I think - like with the James Bond movies - we're just not supposed to ask those kind of timeline questions. I mean, according to the first movie, Superman was 30 when he first left for Metropolis (18 when he went to the Fortress, plus 12 years in "training" with Jor-El) - so I don't think we're supposed to think Superman is 35 in this movie!

Superman Returns plays out in our current time/date; remember that kid with the camera phone?

Well, if your gonna get that specific, you can get into the make/model of cars too.

Like someone else said, we arent supposed to ask these timeline questions...its a comic book movie.

Though, I would like to see Superman rip Osama Bin Laden in half in the next movie.


Or fight a huge Spider in the 3rd act.

Granted, her character just got a kick in the ovaries when Superman returned. Hell in the airplane, pre-return mind you, she was bustin' Peta's balls. It seemed to me, and others in the film, she wasn't herself after Superman came back.

Either way, I liked Bosworth's Lois Lane. I was never a huge fan of the "Lois" character in the comics and movies anyway. Give me the Lana Lang character anyday. Lana and Clark/Kal had a tension and she knew his secret. That's said, I liked Bosworth's version of her better than Hatcher's and Kidder's. Frankly, I never bought Kidder's version and I always thought they should've cast someone younger and prettier than Kidder in relation to Reeve's handsome looks. But that's just me.

I also was never a fan of Kidder's Lois Lane. I mean, why would the Man of Steel be attracted to a burnt out, rundown, smoke filled hag like her? ugh Bosworth's Lois is more in line with Lana.

So it's technically in the future, since I've never seen a camera phone picture come out that nicely.

Definately....she was terrible! Supes could do better.

In Returns, after he found out that Lois , I said to my girlfriend that he should start dating strippers.

I really didnt dig Bosworth with brown hair, but I thought she did a decent job with the role.

I just saw it again. I liked it Tuesday and liked it even more today - so yeah for me, it does hold up. And I liked Spacey much better this time around.

Leave it to FOX News to suggest the movie is a failure. Sheesh...

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,201615,00.html

We'll know for sure after the weekend.

It needs to do 40million + on Friday to be a real blockbuster.

I think we should all be required to use the proper quotation marks when we refer to Fox "News". I love how they compare the opening of Superman Returns to the opening of X-Men 3, which "broke all records when in [sic] opened in May" and (purely by coincidence, I'm sure) just so happens to be a 20th Century Fox film.

Anyway, saw Supes last night with my wife and we both really enjoyed it. I'm no good at ranking things, but it's definitely a solid film, and I'd certainly recommend it.

Plus X-Men 3 is a sequel to a very successful 2 movies. Sure, Superman is sort-of a sequel, but it's more of a brand-new franchise launch. So I think these opening day numbers of similar franchise launch movies are a better comparison:

Spider-Man = $39.4 million (Friday Opening)
Hulk = $24.2 million (Friday Opening)
Fantastic Four = $21.2 million (Friday Opening)
Superman Returns = $21 million (Wednesday Opening)
X-Men = $20.7 million (Friday Opening)
Batman Begins = $15 million (Wednesday Opening)

And, off topic, but let's not forget that King Kong only opened to $9.7 million last year, so Superman is no where near those kind of numbers, and it grossed $218 million domestically.

I think the $21 million has more to do with running time than appeal. I'd like to see the figures on theater capacity vs. patronage for yesterday...I'm betting there weren't too many empty seats.

Well, $21 million is $13 million more than what "Beyond the Sea" (Spacey and Bosworth) took in at the box office for its entire run (domestic and foreign).

21 million is fine for a Summer Wedneday opening. It's amazing that the media tries to spin that into a failure.

Saw it this morning and didn't think much of it. Too many annoyances for me, particularly with the kid and Luthor's terrible and pointless plot.

Superman Returns is good, not great.

Brandon Routh looks too boy-ish, Kate Bosworth needs to be sassier.

To me, it's

Superman: The Movie
Superman II
Superman Returns
Superman III
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace

does anyone know the quote that superman said to the boy in the ending sequence?

don't forget to use spoilers...

