Extremis, and Extremis was able to serve multiple functions in the story instead of just one. Changing the Mandarin's power from the rings to Extremis just made the story a lot less complicated.

 

[DigificWriter]

Well, seeing as how there was never magic involving The Mandarin to begin with I don't see why that's a problem.

Exactly. People have this idea in their heads that certain stories can only be told a certain way, but it's called ADAPTATION, not TRANSLATION.

 

[The Question]

And anyway, the nature of the rings was never important in the comics. The fact that they were ten rings from a spaceship, each with a different super power, was neat, but the fact that it was specifically that thing wasn't important. What was important was that The Mandarin had a means of physically confronting Iron Man that wasn't a suit of armor and was something he stumbled across and took for himself but didn't actually create or earn. Extremis served the same function in Iron Man 3.

 

[MrMaooz]

So...what's going on?

 

[InJustice]

Changing the Mandarin's power made you lose an essential part of the dynamic between Tony Stark and the Mandarin. Look back to IM1 (and IM2 to a certain extent) and you'll see that one of the themes is that it's always a battle of technology and wit: 1) Tony Stark intentionally weakens himself by using an outdated arc reactor so that he can stop Obadiah Stane (even with this "disadvantage" of the outdated arc reactor, he still knew the Iron Monger/Mark I's disadvantage and used it to his advantage). 2) Once Tony Stark sees that the palladium core is poisoning him, he revisits his father's old Vibranium project and uses it as a viable element for the arc reactor. With the Mandarin, you see Tony Stark completely outwit as he doesn't have a clue how alien tech works and finally puts him at a pretty big disadvantage. Add that the Mandarin had advanced martial arts skills and you have a very strong villain that can outwit, outfight, and outlast Tony Stark.

Plus, using JeremyJahns' analogy, to consider the Mandarin as real through Aldrich Killian's character is false considering that it's the same as saying Santa Claus is real because your Dad is playing the character. At the end of the day, it's a facade...the concept exists, but that doesn't make it real.