Amph "If You Seek His Monument, Look Around You" - The Man of Steel and Announced Sequel Thread

Whatever happened to the Smallville suave Zod? What was wrong with him? I loved that version!



Since Smallville went with a clone of his younger self, when he was still a major, they played around a little with his characterization, making his inferiority complex his defining character weakness and the source of most of his nefarious traits, as seen here.

 

I really wasn't that crazy about Superman TAS, so I can't recall that particular origin story. However in most if not all of the origin story's interpretations Jor-El knew what he was doing. It wasn't a "fluke" Kal made it to Earth.

 

I suspect they're trying to get around the fact that all these people know if they got themselves to a yellow-sun-orbiting world they would have god-like powers, yet they don't bother. Because, hey, who wants to be Superman if you have to travel?

 

In my opinion it would be more plausible if nobody knew of the powers they would get under a yellow sun. But that would pull the rug from under the feet of the whole "sending my son to save humanity" angle. I would propose that they knew about earth from telescopes and whatnot, but that they hadn't developed modes of propulsion that would get them there fast enough for a viable journey (because it would take a lifetime or longer to get there). However, the brilliant scientist Jor-El has developed a prototype engine that would theoretically cut down travel time to only a couple years or so. He is put to the task of building a larger scale one, but the planet's anticipated destruction comes sooner than expected and knowing that nobody stands any chance on Krypton anyway, he takes a long shot chance at putting baby Kal-El in the prototype vessel.

Then again, that explanation renders the fact that humans look exactly like Kryptonians a product of insane luck. Hey, better yet, make the origin of humans tie into Kryptonians, like the reptilian ancient alien conspiracy theory, eh, eh?

 

He wrote a prose novel.

As for why,because he really liked Superman? I dunno. But I would stay away from it, because it's full of hamfisted shout-outs to the Donner films and inserts J'onn J'onzz in a real cheesy, unnecessary way.

 

Well Star Trek and it's sequels/prequels had a seemingly endless amount of races that here human or human enough looking, so the 'looking human by chance' thing doesn't really bother me.

 

It would actually be an interesting take on things if they intentionally avoided this, because they felt it corrupted them or their society somehow. You probably couldn't do it in a Superman movie, because it raises too many questions and would cast him almost unavoidably in a bad light. But the question of intentional disarmament is one that ought to be explored. I've seen it done well a few times in science fiction before.

Invidious: Sorry for the confusion. You are correct in your recollection of TAS. I was just giving another possible scenario, which is that there was a mass exodus but only Kal-El ended up on Earth.

I actually think its most plausible the Kryptonians were not space-faring at all. I mean, think about this. Fragments of the planet Krypton, under no propulsion, beat Kal-El to Earth. Or at best arrived just after he did. Do you know what that implies about his speed of travel? Their real technological superiority to Earth must have been in developing suspended animation technology, and also in power sources. Because that ship was flying for trillions of years at the least.

 

Though they did explain that in season 6 of TNG...

 

Huh. You're right, actually. That would be pretty interesting.

Though I don't think it would cast Superman in a bad light so much as Jor-El. Which isn't a huge problem.

Perhaps, but (in the comics, at least) they're invariably presented as being ridiculously more advanced than humanity in every respect. So, as mentioned, they come up with various excuses for why they're not space-faring.

I believe the current excuse is that the planet has some sort of firmament that they can't penetrate until super-scientist-genius Jor-El solves the issue with his prototype rocket! Or something. I don't know, maybe I made that up.

 

That's why I like the Animated Series version. They're all in denial until it's mere hours before the planet explodes and no one can escape in time except Jor-el's already prepared rocket. It's never said they can't leave. In fact the technology implies they could have. They just had no time whatsoever to escape.

 

The other thing to be considered is whether we need any sort of spaceship at all. The Kryptonians can be extremely advanced without it. We all know that interstellar travel is impractical, stupid, and obscenely expensive. So much so that it will basically never happen. I don't think it would hurt to have one story actually go ahead and acknowledge this.

Instead of an escape craft, Superman (and the kryptonite) can reach Earth by whatever mechanism destroyed the planet. Some sort of astrophysical cataclysm. Say it creates a wormhole, or the ever-favored "electromagnetic anomaly" in the style of Lost. His parents put him in something that allowed him to survive the radiation, and so he ended up getting transported to Earth.

