Summertime
07-05-2006, 09:33 AM
I enjoyed the movie.. it was an excellent film, and lots of fun... however.. the hype is just that.. hype.
I had a few problems with the film as well.
First.. people who keep saying that Brandon was 'channeling' Chris.. or whatnot.. lay off the weed. The ONLY thing they had in common, were hair style & color, skin pallor, and BASIC weight. If you look at Christopher during scenes of Superman, he has a relaxed and natural poise to him. He's large, without being overly toned or cut, giving him a larger 'look', as well as a better face. It's fuller, more innocent looking.
Routh however, was cut & lean, VERY lean. it gave him a tense and rigid look, as if he couldn't relax. Also, Routh never smiles, never implies the simple innocent joy of what it means to be able to help people, and hardly emotes anything other then vague constipation/blank stare.
Did I LIKE him as Clark/Kal? Yes... but stop saying he looked just like Chris.
I like Kevin Spacey, I really do. NOONE does the whiney, nasal sociopath better then him, and he COULD have REALY knocked this out of the park for me... as he acted very well with what he had to work with... but Lex's entire motivation for what he was doing was 300% pure horseshit. At least Hackman's Lex KNEW he was a genius up front, and a simple conman at heart. He openly and happily admitted he was going to be "...causing the deaths of MILLIONS of innocent people.", and perpetrate the greatest real estate swindle of all time. The motivation fit with the character, and with the actions being taken. In a sort of 'comic book' logic, it was workable.
Spacey's Lex however, was self defeating stupidity. Introduce a massive new land mass, flood the existing land masses, kill billions of people. Ok.. Problem is, every form of modern industry would collapes, as the people wouldn't be there to operate or support them. Supply and demand would be over, and the world would plunge into a new Dark Age as modern technology was forced to be abandoned. Money would have no meaning as the World Economy will have long since collapsed, so who the hell is going to buy land on this new jagged crystal dump?
As for the continent of Kryptonite.. that wasn't so tuff to get behind. Its not REALLY Kryptonite, but the closest thing the crystals can create with the raw materials at hand within Earth's oceans. Maybe a little tweaking and twisting, a bit of electron valence boosting.. so its REALLY close to being actual green K, but not so much that Kal drops to the ground as soon as he got to the growing land mass.
Also, Kal is angry at this point... and I don't know about you, but I was working on some shelving once and was pissed-off about some bent fixtures fresh out of the box, and it took me almost a full minute to realize I was shorting a Lantern Battery with the screwdriver in my hand & was being shocked. Sometimes being angry clouds your awareness.
Kate Bosworth? Nice gal.. well acted, but she's just too damn young. There is also an anoying plot screwup. Perry and Lois are talking in his Office, he's telling her to enjoy, as it's 'HER night', and from what they are saying, it sounds like she's getting an award for a new article she's written, and then all the power goes hinkey again. What artical are they talking about? Not the Pulitser "Why the World Doesn't Need Superman"... and there hasn't been any time for her to have written anything else. It just left me scratching my head in wonder.. as in "WTF are they refering to?"
Anyways, I can buy her as a young, unwed mother... but an established respected reporter at what is likely one of the leading Papers in the world? Not a chance.
The kiddo did just fine, I like him.... but they kinda painted themselves into a corner with that one. Gonna have to wait & see how this one goes.
Something that also struck me as grotesque.. the old lady, just as she dies, says "You've shown me such pleasures..."
I'm sorry.. but to that I have 2 words:
Fucking EWWWWWWWWWW
That's just NAS-TAY
Anyways, I had an idea for the next film. It starts off as a sort of Prequel, with Supes going back to the location of Krypton. He finds lots of debris, but no survivors. AS he's there, the lethal radiation from all the Green K starts wreaking havoc with his ship. He's detected and saved by members of the Green Lantern Corp, who were investigating the intrusion into restricted space (they know about him, and try to keep souvinere hunters out. They are able to get him back on his way to Earth, and all seems fine.
As the Lanterns are leaving the sector, they detect a REALLY minor life-sign. They investigate, and find a pod with a girl stashed inside. THe pod is damaged, and is running low on energy. The Lanterns access the ships logs, and find that it had failed to launch in time to avoid the planets destruction, and had used nearly all of it's energy trying to protect the occupant. Without enough to initiate a jump into accelerated/hyperspace.... the ship was trapped in the graveyard of Krypton's debries.
One of the Lanterns starts charging the ships powercells, while another attempts to to what repairs are possible. As the systems come back online with renewed power, the ship detects Kal-El's ship departing, and attempts to persue, even though the ship is still badely damaged. It (the ship) leaps into a partially sucessful accellerated space entry, and is gone before the Lanterns can stop it.
