Metallo
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Post by Metallo on May 18, 2021 8:38:26 GMT -5
Just started season 3 of Supergirl. (And season 6 of Arrow, season 3 of Legends and season 4 of the Flash). I’m enjoying all the shows. I finally saw Tyler Holchein as Superman. I like him! I’ve only seen him in like 3 episodes but he’s got enough of that Superman charm and warmth that I can safely say I like him. He also has great chemistry with Melissa Benoist who is an AWESOME Supergirl. He works, but I still feel like they wasted a fantastic opportunity RIGHT THERE to get Routh instead for the Supergirl tv show and then later series- and borrow all the goodwill from fans for whom "Superman Returns" was their first Superman on screen.... The Supergirl/Arrowverse version of Superman needed to be a different Superman. Supergirl needed its own continuity and fresh start. Casting Routh would have had some people thinking this was tied to Superman Returns. So either he was the SR Superman which would have tied up Supergirls options or he’s a different alternate Superman and you lose his backstory. The way they did it worked out. They have the freedom to do all kinds of things with Superman & Lois that we wouldn’t have had otherwise. We got Hoechlin AND Routh as his original SR version of Superman with that history in tact. And best of all they made sure to let people know he’s still out there and we could see him again someday.
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Metallo
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Post by Metallo on May 17, 2021 19:09:57 GMT -5
I definitely prefer the Mezco head(s). It looks like a mini hot toy. The Neca head looks like a plastic mannequin that kind of looks like Christopher Reeve. Comparing the paint work on both up close...isn’t even close. Check out the skin detailing on the Mezco. But we are comparing a $30 retail figure to a $150-ish high end figure. It’s not really fair. But if Hasbro ever got the chance to make a Superman movie figure they’d probably blow Necas out of the water and for a cheaper price. I’d bring McFarlane into the discussion since they’re doing seven inch scale like a Neca but so far their likenesses to DC movie and tv actors has been mostly misses. The Wonder Woman flight suit by McFarlane was actually pretty nice.... but, yeah, the Cavill Superman ones have been suprisingly underwhelming, as one example. I was thinking of hunting down the Kirk and Picard ones by McFarlane, but wasn't as passionate as I thought to really check them out... The golden armor wonder woman is a good piece. The standard Wonder Woman is awful though. Just awful. I saw the McFarlane Trek figures in some store and while I was tempted I passed. The likenesses just weren’t there. I’d love to see a good company get the Trek license and start mass producing stuff. Seems like there’s a serious lack of Star Trek merchandise at retail. I hope the Viacom re-merger changes that.
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Metallo
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Post by Metallo on May 17, 2021 19:03:50 GMT -5
You might have a point. Most of the other casts seemed to have at least a point of conflict between a couple of people or more. Most of TOS’s cast famously had their issues with Shatner. I sometimes sensed that the DS9 set was pretty tense too. With TNG you always hear about how much fun they all had on set and Frakes seemed to be one to keep it light. It wasn’t until movies like Nemesis where the cast didn’t seem to like working for Stuart Baird. I think the TNG movies were done no matter who directed it though. Baird was out of his element but the problems went much deeper than him. The script was way off the mark. Frakes seems like a good guy. And a fun guy who doesn’t take himself too seriously. Margot Kidders niece recently worked with him on something and she said she adored him. With DS9, years ago, Marina Sirtis (a controversial figure on her own) said at a convention that she visited her friend Terry Farrell once on set and how it was like being at a funeral, whereas with TNG, it was like being at a party... which I didn't quite get- But then cut to years later and I remember Joss Whedon saying that the leads of a tv show often set the tone behind the scenes- and that Nathan Fillon was the core of what made the Firefly cast fun- and one gets the sense from the DS9 documentary that Avery Brooks took himself (and perhaps a couple of other actors on set) quite seriously- so that being the case, it makes sense why some actors were happy to get out of the contract.... On the flip side- with 1 percent of actors actually able to get work, and the types of work many HAVE to do to put food on the table- acting on a set that doesn't have a family atmosphere is hardly the worst work situation to be stuck with.... Brooks was serious. Ive seen behind the scenes footage where he looked constantly pissed. But he could be fun at times too. I think it was more than that. The cast of DS9 also talked about how strict the higher up executives were and how much bs they had to go through to have any kind of flexible creativity. With Voyager Berman was more hands on and they had a network to deal with in UPN. The TNG cast eventually got the freedom to have more fun on set. I know they’ve all talked about how some directors hated worked with them because they didn’t take the job as seriously as some would like sometimes.
