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SCP Classic – Superman Returns (2006)
359 Plays1 year ago
For the next two months, I’m taking a break from the show to catch up on recordings and get some work done on my comic book project. So I’m giving you a glimpse into the past with SCP Classic, featuring replays of past episodes influenced by recent releases.
This has been a good year for Superman fans. The comics are the best they've been in years, James Gunn is working on a new Superman film, Superman and Lois finished off a stellar season (and got renewed), and a new animated series, My Adventures with Superman, also premiered. So we look back at the underrated Superman film, Superman Returns.
PARAGONS OF EARTH is a comic book project I’m developing with Thomas Deja and Eric Johns. Sign up for the free PARAGONS OF EARTH Substack to learn when the crowdfund campaign is live!
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Transcript
Unbearable Goodbyes
00:00:23
Speaker
Clark said the reason you left without saying goodbye is because it was too unbearable for you. Personally, I think that's a load of crap. Clark? This is the guy I work with. Baby Clark's right. You know my uh... Richard. He's a pilot. He takes me up all the time.
00:00:51
Speaker
I like this. I forgot how warm you were.
00:01:40
Speaker
What do you hear? Nothing. I hear everything.
00:01:56
Speaker
You wrote that the world doesn't need a savior. But every day I hear people crying for one. I'm sorry I left you, Lois. I'll take you back now.
Heatwave and Introductions
00:02:43
Speaker
Welcome to the Superhero Cinephiles podcast. I am half of your host, Perry Constantine. And as always, I am the other half, Derek Ferguson. How are you doing today, Derek? I'm doing pretty good. Baking like a potato.
00:02:56
Speaker
Oh, you got the heat wave over where you are too, huh? It's another 100 degree day here. Well, it's like 90 something, but with the humidity, it feels like 100 degrees. So yeah, so I'm baking like a potato.
00:03:11
Speaker
Yeah, same here, same here. The humidity in Kagoshima is absolutely off the charts. And yesterday, I'd only gone out for a little bit, right? And I was in my car the whole, like I was only out for like maybe outside of my car, outside of air conditioning for like maybe a total of five, 10 minutes going to my class and then coming back, right? In that time, in that 10 minutes of being out in the sun,
00:03:40
Speaker
My clothes were completely soaked through by the time I got home. Wow. Yeah. I'm telling you, I'm telling you this summer in more ways than one, it is no joke. Oh God. No, absolutely not. This summer is no joke. I'm telling you. Yeah. All right.
Demon Semen and Controversial Doctors
00:03:59
Speaker
uh oh sorry um so anyway um something else i found out uh is uh did you see what's trending on uh twitter this morning or today i should say no what i probably did but refresh my memory demon semen oh yeah yeah yeah i saw um a screenshot from uh some news program saying um
00:04:26
Speaker
you know, Trump again defends doctor who believes in demon semen. I'm like, did you ever believe you live in a reality where you'd seen a headline president defends doctor who believes in demon semen? I am reminded I saw the comedian Lewis Black. He was on some, he was on some talk show and
00:04:53
Speaker
He was asked, he said, you know, well, what kind of comedy material can you make out of, you know, this whole Trump thing, you know, the Trump administration? And he said with a perfectly straight face and all honesty, he said, there is no way possible I can make this shit any funnier than it already is. And, you know, so he's right. Just what you think. This thing can't get any more bizarre
00:05:21
Speaker
It does. It's like 2020 this year. So help me. Our grandchildren are going to be asking us, how do we survive 2020? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, they are. They can say, well, what was you doing during 2020? What did you do? What did you do to keep from losing your mind in 2020? Oh, yeah, absolutely.
00:05:46
Speaker
I mean, it's just, and I went on Twitter when I was reading about this nut job yesterday, and I'm looking at some of her tweets, like one where she threatens Facebook to put her videos back up or else God will destroy their servers. Patricia was up at four o'clock in the morning watching YouTube videos of this moment. She said she couldn't stop watching. She said it's incredible. I said, really? She's like, yeah, she's acting.
00:06:15
Speaker
Yeah, I couldn't stop watching these things. This woman is out. Because apparently, there are some videos where she comes out and she has a white lab coat. And she's talking like a rational person. And then she has the other video she does where she's talking about the demon semen. And the alien DNA. And the demonic dream sex and all that. And the vaccine that's going to,
00:06:43
Speaker
stop people from being religious. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like she's a skip, but apparently the only thing that Trump cares about is that she endorses this stuff. The Hydra, the Hydra, the Hydra, the Hydra, Clora, the hydroxychloroquine. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Apparently that's the only thing that he cares about. Yeah. And, um, and, and she claims that she's
00:07:11
Speaker
cure a whole bunch of people using this thing. And I said, OK, well, it's very simple. Just produce the people that you cure. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And everyone's asking, well, where's your? And there have been doctors who have responded to it being like, well, show us your data. Yeah. You've got this. Show us your data. Show us the results of the trials and everything. What control groups? They're asking all these questions. And a response is always do your own research.
00:07:38
Speaker
Well, see, now I have to say you're full of shit. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. I'm very sorry, but yeah, I'm gonna have to say you're full of shit. Yeah, absolutely. But other than that, you know, not much else is really going on. I mean, how can you compete with demon semen? Really? Listen.
00:08:01
Speaker
Nuff said. Yeah, exactly. Just as the great late Stan Lee said. But yeah, other than that, you know,
Gender Reveal and Amazon Registry
00:08:09
Speaker
we're just, we're still just kind of growing along with baby days and stuff. We haven't found out the sex yet. That'll probably be like next month or the month after the doctor said. That'd be a surprise.
00:08:20
Speaker
No, no, we want to know in advance. We don't want to be those people who's going to wait until the last minute. Because we want to prepare. We don't want to have stuff ready. We don't have to scramble to buy clothes for a kid at the last minute when we haven't known if it's going to be a boy or girl. Well, that's true, too. I mean, there's a financial consideration.
00:08:38
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, you know, knowing, so you buy the right stuff. Exactly, yeah. Also, you know, it's so funny because when I told my fiance about that, I asked her, you know, do you want to find out the sex before the baby's born? Because I personally did, right? I wanted to know before, but I wanted to know what she felt. And she's like, she's like, well, yeah, of course. Like, she thought it was, it was like, no question. She's like, of course, why wouldn't you? I'm like, oh, well, in America, there are some people who like to have it be a surprise. And she's like, that's so stupid.
00:09:10
Speaker
Yeah, because, listen, I mean, you know, really, it is more practical to know before. Exactly, yeah. So you can prepare properly, yeah. It is more practical. Yeah, so we got a registry up on Amazon and stuff like that now so people can go in and they can choose stuff to buy and we can, and I thought, what I thought would do is like the orders would be reserved or something, they'd send it later, but apparently they start sending it right away. So like, we've already got some of the stuff delivered to us.
00:09:36
Speaker
Oh, okay. Well, good. Well, your house is going to look like a warehouse. Yeah. Your apartment is going to look like a warehouse. Yeah. Well, we are starting to look at some other places. Like there's some, there's some nice houses actually in our area that are for rent that are not that about the same or, you know, not that much more expensive than what we're paying now. Oh, okay. Cool. Well, I'm glad to hear that everything is going along fine. Yeah. Yeah. Everything's going good. So, um, so yeah, hopefully, uh,
00:10:04
Speaker
things will continue going well and hopefully people will buy all the stuff on our list so we don't have to buy anything ourselves. One can only hope that people will take the hint. Yeah, yeah, I'd be like, just so you know, I got this. There's also, yeah.
00:10:26
Speaker
Yeah. Do not think, folks, that he is keeping you up to date on this baby. No, no, no, no. I'm saying, I'm saying- Because he's a proud papa. I'm saying give my ass money. Word.
00:10:44
Speaker
Nothing wrong with a little creative. Listen, folks, if you've been enjoying these podcasts, and you want to show your appreciation. Baby needs a new pair of everything. Yeah, it works. Yeah. And you know what's funny? When we were setting up the registry, I asked her, I'm like, can we put a PS5 on this? And she's like, what? No. I'm like, why not? And she's like, why were you putting a PS5 on a baby registry? I'm like, because I want a PS5. And she's like, why not? She's like, it's stuck for the baby. I'm like, why?
00:11:12
Speaker
I'm like, well, the baby can get entertained watching me play PS5. And since you will be stuck in the house babysitting, you will need something, you know, you need some entertainment, won't you? Here's what I'm saying. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you know.
00:11:31
Speaker
I mean the wife is going to be going out because you know son you're going to encourage her to go out and see her friends and socialize which means you have to stay and hold down the fort. Well especially because the um like in um the baby's due in January and like February and March is uh off season for me for work because most of the classes are out of session right they're on their uh semester break at that time so like I'm gonna be staying home most of the time anyway so I'm you know I'm gonna be
00:11:58
Speaker
And you know what? The kid's not gonna be awake the whole time. So I gotta have something to keep me busy. This is what I'm saying. Listen, I'm sold. She's like, no, no, no. And I'm like, all right, whatever. Women, women, you can't. Women, they don't, yeah. Women just don't understand. They don't understand what's important. They don't have their priorities. And just so nobody gets angry at us, sends us angry letters or something. We're just joking, obviously.
00:12:28
Speaker
I don't care if they hit me.
00:12:31
Speaker
I'm a grown ass man. All right. Okay. So all that out of the way, you know, we talked last week, we talked about a Brian Singer movie that had, that was enjoyable, but had some flaws that was X-Men Days of Future Past. And you decided that'd be a good set way to pick another movie that also is flawed by Brian Singer. And that is Superman Returns from 2006.
00:13:00
Speaker
Yeah, and you hit it right on the head because, like you said, last week we were talking about, you know, X-Men, Days of Future Past, which is an enjoyable movie, but it's seriously flawed. It's got its flaws.
00:13:19
Speaker
it's an enjoyable movie to watch. And during, in the course of that, I had another movie pick, but then I said, oh, you know something? We should just jump right to another movie that fits that exact same criteria. It's an enjoyable movie, but it's seriously flawed, which is Superman Returns. Absolutely, yeah. All right, so for anyone who doesn't remember about this movie, this is, Bryan Singer did something interesting with this because instead of doing
00:13:47
Speaker
a remake or a reboot, he went to Warner Brothers and he said, I want to do a sequel to Richard Donner's first two Superman movies. So this, and that was, that was surprising for a lot of people. Um, like nobody really expected someone to go that route because this was, this was before like the, the trend of doing sequels to movies that came out like 20, 30 years ago.
00:14:11
Speaker
But now it did kind of start that trend because then you had like Stallone coming back to Rocky and Rambo and, you know, Schwarzenegger coming back to the Terminator and stuff like that. But yeah, nobody had ever, this was, yeah, this was a radical kind of idea because everybody figured that he was gonna make like a whole brand new version.
00:14:38
Speaker
of Superman, you know, this is going to be a brand new version. And he said, no, no, no, no. He's just, he said, I'm just going to ignore Superman three, four and five and, you know, whatever. It was only three and four. Yeah. They never actually got around to five. Right. Three or four. And I'm just going to take up right from Superman too. Yeah. And, uh, yeah.
00:15:02
Speaker
And this was a movie that had been in development hell for like, oh god, like at least 10 years. Yeah, because, and that goes all the way back to the infamous Kevin Smith stories about working with John Peters when they were going to do when they're planning to do Superman Lips and
00:15:22
Speaker
Guys, if you have not seen that, like, you got to go on YouTube and look up Kevin Smith, John Peters and listen to him talk about his experiences working with the guy it's, it's, it's like the best stand up that's not even a stand up. Yeah, I, yeah, I have told people many times, matter of fact, I even said it here, folks.
00:15:44
Speaker
Kevin Smith in telling that story, that's like Richard Pryor level humor. Yeah. It is hilarious. I can't recommend the How You Know. Go on YouTube and find it. Something else to find also because at one time Nicholas Cage was going to play Superman.
00:16:07
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And Tim Burton was going to direct it. Tim Burton was going to direct. And there's a documentary movie, which also has Kevin Smith in it, where they're talking about the development of that particular thing. And what makes it so fascinating is that you actually see
00:16:31
Speaker
Um, they have some film of Nicholas Cage being fitted in a Superman costume. Yeah. Yeah. And this is a really good documentary. It's called the death of Superman lives. What happened? Right? Yeah. That's it. Directed by John snap. And yeah, it's a really, it's a really cool movie. Like we'll have to, we're going to have to cover that at some point as well. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. We're going to cover that. Cause it's, you know what?
00:16:54
Speaker
Watching it, you say to yourself, well, you know what? I can't see Nick. I can't quite buy Nicholas Cage's Superman. But yeah, I'd watch the hell out of that movie if they made it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like, that's what I kept thinking the whole thought after I finished watching that documentary. And I've seen it, like, twice now, that documentary. And both times after watching it, I couldn't help but think, you know what?
00:17:15
Speaker
that movie would have been absolute dog shit. Like it would have been a total train wreck, but I still want to see it. Yeah, I still would. I remember I wouldn't pay money to say I would have paid money drove into the and burnt up gas to go see that movie. Yeah, even though, like you said, I know that would have been dog shit. But hey,
00:17:36
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. All right. So now, what were your feelings when this movie came
Bryan Singer's Superman Returns
00:17:41
Speaker
out? Because you and I both, we gushed in our first episode way back when about how much Superman the movie, how important that was to us, how much it still resonates with us all these years later. So my attitude going into this was, I'm glad they're doing another, like basically rebooting Superman III.
00:18:03
Speaker
like that that was my attitude towards them because they're instead of trying to distance themselves because they spent so long trying to distance themselves from the Christopher Reeves movies when they were making these other when they're trying these other attempts like there was the there's the Tim Burton version there's also one that JJ Abrams worked on where
00:18:23
Speaker
it was gonna have like Kryptonian kung fu or something. And Lex Luthor was gonna be a CIA agent who was secretly a Kryptonian and all sorts of like, you know, basically trying to mix in like matrix elements and surprise twists into it and all that kind of crap. Yeah, yeah. Like you said, every other director and writer that they brought on to do a new Superman movie seemed determined to take it as far away from the Christopher Reeve
00:18:52
Speaker
version of Superman as possible. Now, what makes our man Brian Singer so different is that he was not interested in that at all because he worships
00:19:05
Speaker
Superman the movie. Right. You know, he loves that movie the way baby loves his rattle. Well, apparently Kevin, I don't know if this, I haven't actually seen or read this interview, but this is something I heard like secondhand from someone. So if I'm wrong about this, someone can correct me. But apparently Kevin Spacey said that when they were making usual suspects, Bryan Singer was going around telling anyone who would listen about his idea for remaking Superman three.
