No I'm not kidding.

Now Schumacher's Batman sequels are on a totally different level. It's equivalent to the gay right's parade in West Hollywood.

All this time I imagined Superman to be a thinly veiled symbol of benevolent dictatorship, and now I find out that he's a gay icon!

I never knew the Interweb had so much to teach.

Wow. Superman was "gayified."

And I didn't even realize it.

DAMN YOU HOMOSEXUALS AND YOUR AGENDA!

[Give me a friggin' break...]

Superman Returns is a pretty great short film if you shut it off as soon as Superman flies out of the ballpark at the end of the plane rescue sequence.

You know the filmmakers had to know they were in trouble when the best sequence took place only 40 minutes into the film and everything that followed was all downhill.


Off topic but what's with the name change? Am I missing an inside joke somewhere?

I agree here. After that amazing sequence, the film deflates. I thought they shot that bank heist scene after the film was finished. Which tells me they knew they had to add something to a very sluggish 2nd half.

even as exhilarating as the shuttle/airplane rescue is- it is also 'check your brain at the door' ridiculous. To believe that Lois, or anyone save Superman, could get violently batted around a cabin like that and not incur major injuries- or cause injury to others- for me deflates the re-watchability of what I originally thought was the films only decent scene.

I agree in general with Hokeyboy- but am probably even more militant in my dislike for Singers job here, being so well versed in the original film. Singer didn't just steal the general outline and various plot points and lines of dialogue- he plagiarized the tonal beats of whole sequences. The rooftop rendezvous between Lois and Superman is a prime example.
Play the two back to back and you see it's not a homage, it's an utter rip-off.
This film is the equivalent of a 'hot' comic book artist releasing a big glossy, hotly anticipated graphic novel that is filled with page after page of blatant swipes of another artists earlier graphic novel. The film is audacious in the worst sense of the word.

That said- one of the only aspects of Singers approach that I don't have a problem with is the 'stalker superman' angle. That, conceptually at least, to me is the only valid contribution he makes to the story of this character. That pining for something he can't have seems to me a very relatable, human attribute. The biggest problem with it is that it is simply hard to buy because he is pining for a character (Lois) that is never believable as essayed by Bosworth. If I had been invested in that character the scene might have yielded actually sympathy- but since I don't, it comes across as sentimental phoniness.

Bottom line- Singer shouldn't be let anywhere near this character in the future.

supes kid killed the movie

I want to see Tom Welling as Superman. I don't care if they don't pick up anyone else from Smallville, I just want to see him as Superman.

Oh and have what's his Cloverfield-Lost face direct it. He wouldn't screw it up.

.....No, I think we're all happy with Routh as The Man of Steel.

Yep.

But no slicked-down hair as Superman this time.

I hope they keep Routh as well. I thought he did a great job with the role.

Although Tom Welling looks the part, he can't act his way out of a paper bag. He'd be a terrible Superman. I'm happy with Routh. I just hope that next time around they don't force him to simply emulate Christopher Reeve and actually allow him to make the role his own.

Although JJ Abrams would be great in theory, when he took a stab at making a Superman movie, the ideas that he and his team brought to the table were terrible. Krypton never exploded. Lex Luthor was from Krypton. Jor-El killed himself to nag Superman to come back to life after the three Kryptonian villains killed him. In a final twist it was revealed that Lex Luthor was from Krypton and the final battle is between Superman and Lex. Afterward, Superman leaves Earth for Krypton to fullfill some unexplained prophesy cos it was to be a trilogy with two chapters taking place on Krypton.

The only things I liked was the pretitle sequence showing Superman getting his ass handed to him in Gotham by the villanous trio (a technique Abrams later employed in M:i-III) and making Lex Luthor a Fox Mulder of sorts (but evil) who worked for the FBI.

my god..all that sounds horrible.

It actually gets worse, Solid Snake PAC. In the JJ Abrams proposed Superman movie, Superman and Lex Luthor were to know Kung Fu (this being proposed at the height of The Matrix's popularity) and the Earth has a massive funeral for Superman even though he'd essentially only been around for about a week.

I like the Superman: The Animated Series approach to the hair: lightly slicked back when he's Clark but completely loose and unruly when he's Superman.

Which makes sense. Flying around at 60+mph is going to mess a dude's hair up.

Wow, never heard about that before. I would rather have Superman fight a giant spider

Which is exactly why it's my preffered approach to the hair.

Oh and no forced spitcurl. His hair is unruly. The spitcurl can be rendered believably in a drawing but in live action it looks silly when they force it with gel.

In case no one noticed, this pic was photoshoped and I agree with the changes. The emblem needs to be large and the costume needs to be colorful. It made no sense that Superman was wearing the smelly-drunk-peanut-flinging Superman colors from Superman III in Superman Returns. Had the movie (and by proxy the costume) grown more colorful as it progressed (similar to what happened in Superman when the movie transitioned to Metropolis), I would have understood the color scheme being used for the first 40 or so minutes.

Works for me to do it that way.

I like the variations that are brighter with the bigger \S/

I agree. If the sequel is re-booted from the beginning (and I hope to God not), keep the lead actor.

he could wear this



for all I care as long as it's a kick ass story

I forgot about that pic.

Anyhoo, a reboot wouldn't be a bad thing. Superman Returns did one thing right: start with Superman already established.

In a reboot make it that he's already been around for a few years and unaware of his Kryptonian heritage. Zod and company arrive and he learns of his heritage and faces his first true threat.

But if they feel they need an origin, they should take the John Byrne approach. Start with an adult Clark who knows diddly about Krypton and is just trying to figure out his place in the world. Something terrible happens (a shuttle that's crashing or an invasion by Brainiac or Darkseid) that thrusts him into the spotlight while keeping his anonimity by the skin of his teeth. That pushes him to create a costume and adopt the perona of Superman.

In either approach, Lex Luthor should be reduced to an extended cameo or supporting character at the most.