The best animated Superman movie

[Lvenger]

I am genuinely surprised by how much love Superman vs The Elite is getting here. I enjoyed the comic, but I thought the movie was a mess and the animation was among the worst quality DC has produced in years.

Could you guys explain why you like it so much? I'm not being snarky here, I just want to know why. Maybe I missed something when I first watched it and should give it a second chance.

The animation is far from the best DC has produced, that I can't deny. I wish this movie had better animation and a better art style. As for why I think Superman vs The Elite is one of my favourite animated Superman movies, it stays faithful to the core message of the original comic that Superman isn't a weak character because he doesn't use ruthless, lethal tactics on criminals, the backstory on the Elite, specifically Black, make an interesting twist where they seem more sympathetic compared with their original introduction as a blatant Authority stand in. The pacing is decent even with the added material, it has a good amount of humour and romance and the conflicting morals of Superman and Black are contrasted in ways that can't be done in a 20 page single issue comic. Plus, despite the animation and art style, the action sequences are superb. Seeing a pi$$ed off Superman at the end was cool before it got into the ending.

The best animated Superman 'movie' in my opinion is Superman/Shazam: The Return of Black Adam. It has all of the strengths of Superman vs The Elite but better art and animation as well as Superman acting as a mentor to Billy Batson.

[Vordan]

I still wonder to this day if Superman vs. the Elite would've been better served if instead of padding the run time with mostly-original material, they padded the runtime instead by using the conclusion to "Ending Battle." The cons would be that the movie might feel disjointed and have essentially two climaxes/ending. On the plus side, I think the "Ending Battle" conclusion is pretty powerful, and in conjunction with Action 775, really reinforces the important Superman ideals.

Still want to see that story adapted one day. Would make for a great “Hush” type story for Clark. Needs a way better art style though.

[manwhohaseverything]

All star could have used a better artstyle. The artstyle was awful for me. Otherwise, that movie was decent. I still wish they had kept many things like regan, jimmy.. Etc. But, the best part about the movie is Christopher drake's theme.

[Charlus]

Superman Vs The Elite. One of the best Superman movies ever. Only behind the Chris Reeve’s ones. Period. If I wanted to show somebody what Superman is all about I would choose Superman Vs The Elite without a doubt.

[DochaDocha]

Still want to see that story adapted one day. Would make for a great “Hush” type story for Clark. Needs a way better art style though.

Yeah, I'd approve. Would be nice to contrast that story's ending with some of the other material out there.

The line of animated movies used to prioritize capturing the art of the source material. Public Enemies emulated McGuinness, Apocalypse with Turner (R.I.P.), and even All-Star Superman with Frank Quitely. With Batman, they did they really went out of their way with Year One and Mazzucchelli. Even if it was a bit hit and miss with some of the movies, you could see the effort to translate the comic art into animation.

I don't think that recreating the source-book art is much of a priority these days. At least with Hush they brought in the Lee designs, but I don't see this as important as it used to be. Maybe I'd feel differently if I really loved the Bourassa designs, but I only like it and probably prefer to see art more closely resembling the source books.

[Vordan]

Yeah, I'd approve. Would be nice to contrast that story's ending with some of the other material out there.

The line of animated movies used to prioritize capturing the art of the source material. Public Enemies emulated McGuinness, Apocalypse with Turner (R.I.P.), and even All-Star Superman with Frank Quitely. With Batman, they did they really went out of their way with Year One and Mazzucchelli. Even if it was a bit hit and miss with some of the movies, you could see the effort to translate the comic art into animation.

I don't think that recreating the source-book art is much of a priority these days. At least with Hush they brought in the Lee designs, but I don't see this as important as it used to be. Maybe I'd feel differently if I really loved the Bourassa designs, but I only like it and probably prefer to see art more closely resembling the source books.

Ending Battle’s Art was... rough at certain points, so I’ve got no problem if they don’t hew too close to that. And I absolutely don’t want to see the SvE art style again, that was way too cartoonish for that story. I have no idea what they were thinking there.

[Gaius]

All star could have used a better artstyle. The artstyle was awful for me. Otherwise, that movie was decent. I still wish they had kept many things like regan, jimmy.. Etc. But, the best part about the movie is Christopher drake's theme.

Yeah, I like that theme almost as much as Williams' theme

[Soubhagya]

Good to hear from you again Soubhagya

Thanks.

All star could have used a better artstyle. The artstyle was awful for me. Otherwise, that movie was decent. I still wish they had kept many things like regan, jimmy.. Etc. But, the best part about the movie is Christopher drake's theme.