00:19:34
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I mean, apparently this was a dream project up here for a long time to do a Superman movie. Exactly, yeah. Now, having said that, let me just say this. You can love something so much that that love will actually get in the way.
00:20:00
Speaker
of what you're doing. Yes. And that is my feeling with Superman Returns, in that Bryan Singer loved Richard Donner's vision of Superman too much. Yeah. To the extent where that he could not actually have his own vision of it. He just had to do, he worked his money making off to recreate.
00:20:29
Speaker
is, you know, his vision to the point where what we have here in a weird way is more or less a remake of Superman, the movie. Yes. Yeah. It's a lot like, um, it reminds me a lot of The Force Awakens in that way.
00:20:44
Speaker
Yeah, because Force Awakens is the exact same thing, right? It's basically, it's a remake slash reboot of the first Star Wars movie. Yeah, it is, it is. Much as I like the Force Awakens, it's a new hope. Right, it is, it totally is. Like, you know, the mysterious,
00:21:06
Speaker
you know, the mysterious hero in the desert who is naturally force-powerful. Even like the time when they meet Han and Chewie and they run across them, it's still like the exact same point, you know, percentage-wise in the movie that, you know, Ben and Luke meet Han and Chewie in most isolated. Yeah. And even down to a planet-killing weapon. I mean, it's just all right there.
00:21:29
Speaker
They had, as a matter of fact, they even had the scene in there where they're talking about how to blow up Starkiller bass. And even Han Solo says, wait, how many of these damn things do we have to blow up?
00:21:40
Speaker
And also, you got the old mentor being struck down by the villain. Yeah, exactly. You know, hot insects got this robot with the secret message that he's got to deliver. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Everything. It's like, you know, the entire time I'm watching, like, this seems a lot like a new hope. After I was done watching, I'm like, that was basically a new hope. Yeah. Yeah.
00:22:05
Speaker
And yeah, in this movie, there's a lot of scenes in here. There's a lot of things. I do give singer credit in that he does...
00:22:18
Speaker
try to do some things that are different. And I like, even though I don't like Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane, I felt she's the most born Lois Lane I've ever seen in movies or TV. But I like how he tried to do something different with their relationship and show that she can fall in love with somebody other than Superman.
00:22:38
Speaker
Yeah, and I'm glad he also avoided the typical route that would happen in this movie where either Richard White, played by James Marsden, would be a total dick. No, he's a great guy, right? And there's no friction between him and Clark or him and Superman, right? They get along perfectly fine. Him and Clark work together to try to find out where Lois disappeared to and all that.
00:23:07
Speaker
They have a mature relationship. They're two adult men. They don't act like high school guys fighting over the cheerleader. Right. And also, because this was this is one of the biggest feelings I thought of Spider-Man 2, right? When at the end of it, because you have John Jameson, who's such a stand up guy in that movie, right? Even down to him saying like, you know, well, how come you're not inviting your friend Peter Parker to the wedding? Right. And then at the end of the movie, she leaves him at the altar.
00:23:35
Speaker
right? And then runs back to Peter Parker, who's been a dick the whole movie. But he's been trying and he's, you know, he's been trying to he's been trying to get her to, to get her to leave, to leave john and come with him like when he's reciting her poetry, and that really cringe worthy scene in the at the party. And, and then she runs back to his house in a wedding dress, leaving this other guy, this other nice guy, who's an astronaut at the at the altar. And
00:24:05
Speaker
there's none of that in this movie. Like, you know, Lois makes a clear decision to be with, to be with Richard and to, you know, stay true to, with Richard. And you see that, that moment, I realized it when I was rewatching it, is that moment is on when they go back, when they're on the roof, right? Yeah. And he sets her down and then they almost kiss, but I noticed they both stop.
00:24:28
Speaker
Right. And then, you know, he pulls away from her and she looks like she's about to say anything and he gives her this look like, no, you don't have to say anything else.
00:24:37
Speaker
Yeah. And at that moment, he's pretty much accepted that their relationship is over. This is one of the things. Matter of fact, this is like probably the main thing that Singer gets right in this movie, the progression of the relationship between Superman, Clark, and Lois. Yeah. You know, in that, you know, this is a very mature, matter of fact, this is probably the most mature relationship between Superman and Lois we've seen in any other movies.
00:25:06
Speaker
Yeah, I think so. You know, I, I only wish like I said that we had had like another actress because I don't know Kate Bosworth does nothing for me as Lois.
00:25:19
Speaker
Sorry, go ahead. No, no, no, go ahead. So my thing is like, I see where you're coming from. I see where a lot of people are coming from. I see some flashes of it in her. Like when she's grilling the PR rep on the shuttle plane, like, and like, you know, and like, she's, you know, she's being very tenacious when she's like, there are moments there. But the problem is, I think it's just like her role is not written very well. And Singer just didn't really give her very good direction.
00:25:47
Speaker
Okay. And I noticed that as I'm looking back and I'm thinking about his movies, that seems to be kind of a trend with his movies. Like his, the female characters in this movie tend to be very underwritten. They tend not to have a whole lot to do in these movies. Or when they are the focus, like, you know, in, you know, say like Days of Future Past or Apocalypse with Mystique, they're very badly done.
00:26:15
Speaker
Oh, they either like swing one way or the other. Yeah, yeah. So he doesn't really have a good handle on female characters. He doesn't seem to really know how to work with female actors. Like, and you look at, I mean, you know, you look at most of his movies, it's mostly male dominated cast.
00:26:32
Speaker
Because that PR woman that's on the plane was played by Peter Wilson. I would have liked to see her play Lois Lane. She would have been a memorable Lois Lane. But again,
00:26:50
Speaker
And I've had discussions with people about this movie and about how Lois Lane, you know, she's not as, you know, to me, she's not as energetic as Lois Lane has been portrayed in other movies. And they tell me, well, that's because it's five years on and, you know, she's got a kid, so she's a little bit more grounded now. And so that's, you know, something, OK. On that basis, I can go for that because that is what happens sometimes with women, you know, they have a child. And yeah, they do become more grounded.
00:27:19
Speaker
they become more responsible. So she's not like the flighty lowest lane anymore that can just drop off and go around the world on some kind of assignment. So yeah, I don't buy completely, but I understand the argument.
00:27:38
Speaker
No, yeah, there are definite issues with Howard characters portrayed in the movie. And I don't want to put it all on Kate Bosworth because I think she was given this material. And she's a pretty inexperienced actress at this point in her career. Well, she works with what she's got. I mean, she can only work with what they give her. So yeah.
00:28:02
Speaker
Right, I mean like what had she really been before this? She was in, you know, her biggest thing was Beyond the Sea with Kevin Spacey. Yeah, Kevin Spacey was also in that too. That was like her biggest role. Everything else, like she had very like, you know, small parts before that. So like, I mean, she wasn't really at a place in her career. And also like,
00:28:25
Speaker
they went with someone way too young for what this role calls for, because I can't picture her being a seasoned reporter five years ago, because she looks like, she looks like she's like, what, 24, 25 in this movie? So like five years ago, she would have been, she would have still been in high school. And see also, here's the thing, okay, if we go by what, you know, Singer says, okay, and this is a sequel,
00:28:54
Speaker
to the first two movies. So therefore, we're supposed to believe this is the same character as played by Margot Kidder. And I can't buy it. And I can't see it. Yeah, yeah. You know, I can't see her being, whereas there's some other characters, I look at them, some of them I look at them and I say, yeah, okay. I can buy this as being the same character. I can buy this as being the same character. But other characters, I look at them and I say, no, I can't buy it, you know.
00:29:21
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And she's the number one that, no.
00:29:27
Speaker
All right, now we got to talk about, you know, Brandon Ralph as Superman, because he took a lot of shit for this movie. And it was I definitely think it was like Kate Bosworth. Yeah, she deserves some of the some of the criticism she got. But Brandon Ralph didn't deserve a single speck of ink that was wasted on criticism of his performance. Brandon Ralph, this was his first
00:29:53
Speaker
major motion picture. I mean, this was a mega major motion picture. Yeah. So he's playing Superman, an iconic character. And what Singer apparently wanted him to do, he did not want him to play Superman his way. He wanted him to be Christopher Reeve.
00:30:18
Speaker
Right. As Superman and Clark Kent. And, of course, he's an inexperienced actor. This is the first big role. You don't want to fuck it up. So he goes along with it. So, yeah, so I don't blame Brandon. Matter of fact, he does a damn good job of being Christopher Reeve. He does. Yeah, he does. He does a very good job. Yeah.
00:30:40
Speaker
And we did, and now we finally did get to see his Superman in Christ's Uninfinite Earth. So we got to see what he would have done with that. And it's too bad that Singer told him to do a coastal reef impression because Brandon Routh's Superman, I would have loved to see that movie. I would have loved to see that too. I'd still love to see that movie. You know, I'd still love to see that movie.
00:30:59
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, he's still not. He's not that old that he can't still, you know, do Superman movies. Well, no, I mean, absolutely not. And plus, you know, now he's done with Legends. And, you know, there's who knows what's going on with Henry Cavill. You've got Tyler Hoekland. He's already going to be doing Superman on TV. So give Brandon Routh a Superman movie, then. Yeah, give a movie. Why not?
Character Performances and Comparisons
00:31:24
Speaker
I mean, the guy deserves it. He does. Definitely. I mean, because he he
00:31:30
Speaker
He does a good job in this movie. Now, after watching it, because I watched it yesterday, and I haven't seen it for a few years, and having more years now, having seen them on other things, you know, and so I think I could be a little bit more objective about his performance, and I'm looking at it, and I'm saying, you know something?
00:31:54
Speaker
this guy really had to subliminate a lot of probably what he wanted to do in order to give Singer what he wanted. And there's a kind of genius in the way that he does that, in the way that he gives him Christopher Reeve. There's a kind of genius in that. Yeah, yeah. Well, he's also, there's one thing he's able to do in this movie that I noticed this last time around is he,
00:32:23
Speaker
He plays Superman as Superman, right? Like this is Superman. This is who Superman is. He does, but there is like this subtext of melancholy in his performance. Yeah. It doesn't overcome him, right? It's not like, you know, like the Spider-Man woe is me thing, but there's just like a hint of it there. And he does a really good job of bringing that out when, at certain moments, like when,
00:32:50
Speaker
Like when they're up in the air and he's talking about how he can hear everything and how he, and he says, you know, you say that the world doesn't, you wrote that the world doesn't need a savior, but every day I hear people crying out for one. And then when he says, and then he apologizes to her, right? That's, that he, he just has that hint of melancholy in his voice and it works really well. And there's a look that he has when he comes back to Daily Planet.
00:33:17
Speaker
And it comes back. And except for Jimmy Olsen, nobody's really happy to see, you know, nobody cares that he's back. Yeah, not even Perry White. And there's a scene where he takes his suitcases and he sticks them like in this room and he sees this cutout of Perry White smiling and everything like that. And he looks at that and he turns around and he looks in and he looks back and he looks into the city room and there's this look on his face like, you know, I didn't expect this shit. I thought that, you know,
00:33:45
Speaker
And the thing that really, I, okay, and this is kind of mean-spirited, people actually like, they don't like Clark in this movie. Yeah, yeah. A lot of people like, you know, Clark Kent, like, you know, really, you know, whereas in the other movies,
00:34:07
Speaker
You know, Clark Kent is this bummer guy that, you know, people know he's there, but, you know, it's like, yeah, well, that's just Clark, you know. Yeah, but they're polite to him, though, right? Nobody's addicted to him. Yeah. I mean, in this movie, you got people that are just, you know, they look at him like there's one guy that says, Clark, Perry says he wants you now. Yeah, yeah. Guy's got a serious attitude. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm like, what the hell did Clark, and it's so contrary to how
00:34:33
Speaker
Brandon Ralph plays Clark Kent, that it just doesn't make any sense. Exactly. Like, because the only exception is, well, you know, Perry White's kind of dismissive in the beginning when Clark comes back, but other than that, he's, you know, it's just like, Clark's just kind of there. Like, when he comes into the office asking about, you know, how he can help with Lois and, you know, and Perry, you know, is, you know, is deferential, is respectful for him there. But, and then also,
00:35:02
Speaker
Um, Richard is very, is very respectful of Clark. He's very nice to him, right? Like, when he meets him, he's like, he's like, you know, Oh, it's nice to meet you. I've heard so much about you. And, you know, Clark looks like he looks, he looks, he's like, Oh, wow. Some, someone besides Jimmy missed me. You know, Lois must, and then he says, yeah, Jimmy won't shut up about you. Yeah. Yeah.
00:35:22
Speaker
Because it's like, yeah, OK, well, nobody cares that he's back. Yeah, and yeah, Lois is kind of a bitch to him, too, as well. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh my god. There's that first one. She's being nice to him. They have that kind of awkward hug thing when they see each other. Yeah, they don't know if they should hug or kiss or shake hands. Right.
00:35:44
Speaker
And then, you know, she says like, you know, yeah. And she's like, well, tell me all about your trip. And then, you know, she just kind of drops it. And then later when they're when they talk like he's she's just very dismissive and rude to him for no reason. Right. Yeah. Very rude. Yeah. Very rude. Which like to me goes contrary to, you know, the whole relationship that they have, because, yeah, you know, her and Clark are supposed to have like this rivalry, you know, for the be the best reporter.
00:36:14
Speaker
everything like that. And I mean, you know, they're friends. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I mean, you haven't seen the guy for five years, which also is another thing that I said, you know, some the people in Metropolis can't be this stupid.
00:36:27
Speaker
that Clark Kent comes back after five years. The exact day he comes back, Superman decides to come back too. Even the kid picked up water. He looks at Clark Kent and he turns his head and he looks at TV and he said, oh shit. Well, there is one scene I really liked is that scene when Richard and Lois are talking about Superman.