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Post by Metallo on May 17, 2021 18:58:12 GMT -5
Unbreakable came along five to ten years too early. Casual viewers didn’t get the themes or tropes it was dealing with. Comic fans did. If it had come years later more people would have had a better understanding of what it was trying to do. I think that’s why Split got the momentum behind it to be made and why people were so excited for Glass. Lack of action isn’t the core problem of SR but it’s a symptom of the larger problem though. How dull it is. SR is rightly character driven but it’s got little else around those character moments. The plane rescue was great but it’s the biggest most exciting action sequence in the film and it comes far too soon. Theres another two hours left where nothing else lives up to it and it is downhill from there. Not all of it had to but the ending needed to. Lifting new krypton was boring. No ones on it except Luthors thugs. It’s just a long slow Sequence of him basically lifting a huge rock. STM on the other hand ratcheted up the action and excitement. Donner and co did the opposite by going bigger. Helicopter rescue was great but the movie ends with the rocket chase and the earthquake sequence. That’s how you do it. With STM vs. SR: I think the thing is- the main arc is similar (one level) to Wrath of Khan--- the main character is a bit depressed by his place in life- but then finds hope in life at the end from the son he never knew he had and the unexpected realization that he did have a family he never knew about. HOWEVER- with Wrath of Khan- #1: You also had the fiery villain with Khan to juice up the energy every time you ran into him- Luthor seems best as a 'middleman' at least as was used by Donner's version. A hunger for real estate isn't all that interesting no matter how you slice it... #2: You had other characters subplots and arcs that weren't about melancholy woven in: the eager new recruit and an interesting dynamic with Saavik/Spock, the continued bromance with Spock/McCoy/Kirk, you had the exciting starship chess-game like battles, the concept of project Genesis (coincidentally similar to but more interesting than the Krypton- reforming crystals in SR)- There was a lot of OTHER things going on besides just Kirk and his need to get past his middle age depression- so there (imo) wasn't anything wrong with that being an underlying problem to get resolved--- AS LONG AS - there was other interesting things going on to make up for it! In that regard... an interesting super-powered villain might have helped take up the slack- not just a mindless rock, but an actual interesting character to be a counterbalance to Supes I think would have helped give a different extra energy just as the multiple arcs in Wrath of Kahn did. Lex and his cohorts just were not that interesting as a 'b' plot on their own and needed another component- hence--- not any superhero battle, but an interesting one with an interesting supporting villain I feel might have filled that bill! Superman Returns is more Star Trek: The Motion Picture and less Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. TMP was deep and introspective with with the main characters wrestling with personal dilemmas... but dull. No real space battles either. TWOK carried over what worked from the series. It had the heart and passion of TOS while still being a strong character piece. SR needed its own TWOK style sequel. That’s what Singer said he was going to deliver but we’ll never know. MOS was Star Trek 09: a big loud dumb cgi action reboot that killed the direction they’d been going in in three movies with the second film being a total clusterf*ck that they couldn’t recover from. Zod was Nero angry that his planet was destroyed. Super smart bag guy who didn’t live up to the original movie version (Luthor/Khan) set in motion a series events that led to the hero dying only for him to be revived later.
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Post by Metallo on May 17, 2021 16:23:52 GMT -5
Unbreakable came along five to ten years too early. Casual viewers didn’t get the themes or tropes it was dealing with. Comic fans did. If it had come years later more people would have had a better understanding of what it was trying to do. I think that’s why Split got the momentum behind it to be made and why people were so excited for Glass. Lack of action isn’t the core problem of SR but it’s a symptom of the larger problem though. How dull it is. SR is rightly character driven but it’s got little else around those character moments. The plane rescue was great but it’s the biggest most exciting action sequence in the film and it comes far too soon. Theres another two hours left where nothing else lives up to it and it is downhill from there. Not all of it had to but the ending needed to. Lifting new krypton was boring. No ones on it except Luthors thugs. It’s just a long slow Sequence of him basically lifting a huge rock. STM on the other hand ratcheted up the action and excitement. Donner and co did the opposite by going bigger. Helicopter rescue was great but the movie ends with the rocket chase and the earthquake sequence. That’s how you do it. Yes Unbreakabke was really ahead of its time. I think it would actually have been better suited to 2018 or so. Interested to see Stallone's new "Samaritan" movie -- that looks like it might be similar. Unbreakable also had the misfortune of following The Sixth Sense. Lots of people were expecting something similar, and came away feeling like it was a disappointing attempt to cash in The Sixth Sense. It's truly a case of a movie being ahead of its time. The industry and the press built M Night Shyamalan into a big deal way too soon. They were calling him the next Spielberg or the next Hitchcock after Sixth Sense but before he’d fully developed as a filmmaker of that caliber. He also got full of himself because of that and relied too much on his gimmicks. There was a great story years ago about how out of check his ego got when it came to any kind of suggestions.