Only 7 movies have ever made 40 mil in one day. I don't think Superman Returns needs to do that to be considered a blockbuster.

In terms of the numbers, if this movie makes enough to warrant a sequel, then WB will consider it a success. Like Batman Begins their main hope is to re-launch something assumed to be dead in the water.

Watch Superman: The Movie. It's pretty much the same speech Jor-El gave Kal before he was sent off to Earth.

Not impressed whatsoever

Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex

By Larry Niven
(Niven's original footnotes are also included)





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He's faster than a speeding bullet. He's more powerful than a locomotive. He's able to leap tall buildings at a single bound. Why can't he get a girl?

At the ripe old age of thirty-one1 Kal-El (alias Superman, alias Clark Kent) is still unmarried. Almost certainly he is still a virgin. This is a serious matter. The species itself is in danger!

An unwed Superman is a mobile Superman. Thus it has been alleged that those who chronicle the Man of Steel's adventures are responsible for his condition. But the cartoonists are not to blame.

Nor is Superman handicapped by psychological problems.

Granted that the poor oaf is not entirely sane. How could he be? He is an orphan, a refugee, and an alien. His homeland no longer exists in any form, save for gigatons upon gigatons of dangerous, prettily colored rocks.

As a child and young adult, Kal-El must have been hard put to find an adequate father-figure. What human could control his antisocial behavior? What human would dare try to punish him? His actual, highly social behavior during this period indicates an inhuman self-restraint.

What wonder if Superman drifted gradually into schizophrenia? Torn between his human and Kryptonian identities, he chose to be both, keeping his split personalities rigidly separate. A psychotic desperation is evident in his defense of his "secret identity."

But Superman's sex problems are strictly physiological, and quite real.

The purpose of this article is to point out some medical drawbacks to being a Kryptonian among human beings, and to suggest possible solutions. The Kryptonian humanoid must not be allowed to go the way of the pterodactyl and the passenger pigeon.



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I


What turns on a Kryptonian?

Superman is an alien, an extraterrestrial. His humanoid frame is doubtless the result of parallel evolution, as the marsupials of Australia resemble their mammalian counterparts. A specific niche in the ecology calls for a certain shape, a certain size, certain capabilities, certain eating habits.

Be not deceived by appearances. Superman is no relative to homo sapiens.

What arouses Kal-El's mating urge? Did Kryptonian women carry some subtle mating cue at appropriate times of the year? Whatever it is, Lois Lane probably didn't have it. We may speculate that she smells wrong, less like a Kryptonian woman than like a terrestrial monkey. A mating between Superman and Lois Lane would feel like sodomy-and would be, of course, by church and common law.


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II


Assume a mating between Superman and a human woman designated LL for convenience.

Either Superman has gone completely schizo and believes himself to be Clark Kent; or he knows what he's doing, but no longer gives a damn. Thirty-one years is a long time. For Superman it has been even longer. He has X-ray vision; he knows just what he's missing.2

The problem is this. Electroencephalograms taken of men and women during sexual intercourse show that orgasm resembles "a kind of pleasurable epileptic attack." One loses control over one's muscles.

Superman has been known to leave his fingerprints in steel and in hardened concrete, accidentally. What would he do to the woman in his arms during what amounts to an epileptic fit?


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III


Consider the driving urge between a man and a woman, the monomaniacal urge to achieve greater and greater penetration. Remember also that we are dealing with Kryptonian muscles.

Superman would literally crush LL's body in his arms, while simultaneously ripping her open from crotch to sternum, gutting her like a trout.



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IV


Lastly, he'd blow off the top of her head.

Ejaculation of semen is entirely involuntary in the human male, and in all other forms of terrestrial life. It would be unreasonable to assume otherwise for a Kryptonian. But with Kryptonian muscles behind it, Kal-El's semen would emerge with the muzzle velocity of a machine gun bullet.3
In view of the foregoing, normal sex is impossible between LL and Superman.

Artificial insemination may give us better results.


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V


First we must collect the semen. The globules will emerge at transonic speeds. Superman must first ejaculate, then fly frantically after the stuff to catch it in a test tube. We assume that he is on the Moon, both for privacy and to prevent the semen from exploding into vapor on hitting the air at such speeds.

