Kryptonians = ancient astronauts?

[Mr. Earle]

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?

Nice thread!

My opinion has already been expressed by others:

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.

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.

I agree.

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.

This. Jor-El chooses Earth because we happen to look like Kryptonians. Why? Who knows?

We also happen to look like the New Gods, the Guardians of the Universe, Thanagarians, Korugarians, etc. The reason is because we can relate to aliens that look like us and that's why they were designed like that in the first place. There is no need for an explanation. People ate up ROTF, why would they need pedantic explanations in this case? Do we also need to explain why the Joker escapes Arkham every few months to give us new stories?

There is no need to destroy the magic just so that you can explain everything as if the audience would worry about it.

 

[Mr. Earle]

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.

I always found the idea of the fortress bursting out of the crystal to be far fetched. Your idea is a good one, so let me add my own spin to it.

The fortress is an outpost like you said. Clark's spaceship is activated when he reaches 18 years of age and instructs him to find it and so that he can learn about his lost homeworld in this last relic. It is then that Martha and Jonathan explain to him how they found him. Before that Clark thought that he was just a human with powers.

However, this origin for the fortress makes it less personal to Clark, so i thought that it could have been Jor-El's outpost on Earth. With the latest info from K and Jor and Kara's (i hate how she is ignored in comics and movies) hologram program stored in the spaceship, the fortress is updated and brought up to speed with what has occured on K. In later films Clark can discover more about his father and his work by exploring the fortress and its facilities. I'd love to see Clark do some task that Kryptonians used to do with his mother or father by him instructing him. Kinda like Dexter and the visions of his father. Or maybe that would be cheesy.

There is one problem though. If there is an outpost on earth, there have to be others on other planets, perhaps with Kryptonian survivors. How do we solve that?

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.

Interesting idea but.... meh.... It would be cruel to do that to your child, wouldnt it?

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.

A civilization as advanced as the Kryptonians should have mastered space travel and have colonies across their solar system (destroyed by their sun's explosion).
Why didnt others escape? Well...

"Oh snap, your spaceships dont work!!!"

And that's why only Jor-El manages to send out a spaceship.

 

[Bad Superman]

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 absolutely love the Kryptonians = "Ancient Astronauts" that could be fitted into some of Earth's myths and legends of "visitors from the stars".

This is a great idea

 

[Daybreak_st]

I always found the idea of the fortress bursting out of the crystal to be far fetched. Your idea is a good one, so let me add my own spin to it.

The fortress is an outpost like you said. Clark's spaceship is activated when he reaches 18 years of age and instructs him to find it and so that he can learn about his lost homeworld in this last relic. It is then that Martha and Jonathan explain to him how they found him. Before that Clark thought that he was just a human with powers.

However, this origin for the fortress makes it less personal to Clark, so i thought that it could have been Jor-El's outpost on Earth. With the latest info from K and Jor and Kara's (i hate how she is ignored in comics and movies) hologram program stored in the spaceship, the fortress is updated and brought up to speed with what has occured on K. In later films Clark can discover more about his father and his work by exploring the fortress and its facilities. I'd love to see Clark do some task that Kryptonians used to do with his mother or father by him instructing him. Kinda like Dexter and the visions of his father. Or maybe that would be cheesy.

There is one problem though. If there is an outpost on earth, there have to be others on other planets, perhaps with Kryptonian survivors. How do we solve that?
Interesting idea but.... meh.... It would be cruel to do that to your child, wouldnt it?
A civilization as advanced as the Kryptonians should have mastered space travel and have colonies across their solar system (destroyed by their sun's explosion).
Why didnt others escape? Well...

"Oh snap, your spaceships dont work!!!"

And that's why only Jor-El manages to send out a spaceship.

Thanks, Mr. Earle. I like your additions. I had a similar thought too:

As one of Kryptons top scientist and scholar Jor-el is familiar with these outposts and places a key of some sort 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 downloaded and it updates the databanks so they included everything including his ships journey to earth and the planets final moments broadcast from Jor-el to the ship.

