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SCP Classic – The Death of Superman Lives: What Happened?
233 Plays11 months 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.
The Flash had a number of cameos, and one of those fulfilled Jon Peters's lifelong dream of seeing Superman fight a giant spider in the third act. So for the final episode of SCP Classic, Derrick and I look at the documentary about the long and troubled production of Superman Lives.
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
Audible Promotion Announcement
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey Derek, guess what? Hit me with it. We just got a promotion with Audible. Audible, fantastic. I love Audible. Do you know what the cool thing about this deal is? What's that? If our listeners go to audibletrial.com slash supercinemapod, they get a free trial with Audible. And do you know what they get with that?
00:00:22
Speaker
What do they get with that? Tell me. They get one free audiobook of their choice and they get two free Audible Originals, which is special content that Audible makes available free for all its subscribers. Are you kidding me? That deal is so good I may go myself and sign them. Do you think they let you keep the books after you're done?
00:00:43
Speaker
No, you're not gonna tell me they let you keep the books after you're done. Yes, in fact, you can go sign up for a trial and you can cancel before the trial ends and you get to keep the books you've already downloaded.
00:00:55
Speaker
Well, I don't see how you can beat that with a stick. Exactly, yeah. And you get lots of great books, especially for fans of the show. You can listen to Super Gods by Grant Morrison, which is all about how the superhero comics have changed and evolved over time. Or you can check out Marvel Comics, The Untold Story. Which is a terrific book. I have that both in hardcover and I listened to that on Audible myself in my car while traveling back and forth.
00:01:21
Speaker
And there's also another similar book that's called Slugfest, which is about like the wars between Marvel and DC Comics. Oh, okay. So that's another one you got to check out too. So yeah, head on over to audibletrial.com slash supercinemapod and start your free trial right now. You got one free audio book and two free audible originals, and you can keep them even if you cancel before it's over.
00:01:59
Speaker
nerds, geeks,
Superman Lives Documentary Introduction
00:02:00
Speaker
sweaties. Look how far we've come. We rule the world. But it wasn't always this way. Let's go back to a time when there was no comic book cinematic universe. When you had to wait three years to get a superhero movie. Back to a time when Batman used a credit card.
00:02:16
Speaker
This is a film about a superhero movie that didn't get made. In 1998, a movie called Superman Lives was in production. It was going to be directed by Tim Burton and starred Nicolas Cage as Superman. I've been fascinated with this since I first heard about it. From the concept designs, to the various scripts, to the people involved, this would have been the most craziest cosmic Superman movie ever made.
Host Introductions and Personal Updates
00:02:37
Speaker
Welcome to the Superhero Cinephiles podcast. I am half your host, Perry Constantine. And I'm the other half, Derek Ferguson, coming at you live or semi-live from Brooklyn, New York. Live on tape, as they say on a Stephen Colbert show.
00:02:52
Speaker
How you doing today? I'm doing pretty good. I was about to ask you the same thing. You know, it's getting chilly out here and I'm fighting off a bit of a cold, but you can probably hear my voice a little bit stuffed up right now, but hopefully we're nearing the end of it. Just hit me like two days ago. Okay. But otherwise I'm doing okay. How about you?
00:03:12
Speaker
I'm doing all right. As I was saying, telling you earlier, we were getting hit with a snowstorm here now in Brooklyn. Um, so, uh, they're calling it a Norteaster. That's what they're calling it. Uh, anyway, you look at it, it's snow coming down and I got to shovel that shit later on. So that's the bottom line. But other than that, I'm doing fine. I'm just, you know, hanging out, staying in the
Interest in Documentaries
00:03:34
Speaker
house. Matter of fact,
00:03:35
Speaker
We're doing the documentary today. I have been on kind of like a documentary kick. I watched like three or four documentaries in the last two, three days. You know, it's funny you say that. I must be something in the in the air because I've been kind of on a documentary kick myself, too. I was watching a bunch of different stuff over the past few weeks. Yeah, I watched a documentary about Pauline Cale.
00:03:57
Speaker
You know, who was like the most influential movie critic of the last half of the 20th century. What else did I watch?
00:04:10
Speaker
What's something about doomsday preppers? People who get ready for doomsday stuff like, yeah, I don't know. It's just like, you know, I start watching one documentary and it just led me to another one and another one and another one. Yeah, I go through those periods too where I just start like, binging on a bunch of like one type of show or something. I do it a lot with podcasts too. Like I'll just get interested in the top and I'll look like lots of different podcasts that are around that topic. But lately we started,
00:04:37
Speaker
It was like two days ago, we started watching Breaking Bad because my wife's never seen it. And we're just looking through Netflix, and I saw it on there. I'm like, oh, well, let's see what
TV Series and Genres Discussion
00:04:45
Speaker
she thinks of it. So we put on the first, she's addicted. We're like at the end of the second season last night. And I was getting tired. I was falling asleep. I'm like, I'm going to go to bed. She's like, you mind if I stay up and watch some more? I'm like, go out. I've seen it like twice already. So yeah, she's set up. I don't know how much she watched after I went to bed, but she's still asleep now. So that might be an indication.
00:05:05
Speaker
It's funny that you mention that because we started watching this other show with Bryan Cranston called Your Honor. They just started a show time. And he plays a judge whose son accidentally runs over like a mafia guy or something like that. So now he's trying to cover up the crime so his son doesn't go to jail. Patricia's watching it and she said, oh, how come he only plays these parts where he's an unlikable guy?
00:05:31
Speaker
And I said, what are you talking about? I said, he was in a comedy for years, Malcolm in the Middle. But she'd never seen that. She only knows him from...
00:05:40
Speaker
Seinfeld because he was on Seinfeld. Oh, really? Yeah, he was. Well, he wasn't like a regular character, but he was a recurring character. Oh, he played a dentist. Tim Watley. Oh, yeah. I remember him now. Yeah. The whole anti-dentite story. Right. Right. He was the dentist that switched to Judaism and was convinced he only did that so he could tell Jewish jokes. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:06:05
Speaker
Yeah, I remember that now. So yeah, so now Patricia has watched this. So now she's interested now in
Marvel and Star Wars Updates
00:06:11
Speaker
seeing Breaking Bad. And I tried to get her to watch it years ago. I want to say that, I want to say that. But now she wants to see it. Yeah, yeah. Serendipity there. Yeah, yeah, interesting. So we're both on documentary kicks. Our wives are on Breaking Bad kicks.
00:06:25
Speaker
How do you feel about documentaries in general? You know, it depends on the subject matter, really. For a long time, I really didn't have any interest, right? I'm just like, if I want to watch a movie, I want to watch something that, you know, I want to watch a story. But over the past, I don't know, maybe it's like in the past, like maybe
00:06:42
Speaker
10, 15 years, I started getting more interested in them. But mostly it depends on the subject matter. Like if it's something that I'm curious about, then I'll watch it. It's very unlikely for me to watch a documentary about something that I've got no prior interest in though.
00:06:57
Speaker
Right, right. Yeah, it's same thing with me. Like I really, I could like, as far as documentaries go, I could take them or leave them. But then like once I started watching Turner classic movies, really, and they would have like, you know, like these all night marathons or certain documentaries on certain subjects. And then I started watching them. I said, oh, wow, you know, some of these are really, you know, pretty good. And yeah, so I kind of got hooked on
00:07:26
Speaker
Document and it's a nice way. I find to cleanse the palette to movie watch your palette. Yeah different I think for me it it's it's really with the streaming services because now they're they're all there It's readily accessible. So I think that's when I started getting more interested in because before it's like
00:07:43
Speaker
I'm not really interested in going to a movie theater to see a documentary. Like if I wanna go to a movie theater, I wanna see something that's got action in it, that's got spectacle. I want something that's worth my 10 bucks. Yeah, that's excellent point because I could never see myself.
00:08:01
Speaker
like paying to go see a documentary. But I went to see Fahrenheit 9-11. I saw that in the theater. But that was kind of a special case, because that was a huge movie that was coming out at the time. But most documentaries, you're not going to get me to pay money to go see it in the theater.
00:08:17
Speaker
Yeah. And like you said, you know, with the streaming services, like I watched that one on Netflix, the one that everybody's talking about now, the one about the internet was at the social dilemma. Social dilemma. Yeah. I haven't seen that yet, but I want to check that out. Oh, that's excellent. Yeah. Watch that. That's really good. I also got to finish, finish watching the, um, uh, fear city, the, the New York and the mafia one. Oh, you watching that? That's good. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like three episodes in so far. I got to get back into that one. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I tell everybody, you know,
00:08:47
Speaker
And I've been telling everybody that, OK, go back and watch that if you want to. That's like the origin story of Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani. Yeah. Yeah. That's like the origin story. And I said that to people because I always tell people, listen, they were always crazy and racist. They just didn't start it. And if you watch that, you look at that, you say, OK, now I understand why. Either way. And
Documentaries and Biopics Discussion
00:09:09
Speaker
there's there's another documentary I can't
00:09:13
Speaker
think of the name right now, but I'm going to give it to you. I'm going to find that sent to you, but it's a documentary about Roy Cohen. Oh, I know. I just, I just, maybe not that one, but he was a heavily featured in the Trump family documentary that Netflix did.
00:09:28
Speaker
Because you hear don't up all the time. He was talking about. Where's my Roy Cohn? Where's my boy? Well, if you watch this documentary that i'm talking about You'll understand a lot why don't trump is the way he is because that was like his mentor Yeah, yeah, so yeah, so I watched that and I said, oh shit. Okay, it gave me a new insight into why he acts Yeah, I know I know a little bit about Roy Cohn now you want to talk about crooked motherfuckers That's a guy who pretty much defined crooked motherfucker. Yeah, and I watched and I watched um
00:09:57
Speaker
the movie version of the play, Angels in America, in which he's a character played by Al Pacino. And I said, oh, yeah, well, you know, they must have exaggerated this, I mean, you know, for the movie. No, you go back and you do your research into Roy Cohn, you really not even exaggerate the damn thing. That's who he was.
00:10:16
Speaker
You know, there's this really good podcast I've been listening to just brief digress. It's called Behind the Bastards. And it goes into like all these like little stories about like these really terrible people throughout history. Like, you know, for example, like Hitler was, you know, had a terrible case of flatulence. And that's one of the reasons why he became a vegetarian was because he was farting all the damn time. Oh, OK. And it's it's just like all these really weird stories you find out about
00:10:43
Speaker
Just like all these really interesting stories about all these really terrible people about like how how Stalin was, you know
00:10:51
Speaker
It was insane. And they kind of depict this a little bit if you saw the death of Stalin. But he'd take his men out, like his inner circle, and they'd start drinking at like five o'clock in the morning. They'd be just like going nonstop. And he had this weird obsession with practical jokes, like with people sitting on tomatoes and shit like that. And then at like two in the morning, like all the, and it'd be like constantly like, you know, try to drink each other, try to out-drink Stalin. Because if you had to keep up with him.
