The Superman Look: Shaping Superman

[superbaby]

he doesn't look any different in term of size.

 

[logansoldcigar]

The celebrity analogy is actually the best. when they go out in the shades ect its not so pple dont notice them, its so they do.
Plenty of times Ive walked past celebrities, glanced over and thought hmmmmm that guy looks a bit like. Once, it actually was (Ricky gervais). but that was only cos he went into the theatre where I were going to watch the gervais perform that I realised it was him.

99% of people would see clark kent in a restaurant or whatever and think "hmmmm, he looks a little like Superman". but very few would think "hey, thats superman", simply because they wouldnt expect to see Superman dressed in a business suit munching on a cheeseburger. they expect to see him in his cossie flying around.

as far as the world knows, he doesnt have a secret identity.

as for those close to both sides of him, thats where the mannerisms and the way he acts comes to play

 

[dark_b]

And him just putting on a pair of glasses to conceal his identity isn't?

WHY?

Come up with a cognitive argument.

And of course realism has nothing to do with it. That's been my whole point for the past two pages.

reeve and cain maybe not.
but brando nrouth looks different.

i think it has a lot to do with the harstyle.

 

[dark_b]

he doesn't look any different in term of size.

in the movie he was bigger.

plus it counts how he looks in the suit.

like phil already said. brandon has a small chest. and they didnt made it bigger wiht the padding suit. big shoulders and extreme small chest doesnt go good together.

 

[November Rain]

Also for those who work with him, there have been too many close calls, when supes is flying around one second and clark is there the next that make it virtually impossible for the mind to connect that they are infact two separate beings.

alot of the reasons why clark and supes are never at the same place at the same time can be chalked up to coincidence.

however, it doesn't help that he is friends with apparently some of the world's best reporters though.

 

[sepharih]

But this is not a cartoon, and i think you have a better chance of pulling it off in a cartoon rather than, having a real life film.

I agree, but again, you could say the same thing about the idea of glasses as a disguise for that matter. People still seem to be able to deal with it.

I explain it away with a book I once read on spys during the cold war.

We’re living in the information age now, and how long would a spy remain hidden if he had the world’s most recognizable face? Remember that kid who took supes' picture on his cellphone in the movie?

99% of people would see clark kent in a restaurant or whatever and think "hmmmm, he looks a little like Superman". but very few would think "hey, thats superman", simply because they wouldnt expect to see Superman dressed in a business suit munching on a cheeseburger. they expect to see him in his cossie flying around.

I could argue this point, but I don’t have too, because it still doesn’t offer a plausible explanation for why the people he works with and interacts with on a regular basis don’t recognize him.
And even if we were to agree that 99% of the people wouldn’t bat an eyelash (and they would), in all the time Superman has been operating the laws of probability suggest that at some point that 1% would have shown up.

reeve and cain maybe not.
but brando nrouth looks different.

I see no significant difference.

People are trying WAY too hard to rationalize something which is inherently irrational. There is absolutely no logical explanation that exists for why people don’t recognize that Superman is Clark Kent. Stop searching for one. It doesn’t exist. People don’t recognize him because the myth requires that they don’t, period. Trying to act like there’s an explanation beyond that is...well...silly.

 

[newmexneon]

People don't make the connection between Superman and Clark because the public believes Superman is Superman all the time. They have no reason to believe that Superman has a secret identity because he doesn't wear a mask.

 

[Justice Bringer]

You also have to consider which method works better for a live action interpretation based on some grounded reality and versimilitude.

Superman being a roided Arnold-type wouldnt work believeably with the Clark disguise. The proof of this is evident in Sandy C's World's Finest trailer.

 

[Motown Marvel]

People don't make the connection between Superman and Clark because the public believes Superman is Superman all the time. They have no reason to believe that Superman has a secret identity because he doesn't wear a mask.

word. a lot of people forget this. others have no reason to believe superman is anyone other than superman. they have no reason to think he has a secret identity and walks amongst them, or to be suspicious of who superman might really be, therefore they're not even paying attention. and people are naturally oblivious to when they're not paying attention.

that combined with his complete change in mannerisms, voice, clothes, etc...make for a great disguise.

 

[Qwerty©]

People are trying WAY too hard to rationalize something which is inherently irrational. There is absolutely no logical explanation that exists for why people don’t recognize that Superman is Clark Kent. Stop searching for one. It doesn’t exist. People don’t recognize him because the myth requires that they don’t, period. Trying to act like there’s an explanation beyond that is...well...silly.

But why does that mean we should make it more ridiculous than it needs to be?