Yeah i never like the Fortress being grown. Also it seemed like a huge waste of space, impressive from the outside but in the inside, only one consol? Why? That's why the idea of the outpost that he makes his own with experiements and what-not is so apealing, it adds some relevance to it, a place where he can learn about Kal-el apart from Superman or Clark. I also really like you're idea about him accomplishing some task that kryptonians use to do. Like he picks up on some of their unfinished projects as he is the last of his race, and his father was a scientist. I really like that.

 

[Mr. Earle]

Thanks, Mr. Earle. I like your additions. I had a similar thought too:



Yeah i never like the Fortress being grown. Also it seemed like a huge waste of space, impressive from the outside but in the inside, only one consol? Why? That's why the idea of the outpost that he makes his own with experiements and what-not is so apealing, it adds some relevance to it, a place where he can learn about Kal-el apart from Superman or Clark. I also really like you're idea about him accomplishing some task that kryptonians use to do. Like he picks up on some of their unfinished projects as he is the last of his race, and his father was a scientist. I really like that. [/FONT][/COLOR]

Thanks!

Yeah, i really think that Clark should do stuff in the fortress. Maybe continue some K project (that will come in handy against some villain perhaps?), keep a trophy room with things he discovered in space, etc. But he shouldnt do the crazy stuff he did in All Star. I loved that book but its too Silver Age for a movie. They should definitely draw some inspiration from there though.


@ The problem of other outposts and other survivors:
Kryptonians mostly colonized their own solar system (which was destroyed) with only a handful of science outposts in other systems. They called their scientists back for some reason (i havent figured this out yet. A war, or Zod's rebellion perhaps?). Earth was being studied because of human similarity with Kryptonians. Jor-El, the scientist there didnt reveal his findings that a yellow sun turns them into gods out of fear of them abusing that power.

Something like that...

 

[Webhead2006]

earle yea there is a bunch of different ways they could go about it and it would be interesting to see what they can do to make the fos play a bigger role in future films, and to show off more of superman's smarts and interests in other aliens and krypton and all that.

 

[Timstuff]

2x post

 

[Timstuff]

An idea for the FOS as a Kryptonian outpost:

Earth was the first and only planet that the Kryptonians settled on. They recieved a brief transmission from Earth sometime during the 20th century and decided to send a research team to investigate. They found the planet to be "violent and primitive," (most likely this was during the cold war or even WW2) and so they decided to seal off the fortress within a glacier and returned to Krypton, where the council decided to continue their policy of isolation. Jor-El is aware of this outpost, and so he gives baby Kal-El a data key that will help guide him once he inserts it into the FOS's main computer terminal.

The reason only Kryptonians can find and enter the fortress is because they must use their X-ray vision to find it within the glacier, use heat vision to melt the glacial ice, and then use ice breath to re-seal it. When Clark reaches the FOS, inserting the key updates all of the computer systems and allows Jor El to give Clark his messages from beyond the grave. The fortress was not built specifically for Kal-El, but that doesn't really matter since the software now running it was.

 

[Oddzball]

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.

It's easy: A long Time ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away, a bunch of middle Floridans immigrated to Krypton. Though they were endowed with great powers, they opted to live on a world which a) suppressed those powers and b) was the primary source of an element that was able to kill them.



On a serious note, if the Proto kryptonians had been defeated by say the Green Lantern Corps (or the Manhunters) and Exiled to this planet, at least you have an explanation for this situation.

 

[Oddzball]

I always found the idea of the fortress bursting out of the crystal to be far fetched. Your idea is a good one, so let me add my own spin to it.

Or, Atlantis. In Canon still, i believe, Travis Morgan, the Warlord, traveled to Earth's future and ended up elected as President of the United States.

President Morgan dealt with a crisis that threated life on Earth by evacuating the population back to Skartaris back in time prior to his arrival at Skartaris. Well prior.

