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seriousficLike "Look at your life, look at your choices" confused? Take Superman Returns. You could spend all day breaking down why someone would do a nostalgia trip sequel (a la Indiana Jones 4) that's also trying to be a reboot of the franchise and basically ask yourself why a very talented filmmaker would bring all that talent to what ends up being a bass-ackwards premise. Not saying the endresult is the abomination some people make it out to be, but it is oddly... tone-deaf. For one thing, Lex Luthor and Superman seem to be in two separate movies. Superman is doing this kinda interesting riff on the idea of Superman and Luthor is doing... the same thing he did in the first movie, only louder and with more explosions. And somehow Michael Bay was not involved.
Let's pause for a moment. In Superman 1, Lex's plan was to detonate a nuclear warhead in the San Andreas faultline, causing California to break off into the ocean and driving up the value of the desert property he had bought up, allowing him to make a huge profit. Okay, so it's unlikely he'll be caught. The plan is so unbelievable that it's unlikely anyone would even make the connection between the earthquake and the nuke. If they do, it can always be blamed on an accident, foreign powers, terrorism, or just hushed-up by the government. It's still risky, but Lex has this huge ego thing, so that's fine.
Then comes Superman Returns. Lex's plan is to use one of Superman's crystals to create a new landmass, which will kill billions of people. Then he'll sell the land for real estate. When Lois asks what's to stop everyone from killing him, he says he has advanced alien technology.
Okay, let's pause. Lex has shown no sign of being able to use this "alien technology." If he can, why not skip the middleman and just use the technology for profit? Sure, maybe patenting Kryptonian technology isn't evil enough, but surely he could use robots to take over the world or something. Also, why create this new landmass literally right off the shore from Metropolis? I know he doesn't care about killing billions of people, but surely he realizes that actions have consequences. Why not put it in the middle of the Pacific Ocean? Sure, it would still probably cause a tsunami, but he could always say that was an accident.
See, once you kill billions of people, you're pretty much going to have to watch your back for the rest of your life. There'll probably be a huge bounty on his head... how's he ever going to find anyone who'll stay loyal to him? Sure, apparently he could create a Kryptonian army to defend himself, but again, why not skip the middleman and just create a Kryptonian army? They could conquer Australia and boom, he's all set.
I get that Lex has a thing for real estate, but I never thought he'd be obsessed with it to the exclusion of other, much better plans. I mean, start of the first movie, Lex already has a criminal empire. Are you telling me that all his schemes involved land? He's not, like, Dr. Real Estate.
Not to mention the fact that this new continent doesn't look like it has any farming soil. And why would he land on a landmass that is still undergoing violent seismic changes? And if the Kryptonian land absorbs the properties of the material around it, why doesn't he just take a tiny chip of crystal, surround it with gold, put it in some water, and boom... he's got a ton of gold. He can also do this with any valuable mineral, and literally all it costs him is some water. He can even put this operation in the middle of the desert, ocean, or the South Pole--somewhere people won't even notice the EMP caused by the process.
If it's an ego trip, he can always tell people he's found a revolutionary way to transmogrify elements. He'd automatically be the most hailed scientific mind of the century. He could even use all the money he makes to buy land.
And I know this isn't really in the Donner continuity, but Kryptonite has been known to cause freakish mutations (Smallville) or cancer (comics). So his plan is to get a bunch of people to live on ground that will cause people to get cancer or turn into monsters, all while hoping they get over the deaths of billions of people and Earth's greatest hero?
Considering he already has millions of dollars, maybe he could just use his massive intellect to run a Ponzi scheme? And then taunt Superman about the crystals he stole while not actually doing anything with them? I mean, what's Superman gonna do? After six years of being gone, Lex probably had squatter's rights on the Fortress.
But all this is distracting from the real issue, which is that Lex's storyline has no thematic relevance to the bigger story. He got out of prison because Superman couldn't testify against him... okay, so did he start a multinational corporation? Run for president? Turn all of Earth against Superman (not that hard to do, since Superman did abandon everyone for no reason)? No, he just seems to have done what he's always done. There's no significant difference between Superman being gone for a week and Superman being gone for six years when it comes to Lex.
Now, given the movie's themes of legacy and ostracization, wouldn't Bizarro be a much better choice for the heavy? Not the Big Bad, that could still be Luthor. But Bryan Singer should know that you need a bad guy for the hero to fight. Even though Magneto and Stryker were the threats in the X-Men movies, they still had Sabretooth and Deathstrike so Wolverine could fight someone. That's what SR needed.
Now, I'm not talking about some "Bizarro am number one!" backwards-talking motherfucker. Just a freakish, deformed clone of Superman. You could get all sorts of story mileage out of that. You could touch on the Luthor/Superman obsession by giving Lex a "How could you leave me?" scene with the clone, a la Superman: Doomsday. You could have a bunch of (even more) failed experiments like in Alien: Resurrection. As odd as it sounds, the personal always films better than "statistics," so seeing a few malformedly tortured copies of Superman would make Lex far more evil than planning to kill people, even if they do number in the billions. And Bizarro himself could make a good metaphor for Superman's fear of being alone and rejected, while also giving Superman someone to punch. It just seems neater, having a story about Superman's son also featuring a villainous version of that dynamic.
And I know the Superman movies already kinda did this with Nuclear Man in the fourth film, but they also already kinda did Brainiac in Superman 3. It doesn't mean anyone would say no to a flat-affect-talking robot in a skull-shaped UFO blowing ship up.
