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

[Isildur´s Heir]

Imho it's perfect, the best world domination plan ever and one that actually makes sense.

I´m glad you liked it...someone had to
And i´m not even try to refute your replys, because i´m not in the mood, but they could easily be.
I´m just going to go about two things...

First, the simple idea that one can control the crystals just by thinking about it, is just laughable.
Second, ok, let go with that, let´s say the all world join forces and go against Luthor.
First of all, they would simply nuke him and be done with it, he would never have enough power to stop the all world, that´s just impossible.
Second, if a war starts between Luthor and the all world, it would be a war to go for years and years, so, during that time, who would buy land in a continent at war?

Luthor´s plan will never make sense, no matter how much you want it to...

 

[Angry Sentinel]

Plan makes plenty of sense, I think what doesn't make sense to some is that the character was written the way he was. What doesn't make sense to others is that they wanted a superpowered bad guy to bang it out with Superman. An even better question proposed by some was how Lex was able to assimilate the knowledge so well and so swiftly.

These kinds of things are questionable. But the plan was economically, technologically, strategically and even emotionally (revenge factor) very very intelligent. Much better take on the original real estate plot.

 

[Steelsheen]

I´m glad you liked it...someone had to
And i´m not even try to refute your replys, because i´m not in the mood, but they could easily be.
I´m just going to go about two things...

First, the simple idea that one can control the crystals just by thinking about it, is just laughable.
Second, ok, let go with that, let´s say the all world join forces and go against Luthor.
First of all, they would simply nuke him and be done with it, he would never have enough power to stop the all world, that´s just impossible.
Second, if a war starts between Luthor and the all world, it would be a war to go for years and years, so, during that time, who would buy land in a continent at war?

Luthor´s plan will never make sense, no matter how much you want it to...

Isildur's Heir (or should i call you Aragorn? ) since it seems like you're an LOTR fan let me put it this way.....

you can equate Luthor with Sauron. remember how he wanted to control everyone on ME? so he goes about creating the One Ring right? a ring that enhances his power, sort of making him twice as powerful than he already is. given that why bother making 7 other rings for the Dwarves and 3 more for the Elves when he could easily just kill everyone off and overrun ME with his minions? because it isnt enough for him to conquer the land, his ego demands that he sees his enemies suffer, that the once powerful Elves bow down in submission.

that's what it is about Luthor. it has to appease his ego. he may be the richest man in the world, but that doesnt mean much to the second richest man in the world. but if Luthor can make the second richest man bow down and worship him and obey his every command then that is infinitely better. that is power.

NK wasnt about making a buck. NK was about proving who calls the shots.

 

[Whack Arnolds]

Lex's plans have yet to make sense in the movies. And his character has YET to be accurately potrayed on film.

 

[Jakomus]

Lex's plans have yet to make sense in the movies. And his character has YET to be accurately potrayed on film.

That's ******ed.

For your information, the Donner Lex is just as valid as your beloved post-crisis generic bland villain Lex. The Donner Lex was based off the Luthor of the time.

Post-crisis sucks BTW.

 

[Steelsheen]

^^ you're not gonna get any argument from me there

 

[Whack Arnolds]

That's ******ed.

For your information, the Donner Lex is just as valid as your beloved post-crisis generic bland villain Lex. The Donner Lex was based off the Luthor of the time.

Post-crisis sucks BTW.

Uhh, post crisis is the deepest version of the character. And how are you gonna say "post-crisis" is bland, when Superman Returns THE MOVIE is about as bland and boring as it comes? Lex from the movies isn't Lex Luthor. Luthor isn't a land obsessed, campy, nit wit..that constantly surrounds himself with idiots. Lex Luthor in the movies KNOWS he is the bad-guy... which isn't in Luthor's character. Luthor is the good guy in his mind's eye. And that makes for a deeper character. Not to mention in the movies, they make Luthor this underground criminal. THAT isn't Luthor either. The fascinating thing about Luthor as the main villain in the comics, is that he is so public. He has the tallest building in Metropolis, owns about the entire city, everyone knows about him etc. We have yet to get a cool scene, with Luthor in his high rise, with Superman floating outside of his window, where he explains how he is going to stop Luthor etc. Donner ****ed Luthor up, and Singer just carried on the tradition, because he didn't actually refer to the source material. He just accentuated another man's work.

 

[The Overlord]

The island was forming when he was sitting there. He wanted to satisfy his own ego and watch as his continent came to life....hence the cigar.

