A New Generation of Superman Fan

[Flash Gordon]

Novels are usually considered "finished" because only the author knows where to take the story forward. Or the author is dead. Movies are more often considered product produced by different hands. Thus you get rewrites, reboots and directors cuts which can be seen as "authentic" or competing perspectives. Occasionally, the Director will be the acknowledged "author" of the work, but even here his interpretation can be debated. Ridley Scott releases three versions of Blade Runner and says each one of them is valid.

Novels are finished when the author completes the work and publishes it. A novel may be published posthumously, but by definition that would entail that it is at least partially "unfinished".

A film is finished when production is wrapped and it is released to an audience. The theatrical cut of the film is the film. That's what people saw, that's what folks got paid for. Now, there may be subsequent "cuts" released for fans of the filmmaker or the property, but that is just additional stuff. The film already came out and was watched and received. Any additional rewrites of a film that's already been released, are basically fan fiction.

Remakes and reboots are a totally different thing.

[misslane]

I'm fine with Supes killing Zod, he basically had no choice, plus he did it in the comics and in Superman 2. And I blame the destruction of Metropolis on Zod. It's Clark letting someone get sucked into a tornado, because he didn't wanna risk his secret getting out, that killed my interest in this interpretation. And that was his dad of all people! I don't care what pretentious excuses you give about the world not being ready, To me, Superman does not put his own well being over somebody else's life.

Superman didn't put his well-being over others. His choice wasn't about himself. It was about putting his own needs and desires for his father to be alive over the world.

Clark: What was I supposed to do? Just let them die?
Jonathan: Maybe. There's more at stake here than just our lives, Clark, or the lives of those around us. When the world finds out what you can do it's gonna change everything. Our beliefs, our notions of what it means to be human. Everything. You saw how Pete's mom reacted, right? She was scared, Clark.
Clark: Why?
Jonathan: People are afraid of what they don't understand.
Clark: Is she right? Did God do this to me? Tell me.
Jonathan: We found you in this. We were sure the government was gonna show up on our doorstep but no one ever came. This was in that chamber with you. I took it to a metallurgist at Kansas State. He said whatever it was made from didn't even exist on the periodic table. That's another way of saying that it's not from this world, Clark. And neither are you. You're the answer, son. You're the answer to "Are we alone in the universe?"
Clark: I don't wanna be.
Jonathan: And I don't blame you, son. It'd be a huge burden for anyone to bear. But you're not just anyone, Clark, and I have to believe that you were sent here for a reason. All these changes that you're going through, one day you're gonna think of them as a blessing. When that day comes you have to make a choice. A choice of whether to stand proud in front of the human race or not.
Clark: Can't I just keep pretending I'm your son?
Jonathan: You are my son. But somewhere out there you have another father too, who gave you another name. And he sent you here for a reason, Clark. And even if it takes you the rest of your life, you owe it to yourself to find out what that reason is.

Clark: I let my father die because I trusted him. Because he was convinced that I had to wait. That the world was not ready.

Perry: I believe you saw something, Lois. But not for a moment do I believe that your leads just went cold. So whatever your reasons are for dropping it I think you're doing the right thing.
Lois: Why?
Perry: Can you imagine how people on this planet would react if they knew there was someone like this out there?

Martha: He always believed you were meant for greater things. And that when the day came your shoulders would be able to bear the weight.
Clark: Yeah, I just wish he could have been here to see it finally happen.
Martha: He saw it, Clark, believe me.

In other words, he didn't do it to protect himself from the world. He did it to protect the world from him -- from the existential, religious, and philosophical questions raised by his existence and from his young self (he was 17 when Jonathan died) who would not have had the maturity both in his mental and physical development to adapt to and help people as they wrestled with those issues. In fact, you can see Jonathan's fears realized in how things unfold in Batman v Superman, especially in the media chatter during the montage sequence.

We, as a population on this planet, have been looking for a savior. 90% of people believe in a higher power. And every religion believes in some sort messianic figure. And when this savior character actually comes to Earth, we want to make him abide by our rules? We have to understand that this is a paradigm shift. We have to start thinking beyond politics. Are there any moral constraints on this person? We have international law. On this Earth, every act is a political act. Is it really surprising, that the most powerful man in the world should be a figure of controversy? To have an individual engaging in the state level interventions should give us all pause. Human beings have a horrible track record of following people with great power, down paths that lead to huge human monstrosities. We have always created icons in our own image. What we've done is we project ourselves on to him. The fact is, maybe he's not some sort of devil or Jesus character. Maybe he's just a guy trying to do the right thing. We're talking about a being whose very existence challenges our own sense of priority in the universe. If you go back to Copernicus, where he restored the sun and the center of the known universe, displacing Earth. And you get to Darwinian evolution and you find out, we're not special on this Earth we're just one among other life forms. And now we learned, that we're not even special in the entire universe because there is Superman. There he is, an alien, among us. We're not alone.

