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

[LongshotRules]

Flaws of Doc Ock's plot in Spider-Man 2

- So, if he did create a successful fusion reaction, what was he going to do? Announce it at a science exhibit even though he is wanted for robbing banks and failing to stop his first experiment despite being told to do so, resulting in the death of his wife?

That's funny, I thought you were hailing these as being good movies, but their plots don't make sense, so I guess they sucked.

You can't say it's a flaw just because you don't know what he wants to do with it once he's finished. He may not have any plans for it just want to finish what he started to prove that his project can be done.

 

[PunisherPoster]

Doc Ock basically went nuts, so should we assume that Lex was also off his rocker?

Of course a good supervillain plot should always be a little absurd, but Lex was just sitting around playing cards. And NK was a cool idea, but they did virtually nothing with it. After 20 years of waiting, I think most people wanted more than just two guys messing around in the middle of the Atlantic.

 

[Emrys]

How do you know Supes didn't just use the ship that brought him to Earth in the first place? Again, your using guess work to cover plot holes and your not doing a very good job of it.

because that ship was a.) too small for an adult male and b.) nothing more than a piece of molten slack after it hit ground as it is shown in the first movie.

 

[Spare-Flair]

Lex is evil, it was evil, it's what he does. He just wanted a Kryptonite land to be safe from Superman. It's a classic Lex type thing to do. This movie is perfect.

Lex Luthor is not stupid, that's not what he does. It's not a classic Lex type thing to do. It's a classic "Dr. No" type thing to do... A vestige of campy evil villains to make their own islands in the middle of the ocean.

Lex Luthor of the comics runs for President of the United States so he can have the power legitimately and corrupt all of society to his goals in the true pursuit of evil...where even Superman cannot touch him.

This movie is flawed.

 

[Emrys]

Superman has been hurt by advanced alien technology in the comics, so why wouldn't an advanced alien warship be able to hurt him in the movies? Besides if Lex was so clever, why not create the warship as a backup? In the first movie Lex used kryptonite and third party saved Superman, which is what happened this time as well, Lex had no back up plan. I guess Lex is too dense to learn from his mistakes. That's all assuming he could create such a warship, which is nothing more than guess work on your part.

The EMP only lasted two minutes, then everything came back online, so the military could have made a strike against Lex, but plot induced stupidity prevented them from doing so, if it wasn't for that Lex would have dead.

Again your using guess work to fill in plot holes, you have no evidence that Lex had any real defense set up to deal with a military strike, its justy more of your guess work.

So what you're saying is you need everything spoon fed to you and explicitly shown so you don't have to use your own little grey cells to determine how stuff works. All is well founded, the crystals can grown structures and from that you can deduce what their abilities for weapons and transportation is not out of the limits therefore you can easily come up with a secenario that plays just like I said. It's all in the realm of possibility established by the general plot, so it's not a plot hole. Plot holes are things that cannot be filled even by the established possibilites of the story.

 

[Emrys]

Lex Luthor is not stupid, that's not what he does. It's not a classic Lex type thing to do. It's a classic "Dr. No" type thing to do... A vestige of campy evil villains to make their own islands in the middle of the ocean.

Lex Luthor of the comics runs for President of the United States so he can have the power legitimately and corrupt all of society to his goals in the true pursuit of evil...where even Superman cannot touch him.

This movie is flawed.

When you like Post-Crisis **** perhaps, then Lex is that, yeah but Post-Crisis sucks.

 

[GL1]

I think some of us are missing Lex's perspective on this one. He beat Superman to a pulp, stabbed him with a kryptonite dagger, broke it off in his back and threw him over the ledge into the water. Lex Luthor won. He killed Superman. Period.

He did not need to make an army of Kryptonian Weaponry, at the flick of the wrist he could EMP the whole east coast, including all military weapons, he did not need to secure gasoline for his helicopter, he WON, and was perfectly safe to sit around and gingerly contemplate his next move, no sweat.

Now of course, Superman survived, recharged and ripped his continent apart from the bottom up, but, honestly, how could Lex have predicted that... and once Superman was dismantling his continent from the bottom up, I think Lex was smart enough to figure out that a Kryptonian warship was too little too late.

 

[Spare-Flair]

I think some of us are missing Lex's perspective on this one. He beat Superman to a pulp, stabbed him with a kryptonite dagger, broke it off in his back and threw him over the ledge into the water. Lex Luthor won. He killed Superman. Period.

