Kryptonians = ancient astronauts?

[Timstuff]

Taking a moment away from the typical casting fare, I was wondering how the Kryptonian race should be depicted in the Superman reboot. Do you think that it's plausible in a movie to have aliens who look 100% human with no explanation at all? Personally, I wouldn't be against having a bit of one. In Star Trek, the traditional "rubber forehead aliens" (which include any aliens who only differ mildly from humans visually) is that humanoid life has been seeded throughout the universe by an hyper-intelligent progenitor race.

In the case of Superman, there's one explanation in particular I could see them using for why Humans and Kryptonians are visually indistinguishable. Simply put, either Humans are a long forgotten colony of Kryptonians who lost their powers, or Kryptonians are a long lost colony of ancient Earth astronauts who gained powers after living under Krypton's sun and environment for millennia. Or, there's even the possibility that Earth and Krypton are both long abandoned colonies of yet another civilization, like New Genesis.

What do you think? Should there be some kind of connection between Earth and Krypton to explain why Superman is physically so similar to a human, despite his physiological differences that give him powers? Or are you fine with just suspending disbelief that the Kryptonians resemble humans despite having no common lineage?

 

[SuperFerret]

Knowing that Nolan is behind this, we'll probably get an explanation, as unneeded as it is, which will likely kill some of the magic behind the character's origin.

 

[Zorex]

I don't really think you need to explain it. Personally, I prefer to keep it that Kryptonians and Earthlings never met or crossed paths at any point, and that, tragically, the first meeting of the two civilizations/races is when the last living member of Krypton, a helpless baby, is rocketed to Earth on a last-ditch attempt to save his life.

 

[Webhead2006]

well the easy thing is to say many alien worlds formed like earth did so humaniod races pop up here and there. then of course we get crazy alien looks too. Then yea it would be interesting if they o about and say maybe kryptonians visited earth in the past here and there.

 

[\S/JcDc\S/]

Taking a moment away from the typical casting fare, I was wondering how the Kryptonian race should be depicted in the Superman reboot. Do you think that it's plausible in a movie to have aliens who look 100% human with no explanation at all? Personally, I wouldn't be against having a bit of one. In Star Trek, the traditional "rubber forehead aliens" (which include any aliens who only differ mildly from humans visually) is that humanoid life has been seeded throughout the universe by an hyper-intelligent progenitor race.

In the case of Superman, there's one explanation in particular I could see them using for why Humans and Kryptonians are visually indistinguishable. Simply put, either Humans are a long forgotten colony of Kryptonians who lost their powers, or Kryptonians are a long lost colony of ancient Earth astronauts who gained powers after living under Krypton's sun and environment for millennia. Or, there's even the possibility that Earth and Krypton are both long abandoned colonies of yet another civilization, like New Genesis.

What do you think? Should there be some kind of connection between Earth and Krypton to explain why Superman is physically so similar to a human, despite his physiological differences that give him powers? Or are you fine with just suspending disbelief that the Kryptonians resemble humans despite having no common lineage?

I've thought about this a bit before but ultimately decided against the connection because, it seems a bit too "Planet of the Apes" imo. I think in this particular story point it would be better to keep it simple. Basically Jor-el seeks out Earth because it IS the closest thing to what Kryptonians are, only it enhances the biological properties of a Kryptonian being due to the atmospheric differences.

 

[\S/JcDc\S/]

Ya know what bothers me story wise?

Something I always thought should be updated. (of course if no origin elements we are screwed anyways)

With the preparation time beforehand and the knowledge of Krypton exploding... Why can't Jor-el build a ship large enough for the whole family?

If I remember correctly it is big enough for 2, but Lara decided to stay with him instead of going with her infant.

