Thinking About The Movie Superman
16 Comments | Posted: August 25th, 2008 | Filed under: Thinking About Movies | Tags: lex luthor, superhero movies, superman1.
So, Jeff Robinov, president of the Warner Brothers Pictures Group, tells reporter that they’re going to make Superman “darker” in their upcoming new film that they hope relaunches the franchise.
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“Darker” isn’t necessarily something I associate with Superman.
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However, “complex” is, and I get the feeling that Rubinov may have conflated the two. Superman’s strength as a character, once you get past the Depression-era common-man power fantasies and Silver Age weirdness, lies in the fact that he is actually hampered by the fact he can do almost anything. His ethical center (and all-American upbringing, natch) forces him to be restrained. While he could easily take over the world and rule with an iron fist, he doesn’t – he provides a touchstone, a guidepost for us. (And the other heroes in a shared comics universe, but let’s switch over to the single-character, movie-friendly take.) He’s also bound to a morality that forces him to work within the law, unlike Batman or even Spider-Man, and has to take the high road, which is likely to be very difficult when you can shoot lasers from your eyes with an offhand thought.
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This connects with Superman’s biggest villain and best cinematic rival: Lex Luthor. While the Luthor/Superman conflict may be a bit played out on film at the moment, I could argue that the core of their animosity makes for a compelling central point that the movie audience could relate to with very few changes from the source material. Luthor’s a regular human being who is convinced that this alien has to have an ulterior motive – that no one is as perfect and ethical, as good as this man appears to be. He may be a criminal, true, but it takes Superman to drive him to the outlandish lengths he goes to, as seen in comics like Action 510-512, where the man brainwashes himself and becomes the Kryptonian’s BFF just so he can betray him. I feel like the hammy, if enjoyable, performances by Hackman and Spacey probably should be left behind and remembered fondly and replaced with something a bit more reserved and mannered, where the nastiness comes across as that much more brutal.
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The irony of an alien representing the best we have, fighting against the worst isn’t lost on me, and hopefully won’t be lost on the filmmakers. If played properly, this struggle would make for drama at least as interesting as the whole baby daddy thing (and the attendant stalkerism) that muted a great deal of my affection for Superman Returns once I got past the atmosphere and feel of the piece.
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Mind you, I’d pay non-matinee prices for a proper Superman vs Braniac vs Metallo brawl with lots of destructoporn if it looked like it had half a brain.
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I’d also be happy if they went a bit Morrison and reduced the origin story to eight words over a montage and started with Clark Kent walking into the Daily Planet at the start of just another day. I doubt they’ll go that way, as producers and screenwriters and directors love to do “their” take on the origin, but at this point, the audience that’s going to see Superman knows the broad strokes by heart, if not through the comics or the movies, then through Smallville. Spending time on an actual Superman story versus remaking the first (fantastic) hour of Donner’s movie means that the screenplay gets a chance to hook the audience properly and, hopefully, touch on some of the themes I mentioned. (I liked the flashbacks to Kansas in Superman Returns a lot, is what I’m trying to say, and think that’s all the viewers need at this point.)
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Finally, I’d really, really appreciate it if they’d cut back the Christ Metaphor stuff a bit. We get it. Also, I always thought the Moses angle worked a bit better.
I wish I had your confidence that Rubinov merely conflated “darker” and “complex.” The impression I got from the quotes I saw was that he really meant that the DC films they have on the production schedule should be made as bleak as possible. Because, clearly, that’s why The Dark Knight was such a success, because it was depressing. Not that it was superbly written, acted and directed…
They should do the Morrison style take on the origin over the credits while the music plays. Make it all look a bit comic-bookish, then its all done and dusted. And we can get to the face punching. Please God, let Superman punch someone in the face just once before I die. Is it really that difficult?
I got some grief on my site three or so years ago when I suggested a new Superman movie shouldn’t spend that much time on the origin, if any at all, since by and large anyone going to see a film called Superman would know it by now. But I’d be totally okay with, like Paperghost says (and like it was done in the most recent Hulk flick), it was just a credits montage.
And it’s funny you mention a theoretical punch-em-up Superman…I was talking with Kid Chris the other day that I’d give anything to have a Superman versus Brainiac film. I get that the Superman/Luthor dynamic is the primary conflict, but after having Luthor in four out of the last five live action films, I think we need something new.
What I liked most from Morrison’s brevity is that it suggested much more in my imagination than a properly outlined past ever did. It was like seeing trailers as a kid. Krypton ends up as this pure potential of alieness that, from that point on, is always hanging above Superman’s colorful head (much more than doing a new age 70′s space crystals or Star Trek/Wars type of worlds etc). Each person has their own concept of awe-inducing (/cool futuristic) strangeness (and for me, until ASS and reading silver age issues afterwards, none had ever hit the right note for me).