He did not need to make an army of Kryptonian Weaponry, at the flick of the wrist he could EMP the whole east coast, including all military weapons, he did not need to secure gasoline for his helicopter, he WON, and was perfectly safe to sit around and gingerly contemplate his next move, no sweat.

Now of course, Superman survived, recharged and ripped his continent apart from the bottom up, but, honestly, how could Lex have predicted that... and once Superman was dismantling his continent from the bottom up, I think Lex was smart enough to figure out that a Kryptonian warship was too little too late.

Sheesh, and that's all because Lex Luthor pulls the classic campy villain of the 1960s stunt by first telling him his secret plan -> and then not finishing his mortal enemy off! Hey, let's rant and explain everything...then beat him up a bit so the audience feels sorry for him, and then stab him and let him stumble a few steps back and fall into the ocean (nobody who falls into the ocean ever truely dies in movies) and can't confirm he actually died. Stab him in the heart and leave the piece of Kryptonite there! Shove it down his throat. Choke him! Riddle him with bullets!

If I were Superman I would demolish the island from space with heat vision (just enough to scare Lex and his men into escaping)...then just make himself a man sized box of lead (yes it would look dumb - lead coffin man) and then gotten inside it and push the continent into space from inside the box of lead!

 

[Jakomus]

You can't say it's a flaw just because you don't know what he wants to do with it once he's finished. He may not have any plans for it just want to finish what he started to prove that his project can be done.

Yeah, but people are saying the same thing about Lex's plot. That post was just a massive dig at all the complainers. I can forget all the flaws in Batman Begin's plot, and Spider-Man 2 I dislike, but not because of Doc Ock's plot. But the complainers don't seem to be able to let Superman Return's go.

 

[Spare-Flair]

Quite simply, if Luthor ended up in a mental asylum at the end of the movie (why not? He's already been in prison, was penniless, has a model train set, a bunch of goonish henchmen, etc.)...

err if Luthor ended up in a mental asylum at the end of the movie, it would make the plot make sense because you could definitively say Lex was off his rocker. The problem is that people intrinsically hold an image of a powerful and intelligent white collar Lex in their minds that they can't reconcile with the bluecollar bullying stupid comedy Lex of the movie.

A bit of craziness explains everything though.

 

[the norminator]

Yeah, but people are saying the same thing about Lex's plot. That post was just a massive dig at all the complainers. I can forget all the flaws in Batman Begin's plot, and Spider-Man 2 I dislike, but not because of Doc Ock's plot. But the complainers don't seem to be able to let Superman Return's go.

i 100% agree. its like they can forgive all the stuff in spider-man thats does not make any sense but superman they can't...thxnorm

 

[The Overlord]

When you like Post-Crisis **** perhaps, then Lex is that, yeah but Post-Crisis sucks.

The fact that you don't like STAS makes me question your sense of taste, Post crisis lex Luthor is far interesting than Pre crisis Lex for a reason. Post Crisis Lex represents the worst aspects of America: greed, arrogance and ruthlessness, while Superman represents the best aspects of America: kindness, compansion and gentleness. That's a far better dynamic, then Superman vs. a generic mad scientist.

Plus Post crisis Lex has a far better motive than Pre crisis, Lex is both jealous and paranoid about Superman, jealous because he is no longer the most powerful man in Metropolis and the people love Superman more than him. Paranoid because he sees Superman as a threat an alien invader, a demi god who will one day impose his will on the world. Post crisis Lex may be evil, but he does not believe himself to be evil, just like a real world villain would.

This is far more interesting than Pre crisis Lex who had a mad on against Superman because he lost his hair and wanted to take over the world because he is evil. All the amazing tech he invented and he still didn't find a way restore his hair. Pre crisis Lex was about as threatening as ham sandwich and as deep as puddle, he was pretty a one dimensional Dick Dastardly type villain. Post crisis story telling did some damage to superman, but changing Lex was still one of the best things they ever did.

 

[The Overlord]

I think some of us are missing Lex's perspective on this one. He beat Superman to a pulp, stabbed him with a kryptonite dagger, broke it off in his back and threw him over the ledge into the water. Lex Luthor won. He killed Superman. Period.

He did not need to make an army of Kryptonian Weaponry, at the flick of the wrist he could EMP the whole east coast, including all military weapons, he did not need to secure gasoline for his helicopter, he WON, and was perfectly safe to sit around and gingerly contemplate his next move, no sweat.

Now of course, Superman survived, recharged and ripped his continent apart from the bottom up, but, honestly, how could Lex have predicted that... and once Superman was dismantling his continent from the bottom up, I think Lex was smart enough to figure out that a Kryptonian warship was too little too late.

