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Superman vs. The Elite (2012)
368 Plays2 years ago
Fellow podcaster and Superman fan Craig McKenzie makes his debut on the show to discuss Superman vs. The Elite! This is an adaptation of the classic Superman story, "What's So Funny About Truth, Justice, and the American Way?" (and one of Perry's favorite Superman comics). We discuss some of the changes made to expand the runtime, question some of the choices that were made, and more!
Listen to Craig on Kneel Before Pod, visit his blog, and follow him on Twitter and Facebook.
Help support the show by buying or renting this movie on Amazon.
Want to tell us what you think? Have any questions or comments for Perry about superheroes in media or comics? Leave a voice message to play on the show. You can also apply to be a guest on the show.
Patrons get to listen to episodes before everyone else and they also get access to my exclusive companion podcast, the Superhero Cinephiles Book Club. If you want to join in, please consider supporting us through Patreon!
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Transcript
The Elite vs. Superman: A Clash of Ideals
00:00:14
Speaker
Dawn, I guess. They'll like the drama of that. Why do you have to do this? Why can't you call someone else? The Elite didn't take the fight to anyone else. They chose me. No, you win after them. They're slaughtering people and laughing about it. Black can punch a hole through a mountain by thinking. The hat tosses around demons like trained birds and Pam. They have to be stopped. I think they can beat you.
00:00:42
Speaker
I'm sorry, but they're willing to go places you won't. And they are so damn strong. I heard a child say that he wanted to be in the elite when he grows up because it would be fun to kill bad guys. Fun to kill? People have to know that there's another way. They have to see that someone believes in humanity strongly enough... To die for them?
Introducing Craig McKenzie and His Journey
00:01:15
Speaker
Welcome to the Superhero Cinephiles podcast. I'm your host, Perry Constantine, and welcoming a new guest and a fellow podcaster, and that is Craig McKenzie. Craig, how you doing today? Hello, I'm doing great, how are you? I'm doing pretty good. You got me up a bit early, but that's okay. I'm recording a bit late in the UK, so there we are. So there we go, yeah. Time changes, time differences are fun when you're podcasting.
00:01:38
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. Anyway, like I said, you're a podcaster, so what I like to do with new guests is give them a chance to introduce themselves to the audience. So tell us a little bit about yourself. Sure. Well, I'm a blogger and a podcaster. I run Neil Before Blog, which is found on NeilBeforeBlog.co.uk where I review a lot of nerdy stuff like
00:02:00
Speaker
Well, things that we're about to talk about. At the moment, I'm reviewing the Winchester's, I was reviewing She-Hulk, doing not as much at the moment. There's not an awful lot on Star Trek Prodigy. So yeah, dabble in bits and pieces, do movie reviews as well. And then the attached podcast talks about much the same sort of stuff. The latest episode we released at the time of recording was talking about Doctor Who and the recent special, not so recent now, we are sometimes behind the curve in terms of
00:02:29
Speaker
getting the episodes out. But the conversation's worth having, regardless of how long it takes you. I have it, I think. So yeah, that's me. And I'm found on We Made This, which is where we met, actually, which is a podcast network. And I'm on We Are Starfleet, predominantly there, which is the Star Trek podcast that talks about everything except Picard at the moment, because it has its own dedicated podcast.
00:02:53
Speaker
uh so yeah i can't remember how i i think i think aj is the one who got in touch with me about um i think it was about being on on partisan and i think that's how i ended up getting up into the um into the discord but tell us a little bit about um we made this and how'd you guys get all together for that well i was recruited i was actually at star trek convention
00:03:14
Speaker
Birmingham and I ended up meeting Tony there and I don't even remember this happening but what happened was apparently I gave him my business card for the blog and then fast forward a few weeks more months later when he was organizing coverage for the first season of Picard I got a random message from someone I don't remember saying do you want to come on and guest on this Picard podcast we're doing and I was like
00:03:37
Speaker
don't see why not. And then the next thing you know, I was on it and then I appeared on two episodes in the first season. One was an emergency. I just happened to be available when someone dropped out. So I appeared on one episode other than the one I was supposed to be on. And then I appeared in the one I was supposed to be on.
00:03:53
Speaker
And then I just sort of stuck around ever since. I used to refer to myself as the John Barrowman of the We Made This Network, as in they got me on and then couldn't get rid of me. Although I don't know if that's in pure taste now to refer to compare myself to John Barrowman. Is he still cancelled? I have no idea. I didn't even know about that. There was some stuff about he was exposing himself on set when filming Doctor Who and Torchwood. Oh, really? I completely missed that.
00:04:23
Speaker
Yeah. But I know that Stephen Amell stood by him after that point. And I don't know. I don't know if he's a bad egg or not. But I stand by my comparison because he has someone once he appears on something, you just can't get rid
Craig's Nerdy Beginnings and Influences
00:04:36
Speaker
of him. Right. You'll just take over. And so why don't you talk a little bit about what got you into like nerd culture and nerdy stuff and all this kind of stuff like comics, sci fi, everything like that?
00:04:50
Speaker
think it's before I can even remember. My grandparents, my uncle, my dad sort of indoctrinated me into Star Trek from a really young age and I was reading comics as well because when you're that age they're just cool and you just want to know about stuff. I immediately glommed on to people like Superman and Spider-Man, watched the cartoons, read the comics as I said and just broadened my horizons as I went on getting into different characters, different things but I've always been ingrained in nerd culture
00:05:20
Speaker
to varying degrees. Obviously everybody has their niches and not everybody's into everything, regardless of what the media would like you to believe or whatever. You know, when you go into a bookshop where it's, here's historical fiction, here's whatever, here's all the nerd stuff just in this corner. Everybody who's a nerd is into all this stuff. So I don't think that's necessarily the case for everybody. But yeah, I'm in a lot of stuff and I'll be willing to give something a go. And then if I like it, I like it. If I don't, I don't.
00:05:49
Speaker
grew up on it and never grew out of it. This is the case probably for all of us. You also mentioned about doing TV reviews, and this is just kind of a digression, but you mentioned the Winchesters. I didn't even know that it came out yet. So how is it so far? It's five episodes and it'll be six this week. And it's all right. It's not setting the world on fire in terms of
00:06:10
Speaker
being great or anything like that. But it's a solid show. And the thing I've found most interesting about it is that it's confident enough to not throw references to the future of the franchise in your face every episode. There's the odd little nods. There's one where it's, oh, yeah, here's the origin of us wearing disguises to go ask questions and things like that. But it's not like every episode where it'll wink at the audience and say, oh, that's that thing that Dean does in that episode in 20 years or whatever it is. So that's the
00:06:39
Speaker
biggest thing in its favor, I would say. And the two leads are good. I think it's struggling to structure its storytelling because you have all these characters. It's a team show, but it should really be a two-hander, I think. And the other three characters or four characters are just, it's their turn this week to get something to do. It's that kind of structure. Yeah, I was looking forward to checking that out. So again, I didn't even realize it was out, so I'll have to catch up on that.
Gaming Life: Craig's Balancing Act
00:07:06
Speaker
at some point. Usually I wait for TV shows until they come out on streaming to watch it all. It probably won't see season two with the CW imploding. I think I had read that it actually did get a season two order, but I'm not 100% sure. It's one of the ones that might survive or something like that. The last I heard was they didn't pick it up for a
00:07:27
Speaker
back season order the beyond the 13 so I don't know maybe it has been renewed maybe yeah it was just an article like I just kind of glanced at and mostly I was just looking to see what what I'd say about Superman and Lois because I want that show to stay around so badly yeah I can't see that seeing any more than one season one more season yeah yeah uh we had um a friend of mine was on the show uh fairly recently and we were talking about that and he said it's probably only got one season left I'm like don't say that I know you're telling the truth don't say that
00:07:58
Speaker
It's going to be weird getting used to a new John Kent in the first season. It is, that too. Yeah, right after. In the last season, possibly the last season too. I keep throwing it positive. I'm holding on hope. I hope. I need to see the Aroverse or Aroverse adjacent just die as it seems to have pretty much been cast aside. It seems like it, yeah, especially now that
00:08:22
Speaker
Uh, God is in charge of kind of like unifying everything. So it seems like we're going to get a lot less of that kind of, you know, alternate universe type stuff or side universe type stuff going forward. But I don't know. We'll, we'll see what, we'll see what he does. Um, but, uh, anyway, um,
00:08:41
Speaker
Also, one of the things I like asking guests to lately is what kind of thing are you kind of interested in? What's kind of grabbing your attention? You know, not necessarily for a podcast or for your blog, but just kind of for fun.
