Make ONE tweak to each Superman movie.

[Stick Figure]

I’ve only seen the 1st two Reeve movies and I don’t think I could have enough changes to salvage them. They’re brutal.

Superman Returns - shouldn’t have had any ties to the old films. No Luthor either.

MOS- nothing I’d change about the film but I’d definitely have a sequel made with a year or two. Going right to BVS just didn’t work for me.

[Güicho]

Your one tweak can be as big or small as you'd like them to be. If that one change has a domino effect that causes other changes, that's smart tweaking.

Somewhere between:
1987- Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and 1989 - Batman
Christopher Reeve (36)
Lynda Carter (37)
Michael Keaton (37)
all about the same age
DC/WB has the vision for a parallel Trinity team-up film with all three.

[JAK]

Somewhere between:
1987- Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and 1989 - Batman
Christopher Reeve (36)
Lynda Carter (37)
Keaton (37)
all about the same age
DC/WB has the vision for a parallel Trinity team up film with all three.

I like this! It also has the added bonus that BvS wouldn't have been made. lol

[manwhohaseverything]

I like this! It also has the added bonus that BvS wouldn't have been made. lol

With wb and dc at the helm. You can bet that it will happen. Michael keaton batman will beat Christopher reeve superman. Heck! They might make live action version of darkknight returns which would have been just published. Maybe, people's opinion of that superman would have been just tarnished in the long run.

[Jim Kelly]

Hm, I'm having buyers' remorse about suggesting any tweaks on this thread. I rescind all my tweaks.

[K. Jones]

A challenging exercise. How magical do I get to be?

Superman.
It's a product of its time and a film I absolutely adore. I have one tweak and then one kind of honorable mention/suggestion. I'll start with the honorable mention - everybody always mocks this movie because Superman "flies so fast he spins the Earth backwards in time". But that's expressly not what we're seeing. Superman flies so fast that he GOES BACK IN TIME and we simply witness time slow, halt, go into reverse, in real-time. We're just watching him go back in time from a god's eye view, and it immediately visually tells you what's happening (winding the clock backward). It's just a weird secondary thing that it appears cartoonish and associates slightly differently for us. So clarify that.

But my actual TWEAK? Use time travel or "Boyhood" style forethought to film the Young Clark scenes with an actual Young Christopher Reeve. Honestly even as a kid the only thing in that film that really jarred me and took me out of the movie was that I couldn't reconcile the two different actors. I wanted the whole thing to be Chris Reeve, and the Smallville scenes felt like a total slog that I had to sit through waiting for the real movie to start.

Superman II.
More Phantom Zoners than just Zod, Ursa and Non, and at least one scenario where we go INTO the Phantom Zone. The rivalry and the "who" are fine. Militant rival of sciencey Jor-El, his vicious girlfriend/lieutenant, and his right hand bruiser. Just fine. But really get into it!

Superman III.
Dark Superman comes from Dark Kryptonite of some variety, the computer is BRAINIAC, and Gus becomes Brainiac's host body. Obviously the whole tweak requires less comedy and silliness ... and more of a budget. But if I. is the Luthor movie and II. is the Zod movie then of course, III. is the Brainiac movie.

Superman IV.
Which of course means IV. is the Bizarro movie. No Nuclear Man. If Luthor is going to clone Superman it's Bizarro. Therefore this is the one where Chris Reeve gets to punch a broken mirror version of himself. I frankly don't see why they couldn't keep some level of the dopey 80s "Stop Nukes" thread or the Planet getting bought out, although we've starting to include cloning and stuff so use Morgan Edge instead of the Warfields and maybe that could intimate at the coming of Darkseid down the line.

