The Official Re-Imagining Clark Kent Thread

[Daybreak_st]

Here's a few things i'd like to see on screen:

 

[Daybreak_st]

Also as far as clark kent and how he pulls off the duality, take a look, and read the text:

 

[Webhead2006]

that would make a sweet looking scenes.

 

[SuperDaniel]

Superman definitely shouldn`t be an act but i don`t think Clark is an act too. It`s just different parts of the same personality. I wanna see Clark being portrayed as normal person. Just a little bit shy, humble, etc and Superman is more of a symbol. Daily Planet Clark is kind of an act because he hides his powers from people but i don`t think he needs to be a total fabrication like it was shown in the movies. I liked the way Routh portrayed him.

 

[Daybreak_st]

Also as far as character moments are concerned i'd like some scenes like these in the film, again be sure to read the text:

Then once he is in metropolis:

 

[not_a_victim]

Here's my argument in a nutshell:
Kal-El struggles to be Clark Kent. It's tougher for him to pretend to be a human being than to fight Luthor, Brainiac, and Darkseid at the same time. It's natural for Supes to roll up his sleeves and thrash some intergalactic villian; it's a struggle for Clark to ride the bus to work in the morning...
Those who call for Clark to simply be an "plain clothes" Supes miss the literary/cinematic use of tension and dynamic that would be missing if it were so.

 

[Kurosawa]

So in other words you do NOT want Superman to come off as a campy dork who is always a Mr.Nice guy to a fault? Because being too much of a boyscout makes him a joke?

That you would Prefer him to be an Imposing figure with a commanding presence.

If that is the case, I agree with you heavily.

I wonder if someone compared the more recent comics (as they vary) and see which ones do better. The boyscout, or the imposing mythic demigod.

I want him to be mature, confident, urbanized and not naive. And yes, he should command universal respect. He is way too worldly for the aw shucks he's a big farmboy crap.

 

[\S/JcDc\S/]

Seriously watch this whole thing, and tell me if it is not the best Lois/Clark banter.



This is how I want to see them interact

 

[Daybreak_st]

Great scenes!!!!

 

[Micah12345]

It would be nice to focus on a couple scenes like that, with short flashbacks to krypton, and when the kents found kal-el in the ship

 

[SuperDaniel]

Lois & Clark is the best interpretation of their relationship ever.

 

[DavidTyler]

Any film maker who doesn't give the relationship in 'Lois & Clark' at least some consideration is as doomed to fail as the last one who approached this subject matter (I don't need to say his name again. You all know it.)

Personally, I don't think Routh can bring those things to Clark that Dean Cain did. I could be wrong but I haven't seen him do anything that would contradict that.

If only they had allowed Cain's Superman to be more than just a backdrop to the Kent/Lane story. Oh ... and I've always hated that buckle but loved the cape.

 

[Webhead2006]

yea day those are some good scenes and stuff i would like to see happen on screen. and it would be great to have some good lois and clark interactions. we dont have to get really into any romance stuff to a sequel but set things up.

 

[Mindreaper21]

Also as far as clark kent and how he pulls off the duality, take a look, and read the text:

See I like this to a certain degree. It has pretty much everything I mentioned. This is Clark being himself, and learning how to get by without being recognized. He should maintain this personality while he works and interacts with people, because he's just changing his appearance, not putting on a show. For example, if Clark puts on a fake personality and someone from Smallvile shows up, Clark would look obvious and the idea is to not be obvious to anyone. Notice how he stays away from red and blue and hides his physique well. I think that his slouched posture should be natural though and the glasses should be part of his disguise earlier in life. For the movie I still want the sci-fi element to be embraced, such as special lenses that make his eyes appear brown, because I want to still be able to notice his alien nature. When he goes out as Superman he should be more like a soldier, showing what his training has done for him. I want to be able to see his struggle and determination to save people rather than everything just looking simple.

 

[Mindreaper21]

There is a huge difference between the Clark Kent he grew up us as and the Clark Kent he has had to pretend to be. He's used that persona to mask his powers since childhood, even if he isn't Superboy.