00:08:54
Speaker
For fun, I'm not sure. I'm trying to find time to do a bit of gaming at the moment because I go through phases where I play games a lot of the time and then I won't play games for edges. I recently bought Gotham Knights actually, but I haven't played it yet. Then I saw it was on a Black Friday deal for £20 cheaper than I paid for it, which really stings. I haven't taken it out of its wrapping, so I'm tempted to just return it and then buy it again.
00:09:24
Speaker
Um, okay. Yeah. I, I, I go through those phases too. Um, especially cause like I said, I've got, I've got two young kids. So gaming time is difficult between, between all the different jobs and then, and the kids running around. So gaming can be really difficult. Um, I'm kind of in, like on the verge of one of those phases, if I had more time, I'd definitely be in one where I was, I've been playing on and off the, um, the, the
Superman vs. The Elite: Ethics and Power
00:09:49
Speaker
new Yakuza game, like a dragon, uh, just kind of like the, uh,
00:09:53
Speaker
not necessarily a reboot more like a relaunch with new characters of that series. I've never played any of those but I've heard good things and I know a few people that are super into them so yeah. Yeah they're fun especially because I'm in Japan so there are lots of things that if you live in Japan you definitely get a lot of the references that they they toss in so that that's kind of that's that's a fun part too like going around seeing like how they
00:10:19
Speaker
how they make some of the different shops and how it looks just like a shop that actually exists, but they changed the name or something like that. It's a bit like Grand Theft Auto in Scotland, even though it's never set in Scotland. There's always these references that you would only understand if you live in Scotland. Oh, really? I didn't know that. Yeah. It's because the Rockstar offices are where I am actually in Edinburgh.
00:10:43
Speaker
They have a lot of end jokes and nods to where it's actually made. Yeah, that makes sense. We had years back, there was a Scottish girl who was teaching in the area here where I live. And she was from Edinburgh too. And she had worked before she came out to teach, she was working as I think a tester for Rockstar Games. So she had also pointed out that connection before I'd forgotten about that. Yeah.
00:11:10
Speaker
It's a fun thing to look out for. I think a lot of the cheats in PC ports are references to Scottish stuff. I know in San Andreas the cheat to make it rain is Scottish summer, things like that. It's something that you immediately understand if you live in Scotland. It just rains all the time, basically. It's a joke.
00:11:28
Speaker
All right. So today we are talking about Superman versus the elite, which was animated movie based on one of my all time favorite Superman stories. It was a one issue story action comics number 77 7075 by Joe Kelly and drawn by Doug Monke and Lee Bermejo.
00:11:49
Speaker
and the title of it, What's So Funny About Truth, Justice, and the American Way. So before we talk too much about the details, because the story in the movie stays very close to what we see in the comic. They add some extra stuff to kind of pad out the running time, but basically it's the exact same story. Were you familiar with this comic before you saw the movie?
00:12:13
Speaker
I knew it existed, but I hadn't read it. And then I saw the film and then went back to read the comic at some point later on. So it's one of those, oh yeah, I know about this story. I'd like to read it. And then they make the film before I get around to it. So what's your opinion on the comic now? Let's start there as a touchstone. I really liked it. And I think in terms of adaptation, picking something that's a single issue is actually really good because it means that you've got a really focused thing that you're adapting rather than trying to throw 50 things in at once.
00:12:42
Speaker
if you're adapting a run like when they did say the Flashpoint Paradox which I do think is a really good animated film but it's also trying to condense however many issues of story into a two hour or not even two hours like hour and 20 minute film so with this it's just I don't know 22 pages and they're trying to adapt
00:12:59
Speaker
that and then expand on it and things like that. But I thought the comic was really good, really interesting. I always like these stories that don't take the premise of Superman for granted, the things that interrogate it and ask the questions about, well, what about if this happens? How do you deal with this situation if this happens? Because
00:13:21
Speaker
It's a major criticism of the character, isn't it? It's the, oh, he's too powerful, oh, he's too moral, oh, he doesn't kill his villains and all this stuff. And it's usually the same arguments that anybody makes when they say, I don't like Superman, they'll say, but he's too powerful. But you don't understand the character then. You don't get it. You don't get what he's about. And this comic and film is about what he's about.
00:13:46
Speaker
Absolutely, yeah, 100%. I mean, I think that's one of the things that annoys me so much when they bring out the whole he's too powerful aspect is that, yeah, he's really powerful, but... Sorry, my cat phoned himself to press a button on.
00:14:01
Speaker
Okay, sorry about that, brief technical difficulties, but anyway, we're back on. So yeah, that annoys me when people bring up the whole, he's too powerful aspect because, well, he's, he is really powerful, but the way you challenge Superman isn't with power, it's with, you know, it's with going after the things he cares about, going after people. I mean, I think that was one of the things I really liked about, oh, looks like he found it again. I'm gonna move the thing, hang on a sec.
00:14:30
Speaker
So, like I was saying, one of my favorite scenes in Superman 2 is when the Kryptonians realize that it's the people he cares about, and just throwing stuff at him isn't going to do much, so instead they start targeting the people. And that's when you can see the pain on Christopher Reeve's face. That's what things that hurts him. And I think that people who don't understand Superman, they don't really get that part of him.
00:14:57
Speaker
Yeah definitely and it's one of his core ideals. I think people accept it more with Captain America because he can be because he can be hurt and he's generally no match for whoever he faces. You know if anybody has more powers than he does which is almost everybody then there'll be a physical threat to him whereas with Superman that doesn't happen very often so
00:15:24
Speaker
his ethics and his morals are who he is and ultimately has to try and solve problems in ways that support them, which can be very difficult for him because he hasn't attempted because he's tried it, he's done it for so long, but he may be tempted to just, I'm just going to throw this guy into the sun because I can and then that solves that problem immediately.
00:15:45
Speaker
Well, yeah, I mean, his greatest villain is the one that has no powers whatsoever, but it's the one that he can't defeat just with his powers. That's what always is interesting about Superman is those stories where his powers aren't suited for the situation, but he has to rely on his intelligence, his ethics to solve those problems, which is exactly what happens in this story, too.
00:16:11
Speaker
So, and for anyone who doesn't know kind of the background of this story, this came out in 2001. And at that time in comics, there was a comic called The Authority that was really popular, published by WildStorm, which now DC owns, and recently did a Superman and the Authority miniseries, which was a really good read written by Grant Morrison. And that one, The Authority was, you know, basically
00:16:41
Speaker
Imagine the Avengers or the Justice League, but they're willing to kill and they're willing to Kill anyone like they're willing to kill to change the world so you have this thing where they're going around and they're threatening world leaders to basically get their act together and And the authority and the elite were kind of based on that especially Manchester black who's the leader of the authority and you know, he's
00:17:06
Speaker
a snarky British comic book character with the Union Jack on his chest, Chainsmoker in the comics. They don't have him doing it in the animated movie for obvious reasons. And very much a riff on Jenny Sparks, who was the first leader and founder of the authority. Very much the same thing, right? She always wore shirts with the Union Jack. She was a Chainsmoker, very surly disposition. It's basically the,
00:17:33
Speaker
the British wise-ass that Warren Ellis puts in all of his books, that's basically a stand-in for himself. Yeah. And it's one of those things from what you were saying there that DC do quite often. They end up buying up defunct comic companies and repurposing the characters later. That's ultimately what happens with Watchmen, isn't it? All these characters that were left lying around from acquisitions, and they just, well, Alan Moore got to just make a story out of it.
00:18:02
Speaker
Yeah, sort of. They kind of changed a little bit because originally, yeah, DC had bought all those characters. They weren't doing anything with them. So Alan Moore came up with the story to use them, the Charleston, I think it was. And then at the last minute, DC got cold feet and they said, well, we don't want to, we might want to use these characters for something else. So can you redo the story, but make them original characters instead? And so then that's how we ended up getting Watchmen.
00:18:27
Speaker
Yeah, and then later on, they do the bringing the watchman into the DC universe proper with the rebirth situation. Right, with rebirth and Doomsday Clock, yeah. Which I actually kind of like Doomsday Clock. I know I'm in the extreme minority with that, but I thought it was an interesting story. I didn't actually get all the way through it. I think I read the start of Rebirth where Wally West came back and things like that, but I didn't really get too far into it. I just got waylaid by other things.