00:36:53
Speaker
And Richard notices Clark and, you know, he's like, hey, Lois, how tall would you say Clark is? And, you know, she's like, you know, oh, about like six, three, six, four. And it's like, what, like two, two, 25 times weight. And they're like, and they're both kind of looking at him. And then he looks up and he kind of looks around, like kind of dumbfoundedly. And then they just laugh, right? And that's exactly how it goes with Clark and Superman, right? That's part of the, it's his whole persona he creates for Clark Kent.
00:37:24
Speaker
that makes you realize that even if he might resemble Superman, like there's no way you can think he's Superman. Yeah. Well, that's a whole thing. Well, as we talked about in Superman, Christopher Reeve was so brilliant in that because we had talked about that one scene that for me is the best special effect in the whole movie where you actually see him transform. Exactly. Superman right in front of your eyes. And when he does that, you understand how Clark Kent gets away with it. People just say,
00:37:53
Speaker
Well, it's just a pair of glasses. No, it's not the glasses. No, yeah, exactly. Christopher Reeve shows you in that one scene how he pulls it off. Right. And he purposely wears suits that are like a size too big. So it looks like he's physically small. Like it's all about creating an illusion with his character.
00:38:12
Speaker
I've always wondered if there was a story to be written where Clark Kent before he embarked on his career as a reporter, he goes to the actor studio in New York and he studies to be an actor.
00:38:29
Speaker
I don't know if there's, there was a, there was kind of a reference in, Mark Wade did a new version of Superman's origin. It was called Superman Birthright. This was in the early 2000s, I think I want to say. And in Birthright, when they were preparing him to be Superman, there is this scene when Martha's telling him like, you know, your father and I once saw this play where it was about these twin brothers. And at the end of the play, you find out that the brothers were actually played by the same actor.
00:38:59
Speaker
And she's like, but he made each performance different. So you thought you were able to believe that there were two different people. And she's like, so study that craft, like find books on acting and study that craft. So she tells him to do this. And it's clear that he does from the way he acts in the book, but it never shows him like actually going to study or anything like that. So I think that's probably the closest thing I've ever seen at least. Because I've always thought that, yeah, Clark Kent would have to be
00:39:28
Speaker
a hell of a good actor to pull off being Clark Kent so that people will look at him and they might say, yeah, well, you know, he kind of looks like Superman, but not Clark, nah, he couldn't. Exactly, yeah. But I love how that little kid Jason, how he picks up on him, gives his look and he just looks at the TV and he looks back and Clark is looking down at him like, shut up, kid, don't say nothing.
00:39:58
Speaker
One of the things I like too about his Clark Kent is that his might be like my ideal version of Clark Kent because he's just a total wallflower. Somebody you don't even notice is there. So it's totally believable how someone like him could basically hide in plain sight of Superman. And even why he'd be a good reporter because you never know he's there. So you never notice that he's standing in the room as you're talking about a criminal conspiracy or whatever.
00:40:25
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And I thought he does. It's like you would turn around and say, Oh, shit, kid. Well, how long have you been there? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I think he does a really good job of that. And it's, it's an underrated aspect of this movie that I wish we'd gotten to see more of. And
00:40:45
Speaker
I love that scene when Lois comes back down from the roof after meeting Superman and Clark's already back there and he's like stuffing the burrito in his mouth. Yeah, yeah. I always love it when they do them. I always love those scenes that they have where he changes in the Superman and he takes Lois someplace and then, you know, she comes back and her head is still all in the clouds and everything like that. And he shows up as Clark and he just further discombobulates.
00:41:13
Speaker
Yeah, he messes with her head. I just want to mention real quick before I forget that one of the pleasures I got out of this movie was that it had the woman who, after Margot Kidder, is my favorite Lois Lane, Noel Neal.
00:41:33
Speaker
who played Lois Lane in the TV series, The Adventures of Superman from the 1950s. She's the old woman whose fortune is stolen by Lex Luthor. Right. This is the beginning of the movie. And the original Jimmy Olsen, Jack Larson, plays the bartender. Yeah, yeah. And Noah Neal, wasn't she also in some of the serials as well?
00:41:55
Speaker
Yes, she was. She was in the serials. Yeah. And I love that Jack Larson is still wearing the bow tie. Yeah, he's still wearing the bow tie. Yeah. They had a nice little scene in there when after Superman saves the airplane, which is probably the best scene in the whole movie. And the two Jimmy Olsen's, you know, they cut to the two of them and they're hugging. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what? I don't know. Stuff like that kind of gives me like a nice warm feeling. I like, you know.
00:42:24
Speaker
Well, now that you mentioned that, it's a good transition to talking about Sam Huntington as Jimmy Olsen, and who I think he does a great job as Jimmy.
00:42:33
Speaker
Like, he's a little bit too over exuberant when it comes to Clark. I think it's kind of like, I never realized you were never like this close to him in the previous movies. Yeah, it's kind of like a puppy dog kind of worship. Yeah, it's a little weird. Yeah, it is. It is. It's like, you know, like, oh my God, oh, oh, Clark, oh, man, I'm so glad to see you back. Go here, sit here. Here, have a pork chop. Hold on, I want to get you a little more. Yeah, it's...
00:43:00
Speaker
It's a little over the top. It's a little too much. Okay. Yeah. I realize you're glad to see the guy, but you know, dial it down a bit, bro. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, but, but otherwise I thought he did a really good job. He, uh, you really did a, he really kind of captured what Jimmy's all about. Well, I like Jimmy Olsen should always have that exuberance that you full, you know,
00:43:27
Speaker
exuberance and I've always seen that him and Clark have more like, some people say, oh yeah, well, it's a father-son kind of thing. No, it's not, it's like a brother kind of thing. Yeah, because they're not really that far apart in age, at least I think so. They're not supposed to be that far apart in age. Well, in the comics, like he's Clark's best friend. Like that's why in the comics when he married him and Lois got married, Jimmy was his best man.
00:43:53
Speaker
Right. Exactly. Yeah. So it's not like, you know, yeah, I mean, uh, what's his name? Perry White is more like a father figure. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, you know, for Jimmy Olsen. Clark is like his older brother. I also like that. You know, Clark and Lois, they're like his older brother and his older sister. Yeah. And also I like that, um, you know, when Clark finds out that Lois is, um,
00:44:21
Speaker
basically engaged since like a prolonged engagement and you know she's got a kid and you know he's looks you know he looks distraught and you know jimmy's like hey you want to go get a beer like you like he there's and i like that little scene of them together in the bar yeah exactly yeah and oh and for anyone else who
00:44:43
Speaker
Cause I did see some complaints about this. Oh, well, you know, Clark Kent shouldn't be drinking beer. That's such a bad role model. It's like, like, you know, he's super mad. He, he could drink like an entire keg and he wouldn't feel a thing. Yeah. But why wouldn't he want to drink a beer? I know. It's like, I hate when people are, I've seen people get uptight about that kind of stuff. Like, Oh, well superheroes should never drink it. I mean, just shut up. Of course they should. Yeah. Yeah.
00:45:08
Speaker
I'm sure that Batman enjoys champagne once or a while after he's finished whooping the Joker's ass. Well, Batman, I think I would see as not, just because he's so in that mode. He's so devoted to the mission. And there's that part in Dark Knight Returns when Gordon says to Bruce, you had us going for years, sipping your ginger ale, making us all think it was champagne.
00:45:33
Speaker
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's also that scene, and if you remember in The Dark Knight when he's at the fundraiser for Harvey Dent, like he walks out to the balcony, he's got the glass of champagne, he just spills the champagne over the edge. Yeah, yeah. And I believe that Gordon tells them, because they go out for dinner or something like that, and he's drinking, and like he's throwing them back one after another. Gordon said, you're making them for lost time, I said. Exactly, yeah, yeah.
00:46:02
Speaker
But yeah, but, but other characters, you know, you know I totally see them, you know, have that is a good point you make because Bruce Wayne, he's such a code. He's such a control freak that he would not want to take a substance into his body that would.
00:46:17
Speaker
alter his mood or his consciousness. Or impair his abilities in any way, yeah. Right, yeah, exactly. So he probably wouldn't drink. But yeah, but everybody else, like, you know, guys like Green Lantern and Green Arrow, I see them for going out for beers every weekend. Oh, yeah, definitely. Definitely. Yeah.
00:46:33
Speaker
And yeah, especially Superman with his metabolism, he probably can't get drunk anywhere. No, it's like that scene in The Flash in the TV show, right? When Barry downs like a whole bunch of shots and he tells, you know, Sisko and Caitlin, he's like, I can't get drunk.
00:46:51
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. I physically can't. My metabolism works too fast. Yeah, it burns it up too fast. And so that one time when they want to have, give them a celebratory drink, Cisco has to make him like this special strong, like 500 proof alcohol to make him feel anything. Yeah.
00:47:09
Speaker
But yeah, and yeah, he does, Huntington does a really good job, I thought. And you also mentioned Perry White, and that, you know, played by the great Frank Langella, who's also a good addition, but he doesn't really, he doesn't have a lot to do, is the problem. And he's not bombastic. No. Frank Langella is dignified and distinguished. Yeah. Perry White is not dignified and distinguished. Yeah.
00:47:38
Speaker
You know, he's a very bombastic. Although, I have to say, the moment where he says, Great Caesar's ghost, he delivers it like it's a prayer. It's a wonderful moment where he says, when Superman, he catches the globe, you know, the planet globe, that's falling. And it's falling on Perry White, and Superman catches it. And Franklin Jelly, he's looking up, and the camera is right on his face, and he says, Great Caesar's ghost. And the way he says it, you just want to put your hands together and bow your head.
00:48:11
Speaker
And speaking of the Daily Planet, and we were just talking about this in our Facebook group, I loved how they designed the building. Oh my god, it's gorgeous. It's art deco, it's Baroque, it's
00:48:25
Speaker
It has its own unique, just like I was saying, the Daily Planet is just as much a character in the Superman legend as Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen and Clark. And it should have its own unique look. Yeah. Because all of these characters, their lives revolve around the Daily Planet. Right. And that's something that the Superman in the movie, I don't recall that Daily Planet building is really standing out outside of the globe.
00:48:56
Speaker
Are we talking about the Christopher Reeve movie? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, no, no, no. Yeah. It didn't really have as a, well, it did if you're from New York because they, they used the daily news. It stood in. Right. Yeah. Or, you know, so if you've ever been to the daily news building, which I have when I was.
00:49:14
Speaker
taking a journalism and they took us on a trip there, you know, it's, you know, at one time it was like a New York kind of landmark, but I like this look of the daily planning much better because you see the city room and even though you see computers and stuff like that, it's still, to me, it still looks like it could be in the 1940s. Yeah, exactly. Like I've always, as I was watching the movie, I was thinking, you know what, when you think of,
00:49:43
Speaker
When you think of the Metropolis, it should be like Art Deco style. Yeah. And when you think of Gotham, it should be like Gothic style. Yeah.
00:49:55
Speaker
Yeah. And that's something that I feel like some of the movies kind of got away from, like you had, you know, as much as I love the Nolan movies, well, at least the first two, and as much as I love the fact that, you know, my hometown is used heavily, especially in The Dark Knight, it was all filmed in Chicago, like it just doesn't feel like Gotham. No, it doesn't, it doesn't, you know, which is why when we were talking about
00:50:19
Speaker
The Tim Burton movies. That's why I think they work so well for me because Gotham. Okay, that's how Gotham should look. Yeah, you know Gotham Batman works best in an environment.
00:50:35
Speaker
He doesn't work good in an environment where the city looks real. Gotham City shouldn't look real. And as a matter of fact, Metropolis shouldn't look that really, Metropolis should look too clean. It should look like, what's the best thing I can put? Have you ever been to Universal?
00:50:57
Speaker
Down in Florida? Yeah, yeah. Okay, you see how ultra clean it is? How everything is nice and bright and clean and shiny? That's how metropolis should look all the time. Metropolis, you look like it never gets dirty. Yeah. Oh, actually, here's an interesting thing. I'm just looking at the, I got the trivia page open. Do you know who's originally supposed to play Perry White in this movie? Like Frank Langella was not the first choice. Hugh Laurie was cast.
00:51:24
Speaker
Okay, Bingo. Like he would have done a really good job. He can play bombastic. Yeah, yeah. But there was, but because House became really popular, there were scheduling conflicts, so then he had to back out and then Frank Langella was cast. There was not one scene where Frank Langella, where he throws open his door and screams, can't get in here. Yeah, yeah. Or Lane getting, you know, yeah, you know, that's very well.
00:51:51
Speaker
Franklin Judd doesn't have a cigar in the corner of his mug, you know, like J. Jonah Jameson and the other, what was the other Perry White from the movies? What was his name? Jackie Cooper. Jackie Cooper. Yeah, yeah. And then you had Lane Smith on Lewis and Clark. Yeah. Who was kind of like a Kentucky Fried version of Perry White.
00:52:14
Speaker
Yeah, that was a really odd. We don't see, I like Lane Smith. Like I thought he did a good job, but I think they tried to play, they played up that Elvis shit way too much. Yeah, that was the thing. Yeah. Yeah. They made that instead of great Caesar's gold, he said what great great shades of Elvis. Yeah. Great shades of Elvis. Yeah.
00:52:33
Speaker
Yeah, they kind of like went a little bit too far with the Elvis thing. Although, you know what, I understand why they did that because modern audiences probably with a lot of, you know, nobody would understand why he says great Caesar's ghost. Yeah. Well, I wouldn't mind him saying great Caesar, but they made him so obsessed with Elvis that it became ridiculous. Yeah. It just, they took that one
00:52:58
Speaker
I mean, like even, yeah. It's not even a character trait. It doesn't even, it doesn't even make any sense. Cause like Perry White, you know, he says great Caesar's ghost, but he's not like a Roman file, right? He doesn't have like all this Caesar stuff in his office or anything. He's not dressing up as Caesar or any of that kind of shit. So it's just like, how would you think that, why would you do that with Lane Smith to make him like, you know, embarrass him like that? Matter of fact, in the,
00:53:26
Speaker
1950s, the Adventures of Superman, the TV series. I don't remember what it was, but there is an episode called Great Caesar's Ghost. Where is explaining why Perry White says that? Oh, really? Remember what the explanation was? I don't remember. I do remember that he believes he's being haunted by the spirit of Julius Caesar. And Julius Caesar says to him at one point, well, you summon me up because you keep calling me. You keep saying, Great Caesar's Ghost. So here I am.