So satisfying his own ego is more important then building defenses, to prevent a military strike? I thought Lex was supposed to be a genius.

 

[The Overlord]

Or maybe the whole military angle was something so totaly unimportant that it is left for thr viewer to decide, heck why do people always need everything spelled out for them use your brain a little bit. It's obvious that Krypton tech can grow a spaceship and a fortress with advanced technology ergo it is able to grow transportation devices and military devices as well. Who says Lex didn't already have a sound defence mechanism? Just because you don't see it doesn't negate the possibility. It was just not something the director felt necessairy to dwell on.

That's just guess work, we have no evidence that Lex knew how to grow any weapons out of thin air or was able to terra form the land into something that was livable. Remeber humans and Kryptonians may look the same, but they are not the same species, how do we know the food grown out the crystal tech would be suitable for humans, just because Kryptonians could eat that food doesn't mean humans could.

If Lex had sold the tech, he would have had untold richs and power, he could have kept the most powerful weapons designs for himself if he wanted to conquer the world in a more direct fashion. That would have made more sense than some stupid real estate scam, he could have hired an army of mercs and developed a slew of super weapons to destroy Superman. Legally I doubt Superman could have done anything to stop Lex from selling that tech.

 

[PunisherPoster]

Neither the 'power' or 'revenge' explanations make much sense.

If the Fortress of Solitude couldn't defend itself against thieves, how was New Krypton? Once it grew to the size of America, how were five little people sitting in the Atlantic going to repel a threat on the west coast?

And how were people going to fear Lex, when they had no idea what he was up to? He didn't even take credit for the blackout. How long was he going to just sit there before deciding to let the world know he was a threat?

Lex's revenge on Superman was even more feeble. Why go to the lengths of creating a kryptonite island, if you're ultimately just going to make the same mistake as before: Give him some kryptonite, let him fall in the water, and hope he dies. Are you kidding me? If I go to that much trouble, I'm going to smoke the cigar over his dying body!

This just underscores how pointless New Krypton really was. If you're just going to kill Superman with some stolen kryptonite, why bother to create land that has kryptonite-rich soil? (And just having Lois say, "It's deadly...TO HIM" doesn't excuse such a ill-advised plotpoint.)

 

[Emrys]

I´m glad you liked it...someone had to
And i´m not even try to refute your replys, because i´m not in the mood, but they could easily be.
I´m just going to go about two things...

First, the simple idea that one can control the crystals just by thinking about it, is just laughable.

According to Up Up and Away, for example it isn't. Supes grows his new fortress pretty much by thinking about it and throwing the crystal. The originally movie also hinted at the crystals being "programmable" after all the one Clark threw was designed to build a fortress and just a fortress, then of course there's the crystal that was needed for clarks new spaceship, seems like that one was programmed too. If it is programmed by just thinking or by other means I can't say. Maybe the original state is "grow till you repelish your energy" and through programming it can be changed into various forms like intelligent metall for example can.

Second, ok, let go with that, let´s say the all world join forces and go against Luthor.
First of all, they would simply nuke him and be done with it, he would never have enough power to stop the all world, that´s just impossible.

they shoot nukes and lex takes them down with crystal grown drones similar to the warship in Up Up and Away or to clarks normal space ship. Considering that probably all of new NK is able to grow defence mechanisms, I'd say he has enough material at his disposal to take down every nuke that is shot at him. Besides how do you know that a nuke will destroy NK? I'd say even if a nuke reaches it the damage would be quickly repaired by the replication quality of the crystals.

Second, if a war starts between Luthor and the all world, it would be a war to go for years and years, so, during that time, who would buy land in a continent at war?

No, it would be a pretty short war, all Lex would need to do is bomb a few of his enemies with some crystals and watch them deal with the growing structures in their homeland, not to speak that the suckers disrupt power, no power, no defence. Luthor could cripple the earth defense in hours I'd say.

Luthor´s plan will never make sense, no matter how much you want it to...

Seems to make perfect sense to me after all I can come up with a dozend scenarios how he can use NK and if it wouldn't make sense I wouldn't be able to come up with one. The whole NK plan is perfectly consistant with the internal logic of the movie as well as with the current comics.

