TV/Movies Megathread

[Ideologue]

Wasn't he depowered or something when that happened?  Been forever since I've seen the Donner films.

Also, Superman Returns is just fine.

[Barrister]

Wasn't he depowered or something when that happened?  Been forever since I've seen the Donner films.

Also, Superman Returns is just fine.

Any movie that includes Superman's love-child is not fine.

[Kleves]

SF Debris recently made a good point about Superman - he was originally neither indestructible, nor could he fly (only jump really high) and also not light speed fast. He experienced a lot of feature creep over the decades (X-Ray vision, heat vision, freezing breath, super speed, flying, invulnerability ... also a reason why they invented Kryptonite in its various shades, so there'd be *some* weakness) to the point where he's now the Swiss Army Knife of Superheroes and rolls the exclusive abilities of a dozen or more superheroes into one. And not in a jack of all trades way (good at a lot of things, but master of none), but "super" at all of them.

Superman's the kind of superhero a little kid would come up with (though of course that doesn't apply only to Superman...). "My guy is super fast and super strong and bullets don't hurt him... oh, and his eyes are laserbeams and he can breath ice from his mouth - plus he can fly really fast and turn back time... and he has x-ray vision!"It's pretty tough to do a story where that doesn't come off as lame.

[CountDeMoney]

Also, Superman Returns is just fine.

As long as you stop watching before the last 20 minutes, which lasts forever, rivaling Star Trek: TMP in its special effects boringness.

[Ideologue]

Wasn't he depowered or something when that happened?  Been forever since I've seen the Donner films.

Also, Superman Returns is just fine.

Any movie that includes Superman's love-child is not fine.

What did you want to happen, Lois Lane to get a super-abortion?  I didn't think so.

As long as you stop watching before the last 20 minutes, which lasts forever, rivaling Star Trek: TMP in its special effects boringness.

I liked it.

One thing I never understood was why people think he's lifting the kryptonite island directly, instead of the underlying ocean bedrock (through which the crystals eventually bore, but not until he's at escape velocity).  Maybe it's not super-clear, I guess, so boo Bryan Singer, but it's not as preposterous as some people make it sound.  (Plus there are a ton of Superman stories where Superman still has his powers while exposed to kryptonite, just that it causes debilitating pain and will kill him eventually.  There are also stories that contradict this, because approximately one thousand people have written Superman over eighty years.)

[lustindarkness]

Big Spoiler : http://movies.yahoo.com/blogs/movie-talk/man-steel-controversy-does-superman-too-far-154837945.html

"I was 100 percent into the movie until that happened," Donnelly tells me. "I mean, I had a cape on, I was like a 6-year-old boy, and then the second Superman does that, all the wind was taken out of me. My shoulders slumped as I was on my way of the theater. I took my cape off. I felt defeated."

[Viking]

Wasn't he depowered or something when that happened?  Been forever since I've seen the Donner films.

Also, Superman Returns is just fine.

1. Superman would never leave us for 5 years.
2. Superman is NOT a dead-beat dad.
3. Superman would NEVER hit on somebody else's girl.

That said it was an ok movie and Brandon Routh was excellent playing Christopher Reeves playing Superman.

Kate Bosworth was not bad a Lois, though she had to play a Lois in a situation that Lois would never be in viz. dealing with being abandoned by Superman. Anything she did was wrong because of that situation. People complained about the lack of action. I disagree. There was no big fight, but there was lots of really good action. This is the same criticism many of the critics had of The Alba Fantastic Four, not enough action. As Spacey's Luthor said WRONG! There was little SWAT team style action, but there was lots of Fireman style action.

The details were great but the big picture was just wrong. I don't care how Lois deals with being abandoned by Superman, Superman would never do that. Period. Also the kid pissed me off. Plus, the movie needed a different Luthor. After Ian McKellan, Alfred Molina and Heath Ledger the villains can't be "comic book villains" anymore, they need to be real to.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Now I wonder if we had an actual cape on, and if so well... really just if he had an actual cape on.

[crazy canuck]

Wasnt as good as District 9

[Tonitrus]

I guess, but it's a lot more fun to think that Superman can bang Lois Lane than he can't.

There goes the market for Kryptonite condoms. 

He should have just stolen Ursa away from Zod. She was HOTTer than Margot Kidder.

[Darth Wagtaros]

I dont know about that. But Nearly anything was/is hotter than Margot Kidder.

[Ideologue]

Wasn't he depowered or something when that happened?  Been forever since I've seen the Donner films.

Also, Superman Returns is just fine.

1. Superman would never leave us for 5 years.
2. Superman is NOT a dead-beat dad.
3. Superman would NEVER hit on somebody else's girl.

That said it was an ok movie and Brandon Routh was excellent playing Christopher Reeves playing Superman.

Kate Bosworth was not bad a Lois, though she had to play a Lois in a situation that Lois would never be in viz. dealing with being abandoned by Superman. Anything she did was wrong because of that situation. People complained about the lack of action. I disagree. There was no big fight, but there was lots of really good action. This is the same criticism many of the critics had of The Alba Fantastic Four, not enough action. As Spacey's Luthor said WRONG! There was little SWAT team style action, but there was lots of Fireman style action.

The details were great but the big picture was just wrong. I don't care how Lois deals with being abandoned by Superman, Superman would never do that. Period.

