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Superman V: The Sordid Story
ThePuceGuardian writes "With Superman Returning from development hell next summer, perhaps Slashdot's readership would appreciate this summary of the 10+ years spent in development, and the sequel that never quite was.
Years of stupidity and outright seething contempt for the fans who were expected to shell out for the franchise are detailed, from the Kevin Smith era, through Tim Burton and including 'McG's short but not short enough association with the project. The summary ends in mid-2004, which is about a decade after the whole sordid affair should have been capped off, and right before the current production started up.I just have to include this quote:
"Michael Bay was offered to direct the film again, but he felt the script violated the essence of Superman and refused the offer."
WhenMichael Bay declines your project for reasons of artistic integrity, I think it's time to consider a new line of work.."
I think it's time to consider a new line of work..
And yet it'll be sure to bring in wads of $. I honestly don't believe that most movie goers give a rats nut about artistic anything. Just give them lots of flash, explosions, and the occasional breast and all is good.
All the lack of artistic interpretation will guarantee is that it'll not win an Oscar...
I mean look, the whole concept of Superman is fatally flawed to begin with. He's pretty much indestructable, so having him fight regular criminals makes for a pretty boring movie. So before you're even out the door you're having to invent increasingly powerful villians for him to do battle with. Problem is, once you're that powerful, why be a villian anyway? You can already do whatever you want. Anyone worth Superman's effort to be fighting should be busy running for Congress anyway. Everyone knows that's where you go if you want to be able to do some real damage...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
My guess is that they won't be able to resist the urge to use terrosits in the enemy / villian role. It's perfect for this type of movie. Anyone with half a brain will remember how awful the first 4 were and skip it. The ones with half a brain or less are bound to rush out to see a movie with an (all american) hero cracking some (middle eastern) terrorist head. I'll eat my hat if I'm wrong. (I'm really hoping the article didn't mention the story line now ;o))
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
I think some people found it such a traumatically bad film that they repressed the memory.
"The image of him swooping in and saving the day could be seen as a direct symbolic justification for American imperialism and foreign interventionism."
"American nationalism has always been something which the rest of the world has largely considered ugly...but that has become more true than ever before in the last three years."
Excellent observations, and they'd be relevant if Superman weren't created by a Canadian.
Nice anti-us troll though, way to try to slide it in there.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
Leave it to a Batman fanboy* to do his best to belittle Superman. Don't forget that Batman spends just as much time gallavanting around in blue tights (or black depending on DC's mood at the time). If movie producers can make a good story out of man whose parents are killed as a child so he decides to dress like a bat and run around at night as a vigilante, then surely they can sqeak out something decent about an alien who grows up on earth and decides to use the advantages he has over others to fight crime. It doesnn't have to be campy and there doesn't have to be any "by golly" about it.
FWIW, I'm not a huge fan of either. Make mine Marvel.
*You get the label as a Batman fanboy because of how often you mention Batman. You mention that you like Superman better in the Justice League but then only because of his contrast to Batman. And then in the discussion of a Superman movie you mention you would most like to see a Batman movie (though the source material you mention is one of the best Batman stories).
No contest. Highlander 2 is a lot worse. At least Superman IV didn't screw with the plot of previous films, so can comfortably be ignored.
Yes. You. Can.
You can do whatever the hell you like. Superman is too big now to be constrained by continuity. Nobody has read all the comics, seen all the shows, listened to the fifties radio serial. If you have a cool Superman story to tell, then tell it, and don't be concerned if some nerd complains that it contradicts Action Comics issue 145, page 4, or something someone once said in Smallville. Did Superman marry Lois or not? Or did he go off with Wonder Woman? Did he ever fight Batman? Do the other heroes even exist? Just how powerful is Superman? All up to the writer.
I'd complain if an episode of Smallville contradicted something established in an earlier episode of Smallville, or if two comics in the same line contradicted each other... but I don't worry about cross-consistency. Every writer has grown up with Superman and has their own Superman in mind, and as long as their own Superman stories are reasonably internally consistent, and hold with the basic principles of who Superman is, then that doesn't bother me.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
It's a children's story about a guy who jumps real high, runs fast, and can't get shot who beats up bank robbers. Get over yourself.
I think you make some interesting points, but the scope of your perspective is not big enough. I have some points that might change your mind.
The image of him swooping in and saving the day could be seen as a direct symbolic justification for American imperialism and foreign interventionism...and we've seen how well that turned out.
Superman was created by a couple of Jewish guys who saw America as the hope for the world at a time when the world needed just that; Europe needed a Superman to defeat Natzism. We came into Europe to turn the tide in WWI, and it happened again a few years after Superman was created.
American Imperialism did not start with G.W Bush. The term is really an extension of Manifest Destiny that really began with Jefferson's Lousiana purchase. The imperialism part could be added, I guess, when Monroe issued his statement regarding European intervention in the Western Hemisphere; now known as the Monroe Doctrine. Still, that kept us here, and we weren't much more than a back water country until about the time of the Spanish American war of 1898, when we basically defeated the only European country weaker than we were. Still, we attempted to return to more or less Isolantionism until the First World War, and following that Wilson got us to try to end that with his idea of the League of Nations;where the Justice League came from, perhaps? Superman representing America as the strongest nation for good at the time? Anyway, then the second war came, and we could no longer be Isolationist. Right or wrong, and there is pleanty of evidence on both sides of that argument, we did not go easily into interventionism. It was the Brittish who did it before us while they were trying to make the world England.