00:53:56
Speaker
That's kind of ridiculous. And I know that at one point in the show, I believe it's at the end, there is explanation. Somebody either Clark or Jimmy asked him, why do you say great seasons? And he, see, now I got to go on YouTube and I got to find the episode. Because I know that there's a, there is explanation why he says it. Yeah. Okay. All right. And, um,
00:54:22
Speaker
Now, I want to talk about Richard White, James Marsden. I totally understand why, because so when this movie was in production, when Bryan Singer was starting to get casting and all that, this is when Fox got their panties in a twist.
00:54:42
Speaker
because as soon as they found out that Singer was gonna do Superman Returns, they went to him like, what the fuck? You're supposed to be doing our third X-Men movie. And he's like, well, you guys told me you weren't even sure when you're gonna do it or if you will do it at all. And so I got offered this and I decided to take it. And Fox like, no, no, no, we're doing it.
00:55:02
Speaker
And we're going to do it without you now. So fuck you. And and Brad says, why don't you just wait until I finish this movie, then I'll go back and do it. Like, no, we're doing it now. And we're going to have it come out before Superman returns so we can beat you at the box office.
00:55:16
Speaker
And then- Very childish. Very childish. And then it started this like casting war, because, you know, Singer went to the actors he's worked with before, right? So he went to Marsden, he went to Famke Janssen, he went to Sean Ashmore, and he asked them if they want, if they're gonna be in Superman Returns.
00:55:36
Speaker
I'm pretty sure he wanted Ashmore for Jimmy Olsen. Not sure what he wanted Jansen for. I doubt it was Lois Lane, but maybe it was for the Kitty Kowalski row.
00:55:47
Speaker
Mm, that would probably make sense. Okay, yeah. Maybe, I got just speculation on my part. But you know what, they had agreed to do The Last Stand, so they had to back out. But Marsden, he's like, well, you didn't give me shit to do in the first two movies. Singer filmed more scenes with me in the first two movies, and you deleted them from the movie. And now singer's offering me a bigger part, so I'm gonna be in Superman Returns.
00:56:14
Speaker
He had more to do in Superman Returns than he did in those X-Men movies. Yeah. And what something else I noticed as I'm watching him is he could have been Superman.
00:56:28
Speaker
You know what? You took the words right out of my mouth. I was just getting ready to say that, too, that I said, you know what? I'm watching it, and I'm looking at him. I said, damn, you know what? Jay's Mars could have been a pretty damn good Superman as well. Yeah. I mean, you know, he plays this really stand-up guy. He's got blue eyes, naturally. He's got the right build. He's got the right physique. He's got the right demeanor and personality. Yeah, he would have made a great Superman. He would have been pretty good at that. I'm looking at it. You know, I was watching it. I said, yeah, you know what? This guy could have been Superman himself.
00:56:59
Speaker
Which also explains why Lois fell in love with him. I was literally just about to say that. So you took the words right out of my mouth. Exactly, yeah. So it makes sense why Lois fell in love. He's Superman without the superpowers. Yeah, yeah. But then you got Jason White who, he doesn't look like either of them. No, no.
00:57:25
Speaker
Are we sure that Lois didn't have something going on with Jimmy on the side? And you know something? That is something, and I've said this before, I hate this in movies when they give us characters that are supposed to be related, father and son, brother and sister, mother and daughter, whatever. And they look nothing alike. They don't look anything like each other.
00:57:47
Speaker
You know, this kid, he doesn't look anything. Although I do like this kid a lot because they let him be a kid. Yeah, I remember. I remember reading a Roger Ebert's review of this movie and he was complaining about about Jason and saying like, well, if they're going to give Superman a kid sidekick, why can't they give him kind of like one of the like one of the sassy kids from like spy kids or something like that? I'm like, that would have been so fucking stupid. No, no, no, no.
00:58:14
Speaker
No, I'm glad, yeah. I like the fact that he's just a normal, regular kid. Yeah, yeah. He acts just like a regular, normal kid, right? He acts just like a regular kid. Right, he says things just come off the top of his head that a kid would say. Like, you know, when he meets Clark and Clark says, oh, I'm an old friend of your mom's, she's like, oh, she never mentioned you. Yeah, no, she knows anything about it. Or when he meets Lex Luthor and he just says, you're bald.
00:58:42
Speaker
And it's really touching when him and Lois, they go to the hospital to see Superman, who has, of course, pushed the kryptonite continent into outer space. And he goes, see him. And they just look at him. And the kid just simply says, I like him. Yeah. He's like, I hope he gets better. I like him. Yeah. Oh, that's, you know, if that doesn't touch you, you don't have no heart. Yes.
00:59:05
Speaker
That's what kids are. They say, you know, kids say exactly what they feel. There's the old saying, if you want to know the truth, go ask a kid. Yeah. Yeah. Cause they'll tell you. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So yeah, I thought he did. It's just that whole storyline is just like problematic in a lot of different ways.
00:59:22
Speaker
Oh boy, that's it. Yeah, people have a lot of problems. Okay, you want to hear my problem with it first and then we're going to let you get on your problem. Okay. I've heard people for years complain about this, talking about, y'all, this is a horrible movie because Superman, he's a deadbeat dad.
00:59:38
Speaker
How do you figure, wait a minute, where do you get that from? Yeah. He did not know she was pregnant. Right. He left the planet not knowing she was pregnant. Well, he had sex with her. He should have known. How would he know when he kissed her and he made her forget everything that happened that they had sex? Yeah. So I want to see, I want to see the part where Lois ended up pregnant. She said, how did this shit happen?
01:00:05
Speaker
Yeah. So, um, so there are a few things about, like, I agree with you totally about the deadbeat dad thing. It doesn't make any sense. And like, you know what? Well, he had sex with, well, you know, I've had sex with a bunch of women too. I never expected any of them would think, um, have gotten pregnant. None of them ever told me anything about it. So as far as I know, I don't have any, any love children running around out there. Right. I mean, if,
01:00:30
Speaker
And, okay, and speaking for myself, I know I have friends who, yeah, they've had women, they had a relationship with, you know, years ago, come back in their life and say, oh, well, you've got a son and you've got a daughter. And they freaked out because they said, well, how come you never told me? Yeah, yeah. And the women, you know, and the women said, well, you know, I slept with you, but I didn't want to be married to you or nothing like that. I didn't want to, you know, it had, you know, people don't want to believe shit like that happens, but it does happen.
01:00:58
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it does. And so the deadbeat dad thing never made any sense to me. No, but the continuity is problematic. And it does like you mentioned the amnesia kiss. Yeah, when Lois finds out that she's pregnant, right, you know, okay, maybe she maybe it's maybe she dated Richard right after and so she thinks Richard's the actual biological father. But
01:01:23
Speaker
when Jason pushes that piano across the room and then she realizes he's got superpowers, like at that moment, you know, she'd be wondering, when did I fuck Superman? Bingo. And that creates some issues. Yeah. Now the problem is, is that, also the five year timeline doesn't quite work because what, did she immediately start dating Richard like as soon as Superman disappeared?
01:01:52
Speaker
Anyway, you look at it. Okay, it goes back to what you were saying. Either Lois was doing a lot of fooling around that we didn't know about and Superman didn't know about, nobody knew about. Or, I mean, because when she popped up pregnant, shouldn't she have freaked out and said, well, listen, I know my name is not Mary Magdalene, so how did I get pregnant? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the timeline just doesn't,
01:02:23
Speaker
you know, the time it don't job. Yeah. And also there's another issue too, is that, well, and part of this is because Brian Singh was never exactly clear on the timeline. He says it's a loose follow-up, but it doesn't follow those movies continuity strictly. No. So, and that just, it creates a whole lot of questions about what exactly is going on here. And like- First of all, the Superman that I know, or that I think I know, Superman I know would never abandon earth.
01:02:53
Speaker
Mm-hmm. That's the first thing. I don't see that, that he just packs up and says, well, I'm just gonna go see if Krypton is still there. Why? Now, here's the thing. You know it's not there. But here's an unintentional tie-in to that, right? So in Supergirl, in 1984 Supergirl, there's a radio announcer report that Superman is off in space.
01:03:19
Speaker
So there is that kind of that little connection there. So maybe he puts Supergirl in charge of taking care of stuff while he was gone. And I could see that. And even though we don't see them, we can just take it as a given that there are other superheroes. Well, they do reference Gotham as well. And Jason also is wearing Aquaman pajamas.
01:03:41
Speaker
Yeah. So we can take it as a given that, yeah, well, there are other superheroes around. So he doesn't feel like he's leaving the planet completely unprotected. But still, I don't see Superman just packing up and just saying, OK, well, I got to go see if Krypton is still there. I'm sorry. That doesn't work for me.
01:04:04
Speaker
Now, there is also the Cal Penn character. Stanford is his name, I believe. So he actually had a bigger role originally. He was supposed to be a former science reporter for the Daily Planet, who was bribed by Luther to plant false evidence of Krypton still existing.
01:04:26
Speaker
So that would have drawn Superman away, and then that would have allowed Lex to get off because Superman would have to come and testify. Now see, that would have worked for me. That would have worked. Yeah. And it also explains why Kal Penn's character knows all this stuff.
01:04:47
Speaker
Yeah, because he doesn't say much in the movie. I think he doesn't say much in the movie. Well, I don't think he says anything. But he knows an awful lot. Yeah. Like, he seems to know all the properties of, you know, kryptonite and, you know, everything. Now, see, if they had left that in the movie, where, like you said, he planted, you know, the evidence that Krypton is still out there. Yeah, OK. See, then I would have bought it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:05:15
Speaker
All right, that's actually- As usual, they cut the stuff out of the movie that makes sense, okay. Exactly, yeah, yeah. Now that actually is a good transition to talking about Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor. Okay. So Kevin Spacey, another one of these guys who's just like Singer, it's become very problematic in recent years, but putting all that aside, what was your impressions of him as Lex Luthor? Well, as you know,
01:05:46
Speaker
Gene Hackman is always gonna be my favorite, Lex Luthor. And it's interesting that in this movie, much like Brandon Routh, he's doing Christopher Reeve, Kevin Spacey, he starts out doing Gene Hackman. But the longer the movie goes on,
01:06:13
Speaker
the more darker his performance gets and the more it moves away from Gene Hackman until it becomes his own thing. I mean, by the time we get to the thing where he's shankin' Superman, like they're in the shower of a prison. Yeah, yeah. You say, damn, you know. Yeah, okay, well, let's say. And I have a problem with that whole scene anyway, because, okay.
01:06:40
Speaker
Okay, you go back to the earlier movies.
01:06:44
Speaker
Lex Luthor had schemes to kill Superman, but they were elegant scheme that seems like stuff Lex Luthor would do. Well, he's gonna build a supercomputer that's gonna kill Superman. He's gonna create a nuclear man, his own being that has more power than Superman. See, these are schemes worthy of Lex Luthor. To get a bunch of guys to beat up, to, you know, kick the shit out of Superman and then shank him.
01:07:11
Speaker
You know, I don't know. To me, that's not worthy of Lex Luthor. Now, to me, I actually like that. I think I can really see Kevin Spacey's Luthor being and Gene Hackman's Luthor being the same guy.
01:07:26
Speaker
because this is a Kevin Space, this is a Lex Luthor who, you know, he had the world on its head, you know, he had done all this kind of like goofy stuff. He was very kind of like, you know, he reveled in like his genius and his schemes and all that. And then he gets sent to prison. And I imagine, because he mentions to Kitty, right? He's like, you know, prison's a creepy place. One must have creepy friends to survive. So I imagine he saw- That's a great line. Yeah, that's a great line. Yeah, he had some shit happen to him in prison.
01:07:55
Speaker
Yeah. See, again, the same person I was talking about, I didn't talk about, well, Lois Lane is changed because it's five years. The same person I was talking to was saying, yeah, well, same thing with Lex Luthor. It's been five years. He's not the same guy. Yeah, exactly. And I believe that if you would put Gene Hackman's Luthor in a place like Oz, I could see him coming out like Kevin Spacey.
01:08:22
Speaker
Oh, okay. I like, like you've seen Oz from TV show, right? Oh yeah. Oh my God. Yeah. You know, you got that, you got that normal guy who goes in at the beginning and then as it throughout the series progresses, he becomes more of a hard ass.
01:08:38
Speaker
Yeah, that's what I see happening to Lex Luthor in between these movies. And so when he comes out and he's been around these guys, and yeah, he does have this, he's happy that he's got money again, that he's got a real estate scheme, but when Superman comes back, it's almost like a post-traumatic stress trigger.
01:09:00
Speaker
And that's actually why he now hates Superman because Superman forced him to change and become the person that he is now by putting them in that position. Right before it wasn't so much that he hated Superman, it's just that he saw Superman as a challenge. Yeah, this now he has a burning seething hatred for Superman. So like, I am just like,
01:09:20
Speaker
the shiving scene, it feels so personal. And that's why I love it. That's why I think- Oh, well, it is. Yeah, it is. I mean, you know, when you're stabbing someone, I've heard this, you know, that, yeah, that when you, I mean, you know, you stab somebody, that's a personal act. Yeah.
01:09:37
Speaker
you know, when you stab him, yeah. So he does that when he stabs him and he twists it and he breaks it off, and then he like practically hisses in his ear, now fly, and he throws them off the ass. And you can see the look on his face is like, you know, man, he's into this, yeah, you know, this is what he's been dreaming of.
01:09:54
Speaker
Yeah, and it's it's downright chilling like how he changes like that when Superman is involved and I I thought spacey did a really good job of that and I that's why I believe like and I you do have a point like you know the real Lex Luthor is more about like these
01:10:09
Speaker
these schemes to kill Superman. He's much more, he's much more dignified. But for what this Luther has been through, I can accept this. Okay, you gotta, I should definitely see your point there. And I love, listen, don't get me wrong, I love his performance in this movie. You know, I love, it's like next to Brandon Routh is probably my, not probably, it is my favorite performance in the movie because they're very evenly matched. Yeah, yeah.
01:10:37
Speaker
You know, and, but let me ask you a question. Excuse me. I always ask people that, why is it the Superman movies that always come down to real estate? Yeah. Just like every time. Every Superman movie, even Man of Steel, it comes down to real estate. Yeah. You're right. I didn't even think about that in Man of Steel, but you're right. You're absolutely right. Yeah. It always comes down to real estate in these movies. Yeah.
