Superman Returns Superman the last of Krypton? Doesn't make sense at all!

capt. america

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Ok so the average star in the universe lasts 10 billion years. Our sun is about 5 billion years old. Krypton has a red sun or Red Giant which is what happens to a star before it goes Supernova. Humans have only been around 2 million years, yet we know what happens soon after a Red Giant forms, with our primitive astronomy and physics knowledge. KABOOM

So Earth = 5 billion years, Krypton = 10 billion. So lets say that the Krypton alien race came to be about 5 billion years after the birth of Krypton, like humans, or even a few billion years later. They still have been around hundreds of millions or even a few billion years. Oh and lets not forget They have space ships!!!!!!!!!

Why were all the Kryptonians stuck on the planet? Why after such a long time would they not hop a few solar systems to safety? After all, they have a Red Giant sitting on their doorstep ready to go. If they had the technology to send Kal-El light years away, why couldn't they bail themselves? What, Jor-El discovered what a Red Giant was considering how advanced they were, right before the supernova? There are dozens of different species in the universe, Jor-El said, so they were in contact. No aliens would have said "Yo Krypton, you guys might want to move out of the way of that BIG A** RED GIANT IN YOUR SYSTEM?"

Someone explain this to me as I admit, I'm not much versed in the history of Krypton or the Superman universe in general.
 
capt. america said:
Ok so the average star in the universe lasts 10 billion years. Our sun is about 5 billion years old. Krypton has a red sun or Red Giant which is what happens to a star before it goes Supernova. Humans have only been around 2 million years, yet we know what happens soon after a Red Giant forms, with our primitive astronomy and physics knowledge. KABOOM

So Earth = 5 billion years, Krypton = 10 billion. So lets say that the Krypton alien race came to be about 5 billion years after the birth of Krypton, like humans, or even a few billion years later. They still have been around hundreds of millions or even a few billion years. Oh and lets not forget They have space ships!!!!!!!!!

Why were all the Kryptonians stuck on the planet? Why after such a long time would they not hop a few solar systems to safety? After all, they have a Red Giant sitting on their doorstep ready to go. If they had the technology to send Kal-El light years away, why couldn't they bail themselves? What, Jor-El discovered what a Red Giant was considering how advanced they were, right before the supernova? There are dozens of different species in the universe, Jor-El said, so they were in contact. No aliens would have said "Yo Krypton, you guys might want to move out of the way of that BIG A** RED GIANT IN YOUR SYSTEM?"

Someone explain this to me as I admit, I'm not much versed in the history of Krypton or the Superman universe in general.

I'm very versed on this one point.

For whatever reason, they weren't a space faring race and they weren't conviced of Jor-el's warning that the planet was going to die. Since Kryptonians weren't convinced the planet was going to die, they did nothing to prepare for its demise and the planet exploded too quickly for them to leave.
 
you know what else doesn't make sense? a man flying! what's that all about? and heat vision?! geez, i don't know anybody with heat vision!

it's a comic. suspend disbelief.
 
According to most accounts, in a nutshell, no one believed Jor-El.

And in the Byrne MOTS mini-series, Kryptonians were bound to the planet.
 
If you guys read the comics (I suppose it doesn't matter since Singer's movie has nothing to do with the comics), the Krypton of Jor El (I'm going by Byrne as the definitive source) lived in a stagnant world.

Millenia ago, Krypton was a thriving megalopolis culture but civil war over the morality of clones (that's how you make a clone war story - Byrne made perfection in 1986) nearly wiped out the entire species. The result is 1000 years later, Krytonians are stagnant in that they can basically live forever since they have engineered themselves to genetic perfection (that's why Superman would be near perfect as a species even without the powers from the sun) and basically cannot die. Deaths are very rare. Therefore, no Kryptonian is in any hurry to well...DO ANYTHING. They can always do it later, plus they concluded that the civil war was caused by contact between people so basically they lived their lives isolated from each other with only robots as companions. a Kryptonian rarely ever even agreed to speak with or see another Kryptonian.

Kryptonians were space faring a 1000 years ago, but the culture of Jor El's age was dead and nobody talked to each other or tried to do anything besides revel in their own perfection and isolation.
 
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In a nutshell, no one believed Jor El that the sun would explode. They lived in a Utopia, they saw no point in flying around in spaceships for whatever matter, and believed nothing bad could happen to them. Thus, one of the most advanced civillizations was destroyed.
 