Anyway, an Air Force Base established in Skartaris was named Atlantis. Time passed, Jets stopped flying without spare parts etc. military's reverted to horses and armor and lances. Castle Atlantis survives and trhives, becoming the kingdom and the the Empire of Atlantis.

Fast forwar to later prehistorical times. An Atlantean colony on the surface of the Earth, an artificial continent is created. (Arion, Lord of Atlantis series) and in this it's established in an earlier age, Sorcery and technology using colony ships went off into the stars. Some returned, some were killed. Many made new homes on distant worlds.

All Canonical DC. This explains without exception EVERY singel human race found on other worlds. Human immigrants from a distant age, adapted to the planets they live on by evolution, super science and sorcery. Triplicate Girls people can triplicate because they were born under a triple sun? (No kidding that was the explanation!) magic.

From Lexorians to Thanagarians to Braalians all can trace their ancestry back to Earth and specifically to Atlantis. Same with any super powers they posses.

Krptonians? Let's discard the reboot of power Girl's Kryptonian origins for Crisis Undone a few years back. She was Kryptonian until CoIE and then was revamped into Arion's grand daughter given Superman style powers by her grandfather and kept in magical suspended animation until the herea and now.

So at least a case for making Kryptonians and Daxamites Atlantean originated.

This is TOO long for the five minutes a movie might have to spare for the explanation, and ties it to too much comic book material both canon and rendered null and void, but otherwise doable.

 

[Daybreak_st]

Thanks!

Yeah, i really think that Clark should do stuff in the fortress. Maybe continue some K project (that will come in handy against some villain perhaps?), keep a trophy room with things he discovered in space, etc. But he shouldnt do the crazy stuff he did in All Star. I loved that book but its too Silver Age for a movie. They should definitely draw some inspiration from there though.

Yeah totally agree on that, i don't want to him creating life in another universe or feeding a baby sun-eater or anything like that, a little too far fetched for live action but great for the comic or cartoon.

@ The problem of other outposts and other survivors:
Kryptonians mostly colonized their own solar system (which was destroyed) with only a handful of science outposts in other systems. They called their scientists back for some reason (i havent figured this out yet. A war, or Zod's rebellion perhaps?). Earth was being studied because of human similarity with Kryptonians. Jor-El, the scientist there didnt reveal his findings that a yellow sun turns them into gods out of fear of them abusing that power.

Something like that...

I like this solution as well, i was thinking a Kryptonian Civil War of some kind that may have killed a lot of the remaining scientist on krypton so they recalled everyone from the outposts, etc. Also it makes sense for them to study earth and humans and then be surprised by the effects of the yellow sun. I love that angle.

An idea for the FOS as a Kryptonian outpost:

Earth was the first and only planet that the Kryptonians settled on. They recieved a brief transmission from Earth sometime during the 20th century and decided to send a research team to investigate. They found the planet to be "violent and primitive," (most likely this was during the cold war or even WW2) and so they decided to seal off the fortress within a glacier and returned to Krypton, where the council decided to continue their policy of isolation. Jor-El is aware of this outpost, and so he gives baby Kal-El a data key that will help guide him once he inserts it into the FOS's main computer terminal.

The reason only Kryptonians can find and enter the fortress is because they must use their X-ray vision to find it within the glacier, use heat vision to melt the glacial ice, and then use ice breath to re-seal it. When Clark reaches the FOS, inserting the key updates all of the computer systems and allows Jor El to give Clark his messages from beyond the grave. The fortress was not built specifically for Kal-El, but that doesn't really matter since the software now running it was.

You've added some great ideas as well. I love the last part about entering the fortress and the key that updates everything with current info from jorel. I wrote something similar to this in the Fortress Thread. I also like the idea that things were broadcast from krypton to the ship as it left and the ship also recorded the destruction of krypton. At some point Kal-el in the fortress via some form of holographic immersion (maybe like the holodeck?) is able to experience krypton's destruction. I would prefer to see it this way as it would let us as an audience experience it at the same time as clark and feel the full impact of the event.