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Metallo
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Post by Metallo on May 17, 2021 15:09:37 GMT -5
I don’t think it NEEDED one but they certainly needed to up the action and excitement. The film was less exciting than STM and came off as more dour than any of the Reeve films. I think a proper fight would have helped because audiences expectations have changed. We can probably trace the beginnings of that back to Superman II. I don’t think MOS and Justice League were hurt because of super powered battles but they didn’t work because those battles were overblown cgi spectacle that sucked and failed to pull people in. The fight in MOS became cinematic noise. Doomsday is just a dumb cgi monster. Same with Steppenwolf and his faceless horde of drones. Meanwhile you look at the Avengers films and there’s story and character purpose behind the big cgi action sequences. People got emotionally involved. Thanos is a big cgi character but he’s more interesting than any Zack Snyder character and his performance is driven by a good actor. They also remembered to keep the vulnerable human Element when he fought Cap iron man and Thor. Everyone speculated wether iron man wound die or not. Nobody gave a toss when Superman died in BvS. As for Unbreakable it’s a brilliant deconstruction of the genre. Too bad Night crapped the bed with the ending of Glass. Splits revelation was perfect and I see what he was going for with Glass but the execution was shoddy. Agree totally about Split and Glass. What a wasted opportunity. I only recognise Unbreakable as canon. As for SR, yes it wasn't that thrilling, and yes it felt dour and subdued. But I think that was more to do with the acting,directing, editing and music anf overuse of cgi. Not with the kind of action scenes. SR had the plane rescue, the bank robbery, loads of rescues in Metropolis and more. On paper, each of those scenes should have been amazing, but they were poorly done. Compare the helicopter scene in STM with the underwhelming plane rescue in SR! All the ingredients were there. Just that the cake was badly mixed and half baked. A supervillain fight, I feel, would have been just as dour and meh as the other action scenes already were. My opinion only ! Unbreakable came along five to ten years too early. Casual viewers didn’t get the themes or tropes it was dealing with. Comic fans did. If it had come years later more people would have had a better understanding of what it was trying to do. I think that’s why Split got the momentum behind it to be made and why people were so excited for Glass. Lack of action isn’t the core problem of SR but it’s a symptom of the larger problem though. How dull it is. SR is rightly character driven but it’s got little else around those character moments. The plane rescue was great but it’s the biggest most exciting action sequence in the film and it comes far too soon. Theres another two hours left where nothing else lives up to it and it is downhill from there. Not all of it had to but the ending needed to. Lifting new krypton was boring. No ones on it except Luthors thugs. It’s just a long slow Sequence of him basically lifting a huge rock. STM on the other hand ratcheted up the action and excitement. Donner and co did the opposite by going bigger. Helicopter rescue was great but the movie ends with the rocket chase and the earthquake sequence. That’s how you do it.
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Metallo
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Post by Metallo on May 17, 2021 14:57:01 GMT -5
Really? I loved Silva! Probably my favorite villain! Lol The only problem I had with Skyfall was it was obviously following the dark Knight trilogy template for some of its story beats. But the director was always up front about that. Loved Silva but hated the tired rehashed “villain gets captured on purpose and has a face to face with the hero behind a cell door/glass wall” idea. Then Star Trek into darkness killed the trope even deader with that scene with Khan.
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Post by Metallo on May 17, 2021 13:26:31 GMT -5
Hopefully they want to wipe the Snyderverse out of existence. It’ll be interesting to see what this means for WB but specifically for DC going forward. It’s a major change at the top. Warner really has been passed around like the town whore the last 25 years. First AOL then AT&T and now this.
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Post by Metallo on May 17, 2021 13:22:38 GMT -5
Yeah. And it’s apparently real. I think Raimis films have a quirkiness that was perfect for Spider-Man. Something Cameron didn’t have. Cameron’s the better filmmaker but Raimi is the more fun filmmaker. The way he used his trademark style in the operating room scene in Spider-Man 2 was perfect.
Raimi is better with down on his luck loser types and freaks. Guys that have rotten luck. See Darkman or Evil Dead. Cameron works best with protagonists who are outcasts or loners but special in some way. Jack from Titanic, The Conners, Ripley in Aliens, etc. there’s some overlap there but I do think Raimi has a better grasp on the average Joe because that’s who he sees himself as and what he sees in his characters. You can tell Cameron knows he’s special and has no problem letting people know it. It’s why he’s rubbed some people the wrong way. He’s got the same initials as a certain messiah as well as his own savior character after all.