01:11:08
Speaker
That's his thing. He wants to build a brand new continent. Yeah. I remember watching this movie in the theater and when she says, when she asked him, why would you build a continent? And he points to it and he's like, land. And I'm like, I remember rolling my eyes.
01:11:25
Speaker
So I'm like, oh, come on, you're gonna do the same thing in the first movie? Yeah, it always comes down the land in Superman movies. Man of Steel, you know, the Kryptonians, they say, okay, yeah, well, you know, we need a place to live. So, you know, we're just gonna take this little, we're gonna take Australia and we're going to, you know, and we're gonna displace the people that live there. I said, there you go, again, land. Also,
01:11:51
Speaker
Why did he have these like maps made up to come rotate in the study? I mean, why not just make a PowerPoint presentation? Wouldn't that have been easier? Yeah, but it's not as dramatic. And let's look that he is kind of theatrical. Yeah, it just seems a little bit, it does feel a little bit weird. Just one of those things. Also, why would you have a pool table in a boat?
01:12:16
Speaker
Yeah, that doesn't make any sense at all. And you see it, the balls are always moving all over the place. The balls are always rolling back and forth. They're always rolling back. That boat was bad though. That was a nice, oh yeah, that huge library in there and like the, and the glass bottom boat. I mean, that thing looked awesome. Yeah, it's only helicopter. If you're going to be a super villain and you're going to have an ocean going
01:12:41
Speaker
you know, base of operations. That's it. That's the one you want. That's what's nice about this one and both, and Superman the movie where they give Lex Luthor a proper supervillain lair. Right? So in Superman the movie, you had the underground, you know, the underground thing in the subways. And then here in this, you've got the Gertrude, the massive yacht. And it's just, those are, they're proper supervillain lairs.
01:13:10
Speaker
They were really good for his character, I thought. Why is that thing waiting? Hold on a minute, that's my phone call. Okay, nevermind, stop. Whoever it was, I'll talk to them later. But yeah, but Kevin Spacey, I had no, you know, when I first heard he was gonna play Lex Luthor, you know, I said to myself, I said, wow, I said, you know what? That wouldn't have been my choice, but now,
01:13:39
Speaker
that they said it, I can see it. Well, he was also on the running back when they were talking about Superman Lives. Oh, okay. Yeah, it was, I remember Kevin Smith, I'm pretty sure in the documentary, he talks about how when he was writing the script, he was picturing Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor.
Lex Luthor's Depth and Humor
01:13:57
Speaker
Oh, okay. And, no, go ahead.
01:14:06
Speaker
What was I gonna say? Much as I love Parker Posey, I didn't care for her too much in this movie. She was like too shrill. Okay, I'll get to her in a minute, but one other thing I wanted to say about, there are two things I wanted to say about Luther is, one, like, I love his speech to Kitty at the beginning when he's talking about, when he's telling the story about Prometheus, and when she says you're not a god, and he says gods are selfish creatures who fly around in red capes and don't share their power with mankind.
01:14:34
Speaker
Like, that was a good summation of why he has a hatred for Superman. Right. And that's a logic that makes sense. In fact, more so than I thought, Hackman's Luther, there is more sense of the rivalry. Like, Hackman's just a guy who's looking for a fight, who's looking for a challenge, but
01:14:53
Speaker
With Spacey's Luther, you get the feeling that it wasn't so much that he wanted a challenge from Superman. It's more that he was pissed that Superman has this alien technology and all that, and he's not using it to help people. He's to help mankind. That doesn't quite fit with the Hackman Luther, that motivation, but it does fit with a version of Luther that I think, especially a more modern version of Luther.
01:15:20
Speaker
And the other thing I wanted to say is this was a little funny behind the scenes bit of trivia, but while they were filming, Kevin Spacey would drive around in a golf cart that was called Lex's Super Buster. And he had a stuffed Superman doll being dragged behind it on a rope. And he had a megaphone he'd be saying, Superman must die into the megaphone. Kevin Spacey, he's an idiot. He's got a goofy sense of humor.
01:15:50
Speaker
Now, and there are two more things I thought of as I was saying that. One, I like when they go into the fortress and there's the reference to Superman II when Kitty says to him, you've been here before, haven't you? You've been here before, yeah. Yeah. And also the, I like that he embraces the baldness, right? Like that's another way to show that he's,
01:16:14
Speaker
He's not as prone to vanity as Hackman's Luther was. Yeah, he was very vain. Right, right. In the beginning, after Gertrude dies, he pulls off the wig and he talks to the little girl and he's just like, this is like a new face for me. I don't need to hide behind the wig or anything. He's embracing who he is now.
01:16:35
Speaker
Because my understanding is that Spacey actually did shave his hair off. Yeah. Hackman refused to do that. Hackman refused, you know. The only time we see him ball is in the movie and that's like a skull cap. Right. Same thing in Superman II. He wears a skull cap in the beginning, but later when he's first chance he gets, he puts on the wig again. Yeah. Yeah. So...
01:17:04
Speaker
I had a thought about Spacey. Well, nevermind, go ahead, I'll come back to it. Okay, all right, so Parker Posey. Now, I actually liked her in this movie. I love Parker Posey, but I don't know, after Miss Teshmarker, you know, that's one thing though, like,
01:17:25
Speaker
I don't know why they didn't just call her Miss Teshmacher. It just makes no sense. Lex Luthor's been in prison for five years and then he finds another female supervillain sidekick. It doesn't really make sense.
01:17:44
Speaker
And, you know, since we've got all the rest of these characters from the original movie, well, then yeah, why not just call him Miss Teshmacher? Yeah, it's not like the character died or anything like that. Right, no. Everyone else got recast, so it doesn't make any sense why he just, you know, throw Miss Teshmacher away and find some other floozy to sit in her place. Well, exactly, you know. But...
01:18:09
Speaker
Yeah, but usually I enjoy Paul. I don't know she was just, I don't know there was just something off about it. Okay, it just seems like she. Okay, you're supposed to be Luther's henchwoman. You're not supposed to be his wife criticizing him.
01:18:26
Speaker
and getting on his nerve and insulting him every chance that you get. But I love those parts when she did that. I shouldn't be doing too much of that. I love those parts. Those are my favorite parts of her performance. When they're using the model to demonstrate his plan and Stanford drops the little crystal fragment into the water,
01:18:50
Speaker
And then she just, and then nothing happens. She's like, wow, that's really something Lex. And then he says, wait for it. And then a few seconds. And then she says again, she's like, wow, that's really something Lex. It's freaking gone with the wind. I love that. I loved her. I loved how she treated him. I loved how she reacted to him. Although one thing though is like, I don't understand why Luther even keeps her around.
01:19:13
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know what? Maybe he likes bantering with her. Yeah, yeah. I like how she adopted the dog after the dog was left.
Fortress of Solitude and Costume Critique
01:19:25
Speaker
The dog ate the other dog. She adopted him. Yeah.
01:19:34
Speaker
because they leave the dogs behind and they don't give him any food or anything. So they come back and she sees that, but she's like, weren't there two of them? And you see, she went on the bones and she's like, Oh. Oh, now I remember what I wanted to say about Luther before. What was it? But okay. The whole fortune is a solitude thing. I don't like that. I'm sorry.
01:20:01
Speaker
I have no idea who that is. Okay. Okay. Now, I understand why Superman does not have any kind of defensive measures to stop people from coming into the fortress of solitude because it's in the middle of the Arctic. Yeah. You know, and he probably figures, listen, if you're crazy enough to try to walk all the way to my fortress, you're welcome to it. Because he figures, you know, nobody's gonna
01:20:29
Speaker
Oh, brave the sub zero temperatures anyway to try to get there. Okay. But after Luther did come in there the first time. Yeah. It seemed to me that he was, okay, well, you know what? I'm going to fix this so nobody else can get it. Especially if he's going to be leaving earth for five years, right? I mean, thank you. I mean, that's like leaving your, it's like going on your, you're going on extended vacation and you leave your front door wide open. And you leave your front, exactly. You leave your front door wide open. Uh, second of all,
01:20:58
Speaker
Luther comes in and he has no problem using the Kryptonian technology. I don't know. See, I have a problem with that also because it seems to me that Superman would have changed the locks or the codes or whatever so that if somebody even did get in, they couldn't access the technology. That's, you know, I'm sorry. To me, that makes Superman seem like kind of dim. Yeah, yeah.
01:21:25
Speaker
that he wouldn't take steps to lock it up. Right. I agree with you. Yeah, you're right. I was thinking that too. Also, another problem I had with that scene is that Joel is no longer an artificial intelligence. He's basically just a recording. Bingo. That's something else that just, it doesn't fit with the first movie. Because if you go back to, right, I'm about to say that, because if you go back to the first movie,
01:21:50
Speaker
Jor-El is actually having a conversation with his son. He's not just repeating stuff because he's an intelligence. He's an AI. So he's actually having a conversation with him. In this movie, he's repeating stuff.
01:22:07
Speaker
yeah also there's there is um now that's also kind of a story problem with the first two movies because if you look at the the Richard Donner cut when Luther goes into the fortress of solitude and he activates it like it is also only recordings of Jor-El like in the in the original in the in the Richard Lester version obviously Jor-El's been replaced because Brando didn't want to work with Lester but yeah
01:22:34
Speaker
in the daughter version, you had Brando in those scenes, but he still is talking as if it's a recording. So there's some inconsistency in the original movies as well.
01:22:45
Speaker
I would just like to say though, that in this movie, the fortress of solitude looks absolutely spectacular. Oh yeah, definitely. Oh my God. Well, I've always liked the look of it. You know, this crystal full, you know, fortress and, you know, sticking up out of the ice and stuff like that. I've always loved the look of it. That was something I really did not like about Man of Steel, how it was just kind of like this, you know, this dark, gloomy, crash derelict spaceship.
01:23:12
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's no, there's no, there's no sense of style to it. There's no, no majesty. No majesty. That's exactly the word I was looking for. No majesty to it. Yeah. Oh. And you know, I really like, I think the best though I've seen in live action is what Supergirl did with it. Because not only is it, you know, the crystal fortress and everything, it's got that, but it's got, it feels like something a person could actually live and work at.
01:23:43
Speaker
You've got the memorabilia from Krypton, you've got the consoles and stuff, and it feels a bit more livable. And this is a criticism that it goes back to the original movies as well, where it just feels like it doesn't feel like a place where someone would go to spend time or to, and it seems like it seems,
01:24:11
Speaker
it seems almost too cold. Like on the outside, it looks beautiful, but on the inside, it feels kind of cold. It's very cold and impersonal. Yeah, yeah. Whereas in Supergirl, like in the comics, they make it, you know, yeah, it looks the same on the outside, but on the inside, it feels more personal. Right, right.
01:24:30
Speaker
because this is supposed to be Superman. This is, you know, the place he goes to get away and he's got all the memorabilia from, you know, Krypton and stuff like that. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a criticism I had about the original movies as well. And also in lots of depictions, like also in Smallville had the same problem where the fortress didn't have any sort of personality to it. It just felt very cold and alien.
01:24:56
Speaker
And so I liked that in Supergirl, they changed that and they added that personal touch to it. And it makes it feel, it feels more connected to Superman than it does in all the other incarnations. Right. Let me see, what else before, oh, can I talk a bit about how much I hate Superman's costume? Oh yeah, I was gonna mention that as well, yeah. Yes, go nuts. Okay, first of all,
01:25:26
Speaker
the S shield. There is a reason why it covers his whole chest. And it's good for the actor because it makes the actor's chest look broader.
01:25:42
Speaker
You know, that teeny tiny little ass chest or brand new, it doesn't do many justices at all. No, not at all. You know, that thing is supposed to come with your whole chest. I mean, you're Superman, damn it. Yeah. With a big ass. You know, those trunk seats wear it. I'm sorry. Those dainty little panties. I can't go for it. I don't like the cape.
01:26:09
Speaker
The cape I didn't mind, but I don't like that the neckline is so high. Yeah, I don't like the neckline. I don't like the cape at all. The cape looks, you know, I don't know what it is. The cape looked like a blanket. It did look like a cape. It looked like a blanket. I'm sorry, I just don't like, I just don't like that costume. The blue looks, I don't know, the blue is too blue. You know.
01:26:35
Speaker
Yeah, it's supposed to be blue, but not that blue. I don't know. I just don't like this version. You know what? I like the Man of Steel costume better than I like this one. Oh, no. The Man of Steel costume is great. I thought that was a great way to update the costume.
01:26:57
Speaker
Yeah, I love the Man of Steel copy. I will not complain as much as I have to complain about the Zack Snyder movies. One complaint you will never hear come out of my mouth is about the costumes. Yeah. The costumes are brilliantly done in those movies. Costumes are on point, yep. Costumes are on point.
01:27:16
Speaker
But yeah, in this movie, you're right. The shield is too small. The trunks are too narrow. And the boots also seem a little bit too short, a little bit. Like they're not really, but just like the way they're designed. It just feels like they feel a little bit off. Yeah.
01:27:38
Speaker
I don't mind the darker red. I know a lot of people hated the darker red, but I actually kind of like it. It kind of reminded me of the, the, the, um, the flesher cereals. Oh, okay. I can see that. Yeah. So the darker red I liked, but, um, I agree with you. The, the neckline I did not like, but the, the Cape, I, I never had any problem with the Cape, but that, that kind of surprised me when you said that because the Cape looks totally fine to me. I never thought anything looked weird about it other than just the neckline being too high. Okay.
01:28:07
Speaker
Also, I don't like the double S shield, right? He's got the shield on his chest and he's also got it on his belt buckle. On his belt buckle, yeah, which is unnecessary. It's unnecessary, yeah. I didn't like that. But other than that, yeah, the suit is one of the biggest failings of this movie. And if you would put him in something that was
01:28:32
Speaker
Even if you just put them in the same thing he wore back in the, or here's an image I can show you real quick. Someone did an edit to it and they kind of made the shield bigger and the trunks bigger and it looks a lot better. So I'm gonna show you this. But if you, yeah, but even in legends, he was in the real Superman costume and you saw how good he looked in that. Right, so if you look at this, you see this picture here, someone made an edit to it where they made the trunks bigger and they made the shield bigger.