00:11:18
Speaker
And then it's like by two in the morning, you know, his guys, they're all like about ready to die. And he's like, let's watch a cowboy movie. And it was just like all of this stuff. And you see this in the opening scene. Have you seen Destin Stalin?
00:11:31
Speaker
No, I haven't. Oh, it's really good. But in the opening scenes, you see this whole thing play out. And I had just finished listening to the Behind the Bastards episode on Stalin before I saw this. And it's all true. Like, this is shit that actually happened. You think it's something that's made up for this movie, but no, it actually happened. Yeah, stuff that you, you know, you swear you are. Okay, well, that can't be true. You know, it did actually happen. Yeah.
00:11:56
Speaker
It did actually happen. One more documentary I could recommend, and then I guess we'll get down to actually doing some work. What was that? The Last Wolf, which is a documentary about the writer called Edward Wagner. Oh, OK. You know, the fantasy writer, science fiction writer, horror writer. No, I've never heard of him before. Yeah, it's on Vimeo, if you're interested. Yeah, but I watched that yesterday.
00:12:25
Speaker
he wrote a whole mess of books about a swordsman called Cain who was like, he's immortal and he wanders to earth and he's kind of like an anti-hero. He makes Elric look positively cheerful. That's how he announced. So that's another documentary I can recommend if anybody is interested. So yeah, that's all I've been doing like the last three or four days. Yeah, you started me off with a course with the movie we're talking about today.
00:12:56
Speaker
Oh, so before we get into that, though, there's been a bunch of news that dropped this past week. Oh, yeah. I mean, the the biggest thing is, you know, Marvel Studios made a bunch of announcements. Oh, yeah. I mean, well, first, I'll try to stop by dropping the bomb on me. Oh, my God. They just they dropped the Fat Man and Little Boy.
00:13:21
Speaker
But they had a
Marvel Trailers and Speculations
00:13:23
Speaker
first off they started they started off the week with dropping all these trailers for the Disney Plus series. So they had a new trailer for WandaVision. They had a full trailer for
00:13:32
Speaker
Falcon and Winter Soldier. They had a full trailer for Loki, a trailer for What If. And it's just so, I mean, that's a good place to start is those trailers. So what did you think? Loki, well, of course, when I saw that he's in the hands of the Time Variance Agency from the Fantastic, I lost my mind. That's a holy shit.
00:13:53
Speaker
you know which of course would be natural since he apparently is messing with time because he's got the tesseract from the past so he's not exactly the Loki that we know from the more because the Loki that we know died in
00:14:08
Speaker
Oh, what was that? Infinity War, yeah. Yeah, but Loki's still around. And it looked like Loki turns out to be DB Cooper at one point or something. So, Loki looks like it's going to be nothing but fun.
00:14:24
Speaker
I don't know if I'm looking forward to that. OK, first, the one I was looking forward to the most was, of course, WandaVision. But now I don't know if I'm looking forward more to the Falcon and Winter Soldier or Loki. So when these were first announced, Falcon and Winter Soldier was the one I was most looking forward to. And then they released the trailers for WandaVision. I'm like, oh, now I think I'm really looking forward to this because WandaVision was the one I was kind of like least interested in. But, you know, seeing all the things they're doing and
00:14:53
Speaker
And it looks like they got Monica Rambeau's in it. They had, you know, Darcy, we see her back in the trailer back from the Thor movies. Yeah. And just like everything we've heard about it, it looks like a total, oh, Jimmy Woo played by Randall Park. He's gonna be back in it too.
00:15:12
Speaker
And it just looks like a total mind trip. And it looks like it's going to be so amazing. And what else they got coming? They have Korkak coming. They got She-Hulk. Yeah, well, I got some news about that, too. But also, then we see Falcon and Winter Soldier. And now I'm really hyped again for that, because we see
00:15:35
Speaker
I like seeing the, you got this kind of banter between, I'm glad they kept that relationship between Sam and Bucky where they got this kind of like antagonistic friendship type thing. It's very much to me is gonna be the Falcon and with the soldier.
00:15:52
Speaker
they're going to be like the MCU, that's like the lethal weapon. I was going to say the exact same thing. That was very much the vibe I was getting from it, a lethal weapon vibe. Yeah, I was thinking the exact same thing and I was watching it. And I'm all in for that. And they got that truck coming back. Apparently they're going to involve the Flag Smasher in it too.
00:16:16
Speaker
All I have to say is that they're going to make it very hard for me to leave my house. And then on top of that, of course, I'm in the Star Wars. They're announcing all that Star Wars stuff. I haven't really dug into those yet, but I saw a few key takeaways from that. Oh my God. I said, well, you know what? I forget about it. I'm just not leaving the house.
00:16:36
Speaker
That's what he really is. There's no reason for me to ever leave my house now. Also, in the Loki trailer, there are a few little things that I noticed that kind of stood out to me. I mean, one, there's this one scene where it shows... Did it look like Black Widow appeared in that trailer? It looked to me like she was sitting on that planet. That's what I was thinking, yeah. To me, that looked a lot like the Black Widow. Yeah. And then also he calls out to Thor and Heimdall in that one scene, too. So there's rumors that maybe Idris Elba will be coming back.
00:17:05
Speaker
Yeah. Well, you know what? He's got the tesseract now. So he can bounce around time and space as he wishes. So who's to say that he's not going around and, you know, and I don't know how the time various authority is going to play into it. But, you know, by Owen Wilson, too. Yeah. Owen Wilson.
00:17:27
Speaker
Mobius and Mobius, that's who he's playing. Yeah, Mobius and Mobius, yeah. That's the guy who's like the supreme bureaucrat of the agency. I did not know that was him until I read it online somewhere. Oh, really? I said, I know that guy. I said, but I can't think of who it is. And I said, his voice was driving me crazy. Because I said, I know that voice. But it was the spiky blonde hair. Yeah, yeah, like the gray hair. Yeah, and he's got like a fuller face.
00:17:55
Speaker
I think this is the first time I've ever seen him with facial hair at all. Yeah. Yeah. He didn't look like himself at all. So I'm just hoping that since this involves time in some way, that maybe this will be a way for them to bring the Black Widow back. Maybe. Yeah. We'll see how it all works. Or maybe they'll just have a cameo or something like that. But it seemed like a weird thing to put in the trailer if it's not going to be Black Widow.
00:18:24
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it's a weird thing to me. And like you said, with Idris Elba coming back and everything, I'm really kind of hoping that maybe Loki will be trying to bring Asgard back.
00:18:36
Speaker
That would be interesting. That might factor into it that, you know, he finds out that he really does miss as much as he claims he couldn't stand them, that he misses them and he's trying to bring them back. But you know what? I am content to wait and see what happens.
New Series Announcements
00:18:51
Speaker
Marvel hasn't let me down yet. So I'm sure that whatever they got it planned in mind is going to work out. And did you see the trailer for the what if animated series? Oh, my God.
00:19:02
Speaker
That looks great. I loved What If. It was just such a fun book back in the day. Well, it was what I loved. It was totally batshit insane. What if no idea was too wild or crazy? Yeah. If you wanted to do it, if you imagined it, yeah, OK, put it in What If. Just throw it in there. That was one of those books that I'm really disappointed that they've never really brought back in a big way. They've come back and they've done a few
00:19:31
Speaker
limited runs of it, but back in the day, I keep eyeing Comixology because I'm waiting for those complete what if collections to come down in price. What if had a really long run too? Yeah, I went through like three volumes or something like that. I think it was finally canceled in the late 90s, early 2000s when it was finally canceled. It ran for a long time. It ran for a long time and they've had a few
00:19:59
Speaker
they've touched back on it a few times. Like they've done like a few what-if specials since then. And it was the type of book that I, okay, I didn't buy it on a regular basis, but if I walked by it and said, you know, and I saw on the cover, what if Daredevil was Spider-Man? And I said, Holy shit, I got to read that. Just based on whatever the premise of that. Yeah, yeah. I heard there was one I saw that was just completely ridiculous. Like what if the Punisher became Captain America? I'm like,
00:20:27
Speaker
What? I got to see that. Yeah, yeah. And of course, the Watcher, who's one of my favorite Marvel characters, I love the Watcher. So since he was out there, you know, spinning all these stories, I said, OK, cool, you know, Marvel will find a place for somebody and anybody to star in, you know. And the MCU is a great way to do that, like they've got so that looks like the first episode is going to be what if
00:20:53
Speaker
Oh, what's her name? Haley Atwell's character. Peggy Carter. What if she became, she got the super soldier Sierra. That's what, yeah, she become like Captain Britain or something like that. Yeah, yeah. And then they're also gonna have one like with, what if T'Challa ended up becoming Star-Lord?
00:21:09
Speaker
I'm really hoping that they get her, I would hope that they got her back to do the voice. Oh, they did, yeah. I think, I'm pretty sure it's Hayley Owle and Chris Evans both did the voices for that one. Because one of the greatest sins in recent memory is that Agent Carter got cancelled. That's a show that should still be running today. Oh, hell yeah. That was one of the best things they ever did, Agent Carter. Yeah, yeah.
00:21:32
Speaker
So what if I'm all here for that? And there's just, you know, we've got, you know, over 10 years now of MCU movies. There's so much material you can explore with that just within the MCU. Yeah. And I mean, it's animated. I mean, so, you know, it's not dependent on anybody's schedule or apply anybody, you know, if they can just take somebody and stick them in a booth to record their voice and everything like that, bam, they can do it. Yeah. So it can run indefinitely.
00:21:58
Speaker
So, some other stuff we got coming out here is there are three new TV series coming. We got Secret Invasion, we got Ironheart, and we got Armor Wars. Now, Secret Invasion is a really interesting one because, you know, in the comics, that was this big crossover event, right?
Casting and Movie Updates
00:22:18
Speaker
But it doesn't, it's obviously you're not going to be able to do that. It's going to be very different. And it looks like it's more
00:22:24
Speaker
based on what we saw at the end of Spider-Man Far From Home, where you've got Nick Fury working with Ben Mendelsohn's character from Captain Marvel, the Skrull character. Yeah, that's what it looks. It looks like this is the one.
00:22:40
Speaker
OK, I think that this is probably the Nick Fury series that says we've been promising that they've been promising us for a while. Yeah. Because I see, you know, first image I saw associated with this was Sam Jackson and Nick Fury. And I said, OK, well, if he's in it, well, I'm down. Yeah, that's what. And this seems like such a better idea for that concept for Secret Invasion, you know, scroll secretly infiltrating the government and all that.
00:23:04
Speaker
having Nick Fury being the one to go after, that's such a better concept for it than what they did in the comics, where it was just a big crossover event. Yeah, yeah, it was just...
