TCB's Superman reboot

I love Zack Snyder and, assuming he gets The Suit right, he could be the right guy to handle this movie.

But let's face the facts, I've been a comics junkie my whole life. There's something to be said for having a certain detachment from the source material when you adapt it. You don't want to be disdainful of it (I leave that to the prick who directed the Steel movie) but at the same rate you don't necessarily want to be too close to it either.

But that's for the mainstream. This here's MY reboot concept on the table here so I'm throwing in everything and the kitchen sink... since anything like this movie is unlikely to ever be made.

I think realism in superhero films has been done to death. Moreover, the entire point of rebooting is to break away from what has come before. A more fantasy type of setting permits supervillains and other things to challenge Superman. The problem with the style Donner set up in STM is that you couldn't bring out-and-out supervillains into that type of universe without destroying the lite realism he'd set up or without butchering said supervillains beyond recognition. Chris Nolan has hit that wall already. We should avoid that for Superman.

-- Krypton
I've never liked the idea of Krypton being a utopia though. If those fuckers were so smart, why are they DEAD? Krypton needs to be a cautionary tale on the dangers of arrogance and hubris. Superman may have pride in his special heritage but he's not Kryptonian in a cultural sense. He doesn't want Earth to become Krypton because that would mean eventually meeting Krypton's fate.

As I intend this movie to be solidly a science-fantasy, I'd want to set my agenda out as early as possible. One easy way of doing that is making an uber-sci-fi Krypton. I've never been crazy about the live action version of Krypton. The crystals and whatnot. It's just boring cinema aesthetics, esp by modern standards.

So why not run the other way with it and make something decidedly more Pre-Crisis?





What might that look like in live action? I think Coruscant from the Star Wars prequels is a good starting point.





-- Growing Up
One of the concepts Grant Morrison came up with for All-Star Superman is that he does the same bullshit we all do, just on a much bigger scale. Something we've not seen much in any live action media (even SV) is young Clark just enjoying his powers. Any kid would get a serious kick out of having Superman's abilities, after all. Hell, that's half the character's appeal to kids.





I'd also want to set up that there was a Superboy. The easiest way to get there would be the Legion of Super-Heroes. Not sure if I could get by with actually showing the Legion since they're a big concept unto themselves but I'd want to set up that Superboy had a relationship with them. So I'd temporarily switch out the rounded belt buckle in Superboy's outfit with a Legion "L" logo. That'd go away when he became Superman but it'd be there during the Superboy years.



Superboy wouldn't be known as Superboy though. He'd operate kind of how The Blur used to on SV, where he'd swoop around saving people with nobody ever really seeing him.

Almost nobody.

-- Lex
Lex would see Superboy though. Just once. I'd set up Clark and Lex as school friends until, as per the Pre-Crisis canon, Superboy botches a rescue, accidentally maims Lex and reveals his existence to Lex as well.





I'd set up Lex more or less how he was in Red Son. Ridiculously smart, originally a scientist, then major CEO and then President of the United States. All of these are escalations of his ever-growing grudge against Superman.

The reason to set them up as friends, which Geoff Johns utterly failed to do, is to communicate the idea that when they become enemies, something really has been lost.

-- The Kents
The Kents are the principal influence in Clark becoming Superman. This movie would go out of its way to recognize that fact.

I wouldn't get too attached to either of 'em though.



-- Fortress of Solitude
Again, this is intended to be a science-fantasy so say goodbye to the Kryptonian mausoleum, Jor-El's disembodied head and all the other bullshit Donner came up with.

Again, I'd go with the idea of Superman having and doing all the same things we do but on a much bigger scale. The Fortress is his living room. It's where he goes to chill out and relax after a long day of turning back alien invasions. It's stuffed with trophies, mementos, alien weapons and artifacts and other stuff. It's the ultimate nerd room.







-- The Suit
Go classic or get out. I shouldn't even have to post a picture of it. If you don't know what The Suit looks like, you've got problems I can't help you with.