01:28:59
Speaker
And they brightened up the red and they also reduced the neckline too. And it looks much better. And that's slightly different from the classic suit, but it still has that same feel that I think it would have been a good... Here's another one someone made here. And you see this, they just kind of removed the trunks and they made it look a little bit more regal, which not quite as big a fan of this, but I can see why. It is better.
01:29:28
Speaker
you see this one here i'm talking about. yeah yeah i'm looking at it right now yeah i know what anything looks better than that, especially that s s shield see me i'm a big believer in the shield covering his entire chest. Right exactly yeah. When he pulls his shirt open you that's what you ought to see you ought to see this big if you're a bad guy.
01:29:49
Speaker
But you should see this big S coming right at you. Yeah. Now, although I will say, I do like the slight redesign they did to the S. I like that little, you know, it's kind of like, it's got the classic, it feels like the classic symbol, but it's also got just, it's just slightly different. And I think, and I like it. I like the way they redesigned the S shield. Okay. Although I do agree with you, it should have been much bigger on his chest.
01:30:13
Speaker
And like I said, it works for the actor as well, cause it gives the illusion that his chest is wide, is bigger. Yeah, exactly. It works for him as well. I mean, because now you got that tiny little, it only shows how narrow Brandon Ralph's chest really is. Well, I don't think it's, it's not so much, cause he put on like 20 pounds of muscle for this movie, but the problem is that suit doesn't really do him any favors. No, it doesn't. Yeah. Not at all. That's the big problem. Um,
01:30:44
Speaker
Let's see what else I wanted to talk about. Oh, what else? They get a lot of use out of the John Williams Superman theme song in this movie. Yeah. Oh, also I did remember something else I wanted to mention when you mentioned the John Williams theme reminded me because if you remember one of my biggest criticisms of Superman in the movie was the scene where he goes flying with Lois Lane and she has that really bad poem narration.
01:31:07
Speaker
voiceover, like I hated, I hated that poem. Everybody does, except for me. You're the only one who likes it. I'm the only one who like, yeah, everybody, you know, even people who love this movie today, they hate that scene. Yeah, yeah. So I, and remember, if you remember what I said back then is that I thought that scene would have worked so much better if you keep everything, you keep the music, you just remove Margot Kidder's voiceover and that scene works perfectly.
01:31:36
Speaker
They did that in this movie. Yes. Like when he's, when he and Lois are flying. Oh yeah. There's no dialogue, no voice. It's just the instrumental music and like just them flying and it works perfectly. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, that's the, yeah, that's, yeah, that's singer doing his version of the, you know, that scene. But like you said, he does it the way everybody wants to see it with no voiceover, you know, just the music.
01:32:01
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And I think it works much better. It feels more, first off, it makes you, it doesn't, the voiceover distracts from the majesty of what's happening, right? And the voiceover, I feel the voiceover always kind of distracts from you, the fact that, you know, we'll look at what they're doing, look at what they're seeing. Here, Singer puts you right in there and lets you feel what they're seeing.
01:32:27
Speaker
So I thought that they did a good job with that. Oh yeah, yeah. I mean, listen, I like that scene because I like what the scene represents. You know, it's the purest way for Superman and Lois to fall in love. Yeah, yeah. Because the one thing about Superman, okay, here's the one thing that we always love about Superman.
01:32:53
Speaker
He flies. As Zod asks Lex Luthor in Superman 2, does he fly? Lex says constantly. Yeah, yeah. He flies. How does he fly? Nobody knows. There have been reams of web pages and books and dissertations and papers speculating on why Superman flies.
01:33:17
Speaker
He just flies, just accept it. Right. At the core of it, it doesn't matter. He flies. And this is a gift that he shares with Lois. Yeah. And I mentioned that. And that's what makes that scene so powerfully emotional, at least for me. Yeah, absolutely. And I mentioned this, too, when we talked about Superman, is that I remember in the 80s when John Byrne rebooted Superman, he tried to explain everything through some form of telekinesis. Like he's got a... Oh, yeah. I'm just like, just...
01:33:45
Speaker
Let people enjoy it. Like, why do you got to go and over-explain everything? Who gives a shit, really? Yeah, he flies. Yeah, I don't know. That's right. He's Superman. It's like, why does Batman have a can of chakra pellet in the Batcopter? He's Batman. Yeah, yeah. Why does Superman fly? Because he's Superman. Oh, it reminds me. I just finished reading this indie comic. Sean Ali brought it to my attention, called The Wrong Earth.
01:34:14
Speaker
And it's like this, it's this idea of like what if the 66 Batman and like the, and like the, I guess maybe the Snyder Batman switched Earths.
01:34:27
Speaker
and it's got kind of like that and it's so it's like you've got the 60s and there the character's name is dragonfly and there's a scene where he's um he's the 60s the 60s version is in the the darker grittier earth and um he gets shocked by like a bunch of gang members they just start pumping in full of bullets and he gets out he's fine like how are you okay he's like oh i sprayed myself with um uh bullet repellent spray
01:35:02
Speaker
No, I don't know. And then you got the grittier Dragonfly. He's in the 60s version. And he's in the car. And he's connected to his supercomputer back in his doppelganger's lair. And he says, wait a minute. I wonder if I can use this. And he just asks it to locate the villain. And it locates it right away. He's like, oh my god. This is great. Why did I have one of these all along?
01:35:29
Speaker
Oh man, I got to get that. The wrong earth. The wrong earth, yeah. It's a pretty good book. Okay. So, see what else I want to mention here.
Superman's Heroics and Moral Dilemmas
01:35:43
Speaker
Oh, the Kryptonite Island. Like, no, no, before that, like just that whole, the whole sequence when
01:35:51
Speaker
Superman is flying to go rescue Lois and Jason. Now he knows Richard's going, right? Cause Richard says, you know, I'm going to go out there in the seaplane. And then he sees what's about to happen to Metropolis and he can hear like the destruction already starting to come and he flies back. Like that, like that, he has to choose, you know, he has to prioritize, which is the greater need.
01:36:22
Speaker
I love that moment, because in that moment, he decides, well, I know Richard's going there, so I'm going to hope that he can handle it, and I'll come back later, and I'm going to take care of the people of Metropolis right now. This is a Superman who saves people, who cares about saving lives.
01:36:41
Speaker
Like that tape. Okay, here's another thing I love about Superman and what makes him a unique character. As far as I know, he's the only superhero that flies around the world looking for natural disasters to stop it. People are safe.
01:36:57
Speaker
Right. Yeah. That's his thing. That's what he does. Exactly. Okay. I always get to complain from people, well, I want to see a Superman movie where he punches somebody. Yeah. Okay. Well, Superman does occasionally punch somebody, but that's not his main thing. Yeah.
01:37:13
Speaker
His main thing, if you remember from Superman the movie, we got a whole bunch of scenes where he was flying around the world trying to stop disasters. He was holding up the bridge. He caught the, you know, the school bus. Whatever, I remember getting in so many arguments with people over this movie back when it first came out. And I remember people, like the most common complaint was, well, this movie sucks because Superman never throws a punch. And I'm like, well, you know what other movie didn't have Superman throwing a punch?
01:37:39
Speaker
Superman the movie. He never throws a punch in that movie either. Right. As a matter of fact, you know what? You could have 30 minutes of Superman flying around saving people just playing the Superman theme and I'd be happy. Yeah, yeah. You could do that because that's what Superman does. Right. And and again, this is another way that shows
01:38:05
Speaker
the relationship. If they ever did a sequel to this, I didn't really like to see friendship grow between Superman and Richard because he trusts the guy. You know, he says, okay, yeah, okay. He seems like a capable dude. I know he loves Lois. He's going to do everything he can to help the people of Metropolis need me more.
01:38:24
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And he says, okay, I'm going to go save now. And that's what he does. That's what Superman does. Yeah, that's one of the things this movie does the best out of any Superman movie to date is it really showcases in spectacular fashion, because yes, Superman the movie did it as well, but they didn't really have the technology to really convey it. But this movie, like it shows how amazing it can be to watch Superman flying around saving people.
01:38:52
Speaker
like when he saved the space shuttle and the airplane. Right, it's so different from the helicopter scene and the Air Force One scene, right? Because in those, it's just very quickly done, right? There's no real spectacle to it. But this, it's- Oh man, this is spectacle. It's very, it's like, that's one thing Singer did perfectly, is he showcased Superman's abilities better than anyone else.
01:39:19
Speaker
Yeah like when he's got the plane and he's holding on to it and the plane is going into the stadium and just at the very last minute Superman puts his legs up under him and he said and you see the plane ripple the skin yeah yeah yeah oh that was a great touch.
01:39:35
Speaker
Well, that was something else. So one of the times I saw this movie, it was with a friend of mine who's got like a master's or PhD or something in physics, right? And as we're watching this movie, you know, after the end of it, I'm like, what do you think? He's like, you know what I really liked about it? I'm like, what? He's like, the physics actually makes sense.
01:39:56
Speaker
He's like, the physics in this movie, they actually make sense. And he compared it to Spider-Man 2. He's like, the physics in Spider-Man 2 were complete nonsense. But in Superman 2, they actually made an effort to make sure everything fits together. He said that he really liked that touch about it.
01:40:13
Speaker
So, and that's like the scene when he does, like he pushes the hole in the front of the nose of the plane, it kind of ripples out. That was like to prevent like shock waves or something like that. I can't remember exactly what his explanation was, but he explained it to me and he's like, that's why he does it. And that makes perfect sense in that scene. And see, to me, that is the best way to introduce Superman in any movie. Have him saving somebody, because that's what Superman does. Yeah, exactly.
01:40:41
Speaker
You know, all that stuff with super villains and everything like that. It's like the Fantastic Four. I tell everybody, OK, who is the Fantastic Four? The Fantastic Four is a family of scientific adventurers. Their actual job in the Marvel Universe is to go out and explore those areas of the Marvel Universe no other Marvel character goes in. Right.
01:41:04
Speaker
they expand the boundaries of the Marvel universe. They go to the negative zone and they go into outer space and they go to other dimensions. Fighting supervillains is something that come with the territory. That's on the side, but that's not their primary job. Like the Avengers. The Avengers, that's their thing. They fight supervillains. Yeah. That's their profile.
01:41:29
Speaker
That's the mission statement. That's not the mission statement for the Fantastic Four. Superman, his thing is he saves people. Now, yeah, occasionally he may have to fight a supervillain along the way, but it's not like he actively goes out and looks for the parasite and says, okay, well, I got to beat up the parasite. His primary motivation is he wants to save as many people as possible. Exactly.
01:41:53
Speaker
And that's why, like I said, he's the only superhero that I know that, okay, once he punches out as Clark Kent, he changes to Superman and he goes flying around India or, you know, or I mean, you know, wherever, he finds a forest fire to put out. Or he stops the tsunami or something. Yeah, that's what he does. Superman is just a superhuman search and rescue. Bingo. That's exactly what he's supposed to be. Like he's not necessarily a crime fighter. He's a crime fighter by consequence if it happens.
01:42:23
Speaker
Right. Because if it happens, if he happens to hear like, oh, OK, somebody's trying to rob the bank. Like he did in this movie. Like he's hovering above the earth. Oh. And he's got a super hearing tuned in. He's listening to all this stuff. And he hears a bell go off. And he says, oh, OK, well, let me go see what this is all about. That was such a great moment when he's up there above the earth. And he just hears everything. And you can imagine what it like. They did a really good job of portraying that.
01:42:53
Speaker
And again, that's another great scene where he's flying around, he's stopping crime, and he's saving people. And the memorable scene when the guy walks up to him, points the gun at his face, and fires the bullet, and it smashes against his eye. And then Brandon Routh just has this little smirk on his face. Yeah, he got the little smirk. He's got the little smirk. So you're not supposed to enjoy your power. I'm glad they show him doing that, because that was like in the
01:43:23
Speaker
in the first movie when Jor-El says to him after his first night and he's like, and you know, and Superman's talking about how he's like, how good it felt to save people and to use his powers and to do good. Like, and that's the, I get the feeling that Brandon Ralph as Superman is really enjoying being Superman in those scenes. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that whole Baker Robinson. I love the first of all, because they managed to get in,
01:43:51
Speaker
the whole faster than the speeding bullet. Yeah, yeah. Because we see the bullets come out and they slow down and then all of a sudden you see Superman and he's racing the bullet and he gets a yet again. Yeah. So I said, Oh, cool. Faster than the speeding bullet. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then also, um,
01:44:09
Speaker
And when Luther's continent is causing the destruction of Metropolis, and he flies through, and he's using his powers in smart ways. He's using his heat vision to vaporize the glass. He's using his freeze breath, his super breath, to blow out the fire. And he's just, everything he's doing, he's going and he's saving. Although one thing I think they should have done, it would have been a nice Easter egg, is he saves the construction worker, right?
01:44:38
Speaker
I think that should have been a black actor because then you got a tie-in for John Henry Irons who becomes Steele in the comics. Oh, who was also rescued by Superman from a high-rise. Yeah, right. Yeah. When he falls off of the...
01:44:53
Speaker
He falls off of the construction site. Yeah. Yeah. So he says a construction worker who falls, but it's a white guy. That's a white guy. You're right. Yeah. I think they missed a good opportunity for an Easter egg to have that be a black guy and then to have like a hint of that that guy will become steel.
01:45:09
Speaker
But you make an excellent point where you say that we get to see Superman use the full range of all his superpowers in very smart, intelligent ways. Like you said, yeah. Yeah. And that was a really nice touch. He's not just using his powers to blow shit up and destroy the city.
01:45:27
Speaker
And he's not completely, he cares about the people who are in danger. Whereas in Man of Steel, where he drags Zod out from the middle of the cornfield, chucks him into a gas station in the center of Smallville, and stands there and waits. And his advice to the people is, stay inside. And they're standing behind wooden doors and they're locking him, like that's gonna do shit.
01:45:54
Speaker
Yeah, okay. Yeah, like that's like that's gonna do it. I mean, Superman literally brought Zod to a populated area. He took that movie. Yeah, yeah. And see, that's the one thing that you can never lose sight of is super. And I know I hear this all the time. First of all,
01:46:16
Speaker
I hear from people, well, Superman, he's boring. My opinion, and we're gonna lose some listeners right now. My opinion, boring people think Superman is boring.
