I don't get this. Everytime I come on this board it's the same thing.
Two years later and the same thing.
Why, after two years, are people still whining about Superman Returns? Still creating these fictitious arguments about box office returns, public reception, etc.
So, I'm just going to lay it down and call it how I see it. If you don't like SR, fine. Fantastic. More power to ya. Move on!
First, none of us are owed anything when it comes to a Superman movie. You are not owed anything. If you don't like the movie, you don't like the movie. Pack up your things and get out of the franchise, just like many people did with the X-Men franchise after Ratner took an abortionist's skills to his directing of it. Two years later you still do not complain, curse the director, etc.
It's redonkulous.
Secondly, I've noticed that many people who dislike SR have this hyperbolized vision of Superman, this untouchable (and quite frankly untranslatable) version of Superman as this or that. Yet, there have been so many version of his hero, that so many of us have different expectations of what we should get, yet very few of us are able to reconcile these perceptual differences and say, "They just didn't make MY Superman, but they made someone else's...."
I hated X-Men 3. However, my hate for it does not preclude me from seeing the trend in the X-Men movies. And I appreciate X3 for what it tries to do. X1 was very much the 60s version of the X-Men, a cooky sci-fi scheme, etc. X2 was very much the 80s/early 90s of the X-Men, sharp, harder edge, bit more blatant with its themes. X3 embraced the late 90s/2000s version of X-Men which has tended to be bombastic, somewhat arbitrary, and very rushed.
But, God forbid anyone notice that SR does pull elements from the comics and Superman's cultural history.
Third, this whole Superman Returns was a retread of Superman: The Movie. Oh, wait, most of you say "basically" a retread and by "basically" you mean "eliminating anything in Superman Returns that is different than Superman: The Movie"...Superman Returns is a rehash.
Did Superman: The Movie feature Superman being away for a long while, returning to find his love moving on. Nope.
Did Superman: The Movie feature Lois engaged to a good-hearted, heroic human figure? Nope.
Did Superman: The Movie have Superman discover he has a son? Nope.
Did Superman: The Movie feature Lex using kryptonian technology to build his own continent which would be free of Superman due to its poisionous qualities? Nope.
Did Superman nearly die in Superman: The Movie? Nope.
Did Superman have to give up his only son to be raised by humans in Superman: The Movie? Nope.
I mean, Christ, people. That alone shows the differences. But no, we have to whine about how it's a rehash when it most clearly isn't.
if Superman Returns is a rehash that all the Spider-Man movies are rehashes of each other, as are all the X-Men, and I can then most certainly predict that Iron Man will be as well.
Fourth, then we have this whole box office mumbo-jumbo. Now, we now that SR's budget was inflated due to all the failed production costs of the past TEN YEARS, so Excel's little comment about SR costing more is clever misdirection, as is the comparison alone.
To me, the effects in Iron Man were very noticeable at times. As was the case in Transformers, where I couldn't tell what the **** was going on most of the time with all these mechanical FX shots flashing back and forth. And seriously, anyone who touts Transformers as anything more than the base slime of blockbuster sell-out just can't be listened to.
Superman Returns made just as much as Batman Begins, regardless of cost, and tapped into the same markets, and same mass of people, that Batman did. Batman's hailed a success, Superman is not. You cannot say audiences were underwhelmed by Superman Returns when the same amount of people came out for Batman Begins, and yet it was not. You can say all you want that Superman Returns cost MORE, but audiences do not come out because a movie costs a certain amount of money, they come out because they like the genre, word-of-mouth, etc. So, the same amount of people who saw Batman Begins saw Superman Returns. Rottentomatoes shows great critical response. All of this makes sense, considering they are in the same genre. See, what WB failed to do was look at Begin's success and project their budget according when greenlighting Superman Returns.
Superman Returns "failed" at the box office not because of poor audience turn-out. It failed at the box office because WB couldn't handle its purse correctly.
These are but a few points of blatant fact that get trampled on while ravenous fanboys launch their everlasting crusade against Superman Returns, here, two years after the movie's premiere.
Comic dogmatists choose their "winner films" so arbitrarily it's somewhat sickening and boggles the mind.
My advice to all of you: leave.
Just like these people who whine about content on TV and always have the option to just not watch it, stop doing the same here. If you don't like it, go watch what you like and leave it be. Get over it. State your initial displeasure, and then leave.
As it stands now, Singer's back. Everything's on course. If this discourages you, you have no entitlement to the film and you should just find somewhere else to discuss topics of your interest.