I can't disagree with you here. Regan is among the most memorable scenes in All Star. I wished to see Jonathan Kent's death and the Superman dynasty as well. Superman meeting the unnamed Superman from future makes the ending better for me personally. So as to say Superman will return. They should have given it two movies. The best Batman story has two parts adapting four issues. Best Superman story has one part adapting twelve. It shows in the final film.

I understand the length of the source material. For me its the small things they missed which bother me more. Like the aforementioned Regan. Another bit is when Superman punches out Solaris, they changed his dialogue from, "You will live" to something equivalent to "I have run out of mercy". A small thing in overall picture but it felt odd to me. Superman as Clark Kent used freeze breath to save Luthor in prison. But the film added that the frozen attackers were killed by Parasite. In comics it was fun to see Superman trying to save Luthor in prison. But in the film that makes it look like Superman let people die to save Luthor and protect his identity, where he could have tried to change to Superman and situation could have been resolved in a better way. This mars an otherwise fun sequence.

Luthor dressed up his chimpanzee in Superman costume. I love that panel showing the pettiness and hatred of Luthor. This was removed. Overall its decent. From the films i have seen so far i have enjoyed it the most. I agree with the brilliant score. i watched the whole credits just to hear the theme. When it comes to themes Superman has some fantastic ones. But people seem to like only the Williams one.

[manwhohaseverything]

Yeah, I like that theme almost as much as Williams' theme

I like this one, more. Because this one has a lot more range.From the slow beginning to the crescendo.

[DochaDocha]

Thanks.



I can't disagree with you here. Regan is among the most memorable scenes in All Star. I wished to see Jonathan Kent's death and the Superman dynasty as well. Superman meeting the unnamed Superman from future makes the ending better for me personally. So as to say Superman will return. They should have given it two movies. The best Batman story has two parts adapting four issues. Best Superman story has one part adapting twelve. It shows in the final film.

I understand the length of the source material. For me its the small things they missed which bother me more. Like the aforementioned Regan. Another bit is when Superman punches out Solaris, they changed his dialogue from, "You will live" to something equivalent to "I have run out of mercy". A small thing in overall picture but it felt odd to me. Superman as Clark Kent used freeze breath to save Luthor in prison. But the film added that the frozen attackers were killed by Parasite. In comics it was fun to see Superman trying to save Luthor in prison. But in the film that makes it look like Superman let people die to save Luthor and protect his identity, where he could have tried to change to Superman and situation could have been resolved in a better way. This mars an otherwise fun sequence.

Luthor dressed up his chimpanzee in Superman costume. I love that panel showing the pettiness and hatred of Luthor. This was removed. Overall its decent. From the films i have seen so far i have enjoyed it the most. I agree with the brilliant score. i watched the whole credits just to hear the theme. When it comes to themes Superman has some fantastic ones. But people seem to like only the Williams one.

I still love the movie, but if you go at a micro level dissecting details, it does make the movie a lot more disappointing. One minute change in the movie from the books that I was actively looking to see how they'd handle it was when Clark Kent intentionally bumped the older pedestrian to save him from falling heavy debris. In both media, he forced the old man to drop his things, but the comics made a point to show that the man's belongings were piled up neatly in a stack. I dunno if the movie guys just never noticed that detail, or it just wasn't worth it to animated a small thing, but it's tiny things like that that make the book better.

That said, I accept the decision not to roll it out into two movies. It's a great comic series, but it doesn't lend itself great to the movie format.

I do like the altered ending for the movie, and I think even Grant Morrison says some nice things about it in the commentary track, but in general I wish Bruce Timm would stop changing details in Superman comics for his movies that adapt comic stories. It usually doesn't work out well.

[manwhohaseverything]

I still love the movie, but if you go at a micro level dissecting details, it does make the movie a lot more disappointing. One minute change in the movie from the books that I was actively looking to see how they'd handle it was when Clark Kent intentionally bumped the older pedestrian to save him from falling heavy debris. In both media, he forced the old man to drop his things, but the comics made a point to show that the man's belongings were piled up neatly in a stack. I dunno if the movie guys just never noticed that detail, or it just wasn't worth it to animated a small thing, but it's tiny things like that that make the book better.

That said, I accept the decision not to roll it out into two movies. It's a great comic series, but it doesn't lend itself great to the movie format.

I do like the altered ending for the movie, and I think even Grant Morrison says some nice things about it in the commentary track, but in general I wish Bruce Timm would stop changing details in Superman comics for his movies that adapt comic stories. It usually doesn't work out well.