00:18:52
Speaker
Well, I mean, the rebirth event itself, it was so weird, because they had they had this big rebirth special, and they had all the titles relaunch. And then it was like always hinting at stuff, but then nothing until Doomsday Clock, which had these perpetual delays on it. So it was it was really kind of weird. And now by now it's all over. And they're kind of seems like they're wiping the slate clean again with with Dark Crisis. I don't know. I'm not I don't read current stuff. I only read stuff as they come out in trades and they get on sale. So
00:19:23
Speaker
DC is classic. Let's do this for a few years and then just wipe it all away and start again. That's the way they do things. You get used to it as a DC reader. It was really addressing that idea because a lot of people in comics media at the time, in the early 2000s, they were talking about the idea of,
00:19:44
Speaker
you know, why don't we have superheroes who kill? Why do we still have superheroes who hold on to this code that's, you know, a relic from the 1940s and the 1950s? And, um, and so Joe Kelly wrote this story as kind of response that kind of a way to answer that question, why should we have heroes who kill? And
00:20:07
Speaker
And Joe Kelly also ended up writing the movie for this, too. So I think it's really fitting that he wrote them both. And he has that amazing speech that Superman gives at the end, which we'll probably dig into a little bit more as we go on. But he also has almost word for word directly from the comic. It's one of my favorite Superman speeches. But what's kind of your take on the whole superheroes killing side of things?
00:20:31
Speaker
I'm pretty tired off, to be honest, because people talk about it as if there aren't any superheroes that kill. Even recently, The Rock was talking about it as if Black Adam was going to be the first superhero who ever kills anybody, which is just not the case. In the Marvel movies, Captain America definitely kills people who fought in the war. So he's not going to have no blood on his hands in that. The Avengers kill people.
00:20:57
Speaker
Iron Man kills people. In the MCU, people are just getting killed left and right and they don't really moralize about it. They don't sit and feel guilty about it necessarily. And it's something that just comes up every now and again. Spider-Man, for example, vehemently will not kill anybody. He will accidentally be responsible for their deaths by jumping out of the way of something or whatever. But
00:21:20
Speaker
it's something he can resolve by himself. And I think the most interesting aspect of the debate that I saw recently was in the arrow where you had Oliver Queen deciding, I'm not going to kill anymore. And then he ultimately changed a bit of a, it's going to, it's going on a case by case basis here. I'm going to make this decision based on the situation at the time, whether that decision is right or not is up for debate, but at least he has a position on it. And at least he understands that I'm not going to be able to get out of this non-lethally every single time.
00:21:50
Speaker
So it's a bit of a tired debate because people keep bringing it up and they don't really bring up all of it. They just ignore parts of it in order to support their argument by these people. I'm referring to just people on the internet that keep bringing it up. But it's been reawakened because of The Rock and claiming that Black Adam is the first superhero ever killed. Yeah, I remember seeing that and I was wondering how many superhero movies Dwayne Johnson has actually watched.
00:22:18
Speaker
Especially in- Henry Cavill's Superman kills. Oh yeah. He was in that film, so. I mean, that was one of the things that I had hoped they would follow up on in Batman v Superman. And we talked about this when we talked about Man of Steel and BBS and different episodes, but just to briefly summarize here, he kills at the end of Man of Steel and you think, okay, well,
Superman's Ethical Dilemmas
00:22:42
Speaker
From this point, he's going to kind of realize that he has to find a different way. But then opening scene, first time you see him in Batman V Superman, he liquefies a guy. Like he slams it through like several walls. Yeah, but it's comic book logic. He'll be fine. He'll just be knocked out after all that. Yeah.
00:23:00
Speaker
Um, and then Batman, you know, the whole, I thought going in the whole thing is going to be Batman's going to be like, you know, the conscience for Superman. But then he's, you know, he's riding around the Batmobile, you know, crushing cars and, you know, shooting machine guns and, and shooting flamethrowers at people.
00:23:16
Speaker
Yeah, there's a scene in, I think it's an extended cut where you just directly machine guns a guy with a Batmobile. You see him getting shot and he blows people up in the warehouse fight, things like that. So yeah, that Batman's pretty bloodthirsty. Yeah. You also bring up an interesting point, because that is one argument. Sorry, today's the day of interruptions and difficulties, folks. So we have to give these little brief interludes. But anyway, I was saying that in
00:23:45
Speaker
you know, with the Marvel stuff, you bring up an interesting point. And I realized this debate when the whole Snyderverse debate was kind of like at its at its peak of annoyance when everyone was saying a lot of the Defenders of Snyder films were pointing out how, you know, oh, well, you know, Iron Man kills people, Captain America kills people, and nobody's complaining about those.
00:24:07
Speaker
And the thing that stuck out to me about that is because, like you said, Cap's a soldier, is one thing. And is that, you know, the Avengers don't really have a code against killing. It's never been an integral part of their characters. But in the case of like Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, it is such a core part of the Daredevil 2. It's such a core part of their characters that I think when you take that code away, you lose something important about those characters.
00:24:36
Speaker
Yeah, it makes them less interesting because the thing about why doesn't Batman just kill the Joker? Well, in the Snyder movies, it's heavily implied that he did. So that, I guess, solves that problem. But the whole point is that it's not up to Batman, Superman, whoever to decide what kind of punishment these villains should get. That's up to society. They can bring them in because no one else can. But after that point, it's up to the legal system to make a decision on what to do with them.
00:25:06
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, agreed. And especially when you're talking about Superman, I mean, when he can solve every problem with, and especially in the, you know, you mentioned Batman in the Snyder movies, you know, then you get the question of who is this Joker who is running around those movies then? Who's Jared Leto playing that if he's not?
00:25:26
Speaker
Yeah, if Batman's fine with killing regular street villains, then why is the Joker still running around that it causes a huge problem in that in the in those movies, the logic of those movies. But with Superman, too, it's if he's gonna just kill all these villains, you know,
00:25:45
Speaker
then it then we do get into the problem of you know the fact that he then the fact that he is so powerful does start to become a problem. I don't know if you ever read Jeff Loeb's Superman Batman series but there's this one great scene in I think the Supergirl story when
00:26:03
Speaker
And Loeb's narration of Batman and Superman perfectly is perfect in those early issues. It totally captures how Batman and Superman feel about each other. And one of the things Batman says is that something, and I'm going completely off memory here, but he says something along the lines of Clark,
00:26:21
Speaker
you know, seems so human at so much of the time, but then he shoots fire from heaven like a demon. And we all wonder how he can't be thought of as a god. And we're so fortunate that he doesn't have that same thought. And the Snyder movies do lean into that to some degree. You've got a lot of
00:26:44
Speaker
God-like imagery associated with Superman and Batman V Superman, when the people are trapped on the roof after a flood, you see them silhouetted by the sun and things like that.
00:26:54
Speaker
people look up to him and they will see an angel or a god or something similar and it is an interesting modern problem because we do live in a more cynical time where someone like Superman wouldn't be as easily accepted as he might have been in the 1930s when everything was a little more innocent or somehow in the universe the CW show inhabits where Supergirl is, yeah it's fine, we're not worried about her at all.
00:27:20
Speaker
She's a hero, we're happy to accept that. The cynicism and then how Superman or any virtuous hero stacks up against that cynicism is an interesting idea and it's something that I wish this movie started actually had the chance to play with.
00:27:35
Speaker
Yeah, that's one of the things that always kind of annoys me about the movies, that they present the cynicism side very well. And it's like, yeah, yeah, you got the cynicism side, right? But let's see the other side and happen to that. Yeah. I think that was the plan, though. But there was just so much course correcting going on while we were making the things. Because, oh, people aren't liking this thing, so better not commit to the idea that we had. Let's just change it on the fly, even though it will be obvious that we're changing it on the fly. And then you get the Joss Whedon Justice League, which is just a mess.
00:28:03
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Although I did appreciate the Superman in the Whedon cut a little bit more because he felt more like Superman from the comics, right? Cavill was allowed to be a little bit more charming. He was allowed to, you know,
00:28:17
Speaker
a little bit more humor in his delivery and so it felt more like Superman to me that as opposed to without earning it though that was the problem you never get to that point it was just oh now he's this yeah but we just go from here I we'd gotten so much of the dark Superman at that point I was just so relieved to get the one I recognize so yeah it was great to see but yeah yeah I wish we'd seen him actually develop to that point over a couple of films rather than
00:28:46
Speaker
Oh, no, he's just this. This is it. That's him. Right. And more what you've seen before. So let's let's dive into the movie then. I you know, this was one that one of those DC movies that I was there are a few DC movies that I get really excited about when they're announced.
00:29:03
Speaker
One of them was Dark Knight Returns. And Death of Superman was another one. And this one was another one that got me really excited when they first announced it. Because, like I said, I love this story. What was kind of your feeling the first time you watched it? And how about on the rewatch? Anything else?