Cue the replay of snippets of the 'Returns' film... and cut to Superman averting some kind of disaster in the world. As he goes about his work, a signal interrupts him, almost painfully. It's coming from his Fortres, which has just detected the other ship emerging from a partially collapsed opening leading out of Accellerated Space. The ship returns the signal, and it starts to come apart due to amage sustained from improper Hyperspace entry. It begins to fall into the atmosphere, and as Superman hurrys to finish saving lives (in China maybe.. *shrug*), the ship crash-lands into Kal's fortress.
He arrives only moments later and sees what appears to be blood splattered within the confines of the inner chamber. He rips open the lid and finds a young girl inside, with a large crystal from the fortress impaling both the ship and her thru the chest. She's dying, and Kal is obviously torn between getting her to help and breaking the crystal off and pulling her body clear. He hears the chime from within the ship, and subtitles translate, "Power failure.. Life signs critical, power failure, lifesigns critical. Resucitation failure, power failure, life signs critical..." repeating over and over as other chimes start declaring various systems collapsing. Kal zips over to his crystaline console, and pulls the green crystal (yeah, the one that saved him in S2 and S4), from its place. He zips back to the damaged ship, and jams it into what looks like some kind of control matrix. A massive wave of energy explodes from the ship, throwing Kal miles thru walls of crystal & ice before he can stop his momentum. The girl in the ship goes rigid as the crystal impaling her explodes. He entire body arches as she screams in agony. Kal is there instantly, holding her as she shakes uncontrollably.
While Kal is up in the fortress with who will be revealed to be his cousin Kara from Argo City, the wave has flowed across the entire surface of the planet. It's shown moving across people all over the world, and asside from some odd flickering of lights and electronic 'fidgiting', no-one seems to have taken notice.
Except 3 people.... each in a different part of the world.
General Zod
Ursa
Non
Each in turn look slightly wide- eyed & surprised, as they can feel long dead powers slowely returning. Zod stands up in his cell, walks to the door, and gives it a tentative, experimental 'nudge'. It twists crazily, flying open at an odd angle as 1 hinge BARELY holds. With a deep breath, he alternately clenches & flexes his fists, a positively maniacle look in his eyes as his breath hisses thru his gritted teeth.
THINK about it... this could work ...
Superman, Supergirl, and the 3 Super Villians... given todays technology & awareness of stunt work.. doesn't the possibility just make your palms sweaty???
I had a few problems with the film as well.
First.. people who keep saying that Brandon was 'channeling' Chris.. or whatnot.. lay off the weed. The ONLY thing they had in common, were hair style & color, skin pallor, and BASIC weight. If you look at Christopher during scenes of Superman, he has a relaxed and natural poise to him. He's large, without being overly toned or cut, giving him a larger 'look', as well as a better face. It's fuller, more innocent looking.
Routh however, was cut & lean, VERY lean. it gave him a tense and rigid look, as if he couldn't relax. Also, Routh never smiles, never implies the simple innocent joy of what it means to be able to help people, and hardly emotes anything other then vague constipation/blank stare.
Did I LIKE him as Clark/Kal? Yes... but stop saying he looked just like Chris.
I like Kevin Spacey, I really do. NOONE does the whiney, nasal sociopath better then him, and he COULD have REALY knocked this out of the park for me... as he acted very well with what he had to work with... but Lex's entire motivation for what he was doing was 300% pure horseshit. At least Hackman's Lex KNEW he was a genius up front, and a simple conman at heart. He openly and happily admitted he was going to be "...causing the deaths of MILLIONS of innocent people.", and perpetrate the greatest real estate swindle of all time. The motivation fit with the character, and with the actions being taken. In a sort of 'comic book' logic, it was workable.
Spacey's Lex however, was self defeating stupidity. Introduce a massive new land mass, flood the existing land masses, kill billions of people. Ok.. Problem is, every form of modern industry would collapes, as the people wouldn't be there to operate or support them. Supply and demand would be over, and the world would plunge into a new Dark Age as modern technology was forced to be abandoned. Money would have no meaning as the World Economy will have long since collapsed, so who the hell is going to buy land on this new jagged crystal dump?
As for the continent of Kryptonite.. that wasn't so tuff to get behind. Its not REALLY Kryptonite, but the closest thing the crystals can create with the raw materials at hand within Earth's oceans. Maybe a little tweaking and twisting, a bit of electron valence boosting.. so its REALLY close to being actual green K, but not so much that Kal drops to the ground as soon as he got to the growing land mass.
Also, Kal is angry at this point... and I don't know about you, but I was working on some shelving once and was pissed-off about some bent fixtures fresh out of the box, and it took me almost a full minute to realize I was shorting a Lantern Battery with the screwdriver in my hand & was being shocked. Sometimes being angry clouds your awareness.