He can catch the semen, of course, before it evaporates in vacuum. He's faster than a speeding bullet.

But can he keep it?

All known forms of Kryptonian life have superpowers. The same must hold true of living Kryptonian sperm. We may reasonably assume that Kryptonian sperm are vulnerable only to starvation and to green kryptonite; that they can travel with equal ease through water, air, vacuum, glass, brick, boiling steel, solid steel, liquid helium, or the core of a star; and that they are capable of translight velocities.

What kind of a test tube will hold such beasties?

Kryptonian sperm and their unusual powers will give us further trouble. For the moment we will assume (because we must) that they tend to stay in the seminal fluid, which tends to stay in a simple glass tube. Thus Superman and LL can perform artificial insemination.

At least there will be another generation of Kryptonians.

Or will there?



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VI


A ripened but unfertilized egg leaves LL's ovary, begins its voyage down her Fallopian tube.

Some time later, tens of millions of sperm, released from a test tube, begin their own voyage up LL's Fallopian tube.

The magic moment approaches...

Can human breed with Kryptonian? Do we even use the same genetic code? On the face of it, LL could more easily breed with an ear of corn than with Kal-El. But coincidence does happen. If the genes match...

One sperm arrives before the others. It penetrates the egg, forms a lump on it's surface, the cell wall now thickens to prevent other sperm From entering. Within the now-fertilized egg, changes take place...

And ten million Kryptonian sperm arrive slightly late.

Were they human sperm, they would be out of luck. But these tiny blind things are more powerful than a locomotive. A thickened cell wall won't stop them. They will all enter the egg, obliterating it entirely in an orgy of microscopic gang rape. So much for artificial insemination.

But LL's problems are just beginning.



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VII


Within her body there are still tens of millions of frustrated Kryptonian sperm. The single egg is now too diffuse to be a target. The sperm scatter.

They scatter without regard to what is in their path. They leave curved channels, microscopically small. Presently all will have found their way to the open air.

That leaves LL with several million microscopic perforations all leading deep into her abdomen. Most of the channels will intersect one or more loops of intestine.

Peritonitis is inevitable. LL becomes desperately ill.

Meanwhile, tens of millions of sperm swarm in the air over Metropolis.



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VIII


This is more serious than it looks.

Consider: these sperm are virtually indestructible. Within days or weeks they will die for lack of nourishment. Meanwhile they cannot be affected by heat, cold, vacuum, toxins, or anything short of green kryptonite.4 There they are, minuscule but dangerous; for each has supernormal powers.

Metropolis is shaken by tiny sonic booms. Wormholes, charred by meteoric heat, sprout magically in all kinds of things: plate glass, masonry, antique ceramics, electric mixers, wood, household pets, and citizens. Some of the sperm will crack lightspeed. The Metropolis night comes alive with a network of narrow, eerie blue lines of Cherenkov radiation.

And women whom Superman has never met find themselves in a delicate condition.

Consider: LL won't get pregnant because there were too many of the blind mindless beasts. But whenever one sperm approaches an unfertilized human egg in its panic flight, it will attack.

How close is close enough? A few centimeters? Are sperm attracted by chemical cues? It seems likely. Metropolis had a population of millions; and Kryptonian sperm could travel a long and crooked path, billions of miles, before it gives up and dies.

Several thousand blessed events seem not unlikely. 5

Several thousand lawsuits would follow. Not that Superman can't afford to pay. There's a trick where you squeeze a lump of coal into its allotropic diamond form...



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IX


The above analysis gives us part of the answer. In our experiment in artificial insemination, we must use a single sperm. This presents no difficulty. Superman may use his microscopic vision and a pair of tiny tweezers to pluck a sperm from the swarm.



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X


In its eagerness the single sperm may crash through LL's abdomen at transonic speeds, wreaking havoc. Is there any way to slow it down?

There is. We can expose it to gold Kryptonite.

Gold Kryptonite, we remember, robs a Kryptonian of all of his supernormal powers, permanently. Were we to expose Superman himself to gold Kryptonite, we would solve all his sex problems, but he would be Clark Kent forever. We may regard this solution as somewhat drastic.