It's clear that, even grown up, Superman struggled to handle the crisis his debut caused; Jonathan's sacrifice was to make sure conditions were better for the world and for his son to cope with the magnitude of who Superman could be.

[beetee]

Novels are finished when the author completes the work and publishes it. A novel may be published posthumously, but by definition that would entail that it is at least partially "unfinished".

A film is finished when production is wrapped and it is released to an audience. The theatrical cut of the film is the film. Now, there may be subsequent "cuts" released for fans of the filmmaker or the property, but that is just additional stuff. The film already came out and was watched and received. Any additional rewrites of a film that's already been released, are basically fan fiction.

Remakes and reboots are a totally different thing.

Yeah call it "Fan Fiction" because you don't agree with it. This is from a DC Universe that rewrites itself twice a decade. As I said in an earlier thread, there are less ambiguous kills Superman has made. By your logic if Superman IV hadn't been made, Lex Luthor would have been left out to freeze to death in the Arctic, because you didn't "see" the rescue. (And would dismiss any other cuts/deleted scenes as "Fan Fiction")

[Superlad93]

The Donner era Superman's are Silvery foolishness and romantic comedy (the real selling point of the first two movies).

More or less, yeah. There's strong dramatic elements to it, but it's played across like a Greek myth taken at face value. And that is gussied up to be a bright and colorful cartoon. I mean like, why is the guy still talking on the phone during that hurricane? lol And that's not how time trivial works, Superman. That's actually how you kill a whole planet. Oh, and literally all the nukes in the world in a real big ol' net, huh Superman? And everyone was just down with that? Lmao

It's a myth filtered through a cartoon. It's context is required for it to function.

[misslane]

That's an opinion, sure. But putting it in the context of the real world, like you're doing, seems fruitless, to me. It's a film that obviously isn't interested in that. It's like looking at Space Jam and calling out all the times where they break the rules of basketball, and then saying it desensitizes people to cheating at the game. That's an opinion you can have, sure, but you're deliberately keeping the world's obviously heightened context at arms length while you criticize it. You're cutting it's legs off and telling it to run.

Basketball and life and death are not on the same level. The consequences of cheating on basketball pale in comparison to the consequences of violence and murder.

[Flash Gordon]

Yeah call it "Fan Fiction" because you don't agree with it. This is from a DC Universe that rewrites itself twice a decade. As I said in an earlier thread, there are less ambiguous kills Superman has made. By your logic if Superman IV hadn't been made, Lex Luthor would have been left out to freeze to death in the Arctic, because you didn't "see" the rescue. (And would dismiss any other cuts/deleted scenes as "Fan Fiction")

We aren't talking about comic books or DC comics, just filmmaking- totally different animal.

Any attempts to rewrite a film that was already released IS by definition "fan fiction". In filmmaking it's all about what is presented onscreen. That's one of the first things you learn in film school.

[FishyZombie]

Oh I know what they were going for, and I still don't buy it. I don't think him revealing his powers one time in front like 50 or so people would have worldwide ramifications. The Kryptonian invasion, sure that obviously would have gotten a lot of people's attention. If that's were the case for small-scale rescues, he shouldn't have saved those people on the oil rig, people saw him do that. But it got passed off as an urban myth, which is what would have happened if he saved his pops.

[Clark_Kent]

I did. Lots of others did. Its an ambiguous scene in the way it was presented theatrically. The fact it wasn't shot that way doesn't change the impression the actual released cut made on many. And it has nothing to do with dumping on the Donner films to build up MOS. I figured Zod, Non, and Ursa died when I was little kid all the way up to the present day. This isn't something that people go back and put a new spin on just a couple years ago because they wanted to save face with Man of Steel. This has been something argued and debated long before MOS was even a project.

This guy gets it. It's never looked like anything but death to me. I saw it for the first time when I was 5 years old, and even then I didn't care. The bad guys always died in movies, whether it be a western, a Disney film, or Superman 2. We can't look at a deleted scene and say "see! They survived!" It's a deleted scene lol It matters about as much as the deleted original ending to First Blood where Rambo kills himself.

And I agree with the guy who brought up the mind-wipe...Superman killing Zod to save lives in MoS is nothing compared to mind raping Lois Lane in SII. But we can't criticise that because it's Christopher Reeve.

[beetee]

We aren't talking about comic books or DC comics, just filmmaking- totally different animal.

Any attempts to rewrite a film that was already released IS by definition "fan fiction". In filmmaking it's all about what is presented onscreen. That's one of the first things you learn in film school.

