Superman Returns Official Rate and Review Superman Returns thread!!!

[Fatboy Roberts]

Latino Review is home to some of the WORST, most long-winded, scattershot, hyperbolic "writers" ever seen on the internet. Even if their scoops are accurate, who wants to read em, because the writers typically make Harry Knowles seem like a restrained bastion of objectivity.

you gotta turn a Latino Review piece down by like 75 percent in order to even approach it or the blinding fanboy light will melt your corneas in your head and render you ******ed.

Honestly, that site is almost WORTHLESS now because of the people churning out the articles. Anyone actually make it all the way through that Transformers script review? Jesus. It's like you're trapped in some fanboy vas deferens as the climax is nearing. I didn't want to end up drying to the keyboard, I just clicked away after a minute. My head hurt.

hell, I couldn't even read THIS review all the way through. Terrible.

 

[Isildur´s Heir]

The die hard comic book fans would never be happy no matter what was done. You can't please everyone, and frankly he shouldn't have to try. He is the director, he is an artist and like any artist he's allowed to present his vision.
You're assuming he's not being respectful to the source material based on your opinion. His vision of Superman is shaped by the source material he respects, the original TV series and Superman the movie. Both of which are faithful to their source material , the comics of their time.

No, you should not have to try to please everyone, but you should not even have to.
You will always please the 'real fans' (the ones that understand the characters and want to see them portraited as 'real persons', not just powered 'freaks'), as long as you stay true to the characters and their lifes.
Yes, he is the director, and yes, a director is an artist, but the thing is, when it comes to adaptations, the artist thing is to know how to present things to make them relevant and interesting, not change things or present them how and if it pleases him.
And yes, Singer respects the original tv series and Donner´s Superman, but that is not to say that he is respectful (or not), but that he is holding on to something that is totally outdated, doesn´t make sense nowadays and it´s totally irrelevant for this day and age...the pre-crisis.

I'm working on a book,Firestorm, that has had constant moaning from some quarters because we're not doing what some fans want us to do. I should not have to be swayed by the whims of a few fans because ultimatley every one wants something different. I mean look at this board as it is so far we have multiple camps.

* Those who want a John Byrne Man Of Steel version
*Those who want a direct adaptaion of Superman: Birthright
*Those who want a version closer to Superman:the animated series
*Those who want a remade origin story
*Those who want a version of the Death of Superman, with Doomsday as the Villian
*Those who want Bizarro as the villian
*Those who want Mettalo as the lead villian
Those who want Metallo as a stooge of Lex Luthor
*Those who want Braniac as the Villian
Those who want a more comic book version of Braniac( The Coluan world mind)
*those who want a Kryptonian Braniac like S:TAM

First of all, good luck on your book, and i mean it
But i don´t know what it is, or what is based on, to have fans moaning.

Second, about the diferent camps...
* You can very well put Byrne´s Man of Steel, Birthright, TAM and Superman: For all Seasons (while or at it) into the remake the origin story deal. You can use a bit of everyone of them to make the origin movie, not a literal translation of one of them (which would suck). That´s where the artist part of the director would came into play.
* Anyone that say that they want the Death of Superman on screen, should just shut up. It´s totally ridiculous to want to kill the Man of Steel in the first movie.
* As for the villain angle, one thing i can say, if this movie is something like a sequel, there should be a 'supervillain' and not just Lex. If this was a restart, i would be more than happy with just Luthor, and would not want it any other way. Then, once again, it comes down to understanding the villain, and knowing how to portrait him.

So do you see the problem here? there are so many versions of Superman to choose from, nearly 80 years worth of stories taht it would be impossible to take everything and mesh intpo a single vision. So you have to go with the vision that the public already knows , which is Superman the movie(Which is as I type this, playing in the background on Cinemax right now)a movie that has been in constant rotation for the last 27 years and build on it.
That's why this movie will work.