I think it would be better if he does build the ship for the entire family. Someone (no it doesn't have to be Zod) or a group of people from the council learn of his ship. They warn Jor-el and Lara to step aside (before they can enter the ship)

Jor-el would take out a couple of guys with some nice Kryptonian moves and scream at Lara to go at once with Kal-el. She then screams "I'm coming back for you, it's on auto pilot for takeoff, we only have a few minutes"

She runs back to Jor-el as he is struggling with a couple more guys. A shot goes off, Lara is dying. Jor-el manages to fight off the other guys. He holds his wife as the planet is shaking more. He then says "Farewell Kal-el, my son." and closes his eyes after watching the ship leave.

The ship then takes off. The massive explosion happens.

 

[Timstuff]

2x post

 

[Timstuff]

My idea was that Jor El is a physicist who builds a prototype for a faster than light spacecraft, but the Kryptonian council voted against further funding his project because they did not see the worth in visiting other civilizations. Jor El discovers that Krypton is doomed, and tries to warn the high council. They accuse him of fear mongering to gain support for his project, and ignore him. Since his prototype ship was only built to seat one person, he and Lara decide to put Kal El in the ship.

BTW, was there a version of Superman where the Kryptonians don't actually look very human, but Jor El re-arranges Kal El's DNA to make him look more human so he'll fit in with the humans? That would be a bit strange for the movie and I wouldn't use it myself, but it's kind of interesting I suppose.

 

[Daybreak_st]

My 2 cents:

To have the extensive knowledge of earth and it's affect on a Kryptonian body then some Kryptonian scientists/explorers were there before.

I think it would be interesting if a few hundred years ago (or longer) Kryptonian explorers set out to discover other habitable worlds. On each world they setup outpost to work from in remote locations so as not to interfere with native populations. The scientists were surprised when they landed on earth and the effects of the yellow sun. After years of exploring all the various off planet expeditions were recalled but the outposts remained intact and cloaked from detection. It's remained sealed for several thousand years.

Essentially the fortress is one of these outposts.

As one of kryptons top scientist and scholar jor-el is familiar with these outposts and places a key of sorts in clark's ship that will unseal the fortress. It also has updated information on all things kryptonian, so once clark places it into the fortress everything is download and it updates the databanks so they included everything including his ships journey to earth and the planets final moments broadcast from jorel to the ship.

whenever he finds the fortress of Solitude and it activates it reveals teh final days of krypton. Perhaps teh final moments were recorded by his ship as he left the planet. A cool holographic view wtih clark experiencing it as if he was there would be visually amazing. Also i like the idea of us as an audience finding out these powerful revelations with clark instead of before him. It would help us relate to the character and understand his reactions to it as we'd be experiencing the same thing similtaneously.


Also the superman suit is essentially an exploration type outfit kryptonians used while on earth. They found that as they began testing the limits of their newfound abilities only clothing that was close to their skin remained intact. They developed the body suits as a sort of second skin and it inherited their invulnerability.

Also as far as motivation for someone like brainaic, i don't think he was Kryptonian in nature but sought out the planets vast information as it was one of the most technologically advanced civilizations ever known.

He once sought to absorb it's knowledge and destroy it as he'd done countless other world's only to discover this shining light in the universe was already destroyed. He's tried to find any trace of the kryptonian outpost but b/c of the cloaking technology he can't locate them. He's sent out countless probes in search of anything kryptonian. Eventually one probe lands on earth and finds clark's ship, (clark is a teenager at this point) and tries to remove the key (which will both lead it to the fortress and unlock its secrets). Clark has an altercation with the robot and destroys it, but recovers the key and begins his journey to discover his heritage. the robot is recovered by lex luthor, reverse engineered and eventually reactivated, it broadcasts its location to brainiac's ship in space, thus leading braininac to earth.

 

[OwlBoy]

Maybe you can just have a flash of the Starman story where Jack Knight goes to Krypton and teaches Jor-El about Earth or maybe Jor-El gets his star maps from the Guardians of the Universe?

 

[Webhead2006]

it would be and interesting ideal day, which i think i said to u before about it.