Clark Kent the size of Shwarzenegger = Stupid

Clark Kent as he was in SR = Believable

 

[sepharih]

People don't make the connection between Superman and Clark because the public believes Superman is Superman all the time. They have no reason to believe that Superman has a secret identity because he doesn't wear a mask.

This means absolutely nothing, as I have repeated several times. Even if we were to accept that 99% of the people who walk by him wouldn’t bat an eyelash there’s always that 1% that would have made the connection. More importantly, It still does not explain why the people who he talks too on a daily basis, who know both Superman and Clark Kent, fail to recognize him.
THERE IS NO PLAUSIBLE EXCUSE FOR THAT.

You also have to consider which method works better for a live action interpretation based on some grounded reality and versimilitude.

Are people even reading my posts?!? By this logic we should drop the glasses disguise altogether, or at the very least cast someone who doesn’t have a chin which could apply for statehood.

Superman being a roided Arnold-type wouldnt work believeably with the Clark disguise. The proof of this is evident in Sandy C's World's Finest trailer.

It’s a FANFILM for crying out loud. Acting like what was shot there has any bearing on what can be done in a Hollywood film is absurd. This would be like watching a Fanfilm and concluding that Superman’s costume wouldn’t work on film.

But why does that mean we should make it more ridiculous than it needs to be?
Clark Kent the size of Shwarzenegger = Stupid
Clark Kent as he was in SR = Believable

But you CAN’T get any more ridiculous. The moment you accept that the world’s most famous face, with some of the most distinct features possible, is capable of concealing who he is by putting on a pair of glasses you have got no grounds to argue the absurdities of him having a body builder physique as well.

Quite frankly I’m flabbergasted that the people who are arguing this point actually seem to believe they have a case. It’s rather embarrassing actually. If you actually think that Clark Kent’s disguise is plausible then I rank your sanity around the level of people who think that the Earth is only 6 thousand years old.

 

[Super Kal]

I think Superman's physique should be increased a bit for the sequel, or get new suit material that doesn't act like a rubber band

 

[super-t]

Who Gives A **** about the glasses ITS SUPERMAN!!!!

 

[ariellem]

Considering how many of us don't recognize people we KNOW out of context - other school/soccer/ballet parents, folks who work at our doctors' offices, etc. - it's not so hard to believe that it would be hard to recognize someone making a concerted effort to disguise himself. I run into familiar faces all around where I live. Sometimes we squint at each other for a while until we make the connection, even when we see each other every week at the same (other) place. It's not just me.

When I was in college, there were some people I consistently couldn't remember IN context. There were these two different pairs of two guys who I'd run into around campus and I could NOT remember which of each pair was which. It took until the middle of the school year for me to get two of them straight; I think it took until nearly the end of the year for the other two. Once I figured them out, I realized they didn't look all that much alike, either - something about them did it, though. Hair, walk, arm movements? - don't know. Granted, I don't have the best memory nowadays, but back then it was pretty decent - except for glitches like these.

How quickly would you recognize someone famous if he or she showed up where you're tooling around town (not Hollywood)? We were at a school picnic one time and I was enjoying the scenery and looking around to see who else was showing up. Saw this tall guy in a suit - a suit at a picnic??? - who looked really familiar. He was herding some kids toward a historic church/meeting house nearby. After a few minutes, I decided it had to be who I thought it was - Tim Robbins. What the heck was he doing in the middle of suburbia on the East Coast, in this park? There were no camera crews or anything. Nobody believed me. Sure enough, though, it had to be him. Later that week in a local paper there was a tiny blurb saying something about Susan Sarandon having a relative who'd gotten married that day at that very park. But nobody had believed me: "What would he be doing here?"

What I'm saying is that people have trouble recognizing folks for who they are, in general. To make the leap and recognize someone in disguise for his/her true (or other) self - that's tougher, unless the disguised person messes up and gives it away by triggering an "I know you!" link in the viewer's memory. The best spies, I hear, aren't flashy and flamboyant like the movie stereotype - they're supposedly the folks who you wouldn't notice when you're standing right next to them. Boring, underwhelming, unmemorable. They either have little charisma or they know how to suppress it.

If spies can do it, if famous actors can not just be unnoticed but have people refuse to recognize them, Clark can pull it off. People just don't believe their eyes or remember things well enough to recognize him most of the time. As in all of the best stories, it'd be a kid (Jason!) who sees right through the charade.

 

[sepharih]

Considering how many of us don't recognize people we KNOW out of context - other school/soccer/ballet parents, folks who work at our doctors' offices, etc. - it's not so hard to believe that it would be hard to recognize someone making a concerted effort to disguise himself.