00:23:14
Speaker
Yeah, just a bunch of spandex. Right. Yeah. And yeah, this actually has a plot behind it as a secret invasion. OK, this is it. It's the scrolls. Yeah. And so I'm loving that idea. And, you know, Sam Jackson and Ben Mendelssohn being in there, that that's going to be a lot of a lot of fun. Also, armor wars. So
00:23:35
Speaker
this is a this is the perfect follow-up to tony dine because tony stark's dead now and so it's open season on all this iron man technology and so you've got don cheetos starring in this one and which leads to some people speculating that maybe he'll end up becoming iron man at the end of it i don't know how i mean i think that's mostly just speculation i think he'll probably keep him war machine but yeah i think i yeah i think he's going to stay war machine you know i don't i don't
00:24:04
Speaker
I can see them having a new Iron Man, but I don't think that Don Cheadle is gonna be it. Yeah. So, Armor Wars, you know, great classic 1987 story, Iron Man story. And that's apparently gonna lead into Iron Heart, which is the young character,
00:24:28
Speaker
who they're gonna, just saw her name, oh, Dominique Thorne. She's gonna be playing Riri Williams, who she creates her own Iron Man suit. This is off of the comic books. Brian Bendis created this character. So it's like a female Iron Man, basically. So that's gonna be another series they're launched on there. That looks like a lot of fun. So those are the new TV shows. And they also said that with She-Hulk,
00:24:57
Speaker
they're gonna get Tim Roth and Mark Ruffalo are both gonna be appearing in it. Yeah, from what I, the little bit I read about it that apparently is going to be heavily influenced by when John Byrne was on it. Oh, okay. And treated it like a sitcom and she hooked, you know, she broke the fourth wall and she would talk to, you know, so that's pretty much how they're gonna handle it, which yeah, if you wanna set it apart from
00:25:27
Speaker
all the other MCU series, that's a good way to go. Do it like a little bit more, you know, with a little bit more comedy and stuff like that. You know, do it like a lawyer show, but you know, the lawyer, she's seven foot tall, green and super strong. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a great, that's a great one. And I'm glad we're going to see Tim Roth coming back as the abomination.
00:25:48
Speaker
Yeah, because he just got captured at the end of The Incredible Hulk. He didn't die. So now this is a good way for us to catch up on what's been going on with him since the end of that movie. Christian Bale is officially going to be in Thor, Love and Thunder. He's me playing Gore, the God Butcher, which is from Jason Aaron's run on the character. They're also bringing back Sif.
00:26:15
Speaker
Yeah. Jamie Alexander's coming back to play Sif. Which kind of surprised me because I had heard rumors back when Disney Plus first started up, but I guess the plans didn't work out for whatever, that they were considering giving Sif her own series. I think that may still be in the works. I've read something. There may still be some talks about something like that happening. Yeah. Because she may also appear in Loki as well. OK. Yeah, well, listen.
00:26:45
Speaker
As long as Tiff shows up somewhere, anywhere, I don't care as long as she shows up. Yeah, I'm really glad she's gonna be coming back in. Big news too, Marvel's finally announced they're gonna be doing a Fantastic Four film directed by John Watts, who did the MCU Spider-Man films.
Superhero Story Adaptations
00:27:02
Speaker
Third time's the charm. Third time's the... Well, fourth time, technically. Fourth time, yeah. Fourth time's the charm, yeah.
00:27:09
Speaker
Although actually I'm kind of in the minority that I didn't care too much for the first one, but I kind of liked Rise of the Silver Surfer. A lot of people hated that one. I kind of liked that one. Matter of fact, I liked it better than the first one. I've only seen the first one like maybe two or three times, but the second one I watched, I liked four. And if it comes on now, I say, oh shit, Rise of the Silver Surfer. And you know, I watch it. So,
00:27:38
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, listen, as long as they get John Krasinski to play Mr. Fantastic, I'm down. I was gonna say like, that's the fan casting everyone's hoping for. John Krasinski is Mr. Fantastic. And Emily Blunt is Sue Storm.
00:27:52
Speaker
And you know what, I, you know, I liked John Krasinski, but I didn't really see him at it until I saw like one of these, uh, you know, fan things that they did where he's in costume, the fantastic full uniform. Yeah. With the white temples. And I said, Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. Now I can see it. Yeah. Especially the bearded read, like the bearded one. Right. Yeah. I said, okay. Now I can see it. Yeah. And, um, they're also getting, um,
00:28:18
Speaker
Ant-Man and the Wasp. It's got a title, the third movie in the Ant-Man series. Ant-Man and the Wasp's Quantum Mania, it's called. Yeah, which will be introducing Kang the Conqueror. Kang the Conqueror, played by Jonathan Majors. We got a new actress playing Cassie Lang. Now it's Catherine Newton, who was just in the Freaky, the horror slash comedy movie that just came out with Vince Vaughn. Okay.
00:28:43
Speaker
That was from the director of Happy Death Day, which was really good. Oh man, I love that movie.
00:28:54
Speaker
Who does that? Me and Tom DJ went to see that. Oh yeah? Happy Death Day 2. Yeah, we saw that. We saw that Happy Death Day to you. Yeah, we saw that one too. It was Happy Death Day and Happy Death Day to you. I was honestly surprised how much I enjoyed those movies. Same here. Those movies were a hell of a lot for me. They got a comic book connection too. You know who wrote the Happy Death Day? Oh. Scott Lobdell. Really? Yeah. I was surprised. We're watching it and at the end, you know, it says written by, oh, Scott Lobdell wrote that.
00:29:21
Speaker
Yeah. I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed them movies. They would, you know, it was totally different from any slasher movie that I thought. And then when they brought in their science fiction element in the second one, it was totally unexpected. But you know what? They made that shit work though. Yeah. I was hooked. They made it. Oh wow. Okay. Yeah. It was really good. Folks, if you haven't seen it,
00:29:45
Speaker
Once you finish listening to us, of course, go find, I may be on Amazon Prime, but go watch Happy Death Day and Happy Death Day to you. Yeah. Oh, and you know, we talked before about, you know, you were a fan of Disney Afternoon as well. Yeah. So they are doing a new version of Chippendale Rescue Rangers.
00:30:09
Speaker
It's going to be a hybrid live action slash animated feature with John Mulaney playing Chip and Andy Samberg as Dale. Oh, okay. I wouldn't say I'm rabid fans of theirs, but hey, it's Chip and Dale Rescue Ranger, so I'm going with it.
00:30:31
Speaker
Looks like a Green Hornet movie. They're doing a reboot and they got David Coep who wrote the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies and also Jurassic Park. And I hope that they pull this one off if for no other reason that I can stop hearing the whining about the Seth Rogen. Oh, you know, that's never going to stop. Oh my God. How long ago did they make that movie?
00:30:58
Speaker
I don't even know. Yeah. And you know what? You have people going on and on about it. Like, you know, the movie tried to shank their grandmother in the shower. You know, I mean, please. Yeah. You know, life's too short. Yeah. I'm really tired of people just whining about that. I mean, and you know, it's.
00:31:18
Speaker
And a lot of it gets thrown at Seth Rogen. So I know people who are like, oh, whenever Seth Rogen's name gets mentioned, like, oh, no, Seth Rogen. He ruined Green Hornet. I'm like, well, he didn't write the damn thing. He was just acting in it. Yeah. I mean, listen, I admit it. When they started singing Gangster's Paradise, when they was in the back, I laughed. I'm sorry. I did. Because it was unexpected. I laughed. Could it have been a better movie? Yes, it could have been a better movie.
00:31:47
Speaker
But, you know, I don't think that they deliberately set out to shit on the legacy of Green Hornet. I don't think they do that. But again, I will say that I do feel sorry for the fans of the Green Hornet because everybody deserves to see their favorite hero depicted the way they want to on screen. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. You know, maybe this time they're good. The Green Hornet is actually one of those characters that I think that
00:32:11
Speaker
would work better if they put it back on TV.
Comic Creators and Evolution
00:32:14
Speaker
Oh, I think so too. I mean, we've talked about this before, which is why I think a lot of these MCU characters work better on the small screen that not every character has to have a $200 million summer blockbuster movie.
00:32:29
Speaker
exactly yeah some of them work better you know on the small screen you know eight to ten twelve episodes you know okay like the Mandalorian the Mandalorian works much better as a tv show than it ever would as a movie oh absolutely yeah i've had some people say oh they should have just did a movie no no no no it wouldn't have worked as a movie yeah it has to be done as a tv show i agree yeah it was not working with the movie
00:32:51
Speaker
You got the Avengers, you know, the Justice League, they work as like these big spectacle blockbuster movies. But a lot of these other superheroes, I mean, you got to remember, they originated in serial storytelling formats. Like, you know, perfect example is Spider-Man. I think Spider-Man works much better in a serial format than he does on a big screen. Yeah.
00:33:14
Speaker
Daredevil as well, yeah. I mean, the Netflix show proved that brilliantly. Yeah, Daredevil did not click until they did it as a TV show. And the X-Men, I think the X-Men would work much better on TV. Like you do like, you know, 12 episode seasons on Disney Plus or something like that. I think that would work much better because then you can get into all the soap opera dynamics. And that's really what made those Spider-Man and X-Men, the soap opera dynamics are really what made them so appealing.
00:33:42
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, Stan Lee was brilliant in that when he wrote Marvel comic books. OK, when he wrote those characters back in the day, all he did was just take the elements from daytime soap operas and and apply them to writing comic book characters. That's what he did. Because if you look at those early Spider-Man things where it was the love triangle between him and Gwen Stacy and Betty Brant and everything, well, that's pure soap opera.
00:34:05
Speaker
Oh, yeah. That's all there is. And him worrying that Aunt May is going to pass away is going to die. And that was all taken from. It was like Stanley watched all my children and days of our lives and said, OK, now let me go write Spider-Man and Daredevil. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And the X-Men was the exact same thing. Right. They did exactly it was all about soap opera stuff and like, you know,
00:34:28
Speaker
who's hooking up with who and all these different power dynamics, all these different stuff. And it's hard to pull that off in a movie franchise. Right, because if you're putting all of this money into it,
00:34:43
Speaker
you got to go with the spectacle. Because you're saying, well, that's what the people are paying to see. So that's what you put in. But unfortunately, something has to suffer. And many times, as we're going to see, even with the movie we're talking about now, the story and characterization is the first thing to go. If they got a choice between story and characterization and spectacle, spectacle wins out every time.
00:35:07
Speaker
Now, speaking of Stan Lee, there's apparently there's a screenplay floating around out there about a biopic about Stanley and Jack Kirby in the early days of marble called Excelsior. And it was voted on the blacklist. It was like it was like one of the top 20 screenplays of the year voted on by the blacklist. Like, you know, whether this leads to something or not, who knows? But I think
00:35:30
Speaker
This would be the perfect time to do a Marvel biopic about the founders of Marvel. I think so too. I don't know. There was a book a few years back.
00:35:40
Speaker
about, you know, Marvel, the founding... Yeah, I told the story, right? Yeah, yeah, Marvel, the untool story. That would be great. Disney Plus really ought to do that as a miniseries. I would love to see that, you know, like as an eight-part series where they, you know, talk about, you know, the early days of marveling. Because apparently, you know, who was it that was writing Dr. Frage? He actually was getting high on LSD. Is that Steve Ditko?
