Superman Returns Did Lex's plan make sense to anyone?

[Whack Arnolds]

Guard and I know each other personally. We don't "OWN" each other.

Yeah, I know D. as well.

 

[The Riddler]

Okay, well, now that I've sifted through the dim-witedness and shortsightedness and, in The Guard's case -- HYPOCRISY -- on these boards, I'll move on to trying to explain this.

First and foresmot, I remember distinctly arguing that things could've been done differently in X3 with many of the same people here (The Guard included) and being told (The Guard saying) that I was substituting the actual film with my vision, amoutning to nothing more than "If I did it..."

That's al lthis is. A bunch of fanboys whining about how they would've done it if they were in control. For X3, we're suppose to understand budget constraints, time tables, schedules, etc....here, people were just expecting the world to explode in jubilation. It's a pathetic showcase of hypocrisy in almost every form.

BUt, let's move onto the plan, which really in terms of plot is no better or worse than the villian plan in such other acclaimed Comic-Book movies:

Luthor jacks Superman's technology to build his very own continent. Now, apparently, most of you have forgotten that America is not the center of the world. So, really, Luthor probably didn't care all that much about America's deaths and what would happen. He realized and knew he had an entire SIX CONTINENTS left over who would probably want to buy into that land eventually and yes people, despite its rather digusting and horrid look and arrival, the greedy of the world would've bought into the land Luthor made. Believe it or not, there are few countries out there that'd probably be thrilled (North Korea, Iran, Syria, China in some ways) that'd be gleefully happy with such open real estate and would buy into it without pause, especially if it gave them more technology overwhich to slam each other around and conquer. It'd be like reigniting the arms race between nations. Luthor knows this -- sadly, you guys do not.

The New World was created through such greed and scams -- Luthor is simply continuing a long tradition of imperalism started by us all long ago. Yes, billions would die, but billions more would need a new place to live and Luthor would be able to provide that in spades. Why would they bomb him at that point? Why? Becuase at that point the world needs the land just as much as Luthor does -- the land is now a valued object for millions of displaced people. Nuking it's not going to do a damn thing.

Now, Luthor creates his own continent and is doing it on the surface to make a huge amount of money. However, notice his particular attention. Notice how he does it....? Someone said it's not the villian's ACTIONS, not his plans that create a good villian -- well, Luthor doesn't just make a new landmass or blow up the coast. No. He steals his mortal enemies birthright, poisons it, and creates a bastardization of his homeworld that will foresake him through its very core. Yeah, that's not a good plan or anything....**rollseyes** He's creating a World Wihtout a Superman and in doing so, as many seemed to have missed, he's lost sight of it as well. Is his planned fall? Yes, very much so -- all villian's plans are flawed. If they weren't, they wouldn't be villians. They'd be leaders. Even Hitler, as effective as he was, had flawed plans -- it's all just a matter of time. Some of the most well-regarded mlitary strategists in our time all advocated plans that at one time or another would ultimately fail. What people are doing here is the equivalant of someone looking at American today and calling the Founding Fathers idiots for the way it turned out. At the time, and to this day in some ways, what they dsicovered was an AMAZING idea. Luthor's plan, while ultimately probably flawed in that he'd lose control in the end (a control he doesn't even notice due to his more IMPORTANT BLIND HATRED OF SUPERMAN), resonates with the human fallacy of leaping before you look ,or of going on your instinct, being driven by greed without thinking about the consequences.

Luthor is a genius. But he's not perfect. His plan is pretty genius. To figure out and understand the Kryptonian techonology is genius. However, his application would eventually self-destruct...or would it? With enough technology, it'd be over. But even as he says that, whiny fanboys have to go on and on about every single possibility? "Well, if a F-14 dropped a single-yield nuclear bomb on quadrant four, Luthor's plan would be foiled!!!!!!!!" Yet, I don't see people talking about Doc Ock's plan being stupid in the end, or Green Goblin's lack of goal being some sort of weakpoint, or -- since some of you think X3 was so genius -- Magneto's blind march on Alcatraz to do...what exactly? Oh yeah, kill his own kind and destroy a cure that's already being spread across the country...yeah, that makes a whole lot of sense!

Hypocrites much, The Guard especially?

So, no government response being shown...? I wondered this as well. But then again, we have a whole slew of things to consider. One: jurisidiction. Which government? Of course America could take the most pertinent interest. However, up until that point, Luthor's actions are not technically illegal. He's going out into open waters and creating his own landmass. I don't think the legal codes of war or civility have that covered or anticipated such a thing. My wager: Singer didn't show the gov't reaction because the reaction would be boring and confused and simply that -- a wait and see what's happening. For all they know, it could just be a general landmass growing. Either/or, it's not worthy of our attention in the movement of the action. Also, if you watch closely, the news IS covering the event and speaking of a general disturbance. However, I suppose all you close observors who love to nitpick every detail MISSED that detail.