 

[DavidTyler]

There was a book by James Blish called 'The Seedling Stars' the premise of which was that there were a race of beings who went thru our galaxy planting the seeds of intelligent life on unihabited worlds.

They would take living cells and create beings specifically adapted to the environment they would be living in. For instance, a world where there was virtually no land would have life forms developed to exist in solely in water. I can see where they might have visited a planet like Krypton where the gravity was so intense that it would require the beings to have muscle capacity to compensate.

Of course this is really taking artistic liberties with what that science would actually produce (and doesn't take into account how the sun effects those beings) but it would be a start as to explaining why the look like us.

 

[dark_b]

i would like a superman movie where the story focus is on superman -kal el.i think its a waste of time to devote minutes or even seconds explaining why he looks like normal humans.

but thats just me.

 

[SuperFerret]

That's what I've been saying. There's no explanation why there are humans in a galaxy far, far away, but nobody gives it a second thought.

 

[Rodrigo90]

i would like a superman movie where the story focus is on superman -kal el.i think its a waste of time to devote minutes or even seconds explaining why he looks like normal humans.

but thats just me.

Totally agree.

 

[Eros]

Oh God, are we really debateing this? This has never been an issue, and its odd that someone would want to explain this in such detail.

 

[GreenKToo]

I think it will need to be explained why a civilization as advanced as Kryptons didn't use space travel.
Despite the council's arguement that Krypton wasn't in danger, common sense says that a race as advanced as theirs could have been saved.
I mean you would think space travel for them would be as common place as driving to the store is for us.
Could something have happened in their past that banned space travel or something? Maybe they had contact with a hostile race long ago and they decided it wasnt worth it. That would be a good way to introduce Brainiac in the reboot, or maybe even Apolkolips and Darkseid for a later film.

 

[OwlBoy]

The reason why they never really developed it was that they were by and large isolationist

 

[Rodrigo90]

It really doesn't need to be looked into. I thought it was pretty stupid in the first movie for the council to frown upon leaving Krypton. The only reason they didn't bother listening to Jor-El's warnings and evacuating the planet was because of their stubbornness and vanity,their incapacity and denial to see mistakes in their work. The council simply brushed of the warnings by claiming Jor-El was under great pressure as Krypton's leading scientist,thus making the mistake in his evidence of the planet being in danger. If Kryptonians were to evacuate for anything ,it would be a last resource from a hostile invasion.

 

[rob-el2]

My idea was that Jor El is a physicist who builds a prototype for a faster than light spacecraft, but the Kryptonian council voted against further funding his project because they did not see the worth in visiting other civilizations. Jor El discovers that Krypton is doomed, and tries to warn the high council. They accuse him of fear mongering to gain support for his project, and ignore him. Since his prototype ship was only built to seat one person, he and Lara decide to put Kal El in the ship.

BTW, was there a version of Superman where the Kryptonians don't actually look very human, but Jor El re-arranges Kal El's DNA to make him look more human so he'll fit in with the humans? That would be a bit strange for the movie and I wouldn't use it myself, but it's kind of interesting I suppose.

When Brando was first meeting with Donner and Tom.M (can't spell Tom's last name!) he "suggested" that Jor-el in fact should be a bagel or a suitcase and that Kal-el's genes would be manipiulated to appear human. This was Brando's way testing Donner - to see how he would react. Donner apparently passed the test.

 

[rob-el2]

Taking a moment away from the typical casting fare, I was wondering how the Kryptonian race should be depicted in the Superman reboot. Do you think that it's plausible in a movie to have aliens who look 100% human with no explanation at all? Personally, I wouldn't be against having a bit of one. In Star Trek, the traditional "rubber forehead aliens" (which include any aliens who only differ mildly from humans visually) is that humanoid life has been seeded throughout the universe by an hyper-intelligent progenitor race.