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Post by Metallo on May 17, 2021 13:07:04 GMT -5
Hmnn.... I actually hated Unbreakable, feeling that the drama didn't work (Partly the story, partly Bruce Willis' smirk throughout the film).... but I have friends who adore that film and not SR... again, agree to have different feelings on films- oh well... (shrug) I totally agree that SR's making of a sequel decades later was TOTALLY risky creatively and business-wise.... but that's why I always felt that Singer never got (and still doesn't I think) enough credit to try to emulate Donner and Reeve's version of Superman. If you think about it- it's EXTREMELY 'humble' to do that in Hwood- (I think) If you 'win', then Donner and Reeve get full credit. If you 'lose', then you're just ripping them off and not being original. But- if you're a true fan, then you don't care if you don't gain points but just want to see Donner/Reeve's version back on the bigscreen and continued as best as one can without the original actors available! Which is kind of what happened.... Casino Royale was fine, but... outside of "Skyfall", I can't say I've fallen in love with any of the Daniel Craig sequels to revisit it. On the other hand, I found myself revisiting some of the Roger Moore, Dalton, and Pierce outings. I guess in dark times you want lighter material? Casino Royale was good,but the other Daniel Craig films have been awful. I wouldn't be surprised if his last one is also the end of the franchise. The Bond films have also lost what made them special, and just blend in to the background of a dozen other franchises now. As for Superman Returns, I don't think Singer was wrong to try emulate Donner's films and build off those. But for several reasons, it didn't work properly. He does still deserve credit for it though,but I think he was the wrong director. I liked Skyfall. It’s not CR but it’s got more excitement whereas CR is a smarter film. The other ones though....not really worth watching. It’s the same problem as Brosnan run. A great start but diminishing creative returns. Broccoli and Wilson will never let the Bond films die as long as they are around. They’ll reboot wether this one does well or not. most of STM’s influence on SR is purely superficial. The surface level stuff you think of first. Tonally it’s a very different movie. Even much of the aesthetic is different. That’s why I roll my eyes when people say it didn’t work because it just rehashed STM. No it didn’t. If rehashed certain elements and story structure but it’s a different kind of film. For better or worse. .
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Post by Metallo on May 17, 2021 13:00:49 GMT -5
Michael Dougherty said that he fought to have a superfight put in--- I imagine that instead of Supes being beaten up by human thugs, he could have been fighting a crystal-enhanced creature or even a form of Brainiac- and THEN fallen to the ground & get stabbed by Luthor/tossed into the water... there seemed to be a perfect spot to plug a superfight in! But, oh well.... Of course STM did not have one single fight scene either!.....apart from Supes throwing Luther from the box(that encased the Kryptonite) onto the couch! So, IMHO , the absence of combat is not correlated to a lack of quality. Also, the beauty of STM, is that it allowed the audience to revel in the powers that were bestowed on Supes(flight being the principle factor).....and to react to the heroic deeds that perpetuated throughout the last 3rd of the movie. This was a form of spectacle that was practically unprecedented in cinema up until that point(78'). But by 2006, we already had the flying Neo and Agent Smith, the Nazguls in LOTR, Harry Potter on his broomstick(lol!), pod racing and heck......even Spidey swinging from one building to the next in the Raimi flicks(which resembled flight!). So people walking into a cinema in 2006 were well used to seeing stuff fly. Which meant that SR had to rely on another attribute. Allow me to explain. In 06', SR was squarely in the shadows of Pirates-Dead Man's Chest. Now, IMHO, as a movie, Dead Man's Chest is average to mediocre at best.....but for all it's flaws ,it did have a charismatic lead in Depp.....which is exactly what SR lacked. It's precisely because of this handicap, that SR was already in deficit from the get go. Also, the idea of Supes being a pap is/was a great notion. Nothing wrong with it. But appending that particular storyline onto the narrative that derived from the Donner era was the wrong way to implement such a scenario. What they needed to do was to reboot from scratch(storywise).....to allow Routh to grow into his role, and just as importantly.....to solidify his relationship with Bosworth's Lois. Only then, would just such a story have had the narrative weight to have some kind of emotional/substantial significance. Just imagine that history had been different....and the Salkinds/Newmans had decided to make a Superman III that featured just such a storyline......Kidder's Lois giving birth to Clark's child. It technically was possible, because in Lester's SII, whilst Clark's may have erased Lois's memory..... she still could have been pregnant from a depowered Clark?! Think of all the dramatic possibilities emanating from that storyline! But a hypothetical SIII with such a storyline would have featured 2 actors(Reeve& Kidder) who almost had a telepathic understanding. The fact that they were both experienced parents in real life by that point would have added to their ability to convey all the necessary emotions that are attached to such a scenario. That's where Bosworth and Routh fell apart(as well as Singer's directing) in SR. It was a good idea executed poorly because neither the cast or crew had the story telling skills and nuances to make it believable. Never said it did. But it shows a lack of any real resolution. I think audiences expectations had evolved. Partly thanks to a film series you’re a fan of: Spider-Man. Those films were built around the conflict between Spidey and Octavius or Osborn. People expected a final confrontation. You can’t really get that in SR. At most he can capture Luthor but he doesn’t even do that. As it is their confrontation feels like a pale shadow of what STM had already done better. Singers never been all there great with action so I can see why he stayed away from that. But even on his X-men films he knew with a character like wolverine he needed a satisfying confrontation with heavies like Sabertooth or Deathstrike. There’s something cathartic to seeing them get what’s coming to them. I think audiences would have forgiven a lot of the flaws in SR if it had been more thrilling. As it is there’s nothing to distract from those flaws.