 

[Emrys]

That's just guess work, we have no evidence that Lex knew how to grow any weapons out of thin air or was able to terra form the land into something that was livable. Remeber humans and Kryptonians may look the same, but they are not the same species, how do we know the food grown out the crystal tech would be suitable for humans, just because Kryptonians could eat that food doesn't mean humans could.

If Lex had sold the tech, he would have had untold richs and power, he could have kept the most powerful weapons designs for himself if he wanted to conquer the world in a more direct fashion. That would have made more sense than some stupid real estate scam, he could have hired an army of mercs and developed a slew of super weapons to destroy Superman. Legally I doubt Superman could have done anything to stop Lex from selling that tech.

When he said to Jor-El "Tell me everythig" I took it that he also meant the knowledge how to use and programm Kryptonian technology.

And for your Kryptonian/Earthling analogy, well Clark must have survived on earth food too, He specifically said he eats in the first movie so his processing organs must be very similar to humans or otherwise he wouldn't have had any use for food. Ergo Kryptonians eat similar to humans how and where they food is grown though I can only speculate, the pre-crisis comics once said the got norishment from algae which they collected and ate.

As for your plot. Yeah he could have but quite honestly your scenario sounds bland and pretty generic for a movie villain. I think I prefer Lex's NK scheme.

 

[Emrys]

So satisfying his own ego is more important then building defenses, to prevent a military strike? I thought Lex was supposed to be a genius.

You don't know if he didn't have military defenses, it's left open.

 

[ChrisBaleBatman]

C'mon...........Lex was ANYTHING but bland and boring in the movie.

 

[Manhunter]

I´m glad you liked it...someone had to
And i´m not even try to refute your replys, because i´m not in the mood, but they could easily be.
I´m just going to go about two things...

First, the simple idea that one can control the crystals just by thinking about it, is just laughable.
Second, ok, let go with that, let´s say the all world join forces and go against Luthor.
First of all, they would simply nuke him and be done with it, he would never have enough power to stop the all world, that´s just impossible.
Second, if a war starts between Luthor and the all world, it would be a war to go for years and years, so, during that time, who would buy land in a continent at war?

Luthor´s plan will never make sense, no matter how much you want it to...

Super-hero movies are Elseworlds tales.

Luthor clearly explains that his favourite commodity is land in this movie, hence his motivation. It's not an original scheme, but in this continuity it's accurate.

In the context of the film, The first island he "grows" is just a deathtrap for Superman, not an intended living space. Luthor clearly refers to the other crystals (the 5 untainted by Kryptonite) as being the source of weapons, vehicles, and technology to support the new habitat. So that's how he'll defend his new land masses and enforce his will. The land masses produce massive EMP pulses as they grow, so nukes and conventional hardware won't be very effective as Luthor readies his empire.

I'm not saying it couldn't have been handled better, show Luthor grow some weapons/vehicles and have Superman fight the henchmen in that before arriving on NK, would increase the percieved threat level. But what I saw in the film communicated Luthor's intent to me, adequately.

 

[Manhunter]

You don't know if he didn't have military defenses, it's left open.

On two ocassions, Lex refers to the weapons and vehicles that can be produced, as the camera framed the other 5 remaining crystals. That lead me to believe that's what he intended to use those remaining crystals for.

 

[Emrys]

Neither the 'power' or 'revenge' explanations make much sense.

If the Fortress of Solitude couldn't defend itself against thieves, how was New Krypton? Once it grew to the size of America, how were five little people sitting in the Atlantic going to repel a threat on the west coast?

who says the fortress was designed to defend itself? besides who would have been there to program it for defense Supes was away and no one else was able to till lex came along.

And how were people going to fear Lex, when they had no idea what he was up to? He didn't even take credit for the blackout. How long was he going to just sit there before deciding to let the world know he was a threat?

Probably till he killed Superman but since that didn't happen...

Lex's revenge on Superman was even more feeble. Why go to the lengths of creating a kryptonite island, if you're ultimately just going to make the same mistake as before: Give him some kryptonite, let him fall in the water, and hope he dies. Are you kidding me? If I go to that much trouble, I'm going to smoke the cigar over his dying body!

arrogance has been the downfall of many men.

By the same logic you could ask "Why didn't Sauron seal off Mount Doom or destroy it if he knew the ring could be thrown into it?" Because he was arrogant enough to believe that no one could sneal past him and actually enter the Mountain, just like Lex was arrgoant enough to believe that Supes would be fataly poisoned by a piece of Kryptonite inside of him and unable to muster up enough strenght to do anything against him.