Critiques on Superman vs. The Elite
00:29:22
Speaker
Any changes in ideas? Anything new that you realize on the rewatch?
00:29:28
Speaker
I have always enjoyed it. I've watched it a few times over the years. It's just something that I go back to now and again and pretty much my feeling about it is the same as it was that first time. I do think the ending is a bit rushed. I think the elite becoming villains, it doesn't happen organically. There's a point where there are no villains and then the story goes from there and then the ending is a bit
00:29:52
Speaker
unsophisticated I think the word is I'll use because it's not that Superman proves his point by defeating them he just defeats them and then everything's back to normal he hasn't really learned anything or no one's really learned anything it's just I've stopped these people and then that's it
00:30:09
Speaker
It's not that he stands up to them with his morals and proves them wrong and everyone supports them or anything like that. He just uses all his bag of tricks to take away their powers and trick them and things like that. So I think the ending could have been punched up a bit to be more connected to the theme.
00:30:26
Speaker
I feel like they did, in a way, with the son, because the guy who watches the blazing skull kill his father, and his father was supportive of Superman's way, and his son was all into the elite, and he even tells Superman to kill the blazing skull.
00:30:42
Speaker
And then at the end, you know, when Superman goes dark, you know, or appears to be going dark, and then the suit, the sun comes in and he's like, no, you taught us there's a better way. It's a little bit, I will give you that it is a little bit rushed, but I think that they do make an attempt, I thought, at least.
00:31:00
Speaker
Yeah, there is an attempt and he's sort of becoming the worst thing that he can be to prove a point as well, as in he's turning into that thing that everyone fears that he could become and he's sort of holding up a mirror to them as well by saying this is what you've become. Yeah. Again, it doesn't make the point as clearly as it could.
00:31:22
Speaker
It's not as clear as it could, yeah. Maybe it's just because I've read this story so much that the point is very obvious to me now. But I can see how, on a first viewing, that point may not be as clear to a lot of people. That's a fair point. I still love that speech, though. That speech is just so perfectly Superman. It encapsulates everything I love about the character in that speech.
00:31:48
Speaker
Yeah, George Newburn, perfect voice for Superman. He's the voice I still hear when I read the comics. He's the one from, yeah, he did an Justice League taking over from Tim Daly. Yeah. Tim Daly was good as well, but for some reason George Newburn is in my mind more. Maybe it's because I saw the Justice League show before I saw the Superman show. Probably, yeah. I don't really have a, like, both of them are good. I love them both, but none of them, no voice has really stood out to me as
00:32:16
Speaker
quintessentially Superman in the way that, you know, Kevin Conroy stood out as quintessentially Batman. Yeah, they keep rotating the casting in the more recent films as well. Right. Yeah. There are a few that were pretty good, though. But yeah, Tim Daly and George Newburn were definitely, definitely up there as being very, very good voices for him. Robin Ackin-Downes as Manchester Black, too. I mean, I thought he perfectly captured that character.
00:32:45
Speaker
Yeah, I think they're doing a bit funny business with the accents, the Manchester accents, and the film as well. They're very exaggerated, which fits a comic book thing. But I guess it's for me, having met people from Manchester and been to Manchester, I'm just thinking, that's not quite there. But I guess for a predominantly American audience, it'll do. It's a weird English accent that'll do. Yeah, I wonder how much of that is also just kind of like, you know,
00:33:13
Speaker
maybe Downs is an English actor. So I wonder how much of that is him kind of poking fun at that aspect of American comic books with a kind of like overwrite the English accents of characters or the accents of any characters anyway. Yeah, it could be. And then David Dejala playing him in Supergirl as well. He had a much more natural accent, although I think the handling of the story in Supergirl wasn't all that good.
00:33:39
Speaker
Yeah, I remember him appearing. And that was when I was kind of like losing interest in Supergirl. So I can't even really remember what really happened with Manchester Black. But I remember being excited at the time and then just kind of like not really remembering much afterwards. He was motivated by grief in Supergirl. It was human first terrorist of his girlfriend. Yeah, something like that.
00:34:08
Speaker
What do you think about the animation style? Because that's one of the things that kind of jumps out to me. I like a lot of the animation in it. I think it's very fluid, but I don't really like the Superman design they did for this model. He's a bit similar to the animated show slash Justice League version, with a prominent chin and things like that. But I don't mind it. I guess I'm used to that style for Superman and
00:34:37
Speaker
I think it works really well. There's a good combination of sort of traditional animation and CG. And I think the CG is blended pretty seamlessly because sometimes in these things where they do some traditional animation for some of it. And then here's a CG element. You see the CG element that's as jarring as it looks when it's bad blue screen in a live action movie. But in this, I think you can tell when they've changed up a bit, but it's not distracting.
00:35:06
Speaker
Yeah, the actual animation itself I liked, but it was the, the main thing was just that Superman design. It just, it felt like, it felt a little bit too cartoony for this story. It felt a little bit too exaggerated with the chest and the chin. I think, and also just my personal bias, I prefer a much more lean Superman, as opposed to the bulkier one. So that's also, that could also be playing into it too.
00:35:34
Speaker
He stands out more when he's Clark Kent with that style rather than a Superman, I think. Right. I actually like it more when he's Clark Kent. When he's dressed as Clark Kent, I think it actually works pretty well. But when he's Superman, maybe it's just because of the costume and everything, it just seems to accentuate everything I don't like about it.
00:35:53
Speaker
Yeah, fair enough. It doesn't really bother me, but yeah, as Clark Kent, it didn't bother me, but it stood out. It's one of those, how is anybody falling for this? Look at this giant man that just works in their office. I really liked the design they went with for Lois Lane, though. It seemed like, especially in that suit she's wearing at the end, with the purple skirt, it kind of reminded me of the animated series look, too.
00:36:21
Speaker
Yeah, and I forget who voices are in there, so it's not someone that ever did it again, I don't think. No, it's Pauli Perret. Okay. Yeah, they've heard a few losses over the years, including one's Alexandra Daddario. She was in one of them. Yeah, I mean, it always comes back to Dane Delaney did it perfectly for me.
00:36:41
Speaker
in the animated series. You talk about actors who perfectly captured that character's voice. That was definitely Dana Delaney for me with Lois Lane. Yeah, she was a great Lois. With the most recent film they released, the Battle of the Super Sons one, it was Laura Bailey who voiced her in that. She's a really prominent voice actor. I actually, plug for myself, interviewed her for 10 minutes. Oh, OK. In conjunction with that film, it was really cool speaking to her because she's done.
00:37:08
Speaker
Everything. She's done the two prominent Spider-Man love interests. She's voiced both MJ and Gwen at different points. Oh, okay. I haven't seen the Super Suns movie yet, so... It's pretty good. That's got a really cool animation style. Okay. Yeah, and the guy that got from Fred Tatasiori, I remember thinking that voice as Perry White, he did an awesome job as Perry White too, I felt.
00:37:38
Speaker
Yeah, I can't really fault the voice cast here at all. The voice of Jonathan Kent, he is a Colonel Campbell from Metal Gear Solid, here immediately in his way. I didn't even pick up on that.
00:37:52
Speaker
I'm so bad picking up on that a lot of times, and people will say, like, didn't you recommend that? It's putting on his Kansas twang, but when you know it's him, you can hear it. Yeah. I'll have to pay attention to that next time. The animation style was an interesting choice, too, because especially at this time, with a lot of these types of DC animated movies that were based on comics,
00:38:12
Speaker
they really made an effort to kind of match the animation style with the style of artwork that was used in the comic story. But they definitely didn't do that here, right? They definitely went for, you know, basically something completely different from the comic story. What'd you think about that decision? I wonder if they were trying to match the animated shows that Superman had been in, because that's what people would be familiar with. Because I noticed with the DC animated ones, they seemed to do
00:38:41
Speaker
Batman and Superman stories most often and the occasional Wonder Woman. Then they might throw in a Green Lantern here and there, but they focus on predominantly those two, which is kind of disappointing because I'd like to see a really good anyone, any third tier character, because it's an animated film. You're not expecting it to do huge business. So why not just see what you can do with
00:39:02
Speaker
lesser-known characters. But I wonder if the decision was to try and match what people might be familiar with with the animated shows that were on. Because there was the same idea with Superman Doomsday, similar enough to the animated show. And that was, I think, the first major one they did. I seem to remember them making a lot of noise about it. It's like, look who we've got voicing, everybody. Look how much money we're putting into this and whatever.
