Sunday, July 30, 2006
My esteemed collegue, Goatboy, summed up many of my thoughts about "SR", but there are a few points that I still feel need to be addressed.
(WARNING - LOTS OF SPOILERS BELOW):
Good things:
-The stunning production values. I can't say that all $260 million (according to the Internet Movie Database) is on the screen, but clearly at least $200 million is.
-The visual effects that really show Superman to be faster than a speeding bullet. Superman zips and zooms like he's never done before.
-Brandon Roush's acting was okay, but his voice was very good. I've heard some people complain that he sounded too much like Christopher Reeve, but I found that to be a strengh, because...
Bad things:
-...I hate that costume! The “S” is too small and the bright red on the S and the cape has been exchanged for a dark maroon boarding on brown. When I saw it in the toy stores a month before the film came out, I was flabbergasted! The funny thing is that KB Toys in the same mall as the movie theater has a Superman toy display with Superman Returns toys from the movie AND Superman toys from the Justice League cartoon show. In design and color, the JL Superman toys are far superior.
-The first time we see
-The kid pushing the piano to save Lois was a surprising display of power (not to mention heredity) but it felt false. I don't understand how a kid could come to the conclusion that the best way to save his mom is to push a massive object that he normally could never move. I COULD believe if he jumped between the thug and Lois, using his body as a shield, or if he tried to drag her away to safety. But the piano coming out of nowhere just didn't work for me.
-When the Lex-made continent is up and Lex has done away with Superman, why does he just sit around? Why are his minions merely playing cards? Why aren’t they celebrating? Why isn’t Lex laughing and drinking and passing out t-shirts that say, “My boss killed Superman and all I got was this stinkin’ shirt”? In "Superman 4", Superman takes away all of the world’s nuclear missiles, then tangles with the Lex-created Solar Man (made with Superman's DNA from a strand of Superman's hair) and gets sick. In a deleted scene, Lex, knowing Superman is out for the count, is working several phones selling nuclear missiles back to the
-What is the deal with those Kryptonian crystals? I understand that they make structures grow, but what happened with Parker Posey's character dropped them out of the helicopter? Did they make even more stuff grow? There didn't seem to be any obvious consequence of her dumping the crystals.
-The foundation for the entire film is horribly flawed. I CANNOT buy the premise that Superman would abandon Earth and not tell anybody. That just doesn't sound like Superman. It's a very irresponsible act to disappear on others, and Superman is all about responsibility. He would have told Lois, been honest with her (heck, they WERE sleeping together), and hoped that she could understand how important going to the remnants of Krypton is to him. One of my caucasian coworkers came up with an excellent analogy, "That's like if you and I decided to go to Europe to find our ancestry but never told our wives. "
AND EVEN IF he didn't tell Lois, we're told that Superman left "after astronomers discovered the remains of Krypton." If Superman disappeared without telling anyone anything (as both Ma Kent and Lois testify in the course of the movie), I would think that Lois, being the great reporter that she is, would doggedly try to find out what happened to the man she loves. Eventually she would find those astronomers and figure out where Superman went to. She might hate him for going, but she wouldn't be in the dark and take up with Perry White's nephew (no matter how great a guy Cyclops, I mean Richard White, is).
Apparently I got one thing wrong in the paragraph above. A coworker/Superman fanatic pointed out that Ma Kent did know about Clark leaving, and covered for him by, over the years, mailing postcards that he sped wrote before leaving. One or more of the postcards can be seen on Lois's desk in the film. How did he know this? By reading the four prequel comic books that DC put out in June. Now I love comic books, but I never heard about these until several weeks after the movie had been released.
I also came up with this criticism of the film:
-At the beginning of the film, a Kryptonian spaceship crashes in the 
It turns out that these questions are also answered in the comic book, "Superman Returns: Krypton to Earth". Duh!
But are comic books the best way of informing a mass audience in the 21st century? According to the comic book sales list for June, "S.R.-Krypton to Earth" sold 32,936 copies, "S.R.-Lex Luthor" sold 30,908 copies, "S.R.-Ma Kent" sold 30,074 copies, and "S.R.-Lois Lane" sold 26,493 copies. The comics were 40 pages each and cost $4.00.
Perhaps putting the "Superman Returns" prequel comic books on the web might have helped the film. It certainly couldn't have hurt. I would have read them. I would have paid to read them. I wouldn't have paid $4 to read each of them, but I might have been persuaded to go as high as $2.
But now, having seen the film and being for the most part disappointed, I have no interest in the prequel comic books.
But I would read them on my computer screen if they show up on the DVD.
As for comic book sales, how the mighty have fallen: at its height in the 80s, X-MEN was selling a million copies every month. Now sales that are a quarter of that are considered a triumph. Clearly, the days of four-color fantasies printed on cheap paper are numbered.
Finally, there still exists a large enough audience that prefers paper to web, and will shell out the (currently ridiculous) amount required for purchase. As long as a comic can have a print run as low as a 1,000 copies (whether or not the creators will receive any profit), they will continue to be made because of love of the format. But this means that comics will eventually become like LP records or Commodore computers (if they haven't already), an archaic format attracting a small, hardcore following with enough cash to keep the monitor beeping, even if the pulse is extremely weak.
what i'd like to know is this: was it a CAUCASION coworker/Superman fanatic who pointed this out??
nice to see that you're finally posting--& a lot too
: 12:10 PM And please, don't talk to Caucasions (i. e. people from the planet Caucason, one moon over from Krypton). Those people are filthy degenerates, and it's bad enough that they're trying to get into my country club.
Comics are way too expensive, but if you find inexpensive ways to package them, they'll sell well. I point to the Marvel Essentials line as an example. I can't quote figures, but they keep making them, so somebody must be buying them.
My old boss proved that comics could be produced without spending a mint. Sometimes the product would be good, sometimes not. As with anything.
One possible scenario is when someone with a good product starts underselling the competition. I don't want fancy paper. I'm even happy with black-and-white. Comics, at their best, should be so cheap they're hard to turn down. Make them that cheap again, widen the market, make up for your losses in quantity.
: 10:13 PM << Home