Not when that person has a face which is literally seen and posted everywhere it's not. This isn't just some guy we're talking about here. It's Superman. Even if the majority of people would just walk buy, there would be someone who would have looked for just long enough to make the connection.
And everyone is still ducking the fact that he has regular conversation in both identities with a lot of people, sometimes mere moments apart, and they still fail to recognize him.
Please, by all means, give it a try. Assuming you don't already have them, get yourself some glasses, comb your hair a different way, adopt a different stance, and then walk up to one of your friends to see if you get recognized. Don't be surprised when they say, "Dude...what's with the new look?"

None of this matters in the first place. We're talking about myth here. It doesn't need to stand up to logical scrutiny.

 

[ariellem]

True version of this, two different times: I volunteer at a summer (day) camp. I'm there for two straight weeks of weekdays, from about 8a-4p.

Last summer: last day, after camp, I cut my hair at home. Went from long to a chin-length bob. It gets a little wavier when it's short, but not a lot. Showed up THE NEXT DAY to help clean up camp with the short hair and either no hat or a different hat from the one I'd worn every day at camp. Same glasses. The same people I'd talked to every day didn't recognize me. They *jumped* when they realized it was me.

This summer: we had one day at camp when we knew we were going to get very muddy. I changed clothes, took off said every-day hat and glasses, left them in the back of my van, and went back to the group. The kids in our group did recognize me, but they'd seen me walking to go change and they could see me go from there to my car and come back. They immediately did the "Omigod! You look SO different without your glasses on!" I then showed them how different I look with my hair down vs. up in the ponytail like it had been every day at camp. Lots of head shakes and "you look REALLY different" comments. I can't swear that they wouldn't have recognized me if they hadn't seen me change, but it's certainly possible that some wouldn't have.

One of my close friends - I think they'd recognize me in different glasses, hats, and hairdos, but they've known me for years and with different glasses (or none), hats, and hairdos. Clark presents himself about the same way all the time as MClark - similar suits & such - and as Supes (just the one suit, unless you count S1 and S2 as an earlier version). Unless it's someone like Lana, who might have known him pre-glasses and with a different haircut, they haven't seen him change in person. They're not primed to expect change from him. He has convinced all of them that he's just "like that" as either MClark or as Supes.

 

[sepharih]

Blah Blah Blah The same people I'd talked to every day didn't recognize me. They *jumped* when they realized it was me. Blah Blah Blah

No further comment necessary.

 

[Qwerty©]

Quite frankly I’m flabbergasted that the people who are arguing this point actually seem to believe they have a case. It’s rather embarrassing actually. If you actually think that Clark Kent’s disguise is plausible then I rank your sanity around the level of people who think that the Earth is only 6 thousand years old.

We're not saying it's plausible, we just can't see why you have to make it even more implausible.

The disguise in SR worked and was plausible in the context of the movie. As shown in the World's Finest trailer (which counts whether you like it or not), a bigger actor is just too implausible and at no point can you take it seriously.

 

[Justice Bringer]

We're not saying it's plausible, we just can't see why you have to make it even more implausible.

The disguise in SR worked and was plausible in the context of the movie. As shown in the World's Finest trailer (which counts whether you like it or not), a bigger actor is just too implausible and at no point can you take it seriously.

Exactly.

Brandon was believeable as two different individuals; especially in his interactions with Lois and how he faded into the background as CK.
Aside from the eyebrows (which were often covered by his hair and glasses); he didnt really have any facial features that stood out so the transformation could be done in a believeable way. He didnt even seem as tall as CK; since he was always lanky and walking with a hunch.

Its was more believeable than any other live action interpretation done thus far.

 

[sepharih]

We're not saying it's plausible, we just can't see why you have to make it even more implausible.

Yes, some people on here are. And no, I’m not asking you to buy anything more ridiculous than you already are. You keep saying I am but no one on here has yet provided a cognitive argument as to why. Your attempt was “Because an actor can make it work. The eyes add a lot to acting, and nerdy glasses can significantly alter people's impression of a character.”, which is total nonsense. It’s absurd anyway, but the guy talks to people mere moments apart in both identities and they don’t recognize him. If you can buy that then you've got no grounds to call him having a body builder physique absurd.

The disguise in SR worked and was plausible in the context of the movie. As shown in the World's Finest trailer (which counts whether you like it or not), a bigger actor is just too implausible and at no point can you take it seriously.