So, Luthor is creating a landmass and some of you say its ugly. Well. Yeah. It's going to be. In fact, to most humans, Krypton itself looks pretty damn inhospitable and unfriendly. This was no different. And as an EMERGING landmass, that was continoually growing throughout the third act into something we never see, to judge it is being presumptous and somewhat ignorant.

However, remember, we're seeing Luthor in the very beginning of this landmass. For him to have made wepaons prior to the landmass rising would be a bit foolish considering he didn't even know exactly how the landmass would appear. Kryptonian weaponry would need a Kryptonian foundation from which to operate, thus while vulnerable for those few days, Luthor would have a great deal of time to orchestrate the next phase in his plan before or even as the government was attacking him. Remember, the gov't's not going to know exaclty what's going on. It could just be a new land mass...not Luthor. So they may not suspect ill-intent until its too late, by which time, as New Krypton starts breaking through hte East Coast, Luthor's got the weaponry ready to secure his landmass. To me, this all seems very self-obvious and easy -- to some here, not.

Lastly, this whole thing of border patrol and the like. Did it occur to anyone what Lex said in the first place? That he had alien technology BEYOND anything the world has ever seen. Just because he hadn't used it yet, doesn't mean he wasn't going to. In a day, not everyone's going to die, regroup, migrate, and get on his land. It'd take months for such a thing to begin happening, not to mention that New Krypton was alreayd sending out EMP pulses that deativated everything around it -- imagine once it breaches the coast what happens? Panic is always underestimated in cases like these.

The question everyone needs to be asking howeve,r in the end, is why does Luthor do this?

He says its becuase he wants "his cut." But is that really the case? In S:TM, Superman is a side-issue to LUthor, a mere obstalce to a larger goal. In SR, this is far from the case. Far from it. Luthor, from the get go, is OUT TO GET SUPERMAN. He goes to HIS FORTRESS. Steals HIS TECHNOLOGY. Gets KRYPTONITE! Poisions this new land mass to prevent him from being anywhere near it. It's that its so understated, so subtle that he's doing this, that most everyone misses it. It's not being thrown in your face. However, Luthor's first and foremsot goal was to make a world where Superman would not be able to reach him. He didn't want to make his own FOrtress, where he'd be confined from the world in fear of Superman, he wanted to make his own continent, an entire free-roaming wolrd where Superman would be powerless. His plan is maniacal and insane -- but LUthor isn't exactly sane in the first place. We don't go around critiquing Joker for his lack of sanity in scheming -- sometimes, the lack of sanity is the point. Yet, alas, whiny fanboys...

you just wrote a novel in defense of a nonsensical plot.

go you.

 

[bosef982]

you just wrote a novel in defense of a nonsensical plot.

go you.

Way to refute.

I don't see you posting telling those bashing the "nonsensical" plot in longwinded, endless posts segmented by qoutes that they are writing novels just to pickapart a non-sensical plot.

 

[The Riddler]

Way to refute.

I don't see you posting telling those bashing the "nonsensical" plot in longwinded, endless posts segmented by qoutes that they are writing novels just to pickapart a non-sensical plot.

i would, but why would i waste half an hour tearing apart your long winded response defending a fictional character's plan to, get this, create new continents!?

 

[the norminator]

OK 26, Tthat's old enough for you to be able to understand this stuff.
You say Osborn was not insane just "dumb" for injecting himself.
ok,..I don't know what your point is exactly but there are a LOT of problems with that statement with respect to the argument.

first, you are right, Osborn was NOT insane, BEFORE he injected himself. But he was not dumb either. He had developed a formula which HE BELIEVED would make human beings stronger, and better. He wanted to take all the time he needed to test it out, but he was put in a situation where he had to make a decision right away. Trusting in his formula, he took a shot. That is not Dumb. He may have been wrong, but he wasn't stupid.
Now as for clues to his insanity AFTER he took the serum,..they were ALL THROUGHOUT the movie. You know, little things like talking to himself, split personality, etc. It was made CLEAR that GG was CLINICALLY insane.
Even then, his "plan" was not as stupid or as silly as Lex's. As many have pointed out,..GG's plan was simply to take over the city by eliminating his enemies. He first tried to team up with SM, then tried to kill him after SM refused. there is nothing stupid about that.

as for Doc Ock.The movie protrays it as the arms controlled him. So accepting that, clearly he was not in control of his own mind. I t was also made clear that he was quite insane and he was delusional,( talking to himself,) etc. It is my personal belief that the arms weren't in fact controlling him but that his mind split and created a personality for the arms. but that's neither her nor there.
The fact remains, either way he was not in control.
and his plan was not that silly either. He was simply trying to finish something he had been working for HIS WHOLE life, by ANY means necissary.
basically both GG and Doc Ock lost their inhabitions and the morals, much like ANY real criminal.

what YOU have to understand about Lex's plan.,... What you are old enough to understand is that Lex's plan itself MADE NO SENSE. It's not the fact that he had a plan that involved killing Billions that's the problem. It's the fact that his goal could NEVER be achieved. that the plan was dumb.