00:39:29
Speaker
Yeah, that was kind of a letdown, actually, as I remember. Yeah, well, they have to do it again, didn't they? Well, yeah, then they've actually actually did do an accurate death of Superman, which was when and that was when they were trying to do the whole animated movie verse type of thing where they had everything was based on the new 52 designs, which I thought was your choice because you've got the
00:39:51
Speaker
the shared universe in the DCU. You've got it on Arrow. You don't really need to have an animated shared universe, too. You can just use the animation for stories that you can't tell in those other ones. So that's why I think going with stories like this or like Dark Knight Returns, All-Star Superman, those are stories that you can't really tell with those shared universes. So it's a good place to do them in animation instead.
00:40:18
Speaker
Oh, definitely. Yeah, it's something that you can just take an arc that's out there and play with it or whatever. But they seem to do every now and again where these four films are connected to each other, however loosely and whatever else. I think the current run is supposed to be loosely connected in some way. I know they've got Legion of Superheroes coming out next year, which I think is loosely connected to Super Suns. Yeah. And also Long Halloween and
00:40:47
Speaker
The Flash and the Green Lantern movies, those are all, and Superman Man of Tomorrow, those are all kind of connected together. Because you have that next scene at Long Halloween where Flash and Green Arrow show up at Wayne Manor at the end.
00:41:01
Speaker
Yeah, so I don't think they're being too strict with connecting to each other. I know that these films, in a way, are supposed to be connected almost to the animated shows as well. They're supposed to be continuation from the Justice League show, even though they aren't. Yeah. They both are and aren't. Right. What do you think are the changes they made to here? Like, for example, they brought in the Blazing Skull subplot. They bring in the whole thing about the
00:41:31
Speaker
I'm not, I'm pretty sure, I'm not sure if the Pakolistan stuff was in the original comic book. I'm just checking here in the summary. I meant to reread the comic, but I didn't have enough time. I haven't read it in a long time, so I don't remember what's not there and what isn't. Yeah, I don't think. Yeah. Yeah, it's, there's a group of alien invaders, but that's about it. It doesn't seem anything about Pakolistan or anything like that in here.
00:41:58
Speaker
I think it's a better idea to make it more domestic because it makes the point more strongly that Superman should have boundaries. He can't be getting involved in political stuff. He can't just fly into a country and dismantle their army and say, well, the US is the one now. It's something that he has no jurisdiction over. It's things like atomic skull. That's a problem he can solve because it's a super powered problem.
00:42:28
Speaker
and just dealing with whatever he deals with. So I like the idea that Superman will draw the line somewhere and I think you have to make a more earthbound problem in order to support that. So Atomic Skull is a great example. He's a great case study for what the film is about because their first fight, it creates so much collateral damage
00:42:49
Speaker
And the non-lethal approach that he takes means that it's just going to keep happening because it's only a matter of time before the guy gets out of prison, before Lex Luthor decides to create another super team of evil villains and lets him out and more damage is caused. And it's the point of, well, if you kill him, he won't be able to do that. And Superman's point is,
00:43:10
Speaker
Yeah, but that's not my decision. I'm not going to kill them. I'm going to give them you guys and then you can kill them if you want. It's up to you. I'm not right. Yeah, that's yeah, I agree with you. I think putting in the adding the political stuff adds a whole new dimension to it because you I mean, you know, it's pokolistan and the Alia so they're, they're, they're just fake countries. You can stand in for any, you know, you know,
00:43:33
Speaker
North Korea and South Korea, you know, China and Taiwan, like you'd stand at any, any Russia and Ukraine right now, right? Anything you want, you can put as a stand in there, Iran and Iraq and or Israel and basically the whole Middle East. But you could put in any two countries there and the same arguments would be you'd have basically the same arguments, right? This idea of, OK, well, these people are clearly abusing their their
00:44:02
Speaker
you know, their roles, they're abusing their own people, they're just after power. And so then it does pose an interesting ethical question. Well, if you're someone like Superman, why shouldn't you just, you know, stop them from doing that? Why only go after the supervillains or the super terrorists? Why not go after these, you know, these despots?
00:44:29
Speaker
I'm sorry, I think part of me may have gotten disconnected there a minute ago. Yeah, there was a blip. See, that poses the question of, you know, why would he only deal with these super-powered threats? Why wouldn't he go after these despots? And I think that's an interesting question that's being posed there. I think with Superman, it's a bit more complicated as well because he does, at that point anyway, identify as an American citizen. He redownstood sometime after that, didn't he? I know there was
00:44:56
Speaker
a story where he said, I don't want to be an American citizen anymore, I want to be a world citizen, which means that he gets to pick and choose even more what he wants to do or what he doesn't want to do. But in this case, his American citizenship hasn't really brought up, although the American way is, and I know that sense being dropped, because it's somewhat shameful, isn't it? The whole idea of the American way and how corrupted it's been since the ever basically.
00:45:21
Speaker
it's never really been what it is, or what it's supposed to be. But then you have characters like Captain America who stand for what America is supposed to stand for. So that's a way you get around it. In the case of Superman, you just drop the description entirely, and he stands for something else, or he stands for truth, justice,
Superman's Global Identity and Moral Implications
00:45:42
Speaker
forget what it is, A Better Tomorrow or something like that. Yeah, the new one, the John Kent one is Truth, Justice, and A Better Tomorrow. But in fact, the original one, it was just Truth and Justice. The American Way thing was added, I believe, by the George Reeves series. Okay. So yeah, I mean, the original idea was, I mean, you know, Siegel and Schuster being, you know, young Jewish guys from poor backgrounds, they
00:46:05
Speaker
They knew what the American way was. They had dealt with anti-Semitism. They saw the rise of fascism coming in America. And so they knew what the American way was. I don't think they would have wanted that. I think that's why they went with truth and justice. And if you read some of those original Superman stories, he doesn't hold back. He's going after politicians. He's going after slumlords. He's going after white theaters. And he's chucking them off rooftops, basically.
00:46:34
Speaker
But at the same time, Superman's not part of the military, so they can't tell him what to do. He's a good Samaritan. He flies in, he deals with whatever he decides to deal with, which is arguably being a vigilante, but I don't think he gets scrutinised for vigilante justice in the same way that Batman does, because he's a nice guy and Batman's not a nice guy.
00:46:53
Speaker
but that's how he gets away with it, I suppose. So it's not his responsibility to fly in and dismantle armies because the US government told him so. They do it quite well in Superman and Lois, actually, or they start to, at least in the second season, where he's working with the military guy, Anderson, I think his name is, that he doesn't get along with. And I'm helping you out because I choose to. So therefore, you can't tell me what to do. You can see why the military would be a bit
00:47:20
Speaker
upset about that they would be a bit funny about it because he's only helping us with some stuff that's not good but we've got this stuff here and I think this film is really harsh on America as well you've got the bit on the talk show the news talk show whatever it is where the guy says I'm American we're the good guys and it's such an empty-headed justification that's as if it's designed to just solve the argument while actually saying nothing but we're American so therefore we went okay why
00:47:50
Speaker
And I'm admittedly very biased because I'm a very progressive guy, but I personally thought that it was justifiably harsh on America in this movie. Yeah, same. I'm in the UK.
00:48:06
Speaker
politics as a global laughingstock at the moment. And yeah, I would love a superhero like Superman to fly in and say, you are all idiots. Let's dismantle this. Or you should really think about this. But obviously, it's not going to happen because Superman doesn't exist. But yeah, and this, I think the just the display of the politics without Superman being involved speaks for itself. Well, I thought, yeah, that scene with Manchester Black, too, when he goes to then he takes out the leaders of Bialy and Pakolas on and
00:48:36
Speaker
and the way he says, when he says to the world, you know, best to just throw him out and start over fresh. Like, if, and I think it's a good, on one hand you can understand where he's coming from, you can understand the idea, but on the other hand too, you know, he is imposing his own more, like yeah, this time he's taken out the right people, but what happens next time when he takes out the wrong people just because he says so?
00:49:05
Speaker
And I think that's an interesting debate that the movie brings up too, is this idea of how far does altruism, when you're going down this idea of killing people out of altruism because they're the bad people, what happens when they're people you don't like, but they're otherwise not bad.
00:49:24
Speaker
And how does he get to decide that as well? What gives him the right to make that decision? Because we've seen it in the more recent conflict in the Middle East, where it's essentially the US going after the people they installed.