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Post by Metallo on May 17, 2021 12:52:48 GMT -5
Of course STM did not have one single fight scene either!.....apart from Supes throwing Luther from the box(that encased the Kryptonite) onto the couch! So, IMHO , the absence of combat is not correlated to a lack of quality. Also, the beauty of STM, is that it allowed the audience to revel in the powers that were bestowed on Supes(flight being the principle factor).....and to react to the heroic deeds that perpetuated throughout the last 3rd of the movie. This was a form of spectacle that was practically unprecedented in cinema up until that point(78'). But by 2006, we already had the flying Neo and Agent Smith, the Nazguls in LOTR, Harry Potter on his broomstick(lol!), pod racing and heck......even Spidey swinging from one building to the next in the Raimi flicks(which resembled flight!). So people walking into a cinema in 2006 were well used to seeing stuff fly. Which meant that SR had to rely on another attribute. Allow me to explain. In 06', SR was squarely in the shadows of Pirates-Dead Man's Chest. Now, IMHO, as a movie, Dead Man's Chest is average to mediocre at best.....but for all it's flaws ,it did have a charismatic lead in Depp.....which is exactly what SR lacked. It's precisely because of this handicap, that SR was already in deficit from the get go. Also, the idea of Supes being a pap is/was a great notion. Nothing wrong with it. But appending that particular storyline onto the narrative that derived from the Donner era was the wrong way to implement such a scenario. What they needed to do was to reboot from scratch(storywise).....to allow Routh to grow into his role, and just as importantly.....to solidify his relationship with Bosworth's Lois. Only then, would just such a story have had the narrative weight to have some kind of emotional/substantial significance. Just imagine that history had been different....and the Salkinds/Newmans had decided to make a Superman III that featured just such a storyline......Kidder's Lois giving birth to Clark's child. It technically was possible, because in Lester's SII, whilst Clark's may have erased Lois's memory..... she still could have been pregnant from a depowered Clark?! Think of all the dramatic possibilities emanating from that storyline! But a hypothetical SIII with such a storyline would have featured 2 actors(Reeve& Kidder) who almost had a telepathic understanding. The fact that they were both experienced parents in real life by that point would have added to their ability to convey all the necessary emotions that are attached to such a scenario. That's where Bosworth and Routh fell apart(as well as Singer's directing) in SR. It was a good idea executed poorly because neither the cast or crew had the story telling skills and nuances to make it believable. As usual, dejan, another brilliant and insightful post. First of all, I have to agree that the lack of a supervillain fight is a red herring. As you said, STM didn't have a supervillain fight either. It is not a necessary part of a good superhero movie. You know which recent Superman movies did have supervillain fights? That's right: MoS, BvS and Justice League. And they were all crap movies that blend into each other. In the 21st century, if a superhero movie wants to stand out, it actually needs LESS action and more drama. That's partly why I think 2000's Unbreakable is so good. Now onto the second point. I definitely agree that SR should have rebooted the story first, before introducing the idea of a child. There was not enough investment in the characters. Making a sequel or follow-up after decades is a risky business. I can think of two examples that got it right. The first is the Creed movie. The second is the Cobra Kai series. Both are "love letters" to 1980s movies, and they both could easily have been a joke and failed. That they didn't fail is due to great writing, but also because the main actors from the original movies were still around. There was still enough of an investment in the characters played by Stallone and by William Zabka and Ralph Macchio to carry the stories. (Cobra Kai is beginning to jump the shark in the latest season, but that's off the topic!) SR tried to add too much onto a story that most of the audience had probably forgotten, and without the original actors to help give it weight. In 2006, we also got Casino Royale. That was an example of how to do a proper reboot. It's not perfect (subsequent viewings feel a little bit overstuffed), but nobody can deny that it worked. I don’t think it NEEDED one but they certainly needed to up the action and excitement. The film was less exciting than STM and came off as more dour than any of the Reeve films. I think a proper fight would have helped because audiences expectations have changed. We can probably trace the beginnings of that back to Superman II. I don’t think MOS and Justice League were hurt because of super powered battles but they didn’t work because those battles were overblown cgi spectacle that sucked and failed to pull people in. The fight in MOS became cinematic noise. Doomsday is just a dumb cgi monster. Same with Steppenwolf and his faceless horde of drones. Meanwhile you look at the Avengers films and there’s story and character purpose behind the big cgi action sequences. People got emotionally involved. Thanos is a big cgi character but he’s more interesting than any Zack Snyder character and his performance is driven by a good actor. They also remembered to keep the vulnerable human Element when he fought Cap iron man and Thor. Everyone speculated wether iron man wound die or not. Nobody gave a toss when Superman died in BvS. As for Unbreakable it’s a brilliant deconstruction of the genre. Too bad Night crapped the bed with the ending of Glass. Splits revelation was perfect and I see what he was going for with Glass but the execution was shoddy.