But the question that remains is, why make a Superman movie?
For the character or for the money?
Every single movie should be made for the characters, and, with that in mind, you should make the best one can and bringing the audience that doesn´t know, to really get into the life of Superman, to make people know who he is, where he comes from, what he did and all that.
If you make a movie for the money it can provide, sure, the first thing you will make is to go with a vision that the public already knows....is it truthful?
Who fu**ing cares??? As long as it makes money...[Spacey´s Luthor]BILLIONS[Spacey´s Luthor]....in the process.
That´s just wrong...in so many ways

 

[skruloos]

As you can see above, not only Donner´s Superman is outdated, it´s (not by his fault or the movie, but rather the time it was made) stupid.
Donner´s Superman (i refuse to call it The Movie, because any movie with The Movie subtitle in it, or, The Adventure of...,IMO, is just pathetic) is an amazing movie, the best pre-crisis movie ever made...but the key word is PRE-CRISIS

And that's all well and good for the comics. But the movies don't HAVE to follow the comics. The movies adapt from a broader range of comics history and because it is a completely different medium it doesn't HAVE to follow the restraints of DC's comics contuinity, one that they have a problem with themselves.

 

[mad-sci]

But the question that remains is, why make a Superman movie?
For the character or for the money?

Erm, that's exactly what SR is about. You may have a 'campy' Luthor with a Lois and child, and an ex-Kent, and other characters no-one seems to like, but who's name is on the film? Who's the star? Whose character has been untouched (last son of krypton, raised by Jonathan and Martha Kent, reporter for Daily Planet, in love with Lois Lane, aka Superman, protector of Earth)?


WB may no doubt be making this film for the money (no doubt, for over 12 years), but Singer is not.

 

[J.Howlett]

Jeffrey Wells has updated his review with a long editorial on the film....

http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/archives/2006/06/_blue_babyblue.php

 

[Isildur´s Heir]

And that's all well and good for the comics. But the movies don't HAVE to follow the comics. The movies adapt from a broader range of comics history and because it is a completely different medium it doesn't HAVE to follow the restraints of DC's comics contuinity, one that they have a problem with themselves.

It´s not about following the comics, it´s about following his LIFE[/B.
Look at it as a biographical movie, but about a fictional character.

Erm, that's exactly what SR is about. You may have a 'campy' Luthor with a Lois and child, and an ex-Kent, and other characters no-one seems to like, but who's name is on the film? Who's the star? Whose character has been untouched (last son of krypton, raised by Jonathan and Martha Kent, reporter for Daily Planet, in love with Lois Lane, aka Superman, protector of Earth)?

Dude, c´mon....do you honestly believe in what you just wrote?
Superman is more than just having the name and powers right, more than who he was raised by and where he works, more than those things.
Those are cosmetics aspects of the character...important? Yes! Unchangeable? Definitely! But cosmetic nevertheless, they are the surface that we all know.
Superman his life....LIFE being the key word here, because life is everything, from who he is, to the diference he makes; from the role he plays, to his psychology; from his goals and ambitions, to his fears and concerns, but, must important, what he had to endure to arrive at where he is, and that´s what molded his personality and made who he is.

Not only Superman is more than the cosmetic aspects, all comic book characters are.

 

[user123456789]

But in Blade, she blew goats.

Overacted, over the top, and couldn't talk with her teeth in.

lol i actually liked her in Blade:Trinity

 

[Mr. Credible]

lol i actually liked her in Blade:Trinity

i did, too. i wouldn't call it good acting by any strech of the word, but she was just... quirky? i don't know how to describe it, but i dug it.

 

[mad-sci]

Superman his life....LIFE being the key word here, because life is everything, from who he is, to the diference he makes; from the role he plays, to his psychology; from his goals and ambitions, to his fears and concerns, but, must important, what he had to endure to arrive at where he is, and that´s what molded his personality and made who he is.

Not only Superman is more than the cosmetic aspects, all comic book characters are.