00:49:39
Speaker
back up to install in the previous time that they got involved and it's well you just have no way of predicting how these things go these are arguably internal problems unless they're threatening things on a global scale which in this case they weren't they were only threatening each other so it was no one's right to really get involved at least at that point but obviously the united states can't stay away from a fight that they think they should be involved in especially when there's natural resources involved oh yeah yeah i mean it
00:50:08
Speaker
I mean, no clear example of that then with Bush talking about, you know, some Hussein and things he was doing to his people, which all very accurate, all very bad stuff. But at the same time, there's massive human rights abuses going on. They had a whole crisis going on, a human rights crisis happening in the Sudan at the same time. Bush wasn't saying anything about that.
00:50:32
Speaker
Even US allies like Saudi Arabia who are you know, fucking brutal but nobody's but they're fine, you know, Joe Biden goes and fist bumps him Yeah, or even on your own soil. Yeah, exactly in word first, right? Yeah, I mean just yeah the US prison complex Jesus Christ and That hypocrisy angle to that's that's another good point especially the fact that you know the that talk show host guy who's
00:50:59
Speaker
very much like a Bill O'Reilly type or Sean Hannity type saying like, we're Americans, we're the good guys. I'm just like, well, you know, if this guy was going after, if the elite turned his sights on the US president, you probably wouldn't be saying that. Although it probably depends on who the US president is at the time.
00:51:17
Speaker
Yeah, but there's a real possibility that could end up doing that. And it wouldn't have really happened in this continuity necessarily. But there could have been a point where people had the same concerns about Superman, but at least with Superman, you know, where you stand. And the implication is he had to work really hard to get to win people's trust. And he did that by just being himself, being that ethical rock.
00:51:40
Speaker
always standing for the same things, never killing people, always making sure that people are brought to justice and they get to go through the justice system. And that ends up eventually fostering trust. People will rely on Superman at that point. When they see him, they won't be afraid. Whereas with the elite, there's a bit of a honeymoon period where it's, yeah, this is great. They're killing villains and we're a bit safer as a result. But eventually, well, not even eventually, it happens very quickly where they do become a bit more fascistic. It will be suddenly
00:52:08
Speaker
Well, we used to like these guys and now they're holding us to ransom because they can. And Superman never did that. And he spent a long time proving that he wasn't going to do that. There's a famous tweet, meaning the conservative reactions to Trump after wilds. It was like something like, you know, I didn't think they would eat my face, says the woman who voted for the leopards eating people's faces party. Yeah.
00:52:35
Speaker
Yeah, that's the sort of micro thinking that people engage in. So they're not coming after me, but by the time they come after you, there'll be no one else to, no one left to stop. Right, right. They're going after quote unquote, the bad people. So I'm okay with that. Yeah. Which is always what happens with fascism. It's eventually they always need some bad person, bad group of people to go after and eventually they're gonna have to target your group. That's exactly what happens every single time. And yet people don't learn.
00:53:04
Speaker
Which, you know, I think what you're talking about there with the politics aspect, I think, I kept thinking in my head, what might have been an interesting alternate version of this and a way to drive home this is because at this time in the comics, Lex Luthor was president of the United States. And that's something I didn't do in the original comic. That's something I didn't do in this movie. You know, Luthor's not even, I don't even think he's even mentioned at all in this movie.
00:53:30
Speaker
No, he's not. But that might have been an interesting way to explore this aspect. Instead of Pakalasan and Bialia, maybe have the elite going after Lex Luthor as president because of the things the US is engaged in, maybe military action in one of those two countries. And then that would have made it an even more personal thing for Superman because now not only does he have to stop these, you know, these borderline fascistic
00:53:59
Speaker
superheroes from imposing their own will, but he's got to save his greatest enemy too.
00:54:05
Speaker
Yeah. And I haven't read many stories for Lex as president, so I don't really know what the relationship Superman has with President Lex. I don't really know from those Justice League episodes that are set in the alternate universe where Superman just goes and kills Lex Luthor because he's had enough. Right. And then he ends up being a dictator after that point. So I don't really know what goes on there, whether Lex is actually, quote unquote, a good president, whether he talks a good game or not. It was pretty good. Possibly the best. They left it alone for this.
00:54:35
Speaker
Yeah, it was it was a really good. It was a really good run. It was one of my favorite depictions of Luther in the comics was when he was as president and it was it was during this run in the comics that Joe Kelly and Jeff Lowe were doing. There's also a really good issue of Adventures of Superman by by Joe Casey that had
00:54:54
Speaker
Luther asking Superman to go on this mission to rescue someone from a foreign country and it dealt a lot of stuff packed in there. I think and Casey and Kelly actually worked together on the Man of Action TV writing team so I think it would have been really cool if they had worked together on this too and if they had combined aspects of that story in with the elite story.
00:55:19
Speaker
Yeah, it could be interesting. I know that Smallville's Lex Luthor would eventually become president, but I don't know what he would be like either. But yeah, the idea of Lex Luthor being president is possibly something worth revisiting in comics now as well, especially with the whole Donald Trump angle and things like that. I think it could be an interesting one to play with again. But I think it's best they didn't bring it up in this story. The Justice League also aren't mentioned because it's a purely Superman story. Right.
00:55:49
Speaker
Which I thought was an interesting choice because it's the same thing in the original comic. There's not really, I don't think there's any real men over appearances by the Justice League in that either. But it did strike me as kind of a curious omission because there are these little references made to other superheroes. But we never see their reactions at all to what the elite is doing. And I felt like maybe that was kind of a missed opportunity. Maybe, because if you're going to be referencing these other heroes, then it might have been good to at least have
00:56:18
Speaker
like a cutaway with a TV interview or someone asking Wonder Woman or The Flash what they thought about the elite. I think it would have been an interesting other side to present an other side to that argument.
00:56:32
Speaker
always a problem with shared universities in that there's always an equation of why isn't such and such involved in this story? There's a problem constantly in the Arrowverse. It's, okay, you've got this villain that can sap metahuman powers and Oliver's dealing with something else over in Star City. So why not swap villains? It seems to make sense that you could just swap villains. But it's the conceit of storytelling, isn't it? This is a Superman story, so therefore no one needs to be involved. There's references to Wayne Enterprises, I think. You see that on a billboard or something like that.
00:57:03
Speaker
There's a reference to the Martian Manhunter as well and the Elite talk about, you know, if any of your other friends come after us or something like that. So there are all these little references. So I think that's why I think it feels a little, I think if you're going to do this movie, I think it may have been better to just make it so that Superman and the Elite are the only superheroes in this universe. I think that would have made it
00:57:28
Speaker
made that argument make a little bit more sense. Because as it stands, it feels like the other heroes are being kind of cowardly by not at least saying something. Yeah, I suppose you can explain it way by the rest of the Justice League are off on Battleworld or something like that. They're doing something else. Yeah. That was just something that was jumping out to me on this rewatch. One of the things I did really like too was Clark going to PAW for counseling because like I
00:57:57
Speaker
I've always been kind of like a mixed opinion on whether or not his parents should be alive because I do love that scene in Superman the movie when Jonathan dies. And then Clark realizes that he's not a guy because even though he has all these powers, he can't save his father from a heart attack. And that's such a humanizing moment for Clark. And it's one of the things I actually, I love, it's one of my favorite scenes in that movie. But at the same time, you get scenes like this where
00:58:25
Speaker
he goes to Jonathan for counsel and Jonathan kind of lays it all out for him. And I like that we see these moments when Clark's vulnerable and he's questioning his ethics. Do I fit in in this new world and all that? And I think, and yeah, I love what Jonathan says to him in that moment. What about you? What was your take on that?
00:58:47
Speaker
With his parents, it's usually one of them that's dead, isn't it? They're never both around. Or not never, but the New Adventures of Superman are both, and various continuities have both of them around as well. Jonathan Kent dying is the most common one that I've seen. Happens in the Superman movie, happens in Smallville, happens in Superman and Lois.
00:59:08
Speaker
and it happens in Man of Steel, although under much more ridiculous circumstances. And well now watching it after I've seen Batman v Superman, it's actually a very similar moment to when he goes to ask Martha for advice in Batman v Superman. It's the idea of you have to make your own choices about what to be for these people and you just have to be true to yourself and
00:59:33
Speaker
nothing else. And I like how everyone in Smallville seems to love the elite, but they'll pass. You're a classic. And it's things like, if it ain't broke, don't fix it is one of the things I note you down that his father says to him. It's the idea of there's nothing wrong with your morality and people just need to see that.