It would be like me wanting to get some apples and my plan is to burn down my neighbor's house. One has nothing to do with the other. And the action could NEVER achieve the goal.

as it has been said here WAY TOO MANY TIMES.
if he killed BILLIONS of people, there would be no one left to BUY his land. and like it or not THAT was his plan. he wanted to populate his continent by selling it off and making billions.

Please, please don't say there would still be people left on earth. You HAVE to be smart enough at 26 to know that just because there is unhabitted land doesn't mean people are going to leave their homeland. You must know that MOST of AMERICA is unpopulated for example. that there is PLENTY of vast open spaces for sale right here in AMERICA that people are not buying up and leaving their homeland for.
Why would they do it now. nm the fact that this new land would be a barren rocky piece of land that frankly humans could not live on. seriously you have to see the absurdity in this script.

and this is just ONE of the MANY MANY reasons why this plan was stupid. read the other posts for the others.

Come on, you must see the stupidity and inplausibility of this plan.

AGAIN I ENJOY SR & SPIDER-MAN (1&2)..... Good day Sir.... thx norm

 

[War Lord]

That likes to hump old women for money instead of using his evil genius, lol.

It took every ounce of his genius to figure out how to stay aroused, because there isn't enough viagra across the continental US to make that situation possible.

 

[bosef982]

Yet, it was the humiliating experience of having to court to that widow to get himself out of jail that made Luthor as bitter as he was. He's the ultimate narcassicist and to be reduced from seeing yourself as a genius criminal to a two-bit crook inside a jail cell begging your way out -- however charmilngly -- to a old geezer with money is beyond insulting to someone like that.

 

[SilentType]

The only way the plot works is is you say that Kryptonian tech can do anything. A literal Deux Ex Machina. It would have to control, house, feed, and water millions or billions of people. With 4 or 5 crystals. I don't see how that could happen, but that doesn't matter because the plan never comes to fruition, the writers knew it would never come to fruition, so they never had to give any indication as to how these handful of crystals and a couple goons could do these impossible things. It also doesn't explain why he didn't use this technology, which can do ANYTHING, to simply take over the perfectly good land that was already available.

I'd like to see how a couple goons use the alien technology to solve all the problems of Hurricane Katrina X10,000,000. That would have been fun.

 

[storyteller]

Well heres my idea. The kryptonite continent was simply for supermans attempt to stop lex. But the crystals can absorb and create a stucture that has elements of what it absorbed. Since the fortress was founded on ice, its material was clear and basically water based. Lex was made from kryptonite so it was that murky thing. Now i assume that the krystal can be wrapped in soil and well earthlike landmass.

 

[MattXG]

Ok in case it wasn't covered yet...


He explains the plan pretty clearly.


Most important was to listen to his "Prometheus and the God's Fire" part of the story. He says something like he wants to be "Prometheus" or something.


So basically he is going to rebuild the world, in which Superman isn't super, thusly stealing his fire that makes him a "god". He even refers to him as a "god".


Secondly, he figures that the displaced ocean and interrupted techtonic (sp?) plates will cause the world to flood/earthquake into complete anarchy. Thusly, those surviving that want a safe and nice area to live will pay Lex to live on his continent.

Really, it is a dumb plan. And yeah, Lex was the worst part of this movie. But the movie STILL managed to be amazing just because they nailed Superman and his relationships with the world.

 

[deemar325]

I thought the whole plot was lame, it had potential, but it's like Singer is so afraid of making a full on comicbook movie. If any character can get away with 'DoomsDay' 'Mongul' 'Metallo' hell any number of balls to the walls superheroics! It's friggin' Superman!!!

Nope, what we got is an evil 21th Century real estate saleman.

 

[Red Mask]

Luthor jacks Superman's technology to build his very own continent. Now, apparently, most of you have forgotten that America is not the center of the world. So, really, Luthor probably didn't care all that much about America's deaths and what would happen. He realized and knew he had an entire SIX CONTINENTS left over who would probably want to buy into that land eventually and yes people, despite its rather digusting and horrid look and arrival, the greedy of the world would've bought into the land Luthor made. Believe it or not, there are few countries out there that'd probably be thrilled (North Korea, Iran, Syria, China in some ways) that'd be gleefully happy with such open real estate and would buy into it without pause, especially if it gave them more technology overwhich to slam each other around and conquer. It'd be like reigniting the arms race between nations. Luthor knows this -- sadly, you guys do not.