Spare-Flair said:
If you guys read the comics (I suppose it doesn't matter since Singer's movie has nothing to do with the comics), the Krypton of Jor El (I'm going by Byrne as the definitive source) lived in a stagnant world.

Millenia ago, Krypton was a thriving megalopolis culture but civil war over the morality of clones (that's how you make a clone war story - Byrne made perfection in 1986) nearly wiped out the entire species. The result is 1000 years later, Krytonians are stagnant in that they can basically live forever since they have engineered themselves to genetic perfection (that's why Superman would be near perfect as a species even without the powers from the sun) and basically cannot die. Deaths are very rare. Therefore, no Kryptonian is in any hurry to well...DO ANYTHING. They can always do it later, plus they concluded that the civil war was caused by contact between people so basically they lived their lives isolated from each other with only robots as companions. a Kryptonian rarely ever even agreed to speak with or see another Kryptonian.

Kryptonians were space faring a 1000 years ago, but the culture of Jor El's age was dead and nobody talked to each other or tried to do anything besides revel in their own perfection and isolation.

Byrne's interpretation is probably the one that best explains why they didn't take leaving the planet too seriously, because they couldn't.
 
Lucid said:
Wow, that sounds awful. I wasn't aware that that was Byrne's version. I'm partial to the idea of Krypton being a utopia of acceptance and equality, a nice compliment to Earth's environment of hatred, so that the idea is that Krypton is what Earth could be if people accepted one another. That sounds a lot more inspiring and true to the themes of the Superman story than a race of isolated clones.

Thats the same version of krypton from the movies as well. Bryne borowed his idea for krypton from the old superman movies. Kryptonians were very arrogant, and isolated themselves and were cold people in the movies and comic version. Donner and bryne wanted to use it as irony, If the kryptoninas acted like humans, then their would be no eternal struggle for superman between his kryptonian heritage and human upbringing. Smallville wich ueses the movies version, has stuff like that all the time. Another good example is superman:The movie, where supes goes against Jor-els cold words, and reverses time to save Lois. Supes decided to listen to his earths father words instead of the rationalily/coldness of Jor-el. It all is ironic, with all their technology and advancements, Kryptonians own cold rational and arrogance was thier downfall.

In the Movies Jor-el does not want superman to allow the humans to suffer the same fate as the kryptonians. He realises the mistakes the people of krypton made, and employs his son to prevent earthlings from makeing those very mistakes.
 
SuperLee said:
In a nutshell, no one believed Jor El that the sun would explode. They lived in a Utopia, they saw no point in flying around in spaceships for whatever matter, and believed nothing bad could happen to them. Thus, one of the most advanced civillizations was destroyed.


good explanation, i never really thought about this topic before. It was a very valid question.
 
SuperLee said:
In a nutshell, no one believed Jor El that the sun would explode. They lived in a Utopia, they saw no point in flying around in spaceships for whatever matter, and believed nothing bad could happen to them. Thus, one of the most advanced civillizations was destroyed.

Darwinism at its finest.
 
Spare-Flair said:
If you guys read the comics (I suppose it doesn't matter since Singer's movie has nothing to do with the comics), the Krypton of Jor El (I'm going by Byrne as the definitive source) lived in a stagnant world.

Millenia ago, Krypton was a thriving megalopolis culture but civil war over the morality of clones (that's how you make a clone war story - Byrne made perfection in 1986) nearly wiped out the entire species. The result is 1000 years later, Krytonians are stagnant in that they can basically live forever since they have engineered themselves to genetic perfection (that's why Superman would be near perfect as a species even without the powers from the sun) and basically cannot die. Deaths are very rare. Therefore, no Kryptonian is in any hurry to well...DO ANYTHING. They can always do it later, plus they concluded that the civil war was caused by contact between people so basically they lived their lives isolated from each other with only robots as companions. a Kryptonian rarely ever even agreed to speak with or see another Kryptonian.

Kryptonians were space faring a 1000 years ago, but the culture of Jor El's age was dead and nobody talked to each other or tried to do anything besides revel in their own perfection and isolation.

Ok I like that story the best. That makes sense. Thanks!
 
Spare-Flair said:
If you guys read the comics (I suppose it doesn't matter since Singer's movie has nothing to do with the comics), the Krypton of Jor El (I'm going by Byrne as the definitive source) lived in a stagnant world.