00:36:04
Speaker
Yeah, Steve Ditko. I mean, you look at those things he drew back then, you can understand why. Yeah. And all of the dynamics has gone. And what I liked about the book, that it was actually the people that was there that was telling the story. One thing that really ticks me off is when I read things online, like in these comic book groups, everything like that. And people are talking about what went on between Stan Lee and Jack Kirby as if they were in the room. Yeah.
00:36:31
Speaker
You know, that shit really pisses me off. You know, you weren't there. How do you know what? Well, I heard this and this was it. Well, you heard. Yeah, exactly. You don't know. And it was a different age when they talk about, oh, yeah, well, Stan Lee ripped them off and he robbed them. He did this and he did that. He did the other. First of all, it was a different time. It's not like.
00:36:56
Speaker
stands to say, you know what, I'm going to deliberately take credit for everything these guys do and screw them out of money. Yeah. This is how business was done back then. Whether you like it or not, you know, really doesn't really matter because that's how things were done. Yeah. You know, there was no such thing as, you know,
00:37:18
Speaker
What am I thinking of? The creator owned. There was no such thing as that back then. You created a character for Marvel or DC? Well then Marvel or DC owned it in the story.
00:37:28
Speaker
Yeah, it was just kind of the way things were done, which is, you know, terrible, but it is just the way things were done back then. And see, this is what I try to explain to people when they say, well, that's their excuse. That's the way I'm not saying it was an excuse. Exactly. Yeah. What I'm saying is that you have to look at it in the context of the time in which it happened. That's just the way things were done. Thankfully, it's not the way things are done now. Thank God we've evolved and it's changed.
00:37:51
Speaker
But you want to look at what happened 50, 60 years ago through the prism of how you see
Justice League R Rating Discussion
00:37:57
Speaker
things today. And that's just not going to work. Yeah. Yeah. You know, end of whatever that was. So one final bit of news, apparently Zack Snyder has said that he expects his Justice League to get an R rating, which includes Batman dropping the F-bomb.
00:38:20
Speaker
Which I just kind of like, why? That's the thing, I just don't understand why. The most juvenile thing that I can think of is that you would think that I, as an adult fan of superheroes and comic books, would be more excited to see this movie just to hear Batman drop the F button.
00:38:50
Speaker
You see, you're insulting my intelligence name. Yeah. If you think that that's going to make me wet my shorts and get me all, oh, now I really got to see this movie. No, no, no. To me, that's insulting. It is. Yeah. And I just and I saw some people, of course, you know, Snyder fanboys like, oh, this is going to be so awesome. I'm like, why? It's why.
00:39:12
Speaker
Well, okay, now, finally, folks, I know you've been waiting a while. Even in the documentary, John Peter says that he wanted to have Michael Keaton in the Batman movie say, I'm Batman motherfucker. Yeah, yeah. Because he says, oh, because I know that would have got the kids. The kids would have loved that. Oh, really? That's the only reason why you wanted to put it in there. Yeah. Okay. I see. Say no more. Okay. See, right there, that tells me where your mentality is at.
00:39:41
Speaker
Yeah, okay, so that's a perfect transition, because now we can talk about this movie, which is our first documentary pick, and that is The Death of Superman Lives, What Happened.
Superman Lives Production Insights
00:39:53
Speaker
And this was directed by, I'm probably gonna mispronounce his name. I'll let you mess it up. Yeah, I'm gonna bring it up, so he don't come. Yeah, well you're in Japan, so he can't come looking for you. Actually, I think he passed away, actually.
00:40:10
Speaker
Scott, oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah, he passed away fairly recently. I retract my thought. No, I mean, yeah, it was 2018. He passed away and it was just, you know, this came out in 2015. So just a few years after this came out. Oh, okay. Sorry to hear that because judging by this, the guy was really good. Oh, yeah. Yeah, no, this is one of the best documentaries I've ever seen because simply because
00:40:40
Speaker
Okay, for two reasons. There's a lot of information that we get. And I like documentaries where they interview people who were actually there and was doing the thing so that they could tell us themselves, okay, this is what happened. Yeah.
00:40:53
Speaker
And then, okay, let me make up my mind because we do see that at one point, like John Peters and Kevin Smith apparently remember some things differently. But I like being able to hear what he's got to say and what he's got to say and let me make up my own mind. They did a really good job. I love that where they, they cross cut between both of those different versions. Cause yeah, Kevin Smith's been talking about this for years. He's, uh, you know, he's been going on the road and we talked and like,
00:41:18
Speaker
You know, look up on YouTube, Kevin Smith, Superman lives or Kevin Smith, John Peters, whatever, or an evening with Kevin Smith, like it's and it's hysterical. It's he got a whole stand up routine. And it's like 20, 30 minutes he does in that movie.
00:41:34
Speaker
He's just talking about that. And like I said before, I've been to before, this is like on the level of Richard Pryor type of humor, where he's talking about, because it's hilarious the way he recounts it. And some of it he gets in here. And like you said, I like how they cut back and forth, like they'll say with John Peter said, well, I don't remember saying that yet. Now mind you, he never said it flat out. He didn't say it. He just says, well, I don't remember saying that. And then they cut to Kevin Smith and say, oh yeah, he said that shit.
00:42:03
Speaker
As a matter of fact, I will go so far to say is that what's Kevin Smith, you know, leaves this movie because, you know, he's pretty, he figures pretty heavily in the first half when they talk about the script and everything like that. But once they get out of that, the movie does lose a little bit of energy in it because we don't have him with his shit in there.
00:42:29
Speaker
Yeah, the best part of the movie is definitely the first part when they're talking about the pre-production stage. And after that, it becomes interesting. It's not as fun, but it's interesting after that. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. So for those of you who don't know, Superman Lives was Warner Brothers attempt in the 90s, mid 90s, to reboot the Superman franchise or reinvigorate it. It wasn't going to be necessarily a straight up reboot. It was going to be more kind of like
00:42:58
Speaker
It was gonna be kind of like a half reboot. I guess it kind of like Incredible Hulk did, I think. Reimagining. Yeah. It was kind of like what the Incredible Hulk ended up doing where it wasn't like a retelling of the origin story, but it just kind of like picked up again. And it was like kind of half reboot, half.
00:43:15
Speaker
How to reboot, how to sequel, you know, it's kind of like fuzzy exactly what it was exactly supposed to be. Me, I'm saying, you know, looking at everything that Tim Burton had planned for it and everything like that, I think they should have just went with just full blown reboot because, you know, this thing, just from, you know, all of the pre-production work that they did and the drawings and the concepts that they had, this was a whole new way of looking at Superman in the world.
00:43:44
Speaker
Yeah, so and, and so the story starts, it's basically, Kevin Smith was brought in to talk to Warner Brothers about it. And they're off because his his script was going around for Chasing Amy at the time. And so they brought him in to do like rework work, he'd done some work on Good Will Hunting as well, he'd done some writing work on that as well.
00:44:08
Speaker
So he got invited in to have a talk with them and they were talking about a few different projects and they mentioned Superman. And he's like, oh, I'd love to do Superman. And they said, okay, well, you gotta give us a treatment and then go talk to John Peters. They give him the treatment and they liked the treatment and he goes to meet John Peters. And John Peters had said that, you and me, we get Superman because we're from the streets.
00:44:37
Speaker
John Peters is a funny guy. John Peters is a funny guy. You know what I love about John Peters? That I do. I love, because you know what? I don't get the feeling there's a malicious bone in this guy's body. You know, it's just that he just doesn't get Superman. Yeah. That's all it is.
00:44:59
Speaker
The people that they got to work on this project seem to have been divided between the people that knew Superman inside or now and the people that had no fucking idea what Superman was. You know, it's really weird. You had these people that say, okay, well, yeah, this is Superman, he's from Krypton. And you had these other people say, I don't get it. Just by the fact that John Peter says, I don't get why he has a fly. Yeah, yeah.
00:45:26
Speaker
Really? That's like the most basic thing about Superman. Well, why does he fly? Well, he just flies, dude. Why does Aquaman breathe water? We don't worry about shit like that. And he says it with a straight face. And I don't want him to wear the costume. What do you mean you don't want him to wear the costume? How do we know he's Superman? It gets more bizarre the more you hear him talk, but there's also a sincerity.
00:45:55
Speaker
in what he's saying. And there's one thing that he says
00:46:00
Speaker
that I kind of like, which makes me says, okay, well, this guy really didn't mean to fuck up Superman. He just didn't get it. When he says, yeah, well, people talk and they say that I'm very energetic and I'm very passionate. He said, well, you know what? A lot of times that's the only way to get a lot of people working on the movie to do what they're supposed to do and get the money for the movie. And when he said that, I said, oh, okay. Now I understand why he's the way he is. Well, you know, you watch him on screen and when he's talking about like,
00:46:29
Speaker
when they told him that they were gonna shut down production and just like how pissed off he got about it. And it's like, he really believed in this project. He was really sincere in thinking like this was the way you have to do Superman. And it's, I don't understand why he thought that's the only way you had to do Superman, but you can see that he really believed it.
00:46:49
Speaker
Yeah. And you know, as a creative person, this was his creative vision of Superman, which is just as valid as yours or mine. Really. I mean, strictly from a creative standpoint, we may not have liked it. And like we were saying, you know, uh,
00:47:07
Speaker
Okay. This movie would have been a train wreck, but I would have paid money to see this train wreck. I really would have. After watching this documentary, I kept thinking like this is the perfect way to sum it. Like this would have been the best worst movie of all time. I think so too. I think so too. Cause you know what? And when you look at Cage, when he's doing, you know, like the costume fitting and everything like that and they put, and there's a good picture of him in the suit and you look at him and you say, you know something? He might've, he might've pulled this shit off.
00:47:37
Speaker
Well, you know, it's interesting they chose Nicolas Cage because Cage is this interesting mix of those two extremes you mentioned, where you said you got the people who who like the comic books and you got the people who want to do something completely different. Cage is like this weird mix of the two. Right. Because where he really, I mean, he does understand the comic books. He's a comic book fan. He named his son Callell, for fuck's sake. Mm hmm.
00:47:59
Speaker
So he understands the comics, he knows the comics inside and out, but then he's also got this desire to really twist it and change it and do something new with it. So it's this weird melding of those two and I think would have been really interesting to see.
00:48:13
Speaker
Yeah, like I like to, they have a part where, excuse me, he's trying to get a handle on Clark Kent and he's got the Mickey Mouse t-shirt and he's got the baggy jacket and the, you know, and I'm looking at him and it's interesting because we hear him talk in the background, he's talking to Tim Burton about how he's putting Clark Kent together. And I'm saying, okay, well, you know something? He's thinking about this. He's not just doing it.
00:48:41
Speaker
Just because I can always tell when Nick Cage is being lazy. Oh, yeah. When he's being lazy, he does Elvis. You know, but he's not doing Elvis when he's trying to get a handle on Clark Kent and his personality and his character and how he, you know, sees the world. I said, OK.
00:48:59
Speaker
there's an actor at work here honestly trying to put together a character that he feels he can portray with honesty on the screen. And I have to respect that. I do. Much as I may think he was miscast or whatever, he wasn't half ass in this thing. He was taking it seriously. Tim Burton as well. I was really surprised at how invested Tim Burton was in this. Yeah.
