Who else likes Superman Returns's idea of reinventing 3 &

[imported_Cyrus98]

I think it's an ingenius idea of to continue off the awesome first two movies and ignore parts 3 and 4 pretending they didn't exist, kind of like how "Batman Begins" re-invented the franchise.

[The Xenos]

Acutlaly, I wish they had done a whole new take. Though unlike Batman Begins, they could skip the origins and leave those from the first two films.

Instead, we have that Sueprman knocked up Lois and she has a kid as a major part of this film. I thought that was total crap. Also, if this really was a sequel to Superman 2, why did Superman leave for five years. Wasn't the lesson of Superman 2 that he wouldn't leave us again? As a friend reminded me, at the end of Superman 2 he even tells the president he won't leave us again.

What's the first thing we lean, as soon as the movie starts with giant white text? SUPERMAN LEFT! Bullcrap. What a stupid and selfish Superman Singer has made.

I dunno, that's what bugged me about singer making this a sequel to the old ones. Those parts and that Luthor was barely a step above Hackman's. Now that is no fault of Spacey or Hackman, both excellent actors.

Now I know this has been talked about before, but I don't think it's had its own topic. So, was this sequel idea a good idea? Did it take too much from the Donner films? Heck, did they take so much you could call it a remake or sorts, or a requel as I heard one review say?

What was right or wrong with making this a sequel to Superman 2? What else could have been done or even what things could have slightly changed to make it a better sequel?

[norrinraad]

**********************SPOILERS******************** ***********

Funny thing about the kid. I've been reading endlessly about why it was such a bad idea for months now (though strangely enough, only on the internet). However, as a colleague suggested at another site, who's to say the kid is really Superman's?

The movie makes it clear that Superman and Lois did do the nasty at some point in their history, as Supes honestly believes he is the father. The decision for them to have sex out of wedlock was made generations ago, in Superman II, so I suppose a child would be a logical extension of that. I'm not up on my Superman comics, but I find it hard to believe that Supes and Lois never had sex until they were married, so them having sex in the second film isn't that big a deal. However, was it ever proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that Superman was the father? Did he provide Lois with a DNA sample at any point in Superman Returns that I wasn't aware of? In a copy of The Outsiders, Luthor states that you can't throw a stone down the road in either Metropolis or Gotham without hitting a metahuman. In the movie universe, has it ever been established that Supes is the only metahuman on the planet? For all we know, that universe could be crawling with them like the DCU proper is. Who's to say Lois Lane couldn't give birth to a metahuman, even without Supes as the father? Wasn't she exposed to the same radiation that took away Zod's powers in Superman II? Could it have effected her physiology?

I suppose all of the above is possible. Too much of a coincidence? Perhaps, but no more so that having Peter Parker's best friend Harry as the son of his greatest enemy the Green Goblin, or having Liz Allan's brother-in-law as the Molten Man, or having Betty Brant's brother killed by Doctor Octopus, or having Aunt May almost marry Doc Ock, or having Jonah Jameson's son turn into Man-Wolf, or having Peter's physics teacher become The Jackal, or having Mary Jane kidnapped at one point or another by every villain in the Marvel Universe while peter still had a secret identity. Superman Returns is a comic book movie for crying out loud. Since when did comic books ever follow real world rules of logic? I have to admit, if Singer revealed in the sequel that the kid was never Supes' to begin with, after all the online whining, that would be laugh out loud funny, as least to me. Though, granted, the things I find funny usually differ from most people I meet...

Anyway, bottom line is, even after all these months, I still can't believe what was accomplished with Superman Returns. I honestly feel bad for the fans who felt ripped off by this movie. I would have hated to come out of Spider-Man in 2002 feeling like my favourite hero hadn't been done justice. That would really have sucked. And I'm talking about fans here, not all the damn marketing people who were coming out of the woodwork last winter all over the internet, trying to convince people not to see the film before it even came out. However, having said that, the movie actually made me care about a character I had always found intrinsicly boring in the past. Everyone involved could have made a traditional Superman movie, and WBs could have potentially doubled their box office take. All it would have taken was an "Up, up, and away!" Superman, a "I think I'll like, throw myself off this bridge and force that dreamy hunk of man Superman to come rescue me! Purr, Meow!" Lois Lane, and a "Gosh darn it, Superman is like the swellest friend a guy can have!" Jimmy Olsen. Add a moustache-twirling Luthor and a Braniac or a Doomsday, and you have a $600 million international hit. But, what this movie actually acomplished went so far beyond my expectations it wasn't even funny. The film took these characters, these archetypes, these cliches, and actually turned them into three- dimensional people, with falacies, desires, mistakes, and consequences. I expected to enjoy Superman Returns, but I didn't expect to be moved by it, and I definitely didn't expect it to make my favourites list for this year. It may not be what the fans wanted, but I'll be damned if it didn't work for me. And, considering it was my coin I spent to see it, I have to express my gratitude for that.

Fans should take heart. If there is a sequel, you can bet WBs will be putting alot more conditions on the film this time around. Everything from the budget to the script to the overall direction of the film will be closely monitored, which is kind of a shame. I would have loved to see where these flawed, fascinating people went next. I suspect a more traditional version of Superman will make its way to the screen next time around. In this age of sequels and remakes and cookie-cutter scripts without any real soul to speak of, it's a shame that a group of people who dared to actually put their stamp on a classic character weren't rewarded with more commercial success for their efforts.
_____________
"Do you ever think of me?
Because not a day goes by that I don't think of you."