You overlooked how smaller countries would be thrilled to make property claims to that new land mass. That includes small nations like the U.K. (small archipelago), Italy, & Greece. Then you've got many Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans and such. And there are the nations who want to suppress illegal immigration into their own territories, or desire to exile undesirables.

 

[lokisixnine]

It did but i love how superman can't stand kryp but can lift a island of it.

 

[Raiden]

It did but i love how superman can't stand kryp but can lift a island of it.

I like how Superman was as weak as a five-year-old when he entered NK, but later he was able to lift the whole damn thing, with small shard of kryptonite embedded inside him, into space.

 

[The Guard]

Would have Lex's grand plan failed?

Who knows? Not knowing means the writers didn't do their jobs terribly well.

remember what he said...."I have advanced alien technology....thousands of years ahead of what ANYONE can throw at me."

Yeah. He SAID that. People SAY lots. The rule in movies is "show, don't tell". Throwing away what he could do for a sentence of slightly expository dialogue is not impressive writing.

So he basically could have hel the world for ransom....What nation would be able to challenge him??

Anyone with a nuclear weapon, or bomber planes, since Lex didn't show he had any weapons on New Krypton or had even thought about defending himself from possible attacks.

It was a genius plan. Grow a NEW land mass...one that Lex is in control of. A new world...one where Superman can't survive in for very long.

It was a genius plan to KILL SUPERMAN. Beyond that, for example, in order to make Lex rich or give him a lot of world power, it sucks. He'd be better off hijacking some nuclear weapons and holding the world hostage like Dr. Evil than expecting people to shell out money for his landmasses.

If he killed billions of people....most of the rich and the governments would survive...the only ones who have the money to buy the land Lex will sell. Screw the regular joe...they couldn't afford the land.

And...the rich and powerful...instead of wanting to live on the nicest land that remained that Luthor hadn't destroyed...would, for some reason, want to live on New Krypton? And this would happen because...

How exactly is Lex in control of it?

What makes him the owner of the property?

Exactly.

Well I don't know about Lex's plan, but GG's didn't make much sense to me. Ok, so he wanted to eliminate the people who were trying to run him out of business. I got that. That was fine.

Then he just developed this wierd obsession for Spider-Man joining him. Joining him for what?? What were they going to do?? Goblin never specified. He just seemed to want Spider-Man on side.

The Green Goblin essentially wanted Spider-Man on his side because he knew Spider-Man made a powerful enemy. Once Spider-Man rejected him, yes, he turned his attention to destroying his most powerful enemy. Actually a pretty sound tactic, considering.

One of the reasons I liked The Goblin was he didn't have a lame-ass nefarious "world-hanging-in-the-balance" scheme. He was an evil man with a SERIES of MEANINGUL personal schemes. He threatened everything Peter cared about, and especially who he cared most about.

Okay, well, now that I've sifted through the dim-witedness and shortsightedness and, in The Guard's case -- HYPOCRISY -- on these boards, I'll move on to trying to explain this.

How am I a hypocrite on this? Where else have I embraced an illogical plan where I'm poo-pooing this one?

First and foremost, I remember distinctly arguing that things could've been done differently in X3 with many of the same people here (The Guard included) and being told (The Guard saying) that I was substituting the actual film with my vision, amoutning to nothing more than "If I did it..."

The only thing similar to this in X3 is Magneto's quasi-suicidal march on Alcatraz. But since Magneto and his Brotherhood were kicking ass until the X-Men showed up, and Magneto's motivations were intact the entire time, and his plan MADE SENSE from a tactical standpoint...how is Magneto's scheme anything close to Luthor's? Elaborate on how I am a hypocrite, please. Because this isn't "They could have done better". This is "What was there was complete, utter, illogical ****e".

As for "Could have done this", yeah, I'm saying it. I've said the same thing about BATMAN BEGINS, and god knows how many other superhero films. I didn't say "They should have done this", I said "could have done". I go so in depth because there are idiots on these boards who seem to think every move superhero screenwriters make is pure gold, and don't allow for the possibility that things very well COULD have been handled better, with more depth, class, story and character relevance, etc.

And frankly, bosef, the difference between my take here and your similar "They could have done" this on X3 is that I am not letting my recognition that Luthor's plan was not that impressive ruin the film for me. You confessed and then later made obvious that the "could have dones" in X3 nearly ruined the film experience for you.

Again, how am I a hypocrite?

That's all this is. A bunch of fanboys whining about how they would've done it if they were in control.

Hardly. I'm whining about two seperate things. 1, that Luthor's plan makes no sense logically, and 2, that there are several EASY screenwriting methods to beef it up that could have been done. And absolutely should have been, in a film of this scope and scale. X3 didn't waste any time showing the government reacting to an enormous threat/disaster. It showed the results of Magneto's war on humanity.