00:49:23
Speaker
And it is really interesting when you hear him talk about how, you know, I had always done these movies, because everybody expected like, you know, when you're going to get Tim Burton, Superman, you're going to get like, you know, a dark, gothic version of Superman. And then you hear him talking, I was like, No, I didn't want to do that. I did want to do something that was, you know, bright and more in the light. And you think about what he did after this, like he ended up doing big fish.
00:49:45
Speaker
and stuff like that. And you're like, well, you know what, after seeing Big Fish and like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and all these other movies that were, you know, these not really darkest far as visually, but very bright type of movies, it would have been interesting to see like what he would have done, took that kind of approach with Superman. Exactly. Yeah. I mean,
00:50:06
Speaker
Yeah, it's different because it's Tim Burton. Let's face it, you know, you don't hire Tim Burton to work on any movie unless you want Tim Burton. It's not like
00:50:19
Speaker
It's not like hiring, okay, and I don't mean to disparage the guy. Just use them as an example, folks. It's not like if you hire Brett Ratner. Brett Ratner, you're hiring to make a movie and you tell him how to make a movie. He'll do it just the way you want it done. Right. No problem, no issue. It'll be on schedule and under budget.
00:50:38
Speaker
Yeah, no problem. No backstage gossip, no fighting with the actors, anything like that is going to get done. But you hired Tim Burton, you're hiring the whole package. You're hiring a vision. Presumably, that's what you're hiring for. You don't hire Tim Burton and then tell him, okay, well, you can't make this movie. And they had some other interesting casting tools. One of the things I thought was really interesting when they were talking about
00:51:03
Speaker
Christopher Walken is Brainiac. I think that would have been an amazing choice, especially because they were also thinking about Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor and having the two of them interacting on the screen.
Creative Challenges in Superman Lives
00:51:15
Speaker
Yeah, which goes to show you how far back. People have been thinking about Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor. Yeah, yeah. He eventually ended up playing him in Superman Returns, but they were talking about it back in 95 when this movie was in production.
00:51:28
Speaker
And how cool would it have been? Because I think that if they had gotten her to play Lois Lane, she would have blown every other Lois Lane that we know out of the water, Sandra Bullock. Sandra Bullock, yes. That would have been an amazing choice as well. Yeah. Yeah, that much as I love Margot Kidder, I feel Sandra Bullock would have made me forget her. Especially you look at her in the movie that really stands out in my memory when I think about her as Lois Lane is a time to kill.
00:51:57
Speaker
Yeah, like her at a time to kill like that's basically Lois Lane. That's Lois Lane. Exactly. Yep. You're right. You nailed it. Yeah. And yeah, seeing her as Lois Lane. That would have been amazing. That would have been really good to see. And also this would have been the first time we saw a superhero crossover because they were going to have Kevin Smith wrote Batman into the script. Yeah.
00:52:19
Speaker
And yeah, he talks about the scene during the funeral of Superman, where Batman apparently takes over all of the TV screens in, you know, Metropolis to deliver
00:52:31
Speaker
you know some kind of sermon a message of hope to the citizens of metropolis although i don't know batman's kind of like the last person in the world you might you know but hey i see if i was writing it it would have been wonder woman but hey you know i didn't write it that so but i would but
00:52:50
Speaker
Hearing Kevin Smith talk about the whole process that he went through of writing it and everything like that is something that I feel that everybody who dreams of writing a screenplay in Hollywood, they should watch, they should really watch Kevin Smith talk about it. Cause when he talks about when he says he gets a phone call, they tell him, well, you know, you gotta go the next day and you gotta, you know,
00:53:15
Speaker
read the screenplay for John. And he said, oh, you mean give it to him? He said, no, no, no, you got to read it to him. He doesn't read screenplays. He said, what the fuck? He said, he shouldn't be. He said, should I tuck him in, too? It's hilarious. And he goes to John Peter's house, and John Peter lays down, and he reads the screenplay to him. Now, this is why I found that so interesting, because again, we get insight into John Peter's.
00:53:44
Speaker
Never once in this documentary did I, and I watched it twice to make sure I know what I'm talking about. I never heard him refer at any point to story or characterization. It was all about the visuals with him. It was, yeah. That's all he, that's all he knows is visual. Because he, and you know what, I admire the man for, he says, oh, I don't read.
00:54:05
Speaker
I don't really screenplay because he's not interested in anything except the visuals. Yeah, that's it and he's because Kevin Smith says he was reading at one point going to the fortress solitude and the first thing is okay Well, we got to have a fight and that's the thing with him. Okay. Well, we got to have a fight here We got to have a fight here. We got nothing about story
00:54:26
Speaker
Nothing about characterization. It's all about, well, we got to have a fight or we got to have, you know, like a big visual. I want the skull ship. That's all I know. I just want the skull. Yeah. And and that's OK. That's the way his mind works. Well, it all ties back to like his three big rules that he had for Kevin Smith. Right. So like Superman can't fly, you know, he can't wear the costume and he has to fight a giant spider in the third act.
00:54:50
Speaker
You know, here's what I knew watching this documentary. Here's what I knew. John Peters was full of shit because he said, oh, that it wasn't. It was a Thanagarian snare beast. I'm like, that's a Thanagarian. That's a thing from the comic books. Only a comic book fan would have thought to name it a Thanagarian snare beast.
00:55:07
Speaker
Right. John Peters did not come up with that. That was Kevin Smith. No, you're right. That was Kevin Smith. Yeah. Kevin Smith came up with that. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, when he said that, oh, it was a Thanagarian centerpiece, I wasn't talking about a spider. No, you were talking about a spider, Kevin Smith. You were talking about a diaspora. And what cracks me up is that when he's talking about the spider,
00:55:26
Speaker
And Kevin Smith says, well, why a giant spider? He says, well, don't you know that spiders are the most dangerous predators on the planet? The same thing he says about the polar bears later on when he wants polar bears to fight Brainiac at the fortress of solitude. And Kevin Smith says, well, why would Superman have polar bears guarding the fortress of solitude? Because at first, he's like, Brainiac goes to the fortress. He's looking for something. Shouldn't he have some guards there? And he's like, well,
00:55:53
Speaker
It's super bad, he doesn't really be guards. And then Kevin Smith says, and then I went to Lorenzo and I told him about it. He's like, why would Superman have guards? Yeah, right. Even them dudes. It's the fortress of solitude. It's called that for a reason.
00:56:13
Speaker
But he has the polar bears, and he attributes the same things to the polar... Oh, well, polar bears are the most dangerous predators. I said, oh, man, please, John, just say you got to think about spiders. Because at one point, they've been talking about some of the pre-production work, and Spider-Man... Oh, Spider-Man. Superman is in the subways for some reason. And he's fighting a giant spider. He's fighting giant spiders in, you know, the subways. For some reason, don't ask me why.
00:56:42
Speaker
And it's, the dude just got to think about spiders. It's funny when he, and then he ends up making wild, wild West where Kenneth Branagh ends up getting a giant spider body. And Bill, and Bill's a giant spider. Yeah. So yeah.
00:57:00
Speaker
And I don't know why he just doesn't go do Spider-Man. It's also really weird that he's, you're talking about the visual thing and like the writing process, like he keeps calling up Smith with all these weird ideas, right? He's like, oh, so, you know, the Star Wars movies are out now. He's like, we need Chewie in the movies. Like, you want me to just write Chewbacca into the Superman movies? Like, no, we got to give Brainiac like a little sidekick, a little pet dog or something, an alien pet dog.
00:57:30
Speaker
And he's like, and when he saw Chasing Amy, he's like, you know what, I really liked, I can't remember the guy's name, the guy who played the black guy in Chasing Amy.
00:57:43
Speaker
Go ahead, it'll come to me. I think it was Dwight E. Waller or something like that. I can't remember exactly. Something like that, yeah. But anyway, he says, he's a gay black guy. He's like, I want that guy's voice in the movie. And he's like, so what? He's like, yeah, give Brainiac a robot sidekick and use that guy's voice. You want Brainiac sidekick to be a gay brother to have the voice of a gay black man. Yeah. It's just like all of the, you know,
00:58:12
Speaker
John Peter's mind just seems, just seems the latch on too.
00:58:18
Speaker
things from pop culture that he doesn't really understand why they work. All they know is that they work and he wants them to work in his movie, even if it doesn't necessarily fit the tone of his movie. That's the closest way that I can, you know, one of the things that they did say in there, you know, that they had mentioned that I kind of liked, they would have,
00:58:44
Speaker
a robot that is kind of like Elrond from the comic books. That was what they were going to name them. They were going to name Elrond, yeah. Oh, they were going to name them, yeah. And that was going to accompany Superman from Earth and he was going to be like his guide and his mentor and stuff like that.
00:59:02
Speaker
he was actually gonna become the restorative suit that brings him back to life and everything like that. That concept, I actually kind of liked. And there was a lot of concepts that they had in this movie that I actually kind of dug. And I'm nodding my head and I say, you know what?
00:59:19
Speaker
I can't say that I'm crazy about it, but I would have liked to see it though. Especially when they have... Because the one thing I love about this documentary is that they've got tons of pre-production drawings and sketches and all kinds of designs for different things that they were gonna... I mean, they...
00:59:36
Speaker
You were 100% right. Everybody on this project was committed to this project. They weren't treating it as a joke They were serious about this when you watch because you know back in time I remember reading about this and like, you know magazines and and websites and whatnot back in the day when this was in pre-production and I remember back then when they were talking about like you don't
00:59:58
Speaker
reading all that stuff back at the time, you don't realize how much work they had actually gotten done on this thing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's extraordinary. You know what? You don't do that much work for something that you don't care about. It's just as simple. You don't.
01:00:13
Speaker
I mean, just the work that they did on the suit, you know, I mean, Nicolas Cage, with all the fiber optics and everything like that, you got to do that stuff by hand. And it's very painstaking work that you got to take your time with. You don't do that stuff for something to add. Nobody's not going to see this thing. You do that type of work for a project that you actually do care about.
01:00:34
Speaker
Well, something else that was really interesting about it is that because when that stuff first started coming out with like the costume test footage and all that, is that everyone assumed that was going to be Superman throughout the whole movie. Then you find out, no, that's just the restoration suit. That's like you see that for like five minutes in the movie. And it's it really kind of gives you a clue into how much work goes into these movies because they're doing all this work like, you know, days, weeks, months, even of work on this thing that's just going to be used for like five minutes in the movie.
01:01:02
Speaker
And and I do recall that that was part of reason and even Tim Burton He kind of touches on that Because he says yeah, he said okay a lot of that stuff that got leaked out to the internet He said nobody was supposed to see that that was just for us, right?
01:01:20
Speaker
And like you said, people saw the pictures of that restoration suit and they just assumed that was gonna be the Superman suit for the whole movie. And of course the internet lost his mind. Kevin Smith has a terrific line in this. One of the best lines I've ever heard when he said that, okay, when it was announced that Michael Keaton was gonna play Batman in the 1989 Batman, he said, even though there was no internet, the internet got pissed off.
