Superman Returns Superman II Continuity (Now Jam-Packed with Smilies)

[scorn]

Alright , this issue has been itching at me ever since I rewatched Superman I and II. At the end of Superman II, Supes makes a promise never to abandon humanity again as he once did while Zod and his posse ran amok. In Superman I, Supes sets himself up as a hypocrite saying he never lies. Tsk tsk. Never say never Supes.

Anyway, in Superman Returns he's suppose to comeback from some absence right? Well, what the heck... he just promised he wouldn't go AWOL. LIAR Superman! Liar liar red tights on fire! Liars go to the Phantom Zone .

Anyone have any clues how the writers will make Superman not a liar?

 

[Logan Howlett]

There is nothing, just bad script writing and lack of ideas. Don't get me wrong I think the movie will be cool and all, its just that if they were gona try and make this a sequal to II like Singer says it is than they needed to do it in a way that makes sense. This has been one of the biggest things I have been *****ing about for a while now. Thank you for bringing it up

 

[AsteroidMan]

Alright , this issue has been itching at me ever since I rewatched Superman I and II. At the end of Superman II, Supes makes a promise never to abandon humanity again as he once did while Zod and his posse ran amok. In Superman I, Supes sets himself up as a hypocrite saying he never lies. Tsk tsk. Never say never Supes.

Oh, a first post guy... If you would have taken time to do some research, you would have discovered that Singer said Superman II is not a very good movie and is not being considered in continuity. The trick of "vague history" is that it is just that, vague. Zod might or might have not been to Earth in SR continuity (it sounds like he has not been). So guess what? Supes never talked to the president about not leaving

As for "Lois, I never lie", I have the same gripe as you - for someone living under disguise and pretending to be a mild-mannered reporter, these are big words... But this is not Singer's fault.

 

[dabilee01]

vague.history.

not

sequel.

for the love.

 

[Captain Villa]

Oh dear Lord....

 

[Nivek]

Can someone just post links to the other posts from the past couple months that discussed this very same thing?

 

[PSU442]

amazing. no matter what the writers did, people were going to be pissed.

 

[Super78]

The ending for Superman II was filmed by Lester and wasn't by Donner.

Whether the ending was still in the original shooting script I don't know.

 

[storyteller]

Generally from the footage. All they really kept was smallville and lex luthor plot from the donners movie. Evevry thing else has been thrown out or modified. More importantly i doubt zod happened given supes reason for leaving isnt as concrete.

 

[Desk]

vague.history.

You can't expect casual moviegoers to view Superman Returns as having a "vague history" when you've brought Marlon Brando back from beyond the grave to reprise a key role from a film in the original series.

Singer is trusting that people won't remember all the ins and outs of the original films, but I reckon there will be a fair amount of confusion.

 

[Hobodeluxe]

I think the only thing that carried over from Supes II is the fact that Supes and Lois knocked boots.

 

[Kevin Roegele]

vague.history.

not

sequel.

for the love.

'Vague history' is like Tim Burton's 're-magining' - a nonsense phrase to avoid the word sequel or remake.

Superman Returns is a sequel to Superman.

"Sequel
n.

1. Something that follows; a continuation.
2. A literary, dramatic, or cinematic work whose narrative continues that of a preexisting work.
3. A result or consequence."

dictionary.com

 

[romeogbs19]

Gosh -- how many of these threads have we seen leading up to this movie? ;-)

Anyways, IMO, I just don't see many people caring about this outside of the hardcore fanbase. Some fanboys are going to be upset because the premise to the tie-in is flimsy -- but I think it's a moot point.

Given the development hell this went through, the vast majority of us are happy Singer pulled Superman out of the grave and got it on screen to begin with

 

[Superfreak]

Alright , this issue has been itching at me ever since I rewatched Superman I and II. At the end of Superman II, Supes makes a promise never to abandon humanity again as he once did while Zod and his posse ran amok. In Superman I, Supes sets himself up as a hypocrite saying he never lies. Tsk tsk. Never say never Supes.

Anyway, in Superman Returns he's suppose to comeback from some absence right? Well, what the heck... he just promised he wouldn't go AWOL. LIAR Superman! Liar liar red tights on fire! Liars go to the Phantom Zone .

Anyone have any clues how the writers will make Superman not a liar?

SR is a sequel, but not a direct sequel. I think we can safely say that the events in STM and SII did happen. But I'm assuming that SR takes place sometime, or quite a while after the Zod encounter. STM and SII serve as a diving board, from which this movie can jump off from. I use this metaphor, because jumping off the diving board (the dive ie. STM and SII) and swimming (ie.SR) are two totally different things, yet they are related.

To have a direct sequel (ie. a direct sequel to the narrative in STM and SII) just wouldn't fly with a whole new cast. But in order to build on the franchise there has to be a transition movie, which is SR.