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Post by Metallo on May 17, 2021 12:43:55 GMT -5
Anybody ever wonder why Donner decided that the crystal jor-el sends should be green? A couple of people have told me that they thought it was kryptonite* Wouldnt it have been better and less confusing if it were blue? [* radioactive fragments of his homeworld. It's deadly. (To him)] I’ve always had the same thought. Unless they were worried about some issue with blue screen use at some point I’d have made it blue. I’ve also seen people confuse it with kryptonite. They tried to make them look different enough in the film but the layman wouldn’t know the difference. Either way I guess they made it green to make it stand out as special .
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Post by Metallo on May 17, 2021 12:39:32 GMT -5
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Post by Metallo on May 17, 2021 12:33:42 GMT -5
Good find! I've only heard good things about Frakes unilaterally... More and more I feel like he's the center of what made TNG as a cast behind the scenes work. On another note: If only Frakes directed "Nemesis" I think there'd still be more Trek movies today. You might have a point. Most of the other casts seemed to have at least a point of conflict between a couple of people or more. Most of TOS’s cast famously had their issues with Shatner. I sometimes sensed that the DS9 set was pretty tense too. With TNG you always hear about how much fun they all had on set and Frakes seemed to be one to keep it light. It wasn’t until movies like Nemesis where the cast didn’t seem to like working for Stuart Baird. I think the TNG movies were done no matter who directed it though. Baird was out of his element but the problems went much deeper than him. The script was way off the mark. Frakes seems like a good guy. And a fun guy who doesn’t take himself too seriously. Margot Kidders niece recently worked with him on something and she said she adored him.
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Post by Metallo on May 13, 2021 21:16:08 GMT -5
open.spotify.com/episode/0uAeiUtDfXm1mk7AUI6Ui2I’m listening to this podcast and wow Christopher Reeve and Jonathan Frakes were pretty tight back when they were younger. Frakes amusingly comes off like his assistant at times but this was before either one of them were really famous. It’s a good listen. Not too long but McFadden and Frakes cover a lot about his life and career in less than an hour.
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Post by Metallo on May 12, 2021 16:51:37 GMT -5
@cam and Metallo Sorry, I think I ended up deflecting attention away from Coates being the new director of Supes movies with my put down of J.J and Jim Cameron hypothesis. But one thing Cameron does(you could call it the Cameron story telling formula) is that he introduces his protagonists into his stories always, unfailingly, under extreme duress....and just as importantly....he maintains that tension throughout the rest of whichever flick it is. In Terminator 1: Kyle saving Sarah in the disco(and quite frankly the rest of the movie-lol). "Come with me if you want to live!" In Terminator 2: Arnold saving John from the T1000 in that Lorry/bike chase sequence(and again for pretty much the rest of the movie!)! In Aliens: Ripley mothering Newt(again under extreme conditions). In Titanic: Leo saving Rose from suiciding herself off the Stern of the ship: "I won't let go...now pull yourself up!" In Avatar: Netiri saving Jake from those wolf like creatures....and then tutoring him in the extreme ways of the Navi(flying, hunting, riding ect ect)......in fact she saves him again during the fight with Quarich(not sure how you spell his name -lol): ...and so on. STM also has the meeting of the protagonists under duress predicament..... when Supes saves Lois in the helicopter sequence(and multiple other times in the flick). What I am accentuating is hardly a revelation....but you would be surprised by how many people miss this simple yet effective story telling technique. In fact SR and MOS pretty much ignored this powerful element. In SR, having Lois already be familiar with Supes(despite being saved in that crashing plane sequence) actually detracted from any tension-chemistry between the characters. The fact that she was almost dismissive of Supes exacerbated this deflationary effect(IMHO). Ditto for MOS. Having Lois discover who Supes is/was was actually a pretty good idea. Problem was , that by the time Supes got to save her from that crashing Kryptonian capsule......it felt flat....because she was already familiar with Supes as a character. To be fair Supes does in fact save Lois after she is injured by that sentinel in the Kryptonian vessel.....but that scene is way too abbreviated to be effective as a dramatic introduction between our main characters. So yeah....I think for a new Supes film to be effective......that tension/duress factor that Cameron has mastered in his flicks has to be implemented(in the new Supes movie) for it to work as a dramatic piece. All my humble opinions of course. With SR like you said it was held back by the premise since they already knew each other. With MOS it was just shoddy writing. The Superman Lois relationship was so poorly handled in MOS across the board. Lots of things don’t make sense. He interview in the interrogation room is just clumsy and her being brought on board the Kryptonian ship made no sense. Zod wants her there. Why?