I think I’m probably just about done here. If people have been reduced to repeating, “well...it didn’t work in this amateurish fan film with a shoestring budget so there’s no way it could work in a Hollywood film” ad nauseam without realizing how completely non sequitur that logic is then I don’t think there’s really much more that can be said.

Brandon was believeable as two different individuals; especially in his interactions with Lois and how he faded into the background as CK.
Aside from the eyebrows (which were often covered by his hair and glasses); he didnt really have any facial features that stood out so the transformation could be done in a believeable way. He didnt even seem as tall as CK; since he was always lanky and walking with a hunch.

I reiterate, Routh was as convincing as Rachel Leigh Cook was in "She's All That". Honestly, the only reason people buy into it is because it's a Superman movie. If this had been a spy movie set in the real world and Routh was again playing two roles it would be a laughing stock.

 

[Justice Bringer]

His chin doesnt really stand out though. Its not like Leno; or exaggerated like in the comics.

It just looks like a normal average chin. I dont see why Lois would see a match between Clark and Supes based on that one feature.

 

[cundog]

i think it's entirely logical that people wouldn't recognise clark as superman.

one second, you'd be talking to a guy in a skin-tight suit with a red cape and a big 's' on his chest who takes of and flies away, defying the very laws of gravity...the next you're talking to a nerdy, ordinary guy wearing glasses, with a different hair style, different mannarisms, plain business suit, who you clearly know as clark kent, who grew up as a farm-boy in smallville, works as a reporter at the daily planet, etc, etc. there's absolutely no reason why anyone would equate these two people as one and the same.

if anything, sepharih's arguement about close friends not recognising him is obsolete. it would be more likely that a perfect stranger would recognise clark as superman (being that a stanger doesn't know who clark is, how ordinary he appears to be, how he grew up).

but even this scenario doesn't make sense, because as others have pointed out, there is no reason for people to believe superman even has a secret identity and as such would not be looking for 'mr. random superman look-a-like'.

and an important thing to remember is that this isn't some 'spy movie'. clark kent is a very ordinary human being, with an ordinary job...superman is an alien who can defy the laws of gravity and physics beyond all reason, making him the most powerful being on the planet.

so stop moaning about how 'ridiculous' or 'absurd' it is for people not to recognise clark as superman.

 

[Justice Bringer]

It worked out so well in SR because;

Lois is intimately close with Superman but pays no attention to Clark

Lex is very familiar with Superman but has never even met Clark or is aware of his existence.

Jimmy is close friends with Clark but isnt close with Superman

etc..

 

[sepharih]

His chin doesnt really stand out though. Its not like Leno; or exaggerated like in the comics.

It just looks like a normal average chin. I dont see why Lois would see a match between Clark and Supes based on that one feature.

Yes, his chin does stand out. And it’s not just his chin, Lois would see a match based on his entire face.

i think it's entirely logical that people wouldn't recognise clark as superman.

Therapy can remedy this.

one second, you'd be talking to a guy in a skin-tight suit with a red cape and a big 's' on his chest who takes of and flies away, defying the very laws of gravity...the next you're talking to a nerdy, ordinary guy wearing glasses, with a different hair style, different mannarisms, plain business suit, who you clearly know as clark kent, who grew up as a farm-boy in smallville, works as a reporter at the daily planet, etc, etc. there's absolutely no reason why anyone would equate these two people as one and the same.

Yeah...except...you know...THEY LOOK EXACTLY THE SAME! I don’t even have to dignify the rest of your lunacy with a response.
I almost wish we were having this "debate" in person. Maybe the sight of me laughing hysterically in your faces would do most of you some good.

This actually reminds me of the conversation in Mystery Men:

The Shoveller: If we had a billionaire like Lance Hunt as our benefactor...
Mr. Furious: That's because Lance Hunt *IS* Captain Amazing
The Shoveller: Don't start that *again*. Lance Hunt wears glasses. Captain Amazing *doesn't* wear glasses.
Mr. Furious: He takes them off when he transforms.
The Shoveller: That doesn't make any sense, he wouldn't be able to see.

Lois is intimately close with Superman but pays no attention to Clark

Stop acting like you have a case here people. You're embarrassing yourselves.

 

[cundog]

Stop acting like you have a case here people. You're embarrassing yourselves.

"why can't people tell that clark is superman? waaaaaa!"

superman is based in a fantasy world, completely non-realistic...stop trying to rationalise something that is the figment of another person's imagination. if we were having this "debate" in person, the sight of you 'laughing hysterically' in my face would only make me want to slap you...and, galvanise my belief that you are a giant turd.