01:01:45
Speaker
He said, that's how man people got. And he's absolutely right. People got pissed off. People see one little thing and it never fails to amaze me. And I read stuff on Facebook and Twitter, how people will see one picture and they will extrapolate an entire conspiracy theory out of this one picture.
01:02:06
Speaker
okay, well, where do you get all of this from? And basically that's what happened with this movie when that picture of Nicholas Cage came out and everything. But like I said before, Tim Burton says, he said, now, that's why if I'm doing something, he said, I do it in a bunker three miles down with one camera. He said, yeah, he said, because there's shit that I just do just for me. And he's absolutely right. I'm a firm believer and people talk about, oh, no, no, no, the fans deserve to know everything. Well, no, you don't.
01:02:35
Speaker
No, no, you don't. You deserve to see the finished product, but you don't need to see every single step of the production up until that. Like, you know, when they show that stuff to you, that's a bonus.
01:02:47
Speaker
Bingo. I mean, and I remember when you were talking about this, it reminded me going back to another time Nicholas Cage played a superhero in the run up to Ghost Rider when they were in production on that movie. And they had this photo floating around of Nicholas Cage in like a skull mass with like this like fiery wig or something like that. And everybody flipped out.
01:03:06
Speaker
Mm-hmm, but you know what? That's just they're just doing tests for colors and that kind of thing to kind of see like what works together like all people don't understand how much Work goes into these movies and how much this stuff is like used as placeholders for something that's gonna be put in digitally after the fact exactly exactly So the equivalent, you know Okay, it's like if I was to like print
01:03:34
Speaker
Okay, let's say I took the current work in progress that I'm doing now and I printed that. If I printed my first drafts, people would swear I was insane. They would, because there's all kinds of digressions and there's shit thrown in there. Matter of fact, I cut out a good 50% of my book.
01:03:57
Speaker
in the process of writing the second or third draft. But if I print now, movies are the same way. If you were just to be presented with the pre-production stuff and the first draft for the screenplay and everything like that, you say, oh, this shit is crazy. This will never work. But then when you see the finished product, you say, oh, wow, that was a pretty damn good movie because it's a process. Yeah. But.
01:04:18
Speaker
We're in this thing now where fans definitely have this entitlement. And this is where we get that thing that you've spoken on so accurately before about these fans demanding that they deserve to see the Saxonite Justice League movie. And if they don't get to see it, there will be repercussions. Well, see, this is where you get that type of mentality. Exactly. From fans believing that they deserve to be on every part.
01:04:42
Speaker
on every stage of the creative process. And no, you don't. You're not entitled to that. The only thing you're entitled to, like you said, is the finished product that you paid
Nicolas Cage as Superman Discussion
01:04:54
Speaker
your money for. That you paid your money for, exactly, right. You're not entitled to download it for free on BitTorrent or whatever. But also something else, too, you were talking about that. I was also thinking about, because I'm doing drawing work now and starting to get into that,
01:05:07
Speaker
Very well, I might add. Thank you. One of the things that you learn as you start drawing is that if you look at a pin-up that Jim Lee or John Byrne or someone does this awesome pin-up of Batman or Superman or whoever,
01:05:25
Speaker
They don't draw that finished version, right? They're building blocks that build up to it. You start off with the stick figure, really. Yeah. And you build up, you add more elements to it because you get the structure right and then you add other stuff like that. All that stuff you see in the finished piece, that's just the final layer of it.
01:05:43
Speaker
It's just like a house, right? You build a house, you got a framework for it, and then you put the walls up, you put the wallpaper, you put all the furnishings on. But if you just, if you went to a construction site and you see a house being built, you wouldn't look, oh, that house is a piece of shit. Thank you, exactly. Because you can't tell what the house is gonna look like just from the framework. Right, yeah. You can't tell.
01:06:07
Speaker
You build the house from the foundation up. You don't build the roof first.
01:06:17
Speaker
I do think it's kind of good that we do get to see these types of things where people, because one of the things that really annoys me when these types of pictures come out is that they're always presented without context. No one explains to people that this is just a first step in the process. And people don't really understand how different, how much of an impact it makes.
01:06:37
Speaker
the way you film something, the type of lighting you use, the type of lens you use, all this type, the type of film you're using for, all this type of stuff, this all is hugely influential, even before you get to post-production stuff with CGI and all that kind of thing. Yeah. So yeah, and I think one of the things, this movie does a really good job of kind of stripping away a lot of that mystique, and it shows you how much work really goes into these movies.
01:07:05
Speaker
And you know, like I said earlier, nobody does this type of work on a movie that they don't believe in. And yeah, as wacky as he is, I do believe sincerely that John Peters did believe in this movie or whatever level in John Peters universe, but he did believe in this movie and everybody, you know, and everybody else that worked in, you know, that worked on this, I mean, uh,
01:07:34
Speaker
because at one point they talk about, you know, what they call the people that they don't think that they're going to get to work on it. And they say, yeah, they come and they're doing pre-production sketches and they're designing creatures and spaceships and everything like that. And I'm saying, wow, you know, because of course it's Superman. And Superman has that universe for everybody.
01:07:54
Speaker
you know, I mean, I don't know the first thing about writing a comic book, but if DC Comics called me to Mars and said, Derek, I want you to write Superman. Yeah, I learned how to write a comic book in 20 minutes flat, just just to write Superman. So this, and yeah, and I know when you when you hear Nicholas Cage's Superman, your first thought is,
Superman's Depiction in the 90s
01:08:16
Speaker
but you know what you watch this documentary and you kind of halfway come to say well you know what yeah you know what i kind of would have liked to see that well it's because a lot of that the when you think of nicholas cage is superman like a lot of people there's this the image of him from the costume test where he's got the long hair but you don't see like the and they show him in here these stills later on of cage with short hair and he's wearing like uh this like pat
01:08:43
Speaker
And it looks really good. It looks really faithful to the classic costume. It does. He looks really, I have to admit, I'm looking at, but I even liked him with the long hair. I like him with the long hair, but yeah, but they do show him later on where he's got like short hair and everything like that. And I'm looking at him and I'm saying, you know something? And again, yeah, you know what? I'd have paid money to see this. Something else people forget at the time is that in the 90s, Superman had long hair.
01:09:13
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, he had the mullet. He had the mullet, yeah, the super mullet he had after the death of Superman. So yeah, he did have the long hair back of that at the time. So it's not that out of the room possibility.
Superman's Heroism vs. Batman's Crime-fighting
01:09:22
Speaker
Now, one thing that they kept coming back to in this movie, and we even heard it that a lot of people complained about that in the Brandon Ralph Superman movie, where is that John Peters was apparently obsessed
01:09:40
Speaker
with having Superman hit stuff in this movie. That was his thing, you know? And we hear other people say that too. Yeah, well, you know, the fans always, well, Superman never hits anything, you know? He never, as of, that's the only thing that Superman is supposed to do is just hit stuff, you know? Right.
01:09:57
Speaker
I kind of understand. Okay. What people are really saying is that they want to see him use his superpowers in other ways rather than, you know, saving people or preventing natural disasters. But see, here's the thing. That's what Superman does. Yes. Yeah. Superman is the only superhero, as far as I know,
01:10:19
Speaker
He puts on his costume and he doesn't fly around looking for crime to stop. He flies around the world looking for natural disasters to stop. If there's a flood on the other side of the world, he goes to stop that. If there's a famine over here, he flies in food. If there's a tsunami over here, there's an earthquake. That's what Superman does. His whole thing is not primarily fighting the supervillains. Yeah, he does that.
01:10:41
Speaker
But that's not the primary motivation for Superman, which is what I think a lot of people that make a Superman movie that escapes them. I think you're absolutely right. The whole thing about Superman is he's there to help people. He's there to save people. He's not there to fly through buildings or whatever. He's there to help the other people. That's one of the things that the Richard Donner movie did such a great job of capturing. Yeah, exactly.
01:11:10
Speaker
Okay, Batman, Batman, his thing is stopping crime. Right. That's what he does. See, he puts on his costume, he goes out to look for criminals and crimes. That's what he does. Fighting crime by beating people up. Right. But that's not what Superman does.
01:11:24
Speaker
You know, he doesn't do that. Oh, yeah. Yeah, of course. If he's flying back from, you know, stopping the famine in Bangladesh, if he hears that there's a bank robbery going on, yeah, he'll fly down, he'll stop him. But he's not going to go out of his way to look for bank robberies to stop. That's what I'm trying to say. That's not what he does.
Hollywood's Evolving Perception of Comics
01:11:45
Speaker
And that's what both the Richard Donner movie and also the Superman Returns did to a certain extent as well. They really did a good job of capturing that Superman is out here to save people, right? Right. Like he's got that choice he has to make in Superman Returns. Do I go out to stop Lex Luthor or do I go save the people who are in danger right now in Metropolis? And he goes and he saves the people in Metropolis. Yeah, exactly. Which is the choice that Superman will always make. He will always be to help the people first.
01:12:15
Speaker
You know, let's look listen, he can find let's look to later on. That's not a problem He can run here many time. He wants a right, you know But it's the people that need his help right now There's something else that happened in this documentary which I thought was really interesting when they're talking to I think it was Wesley Strick was his name who was one of the screenwriters on Batman Returns and I
01:12:36
Speaker
And this kind of shows you the mentality they had. Because Kevin Smith even mentioned this, why don't you go to the comic book guys and ask them? They know how to do Superman. They're doing Superman really well. So why don't you ask them to do it? And they're like, oh, no. And this kind of shows you how much Hollywood has changed, the mentality has changed in the years since, where they said, oh, no, those are comic book guys. We don't talk to comic book guys. We talk to the movie guys. And it's so funny that now you have,
01:13:04
Speaker
And now you have all this crossover between the comic book and the movie guys, right? So you got like, you know, Josh Whedon, he finishes Buffy and Angel, and then he goes and he writes X-Men, and then he goes and he directs The Avengers. And then Kevin Smith, you know, he directs a bunch of these movies, then he ends up, he writes Superman movie, then he goes and he writes Green Arrow and Daredevil. And there's, and
01:13:28
Speaker
Jeff Johns, right? Prime example, start off in comic book writing, and then he ends up doing executive producing a lot of these DC movie projects and stuff.
Arrogance in Filmmaking
01:13:37
Speaker
And it's just really funny how much things have changed since then. Oh yeah, yeah, because like I said, because back then they didn't believe that comic book people could be trusted with movies. They said, well, no, well, they don't know anything about movies. Well, I think part of that is because they had Frank Miller write Robocop 2 and 3.
01:13:55
Speaker
Well, oh boy, that's a whole nother episode right there. But yeah, that's like, I mean, you know, I don't know, there I think is a certain
01:14:11
Speaker
certain arrogance that goes along with movie making that I think is necessary for the prop because listen let's face it even with writing we're writing let's face it there's a certain amount of arrogance that goes along with what we do because we think that we can write something that's good enough that people will pay money to read right yeah you know so it's the same thing with movie making they're saying okay well you know what yeah I know how to do this better than anybody else you know
01:14:38
Speaker
even though this is a character from the comic books, I know how to make a movie out of it, you know, better than the people that... So it's that certain type of arrogance that...