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Metallo
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Post by Metallo on May 12, 2021 15:16:36 GMT -5
One of those quirky actor stories you just can’t make up. And Tom Noonan was involved too!
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Metallo
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Post by Metallo on May 12, 2021 12:58:05 GMT -5
The biggest thing this movie has going against it is JJ Abrams. He’s a creatively bankrupt mimic who can’t stick the landing. As close as we ever came to seeing Cameron do a superhero movie was Spider-Man. I’m not sure the interest is there for Superman since he’s a Marvel guy at heart. He’d do something interesting but he’s also one do those guys who seems to be more into working with his own material. I’d give Cameron a lesser known superhero property or let him make his own. I was GIANTLY disappointed when I'd heard that Cameron wanted to do Spiderman and X-men and couldn't.... because I figured: "NOBODY will do it as well as Cameron"- but Raimi's 2 1/2 Spiderman films are fantastic- particularly Spiderman 2--- and Singer's X-men series may have been uneven- but given how large that series became, at least X2, First Class, DOFP, and Logan are keepers.... they might not have been 1000 percent as close to the comics as I might have wanted- but those X-films kept me riveted in a way I didn't expect and in the end, maybe it turned out the best that all roads ended up with Kevin Feige spearheading the MCU.... which may or may not have happened in an alternate universe if Cameron directed either X-men or Spiderman... To me, a Cameron film is always a special event.... even if I wish he were more interested in doing superheroes instead of Avatar films. I agree that he wouldn't be interested in doing Superman. It's really really a shame we couldn't have seen where Singer would have gone with a sequel, even if he only produced it (which actually might have been better if the stress of filming was getting to be too much for him... First Class was fantastic being Singer-produced). I think on a technical level Cameron would have made an incredible film. Probably better than Raimis in a lot of ways despite being years sooner. I think Raimi’s film came at just the right time when CGI was at a level that certain things could be done well. But from Cameron’s treatment it would have been his Spider-Man. Not Marvel’s Spider-Man. Plus Cameron’s take on the material just comes off as awkward and dark. He was trying to have Peters transformation into Spider-man mirror a lot of teenage growing pains and rites of passage. I thought he took some stuff way too far though. If you think Snyder and Burton made some awkward superhero movie moments...
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Post by Metallo on May 12, 2021 12:46:42 GMT -5
I definitely prefer the Mezco head(s). It looks like a mini hot toy. The Neca head looks like a plastic mannequin that kind of looks like Christopher Reeve. Comparing the paint work on both up close...isn’t even close. Check out the skin detailing on the Mezco. But we are comparing a $30 retail figure to a $150-ish high end figure. It’s not really fair. But if Hasbro ever got the chance to make a Superman movie figure they’d probably blow Necas out of the water and for a cheaper price. I’d bring McFarlane into the discussion since they’re doing seven inch scale like a Neca but so far their likenesses to DC movie and tv actors has been mostly misses.
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Post by Metallo on May 12, 2021 12:38:01 GMT -5
SR added a unique level (at the time) of taking an established superhero character and giving him an evolution beyond the comics- him having the kid was done in extremely moving way- that could have been laughable or just plain bad. The problem was: SR was terrible in providing the spectacle or maximizing the 'cool action' factor by removing the superhero battle that one of the screenwriters pushed on, but Singer pushed back on. (Such a pity) After that- with the MCU evolving, it's fantastic that Feige got a great balance of drama with depth mixed with fresh feeling character development and action. It's great to have someone with such great vision in that position of great power at Marvel Studios.... (Don't ever die, Kevin Feige!) I’ve always given SR credit for being the first on screen adaptation to try to take the stigma off evolving the character even further by making him a father. Lois & Clark brought the marriage to the screen but Superman Returns was the first to take the hit in changing the status quo with a kid. It took a lot of flak for that because we fanboys don’t often like change. Now they’ve done it with Smallvilles Clark being a family man and Superman & Lois gets to do a deep dive long term exploration of the subject. But Superman Returns broached it first on screen. Yeah yeah they got a baby in Lois & Clark’s finale but at the time we weren’t even sure where it came from and the series was cancelled. The reaction didn’t matter. I think if SR had given Lex just one superpowered/enhanced heavy in his gang (maybe using a combo of the kryptonite and the crystals somehow) and had had him fight Superman there’s a chance we’d all be here talking about Superman Returns 4 or 5 right now.