But we can expose the test tube of seminal fluid to gold Kryptonite, then use standard techniques for artificial insemination.

By any of these methods we can get LL pregnant, without killing her. Are we out of the woods yet?



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XI


Though exposed to gold Kryptonite, the sperm still carries Kryptonian genes. If these are recessive, then LL carries a developing human fetus. There will be no more Supermen; but at least we need not worry about the mother's health.

But if some or all of the Kryptonian genes are dominant...

Can the infant use his X-ray vision before birth? After all, with such a power he can probably see through his own closed eyelids. That would leave LL sterile. If the kid starts using heat vision, things get even worse.

But when he starts to kick, it's all over. He will kick his way out into open air, killing himself and his mother.




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XII


Is there a solution?

There are several. Each has drawbacks.

We can make LL wear a Kryptonite6 belt around her waist. But too little Kryptonite may allow the child to damage her, while too much may damage or kill the child. Intermediate amounts may do both! And there is no safe way to experiment.

A better solution is to find a host-mother.

We have not yet considered the existence of a Supergirl7. She could carry the child without harm. But Supergirl has a secret identity, and her secret identity is no more married than Supergirl herself. If she turned up pregnant, she would probably be thrown out of school.

A better solution may be to implant the growing fetus in Superman himself. There are places in a man's abdomen where a fetus could draw adequate nourishment, growing as a parasite, and where it would not cause undue harm to surrounding organs. Presumably Clark Kent can take a leave of absence more easily than Supergirl's schoolgirl alter ego.

When the time comes, the child would be removed by Caesarian section. It would have to be removed early, but there would be no problem with incubators as long as it was fed. I leave the problem of cutting through Superman's invulnerable skin as an exercise for the alert reader.

The mind boggles at the image of a pregnant Superman cruising the skies of Metropolis. Batman would refuse to be seen with him; strange new jokes would circulate the prisons...and the race of Krypton would be safe at last.



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Footnotes:

1: Superman first appeared in Action Comics, June 1938 (keep in mind this was printed in 1969)

2: One should not think of Superman as a Peeping Tom. A biological ability must be used. As a child Superman may never have known that things had surfaces, until he learned to suppress his X-ray vision. If millions of people tend shamelessly to wear clothing with no lead in the weave, that is hardly Superman's fault.

3: One can imagine that the Kent home in Smallville was riddled with holes during Superboy's puberty. And why did Lana Lang never notice that?

4: And other forms of kryptonite. For instance, there are chunks of red Kryptonite that make giants of Kryptonians. Imagine ten million earthworm size spermatozoa swarming over a Metropolis beach, diving to fertilize the beach balls... but I digress.

5: If the pubescent Superboy plays with himself, we have the same problem over Smallville.

6: For our purposes, all forms of Kryptonite are available in unlimited quantities. It has been estimated, form the startling tonnage of Kryptonite fallen to Earth since the explosion of Krypton, that the planet must have outweighed our entire solar system. Doubtless the "planet" Krypton was a cooling black dwarf star, one of a binary pair, the other member being a red giant.

7: She can't mate with Superman because she's his first cousin. And only a cad would suggest differently.

I enjoyed it overall. Great action, right amount of humor and great casting. Routh did an absolute great job as both Kent and Superman. The only thing I didnt like was some of the pacing. I felt that the Supermans story and Lex's story could have been edited together more smoothly. It wasnt that big of a problem and the action quickly made me forget about it. Looking forward to the DVD release!

I wouldn't go that far
maybe for superman 4, but not 1 and 2, or even 3 (I'm not sure I'd go as far as saying 3 was good, but it wasn't that bad)

Not necessarily. Maybe he picked up his phone over here in South Korea where they've had 5.1 megapixel camera phones on the mass market for a couple years already (a guy I work with has a 7.1 megapixel camera phone). So the phones are definitely out there that will take a picture that nicely.

I thought the movie was good, but nothing great. Not on the same level as Batman Begins or Spiderman 2, but it was still an entertaining flick that had some substance to it.