For X3, we're suppose to understand budget constraints, time tables, schedules, etc....here, people were just expecting the world to explode in jubilation. It's a pathetic showcase of hypocrisy in almost every form.

Why do you insist on bringing what was wrong with X3 in to defend SUPERMAN RETURNS? Can you not defend it as a seperate entity?

But, let's move onto the plan, which really in terms of plot is no better or worse than the villian plan in such other acclaimed Comic-Book movies:

Parts of it are far worse than most comic book movie plots. Because parts of his plot don't make sense logically, storywise, and because of that, fail to make sense in terms of characterization. Which in turn lowers Luthor to a level he should not sink to as a character, espcially with how he's been built up in the film to that point. I.E, it makes Luthor look like a dumbass with someone else's toys who didn't think things through at all. That's not an impressive or accurate characterization of Lex Luthor.

Luthor jacks Superman's technology to build his very own continent. Now, apparently, most of you have forgotten that America is not the center of the world. So, really, Luthor probably didn't care all that much about America's deaths and what would happen. He realized and knew he had an entire SIX CONTINENTS left over who would probably want to buy into that land eventually and yes people, despite its rather digusting and horrid look and arrival, the greedy of the world would've bought into the land Luthor made.

Why? What's to be had on black rock, exactly? Wouldn't it be more likely that the greedy would...I don't know...go to war over the actual precious resources that remained, not vye for Luthor's ****ty rock continent? Lesse, if you have a choice between trying to buy land in Australia, or Luthor's ****ty rock continent, which are you going to choose?

And who is going to actually let the man who suddenly appears and proposes to own and want to sell the land whose presence drowned half of America...get away with it when his continent clearly killed billions of people?

Believe it or not, there are few countries out there that'd probably be thrilled (North Korea, Iran, Syria, China in some ways) that'd be gleefully happy with such open real estate and would buy into it without pause, especially if it gave them more technology overwhich to slam each other around and conquer.

So they'd want...****ty black rock over the resources that REMAINED after the world changed? Yeah, that makes sense.

It'd be like reigniting the arms race between nations. Luthor knows this -- sadly, you guys do not.

Problem is...this is what you read into the movie. The movie is never phrased that way, or even hinted at this. That's one way it COULD have gone, yes. But it didn't go that way in the film. Instead, it's phrased as "people will always need land" and "he who has technology controls the world", not "He who sells/shares technology controls the world or watches the world vye for...see...even THAT plan falls apart, bosef, because how can Luthor win when he's sharing the technology he NEEDS to stay on top? And since Luthor says "I'll have advanced alien technology beyond what anyone can throw at me", I have a hard time believing he was planning to SHARE that alien technology with mankind at all. Otherwise, they could simply use it to end him.

The New World was created through such greed and scams -- Luthor is simply continuing a long tradition of imperalism started by us all long ago.

How does he win, even in that scenario? Aside from becoming rich (when money would essentially be useless when the world economy collapsed upon the destruction of most of America's). There are too many holes, none of which were even attempted to be plugged by the writers of SUPERMAN RETURNS.

Yes, billions would die, but billions more would need a new place to live and Luthor would be able to provide that in spades.

Who would need a new place to live? And why, instead of going to other countries, would they choose to live on, wait for it, ****TY BLACK ROCK WITH NO RESOURCES???

Why would they bomb him at that point? Why? Becuase at that point the world needs the land just as much as Luthor does -- the land is now a valued object for millions of displaced people. Nuking it's not going to do a damn thing.

****ty black rock with no soil and no...anything, in the middle of the ocean is a valued object? You know what would be even more valuable? The land that Luthor didn't destroy. The other pre-existing continents.

No, the world might nt nuke him after it's fully grown, but what government in the history of the U.S. would let an entire continent drown America without acting (Am I to believe a ****load of people in power would go "Well, there's a continent growing and growing, and it's destroyed the Eastern Seaboard and millions have died already, what say that, rather than reacting to it and trying to salvage our way of life, we just let it keep growing and growing and see how big it gets?" So clearly, the world might well nuke him to begin with, and would almost certainly investigate the occurrence. Since it would be obvious to any seismic expert that it is the huge continent growing in the middle of the Atlantic that was setting of quakes. Since seismics are something that are meticulously measured and tracked.