@bold is what i meant, when i said its decent. Barring the music, i wish the movie as a whole went bigger for this one. I don't think simplifying the comic art work was right decision. If they can't keep the artstyle, they should have went with their own. Just take the designs and concepts. Just Make the characters more expressive and actually look good.Overall, i just wish the movie was done by some big professional animation studios. There is so many crazy concepts in all star. I wanted that flight of imagination and creativity alive. The movie was uninspiring and lacked any style.Animation regarding Movements and facial expressions were underwhelming too.i mean, all star superman is the most expressive superman. His expressions tell a story by itself. The movie fails to capture one tenth of it. There could have been so much more that could have been done, like a scene of him sitting in the clouds with a bit of pain, calm, content and serene look.A more expressive scene with pa kent grave site. Him sitting on the chair, with worry. So on and so forth.

It's amazing how timm who produced a stylistic portrayal and presentation in batman tas,Never could come up with a style that's as inspiring for superman. He gets gotham. But, when it comes to superman's world and his movements, powers.. Etc. He is so less creative. Ofcourse, there are exceptions like fourth world, the world collector-lobo episodes , promethas.. Etc. Its like he can only make superman work in space. That warworld episode was pretty decent as well. For metroplis, he just slaps a atomic age or space age aesthetic and gets done with it.

I still, wish these animators would realise that superman is not a flying brick.

[Frontier]

I do like the altered ending for the movie, and I think even Grant Morrison says some nice things about it in the commentary track, but in general I wish Bruce Timm would stop changing details in Superman comics for his movies that adapt comic stories. It usually doesn't work out well.

It doesn't work out well for Batman either. Just look at Killing Joke.

[Vordan]

It doesn't work out well for Batman either. Just look at Killing Joke.

And people weren’t that found of Hush either. I know a lot of people like JL Doom but I don’t like the ending with that either. The ending of Tower of Babel clearly is meant to show that Bruce screwed up and he actually gets punished for it. Doom meanwhile has him basically tell the JL to suck it and then quits. It’s two totally at odds endings. That said Doom was only meant to be a loose adaption, but it is amusing that it’s only recently people have complained that DC doesn’t do complete recreations of the stories. They never have.

[Frontier]

And people weren’t that found of Hush either. I know a lot of people like JL Doom but I don’t like the ending with that either. The ending of Tower of Babel clearly is meant to show that Bruce screwed up and he actually gets punished for it. Doom meanwhile has him basically whip his dick out and tell the JL to suck it and then quits. It’s two totally at odds endings. That said Doom was only meant to be a loose adaption, but it is amusing that it’s only recently people have complained that DC doesn’t do complete recreations of the stories. They never have.

I was just limiting it to the stuff Timm did, but yeah.

Even New Frontier, as great as it was, had to make cuts and condense things for the story.

Batman deserved to get knocked down a peg more at the end of Doom.

[DochaDocha]

And people weren’t that found of Hush either. I know a lot of people like JL Doom but I don’t like the ending with that either. The ending of Tower of Babel clearly is meant to show that Bruce screwed up and he actually gets punished for it. Doom meanwhile has him basically whip his dick out and tell the JL to suck it and then quits. It’s two totally at odds endings. That said Doom was only meant to be a loose adaption, but it is amusing that it’s only recently people have complained that DC doesn’t do complete recreations of the stories. They never have.

Yup. I like Doom, and while it's kind of hokey, it's one of the more enjoyable JL titles. But the ending? Well, it partially works for me, but it's still worse than the comic. What I appreciate about the movie's ending is that Superman doesn't really approve of Batman's methods, but he's also a bit sympathetic of Batman, and hands him back the Kryptonite. It kind of captures what I liked about post-Crisis Superman and his relationship with Batman. In the end, he trusts Batman, so Batman keeps the Kryptonite with Superman's blessing. But the team probably wanted to give Batman a mic drop moment, and so we got this ending. I remember reading some online comments about how much of a "boss" Batman was for walking out that way, but I was thinking to myself, "But he screwed up and his rationale for what he did was 'Because I'm Batman!'" and everyone was supposed to accept it.

I'll ad that they do complete recreations, but they've been mostly limited to Miller Batman and everything but the first 40 minutes of The Killing Joke. Regarding Miller Batman movies, I recall in the Sneak Peeks that going panel-for-panel was indeed one of their goals, and I'd say throughout the most part, fans received it well. Now as for The Killing Joke, I guess we'll never know for sure, but I'm of the belief that if they just adapted the book and then added 40 minutes of extras, the movie also would've been well-received.