01:46:27
Speaker
Yeah. Superman is not bored. Superman cares about other people, which is another thing that separates him from other superheroes. He cares about people. He would let a supervillain go first before it brought harm to innocence. You know, that's his whole thing. He cares about other people. He cares about other people being safe.
01:46:50
Speaker
If you lose that, then you lose a lot of what makes the character great. If you lose that, you're not doing a Superman story, in my opinion. You're just not. And Superman has to care about the people. They have to be his number one priority. And if you throw that away so that he can slug it out and level buildings with a supervillain, you're doing a real disservice to the character and what the character is about.
01:47:17
Speaker
And I'm never understood. I mean, if you just want to see two super powerful guys slugging it out without concern about collateral damage, go watch Dragon Ball Z. Exactly. Which, please, don't let me get started on Dragon Ball Z. Talk about boring. But yeah, and me, I've never understood people that want to turn Superman into something that he's not. Yeah.
01:47:46
Speaker
don't take away what makes him a unique character. And don't tell me, well, you can't write good stories about Superman because he's too powerful. Well, no, because you don't have the necessary talent and imagination
01:48:04
Speaker
to think of stories to write about a character this powerful. Grant Morrison wrote the most powered up version of Superman ever in comics. Thank you. In All-Star Superman, he had Superman's powers increase like a hundred fold or something. And he was more powerful than he'd ever been in his entire existence. And guess what?
01:48:27
Speaker
Time after time, after time, after time. You ask people, what is the best Superman story ever written? All Star Superman. Or even the most powerful that he's ever been. Because the reason is because Grant Morrison understands Superman. Alan Moore understood Superman. That's why whatever happened to the Man of Tomorrow is considered one of the greatest Superman stories. That's why for the man who has everything is considered one of the greatest Superman stories. Oh yeah, the man who has, yeah. Yeah.
01:48:57
Speaker
Mark Waid, birthright, right? These guys
01:49:01
Speaker
Um, they understood what a Superman story is. They understood what that character is. And they wrote stories about that character. They don't change him into something he's not because they're lazy or because they don't like the character. You don't like Superman. Don't write a Superman story. Don't, there you go. Don't write Superman story. If you want to write a story about an all powerful character that goes around beating up people and killing people, you know, we'll go write somebody else. Go write that character. Go write that character. Yeah.
01:49:31
Speaker
Go make a supreme movie.
01:49:36
Speaker
So yeah, it's just like, I don't understand people are like, well, I never liked the character that way, so I have to change it. No, just find a character that you do like. Don't completely twist it into something it's not and piss off all the fans of the character just because you want something different. First off, it's uncreative as hell, right? It's creatively lazy. And second, it's just arrogant.
01:50:04
Speaker
you know, to think that, well, I don't like this, so I have to change it, so I will like it. No, you don't, just find something that you don't like. Yeah, you're right, exactly. You're changing it because that's what you like. Right, it's selfish, it's arrogant, and I'm tired of seeing that. You can't see me right now, but I'm standing up. Yeah, and you know what? I gotta give it to you, very well said. Yeah, and that's,
01:50:32
Speaker
That's why the best superhero movies are the ones that you find guys, you find people who do care about these characters, who understand them. And yeah, maybe they make some changes to update or modernize it, but at the core, the characters are true to who they've always been. Exactly. Captain America in the movies, he's much more laid back than Captain America in the comics, right? He's much more of, you know, Captain America in the comics, they sometimes write him as a grandpa.
01:51:02
Speaker
But in the movies, he feels like a modern guy, even with his backstory. He still feels like a guy who's living in the modern world. He feels like a young guy. So yeah, that's a change, but at his core, he still has those values, right? He's still fighting for the ideals of America, the ideals of freedom and liberty. And he's still at his core, a decent guy. Yeah, maybe he curses a little bit more, but that's it.
01:51:30
Speaker
And let me ask you something on this particular line of character.
01:51:39
Speaker
investigation. Because I know a lot of people have a problem with it. And these are the same people that said, well, you can't make a movie called Captain America because that'll offend this one, and offend this one, and offend that one. Do you have a problem with the saying that Superman stands for truth and justice in the American way?
01:52:02
Speaker
Not really, I just think it's kind of, I think it's a bit archaic because Superman tends to be more of a global character. And so I think there is a little bit of, and also the thing about the American way part is that really came out during the fifties, during the Red Scare. But before that, it was just truth and justice.
01:52:23
Speaker
So my old thing is like people saying like, oh, it's so integral to Superman. Well, it's really not. It wasn't there to begin with. So I don't really have a problem with it one way or the other. Oh, okay. I didn't- Because I noticed in this movie, I didn't pick up on it before, but that's what Perry White said. Perry White says, yeah, does he still stand for truth and justice? Yeah, truth, justice, all that stuff. Yeah. Right, and all that stuff, yeah. Well, you gotta remember, when this came out as well, it was at the height of the Iraq war.
01:52:55
Speaker
So, and America's, I mean, now America's standing is probably even worse than it was back then, but America's standing is like the worst it had been in like 50 years at that point. So I understand why they didn't put that in the movie because they had an international market to think of.
01:53:10
Speaker
So I think that made sense. It didn't fit. And it wasn't told in the, like in this, when they use, when he used truth, just the American way, they were able to make a commentary on it. When Lois said, you're gonna end up fighting every elected official in the country. Right? Yeah, I remember, yeah. But in this, they didn't really have that moment to do some sort of commentary on it. So I understand why they left it out. Gotcha.
01:53:37
Speaker
Very good, thank you. In general, I don't have a problem with it. One of my favorite Superman stories is actually titled, What's So Funny About Truth, Justice and the American Way. Yeah, I was thinking about that too, yeah.
01:53:49
Speaker
Yeah, they use that. And that's one of my favorite Superman stories ever. Like, I don't have a problem with it. But, and we'll also think about Superman is that I always find it hilarious when xenophobic conservatives get pissed off about Superman, like them changing something about Superman's patriotism or something when Superman himself is an illegal immigrant.
01:54:12
Speaker
Well, he's the ultimate immigrant story. He's the ultimate immigrant story. He's an illegal immigrant. He's a refugee, literally a refugee. Literally a refugee, yeah. Yeah. And then he's raised here. He ends up adopting these values, and he ends up fighting for them. But he also fights on a global level. He doesn't just fight for America. And I think that's one of the things, that's the only reason, the only quibble I have with the American Way thing is that Superman's so much bigger than just one country.
01:54:42
Speaker
That's just how I feel about it. Very profound. Thank you. Yeah, no problem. I appreciate you inside. No, that's cool. Yeah, now I also want to talk about the the kryptonite island because this just like they those scenes when he goes and he rescues Lois Richard and Jason from the from the sinking ship.
01:55:02
Speaker
And right, there's that, like, I didn't get kind of chills thinking about it. Remember when you just hear that slow build to the music and you see the feet land on it, and then you just see the shield in the window as he pulls it up, and then it cuts to Brandon Routh coming out of the water, and he's just holding on. There's this massive ship, and he's like, this storm is back. He's pulling this hole, this hole, because it's like half of the ship is falling into the water. It's broken apart.
01:55:28
Speaker
And that thing is honking huge. It is, yeah. And then he's holding it with one hand. He pulls the door off and he reaches his hand in for Richard to take and he's like, do you have them? And he's like, yeah, I've got them both. And he just lets it go. It's like so effortless while he's just hovering there. It's such a, the way Singer films Superman using his powers, like you realize it feels like Superman.
01:55:53
Speaker
And he's so calm about it. He says, do you have them? Right. He's not sure when he's, yeah, I got them. I go, OK. And he just lets the ship go. It was like we said about, you know, and like, remember when we talked about Superman in the movie, and I was talking about how Rhett Morrison's theory of Superman is that because nothing can hurt him, because he's so powerful, he's someone who would just be relaxed all the time. And we talked about that Christopher Reeve scene when he's being interviewed by Lois. And he's just sitting there very relaxed and casual on her terrace.
01:56:23
Speaker
There's a lot of that in Brandon Routh, too, and the way he's using his powers. Yeah, he's just chill, you know. Yeah, well, you know. Yeah, okay, well, as long as you got him, okay. Yeah. Like, it's not, like, and he does the same thing that Christopher Reeve does, I mean, when it comes to flying. It's, it's as if
01:56:45
Speaker
Okay, the actual effort is for him to stay on the ground. Because when he gets ready to fly, he doesn't jump or, you know, it's not an effort for him to get into the air. He just goes, he just boosh, you know, and he's gone. Like when he rescues Kitty from the car and she's like demanding that he take her to a hospital and he's like, okay, okay, all right, just calm down. And it's like he just takes a step and he just like hovers gently off the ground.
01:57:11
Speaker
Yeah, and he's gone. Or like when he takes Lois from the roof of the Daily Planet and she says to him, you know, Richard always takes me flying all the time. And then he says, not like this. And then she looks down and she suddenly realized he took off and she didn't even notice. He took off, exactly.
01:57:28
Speaker
That is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. He took off, she didn't even know it. Yeah, we don't need this shit where he charges up and there's cracks appearing in the ground and all that and he causes an earthquake. No, it's effortless for him. Again, that's not super. Exactly. Flight is effortless for him.
01:57:50
Speaker
It comes as natural to him as breathing. Yeah, I always loved the flying scenes in this movie, and when Christopher Reeve does it, because it's effortless. Exactly, yeah. And then when he, a lot of people complain about him having the strength to go and lift the Kryptonite Island, but I thought they handled that really well, because they show you, right after Lois pulls the Kryptonite shard out of him,
01:58:19
Speaker
And then he flies up above the cloud, he bathes in the solar energy first. In the solar energy, yeah. I can't think of any movie that has really shown, not live action, that's really shown that, like how he gets his power from the sun.
01:58:36
Speaker
It's like, okay, I know people, like you said, have had a problem with that. And I've always, and I've always cited that scene. I said, well, he flies up and gets like a supercharged. Right. You see him. He's like, he's sitting there. He looks like he's, you know, taking a hot shower almost. Right. Exactly. And then, and then his, his hands tighten to the fist and then you're like, oh yeah, shit's about to go down. Right.
01:58:57
Speaker
so he's getting like a he's you know charging up so he can have the strength you know because he knows he's got to lift this thing up out of the water yeah and carry it into he's got to carry it you know so he's got to carry quiet ways now that's another example of an epic scene like when the
01:59:16
Speaker
the islands just the continents rising up out of the sea and then like the peat the chunks are falling down and then you see it's superman they're holding it all up on his shoulders right that is yeah that it's there's so many epic moments like this and the story the script has lots of problems but it's totally over at least i feel those script problems the whole thing with
Future of Superman Franchise
01:59:38
Speaker
with Jason, the problems with Lois, the fact that it's basically a remake of Superman the movie, all that stuff is overshadowed for me by those epic scenes. Yeah, it's got...
01:59:51
Speaker
Okay, as we said earlier, just like the X-Men movie, yeah, this movie has got flaws. There are some things, I was watching last night, I was looking at it, and yeah, you know, like one of my eyes would have clothes under certain things. But let me say this, those little things does not spoil my overall enjoyment of the movie. And I see
02:00:13
Speaker
the love and the respect that singer has for the character in this movie. And it's kind of hard to argue against that. It's hard for me to argue against a guy who has such love and respect for this character. And he wanted to present
02:00:33
Speaker
his version of the movie that he no doubt grew up loving. Yeah. That's the best way I could put it. He obviously grew up loving the original Superman movie, and he wanted to make his version of it, which this is. I mean, there's no way of getting around it. This is basically Superman the movie filtered through his consciousness. But I can't find it in my heart not to recommend this movie.
02:01:02
Speaker
because of the flaws. Some movies, yes, I can say that. But no, for all of its flaws, I cannot in all good conscience say, well, you shouldn't see this because Brian Singer has such love and respect. If there's any, the major flaw of it is that love and respect and reverence
02:01:21
Speaker
Yeah. Gets in the way of him, what I think doing his, really his own take on it. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, also I liked that they had, uh, Avon Reed's, Marie Saint was also a, uh, she's a very small role as Martha Kent, but I glad they gave her, they, they met, they have something to do with Martha in this movie. Yes. Me too. And do you notice that they had the photo of, um, uh, Glenn Ford,
02:01:46
Speaker
who played, was it Glenn Ford who played Pa Kent in the original? Yeah, Glenn Ford. And they got his photo framed in the background. I like that. Glenn Ford. Who was only in the movie for what, about like two minutes, but that was the most memorable two minutes in any superhero movie. Yeah, yeah.
02:02:11
Speaker
actually played a Jonathan Kent as Jonathan Kent is supposed to be played. Exactly. Yeah. You know, not telling him to hide from everything. But yeah, I am. And I also like that. Oh, so here's here's something interesting about this. So General Zod was originally supposed to be in this movie, too. Oh, God, I'm so tired of General Zod. Well, I don't blame you, but they they wanted Singer wanted Jude Law to play General Zod.
02:02:42
Speaker
which I think would have been, I think Jude Law would have done a great job playing that character. But Jude Law refused multiple times. And so Singer didn't want anyone other than Jude Law. So after like the third or fourth time you refused, Singer just took the character out of the script. You know what? General Zod should be like the Joker. It should be like five years before we see him in any Superman movie. Yeah.
02:03:07
Speaker
And then, well, apparently after the movie came out though, Jude Law saw it and he loved it. And then after that, he's like, hey, so can I be in the sequel? So they were talking about, they were talking about doing a sequel with Brainiac and Jude Law was probably in the running to play Brainiac in that movie. Which would have been, which I think would have been a really, cause Singer had said like, you know, everyone says this movie was such a failure, but it actually, it was the highest grossing DC movie at the time. It outgrows Batman Begins.
02:03:40
Speaker
Warner Brothers, which really amazed me, Warner Brothers said that they were unhappy with how much this movie made. This movie made something like $300 million. They changed their minds about it because at first they said they were happy with the numbers and then later they said they weren't. Yeah.