"Fan Fiction" is a non professional or unpublished work, not authorized by the studio or IP holder. Movies can and have been overwritten with studio / directorial consent. Director's cuts are often presented as the "finished" cut of a product. You can dismiss that as is your right, but if Ridley Scott insists that Deckard is a Replicant (Which Harrison Ford didn't know and angrily rejects and the screenwriter Samuel Peeples didn't know either) and says his Director's cut is definitive, is he wrong (he probably knows more than a film school student)

[misslane]

Oh I know what they were going for, and I still don't buy it. I don't think him revealing his powers one time in front like 50 or so people would have worldwide ramifications. The Kryptonian invasion, sure that obviously would have gotten a lot of people's attention. If that's were the case for small-scale rescues, he shouldn't have saved those people on the oil rig, people saw him do that. But it got passed off as an urban myth, which is what would have happened if he saved his pops.

Jonathan couldn't be sure if his son's story wouldn't get out from one of the bystanders, and Clark, at 17, is trusting that his father knows better than he does. Furthermore, Clark rescues people in secret later because he is growing more mature and thus ready to handle a public debut. Remember that he was 17 when his father died, but he's 33 when he debuts as Superman. That's a huge difference in terms of growth. People don't even believe teenagers can be parents let alone take on the responsibility of caring for and leading an entire population. Also recall that one of the major themes of the movie was about free will. Jonathan chose to die because he believed his son and the world weren't ready, and Clark respected that choice. So when Clark starts saving people in secret as an adult, he is benefiting from the time that his father afforded him to grow up, meet people, and learn about himself from his small scale rescues. He is benefiting from his father making a choice, so that he could have the choice to debut when he felt ready and not when he was forced to do so.

[Superlad93]

Basketball and life and death are not on the same level. The consequences of cheating on basketball pale in comparison to the consequences of violence and murder.

Well no, but I feel like you understand my point enough to know that wasn't the point of the comparison. The point was the context, inherent rules, and feel established by a film's world.

[beetee]

This guy gets it. It's never looked like anything but death to me. I saw it for the first time when I was 5 years old, and even then I didn't care. The bad guys always died in movies, whether it be a western, a Disney film, or Superman 2. We can't look at a deleted scene and say "see! They survived!" It's a deleted scene lol It matters about as much as the deleted original ending to First Blood where Rambo kills himself.

And I agree with the guy who brought up the mind-wipe...Superman killing Zod to save lives in MoS is nothing compared to mind raping Lois Lane in SII. But we can't criticise that because it's Christopher Reeve.

It was the equivalent of the villain "dying" in a explosion.... "Have we seen the last of Dr. Destructo?" that sort of thing. MOS Zod's death was final... give them credit there.

[Clark_Kent]

Novels are usually considered "finished" because only the author knows where to take the story forward. Or the author is dead. Movies are more often considered product produced by different hands. Thus you get rewrites, reboots and directors cuts which can be seen as "authentic" or competing perspectives. Occasionally, the Director will be the acknowledged "author" of the work, but even here his interpretation can be debated. Ridley Scott releases three versions of Blade Runner and says each one of them is valid.

Lester, who actually finished Superman 2, did not release a directors cut. Donner released "The Richard Donner Cut", NOT a directors cut.

In the case of Superman 2, the theatrical version is what counts. Donner's cut is an ALTERNATE version, and if you want to say Zod & crew survive in that one, then be my guest. But in the official, theatrical version of Superman 2...the one who's ending was shot by Lester, approved by the Salkinds, and released by Warner Bros...they die.

And there is nothing wrong with that. "Alternative facts" don't change that lol

[misslane]

Well no, but I feel like you understand my point enough to know that wasn't the point of the comparison. The point was the context, inherent rules, and feel established by a film's world.

And my point is that the context of a world should fit the actions it portrays. A cartoonish take on basketball is fine. A cartoonish take on life and death is not. Also, a cartoonish take wouldn't prevent the filmmakers from showing what the cut scene actually was, which was Zod being okay despite his fall. The fact remains that it was cut and, according to people here, the impression given was that Superman killed Zod. Sure, maybe people didn't care as much because of the nature of the movie, but Superman's morality still deserves the same assessment regardless of context. If killing in defense of others is immoral and thus not Supermanly, then he did an immoral and out of character thing in both films. The only difference is in the Reeve film people don't seem to care as much, and I think that's worse. I think it's worse for a context to teach people to care less about immorality when dealing with life and death. That context can be okay for frivolous things like sports, but not life and death. I applaud Snyder for making people who like Superman actually confront the reality of what they've been laughing off and enjoying in less honest contexts.

[beetee]

Lester, who actually finished Superman 2, did not release a directors cut. Donner released "The Richard Donner Cut", NOT a directors cut.

In the case of Superman 2, the theatrical version is what counts. Donner's cut is an ALTERNATE version, and if you want to say Zod & crew survive in that one, then be my guest. But in the official, theatrical version of Superman 2...the one who's ending was shot by Lester, approved by the Salkinds, and released by Warner Bros...they die.

And there is nothing wrong with that. "Alternative facts" don't change that lol

Except the Donner Cut is released by Warner Bros. and not by Donner's "Alternative" label. So my statement stands.