Kate Bosworth? Nice gal.. well acted, but she's just too damn young. There is also an anoying plot screwup. Perry and Lois are talking in his Office, he's telling her to enjoy, as it's 'HER night', and from what they are saying, it sounds like she's getting an award for a new article she's written, and then all the power goes hinkey again. What artical are they talking about? Not the Pulitser "Why the World Doesn't Need Superman"... and there hasn't been any time for her to have written anything else. It just left me scratching my head in wonder.. as in "WTF are they refering to?"
Anyways, I can buy her as a young, unwed mother... but an established respected reporter at what is likely one of the leading Papers in the world? Not a chance.
The kiddo did just fine, I like him.... but they kinda painted themselves into a corner with that one. Gonna have to wait & see how this one goes.
Something that also struck me as grotesque.. the old lady, just as she dies, says "You've shown me such pleasures..."
I'm sorry.. but to that I have 2 words:
Fucking EWWWWWWWWWW
That's just NAS-TAY
Anyways, I had an idea for the next film. It starts off as a sort of Prequel, with Supes going back to the location of Krypton. He finds lots of debris, but no survivors. AS he's there, the lethal radiation from all the Green K starts wreaking havoc with his ship. He's detected and saved by members of the Green Lantern Corp, who were investigating the intrusion into restricted space (they know about him, and try to keep souvinere hunters out. They are able to get him back on his way to Earth, and all seems fine.
As the Lanterns are leaving the sector, they detect a REALLY minor life-sign. They investigate, and find a pod with a girl stashed inside. THe pod is damaged, and is running low on energy. The Lanterns access the ships logs, and find that it had failed to launch in time to avoid the planets destruction, and had used nearly all of it's energy trying to protect the occupant. Without enough to initiate a jump into accelerated/hyperspace.... the ship was trapped in the graveyard of Krypton's debries.
One of the Lanterns starts charging the ships powercells, while another attempts to to what repairs are possible. As the systems come back online with renewed power, the ship detects Kal-El's ship departing, and attempts to persue, even though the ship is still badely damaged. It (the ship) leaps into a partially sucessful accellerated space entry, and is gone before the Lanterns can stop it.
Cue the replay of snippets of the 'Returns' film... and cut to Superman averting some kind of disaster in the world. As he goes about his work, a signal interrupts him, almost painfully. It's coming from his Fortres, which has just detected the other ship emerging from a partially collapsed opening leading out of Accellerated Space. The ship returns the signal, and it starts to come apart due to amage sustained from improper Hyperspace entry. It begins to fall into the atmosphere, and as Superman hurrys to finish saving lives (in China maybe.. *shrug*), the ship crash-lands into Kal's fortress.
He arrives only moments later and sees what appears to be blood splattered within the confines of the inner chamber. He rips open the lid and finds a young girl inside, with a large crystal from the fortress impaling both the ship and her thru the chest. She's dying, and Kal is obviously torn between getting her to help and breaking the crystal off and pulling her body clear. He hears the chime from within the ship, and subtitles translate, "Power failure.. Life signs critical, power failure, lifesigns critical. Resucitation failure, power failure, life signs critical..." repeating over and over as other chimes start declaring various systems collapsing. Kal zips over to his crystaline console, and pulls the green crystal (yeah, the one that saved him in S2 and S4), from its place. He zips back to the damaged ship, and jams it into what looks like some kind of control matrix. A massive wave of energy explodes from the ship, throwing Kal miles thru walls of crystal & ice before he can stop his momentum. The girl in the ship goes rigid as the crystal impaling her explodes. He entire body arches as she screams in agony. Kal is there instantly, holding her as she shakes uncontrollably.
While Kal is up in the fortress with who will be revealed to be his cousin Kara from Argo City, the wave has flowed across the entire surface of the planet. It's shown moving across people all over the world, and asside from some odd flickering of lights and electronic 'fidgiting', no-one seems to have taken notice.
Except 3 people.... each in a different part of the world.
General Zod
Ursa
Non
Each in turn look slightly wide- eyed & surprised, as they can feel long dead powers slowely returning. Zod stands up in his cell, walks to the door, and gives it a tentative, experimental 'nudge'. It twists crazily, flying open at an odd angle as 1 hinge BARELY holds. With a deep breath, he alternately clenches & flexes his fists, a positively maniacle look in his eyes as his breath hisses thru his gritted teeth.
THINK about it... this could work ...
Superman, Supergirl, and the 3 Super Villians... given todays technology & awareness of stunt work.. doesn't the possibility just make your palms sweaty???