Just a thought.
Let's pause for a moment. In Superman 1, Lex's plan was to detonate a nuclear warhead in the San Andreas faultline, causing California to break off into the ocean and driving up the value of the desert property he had bought up, allowing him to make a huge profit. Okay, so it's unlikely he'll be caught. The plan is so unbelievable that it's unlikely anyone would even make the connection between the earthquake and the nuke. If they do, it can always be blamed on an accident, foreign powers, terrorism, or just hushed-up by the government. It's still risky, but Lex has this huge ego thing, so that's fine.
Then comes Superman Returns. Lex's plan is to use one of Superman's crystals to create a new landmass, which will kill billions of people. Then he'll sell the land for real estate. When Lois asks what's to stop everyone from killing him, he says he has advanced alien technology.
Okay, let's pause. Lex has shown no sign of being able to use this "alien technology." If he can, why not skip the middleman and just use the technology for profit? Sure, maybe patenting Kryptonian technology isn't evil enough, but surely he could use robots to take over the world or something. Also, why create this new landmass literally right off the shore from Metropolis? I know he doesn't care about killing billions of people, but surely he realizes that actions have consequences. Why not put it in the middle of the Pacific Ocean? Sure, it would still probably cause a tsunami, but he could always say that was an accident.
See, once you kill billions of people, you're pretty much going to have to watch your back for the rest of your life. There'll probably be a huge bounty on his head... how's he ever going to find anyone who'll stay loyal to him? Sure, apparently he could create a Kryptonian army to defend himself, but again, why not skip the middleman and just create a Kryptonian army? They could conquer Australia and boom, he's all set.
I get that Lex has a thing for real estate, but I never thought he'd be obsessed with it to the exclusion of other, much better plans. I mean, start of the first movie, Lex already has a criminal empire. Are you telling me that all his schemes involved land? He's not, like, Dr. Real Estate.
Not to mention the fact that this new continent doesn't look like it has any farming soil. And why would he land on a landmass that is still undergoing violent seismic changes? And if the Kryptonian land absorbs the properties of the material around it, why doesn't he just take a tiny chip of crystal, surround it with gold, put it in some water, and boom... he's got a ton of gold. He can also do this with any valuable mineral, and literally all it costs him is some water. He can even put this operation in the middle of the desert, ocean, or the South Pole--somewhere people won't even notice the EMP caused by the process.
If it's an ego trip, he can always tell people he's found a revolutionary way to transmogrify elements. He'd automatically be the most hailed scientific mind of the century. He could even use all the money he makes to buy land.
And I know this isn't really in the Donner continuity, but Kryptonite has been known to cause freakish mutations (Smallville) or cancer (comics). So his plan is to get a bunch of people to live on ground that will cause people to get cancer or turn into monsters, all while hoping they get over the deaths of billions of people and Earth's greatest hero?
Considering he already has millions of dollars, maybe he could just use his massive intellect to run a Ponzi scheme? And then taunt Superman about the crystals he stole while not actually doing anything with them? I mean, what's Superman gonna do? After six years of being gone, Lex probably had squatter's rights on the Fortress.
But all this is distracting from the real issue, which is that Lex's storyline has no thematic relevance to the bigger story. He got out of prison because Superman couldn't testify against him... okay, so did he start a multinational corporation? Run for president? Turn all of Earth against Superman (not that hard to do, since Superman did abandon everyone for no reason)? No, he just seems to have done what he's always done. There's no significant difference between Superman being gone for a week and Superman being gone for six years when it comes to Lex.
Now, given the movie's themes of legacy and ostracization, wouldn't Bizarro be a much better choice for the heavy? Not the Big Bad, that could still be Luthor. But Bryan Singer should know that you need a bad guy for the hero to fight. Even though Magneto and Stryker were the threats in the X-Men movies, they still had Sabretooth and Deathstrike so Wolverine could fight someone. That's what SR needed.
Now, I'm not talking about some "Bizarro am number one!" backwards-talking motherfucker. Just a freakish, deformed clone of Superman. You could get all sorts of story mileage out of that. You could touch on the Luthor/Superman obsession by giving Lex a "How could you leave me?" scene with the clone, a la Superman: Doomsday. You could have a bunch of (even more) failed experiments like in Alien: Resurrection. As odd as it sounds, the personal always films better than "statistics," so seeing a few malformedly tortured copies of Superman would make Lex far more evil than planning to kill people, even if they do number in the billions. And Bizarro himself could make a good metaphor for Superman's fear of being alone and rejected, while also giving Superman someone to punch. It just seems neater, having a story about Superman's son also featuring a villainous version of that dynamic.
And I know the Superman movies already kinda did this with Nuclear Man in the fourth film, but they also already kinda did Brainiac in Superman 3. It doesn't mean anyone would say no to a flat-affect-talking robot in a skull-shaped UFO blowing ship up.
Just a thought.
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no subject
Date: 2011-04-08 08:33 pm (UTC)To be fair, this happened in One Year Later or whatever it was as well. Superman pointed out that Lex was always saying what he'd do with Superman gone, and then Supes left and he did nothing but try and find a big robot he could use to smush Supes when he got back.
Sure, it's in-character for the comics, but not so much the film, fantastic as his coat may be.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-08 08:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-08 08:53 pm (UTC)Then again, we're talking about a comics property where people keep trying to put Jimmy in ye Olde Bowtie-and-Sweatervest, out of nothing but nostalgia.
That sentence seemed relevant when I started typing it.