You call it cheap, I call it reverential. But even you just admitted that everything Superman ever since then has had a nod to Superman's classic theme.
No.
I said "Everything Superman has had a different theme ever since."
That's quite different, isn't it? And then some of them - namely one short-lived cartoon series and Smallville - did some nods.
I don't see how this is any different than anything since then.
This is supposed to be a serious movie not attached to the previous franchise, not just some random fun where anything goes for rating.
Even 'Smallville,' which doesn't line up with Donnerverse used it, and fans would get excited every time they paid respects to it.
I don't want to even start to list how terribly messy Smallville was about Superman's myth. And they did have the crystal-like FoS just as another cheap nod.
And that's exactly what I call "cheap": to pull the fans' strings with some needless nod.
To me that shows it's become as stapled-on as kryptonite, which as said, the comics didn't invent it - a radio show did - and it staid around ever since then in the same manner as the theme has.
No. If it were, every new incarnation would have used it as the main theme, and it's far from being the case.
As for why it's different from the Batman theme -- while it is iconic among fans, it was never really used beyond film thus restricting it.
It was used in commercials and I don't know if Batman TAS rings a bell?
But again, a popularity contest is not a valid reason to include the theme. Elfman's bat-theme wasn't included in Nolan's movies NOT because of the "it wasn't as popular as Williams' super-theme' criterion, but because it was a different franchise, vision and tone. Just like this new movie.
Here? You play three notes and everyone around the world knows who it is.
Same with Batman's theme.
I'm not saying replicate the whole score -- I'm saying, do the same as "everything Superman -- with nod to the William theme" has done since then for years.
In barely two incarnations of the character after SIV.
To me saying disregard it just because it came from a prior film, is along the same lines as saying disregard kryptonite because it came from a radio show. Primarily because the world is so used to it by now that without it would just seem odd and trying to be different for the sake of it.
Adding an element to thge story is different than using some music to state the mood and tone of a specific franchise.
If you think it's odd
trying to be different for the sake of it, I say why trying to be different from the Donner's franchise when - just like with the Williams score - when everybody in the world knows that franchise and it has been nodded in Smallville.