In the first Movie Lex used Kryptonite to kill Superman, but a then third party came in and saved Superman. I guess Lex is too dense to learn from his mistakes.

 

[The Overlord]

Yeah, but people are saying the same thing about Lex's plot. That post was just a massive dig at all the complainers. I can forget all the flaws in Batman Begin's plot, and Spider-Man 2 I dislike, but not because of Doc Ock's plot. But the complainers don't seem to be able to let Superman Return's go.

Ock's and Ghul's plans made sense when you conisdered the character's motives, Lex's plan made no sense when considering his motive.

 

[The Overlord]

So what you're saying is you need everything spoon fed to you and explicitly shown so you don't have to use your own little grey cells to determine how stuff works. All is well founded, the crystals can grown structures and from that you can deduce what their abilities for weapons and transportation is not out of the limits therefore you can easily come up with a secenario that plays just like I said. It's all in the realm of possibility established by the general plot, so it's not a plot hole. Plot holes are things that cannot be filled even by the established possibilites of the story.

No, all your doing is presenting guess work, not facts. How do we even know that the crystals would have the ability to grow weapons, maybe most the crystals were desiged with advanced medical technology in mind, which is useful but not useful to Lex's plans. Imagine Lex dropping some crystals in water and medical buildings start popping up. To say the remaining crystals would have enough technology to defend the continent from military attacks and terraform it to make it livable for humans is pure guess work on your part.

 

[Willowhugger]

Luthor's motivations make perfect sense...

1. Destroy the USA that imprisoned him.
2. Destroy Superman.
3. Cripple the world
4. Dominate the world with his Kryptonian technology post Crippling.

Yes, the solution to all of it is the handwavey "Kryptonian technology will do it" but it doesn't NEED to be explained anymore than how does a radioactive spider give a person superpowers.

 

[The Overlord]

Luthor's motivations make perfect sense...

1. Destroy the USA that imprisoned him.
2. Destroy Superman.
3. Cripple the world
4. Dominate the world with his Kryptonian technology post Crippling.

Yes, the solution to all of it is the handwavey "Kryptonian technology will do it" but it doesn't NEED to be explained anymore than how does a radioactive spider give a person superpowers.

If he made a warship with that alien tech, Lex would have been in a far better position to take over the world, then with this stupid real estate scam.

 

[Willowhugger]

If he made a warship with that alien tech, Lex would have been in a far better position to take over the world, then with this stupid real estate scam.

Why?

Can you tell me why he's in a better position with this alien warship? I mean, I'm presuming you're going to tell me that this alien ship is going to be immune to nuclear missiles and other attacks and can destroy the United States in one blast (as opposed to going from city to city to do it like Independence Day). Cause Lex's plan isn't to threaten people into submission.

Lex's plan is to kill BILLIONS, destroy the economy, and cause a global disaster so he can pick up the pieces. He's not interested in taking the world intact. The global disaster will also take about 20 minutes to a few hours to happen from what we saw.

He intends to DROWN THEM.

And it's not a real estate scam when the result is making a new continent anymore than raising Atlantis would be.

 

[wootbaby]

If a plot point falls apart when you think about it beyond reasonable suspension of disbelief, then it's not a good plot point. Luthor's plot did not impress me. The thematics of it were fantastic. The execution was not.

I'd have to agree with this. the plan was a fine supervillian plan. however the part with superman lifting the entire portion of the earth and throwing the island into space confused people. I could tell IN the theater that the slower ppl were like "huh? how's he touching that kryptonite."

even the idea of supes "buffing" himself and approaching the mass from the core of the earth went over ppl's heads.

the execution could have made it much clearer superman's strategy was to sacrifice himself to launch the mass into space but even that simple thing went over ppl's heads or seemed like a duex ex sort of solution

 

[The Overlord]

Why?

Can you tell me why he's in a better position with this alien warship? I mean, I'm presuming you're going to tell me that this alien ship is going to be immune to nuclear missiles and other attacks and can destroy the United States in one blast (as opposed to going from city to city to do it like Independence Day). Cause Lex's plan isn't to threaten people into submission.

Lex's plan is to kill BILLIONS, destroy the economy, and cause a global disaster so he can pick up the pieces. He's not interested in taking the world intact. The global disaster will also take about 20 minutes to a few hours to happen from what we saw.

He intends to DROWN THEM.

And it's not a real estate scam when the result is making a new continent anymore than raising Atlantis would be.

If Lex wanted to destroy billions of people for kicks, he have done so with a warship, he could have blown up half of North America and no human would have been able done jack to stop him. That's better than hanging out in cave, with no defense against a military strike.