Superman Returns.
Oof. One tweak. Besides like ... dumping Bryan Singer or ditching the deadbeat dad angle ... or ditching Kevin Spacey ... or ditching the whole Luthor Land Plot re-hash of Superman I? It needs so much work. I think ... big tweak, there's nothing wrong with more Luthor wanting more revenge and being embittered even more here. And I'm okay with the Son of Superman aspect, or even him having been off on some long space adventure and getting back to find out Lois has moved on somewhat. So TWEAK ... one major thing ... is we get INTERGANG involved big time.

Man of Steel.
Remixing of origin stuff is fine but I guess ... it's just still in-continuity with the previous ones? So this is about Zod's Return? And Superman and Lois have a son (Jon!) and so when Zod and Ursa return they have their kid with them. Superman SPARED Zod in Superman II ... so now the moral dilemma of "maybe I should have killed him" comes in but it's harder because he has a little boy who looks up to him ... and ZOD has a little boy, too, making it that much worse?

Batman v. Superman.
One TWEAK. Besides adding a god damn "VS." because that "v." is the stupidest decision?
Okay ...
It's a movie about Batman and Superman's dueling problems with Wonder Woman involved? Easy tweak.
It's FOR THE MAN WHO HAS EVERYTHING.
No idiotic Zod-Doomsday Fusion monster or young Luthor. It's freaking MONGUL and the Black Mercy. There's still a big punch-out with a big hulking ugly but it's a big hulking ugly with yellow skin and who says fun warlord things, and frankly, you can still have Superman "appear to die" at the end of it. Screw Doomsday.

Justice League
Oh not that many tweaks with Justice League. I think it's a legit place to start having Apokolips start showing up. Obviously this film is somehow the most problematic on this list, but the general notion of Steppenwolf showing up as the Vanguard of Darkseid and the team coming together is fine. I don't love their Steppenwolf design. But frankly I don't love any of the costumes. Focusing more on Lois Lane and maybe connecting Intergang and S.T.A.R. Labs to the potential invasion would be good, though. If most of the plot is Batman working with Lois Lane to uncover a conspiracy, and they bring in these other heroes, I can be in.

...

So there. Each gets a significant tweak to make them run in continuity with each other, whether they're years later with new actors in the role or not. Primarily we want the same actors as long as possible.

In a dream world we run a series of the first ones with Reeve and Hackman in their respective rolls and then the modern ones were always just Brandon Routh as Superman (Super-Dad) and Bryan Cranston as Luthor. Contiguously, as sort of a Phase 1 and Phase 2 run.

[Vakanai]

I know it's an old argument now, but I never understood the "deadbeat dad" complaint about Superman Returns. He wasn't a deadbeat, he literally didn't know he had a kid. There's nothing irresponsible or wrong in that. He's not psychic.

[superduperman]

I know it's an old argument now, but I never understood the "deadbeat dad" complaint about Superman Returns. He wasn't a deadbeat, he literally didn't know he had a kid. There's nothing irresponsible or wrong in that. He's not psychic.

He flew off at the end of the movie leaving Lois to raise a super powered kid by herself.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

He flew off at the end of the movie leaving Lois to raise a super powered kid by herself.

That's an odd misreading of that scene. He very specifically tells Lois he'll always be around, leaving the ball in Lois's court as to how she wants to proceed. Since she has been her son's main parent up to this point, that's a perfectly reasonable way to handle it. As screwed up an individual as Bryan Singer clearly is, I don't think "leaving Lois to raise a super powered kid by herself" was what he was trying to get across in that final scene.

Was that great storytelling or a satisfying conclusion to an already muddled script? Hell no, but it does not portray Superman as a deadbeat dad in any way.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Hm, I'm having buyers' remorse about suggesting any tweaks on this thread. I rescind all my tweaks.

Sorry. No refunds. All tweaks are final

According to my paperwork, I have your tweaks down as replacing Margot Kidder with Richard Pryor in the first film, refocusing the story of Superman II on the crazy antics of the redneck sheriff and his deputy, swapping out the villain of Superman III for Sean Connery as Vartox, leaving Superman IV alone because it's perfect and telling Zack Snyder to stop censoring himself and really cut loose for the DCEU films.