Now you make it seem like he has 4 personalities. Clark Kent (home), Clark Kent (work), Kal-El (since you mentioned it earlier), and Superman...That is ridiculous! No one wants to follow all of that, he may as well have no personality, which is pretty much what happened in SR.

...and just to make another point without opening a new post...

If you put a boy in the jungle and he is raised by an animal, he's going to act like an animal. Sure we know he's not one, but thats all that he knows. Get someone to teach him of his origins and be more like what he was intended to be, he will have that knowledge, but he will still have that animal nature. That's no different From Clark. An alien raised by humans, he acts human. He learned of his origins, was trained to be like what he was intended, yet still had his human nature...It doesn't have to be complicated.

 

[Mindreaper21]

Since there's already a script in place, there's no way Nolan would want CK played as the 'real person,' given how it makes the duality of the disguise completely unbelievable in live action.

There'd be no versimilitude, no realistic logic behind it.


There has to be a huge dichotomy between Reporter Clark and Supes, or it would be completely silly like Cain in L+C.


And this requires the Reporter Clark persona to be invented and exaggerated for effect.

You missed the point, it's not Nolan's movie. He's not writing nor directing this movie. Whoever directs this movie will have the final say.

 

[Kurosawa]

Now you make it seem like he has 4 personalities. Clark Kent (home), Clark Kent (work), Kal-El (since you mentioned it earlier), and Superman...That is ridiculous! No one wants to follow all of that, he may as well have no peronality, which is pretty much what happened in SR.

No. He has two personalities in my mind because I consider (and want) the Kents to be dead and for no civilians to know his secret (besides Pete Ross who keeps his knowledge secret from Superman). So he is Superman/Kal-El to his friends and peers, and he is Clark Kent to his friends at the Planet and in Metropolis. Not even two personalities as much as it is his own personality as Superman and the assumed identity as Clark that he assumes out of need and habit.

 

[Daybreak_st]

From a film standpoint how do you allow the audience to get to know the character, the way for instance we got to know Bruce Wayne as he interacted with Alfred and showed his truest nature, not batman and not public persona bruce wayne, but the real guy. If you have his parents dead, and no one else know who he is, how do you give the audience that inside look into the character?

And as you mention isn't this what we got in the Reeve's movies? His parents were pretty much absent, his real personality was superman, metropolis clark was an act. We've seen it before. Superman Returns didn't even do a good job with it as he barely said anything, an no one in the audience could actually get to know the character as that approach doesn't give us an outlet or an inside look at the character.


ALso you say you want him to be different from other heroes and then you kill his parents? Isn't that like every other superhero? He doesn't need their death to motivate him. Also as an audience we lose another inside look at his character / personality that the unique relationship that he has with his parents would add. It would also make him unique among superheroes as no other character interacts with their parents. I think the worst mistake they could make this time around is killing off his parents, especially if they want to make him different from other characters.

 

[Daybreak_st]

I really want people to start thinking this thing through from a filmaker's perspective. Like what's the best approach to clark that will help us avoid what happened with Superman Returns and honestly allow the GA to enjoy the character again? Not just enjoy the character but to help them "get" the character, as he's going to be on screen a lot of the time superman isn't. I can't imagine how they could put superman on screen the majority of time unless he was chasing one disaster after another. How do we make the audience care like they cared for Bruce Wayne in BB?

You can't just approach this from a comic book standpoint and expect people to automatically care b/c it's superman. There are no thought balloons on the big screen. You could use the occassional voice over but that's about it, unless you just have superman talking to himself a lot.

Characters who know his identity serve the fuctional purpose of becoming the eyes and ears of the audience and allow us to get deeper insight into the character than would normally be possible. You have to at least consider things like this since we are talking about a film not a comic.

 

[SuperMike335!!]

^^^^^

That is an interesting perspective looking it, with what would work best on film to make the audience tie emotional investment to Clark.

Solid points.

 

[Mr. Earle]

Also as far as clark kent and how he pulls off the duality, take a look, and read the text:

Spoiler

I love this part!
But personally i would go for the T-shirts and chicks.

 

[Mr. Earle]

I want him to be mature, confident, urbanized and not naive. And yes, he should command universal respect. He is way too worldly for the aw shucks he's a big farmboy crap.