00:59:53
Speaker
it's an interesting over argument I think about the whole morality thing because Superman is just going to live well and show people a better way. But he has privilege in a way because he
01:00:07
Speaker
will live long enough to see that play out over a long period of time. So he can wait for that change, and he can wait for it to happen on its own. But regular people don't have that luxury. People want change like right now. They want to feel safe right now. It's no, they do no good to tell people, oh yeah, in 100 years, this will all be great if things keep going the way they are, because the people there right now won't see it, but Superman will. So there is a bit of privilege from his position in that way. That's not something that's directly brought up in that conversation,
01:00:37
Speaker
Quite like the idea of just, oh yeah, it's all well and good, you waiting for change to happen, but we can't. We have to live and we have to die. Yeah, I thought, and Manchester even kind of, the movie references that too, when Manchester talks about how, look, you're Superman, you're invulnerable, you don't have to worry about this stuff, but the rest of us, we know what it's like to be scared.
01:01:06
Speaker
you know, he makes a good point that yeah, you don't know what it's like to be scared. So it's very easy for and like you said, this is a this is a point of privilege that that Clark doesn't quite realize he has and I don't think he ever really quite completely reckons with that idea either. No, and I suppose he'll never have to because
01:01:25
Speaker
it's not as if he'll have his power taken from him and he has to deal with the fact that the world is rubbish and he'll have to be a direct victim of that. You get better at that in Superman 2 where he just gets beaten up by somebody who's just not very nice, but that's not really going to happen here. There will be stories where he loses his powers and has to reckon with the fact that he's mortal, but it never lasts more than an issue or two. Right, right. So what do you think about the Clark and Lois relationship, the way that was handled?
Clark and Lois: A Mature Relationship
01:01:53
Speaker
I always love seeing it when it's so lived in, because as much as I like the working of the Daily Planet, and she doesn't know who he is, and he's always disappearing, that gets a bit tiresome after a while, but I always like it when they're a power couple, really. They support each other, they rib on each other. I love how natural the relationship is, because he's always putting on a persona as Clark Kent to other people. But with Harry, he gets to be entirely himself. And to the public, he's Superman.
01:02:20
Speaker
which is a different persona, but with Lois, he's just himself. Yeah. And it'd be the same with his dad as well. When he goes home at Smallville, he can just be himself. Yeah, yeah, same thing. My favorite depiction of their relationship is Superman and Lois. And I think that it does a really good job of showing that idea and showing how they support each other and how they still have issues that they have to deal with even after they've been together for so long. I mean, that was one of the things that I think
01:02:48
Speaker
you know, Lois and Clark kind of lost sight of when, once they got together, it just, a lot of that, that fun, that tension in their relationship just seemed to be sucked right out. It didn't seem like the writers really knew how to write a married couple. But here, you're right, they challenge each other. They're, you know, she supports him, but she's also, she's also her own person too, right? She's also, you know, doing her own thing and exploring her own leads.
01:03:16
Speaker
and all of that stuff. So I thought they did a really good job of, you know, it's a very brief, only very brief touches, but I'm glad that they kept that from the comic story. The fact that this is a Lois who is married to him, who knows that he's Superman, who he can actually confide in as opposed to the more accepted one in most of the, up until this time, most of the mainstream productions was where she doesn't know that Clark and Superman are the same person.
01:03:45
Speaker
Yeah and then there's even a point in the film where she starts questioning the lethal tactics stuff. It's only for a second but something about do you wish the terrorists were dead and she says right now I do actually and it's just kind of this oh wow she's not
01:04:04
Speaker
she's wavering on her perspective here and that's just interesting because that makes her human and you've got it and everything that Clark is in this film is just no I can't compromise my principles I shouldn't compromise my principles I'm being left behind by this world and he keeps sticking to them and there's this point where just Lois is thinking
01:04:23
Speaker
You know what? Maybe, maybe sometimes you could just kill people and it doesn't know what to do with it. Again, they don't bring it up necessarily, but it's just something he's sitting there thinking about. It isolates him in a way for the rest of the film because it's, oh, and even Lois isn't 100% on my side here. Yeah. And it's a, it's a great reaction there too. I completely forgot about that moment, but you're right that because it makes sense that I can't remember if there was any
01:04:51
Speaker
Again, it's been so long since I read the comic book. I can't remember if they had that same idea, her challenging him in that way, but it works really well here as just like this one small moment where, and it makes sense too, right? Obviously she's a reporter who's always, she's this investigative reporter who's always put in these dangerous situations. And she's always been a bit harder than Clark too. So it makes sense that she would have these moments where she thinks, well, maybe sometimes this way doesn't work.
01:05:21
Speaker
And maybe there are sometimes we have to take things a little bit further. So it makes sense that you would have those moments to think about that. Whereas Clark, you know, but again, going back to his whole privilege, think he would, he would always have that privilege of being able to say, there's another way I can find another way. Well, yeah, you're Superman. Of course you can. Yeah. But how many people will be killed as collateral damage while you're finding the other way? There's the question. Um,
01:05:47
Speaker
So last thing I wanted to talk about kind of was the title. I kind of feel like the title is a little bit underwhelming, just Superman versus the elite. I think it would have been maybe a better title if they had just gone with like Superman, Truth and Justice or something like that, something more connected to the original story title. What do you think?
01:06:08
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not sure why they titled it that way, because it does undersell what the film's about. I mean, it is about him in conflict with this team, but you don't know what the elite is, so you're getting drawn in by Superman. But what's he doing? He's just fighting another villain team? Do I want to watch that? I don't know. It's not a very appealing title. The actual title of the comic would have probably been a bit long-winded, maybe.
01:06:29
Speaker
That, yeah, that's what I was thinking too. I'm like, you can't really call it what's so funny about truth, just in the American way. That's a very, that's a mouthful for a, for a movie title. But so I was thinking like, if you just call it truth, justice in the American way, or, you know, my personal, cause they, they referenced that phrase specifically. So I think that would, that would work. Um, you know, though perfectly, I would just say truth and justice would be better.
01:06:51
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's probably a good show. It's just one of those generic titles, isn't it? It almost makes it seem a bit pulpy, actually. It does, yeah. If you think back in the sort of forties where it's such and such versus the people from Mars or whatever. Yeah. OK, was there anything else you wanted to mention about this movie, Craig? I think those are kind of the biggest things I'd want to touch on. One thing I really like is the
01:07:18
Speaker
the parody almost version of Superman, the cartoon for kids. And the fact that he's branded himself, he owns the copyright of himself, but he donates all the proceeds to charity. I think that's a great way of getting around that idea of why aren't all superheroes millionaires profiting off the merchandise of themselves?
01:07:38
Speaker
And they touched on that in Ultimate Spider-Man, where the kingpin bought all the intellectual property rights to Spider-Man. So he was going to profit over all the merchandise he was producing off Spider-Man. But I like the idea that Superman owns a copyright of himself, but donates all charity. He could be a millionaire, but he's not. Yeah, I think that's something that they did in the comics first. I could be wrong, though. But yeah, there was one story in this era of Superman comics where
01:08:08
Speaker
where a character comes in and starts selling branded merchandise and then, and Lois tells him, he's like, you know what? You know what's better than superheroes is supervillains. So why don't you sell some supervillain merchandise instead? And he's like, oh, that's a good idea. And then the supervillains come calling. And then he stops after that. Yeah. Well, you don't have any supervillains anymore because all you do is, all they do is sell toys of themselves and they don't need to rob banks anymore because they're just millionaires.
01:08:36
Speaker
Any other things that you want to mention here? No, I think I got through most of my notes here by the looks of things. I just had to get the intellectual property thing in because I love that idea. I love these little real world things that rub up against superhero stuff. What about the branding though? Who owns the copyright of these things? I think the Marvel movies get around it by just Tony Stark. He's taking out copyrights on everybody probably.
01:09:03
Speaker
I think they also, they also tie it into the, the overall theme of the movie too. When, you know, she asked him about, you know, what about creative control? And he's, and he just kind of like, did I mention it's all for charity? And, and she tells him, you know, you've got to protect your S, you've got to protect your branding. You know, you've got to protect what you stand for. And that, you know, that ends up being kind of like the overall theme of this whole movie.
01:09:27
Speaker
Yeah, he has an ironclad contract. It's not to worry about. He's just not going to make any money out of it. Right. Which I think is funny because I wouldn't be that upstanding. If I was super bad at it, I'd take my percentage. I would donate some of it to charity, but I would take enough to live a very comfortable life. Oh, yeah. But he's at the Daily Planet because he enjoys it, I suppose. So that's what it is. And the movie also poses some, you know, in a in a cellular form, it also touches on these ideas of
01:09:57
Speaker
you know, government action, like with the UK basically creating Manchester Black and these other, and the elite too, and having their, you know, this whole idea of, you know, using bad guys to fight our wars for us and like kind of, and again, that whole idea that you had mentioned before of America, creating bigger problems that they then have to go in and fix 20 years later. It's kind of the same idea here in a way.