Hmmm, some of those tweaks ain't bad, actually...

[godisawesome]

Superman I: No turning back time BS - either Superman concocts a clever answer to his conundrum or a different one is created he can be clever about, and no Dems Ex Machina nonsense.

Superman II: No amnesia kiss - no need to give Superman the power of date rape.

Superman III: Switch our Robert Vaughn’s bland millionaire with a Batman ‘66 version of Brainiac, to up the Nate as an antagonist but also preserve what fun there is to be had with the goofball nature of the film.

Superman IV: “Nuclear Man” is a super-up Bizarro as the “nuclear” subplot is removed entirely.

Superman Returns: No connection, worship, or fanaticism for the Donner films... yes that would change the entire movie, but to be honest... those movies aged much more poorly than people like to think.

Man Of Steel: Clark’s... Clark identity gets more defined as an amateur and personality-filled blogger and part-time journalist, with Lois tracking him down specifically in part because she also correlates the blogger knowing things her “Superman” knows. I’d actually give Clark’s “human ID” a more acerbic wit that actually highlights his idealism because it’s not so much a cycnical philosophy as much as it’s disappointed but cleverly explained observations.

Batman V Superman: Batman and Lex’s overt POVs are discarded in favor of Clark Kent the reporter figuring out stuff about Batman and then Bruce Wayne with Lois’s help.

[JAK]

With wb and dc at the helm. You can bet that it will happen. Michael keaton batman will beat Christopher reeve superman. Heck! They might make live action version of darkknight returns which would have been just published. Maybe, people's opinion of that superman would have been just tarnished in the long run.

Actually, no - at that time, we would have had "World's Finest", and the fight (if there was one) would have been quick and interrupted by the real villain (if the old patterns stayed, which would have been likely). And with Keaton and Reeve having shared a screen together, WB wouldn't be able to lazy-bank on "Batman/Superman in a movie for the first time!" to guarantee them ticket sales for a "BvS"-style idea, so it very likely wouldn't have happened.

Win/win!

[manwhohaseverything]

Actually, no - at that time, we would have had "World's Finest", and the fight (if there was one) would have been quick and interrupted by the real villain (if the old patterns stayed, which would have been likely). And with Keaton and Reeve having shared a screen together, WB wouldn't be able to lazy-bank on "Batman/Superman in a movie for the first time!" to guarantee them ticket sales for a "BvS"-style idea, so it very likely wouldn't have happened.

Win/win!

Is'nt that what happened in bvs? The fight was interrupted by doomsday and martha.

[superduperman]

That's an odd misreading of that scene. He very specifically tells Lois he'll always be around, leaving the ball in Lois's court as to how she wants to proceed. Since she has been her son's main parent up to this point, that's a perfectly reasonable way to handle it. As screwed up an individual as Bryan Singer clearly is, I don't think "leaving Lois to raise a super powered kid by herself" was what he was trying to get across in that final scene.

Was that great storytelling or a satisfying conclusion to an already muddled script? Hell no, but it does not portray Superman as a deadbeat dad in any way.

I used to defend the movie and that scene but I just got tired of it. For one thing, no way Lois's boyfriend/husband doesn't find out that his "son" is Superman's at this point. It's been a while since I've seen it. I just know that Perry's son will eventually put two and two together.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

I used to defend the movie and that scene but I just got tired of it. For one thing, no way Lois's boyfriend/husband doesn't find out that his "son" is Superman's at this point. It's been a while since I've seen it. I just know that Perry's son will eventually put two and two together.

Yeah, the script for that movie is just a disaster from premise to execution. Now that we know more about Singer's drug addiction and sexual abuse of young men, the bizarre choices made in that film make more sense in retrospect. Only a man as damaged as Singer could possibly think a film like Superman Returns was "romantic".

At least we got that great airplane scene out of it. That's still an all-timer.