-- The Justice Society of America/the Legion of Super-Heroes
I'd want to give Superman context. There needs to be a sense of what has come before (the JSA) as well as what comes next (the Legion).

The JSA, at least one of their number, should play a part in Clark's coming of age during his teenage years. The Legion should be there as well to show just how far Clark's legend is going to stretch.

Superman can't be the first superhero but it's important that he be recognized by previous and subsequent generations as The Greatest.

-- DCU
Although this should be absolutely Superman's film (notwithstanding the above), you should get the sense that other superheroes are out there. Green Lantern, the Flash, Batman and the others. You don't need to show those characters necessarily, just refer to them and set up that they exist. Hell, you could even set up that the public isn't really taken with superheroes until Superman shows. Going maskless as he does, there's sense of trust and optimism Superman engenders just by showing up. He is The Greatest after all and the public should recognize that, even if just subconsciously.

It doesn't treat on what other filmmakers are doing, it gives them arcs to play with in their own films if they want and it all starts building toward a JLA film. Why NOT do it?

-- Criticisms I Don't Give A Shit About
"You can't put all this shit into a movie! The all-knowing general moviegoing audience won't buy into such fancy-shmancy sci-fi concepts!"

01- Fuck you, it's my reboot concept. If you want to come up with more "realistic" bullshit, have at it.

02- In recent years, they've accepted telekinetic Buddhist monks with laser swords, blue mutants who can fly, pirates with guyliner and Ted Theodore Logan flying around in a trench coat in an anime-inspired sci-fi wonderland. What I'm saying is that nothing in this movie would even come close to being the weirdest thing mass audiences have fallen in love with.

03- All this to say "how do YOU know?"

04- At least my ideas are different from what's already been done 90 gamillion times.

05- They're different and they're still recognizably Superman. No "reinvention" bullshit here. All thrilla, no filla, bitches.

06- Eat it.

07- Plus, even if you assume some of this stuff is "too out there", if any superhero has a snowball's chance in hell of making this sort of thing work, it's undeniably Superman. Hell, Singerman earned $200 mill domestically just from Superman's name (God knows that turd had nothing else going for it).

08- Everybody in the world right now is busy putting superheroes into bullshit realistic settings. All that does is mostly underscore how fantasy-oriented they really are. The more Chris Nolan tries to convince me that Batman is the most reality-based superhero in the game, the more I understand just how fantastic and other-worldly Batman truly is.

09- The tone of this movie permits the introduction of really cool concepts. Mongul and Warworld, Darkseid, Doomsday, Brainiac, Intergang, Cadmus and all the rest. It's fertile ground for zillions of sequels, something Richard Donner would never hope to be able to claim.

10- Deep down, you know I'm right.

I would watch it. It would have to be a 4-hour epic just to cram MOST of that in there though....

Apologist Puncher wrote:I would watch it. It would have to be a 4-hour epic just to cram MOST of that in there though....

Hey, I don't dispute that all that stuff may not fit in the first movie. I don't dispute that even if you streamline what I've got into something workable for a film's run time, you've still got pacing issues out the wazoo. I don't dispute that a lot of stuff up there may not necessarily be to every single fan's liking.

But the up-shot is that my idea is "original" in the sense of not having ever been done before in live action.

Besides, it's not like WB will ever fire $200 million at me and tell me to go crazy with it. Hell, I doubt even Zack Snyder's getting THAT kind of money for his REAL movie.

At the end of the day, I want to see certain things in live action and I'm frustrated that it may very well never happen.

Honestly for me, I have no problem with a bit of "realism" in my comic book films. I DON'T want it to be the "mantra" though.

Be "realistic" until the sci-fi elements bust-out on-screen, then throw realism right out the door.

Colors you do have some pretty nice ideas. I have to think a bit more and post later more on what I feel about your feel thoughts. But some good stuff to do/use. And ap ya I don't mind realism to. As long as it doesn't drive everything out and within the realistic world we are presented we can have crazy scifi/fantasy stuff happening or can happen.