 

[kal-el2006]

some people need to listen to lex dialouge during his talk with lois REAL closely...

 

[Willowhugger]

If Lex wanted to destroy billions of people for kicks, he have done so with a warship, he could have blown up half of North America and no human would have been able done jack to stop him. That's better than hanging out in cave, with no defense against a military strike.

Maybe, but he wouldn't have his nifty crystal kingdom. Luthor doesn't want a warship, he wants a glittering magical kindgom. This has always been stated. Luthor could have taken over Columbia with those nukes but wanted a island in California.

What military strike is he going to fear? Everyone will be dead in that hour? Its possible that France or Great Britain will attack but I think they'll have their own problems at that point.

I imagine Lex is more interested in hocking his Kryptonian technology to the survivors to rebuild the planet.

Is it arrogant and possibly not going to work? Possibly, but Luthor has an extraordinarily high opinion of himself.

 

[wootbaby]

If he made a warship with that alien tech, Lex would have been in a far better position to take over the world, then with this stupid real estate scam.

there's no question that this statement is right.

but lex didn't want to do that.

I think what we're seeing on this board is a failure to understand Lex's motivations.

things like wealth or power in the conventional sense is not what motivates lex. he's so much smarter than everyone else that to become the world's richest man, or president is child's play to him. these things are so beneath him that it's almost not worth his effort.

if lex's motivations were to say become as rich as he possibly can, he wouldn't bother ****ing around with superman or on a boat somewhere. he'd be in his office making deals and accumulating more and more money.

in the comics and in the movies, Lex's motivations are much larger than that. what lex wants it to totally DOMINATE every being on earth and have them recognize his superiority

there's 100000000 ways that lex could take over the world. HE'S THAT SMART. of course he could build a warship at any time. he could also at any time corrupt governments, manipulate stock markets, win any war, become the most popular man in the US... YAWN.

i mean ppl are posting here as if Lex winning president would be some sort of accomplishment or even a good plot (laugh) for this movie. there are REAL LIFE human beings doing that RIGHT NOW. does that seem hard to you? something that would be a challange to the world's smartest man? in your mind would Bill Gates be a good adversary for Superman? how about the mental imbecile George Bush? that's a big challange

that sort of crap is beneath lex and Ive always thought that storyline was so laughable. why the HELL would lex care about corrupting americans or conning them into electing him president. dude could WIPE out america and invent his own nation... which would you choose?

 

[The Overlord]

Maybe, but he wouldn't have his nifty crystal kingdom. Luthor doesn't want a warship, he wants a glittering magical kindgom. This has always been stated. Luthor could have taken over Columbia with those nukes but wanted a island in California.

What military strike is he going to fear? Everyone will be dead in that hour? Its possible that France or Great Britain will attack but I think they'll have their own problems at that point.

I imagine Lex is more interested in hocking his Kryptonian technology to the survivors to rebuild the planet.

Is it arrogant and possibly not going to work? Possibly, but Luthor has an extraordinarily high opinion of himself.

Do you really think the US military just going to sit around in that hour and not launch a counter strike against Lex in that time? That's naive. The only reason they didn't was because of plot induced stupidity. If Lex had created a warship, he would have been completely protected from military strikes, instead he left himself open for attack.

With Lex's warship and remaining technology, he could have blown up North America, forced the world to bow to him as their new ruler and had a back up weapon, just in case the Kryptonite failed (like it did in Superman I), to take on Superman. After taking over the world with his warship he could have used the Kryptonian tech to mold the world in his image and the world would have no recourse at that point. That makes a lot more sense than this NK thing. Lex's plot wasn't just insane, it was totally stupid as well.

 

[Willowhugger]

Do you really think the US military just going to sit around in that hour and not launch a counter strike against Lex in that time? That's naive. The only reason they didn't was because of plot induced stupidity. If Lex had created a warship, he would have been completely protected from military strikes, instead he left himself open for attack

You're absolutely right that if Lex Luthor had been attacked during that time, its entirely possible, he would have been killed. I'm not disputing that in the slightest. I debate that he'd be protected against any military retalliation though.

However, it would have accomplished absolutely nothing as everyone still would have died.

Lex Luthor doesn't think these plans entirely though. Do you honestly believe in Superman 1 that he thought that the first people to be investigated for causing the destruction of California wouldn't be those whom benefitted most from it? I'm sure it's possible they could have assumed terrorists but I doubt that there's much difference.

Lex's arrogance is as great as his psychopathia.