Why not?  Superman abandoned Lana Lang.

People get, like, this idea of Superman in their heads.  It's weird.

And I liked Superman leaving Earth.  Krypton might still retain clues about other survivors (e.g., more Phantom Zone prisoners, or, if you lived in the same pseudo-Silver Age world of the Donner films, a space fragment with a whole damned city on it, etc.).  Krypton's legacy is important to Superman; how could it not be?  In the DC universe of the comics, it might have been irresponsible to leave an Earth threatened every month with apocalyptic, if not Apokoliptian, doom, but the film universe has, like, one bad guy, that Superman thought was in jail, and three Kryptonian criminals that he threw down a well.  I'll point out also that the sequence, cut from the final film, with Superman flying around in a crystal spaceship is also really cool, and should have been left in (it's ten largely silent minutes, but people didn't exactly come out of this movie loving it in the first place, so fuck 'em ).

I also enjoyed Superman faced with a surprise family, and how the dilemma he represented was left more-or-less unsolved, because it was messy and more-or-less insoluble; all Superman could do is acknowledge his child, love him, and promise to teach him, which is what he did.

Oh, and disagree on Luthor; even though they were using the Donner version as a basis, it was refreshing to witness Lex Luthor actually get to be a good screen villain after decades of being lame.  Thank you Kevin Spacey.  (Criticism: It would've been pretty cool if they'd shown and not told that Luthor had access to advanced Kryptonian technology as a result of growing the Kryptonian crystals, though.  A death ray blasting the USAF, for example.  This goes to the deeper criticism that Superman Returns wasn't BIG enough--there can be small Superman stories but a small Superman movie is going to be a very difficult thing to pull off--which I think is totally valid.  But it's still fine.)

And Lois Lane ain't Superman's girl, nor Richard White's.  Stop being a misogynist.

[Neil]

I guess, but it's a lot more fun to think that Superman can bang Lois Lane than he can't.

I don't know, I think Superman is a lot more interesting if he has a lethal weapon in his pants that he can't unleash without killing people.  It would help explain some of those trips to the fortress of solitude too.

I dunno.  The deconstruction of superheroes is pretty old hat at this point.

[Viking]

Why not?  Superman abandoned Lana Lang.

eh? Abandon? As in leaving for 5 years and not telling anybody about it?

People get, like, this idea of Superman in their heads.  It's weird.

Yeah, funny that. One wonders how an dated character managed to survive for so long. As I said, he survives despite his comic never doing really well.

And I liked Superman leaving Earth.  Krypton might still retain clues about other survivors (e.g., more Phantom Zone prisoners, or, if you lived in the same pseudo-Silver Age world of the Donner films, a space fragment with a whole damned city on it, etc.).  Krypton's legacy is important to Superman; how could it not be?  In the DC universe of the comics, it might have been irresponsible to leave an Earth threatened every month with apocalyptic, if not Apokoliptian, doom, but the film universe has, like, one bad guy, that Superman thought was in jail, and three Kryptonian criminals that he threw down a well.  I'll point out also that the sequence, cut from the final film, with Superman flying around in a crystal spaceship is also really cool, and should have been left in (it's ten largely silent minutes, but people didn't exactly come out of this movie loving it in the first place, so fuck 'em ).

I've seen that scene and it is beautiful and touching. I also agree it had little to do in that movie. Exploring the corpse of a dead planet has no pay-off later in the script. The scene where Clark tells Ma Kent that it was a dead and lifeless planet in 5 seconds of exposition does everything that needs doing for that. The movie isn't about dead planets. It's about fatherhood. "The Father becomes the Son". Which just makes Superman being a deadbeat dad even more annoying.

I also enjoyed Superman faced with a surprise family, and how the dilemma he represented was left more-or-less unsolved, because it was messy and more-or-less insoluble; all Superman could do is acknowledge his child, love him, and promise to teach him, which is what he did.

It's part of Superman's Superman-ness that he resolves issues like this. The surprise family didn't do anything for me. The kid was just annoying, as all movie kids are. Its just so parochial.

Oh, and disagree on Luthor; even though they were using the Donner version as a basis, it was refreshing to witness Lex Luthor actually get to be a good screen villain after decades of being lame.  Thank you Kevin Spacey.  (Criticism: It would've been pretty cool if they'd shown and not told that Luthor had access to advanced Kryptonian technology as a result of growing the Kryptonian crystals, though.  A death ray blasting the USAF, for example.  But it's still fine.)

Yes, they were using the donner lex as a basis. I don't like that. He was stupid then and he is stupid now. Comic relief. Superhero Movies of the 2000's don't need comic relief like Superhero Movies of the 1970's did. His schtick grew old in SII, wasn't missed in SIII and positively annoying in SIV. The Lex of the DCAU is superior in every way and a worth opponent rather than a comic relief buffoon.

And Lois Lane ain't Superman's girl, nor Richard White's.  Stop being a misogynist.

Stop being pussywhipped... oh, you can't.. you just wish you were.

You know what I meant by that phrase, don't be obtuse. He would only promote his own cause if she were single.

[Ed Anger]

I dont know about that. But Nearly anything was/is hotter than Margot Kidder.

My turds are more attractive than Margot Kidder.