Complexities in Movie Production
01:14:49
Speaker
And we see with John Peters, because he's got a certain arrogance about it, because he gets Superman. Well, Superman, he's from the streets. When I heard that in the movie, I bust out laughing. I said, man, he so does not get this. He's so... But he's convinced. He's convinced in his mind. He knows Superman.
01:15:07
Speaker
Well, see, that's the kind of going on along with what you're saying is you need that kind of arrogance, not only to push people to get get stuff done. Right. Because, yeah, if you're someone who doesn't who's not fully committed, who's not strong enough to back up that conviction, you're not going to be able to push anyone else to go along with you. And you look at John Peters and you imagine him like in a negotiating room over over the budget for the movie or pitching a project or something like
01:15:34
Speaker
That's a guy who's gonna sell you on whatever he wants to make. And if you don't write him the check, you might be afraid he's gonna throw you out the window.
01:15:45
Speaker
Well, that's what he says at one point that, you know, that the guy that, I mean, you know, was going to pull the plug on it. And he said, he told the guy he was going to throw him out the window. And look at it, John Peters, you know, and from the stories I've heard about him, too, I have no doubt that he was fully capable of throwing something out the window if he felt like it. But, you know, and this watching this documentary is a prime example of something that I say quite frequently in that when people talk about, oh, that was a terrible movie and that was bad. But I said, yeah, but you know, some
01:16:15
Speaker
You gotta look at it this way. Considering how many people are involved in the making of a movie, actually it's a miracle we get as many good movies as we do. Because everybody, okay, everybody that's in this movie, they have their own idea what Superman is and what he should be and what he should look like. But they're all still coming together to try to make a cohesive vision.
01:16:44
Speaker
To me, that's one of the most amazing things about movie making is that we get as many good movies as we do with so many people with all these diverse thoughts and ideas and concepts. And it's the director that has to pull all of this together and say, okay, this is how we're going to do it. And these people go along with it and they say, okay, yeah, cool.
01:17:04
Speaker
It really is. You're right. And it's so interesting to like just kind of like peel through the layers and like get this look behind the scenes at just how much stuff goes
Superman Adaptations Across Mediums
01:17:15
Speaker
into it. And you look at some of these designs and on the one hand, you know,
01:17:20
Speaker
When you hear they're hiring people who don't know Superman, who've never had any exposure to Superman, on the one hand, you think, well, that's stupid. Why would they do that? But then you look at some of these production designs and some of these ideas, some of these artists have, and you're like, well, you know what? I kind of see why they wanted to go with someone who's not so influenced by the comics, because there's some really unique takes on that.
01:17:41
Speaker
If nothing else, this movie would have been amazing to watch visually, just from a visual perspective. Oh, visually it would have been eye-popping. And yeah, you make an excellent point right there because sometimes, yeah.
01:17:59
Speaker
You hire somebody from the comic books, and they just may be too close to the material. And they can't see it any other way except this way. And you need somebody like, remember we were talking a couple of weeks ago, and I was saying that, well, instead of the word adaptation, we should start saying translation. We're talking about taking something from one medium to another. OK, when you take Superman from the comic books and translate him into visual medium,
01:18:28
Speaker
That's a different animal altogether with certain needs that have to be served and met that you can't do in comic book and vice versa. Because there's certain things you can do in the comic book with Superman you can't do in live action. And that's okay.
01:18:44
Speaker
That's okay, even they had Superman on radio. Now, Superman really shouldn't work on radio, but your imagination fills in the gap.
Unique Production Designs for Superman
01:18:53
Speaker
Your mind provides the special effects. So now you're seeing the best Superman that you've ever seen, because you'll provide, and all of those three mediums, comic book, radio, and movies,
01:19:07
Speaker
are all valid interpretations of Superman. There is no one right way to do Superman. There can't be. I mean, the characters lasted for 80 years because he's changed.
01:19:16
Speaker
So that's what I'm saying, looking at the documentary. Yeah, okay, Tim Burton and Nicholas Cage. Yeah, it would have been a weird shit movie. It would have been bad shit and say, but you know what? I got the feeling that it would have been a lot of fun to see. If nothing else, you know, and visually, like you said, visually would have been a knockout. Cause I was going back
01:19:38
Speaker
And I was rewinding and I was freezing the frame of certain production designs and, you know, the artwork and everything like that. Some of that stuff would have looked fantastic on film. Absolutely. Yeah. And it's especially some of the stuff that really stands out in my mind, like the the whole idea of, you know, using
01:19:56
Speaker
Um, you know, cause John Peter was so upset with the spider idea. She's the idea of like, you know, having brainiacs body just be like these giant spider legs under a cloak. Like that. Yeah. Yeah. That would have been freaky and it would have been awesome. Yeah. And again, what is it with him? His spider, you know, but yeah, that would have been a great visual way. He has a coke and they said it would have been one part where he takes it. And all he is just spider legs up underneath.
01:20:24
Speaker
Yeah. And you imagine that, especially when they were talking about Christopher Walken playing Brandon. You imagine Christopher Walken's head just on this giant robot spider body. Oh my God. Yeah. I would have loved to see that. Yeah. And perfect choice for Brainiac actually Christopher Walken. And yeah, it's just, it's such a, and it is weird to see Tim Burton and like his take on Superman and
Tim Burton's Struggle with Superman
01:20:52
Speaker
And you realize that he was really trying to do it right. Like John Peters, I think he was just, he had his idea of Superman and he was so convinced that this is the one, but Tim Burton is a little bit different than I think like he was trying to try and figure out Superman. Okay.
01:21:11
Speaker
Here's the thing about Tim Burton. You look at his earlier movies, right? You look at most of his earlier movies. And what it's actually about is, and I didn't figure this out until I saw it with scissor hands. And it was scissor hands.
01:21:26
Speaker
is a metaphor for creativity because the one thing that he has, most creative thing about him that he has is those razor blades that he uses, but it separates him from other people because he can't touch them because he'll cut them to death. Right. And if you look back at most of Tim Burton's stuff, that's what, I mean, Batman and stuff like that is whatever people are best at, that's what separates them from humanity. Yeah.
01:21:53
Speaker
That's kind of a hard concept to apply to Superman because he puts what he's best at in the service of humanity. So yeah, Tim Burton is having a hard time figuring out Superman because his thing is all about characters. His character's on the outside. And Superman, I know they say that a lot in this movie. Well, yeah, Superman's an outsider. Well, no, he's not. He was raised on a Kansas farm.
01:22:23
Speaker
You know, he's not an outsider. He doesn't feel, somebody doesn't feel like an outsider. He feels like he's a part of society, you know, a part of society, because he was raised as part of society.
Superman's Relatability and Dual Identities
01:22:33
Speaker
I think there is a way to do Superman that he is, that you are able to get that outsider feel with him and still have him be part of society. So I think that really comes in the Clark Kent identity, right? Clark Kent has to purposely put on an act.
01:22:50
Speaker
He can't really be himself in that way because he has to put on this act to throw people off the set that he's Superman. Right. Because I remember reading somewhere or you might even said it to me. I don't know. We had somebody said, you know, Superman is actually three personalities. He's not two. Right. There's Superman, you know, the superhero.
01:23:13
Speaker
There's the real Clark Kent, who is raised up on the farm board. And then there's the Clark Kent in Metropolis, the one who's pretending, but that's not really Clark Kent. Like, okay, when he goes back to visit his folks, Mark Clark Kent, he doesn't wear the glasses. There's no reason for him to do that, because okay, now he's really being himself. That's the real Clark Kent.
01:23:36
Speaker
And he's got the overalls on and he's carrying the tractor and stuff like that. That too he really is. But even the Clark Kent that's in Metropolis, that's another identity. That's the one he's manufactured to live among human beings. Yeah, I think I was the one who did say that to you because that's something I've always felt. And I think that's something that a lot of people don't really grasp about Superman. And I think you'd get a lot better stories about him if you had people more
01:24:05
Speaker
you know, look closer at that kind of dichotomy. Right.
Superman's Idealism and Real-life Parallels
01:24:11
Speaker
Yeah, to me, I've always thought Batman was more of an outsider than Superman. Oh, yeah, definitely. It always kind of surprised me when people say that Superman's unrelatable with Batman is, because Batman has no powers. But Superman, I think, is a much more relatable character, because he's got to put on a mask to kind of hide who he is. He's got to try to put on airs around other people to kind of fit in. He grew up in a...
01:24:37
Speaker
middle-class household, basically. He lives in society. He lives in an apartment in New York City. He's not a billionaire who grew up without parents living in the outskirts of town and didn't go to college, but ended up traveling the world to learn martial arts. I don't understand how people think that's more relatable just because he doesn't have superpowers. Yeah, and to put it on a personal note,
01:25:05
Speaker
See, I can relate to Superman more because as Clark Kent, he's got to, you know, pretend he's somebody else to, you know, deal with, you know, society and everything like that. Okay, growing up, you know, when I went into situations, certain situations involving white people, there was a certain way I had to act.
01:25:27
Speaker
There was a certain way I had to speak. There was a certain way I had to act. There was I couldn't be myself. I had to act in a certain way because I knew that I was dealing with certain types of people. Right. And and, you know, black kids in the era that I grew up in, we would talk this very early on in life that, OK, well, when you go out into white society, this is how you act. This is what you do and this is what you say.
01:25:54
Speaker
If you want to come back home, it is what you better do. So that's why I think I relate to Superman more because he kind of does the same thing. He says, when I go among humans, I have to act this way. I have to talk this way. I have to be this way so they don't suspect who I really am.
01:26:10
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah. So yeah. So to me, that's why Superman always worked for you. You're absolutely right. I got Superman more than I like Batman. But yeah, Batman is a privileged white kid, you know, who got pissed off because the parents was killed. And he just said, well, I'm going to take revenge on the whole world because my parents got killed. Yeah.
01:26:30
Speaker
Whereas Superman, he says, you know what? I want to do good for people. I want to help people. Even the bad people, they deserve to be helped too. It's a very positive message that Superman has. And I don't understand why people don't embrace it, but I hear that. Well, he's a boy scout. He's unrealistic. And he's just an asset, really?
01:26:55
Speaker
You can't relate to that worldview that, well, I just wanna help people and do good. Well, I mean, like that's the entire, you know, rescue and medical professions, right? I mean, it's...
Superman as a Global Hero
01:27:07
Speaker
I mean, yeah, you can say, well, people become doctors because they want to make, but that's like most, you talk to most people who become doctors, most of them don't do it because they want to make money. Most of them do it because they sincerely want to help people. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, yeah, the money is good and they're not going to lie to you about it, you know, but yeah, that's why most of the nurses, every nurse I've ever talked to, they got into it for one week. They got into it because they wanted to help people. Yeah. It's just that simple.