 

One of Superman's sobriquets is "The Man of Tomorrow", and kind of ties into what Superman is meant to represent. That would be less effective if he was the "Lovecraftian Monstrosity of Tomorrow"

 

The Pre-Crisis for why so much Kryptonite and other Kryptonian artifacts ended up on Earth did involve a wormhole of sorts. Basically, the spacecraft Jor-El built to send Superman to Earth had a prototype hyperdrive, and created a kind of hyperdrive wormhole between Krypton's location and Earth.

 

Maybe Jor-El could simply hold him aloft, and a giant eagle could swoop down and carry him off to Earth.

 

Spoiler

 

So it was him that destroyed the one ring.

 

IIRC from the TAS pilot, that's pretty much what happened there too: as baby Kal-El's craft warped into hyperspace to Earth, it created a wormhole and pieces of Krypton sped through that along with the craft, which is why so much Kryptonite ended up on Earth.

 

So basically to quote a Doctor Who reference: LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!

*ducks rotten tomatoes*

 

Hahahaha, it's exactly looms.

 

YOU ARE NOT ALONE

 

Am I the only one deeply afraid that this film is going to miss the mark? I like the casting... and there my appreciation ends. The suit is absurd IMO; remember those sequin-like scales they put on Spider-Man's outfit over ten years ago? Well, they're back and now they're even bigger! (The only character who actually has these scales in the comics, Captain America, does not get them in his movies. Nope. He gets velvet-smooth kevlar.) Also, hey -- Don't like color? Great! We've muted the hues on the Super-suit because, yeah, bright red and blue and yellow are boring and must be toned down with mucky gray to make them muddier and, ya know, more interesting. Especially yellow: what a horrible color for a guy who gets his power from a yellow sun! We need to add a smudge of gray to that immediately, like a charcoal smear across all yellow portions of the suit that remain after we strip his belt off. Outstanding. Now take his shorts, too, so he's wearing a one-piece vinyl dance-o-tard. Yay! Now he looks nothing like Superman! This movie will destroy at the box office.

Oh... what's that about Superman's origin story? You say that in both the beloved Donner and Smallville versions, as well as in the 1986 DC reboot by John Byrne from which this film takes its name, Superman's parents actively encouraged him to use his powers for good? Well, nix that nonsense! We're going with the morally bankrupt idea that the Kents care not a whit for their fellow humans, and will instead try to talk Clark out of helping anyone. This will create the psychological turmoil so necessary in today's superhero market. A mixed-up, angsty Clark! Hooray! Pa Kent is an amoral, look-the-other-way-son kind of guy! Huzzah!

Who needs a moral compass? Who needs the color yellow? Let's face it: Superman sucks, and if we're going to make a movie that will appeal to the masses and rake in scads of cash, we have to change him in a major way, starting with everything that has meant anything to anyone who loves him, and ending with everything else. Immediately.

/sarcastic and mildly apoplectic rant

 

I may have been overreacting by a miniscule degree.

It bears noting that my issues with the new suit are, quite obviously, not script-based. And the origin story switch-up is confirmed by dialogue from the trailer and journalist reports.

Yeah, I know: context. My concerns have been noted, dozens have been entertained. We'll see what happens. Charcoal gray shading over bright yellow is always often a bad sign.

 

I always hated the shorts over the pants, and belts are kind of redundant if you're wearing tights. I like the scales too, makes it look otherwordly, which I suspect is the intention.

If anything, the suits in the Spider-Man films look too high tech production process to be made by a high school kid in his bedroom. Especially the Raimi suit with the glued or melted on embossed web with metallic reflective coloring. I guess we can suppose that the scaly fabric was just something he found and bought and stitched together how he wanted, but how did he make the sneaker boots that somehow connect to surfaces as well as his hands do? And what about Raimi's suit that doesn't have sneaker soles; is he running around in socks?

But back to the Man of Steel suit, if it had incorporated that red coloring across the waist that the poster upthread added in, that would improve it with some more contrast. Speaking of contrast, I agree about the muted colors. I don't like them too bright, but this went overboard. Actually, the whole movie seems muted and gloomy, which is tonally not a good fit for a Superman film. On the yellow background for the shield, I would have preferred to be gone with the background altogether, and have it just be the outline, like the poster logo. I liked THIS compromise solution, though.

What would be kind of cool was if the suit reacted directly to his solar charge, becoming brighter as he got stronger, becoming as bright as the classic suit when he was fully charged. That makes it seem high tech and otherworldy too when it integrates with his body like that. The downside to that, of course, is that it announces loud and clear to his enemies when he is exhausted.