This just underscores how pointless New Krypton really was. If you're just going to kill Superman with some stolen kryptonite, why bother to create land that has kryptonite-rich soil? (And just having Lois say, "It's deadly...TO HIM" doesn't excuse such a ill-advised plotpoint.)

Because it's the perfect death trap, superman is no idiot, do you think the just walks in and goes "hmmm there is Lex standing there with a lead box hmmm oh I bet he just got some yewellery in there. Superman pretty much knows that Lex would use Kryptonite so he'd be prepared to keep distance but when the soil itself suddenly turns into kryptonite there is not much room left to get to safety.

Of course Lex could have simply killed him with a distance weapon but that was not what he wanted, he wanted to beath Superman up with his own two hands, humiliate him and show him and his friends that without Power Superman is nothing more than a weak wuss, what better way to take his power away than to create a kriptonite fighting area?. Well maybe an are bathed in red sunlight.

And it is just deadly to him, Kryptonite doesn't harm humans in the common lore. Post Crisis tried to "fix" that but the common knowledge is " It's deadly to him and does no harm to humans"

 

[Emrys]

On two ocassions, Lex refers to the weapons and vehicles that can be produced, as the camera framed the other 5 remaining crystals. That lead me to believe that's what he intended to use those remaining crystals for.

pretty much, yeah, so all that is needed to do if someone attacks him is add water and energy and watch the fun begin.

 

[prins777]

We open the movie with Lex in the FOS, but it is only a year after Supes has gone away.Lex holds up the crystal and tells Jor-El to tell him everything. Four years later, Supes returns to find the world in turmoil and with LexCorp at the center of a huge global arms race whereby Lex has become the richest man on the planet. In order to maintain his power, Lex needs instability in the world. He needs nations to be in conflict so that everyone can come to him for newer and more advanced weapons. Not only does Lex want revenge on Supes for what he did in the past, but he believes that Supes is a threat to the instability that has taken over the world. We then get to see Lex use advanced weapons that actually have the ability to hurt Superman, think minority report, with Lex in control of his own private army. You could even keep the NK in as a sort of Bizarro FOS where Lex has set up his main HQ in the middle of the Pacific. Now that would make sense and satisfy all those who wanted to see Supes do something other than heavy lifting.

 

[Emrys]

We open the movie with Lex in the FOS, but it is only a year after Supes has gone away.Lex holds up the crystal and tells Jor-El to tell him everything. Four years later, Supes returns to find the world in turmoil and with LexCorp at the center of a huge global arms race whereby Lex has become the richest man on the planet. In order to maintain his power, Lex needs instability in the world. He needs nations to be in conflict so that everyone can come to him for newer and more advanced weapons. Not only does Lex want revenge on Supes for what he did in the past, but he believes that Supes is a threat to the instability that has taken over the world. We then get to see Lex use advanced weapons that actually have the ability to hurt Superman, think minority report, with Lex in control of his own private army. You could even keep the NK in as a sort of Bizarro FOS where Lex has set up his main HQ in the middle of the Pacific. Now that would make sense and satisfy all those who wanted to see Supes do something other than heavy lifting.

Hmmm yeah but it's too Bond villain for my taste.

 

[prins777]

Hmmm yeah but it's too Bond villain for my taste.

Fair critizism. But the thing about movie Lex is that he seems so insular and small compared to Supes. If you have a God like hero you need the Devil to go up against him. And the thing about the Devil is that he is the great manipulator and has influence on a grand scale. Lex needs resources to defeat Supes and that should be displayed on the screen. Hell, with my scenerio we could even get Lex to start influencing the Gov. that it is against there interest to have a rogue agent interfering in the state of world affairs. To take a real world example, imagine if Supes decided to interfere in Iraq, how do you think Bush would react?

 

[Isildur´s Heir]

According to Up Up and Away, for example it isn't. Supes grows his new fortress pretty much by thinking about it and throwing the crystal. The originally movie also hinted at the crystals being "programmable" after all the one Clark threw was designed to build a fortress and just a fortress, then of course there's the crystal that was needed for clarks new spaceship, seems like that one was programmed too. If it is programmed by just thinking or by other means I can't say. Maybe the original state is "grow till you repelish your energy" and through programming it can be changed into various forms like intelligent metall for example can.