Millenia ago, Krypton was a thriving megalopolis culture but civil war over the morality of clones (that's how you make a clone war story - Byrne made perfection in 1986) nearly wiped out the entire species. The result is 1000 years later, Krytonians are stagnant in that they can basically live forever since they have engineered themselves to genetic perfection (that's why Superman would be near perfect as a species even without the powers from the sun) and basically cannot die. Deaths are very rare. Therefore, no Kryptonian is in any hurry to well...DO ANYTHING. They can always do it later, plus they concluded that the civil war was caused by contact between people so basically they lived their lives isolated from each other with only robots as companions. a Kryptonian rarely ever even agreed to speak with or see another Kryptonian.

Kryptonians were space faring a 1000 years ago, but the culture of Jor El's age was dead and nobody talked to each other or tried to do anything besides revel in their own perfection and isolation.

That's rather brilliant, and fitting for an advanced alien race. Is there a tradepaperback on this?
 
Lucid said:
Wow, that sounds awful. I wasn't aware that that was Byrne's version. I'm partial to the idea of Krypton being a utopia of acceptance and equality, a nice compliment to Earth's environment of hatred, so that the idea is that Krypton is what Earth could be if people accepted one another. That sounds a lot more inspiring and true to the themes of the Superman story than a race of isolated clones.

Depends on how you think about it. Krypton could be considered a metaphor for what could happen to Earth, and part of the reason Jor-El sends his son to Earth is to prevent the same sort of soullessness from occuring.
 
People on other forums are telling me that Brainiac was against Jor-El's opinions about their sun and spoke against him.
 
capt. america said:
People on other forums are telling me that Brainiac was against Jor-El's opinions about their sun and spoke against him.

I don't know about that, but I do know the council didn't take the warnings seriously.
 
lobocrisis said:
That's rather brilliant, and fitting for an advanced alien race. Is there a tradepaperback on this?

I think the easiest condensed version of this story can be found in the 1987 4 comic series "World of Krypton" but I'm not aware of any trade paperbacks for it.

Lucid said:
Wow, that sounds awful. I wasn't aware that that was Byrne's version. I'm partial to the idea of Krypton being a utopia of acceptance and equality, a nice compliment to Earth's environment of hatred, so that the idea is that Krypton is what Earth could be if people accepted one another. That sounds a lot more inspiring and true to the themes of the Superman story than a race of isolated clones.

No, the story is always that Krypton was an arrogant planet reliant on themslves and technology and being cold and lacking in humanity. The moral is that earth should avoid the same fate. Earth is an environment of vibrancy and love compared to what Krypton was - a world where only Jor El truely knew what love was. Krypton was basically like earth thousands of years ago, but they basically destroyed themselves through war and it led to a cold and sterile society. Krypton is not paradise lost - it's a dystopian future where only one person had the forsight to see that people need change. Therefore it's hoped that Superman can help the earth avoid the same fate.

Also, in the Bryne story, a relic from the clone/civil war era is what causes Krypton to die as some fundamentalist/radical terrorists in their time sent a weapon into the planet's core that was forgetten thousands of years later and nobody believed Jor El when he discovered it was active.

capt. america said:
People on other forums are telling me that Brainiac was against Jor-El's opinions about their sun and spoke against him.

I think that was only in the Superman cartoon.

Brainac purposely did this because Brainiac had already calculated that Krypton would not survive and that he could not carry out his mission - to preserve Kryptonian culture so he decided to let it happen so he could spend the time preserving records and ensuring it's own survival instead of having his time wasted trying to save lives.
 
Nothing about their sun blowing up and by that, destroying Krypton, makes any sense at all.
It might be a cool effect, the first wow factor of the movie, but that´s exaclty what it is, just a stunt, which, IMO, makes it redundant and meaningless.

So, what´s the movie´s explanation for Kryptonite?
Because it wasn´t Krypton that blew up because of the fusion of it´s core, what´s is the K-rock?
And so, the Krytonians didn´t believed in Jor-El, that their planet was doomed.
It´s just me, or that doesn´t make any sense at all?
And yes, i know that almost all comic books say that, which doesn´t make sense too and always upseted me.
Before a planet blows up, there are reactions and consequences, effects and happenings, a planet just doesn´t blow over night.
The same can be said about a sun exploding...
So, in both accounts, there should be too much evidence for the Kryptonians to see, or where they blind?
 
Isildur´s Heir said:
Nothing about their sun blowing up and by that, destroying Krypton, makes any sense at all.
It might be a cool effect, the first wow factor of the movie, but that´s exaclty what it is, just a stunt, which, IMO, makes it redundant and meaningless.