01:10:25
Speaker
Yeah, that's a bit rushed as well, that here's his origin story. We're going to spend a good two or three minutes explaining his origin story. And then just a hand wavy line later on. Oh, yeah, that was all nonsense. It's all rubbish. His sister is alive. It's all fine. He's just making up for some reason. And then you have that lobotomized interdimensional creature and all that stuff. It's just it throws a lot of lore at you very quickly towards the end of the film. Right. Yeah, that was it was another. And that's another aspect that would have been nicer to touch on this whole idea of
01:10:55
Speaker
where Bunny comes from. And it's kind of, you know, Breeze passed that whole idea of, well, we gave her a lobotomy and now she does whatever we say. And when you think about what he's actually saying there, that's actually pretty terrifying. But it's the movie just kind of glosses over that part.
01:11:13
Speaker
Superman says, hang on a minute, what's this? What are you doing? And then he doesn't really bring it up again, other than at the end where it's, oh yeah, we told the creature would send her back to her home dimension, and she was very cooperative, so fine. Yeah, that was another thing, how did they actually find a way to communicate with the creature too? It's a nice payoff at the end when you find out, and I do like the idea of Superman getting creative with his powers, and
01:11:39
Speaker
using them in a way where it seems like he's killing, but he's actually not. And his army of robots. And his army of robots, yeah. But it also, it's also a little bit too, too path, right? It happens a little bit too easily at the same time too. Yeah. And it doesn't explain anything about the other members of the elite either. They're just kind of there. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's another thing is like, when Manchester's about to make that telepathic connection, he says, you know, you know, some of us didn't have it so easy in the origin department.
01:12:09
Speaker
you get the sense that he's going to be talking about all the elite, but he only talks about himself. And then the rest of them are just kind of there. We never find out what their deal is. I thought that was also kind of for this. Pacing reasons, that makes sense, because it might have been a bit tedious to go through five origin stories, especially when some of them would have been less interesting than others. That's something that Supergirl did, I'm not going to say well, did okay, as in you had introductory episodes for each of the elite members that they were using.
01:12:35
Speaker
Yeah, I think the story would probably have benefited a little bit more if, for, you know, maybe a little bit more depth on some of the other elite members and why they're following along. Because I think Coldcast is especially an interesting character where he actually ends up reforming and he ends up coming over more to Superman's line of thinking in the comics. And you kind of see his growth and evolution. So I think, I mean, I'm not, they obviously couldn't have done all that in one movie, but, you know, maybe some hints about
01:13:04
Speaker
some changes. And they also go, they go very quickly from idolizing Superman to being, like you said, supervillains. I think that whole aspect of it is kind of rushed too. Yeah. And I wouldn't have hated it if the film was another 15 minutes to hide out some of this stuff. I think that
01:13:26
Speaker
that's better than it being too abrupt when the shift happens, when you're suddenly in the middle of the second act and then everything's different, completely different, all the characters are different, and yeah, so. I would have watched another 15 minutes of this. Yeah, that's one of those, that's a good point, because this movie's only like, what, 76 minutes long, so. Yeah, an hour 14, I think it is, including credits. Yeah, so these movies, you know, when they have these shorter ones, that's a lot of stuff you're trying to squeeze into a little bit of time.
01:13:55
Speaker
When you've got something like The Death and Return of Superman or The Dark Knight Returns, they did that as two movies. And then later they released it as one collection. I know originally they were kind of stuck to that 75 minute, 80 minute format because they had to fit it into like, you know, TV blocks on Cartoon Network. But by this point, I don't think they still had that limitation. So I don't know why they keep forcing this limitation on themselves.
01:14:25
Speaker
It's direct-to-video. You can do whatever you want. Yeah, they're all just DVD releases. Some of them would come out in the cinema. I've seen a few of them in the cinema, actually. I saw the death and return of Superman ones as a double bill in the cinema. That was really cool. Oh, that's cool. But yeah, I'm not sure why they keep forcing this limited format. It would have been nice if they actually let some of these stories breathe a little bit more, I think.
01:14:50
Speaker
Yeah, there's always a possibility that we could just seem bloated and maybe they're bearing in mind the target audience, which is probably a lot younger than we are. And it's the attention span thing. Well, that too, although this one's actually pretty adult, like they've got, you know, they're tossing around words a bunch, they've got they're dealing with some pretty adult themes in it.
Adult Themes in Animation
01:15:09
Speaker
I mean, this movie is actually a whole lot more adult than I think a lot of people might might realize.
01:15:15
Speaker
Yeah, I find that with a lot of these animated ones, and I know that in some cases, they just straight up just go for the R rating. Oh, yeah. Killing Joke, for example, and things like that. But we don't talk about the Killing Joke. Yeah, it's a bit rough. But it's one where they just, at least before it came out, everybody was like, this is going to be amazing. It's Kevin Conroy voicing Batman. It's the Killing Joke story. It's R rated. Mark Hamill's the Joker. It's going to be incredible. And then it comes out. Yeah, yeah.
Craig's Online Presence and Podcasting Ventures
01:15:45
Speaker
Shane, that was their last film together. Anyway, anyway, on that note, Craig, you want to tell people where they can find you? Sure. So as I said earlier, you can find me mainly on Neil Before Blog, so that's NeilBeforeBlog.co.uk, or just put it onto Twitter and Facebook and it'll come up until Twitter disappears completely, in which case I'll need to think about where else it's going to live.
01:16:10
Speaker
But for now, at least at time of recording, that's where it can be found. And as I said, I review a bunch of stuff like this, lots of nerdy stuff, the Winchester's at the moment, et cetera. So you can find my reviews on there and the attached podcast, which talks about, again, stuff like this. There's all sorts of stuff on there. And it can be found over in the We Made This podcast network as well. And one of the four co-hosts of
01:16:36
Speaker
We are Starfleet, which at the moment is covering Star Trek Prodigy, which is my favorite modern Star Trek show. OK, great. Well, thanks so much for coming on. We'll have links to all that stuff in the show notes, so you can go ahead and check those out. Craig, it's been fun. Thanks for coming on, talking about Superman versus the Elite. And any time you want to come on back, just let me know.
01:16:57
Speaker
I'll definitely come back. I was looking at the list of all the stuff that you haven't, you've done and thinking about. There's all the stuff you haven't done yet. There's some interesting holes that we have in that list. It always kind of surprises me. Some of the suggestions that people have when they want to come on the show, some make sense, but other ones, it's kind of
01:17:18
Speaker
It's interesting to see the ones that people don't suggest, even though they're like these huge holes we have in the stuff we've covered. Stuff like this is a bit more niche, isn't it? Stuff like this, yeah. Not everyone's going to find it. Right, right. But yeah, we've gotten some surprising ones. Anyway, superhostsinnophiles.com is the website, supercinemapod on Instagram. And for now, Twitter, although Craig said, who knows how much longer that's going to be around.
01:17:44
Speaker
at this rate. We're recording this episode in November. And so things are really, by the time you guys listen to it, maybe things will have calmed down or maybe Toru will be completely gone. We'll see what happens. But we're also Super Cinema Pod on there for the time being at least. And then we are also patreon.com slash Super Cinema Pod. If you want to subscribe to the show for as little as a dollar a month, you get these episodes a
Superhero Cinephiles Book Club and Conclusion
01:18:10
Speaker
week in advance. And you also get access to the Superhero Cinephiles Book Club
01:18:14
Speaker
where we talk about comics and all that stuff. It's about one bonus episode a month where we talk about ad stuff. Thanks so much for listening and we will talk to you next time.
01:18:25
Speaker
If you enjoy the Superhero Cinephiles, then you'll also love my companion podcast, the Superhero Cinephiles Book Club. All my Patreon subscribers get access to this exclusive podcast where I review superhero comics and graphic novels. Not sure what comics you want to read next or what you should dive into? I've got you covered on that. I'll be doing reviews, recommendations, and also talking to you about useful entry points.
01:18:46
Speaker
If you're interested in reading some comics but don't know where you should start, plus you'll get access to all episodes of the main show a week before everyone else. On all of this for as little as just a dollar a month, all you have to do is go to patreon.com slash SuperCinemaPod and you can sign up at any subscription amount to get started. Thanks so much for your support and please don't forget to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
01:19:29
Speaker
Thank you for listening and as always good night. Good evening. God bless.