TV/Movies Megathread

[Kleves]

Man of Steel. Meh. I've never really liked Superman, and watching two indestructible guys punch each other for an hour is remarkably tedious.

[Syt]

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.

But yeah, his quasi-God status is what made me rather disinterested in the comic. Still gonna watch Man of Steel, though.

[Ideologue]

It occurred to me that Christopher Nolan, Zack Snyder and David Goyer are far superior, as storytellers and as moral creatures, than JJ Abrams, Damon Lindeloff, and the Orci/Kurtzman Gestalt Entity in that at no point in Man of Steel did Zod utter the word "kneel."

[Eddie Teach]

Does he use the term "bend the knee" instead? 

[Viking]

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.

But yeah, his quasi-God status is what made me rather disinterested in the comic. Still gonna watch Man of Steel, though.

It makes superman stories hard. To the best of my knowledge there are two basic superman stories that work.

One is the Easter Passion story where Superman faces an unstoppable force attacking earth that even he can't stop. Maybe there are attempts to negotiate but they fail. Then Superman gets the crap beat out of him and he flees. The people feel abandoned by their hero and are suffering. But then, look to the sky, is it a bird, is it a plane; it's Superman. The hero returns. He again faces the enemy which defeated him and he either has a plan (and it is cunning) or he doesn't (and if he can't save us he is at least going to die trying) and ultimately he wins either due to his cunning plan or due to some freak act of heroism (from a bystander inspired by superman) or hubris (on the part of the victorious baddie) and all the world is set to right, cue joke about clark being stuck in the ruins for a week, the end.

The other is the Lois and Clark episode, where intrepid reporters Lois Lane and Clark Kent through their combined plucky creativity and plodding hard work (at super speed though) uncover some sort of plot going on. To get the byline for herself Lois ditches Clark and gets captured and held hostage while Clark does the journalistic busy work needed to uncover not only the plot but also the story that Perry White told them to cover. He investigates, finds Lois has been captured and then arrives to save her as superman. The villain forces superman to choose at some point between saving Lois or saving the city (two missiles anybody?). Superman chooses the greater good over Lois, but since he is superman he is able to save her too. The villain is captured by Superman, the end.

In each case the story is not a drama about if superman is strong enough to defeat the enemy, he either is or isn't. In the first story there is (usually off panel) point in the story where Superman has a garden of Gethsemane moment where he decides to die for humanity if necessary or he finds a way to win. We don't know this until it happens. We are usually with the people of metropolis (or lois) at this point. It's only later that we realize that he either was prepared to die for us or, being superman, was going to win in the end. In the lois and clark story the drama is found in the danger to lois, not superman. Superman being moral makes the right choice each time and usually that means saving the city not lois. Here we are with superman intimately seeing Lois in danger and we want to save her not the random anonymous citizen. In each case he is better than us not merely in terms of superpowers but morally as well.

Superman's ultimate superpower is moral clarity and superman's true cryptonite is the unsolvable moral dilemma. Nolan had to trick Batman into saving Harvey Dent, Superman would have saved Dent and then saved Rachel Daws in the nick of time too.

So, yes, telling a Superman story is hard but when done right it has real moral significance and affects the readers emotionally. This is the reason why he still has the iconic effect while is comic books don't get the numbers of Batman and X-Men. We have all felt his anguish and we have felt the relief of his salvation. The right superman story will cause you to love him forever.

So fuck the haters.

[Ideologue]

Also Clark Kent is, or at least prior to the comics reboot was, one of the one or two prominent superheroes who both could maintain an adult relationship and wasn't a crybaby.  There used to be Wally West, but he got marginalized.  Then you have Bruce Wayne, who possessed neither quality; and this is why nerds respond to Batman.

[Admiral Yi]

Did Superman ever slip Lois the tube steak?

[Ideologue]

Regularly, from like 1987-2012.

[Malthus]

Did Superman ever slip Lois the tube steak?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_of_Steel,_Woman_of_Kleenex

[Ideologue]

Did Superman ever slip Lois the tube steak?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_of_Steel,_Woman_of_Kleenex

Fun but silly.  Superman manages not to blink so hard he shatters windows.  Superman's heartbeat isn't audible.  Why would other automatic functions be so destructive?  Because Larry Niven wanted to write a dirty essay for Playboy about Superman's cum.  Good for him.

Anyway, regarding Man of Steel:

[spoiler]There appear to be people that are actually upset that Superman killed Zod.  Man, I love it when people make claims based on shit they "know" when they're seriously ignorant.   At least he didn't torture the Phantom Zone criminals to death after he'd already taken away their superpowers like he did in the comics.  (Also, he beat Doomsday to death.)[/spoiler]

[Malthus]

Fun but silly. 

Doesn't that basically sum up superhero comics in the first place? 

[Ideologue]

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

[Malthus]

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. 

[frunk]

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.

[Barrister]

Except we know that Superman can safely have sex with Lois Lane, and even impregnate her, because of the dreadful Superman Returns movie.