 

[Bad Superman]

Lots of great ideas for this angle "Kryptonians as ancient astronauts." If only Goyer would read these ideas. . .

 

[Last Son]

If that has been said I apologize. Pretty new too the boards. As in signed up yesterday.

As far as the "activating" the fortress with Jor El's key this could lead to other really cool ideas.

What if while preforming his studies in the fortress he were to find something in one of the krystals that Jor El set up to send out a signal to find other possible Kryptonians in the galaxy. Superman then toys with the idea going back and forth and the temptation of possibly meeting more of his own becomes too much and he sends it out. But then of course it doesn't find Kryptonians, it finds Braniac?

Just a thought.

 

[BestGirl]

^I like the idea about Superman accidentally contacting Brainiac.

 

[Last Son]

^I like the idea about Superman accidentally contacting Brainiac.

Thanks Ms. Dawes. And sorry about you being dead and all.

 

[Webhead2006]

oddball some interesting stuff there.

 

[BestGirl]

Thanks Ms. Dawes. And sorry about you being dead and all.

Thanks. I'm over it now.

 

[Last Son]

Thanks. I'm over it now.

Well that's good.

There are some really cool ideas here, we should just have some huge collectivley written script.

 

[Webhead2006]

i agree alot of us have came up with alot of cool thoughts, ideas, themes, look we all want to see out of a superman film.

 

[Last Son]

A film written by comic nerds, for comic nerds.

 

[Rodrigo90]

Make Brainiac the Fortress's Super Computer,created originally by the Kryptonians. Brainiac itself could be the nerual network for all of Krypton,and the one within the Fortress is the same programme. All Kryptonian information and data is stored and processed by Brainiac,and itself is virtually an entity,capable of thought and speech, and a secret insatiable desire for gaining more and controlling information. Brainiac could make attempts for Lex to find the Fortress and use him to his advantage,with promises of giving Lex the knowledge to destroy Superman and to bring the World into a new century under their command.

Brainiac first wanting to control digital information,and finding means to control the human mind.

 

[Webhead2006]

would be an interesting angle, but i still would want to see a phsyical brainiac too.

 

[Rodrigo90]

Of course. What I like is to combine different elements from each version of the character. Brainiac starting out as a Supercomputer like in TAS,then using Lex to create a body for him,using Metallo as the influence. Another element, Maybe Brainiac himself was once an Alien from Colu,Vril Dox and he attempted to sabotage Krypton. But instead of killing him, the Kryptonians merely used his mind for their own Supercomputer network.

 

[Webhead2006]

yea that would work.

 

[\S/JcDc\S/]

Trying to put up some newer ideas as we all seem to end up repeating past posts on here for ideas.

To start: I do not like the idea of an alien brain being somehow uploaded to form the computer system Brainiac.

I would actually rather Jor-el has a hand in its creation, and when he starts picking up on certain comments or signs by Brainiac he wants to shut down the project... The counsel disagrees.

Brainiac could even have George Orwell "Big Brother" (from best book ever 1984) type of role. Who knows, it could be mass surveillance for Krypton and goes beyond it's boundaries. Jor-el sees this, and wants a stop to it.

What if they knew of the instability of Krypton's core and created a mechanism making it stable? Just before the planet was going to blow, Jor-el activated the mechanism/system and everyone rejoiced that they were saved.

The only being to have access to disable it, and ultimately destroy Krypton would be Brainiac.

Jor-el sees the signs of this possibility and sets up an escape plan. The craft should be (imho) big enough for all 3. Maybe after Lara sets Clark inside the ship, Jor-el is being held at bay because Brainiac makes it look like HE was the one to disable the system. Lara comes to see what the yelling is, they go to take her as well, and she quickly launches Kal-el saving him before the explosion.