02:04:00
Speaker
Yeah, and again, yeah, like you said, there's a perception this movie was, it was not a flop. It made a lot of damn money. Made a lot of money. It was the highest grossing DC movie. It made more money than Batman Begins. That's just a fact. And yeah, and they were going to go ahead with the sequel. They were gonna do, it was gonna be called Man of Steel. Singer was gonna come back to direct it. Brandon Ralph was under contract to come back. They were talking to Jude Law about playing Brainiac. And Singer had said,
02:04:28
Speaker
at a comic convention, I think it was. And he said, you know, now that we've kind of reestablished Superman being back in the world, the next movie we can go all Wrath of Khan. Like he wanted to go full out and do a lot more action and spectacle in the next movie, which I think would have been a lot better than the Man of Steel we got. The problem with Warner Brothers is, is that, you know what? Oh,
02:04:53
Speaker
The movie didn't make as much money as they wanted it to make. They wanted to make like, they wanted to make like, I don't know, like a billion bucks. Yeah. You know, and I mean, you know, once it didn't do that, then they started saying, ah, well, the move, we wasn't happy with him. I don't understand how you can not be happy with a movie that's made you $300 million. Yeah. Yeah.
02:05:18
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And so yeah, I think we would have gotten a much better Man of Steel had Warner Brothers gone ahead with their sequel. There are problems with this movie, just like there are problems with the first X-Men movie, but I think just like with X2, Singer would have hit his stride in a Superman Returns sequel.
02:05:37
Speaker
Well, yeah, because now he's done established a new status quo, and which is really all this movie is. Exactly. It's just a setup for the new status quo. Yeah. So once he got that out the way, yeah, we could, cause he still had everybody, we still got Lex Luthor out there cause we see him at the end of the movie. Him and his girlfriend there on the island, they ran out of gas. You know what? This is Karma coming back on the dog.
02:06:05
Speaker
Because he says, well, what are we going to eat? And Lex looks at the dog. And the expression on the dog's, I don't know how they got that expression on the dog's face, but the dog is like, oh, shit. You can see it on the dog's face.
02:06:22
Speaker
Yeah, Carmen's getting ready to bite you. And also we see that, so you know, I think this movie needs to make clear what exactly happened between Superman and Lois five years ago, because she
02:06:39
Speaker
She's like, she's surprised to see Jason has powers, but you get the sense that she's known all along it was Superman. Yeah. And yet she doesn't know that Superman and Clark are the same people. So that makes you wonder like the amnesia, if they're going with the amnesia kiss, was it, did it just erase his memory of her, her memory of him as Superman? And so she still believes that they slept together and all that, or was it just like,
02:07:08
Speaker
You remember they did the Superman Doomsday animated movie and it had Superman and Lois in a relationship in that movie, even though Lois didn't know his secret identity. So I wonder if it was something like kind of a similar thing to that where her and Superman were in a relationship, they slept together, maybe they broke up or something and then he had to go back, go and find Krypton.
02:07:38
Speaker
So I'm not sure exactly- Well, you're right about that one thing about Jason. The movie is definitely trying to have his cake and eat it too, because yeah, they try to give you the impression, yeah, like Lois knows that her son does have superpowers, but then there's other times when, like you said, the thing with the piano, she actually, you know, yeah. Well, I think, not that she knows he has superpowers, but that she knows he's Superman's son.
02:08:03
Speaker
Yeah. Well, she tells him. Yeah, and then she tells him that when he's in the hospital. When he's in the hospital, yeah. And then there's that great scene when he goes when Jason is sleeping and he recites, he repeats the lines, the last words his father said to him. Right, exactly. Like I love that little, and that puts that in such great context, the last line, the son becomes the father and the father of the son.
02:08:27
Speaker
Right. That, like I said, it sets up the whole thing because Lois sees him leaving and she says, oh, you're going to be around, right? He says, yeah, yeah, I'll be around. So now you got to think this, okay, where is the relationship going to go now? Now that he knows he has a son and you know, what is she going to tell Richard? They still going to have a relationship because you don't really want to see a breakup with Richard because damn, the guy risked his life to save her and her kid.
02:08:54
Speaker
Yeah, he's a good guy. Yeah.
02:08:59
Speaker
Now, he's a standing up guy. You don't want to see him get hurt. So it would have been interesting seeing how that would have... But you had to do something different rather than the whole thing with Superman and Clark being rivals. I mean, you know, that's the one thing that I do give this movie credit for, that is, okay, we're going to do something different with this whole Clark and Superman and Lois thing. We're going to actually bring in a real rival, you know,
02:09:28
Speaker
And it's not going to be a rival who's totally bad for Lois, because they did that in Lois and Clark, right? They brought Lex Luthor in as a romantic rival for Clark. Right. But that doesn't work as well, because Lex Luthor is an evil son of a bitch.
02:09:44
Speaker
Exactly. So here it works because Richard is, so in that one, you're always rooting for Clark, but in this one, you're watching this and you're like, well, you know what? Yeah, Clark's the main character and all, but I kind of like Richard a lot too. Yeah, exactly. You know what? You say to yourself, you know what? If she ends up with Richard, I wouldn't, I wouldn't mention about it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I wouldn't complain if she ends up with Richard.
02:10:08
Speaker
Like you said before, they do a good job of showing like, these are mature adults involved in this situation. Exactly. And they're trying to find a way to navigate through it. Like I said, this isn't like two high school jocks fighting over cheerleader. These are all adults, they're mature adults, and they're trying to navigate their way through this sticky situation in an adult manner. Exactly. Which I really appreciated.
02:10:36
Speaker
That's the aspect of this movie that I really enjoy and I really think that they nailed. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. All right. Now, one of the most contentious scenes in this movie is when Superman goes to Lois and Richard's house and he uses x-ray vision. Like lots of people have bitched about that scene and called it like super stalker and all that. What did you think of that scene? Okay.
02:11:04
Speaker
my okay my feeling is is that okay stalking is something that is done over a sustained period of time okay superman went because he didn't know what her home life was like with this guy rich he didn't know if it was happy if it was contentious he was curious he wanted to know what their life
02:11:29
Speaker
you know, at home was like. And he looked in and he saw that, you know, the kid was playing and they were making dinner together and, you know, everything looked all right and everything like that. And you notice that once they started talking, because Richard and Lois, once they started getting into this heavy conversation, he turned off his x-ray vision and he flew away. Yeah. Okay. Me personally, I don't see it as stalking. I do not see that scene as stalking. Superman was, okay.
02:12:00
Speaker
Here's the perfect thing. Everybody talk about, well, Superman, he's not relatable. What is more relatable than a guy who's in love using his superpowers to try to find out, well, is his girlfriend really in love with this other guy?
02:12:12
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know. Now I think, I agree with you for the most part, I think the scene's a little problematic looking back on it and also like the scene when he's almost, when he takes her flying it's all and when she says you know Richard always takes me flying and he says not like this with kind of a smile and it feels like he's trying to compete in that moment
02:12:35
Speaker
Well, of course he is. Well, yeah, that felt a little- Because, yeah, well, Rich is taking you flying, but not like this. Yeah, it felt a little childish for me for a Superman thing to do. But they kind of rectify it when he drops her off. And like we said before, then he pulls away from her. And the scene when he goes to their house, it's a little,
02:13:01
Speaker
It's a little skeevy, but I agree with you. I think people have made way too much out of it.
02:13:06
Speaker
Yeah, they made way too much. You know what? It would have been stalkerish if they had been in bed together and he was watching them. Yeah. Now that would have been downright perverted. But no, they're in the kitchen, like I said. Or even if they were kissing, if they were kissing and he's just standing there watching, that would have been creepy as well. Exactly. When they're just having this conversation and it's not so, and he's,
02:13:37
Speaker
The thing he seems most interested in is how does she really feel about me? I think that he's just trying to get a feel of, is this a real relationship? Is she really in love with this guy? Is she really going out with him? Is she really going to take him home tonight? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
02:14:00
Speaker
That's what I really think, that he's just trying to get a handle on how serious this relationship is. And know what? And I think it's kind of touching that Superman is not above using his superpowers to try.
02:14:17
Speaker
You know, it just shows Jesus you with as the rest of us. Yeah. You know, he says, okay, well, you know what? I know I'm not supposed to do, but just this one time, you know, and like I said, once the conversation starts to get like kind of heavy and go in another direction, he turns off his, he's okay. That's enough. I don't heard enough. And he flies off.
02:14:37
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you know what? Okay, let me put it this way, because I tried to be objective. And I see where people would have a problem with this. But for me, personally, I think, A, they're overthinking it, and B, they're reading too much into it. Yeah. Yeah, I agree with me. I agree with all that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, anything, any final words on Superman Returns?
02:15:07
Speaker
I think it's a good movie. I do. I think it's a good movie. It's got a lot, yeah. And you good people have been listening to me and my good friend go on for the past two and a half hours, which is how long the movie is.
Superman's Character and Optimism
02:15:23
Speaker
It's got his problems, but it's a good Superman movie. Yes, it is. I mean, you know what? I was asking on the Superhero Cinephile group, I usually put two movies together and ask the members of the group, well, do you, okay, you like this one or do you like this one? And I had Superman Returns or Man of Steel. If I had a choice between this one or Man of Steel, I'm always gonna pick this one. Same here, same here. Every single time. I'm always gonna pick this one.
02:15:53
Speaker
Yeah. I would pick Superman Returns over Man of Steel every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Yeah. To me, this is, you know what? Because to me, this feels more like a Superman movie. Right. Right. You know, Man of Steel, yes, it is a Superman movie, but you know what? It's for
02:16:13
Speaker
a certain type of person who sees Superman a different way than I do. Let me put it this way. I'm not knocking the movie. If you're a fan of that movie, please don't think I'm knocking it. If you love it, if you enjoy it, believe me, I'm glad for you. You should love what you love. But that's a move. But yeah, like I said, I feel that Man of Steel is made for
02:16:35
Speaker
fans of Superman who think of the character in a different way than I do. I always admit that I always see the characters being like in the mode of Christopher Reeve. To me, that's my Superman. Now, if Man of Steel, if that's your Superman, God bless, you enjoy, but nah, that's, I don't see him that way. I'm gonna come out and say like, I am not gonna Man of Steel.
02:17:04
Speaker
because it's just, I hate this trend. We're all superheroes. Like I love dark and gritty superheroes, right? We've, you know, we talked before, like I think The Dark Knight's a great movie. You don't, you don't think, you don't have, you got a different opinion of The Dark Knight. You don't think as much of it as I do, but I, even though it's got some issues as a Batman, like I still love that movie. I still love the Tim Burton really dark and gritty Batman stuff. I love dark and gritty superheroes. Like I, you know, I love The Punisher, but,
02:17:33
Speaker
I think I also love the bright and optimistic superheroes like Superman, like Captain America. There's a place for both. They don't all have to be the same. And I feel that Man of Steel
02:17:50
Speaker
does to Superman and Snyder's movies did to the the DC characters what the comics industry was doing to these icons back in the in the in the 90s right when that when they had to make everything dark and gritty and everyone had to be wearing like massive shoulder pads and had to be you know had to be um roughed up and all that this kind of stuff like Batman had to be replaced by a guy who
02:18:16
Speaker
who wore a big suit of armor and killed criminals. And Superman had to go and he had to execute General Zod and the Kryptonians when they were powerless and all this kind of stuff.
02:18:30
Speaker
it was unnecessary is what they were doing to those characters. And it, again, going back to Watchmen and the Dark Knight Returns, it took the wrong lessons from those comics and said, well, now we gotta do this to all our heroes. And that's to me is what Snyder's movies did to the DC characters. You know what's the best part of the Man of Steel? What's that? Remember the first 20 minutes of the movie? Yes, yes. The first 20 minutes of everything up until the,
02:18:59
Speaker
Like everything up until the point like right after his first flight the first time flying
02:19:06
Speaker
I'm talking about the Krypton part. The Krypton part was good too, yeah. I could have seen a whole movie set on Krypton. Yeah, the Krypton stuff was great. He made it feel like a lived in alien world. That was great. Matter of fact, that's the first time on screen I've ever seen a Krypton that made me say, you know what I'm saying? That'd be a pretty cool place to hang out at. Right. And then right up until, but the movie as a whole, like with the exception of the,
02:19:34
Speaker
the stuff with Jonathan. But the first part of that movie, when he puts on the suit for the first time and he tries flying, and you see the joy in Cavill's face, up until that point, the movie is fine. The only quibble I have is with the scene when Jonathan tells him, maybe you should have let those kids die.
02:19:59
Speaker
Right. That's the only quibble I've got with it. Because if, you know, if I'm remembering the timeline of the movie correctly, Jonathan, they don't actually show how Jonathan dies until after he first flies a Superman.
02:20:15
Speaker
So like up until that point, everything works great. But then after that, he goes back to Smallville. He sees Lois there and he tells her the story of how his dad died. And from then on, it's just a complete downward trajectory. You know what I mean? Yeah. Listen.
02:20:37
Speaker
we're going to need another two and a half hours just to talk about Man of Steel whenever we get up to that. That's a movie with his own set of issues that I am not qualified for or prepared to deal with.
02:20:55
Speaker
All right, so we got to get out of here now. We've been ranting for too long. Sorry, I just saw your message. Oh, you just sent it right now, so okay. But yeah, so we had to wrap up now. So just to say that next week for my pick, I thought with all this stuff going on with the unidentified stormtroopers going into Portland and all this and
Next Topic: V for Vendetta
02:21:18
Speaker
just like all the lawlessness and like the the authoritarian tendencies. I thought this would be a good time to go back and look at uh V for Vendetta. Oh okay. I figured this is uh this movie is very timely right now. Yeah yeah yeah I haven't seen I haven't seen that movie oh my god I don't know how long I haven't seen it in ages yeah but yeah V for
02:21:41
Speaker
That definitely is the movie for our time. Exactly, yeah. So join us next week. We'll be talking about V for Vendetta. In the meantime, head on over to the group, Superhero Cinephiles on Facebook. Join in the discussion. You can toss us a few bucks through our website, SuperheroCinephiles.com. Donate through the PayPal button. And yeah, and we will see you next time when we're talking about V for Vendetta.
02:22:08
Speaker
Okay. Thank you for listening as always. Good night. God bless. Stay safe out there, you know, and be good to each other. Watch some good movies and read some good books and we'll see you next week. Yeah. And make sure to wear a mask. Absolutely.
02:22:29
Speaker
Thanks for listening to the Superhero Cinephiles Podcast. If you have any questions or comments about this or any other episode, or if you have a superhero movie or TV show you'd like us to cover in a future episode, you can email us at superheroescinephiles at gmail.com, or you can also visit us on the web at superheroescinephiles.com.
02:22:49
Speaker
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