I actually kinda liked Superman Returns’ simple letters. Bit cryptic and leaves you in the dark, wondering, making all these vague majestic memories of it you have in your head just apocryphal versions accompanying the one you’re about to see.
They should totally get Clancy Brown (who voiced Luthor in Superman: The Animated Series) to play the live action Luthor.
God yes. Also: bring back Corey Burton for the voice of Braniac.
I think that one of the problems with Superman as a movie franchise is that, unlike Spider-Man, Batman, Hellboy, etc. Superman is not “cool”. In fact, Superman was created before “cool” became a widely understood or even fashionable aesthetic. I’m not sure that a lot of people today relate with what Superman has traditionally represented, or even want to. Crafting a quality, true-to-the-comics Superman movie doesn’t neccesarily mean more people will come to see it, and at the end of the day, Warner Bros wants to make Dark Knight money with Superman. In effect, I think that what we will end up with is more of a sequel to the Dark Knight starring Superman.
“The Moses angle” sounds like either a porno title, or a Da Vinci Code style thriller. Either way, that should be your next project.
No one needs cool, man. Cool falls too close on edgy, on extreme and that way madness lies.
Superman can be made cool for film, I guess. But it seems he’s more characteristically a modern version of the rural/idyllic “oh shucks” (appearing on surface to have a naive-like Ed Woodian quality) in a breezy sunshiny colour world where cynicism is proven to be a silly thing to rely on. Characters inside would think of him as cheesy until seeing him (preferably, punching things in the face of things like the sun and Cosmic Big Dudes).
“They should totally get Clancy Brown (who voiced Luthor in Superman: The Animated Series) to play the live action Luthor.”
Besides his distinctive voice, Brown has two other trademarks that may work against him playing Luthor: his large size (6’3.5″)and his wavy hair. He can shave off the latter for the role, but the former may be a problem. I always envision Superman as slightly larger physically than Luthor, albeit not by much. Routh is almost the same height (6’3″ even) as Brown, but has a slighter build and thus will appear smaller.
They are rebooting. I don’t think Brandon Routh is coming back.
Superman vs. Brainiac and Titano! What could be more awesome than a giant ape shooting kryptonite beams at Superman?
I think the “cool” angle to Superman is the spectacle. This is the guy who does multiple impossible things before breakfast every day.
This is why I think All-Star Superman has been so much better than other Superman books, because Morrison really gets what makes Superman so awesome, and it’s not stalking Lois and brooding like some Emo kid.
I agree on the origin. Origin stories are the death of comic book movies. That’s one of the best things about Dark Knight, that they didn’t have to spend 30 minutes at Ra’s Al Ghul’s group therapy ninja summer camp.
Anybody who thinks Superman needs to be “cool” or “edgy” needs to go see Wall-E.
Maybe he just meant a black Superman.
Bully: could be! Remember (one of my favorite stories about the 1978 movie), the Salkinds actually began serious talks with Muhammad Ali about playing Superman! (Before the elder Salkind – who had never heard of Superman before, either – was informed that Muhammad Ali was a person of color….)
I totally agree about the Christ metaphor and the origin. Everybody *knows* Superman’s origin, and while they’re happy to see it, there’s no need to spend 45 minutes of screen time retelling it.
What I’d do is have a montage based around this, which I still think is one of the most brilliant encapsulations of what a character is all about:
Yes, it’s Superman! Strange visitor from another planet, with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men! Superman! Who can change the course of mighty rivers, bend steel with his bare hands, and who, disguised as Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper, fights a never-ending battle for truth, justice and the American way!
Just do that, then on to the story!
Part of the problem, as has already been said, is that one of the biggest things that sets Superman apart from Batman is that Superman, by necessity of both his setup and his characterization, represents restraint.
In the modern world, “restraint” has practically become an obscenity, to the point that even many self-described “conservatives” now believe in methods that are the exact opposite of “restraint.” And in the superhero genre, “restraint” arguably runs counter to the entire point of asking yourself, “What if I had all these powers?”
Which leaves you with one of two choices – you can either agree with the masses that “restraint” is wrong, and thereby follow in Frank Miller’s footsteps by turning Superman into a straw-man for Batman or whomever to knock down, or you can try to argue that “restraint” is right, and the last guy who did that on a nationwide scale was Al Gore in 2000, and even a lot of the people who agreed with him found it off-putting, to say the least.
The original Superman was not about restraint – he was the guy who punched out Hitler and Stalin – but in the years since, he’s become The Superhero Who Tells You To Eat Your Broccoli, while all the other superheroes are, by comparison, telling kids to ruin their dinners with sweets beforehand.