So, what´s the movie´s explanation for Kryptonite?
Because it wasn´t Krypton that blew up because of the fusion of it´s core, what´s is the K-rock?
And so, the Krytonians didn´t believed in Jor-El, that their planet was doomed.
It´s just me, or that doesn´t make any sense at all?
And yes, i know that almost all comic books say that, which doesn´t make sense too and always upseted me.
Before a planet blows up, there are reactions and consequences, effects and happenings, a planet just doesn´t blow over night.
The same can be said about a sun exploding...
So, in both accounts, there should be too much evidence for the Kryptonians to see, or where they blind?

Basically, Jor-El was the only real person looking into it. Another scientists (Vonda) looked into it, but she said Krypton was just shifting it's orbit.

Kryptonite is made from the intense radiation of the dead sun when it exploded.
 
Isildur´s Heir said:
Nothing about their sun blowing up and by that, destroying Krypton, makes any sense at all.
It might be a cool effect, the first wow factor of the movie, but that´s exaclty what it is, just a stunt, which, IMO, makes it redundant and meaningless.

So, what´s the movie´s explanation for Kryptonite?
Because it wasn´t Krypton that blew up because of the fusion of it´s core, what´s is the K-rock?
And so, the Krytonians didn´t believed in Jor-El, that their planet was doomed.
It´s just me, or that doesn´t make any sense at all?
And yes, i know that almost all comic books say that, which doesn´t make sense too and always upseted me.
Before a planet blows up, there are reactions and consequences, effects and happenings, a planet just doesn´t blow over night.
The same can be said about a sun exploding...
So, in both accounts, there should be too much evidence for the Kryptonians to see, or where they blind?

a terrorist group called black zero activated a weapon which corrupted krypton's core, which started a plague called the "Green Death" aka the beginning of kryptonite. This later was the reason Krypton ultimately blew up. at least, that's what I read on wikipedia.

anyways, the byrne origin can be found in the TPB "Man of Steel".
 
capt. america said:
Ok so the average star in the universe lasts 10 billion years. Our sun is about 5 billion years old. Krypton has a red sun or Red Giant which is what happens to a star before it goes Supernova. Humans have only been around 2 million years, yet we know what happens soon after a Red Giant forms, with our primitive astronomy and physics knowledge. KABOOM

So Earth = 5 billion years, Krypton = 10 billion. So lets say that the Krypton alien race came to be about 5 billion years after the birth of Krypton, like humans, or even a few billion years later. They still have been around hundreds of millions or even a few billion years. Oh and lets not forget They have space ships!!!!!!!!!

Why were all the Kryptonians stuck on the planet? Why after such a long time would they not hop a few solar systems to safety? After all, they have a Red Giant sitting on their doorstep ready to go. If they had the technology to send Kal-El light years away, why couldn't they bail themselves? What, Jor-El discovered what a Red Giant was considering how advanced they were, right before the supernova? There are dozens of different species in the universe, Jor-El said, so they were in contact. No aliens would have said "Yo Krypton, you guys might want to move out of the way of that BIG A** RED GIANT IN YOUR SYSTEM?"

Someone explain this to me as I admit, I'm not much versed in the history of Krypton or the Superman universe in general.

When, in the movies, did they ever say that the sun was the cause of Krypton's explosion?
 
oops, you said movie version.

anyways, the cartoon version made the most sense when it came to the Kryptonians being ignorant. They put all their trust in Brainiac, and Brainiac withheld all information from them, despite Jor El pleading otherwise.
 
The only time that I have seen that it was the Kryptonian sun that went supernova was in Superman Returns.

All the other versions that I am familiar with involve INTERNAL planetary stress. This also causing kryptonite to form out of other minerals in Kryptons crust.

The reason that no other Kryptonians left was that no one agreed with Jor-El. They had been masters of their world for millenia and would continue to be. Remember the one scientist in the councel said that "Krypton is just settling in its orbit" (Superman: TMP).

Similar in the Post CoIE Superman. Krypton was destroyed do to the manipulations of the Kryptonians themselves. Jor-El again tries to make them see reason, they don't. Since they are BIOLOGICALLY bound to the atmosphere and planet there is no time anymore anyway.

So since Kal-El hasn't even been BORN yet (he is still in the Birthing Matrix at the time) he hasn't become bound like all the others and Jor-El modifies the Matrix for the trip through space.
 
In the comics, Kem-L used the Eradicator to bind Kryptonians to their world.
Still, in the 50's, Circe from Krypton had a ship...
 

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