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Metallo
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Post by Metallo on May 10, 2021 21:36:56 GMT -5
I'm divided as to whether this is the best approach for WB/DC going forward, given all their missteps. The MCU wasn't perfect (Iron Man 2 and Thor 1 come to mind...)- but the heights it continues to reach creatively (and box office wise) is unprecedented for superhero adaptations. We know WB/DC tried to do the reverse pattern with the Snyderverse, but without a Kevin Feige equivalent over there, things seem to be just lucky to reach the point of being greenlit.... how long has it been since a Flash movie has been announced? And at this point, how much will having multiple versions of characters out there help or hurt the box office? (Not to mention creatively?) I personally am just weary of J.J. Seems like a lovely fellow in interviews(even to the point of being quite humble). But when he steps behind that camera....or sits in a producer's chair, that humility all but goes out of the window! James Cameron would probably be the one guy I would like to see tackle a Supes movie. Every time in the past when Cameron was doubted, he came up with the goods. Yes Avatar was hardly original , but you still got the feeling it was trying to stand out from the crowd.....and it certainly did financially - lol. And with regards to whatever sloppy, wishy washy romantic dialogue Winslet and Di Caprio had to spit out in Titanic......I defy anyone to watch that film and not be moved by the sheer scale of the depiction of the tragedy that unfolds in the final 3rd of that flick.....even now....23 years later. So Cameron would be my personal choice. But who I am I --lol! The biggest thing this movie has going against it is JJ Abrams. He’s a creatively bankrupt mimic who can’t stick the landing. As close as we ever came to seeing Cameron do a superhero movie was Spider-Man. I’m not sure the interest is there for Superman since he’s a Marvel guy at heart. He’d do something interesting but he’s also one do those guys who seems to be more into working with his own material. I’d give Cameron a lesser known superhero property or let him make his own.
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Post by Metallo on May 10, 2021 21:31:03 GMT -5
Time flies. The Reeve only people are apparently the majority of the movie going public. Or at least they’re good movie only people. We’re also five years on from BvS. Seems like it was one big waste of time because it wrecked the franchise. Well, Superman Returns and Man Of Steel are essentially old movies now! And at the time that the above ,respectfully came out, some of their fans(not all) considered STM,SII and III like antiques! So SR and MOS fans......welcome to the Reeve Only People club ! How does it feel to be fans of old movies!? One thing I would not hesitate to say......is that "our" old movies are better than yours!(IMHO of course---lol) It's now 15 years since SR hit the cinemas. I re-watched it recently and still feel underwhelmed by it. It's 8 years for MOS and as I said before in other threads......when I sat there in the theater in 2013.....everything I saw on screen, just reminded me of some of the other sludge I saw that year(Iron Man 3, Pacific Rim, Gravity, Desolation Of Smaug).....as well as other recent films at that point(Avatar, Transformers : Dark Side Of The Moon, Potter-Deathly Hallows, Avengers ect ec ). That's one of the main the problems(there are others) with the last 20 years of Superman films......they can't stand out from the contemporary crowd. I agree on MOS. I’ve been saying for years that it’s derivative of other better films. It’s like Goyer binge watched a lot of movies for inspiration and just threw some of the big ideas into a blender. Being an old movie is one thing but being an old movie that didn’t even make much of an impact is even worse. I like a lot about SR but it and MoS just seemed to be for nothing. SR at least introduced the world to the idea of a Superman movie with modern film technology at its disposal. That was a unique experience. MOS didn’t do anything new beyond digital destruction porn and other films have done that better. The Avengers had already delivered an epic city destroying superhero battle and alien invasion. MOS felt like reheated leftovers.
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Metallo
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Post by Metallo on May 10, 2021 21:22:18 GMT -5
I think they’re leaning into the Elseworlds takes. It worked for Joker. I'm divided as to whether this is the best approach for WB/DC going forward, given all their missteps. The MCU wasn't perfect (Iron Man 2 and Thor 1 come to mind...)- but the heights it continues to reach creatively (and box office wise) is unprecedented for superhero adaptations. We know WB/DC tried to do the reverse pattern with the Snyderverse, but without a Kevin Feige equivalent over there, things seem to be just lucky to reach the point of being greenlit.... how long has it been since a Flash movie has been announced? And at this point, how much will having multiple versions of characters out there help or hurt the box office? (Not to mention creatively?) They can have multiple versions of characters as long as it’s not a regular ongoing thing. Two different Superman movie franchises going on at once would be overkill. But one Superman on his own movies and another occasionally appearing somewhere else could work. It all depends on how good the films are. I think they’re embracing the multiverse idea to give them that kind of freedom. They’ve ruined the idea of a Marvel style shared universe and blown the opportunity to do a lot of big firsts. This Elseworlds/multiverse approach might be their best bet. It gives them a freedom to take risks that Marvel doesn’t have.
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Metallo
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Post by Metallo on May 10, 2021 9:47:26 GMT -5
8 years later, and still nobody has identified who the Reeve Only People are. Time flies. The Reeve only people are apparently the majority of the movie going public. Or at least they’re good movie only people. We’re also five years on from BvS. Seems like it was one big waste of time because it wrecked the franchise.
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