 

[The Guard]

Now, Luthor creates his own continent and is doing it on the surface to make a huge amount of money. However, notice his particular attention. Notice how he does it....? Someone said it's not the villian's ACTIONS, not his plans that create a good villian -- well, Luthor doesn't just make a new landmass or blow up the coast. No. He steals his mortal enemies birthright, poisons it, and creates a bastardization of his homeworld that will foresake him through its very core. Yeah, that's not a good plan or anything....**rollseyes** He's creating a World Wihtout a Superman and in doing so, as many seemed to have missed, he's lost sight of it as well. Is his planned fall? Yes, very much so -- all villian's plans are flawed. If they weren't, they wouldn't be villians. They'd be leaders. Even Hitler, as effective as he was, had flawed plans -- it's all just a matter of time. Some of the most well-regarded mlitary strategists in our time all advocated plans that at one time or another would ultimately fail. What people are doing here is the equivalant of someone looking at American today and calling the Founding Fathers idiots for the way it turned out. At the time, and to this day in some ways, what they dsicovered was an AMAZING idea. Luthor's plan, while ultimately probably flawed in that he'd lose control in the end (a control he doesn't even notice due to his more IMPORTANT BLIND HATRED OF SUPERMAN), resonates with the human fallacy of leaping before you look ,or of going on your instinct, being driven by greed without thinking about the consequences.

You're right. Taking Superman's legacy, poisoning it, using it to cause mass destruction to draw him in and then using it to kill him is a great plan, thematically and mechanically. But that's not the part of Luthor's plan that of us take issue with. The part of the plan we take issue with is Luthor's long term goal, which he explains, in a long drawn out scene as "Grow a new continent, kill billions and sell my land to people". That plan is just...stupid on every level.

Luthor is a genius. But he's not perfect. His plan is pretty genius. To figure out and understand the Kryptonian techonology is genius. However, his application would eventually self-destruct...or would it? With enough technology, it'd be over.

Yes, with enough tech, it might be over. TOO BAD THAT WAS NEVER EXPLORED, HUH? The story possibilities there were endless. Not even showing them or exploring them in terms of exposition, and worse, teasing us with the "I'll have advanced alien technology thousands of years beyond" stuff is just not impressive writing.

But even as he says that, whiny fanboys have to go on and on about every single possibility? "Well, if a F-14 dropped a single-yield nuclear bomb on quadrant four, Luthor's plan would be foiled!!!!!!!!"

God forbid they show us why Luthor WOULDN'T be foiled after hinting at it so obviously.

Yet, I don't see people talking about Doc Ock's plan being stupid in the end

Doc Ock's actual plan was perfect. His execution of it was massively flawed. That's why it was a threat to begin with. That was the whole point.

or Green Goblin's lack of goal being some sort of weakpoint

The Green Goblin simply wanted to feel superior to others, and destroyed anyone who got in his way. There's no real weak point there, and none of the scenes "hinted at" were never resolved, like Luthor and his rant about "bring it on!".

since some of you think X3 was so genius -- Magneto's blind march on Alcatraz to do...what exactly? Oh yeah, kill his own kind and destroy a cure that's already being spread across the country...yeah, that makes a whole lot of sense!

Magneto's plan makes perfect sense, since he hated the cure, hated humans, and since Leech was obviously the only source of the cure. Killing Leech would obviously stop the cure, to an extent. Especially if it was not a permanent thing.

And you LOVED the "blind suicide march on Alcatraz" idea, Beau. You predicted it months before X3 and spent a lot of time talking about how great an idea it was.

Hypocrites much, The Guard especially?

I'm still waiting to be shown how I am a hypocrite. There's a difference between allowing some imagination to plug plot holes (How Angel got to San Francisco) and plugging huge errors in logic that affect characterization (making Luthor look like he didn't bother to remotely think to come up with a plan, when he'd clearly been planning it for years).

So, no government response being shown...? I wondered this as well. But then again, we have a whole slew of things to consider. One: jurisidiction. Which government?

America.

Of course America could take the most pertinent interest. However, up until that point, Luthor's actions are not technically illegal.

No, but someone's going to INVESTIGATE.

He's going out into open waters and creating his own landmass. I don't think the legal codes of war or civility have that covered or anticipated such a thing.

However, someone's going to investigate an entirely new LANDMASS suddenly growing out of nowhere.

My wager: Singer didn't show the gov't reaction because the reaction would be boring and confused and simply that -- a wait and see what's happening.

Why would it be boring? It could have been just this: confusion, panic, and a bit of terror when Luthor shoots down the plane with a death ray and they realize just what they're up against. Something like that would have allowed us to make logical extensions on why their attempts to attack him might fail in the future. Bingo. Several holes plugged, and plan feels that much more realistic.

For all they know, it could just be a general landmass growing.

Yeah, that's totally normal.

Either/or, it's not worthy of our attention in the movement of the action.

Because...

Oh, but we had to see Kitty Kowaleski's car go out of control, right? And then see her attempt to try to begin to hit on Superman.

Also, if you watch closely, the news IS covering the event and speaking of a general disturbance. However, I suppose all you close observors who love to nitpick every detail MISSED that detail.