In the case of Superman, there's one explanation in particular I could see them using for why Humans and Kryptonians are visually indistinguishable. Simply put, either Humans are a long forgotten colony of Kryptonians who lost their powers, or Kryptonians are a long lost colony of ancient Earth astronauts who gained powers after living under Krypton's sun and environment for millennia. Or, there's even the possibility that Earth and Krypton are both long abandoned colonies of yet another civilization, like New Genesis.

What do you think? Should there be some kind of connection between Earth and Krypton to explain why Superman is physically so similar to a human, despite his physiological differences that give him powers? Or are you fine with just suspending disbelief that the Kryptonians resemble humans despite having no common lineage?

I have thought about this too. It would be a way to allow for Lois and Clark to be together as partners. There was a story back in the 70's that showed the origins of the Kryptonians. A space ship crash landed on the planet and the great gravity of the planet slowly forced the descendents to develope stronger and stonger muscles to be able to survive. There was also something about the survivors moving massive amounts of rocks that were magnetic or something to get the planet to rotate on it's axis (the planet always had the same side facing the sun) so that they would be able to spread out over the planet. When they first landed they were forced to live near the planet's terminator because the side facing the sun was too hot and the back side was too cold.

I suppose this could be updated to some degree with genetics explaining how the survivors could adapt to a hostile envirnoment at the begining by developing their muscule mass. They could also introduce the idea that over time the decendent's bodies became like a solar panel due to the lower energy coming form the red sun. Over time their bodies would be well adapted to their new home and then if they left Krypton could become like a superhuman in the right environment (like a yellow powered planet with a lot less gravity). And introducing a BattleStar element that both Kryptonians and Terrans had a arrived on each planet form a common source along time ago could be developed.

Not saying it has to but at the very least would make for an interesting "Elseworlds" story.

 

[Webhead2006]

yea we dont really need to explain humaniod looks cause other scifi things dont really get into it soem times. But if they wanted to do things throughout series no harm in that.

 

[GL1]

I would give it a one line acknowledgment, and the move on:

Lara of El: Jor-El, are you saying this race has developed on the exact same evolutionary path as ours? That's incredible!
Jor-El: Almost identically, yes. Our bodies utilize energy more efficiently, much more, in fact, but Kal-El will pass for human, at least to their eyesight, such as it is.

It doesn't need or bear extensive explanation without changing what we like about the character. It can be acknowledged for maximum appeal, though.

He should build his own fortress of solitude, or else he becomes a bit of a legacy character, which is not what Superman is about. I do like the idea of Kryptonian explorers having been to Earth before for research though. Perhaps the fortress he finds is just a large cave with Kryptonian house symbols on the walls, and all their good stuff is gone (would be dumb/bad to leave Kryptonian tech on Earth).

 

[Daybreak_st]

I would give it a one line acknowledgment, and the move on:

Lara of El: Jor-El, are you saying this race has developed on the exact same evolutionary path as ours? That's incredible!
Jor-El: Almost identically, yes. Our bodies utilize energy more efficiently, much more, in fact, but Kal-El will pass for human, at least to their eyesight, such as it is.

It doesn't need or bear extensive explanation without changing what we like about the character. It can be acknowledged for maximum appeal, though.

He should build his own fortress of solitude, or else he becomes a bit of a legacy character, which is not what Superman is about. I do like the idea of Kryptonian explorers having been to Earth before for research though. Perhaps the fortress he finds is just a large cave with Kryptonian house symbols on the walls, and all their good stuff is gone (would be dumb/bad to leave Kryptonian tech on Earth).

If you've seen the all-star superman comic it's amazing view of the relics and what not superman has collected over the years. My thoughts were that if the kryptonians were on earth before and left a base of some sort that kal-el takes over, it would encourage his scientific side as he'd see some of the work/research they did while on earth. He'd see how they collected things adn he'd start to transform this kryptonian outpost into his fortress storing artifacts from his adventures, etc.

 

[Webhead2006]

valid point day.