01:27:35
Speaker
And they go, and they go through a lot of time, expense and sacrifice to do these jobs. That's why when they said that in this country, you know, when they said, okay, well, the first ones that's going to get, you know, the vaccine is the medical workers. I said, well, duh. Yeah. Of course. They should be the first ones to get it. The doctors and the nurses who's going to take care of us and they're not well. Yeah. Yeah. Take care of them first. Yeah. Definitely.
01:28:01
Speaker
But Superman, yeah, he's kind of like the ultimate doctor for the world, you know? Right, yeah, yeah. And we'll just like, you know, people who go into like these, you know, search and rescue, right? I mean, search and rescue, it doesn't, I'm not sure, I don't know how much it pays, probably pays okay, but I guess it doesn't pay as well as like a doctor, certainly doesn't pay as well as like a stockbroker or something like that. But you know, people do it because they do want to help people. Okay.
01:28:31
Speaker
Let me tell you something, you know one thing that pisses me off, one thing that pisses me off, whenever they put out a warning, okay, well, there's gonna be a flood, so you have to evacuate this area, and we need you to evacuate now. You're always gonna have that one fly, you're always gonna have that one bee that would rather sting than make honey. He's not leaving his house, he was born in this house, he's gonna die in this house. Okay, flood comes, he's running to the roof, now he's calling for help.
01:28:59
Speaker
One brave soul goes out there and gets him. And you know something? God bless that one brave soul because if you left it up to me, your ass would drown. But yeah, but no. And I mean, you have people at the risk of their own life, they will do that. And you know something? That's like Superman. To me, that's what Superman does. So when they call these people heroes because they risk their own lives or people that go get stuck up on a mountain,
01:29:27
Speaker
and somebody goes and rescues them, God bless them, because if you left it up to me, next to Ken, okay, I'll tell them, later. Sorry, that's just me, what can I tell you?
Understanding Superman's Altruism
01:29:43
Speaker
Yeah, but it is so amazing that you get all these people who just for some reason they're not able to grasp that idea of like, what do you mean he just wants to help people?
01:29:53
Speaker
and they don't understand it. I don't understand someone who can't grasp that possibility. So whenever someone says like, Superman's not realistic in a modern sense, I don't understand it. And you know what I tell people when they say, well,
01:30:11
Speaker
I don't like Superman because I could never, I could be like Batman. Oh, you could, you have a couple of billion dollars and you have 10 years to go study martial arts around the world and learn every scientific, I mean, type of discipline. I said, but there is a way you can be like Superman. And they said, really? How can I do that? I said, just do one thing a day for somebody who will never know what you did and have no way of repaying. Just do that.
01:30:38
Speaker
And they said, that's all you gotta do. Yeah, so any other things that you want to touch on with this documentary? Only that, again, it's remarkably comprehensive.
Superman Documentary Insights
01:30:56
Speaker
When you talk about going from A to Z, there was, and matter of fact, this was the second time I've seen this, because I've seen this before, but well, I watched,
01:31:06
Speaker
I watched it two and a half times, really. I watched it two and a half times. But there were things that I saw here, either I didn't remember from the first time I saw it, or I just wasn't paying attention. But there was new stuff in here. I love the fact that they have tons of concept art that you can look at. I mean, this is wonderful just to look at. You can see all the designs of the various suits, Superman suits of Metropolis.
01:31:32
Speaker
Of uh, you know, oh krypton. I love the wind They have a whole section where they go into how they were going to develop krypton and at one point Krypton was going to be like these shifting tectonic plates. Oh, yeah, that was a really cool idea Yeah connected with like this hr giger like type of biomechanical stuff and that freaked me out, right? Yes, I mean I would have loved to see that on screen and um
01:31:58
Speaker
As I said earlier, I love documentaries that we talk to the actual people, you know. Let the people, sit down with the people and let them tell me what happened and then I can make up my mind for myself. Like now, okay, when, like when you talk about early on when we were talking about Kevin Smith and John Peters and they cut back and forth. Here's the thing, I don't think either one of them are lying.
01:32:22
Speaker
I don't, I just think that they, and a lot of times it's passed by, I think they just remember it differently. There's one or two times I think John Peters was full of shit though. Yeah, definitely, yeah. But most of the time, I think he was full of shit about the spiders. When he said, no, I don't remember that. No, I've heard too much from other people that say, yeah, it was John one of the spiders.
01:32:44
Speaker
But I love that when they when he's doing the Kevin Smith is doing the he says, you know, after I met with John Peters, you know, Warner Brothers comes to me and they say, you know, they said they like you. He likes you. He wants to move forward with you. Did he mention the spider?
01:32:58
Speaker
He did, he mentioned the spider, he told you to get done every fucking day with the damn spider. So there's some days, yeah, job piece of bullshit. But for the most part, I think he's telling the truth. And it's just so much fun hearing their versions of it. I would love to just put the two of them in
01:33:21
Speaker
Put the two of them in a room together or on a stage and just give them an hour and a half just to talk about this movie and let them talk about it. That would be comedy gold. I got a feeling. Comedy gold.
01:33:35
Speaker
And it's a really good look at just like all the effort that goes into before any cameras start rolling and just like how much effort they put into the smallest bit of detail. And it really is amazing when you think about it. And, you know, I mean, all this effort, it's just like for a five minute segment, they spend months of work on this suit to make sure it lights the right way and then it works the way they want it to. Just like a five minute segment.
01:34:02
Speaker
unbelievable. It's it's really stunning and you know being able to hear these people talk about their craft and their work and seeing all the concept designs and it really gives you a better sense of just how much effort. So whenever people talk about you know bad about superhero movies and you know I look at something like this and just like all the effort they're putting into this all the work they're doing all the creative energy and it's just like you know what I don't see how you can say that these
01:34:29
Speaker
that these movies shouldn't exist. All these people are doing this amazing work.
01:34:34
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, incredible work.
Influence of Unmade Films
01:34:37
Speaker
I think of this, and I think of another documentary I saw a couple of months ago, it was on Amazon Prime, that went into the pre-production work for Dune, Jodorowsky. Oh, I've heard about this one, yeah. Oh yeah, man, you gotta see that. This is like the best movie that was never made, seriously. And what's even more fascinating is that,
01:35:02
Speaker
when you see how many other movies such as Flash Gordon and Star Wars actually cannibalize stuff from, you know, that movie. And they took, yeah, they go into a whole section where it's like just about every science fiction movie that came after that,
01:35:19
Speaker
You know, they, you know, you had these people that was cherry picking pieces from the biggest. Jodorowsky has like this huge, massive book of all of the pre-production stuff and storyboards and everything like that. And all directors, you know, were coming and they were looking in this book.
01:35:36
Speaker
And then they would go off and make their own movie and George Ross was like, wait a minute, I know that spaceship design that that came from, you know, doing, you know, and it's amazing. So, yeah, I'm going to check that out because I saw that on Amazon Prime. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I saw. Like I said, so so maybe like about like two months ago, blew me away. Great, great documentary. Just as good as this one. OK, I'll have to I think I'm going to use something I got to watch today, then.
01:36:03
Speaker
Okay. Cool. Okay. Um, so any final thoughts about death of Superman lives?
Superman Documentary Availability
01:36:09
Speaker
Only that if you have not seen this movie, I strongly urge you, I don't know where you're going to find it at. Well, actually, so we did some, I did some searching and I'll put this link on the website, but it's the death of Superman lives, what happened.vhx.tv and they've got, um,
01:36:27
Speaker
They got a whole bunch of different purchase options. Like you could rent it. You can just rent the movie itself for like two bucks, but they've also got like, you know, a $30 super pack that has like over eight hours of extra content. Um, and it's got like extended interviews with like John Peters and, um, Lorenzo DiBona Ventura. Um, uh, they have the premiere with Kevin Smith and a Q and a afterwards.
01:36:54
Speaker
you know, comic artists, writers, and fans talk Superman. Like, you know, I think I might actually have to buy this, this sex. There's a lot of stuff that looks really interesting in it. Hmm. Okay.
Crowdfunding Trend in Films
01:37:04
Speaker
But yeah, it's a great documentary and it was partly crowdfunded too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you watch it, you will see at the end and apparently they list everybody that contributed to this movie and it's like about like two, it's a good two or three minutes of names that are just scrolling by, people that contribute to the Kickstarter fund for it.
01:37:30
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, you know, it gives hope for people that want to do, uh, you know, a movies of this type or any movies at all, really, because a lot of movies you have now, even spike leave, he, he finance one of his movies. You know, I think it was the sweet blood of Jesus. I'm not sure I have to look it up, but I believe that, yeah, that, that was funded by Kickstarter. Well, so, um, the Veronica Mars movie too, that was also, um, probably by Kickstarter as well. I think it was. Okay.
01:37:59
Speaker
So yeah, so check it out. You can find it. We'll put that link on the website. You can find that at superherosinafiles.com.
Episode Wrap-up
01:38:07
Speaker
And yeah, so that does it for our conversation about the death of Superman lives, which means this was my pick. That means next we're gonna go with you. So what should we talk about next time? Well, I was thinking about it. I was thinking about it and I thought, well, what could I do something nice for Perry for Christmas?
01:38:28
Speaker
So what I did was that I went back over all of the episodes that we've done and we've done quite a few. And I noticed something. I noticed that around this time last year, we had spoken about Deadpool.
01:38:44
Speaker
Yes. But we have not yet talked about Deadpool 2. Oh, OK. So for you, for your Christmas present, I propose that next time we get together, we do indeed talk about Deadpool 2. OK, awesome. Now, about Deadpool 2, there's actually two versions of it. So I want you to try to see if you can find the, I think it's called the super duper cut. OK.
01:39:11
Speaker
Yeah, it's called Deadpool 2, the super duper cut. Cause I think that's actually the, it's a longer version and I think that's actually a better version of the movie.
01:39:19
Speaker
Okay, I'm sure I could find it on Amazon Prime or, you know, somewhere else. I'll find it, don't worry about it. Okay, cool. All right, so I'm kind of excited about this. Yeah, so join us next week. We'll talk about Deadpool 2, the super duper cut. And yeah, that does it for us for now. Head on over to Facebook, Superhero Cinephiles. Join our Facebook group. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at SuperCinemapod. And the website is superheroesinephiles.com.
01:39:48
Speaker
For those of you who are listening on the podcast feed, we're on YouTube as well. You can find the link for that also at superherocinephiles.com. You can watch our faces as we talk about this. If you don't want to just hear us. And if you're afraid to look at our faces, then you can just listen to the podcast feed. So you have to pull out. Trust me, you don't have to look at us if you don't want to. All right. But that does it for now. Thanks so much for listening and we will talk to you next week. Okay. Take care. God bless.
01:40:18
Speaker
You have been listening to the Superhero Cinephiles podcast. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at SuperCinemapod. Join our Facebook group by searching for Superhero Cinephiles, where you can interact with us and other superhero fans. If you'd like to support the show, you can become a regular supporter at Patreon or make a one-time donation through PayPal, both of which can be found at our website, SuperheroCinephiles.com.
01:40:40
Speaker
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