But that's what Singer IS doing in SR. You can moan on and on about the pre-crisis outdated stuff in the movie, you could say fairly that Singer is virtually copying most of STM in terms of plot, but you have to also remember that Singer is NOT interested in doing an origin story.

Bryan Singer is doing a film primrily about the return of a god, trying to find his place among mortals. The film is asking the questions about the importance of Superman in today's society, and the world's need for a saviour. It also looks what happens when everybody in the world moves on yet you do not. Tell me, if THAT is not exploring the character of Superman (his entire life), then what is Superman Returns about?

 

[Superman \S/]

From the Boston Herald:

“SUPERMAN”: A MAGISTERIAL RETURN
Posted by: Stephen Schaefer
June 9, 2006 on 10:41 am

Bryan Singer’s highly-anticipated “Superman Returns” was finally unveiled for the press Thursday night in L.A. (the print was finished at Technicolor at 2:30 that afternoon) and Warner Bros. must have given a sigh of relief when they heard the genuine applause at the finish. What Singer’s done is a dandy trick: He’s honored the tradition of Superman as a quintessentially 20th-century American myth and simultaneously given the Man of Steel a home (cinematically) in the 21st century.

This Superman returns from a five-year absence to find the love of his life, Kate Bosworth’s Lois Lane, settled into domesticity with a son Jason and a lover, Daily Planet editor Perry White’s nephew Jack (James Marsden), who also works at the paper. An unmarried heroine with a kid, a woman with two very different men in her life – and, oh yes, a Pulitzer Prize – what could be more contemporary?

Even better, Singer has transformed Superman, the alien from another planet with his extraordinary powers, into a majestic, awe-inspiring figure, not a kiddie comic book guy in tights. Like Apollo come to earth, like Atlas holding the world in the great Rockefeller Center sculpture, Bryan Routh’s Superman has a gravity that enobles this entire two-and-a-half hour picture. There is one dazzling sequence early on where Superman rescues a doomed airplane whose passenger list includes Lois Lane, his estranged true love. Singer of course couldn’t know that the sequence would echo the final moments of the horrifying 9/11 “United 93” but that it does – and that it has Superman for a happy ending – gives it perhaps a greater gravitas. Here is a fantasy that like Disney’s plaintive Oscar-winning wartime song, “When You Wish Upon a Star,” speaks directly to a need for healing from the brutal realities we face daily.

Singer has cast two of the surviving cast members from the Fifties “Superman” TV series. Noel Neill, Lois Lane, plays a dying widow under Lex Luthor’s thrall and Jack Larson, Jimmy Olson, appears as a bartender serving Jimmy (Sam Huntington) and Clark Kent drink. He even wittily manages to get in the famous phrase, “It’s a bird! It’s a plane!” and “Faster than a speeding bullet.”

More importantly, Singer straddles Superman’s time zones and eras. The venerable Daily Planet, with its golden globe atop the Metropolis City landmark building, is a Thirties building with 21st century hardware, flat-screen monitors, computers and faxes. Parker Posey’s wry comic relief as Kitty, Lex Luthor’s moll, is, right down to her name, an evocation of Hollywood’s spunky, wise-cracking Forties heroine Paulette Goddard (with a bit of Jennifer Jones). There is luminous Eva Marie Saint as Ma Kent once again in a movie, if only through screen magic, with her “On the Waterfront” leading man Marlon Brandon whose work as Jor-El, the father of Superman, is recycled to positive effect.

How the public responds to “Superman Returns” when it opens at 10 PM on June 27th is anyone’s guess but Singer & Co. can be content knowing they’ve managed not only to resurrect an American icon but done it with smarts, grace and even poetry. It’s going to be hard for any superhero movie to beat the magisterial bearing Singer so emphatically summons as in one memorable shot Superman is seen suspended in space, his dusty-colored cape twirling, an ancient god come from the heavens. Fittingly, the film is dedicated “respectfully” to Christopher Reeve and Dana Reeve.