Wow, a general disturbance. Talk about quality in terms of exploring a world's reaction to a new landmass growing and affectng seismic acivity in a massive way, endangering lives, etc.

So, Luthor is creating a landmass and some of you say its ugly. Well. Yeah. It's going to be. In fact, to most humans, Krypton itself looks pretty damn inhospitable and unfriendly. This was no different.

Then why would people buy it from him?

And as an EMERGING landmass, that was continoually growing throughout the third act into something we never see, to judge it is being presumptous and somewhat ignorant.

It's likely, since, as we saw the small ugly island grow, it got bigger and uglier, just going to keep getting bigger and uglier. Because Luthor isn't growing Krypton, like the crystals intended. He's growing ****rock. The Kryptonite made the crystals mutate into something awful, a bizzare joke of what Krypton was. And that's great for the thematics, but not for the story.

However, remember, we're seeing Luthor in the very beginning of this landmass. For him to have made wepaons prior to the landmass rising would be a bit foolish considering he didn't even know exactly how the landmass would appear.

You're telling me it would have been a bad idea for him to be prepared for people who didn't want him to destroy the world?

Kryptonian weaponry would need a Kryptonian foundation from which to operate.

Says who?

thus while vulnerable for those few days, Luthor would have a great deal of time to orchestrate the next phase in his plan before or even as the government was attacking him.

The government is not going to take two days to figure out what a huge new world-destroying continent is all about. Flyovers, satellite recoinnasence, and armed landing parties would be organized long before them.

Remember, the gov't's not going to know exaclty what's going on.

So they'd just sit on their hands till Luthor got ready to defend himself? Hardly.

It could just be a new land mass...not Luthor.

A new landmass that just happens to grow, the likes of which the world has NEVER BEFORE SEEN?

So they may not suspect ill-intent until its too late, by which time, as New Krypton starts breaking through hte East Coast, Luthor's got the weaponry ready to secure his landmass. To me, this all seems very self-obvious and easy -- to some here, not.

The problem is, any seismic activity is going to be traced along what we saw to be a MASSIVE FAULT on the ocean floor to New Krypton, which will be VERY visible as it grows. No government in the world is going to sit around and do nothing.

Lastly, this whole thing of border patrol and the like. Did it occur to anyone what Lex said in the first place? That he had alien technology BEYOND anything the world has ever seen. Just because he hadn't used it yet, doesn't mean he wasn't going to. In a day, not everyone's going to die, regroup, migrate, and get on his land. It'd take months for such a thing to begin happening, not to mention that New Krypton was alreayd sending out EMP pulses that deativated everything around it -- imagine once it breaches the coast what happens? Panic is always underestimated in cases like these.

Luthor's crystals didn't just deactivate everything. They deactivated everything and then reactivated it again minutes later.

The question everyone needs to be asking howeve,r in the end, is why does Luthor do this?

He says its becuase he wants "his cut." But is that really the case? In S:TM, Superman is a side-issue to LUthor, a mere obstalce to a larger goal. In SR, this is far from the case. Far from it. Luthor, from the get go, is OUT TO GET SUPERMAN. He goes to HIS FORTRESS. Steals HIS TECHNOLOGY. Gets KRYPTONITE! Poisions this new land mass to prevent him from being anywhere near it. It's that its so understated, so subtle that he's doing this, that most everyone misses it.

Creating a continent out of your old foe's legacy and Kryptonite is not subtle. It's obvious. But no one has issue with the "revenge" side of Luthor's plan. Just the idiocy of the plan he explains to Lois.

However, Luthor's first and foremsot goal was to make a world where Superman would not be able to reach him.

No, his goal seemed to be to trick Superman onto a world where he would die because of Kryptonite. Superman reached him just fine. He just didn't know it was made of Kryptonite.

He didn't want to make his own FOrtress, where he'd be confined from the world in fear of Superman, he wanted to make his own continent, an entire free-roaming wolrd where Superman would be powerless. His plan is maniacal and insane -- but LUthor isn't exactly sane in the first place.

He was shown to be mostly sane and not insane in SUPERMAN RETURNS. By any reasonable definition of "sane" and "insane".

It also doesn't explain why he didn't use this technology, which can do ANYTHING, to simply take over the perfectly good land that was already available.

EXACTLY.

So basically he is going to rebuild the world, in which Superman isn't super, thusly stealing his fire that makes him a "god". He even refers to him as a "god".

Superman's technology doesn't make him a god. His powers do. Bad analogy.

Secondly, he figures that the displaced ocean and interrupted techtonic (sp?) plates will cause the world to flood/earthquake into complete anarchy. Thusly, those surviving that want a safe and nice area to live will pay Lex to live on his continent.

Safe on...****ty black rock where storms rage. Wow. Just...wow.

You overlooked how smaller countries would be thrilled to make property claims to that new land mass.

Oh, I can totally see that!