With characters like Spiderman or Batman, it's possible to see them as somewhat more nationalistically neutral, but Superman and Captain America in particular are pretty much pure (and vulgar, most of the time) manifestations of jingoism.
Well, Captain America was created in WWII to be just that. Ironically, Uncle Sam was created as a anti-war icon protesting, if I remember correctly, the Spanish-American war. During the war, he was quite vulgar. Have you ever seen the propaganda showing the Jappenese? Still, we were at war, and nationalism was at it's peak. Stopping the Jappenese then was a good thing, so I guess it served it's purpose.
American nationalism has always been something which the rest of the world has largely considered ugly...but that has become more true than ever before in the last three years.
All nationalism is ugly. The very nature of the concept is "our tribe is better than yours." It leads to ethnocentrism and the uglist parts of humanity. To say that American nationalism alone is ugly is to ignore the face of nationalism in EVERY other country. A little nationalism can be a good thing I guess, helping in a crisis like that hurricane, but taken too far, and it's well, I don't need to give you an example.
America is a good place. Would we do better to pull back from the world stage a bit, perhaps, but who would take it? Would the world be better if we did? I don't know the answer, I only pose the question.
- Mike
Once you've lost your temper, you've lost the argument - Me
Say what you will, but Armageddon was Perfectly Acceptable Filmmaking and I quite enjoyed The Island.
Proud member of the American Non Sequitur Society. We might not make much sense, but boy do we love pizza!
Uh, that's a rhetorical question, right? You're not implying that we should never aim for something we can never be like simply because it's unattainable, right? (not that being Lex Luthor is any less unattainable than being Superman, but that's beside the point)
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
I didn't intend the fanboy explanation to be condescending or anything. I just wanted to be clear on why I labeled you as such.
Personally, I think that Superman works just as hard at being a hero as Batman. Superman can do pretty much what he pleases. It has to be tempting to toss morality to the wind and just worry about himself. The biggest problem with Superman is the best comic book stories play on the hero's weaknesses. Superman just doesn't have that many weaknesses.
Superman is THE "super" hero. Treat him like it.
And what must that be like, exactly? Should we just have the prop department get bigger, heavier buses for him to throw around in Times Square? Gee, if Superman fought the Hulk, who would win? Is that the kind of "story" you're looking for?
And if so, great, it's called Superman II, and it was really, really good. Arguably the definitive Hollywood treatment of a comic-book slugfest. Superman versus three other supermen, and one of them a young Sarah Douglas. Can't beat that. Or you can TRY and beat that, and up the SFX budget or something. Or you can do something original with the material. Personally, I'm hoping for a "Smallville," 20 years on, without the pandering to the Kristin Kreuk oglers.
Oh, Jesus, God!! I'm arguing about comic books on SlashDot!!!! If my penis falls off, I'm suing you, Taco, I swear...
If they want a character that isn't Superman, why not just invent a new character? Why bother going after a built in audience if that audience is going to hate the changes you made, changes that will be very clear from a movie trailer?
Anyway, my hopes are that movie making tech will continue to get cheaper and smaller, which it will. I've seen a good number of great small films this year with budgets in the five to six figure range made with equipment bought at high end electronics stores. I saw a wonky little time travel flick (whose name escapes me, sadly... Primer?) that cost $12,000, and I was more entertained than Superman III and IV and the last two Batmans combined.
My advice to all you fellow geeks is the STOP giving money to these hack jobs. I can't count the number of times I have read comments from people who know a film is going to blow white hot chunks, but they are going to go see it anyway, dammit! If you are that OCD about it, at least wait until it's on HBO or even regular cable or a bittorrent where your viewing is not detected and registered as a vote of approval.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
That was my thinking, anyhow, until I saw the first Spider-Man... and I'm happy to say that I was completely wrong on all counts. It stripped away all the crap surrounding a lot of superhero comics and got back to the basics, which was a story about Peter Parker. Likewise, Spider-Man 2 spends much of it's time watching Peter mope around alone in a New York City apartment... it focused on character, it focused on story, it focused on the humanity of the superhero. It's the story of a guy who's been bitten by a radioactive spider, sure, but it's a believable portrait of a guy who's been bitten by a radioactive spider.
Superman's a kind of straight guy, sure. And in the end-of-the-century nihilism of the late 90's, it may have made sense to try to reinvent him, because he didn't seem all that relevant. But these days... the world is such a darker place in the past five years, he seems a lot more relevant. I think the success of Spider-Man post-9/11 isn't a coincidence. Done right, the story of a goody-goody like Superman could be a powerful one. I think the thing to remember is, being Superman wouldn't be easy. Physically, it's a cinch. Emotionally and psychologically, it would be damn hard. I mean, the guy is an alien in the purest sense of the word. He's completely cut off from the rest of humanity when he's in that costume. He's cut off as Clark Kent because he can't tell them who he really is. But every damn day he's out there trying to save our asses all the same. Isn't that an interesting story?