 

[Nivek]

Latino Review is home to some of the WORST, most long-winded, scattershot, hyperbolic "writers" ever seen on the internet. Even if their scoops are accurate, who wants to read em, because the writers typically make Harry Knowles seem like a restrained bastion of objectivity.

you gotta turn a Latino Review piece down by like 75 percent in order to even approach it or the blinding fanboy light will melt your corneas in your head and render you ******ed.

Honestly, that site is almost WORTHLESS now because of the people churning out the articles. Anyone actually make it all the way through that Transformers script review? Jesus. It's like you're trapped in some fanboy vas deferens as the climax is nearing. I didn't want to end up drying to the keyboard, I just clicked away after a minute. My head hurt.

hell, I couldn't even read THIS review all the way through. Terrible.

Hey man, internet Journalism at it's best! No one said it has to be written in a way that doesn't cause brain seizures, or have that much validity behind it. Concidering the former Big 3 of Geek Film pages have gone downhill (CHUD putting Devin on staff, DH hardly posting anything, and AICN posting outdated script reviews and fan manips of Black Spidey Costumes every other week for awhile) it's pretty messed up they have risen to the top of the heap.

 

[greenlantern530]

Have you read this guys other reviews? Calling him a pedantic jackass is an insult to pedantic jackasses everywhere.

So the 1 reviewer is a jackass. Nearly all of the reviews have been positive, why are you clinging to this one?

 

[Mr. Credible]

so... only like, 7 or 8 people have seen this movie? somehow i thought with a screening, there'd be more reviews.

 

[Fatboy Roberts]

it's pretty messed up they have risen to the top of the heap.

that's actually a good point

 

[LuvSupes]

so... only like, 7 or 8 people have seen this movie? somehow i thought with a screening, there'd be more reviews.

Same here, I thought there would be more unofficial reviews and random postings as well, where we could get some spoiler leaks. But nothing so far . Where are all the big spoilers

 

[Agentdemon]

Same here, I thought there would be more unofficial reviews and random postings as well, where we could get some spoiler leaks. But nothing so far . Where are all the big spoilers

BT said there was a movie theater full of press and others, I'm sure they were all told or had to sign a legel document not to write a spoiler review until WB says ok. WB loves to threaten to sue.

 

[Tzigone]

I believe Justin at bluetights mentioned a NDA.

 

[Mr. Credible]

yeah, and i'm fine not knowing the big twist, even though i'm sure i know what it is, but... i would like a full, really in depth review of the acting, special effects, characterization, etc...

i'm sick of these 'routh is good, story is good, plane sequence good' reviews. i mean, they're nice to have, but geez.

 

[LuvSupes]

BT said there was a movie theater full of press and others, I'm sure they were all told or had to sign a legel document not to write a spoiler review until WB says ok. WB loves to threaten to sue.

I know but I still expected people to find a way to post spoilers anyhow. Sign up to a board anonymously...

Anyhow, I read this over at the chud forums, from david poland, another grapevine post:

Wells fails to mention that the IMAX preview, which will only be on IMAX screens, still has no sound and has other unfinsihed issues. There was some degree of shock amongst the media on hand about how unfinished the footage was this close to day-n-date release.

And of course, keep in mind that Wells hated Pirates 1, not even sitting through the whole film, and that was the highest grossing film of that year.

Word I am getting on Superman, which I did not see because I am in Seattle, is pretty mixed. "Too long" and "too short on geek content" are the two big complaints, followed by the comical miscasting of Kate Bosworth as a Pulitzer winner with a 6 year old child. The argument is that there is a lot of standing around posing and recalling Brando and the section, as a for instance, of him in space cruising Krypton was cut. This is not to say that the movie was reviled. I have heard none of that. No haters. But Jeffrey is, from what I gather, the biggest romancer the film has. Perhaps he pictures himself in tights and better hair.

In any case, I will go into the movie next week with open expectations and see how it goes. I hope it's great. Regardless, there is little chance that it will beat Pirates 2 this summer, which has a much wider base of established fans and a much wider attaction to under 10s and over 40s.