"I want the ****ty resourceless black rock!"
"No, I do!"
"No, it's mine!"
"We claim it first, despite it's lack of resources and high levels of some kind of radiation!"

There's a reason wars haven't been fought over Antarctica. Figure it out, people.

 

[Speedball]

ok. i've posted before, but i just thought of something.
If he destroys Washington D.C., who is going to stand against him?
If they bomb Luthors ass, then they will be destroying the only thing that won't make them like the people in Waterworld, and that would suck BIG TIME.
Luthor may be a maniacal genius, but his plans are always stupid. It was a dumb plan in the first movie, he didn't have a plan in the second really, and in the comics, his plans are just as dumb. Come on, building a giant deathray to kill Superman, only if it's a kryptonite ray, which wouldn't even kill him, cause it would take hours to kill him with the ray probably.
And in the Up, Up, and Away story, the Starship was never built to fight a Kryptonian with crazy powers. and if they had starships, why didn't they find a planet with a yellow sun and turn into supermen?

 

[Red Mask]

ok. i've posted before, but i just thought of something.
If he destroys Washington D.C., who is going to stand against him?
If they bomb Luthors ass, then they will be destroying the only thing that won't make them like the people in Waterworld, and that would suck BIG TIME.
Luthor may be a maniacal genius, but his plans are always stupid. It was a dumb plan in the first movie, he didn't have a plan in the second really, and in the comics, his plans are just as dumb. Come on, building a giant deathray to kill Superman, only if it's a kryptonite ray, which wouldn't even kill him, cause it would take hours to kill him with the ray probably.
And in the Up, Up, and Away story, the Starship was never built to fight a Kryptonian with crazy powers. and if they had starships, why didn't they find a planet with a yellow sun and turn into supermen?

Lex Luthor is insane. That's one reason why he never wins. He's also greedy and a megalomaniac.

 

[The Riddler]

i never thought anyone would waste time addressing bosef's illogical reasoning on behalf of luthor's stupid (for lack of a better word) plan.

i will commend guard, though.

his response, though long drawn, sufficiently and utterly destroyed any remaing claims that lex luthor's plan had any logical sense behind it.

 

[The Guard]

No it doesn't. While there are clearly some major holes in the basic plan (which was thin, at best), we could go around and around forever in terms of hypotheticals. However, while I love it as a revenge scheme, I think Lex's, other, longterm "plan" is far, far too thin to believe without some kind of exploration of it, which we never saw.

 

[Speedball]

Lex Luthor is insane. That's one reason why he never wins. He's also greedy and a megalomaniac.

Exactly, he's the only one who truelly believes he is a super genius, everyone else just sees him as a criminal. His idea's are dumb because the truth is, he's a total idiot.

 

[SpandexFan]

The way I interpreted his plan was nothing to do with land prices or any of the other ideas from the original Superman movie. Stop thinking about the first movie and just picture Lex Luthor as a madman who wants to conquer the world. The land is only inserted as one of those references to the original movie. In this case, it might have been over kill, but anyways, he obviously can't combat the United States Army or become a dictator, so he does the next best thing, grows a new continent in its place and starts fresh.

 

[Spare-Flair]

You know, I made a thread exactly like this months ago predicting the nonsensical real estate plot and I was laughed at and lambasted by people on this forum.

 

[Sandman138]

Also, there are no beaches on New Krypton. Just miserable sheer obsidian cliffs.

I got the impression that he was grandstanding. He's a man who loves the spotlight. Calling it a beachfront property doesn't mean that it is. Krypton was advanced, if Superman could live on Earth that would mean that Krypton had a similar ecosystem. Yes, the weapons were not addressed nearly as well as they should have been, but overall I think everybody is making far too much out of one scene and taking words far too litterally. Lex was putting on a performance in that scene because he was getting a kick out of it. I think his plan was far more akin to what he was talking about in the Prometheus scene.

 

[The Guard]

I got the impression that he was grandstanding. He's a man who loves the spotlight. Calling it a beachfront property doesn't mean that it is.

Clearly grandstanding, but his plan, as he explains it, is still to destroy half the world and then to sell his land to people. There's a whole theme about it, what with him talking about his father, etc.

Krypton was advanced, if Superman could live on Earth that would mean that Krypton had a similar ecosystem. Yes, the weapons were not addressed nearly as well as they should have been, but overall I think everybody is making far too much out of one scene and taking words far too litterally.

Taking it too literally? What are we supposed to take multiple lines of dialogue and scenes as?

Lex was putting on a performance in that scene because he was getting a kick out of it.

He had maps and everything. I don't buy that it's just a grandstanding performance. It was his actual plan.

I think his plan was far more akin to what he was talking about in the Prometheus scene.

Then why the hell wasn't it phrased that way to flesh out the thematic a bit more?