My controversial thoughts on SUPERMAN:The Movie: It's time to let it go.

[manofsteel1979]

So, earlier I made a slightly off topic posting in this thread. As it is almost a separate topic on it's own, I'd like to repost it here and perhaps have an in depth discussion about SMTM and it's both positive and negative effect on Superman across media.

so...here it is for your reading pleasure:

I love the first Reeve/Donner film and hold it dear to my heart. When I think of Superman, the first thought that flashes in my mind is that John Williams theme and Chris Reeve soaring in the sky.

That being said, when I can separate my nostalgic feelings towards the movie and what it represented to me when I was a kid, I think that in some profound ways, that film is responsible more than anything for Superman's image problems and why the character continues to struggle in comics and other media, mainly BECAUSE it was so successful.

In fact, looking at my first sentence there, that illustrates the problem. We hold an adaptation up as the be all end all.

Ever since 1978, Superman the comic book character, to one degree or another, has lived in the shadow of the Richard Donner/Ilya Salkind/Chris Reeve version of the character. When the movie came out, the Superman on the big screen was a far cry from the Superman DC Comics published. Yes, Reeve looked and in many ways acted like his comics counterpart,but everything else was completely different. Movie Superman had a very simple backstory that could be summed up in a paragraph. By contrast, in the comics he had 4 decades of continuity and a fairly complicated back story that would have needed a two hour movie just to detail all the parts of his then existing origin that the film omitted, not to mention a vastly different interpretation of Krypton, his boyhood in SMALLVILLE and a nearly completely unrecognizable version of Lex Luthor.

It was largely because of SMTM's success that the idea to simplify and "fix" Superman and the DC Comics universe in general took root in the minds of Warner Bros executives and thus, DC Comics within 8 years of the film's release had done comic's first ever true "reboot" or house cleaning of its fictional universe, the centerpiece being a retooled Superman that bore a much stronger similarity to his movie counterpart than his prior incarnation.

Eventually that version around 2006 full on morphed into a carbon copy of the movie version from 1978, complete with Superman drawn like Chris Reeve.

Ever since to one degree or another, we have seen an adaptation of the source material guide the development and evolution of said material. The tail wagging the dog as it were. I think that subtle change in the equation is a big reason why Superman has struggled over the last 30 years or so. The Reeve film became the base source material in the minds of the pop culture zetigiest that anything that deviates from it is seen by a very vocal contingent as "not Superman" and that contingent seek to keep Superman sealed in amber to forever keep him "pure" and the memory of that incarnation alive (which I think the tragic turn Reeve's life took in the 90's even further strengthened this)....while the rest see the character through the dated lens of the 1978 film and classify him as forever irrelevant. The comics version thus was (is?)left twisting in the wind because it really became irrelevant in the big picture. It was no longer driving the evolution of the character. The comics themselves became an adaptation of an adaptation.

I think that's part of the reasons why MAN OF STEEL was so controversial, even beyond the ending and the destruction stuff. It was the first adaptation of the character in 30+ years to challenge the notion that the Donner way was the only way to interpret Superman...and it was such a shock to the system. A NEEDED shock to the system IMO. (and even then it could be argued that MOS took some nods from the Donner film, like the A.I. Jor-El, Lois naming him Superman. The widowed Martha Kent. Smallville in Kansas. Zod as the main adversary...etc)

The last few years with the New 52 relaunch and MOS have helped turn the tide a bit in a proper direction toward allowing the source material (i.e. The comics) to once again drive the evolution of the character,but until the pop culture as a whole is forced to "let go" of the Donner film and put it back in it's proper place as the mere adaptation it was meant to be in the first place, and not some sacred text or bible, I think Superman will continue to struggle, in comics and in other media.

So...thoughts? Do you agree? Disagree? If so, why? Let's discuss.