 

[Mr. Credible]

hold on... so pirates has a bigger established fanbase than effing superman? jesus! that's downright laughable.

 

[LuvSupes]

Also when did the kid become 6 years old

 

[charl_huntress]

Also when did the kid become 6 years old

It says in the book he's five. Considering that the kid isn't mentioned in these reviews...any of them...I would say the twist concerns him and the NDAs are there to protect what is sure to be a doozy. However, I'm heartened that there aren't any WTF reactions. I figured some would still cry that Mann didn't make the film, and that it's too luvy duvy, but I still haven't seen this ****ing sucks and WTF was that. So, I'm feeling good about SR

 

[The Sage]

No, you should not have to try to please everyone, but you should not even have to.
You will always please the 'real fans' (the ones that understand the characters and want to see them portraited as 'real persons', not just powered 'freaks'), as long as you stay true to the characters and their lifes.
Yes, he is the director, and yes, a director is an artist, but the thing is, when it comes to adaptations, the artist thing is to know how to present things to make them relevant and interesting, not change things or present them how and if it pleases him.
And yes, Singer respects the original tv series and Donner´s Superman, but that is not to say that he is respectful (or not), but that he is holding on to something that is totally outdated, doesn´t make sense nowadays and it´s totally irrelevant for this day and age...the pre-crisis.

That's interesting you talk about holding on to something outdated, as a lot of people would say that John Byrne's Man of Steel is outdated. As for pre-crisis being outdated, Dini & Timm and Mark Waid didn't think it was outdated enough to use it for their origin stories and influence of their other tales. Dare I say the DCAU and Birthright owes more to Pre-Crisis than it does to Post-Crisis?

It doesn't matter if the material taken is outdated. It's the job of the storyteller to updated to fit the modern world and their vision.

First of all, good luck on your book, and i mean it
But i don´t know what it is, or what is based on, to have fans moaning.

Second, about the diferent camps...
* You can very well put Byrne´s Man of Steel, Birthright, TAM and Superman: For all Seasons (while or at it) into the remake the origin story deal. You can use a bit of everyone of them to make the origin movie, not a literal translation of one of them (which would suck). That´s where the artist part of the director would came into play.
* Anyone that say that they want the Death of Superman on screen, should just shut up. It´s totally ridiculous to want to kill the Man of Steel in the first movie.
* As for the villain angle, one thing i can say, if this movie is something like a sequel, there should be a 'supervillain' and not just Lex. If this was a restart, i would be more than happy with just Luthor, and would not want it any other way. Then, once again, it comes down to understanding the villain, and knowing how to portrait him.


But the question that remains is, why make a Superman movie?
For the character or for the money?
Every single movie should be made for the characters, and, with that in mind, you should make the best one can and bringing the audience that doesn´t know, to really get into the life of Superman, to make people know who he is, where he comes from, what he did and all that.
If you make a movie for the money it can provide, sure, the first thing you will make is to go with a vision that the public already knows....is it truthful?
Who fu**ing cares??? As long as it makes money...[Spacey´s Luthor]BILLIONS[Spacey´s Luthor]....in the process.
That´s just wrong...in so many ways

I don't know what the heck you're talking about here. The public knows who Superman is, where he's from, what he can do, etc. And whoever doesn't will know after Superman Returns.

 

[greenlantern530]

hold on... so pirates has a bigger established fanbase than effing superman? jesus! that's downright laughable.

Word. The statement that under 10's and over 40's would rather see Pirates was bogus as well.

 

[Mr. Credible]

Word. The statement that under 10's and over 40's would rather see Pirates was bogus as well.

yup... the 'under 10's', even the oldest ones, probably don't even remember seeing pirates 2 years ago. i hardly do, and i'm 22. and the 'over 40's' grew up with superman, and are not generally the 'dumb goofy popcorn flick' kind of people. sorry, but i couldn't pay my parents to see pirates of the carribean.