That doesn´t make the idea of controlling crystal just by thinking, any less laughable, but that´s me.
The original movie had too much flaws due to the fact that is totally pre-crisis, so, that argument doesn´t cut it.
And you can say, but the movie is a continuation of Donner´s Superman...but that´s a flaw it it´s own right.

they shoot nukes and lex takes them down with crystal grown drones similar to the warship in Up Up and Away or to clarks normal space ship. Considering that probably all of new NK is able to grow defence mechanisms, I'd say he has enough material at his disposal to take down every nuke that is shot at him. Besides how do you know that a nuke will destroy NK? I'd say even if a nuke reaches it the damage would be quickly repaired by the replication quality of the crystals.
No, it would be a pretty short war, all Lex would need to do is bomb a few of his enemies with some crystals and watch them deal with the growing structures in their homeland, not to speak that the suckers disrupt power, no power, no defence. Luthor could cripple the earth defense in hours I'd say.

You are giving too much credit to Luthor, and none to the world.

Seems to make perfect sense to me after all I can come up with a dozend scenarios how he can use NK and if it wouldn't make sense I wouldn't be able to come up with one. The whole NK plan is perfectly consistant with the internal logic of the movie as well as with the current comics.

The all whole NK plan might be consistant with the internal logic of the movie, but that is, like i said, the movie is a continuation of a "pre-crisis movie", which is not a good defense for the movie at hand.
And if it´s consistant to the current comics (i don´t read Superman for quite some time now)...oh, how low as Superman fall, when he needs 50´s serials plots, to make "good" stories.

 

[Emrys]

That doesn´t make the idea of controlling crystal just by thinking, any less laughable, but that´s me.
The original movie had too much flaws due to the fact that is totally pre-crisis, so, that argument doesn´t cut it.
And you can say, but the movie is a continuation of Donner´s Superman...but that´s a flaw it it´s own right.

In your opinion maybe. I personally think the only time Superman was good was in the first two movies and the Fleischer toons.

Pre and Post crisis were and are forgetable, stupid **** (that includes TAS). That's why the only Superman stories that really matter to the mythos are Elseworld Tales.

However with the Up Up and Away arc it seems like Supes is finally getting good.

You are giving too much credit to Luthor, and none to the world.

Nope I'm giving much credit to Kryptonian technology

The all whole NK plan might be consistant with the internal logic of the movie, but that is, like i said, the movie is a continuation of a "pre-crisis movie", which is not a good defense for the movie at hand.
And if it´s consistant to the current comics (i don´t read Superman for quite some time now)...oh, how low as Superman fall, went he needs 50´s serials plots, to make "good" stories.

In the current storyline Lex uses the Sunstone technology to unearth a Kryptonian war cruiser (which is made out of crystals) to destroy Metropolis. Much better that the forgettable, boring, lackluster trite that has poisoned Supes through the Post crisis era

 

[Willowhugger]

I assumed that after Lex had destroyed human civilization, he'd offer the Kryptonian technology to the rest of the world in exchange for their obedience. Not that he'd use it with his three thugs to fight off an army. I think by destroying society, he has a pretty good shot at world domination.

 

[The Overlord]

When he said to Jor-El "Tell me everythig" I took it that he also meant the knowledge how to use and programm Kryptonian technology.

And for your Kryptonian/Earthling analogy, well Clark must have survived on earth food too, He specifically said he eats in the first movie so his processing organs must be very similar to humans or otherwise he wouldn't have had any use for food. Ergo Kryptonians eat similar to humans how and where they food is grown though I can only speculate, the pre-crisis comics once said the got norishment from algae which they collected and ate.

As for your plot. Yeah he could have but quite honestly your scenario sounds bland and pretty generic for a movie villain. I think I prefer Lex's NK scheme.

That's big strech to say that those five crystals would provided enough technology to provide the island from military strikes and make the place completely livable for humans, especially since we saw no evidence of that on screen. You're just uisng guess work to fill in the plot holes.

Yes, who needs a villainous plan that is intelligent, sutble and makes sense, not when we can rip off the 1978 film and have another bad real estate scam.


You what let's simplify things, forget Lex selling this tech and its impact on human race. If Lex had used his resources to build these weapons and used them to take over the world, that would have made sense and would have far cooler than this bad real estate scam. Superman fighting these alien weapons would have been far cooler and more original than another bad real estate scam. Superman vs. Lex in an alien tech mech would have far more interesting than Superman getting his ass kicked while carrying off that stupid
island.