I agree.

Seriously watch this whole thing, and tell me if it is not the best Lois/Clark banter.



This is how I want to see them interact

This was so great! Fantastic comic relief scenes.

Any film maker who doesn't give the relationship in 'Lois & Clark' at least some consideration is as doomed to fail as the last one who approached this subject matter (I don't need to say his name again. You all know it.)

Personally, I don't think Routh can bring those things to Clark that Dean Cain did. I could be wrong but I haven't seen him do anything that would contradict that.

If only they had allowed Cain's Superman to be more than just a backdrop to the Kent/Lane story. Oh ... and I've always hated that buckle but loved the cape.

Lois & Clark is the best interpretation of their relationship ever.

I TOTALLY AGREE. Lois and Clark was pure gold!

No. He has two personalities in my mind because I consider (and want) the Kents to be dead and for no civilians to know his secret (besides Pete Ross who keeps his knowledge secret from Superman). So he is Superman/Kal-El to his friends and peers, and he is Clark Kent to his friends at the Planet and in Metropolis. Not even two personalities as much as it is his own personality as Superman and the assumed identity as Clark that he assumes out of need and habit.

Do not want.

 

[Mr. Earle]

That's a good idea. Yeah in a movie you need something different than what works in the comics. I think it'd be really hard to craft a movie in which he appears as superman the majority of the time.

You have to balance the supes action stuff with more of the character development stuff as clark. If you keep his parents alive you can see him interact with them on the farm (going home for a visit) and also see him in the city. You can't write clark as a characticure and then expect people to care about him. Both Dean and Tom's clarks were written as leading men, and that's pretty much the best approach. You can make him a little geeky or awkward but he needs to be someone the audience wants to see and will invest there emotions into.

For the most part supes is on screen when something big is happening. Lots of action, i think his primary interaction would be with lois and then the villains. But those scenarios dont' allow you to do a whole lot of character development. Think about it. In Batman Begins and the Dark Knight, the best character scenes aren't the ones when he's dressed in the batsuit, they're the ones when he's with alfred or rachel, as the real bruce wayne. That's why you care about him when he's in the batsuit. Otherwise the stuff he does just looks cool as batman but you wouldn't care as much.

I know it may not be the most realistic approach to the character but you have to flesh out clark and make him just as important as superman or you'll wind up with another Superman Returns.

This Clark is the best ever:
http://autographmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/cain810reveal.jpg

Hell yeah to both of you!

You make a valid point and I can see Nolan approaching it that way but I don’t they should. Bruce Wayne’s playboy façade is something he only needs to employ on occasion. At parties, when in the public eye, etc. He’s not living his life day in and day out pretending to be something he’s not. He just needs to act that way sometimes.

Clark Kent is a completely different story. In his day-to-day life he is Clark kent. The people he surrounds himself with , his friends, know him as Clark. Superman really doesn’t have any friends especially if you’re talking about a world without other superheroes. Only people he interacts with are Lois and maybe Jimmy. But again that interaction is probably sparse at best.
The metropolis Clark needs by necessity to be his true persona, even if it’s somewhat toned down or he lets the geeky side of his personality out a bit more. Otherwise you’re telling me he pretends to be someone else 8 hours a day for the rest of his life, alienating his potential friends and to the scorn of co-workers who think he’s odd, or a coward or whatever. Makes no sense. Why do it? Bruce Wayne has to show his face publically every once in a while, so he has to be the playboy. Clark could just be superman 24-7 if he wanted. Or do a job that doesn’t require much interaction with people. Why be a reporter when you can just hover in space and hear whenever help is needed?

Makes much more sense logically if he enjoys being Clark, it’s pretty much his personality but not quite as heroic and maybe a little geeky (we all have various aspects of our personality that we let out depending on who we’re with or what we’re doing).

I totally agree.

 

[Daybreak_st]

^^^^^

That is an interesting perspective looking it, with what would work best on film to make the audience tie emotional investment to Clark.

Solid points.

Thanks.

 

[Daybreak_st]

Hell yeah to both of you! I totally agree.

Thanks, Mr. Earle.