I'm sure whenever we get SRII, it will be grounded in its own universe, which was created from the old STM universe, with whatever groundwork was layed with SR.

You can't really blame the writers, the task they have is a difficult one. Writing an indirect sequel to 2 nearly 30 year old movies. Give them some slack, they are rebooting one of the largest movie franchises ever, and they are doing it the hard way (ie. the easy way being a full restart). I say let them run with it, until they are proven wrong or right, in lets say 2 weeks.

and as for the lying bit. Superman has changed over the last 20 years or so. The internal focus on Clark/Kal/Superman's need to maintain a secret identity, and the sacrifices he makes in order to do so are a much larger part of the mythos today, than then. Things change, and the focus on what makes superman super has changed. As well as the things that make his super-life, not so super.

 

[Pittman4Two]

I asked this same question last week and never got a legitimate answer.

 

[KrypJonian]

You can't expect casual moviegoers to view Superman Returns as having a "vague history" when you've brought Marlon Brando back from beyond the grave to reprise a key role from a film in the original series.

Singer is trusting that people won't remember all the ins and outs of the original films, but I reckon there will be a fair amount of confusion.

I would be SHOCKED if any casual movie-goer remembered or cared about the end of SII, and Superman being a liar because of it.

 

[afan]

Re. Superman's pledge at the end of SII.

In SII the Man of Steel surrendered his powers so that he could live in a normal relationship with Lois, for purely personal gain he abandoned the well being of the world. That's what he apologized for and swore never to repeat.

In SR he leaves Earth temporarily to search for survivors of Krypton's destruction, surely not a journey devoid of some risk, and a journey that certainly fits in with the essence of Superman. I think that if Superman perceived a distress signal of extra- terran origin he would not hesitate to answer it, and for me at least that would have no relation to his pledge in SII.

Now I'm not espousing that the events of SII are relevant to the history of SR merely answering the premise of this thread.

 

[Lightning54SC]

is it true in the donner film lois throws herself off her balcony and falls to her death or some crazy thing or something like that cuz i remember reading somethng like this on supermancinema.com or something?

 

[dabilee01]

'Vague history' is like Tim Burton's 're-magining' - a nonsense phrase to avoid the word sequel or remake.

Superman Returns is a sequel to Superman.

"Sequel
n.

1. Something that follows; a continuation.
2. A literary, dramatic, or cinematic work whose narrative continues that of a preexisting work.
3. A result or consequence."

dictionary.com

read some of the interviews with bryan and dan/mike. they themselves state that this is not a sequel.

they're just taking basic elements of the story and using those as the foundation. much like the james bond movies (which we all know were not sequels to each other).

if this were indeed a sequel, then we have to take into account the events in s3 & s4. i'd prefer not to do that.

just read the interviews. they help explain their point of view and what 'vague history' really means.

 

[KrypJonian]

read some of the interviews with bryan and dan/mike. they themselves state that this is not a sequel.

they're just taking basic elements of the story and using those as the foundation. much like the james bond movies (which we all know were not sequels to each other).

if this were indeed a sequel, then we have to take into account the events in s3 & s4. i'd prefer not to do that.

just read the interviews. they help explain their point of view and what 'vague history' really means.

The problem with that right there is that you can find interviews with Singer where he says it is a sequel, and interviews where he says it isn't.

afan- Good call

 

[scorn]

Nice answer afan. I'm satisfied with that explanation.

 

[bsquad]

Alright , this issue has been itching at me ever since I rewatched Superman I and II. At the end of Superman II, Supes makes a promise never to abandon humanity again as he once did while Zod and his posse ran amok. In Superman I, Supes sets himself up as a hypocrite saying he never lies. Tsk tsk. Never say never Supes.

Anyway, in Superman Returns he's suppose to comeback from some absence right? Well, what the heck... he just promised he wouldn't go AWOL. LIAR Superman! Liar liar red tights on fire! Liars go to the Phantom Zone .

Anyone have any clues how the writers will make Superman not a liar?

you could look at it from 2 points of view. 1, he didn't say that to the President. because he's not the exact same Superman as Christopher Reeve. They have a very similar backstory but not the exact same history down to the finest detail. For example in the new film we see Clark with glasses discovering his ship when he was younger ect, which did not happen in the film. Also Christopher Reeve's Superman went on to fight Nuclear Man act while Routh's left earth for 5 years. It's like a comic where the backstory is similar but not exactly the same

2, you could just say that after the General Zod accident and the reveal that all of Krypton might not have been destroyed he felt that he should make sure. A hard decision but 1 he truly felt he needed to do.

 

[bsquad]

The problem with that right there is that you can find interviews with Singer where he says it is a sequel, and interviews where he says it isn't.

afan- Good call

they could have quoted him wrong, or misunderstood him

 

[Trooper]

n-e-w be

 

[NotFadeAway]

Vague History Sucks!!!