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Post by Deleted on Mar 3, 2012 8:00:05 GMT -5
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ye5man
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Post by ye5man on Mar 3, 2012 9:51:23 GMT -5
The credits roll - and then BAM - we open with a Gothic mansion.
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Post by crazy_asian_man on Mar 3, 2012 13:10:24 GMT -5
100? Wow. Not competing with another thread, is it?  Why not change it to 10,000 nitpicks with SR while at it? I overall love the film, but can still name a few of my own: (None of these will sound particularly new) I don't know if these are complaints rather than technical nitpicks, but, anyhow... #10: Richard White's working for the Daily Planet and having to ask what Kryptonite is. Even if the rationale is that only a few know, it's not clear.... it kind of makes Richard seem pretty dense. Makes Richard White's hiring by Perry REALLY seem like nepotism! #9: Why does young Clark look more like young Bryan Singer? #8: I don't have a problem with it being so dark, but the color palette is a little odd. Did they not have the budget for the rest of the color spectrum? #7: I have the agree that the dialogue with the widow could have been less suggestive. Would have been fine with not having those images of Lex being intimate in my head at the beginning of a Superman movie. (or ever) #6: How can this Lois plausibly have a kid? Clearly, she doesn't even eat! #5: "It's deadly.....to him".... Did William Shatner direct this line reading? #4: Why didn't they have Superman catch the baseball that flies in the sky as well as the plane? If he can catch a plane.... #3: The million tiny 's' es sewn into Routh's Superman costume give me a headache during medium shots. #2: Where is Nuclear Man? Or Gus Gorman? #1: Much too short a film. |
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Shane
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Post by Shane on Mar 4, 2012 2:44:40 GMT -5
#1 Bryan Singer the coke junkie
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Post by Valentine Smith on Mar 4, 2012 9:39:08 GMT -5
1) Bosworth.
Not just the worst Lois in any incarnation, but an extraordinarily poor performance in general. Bored. Collecting a paycheck. Reading lines. The fact that Lois is also written as thoroughly unlikable doesn't help, but a better actress might have mitigated this.
2) The Brat.
It takes an unspeakable act of ego to think that you can introduce something which would fundamentally change the Superman mythos going forward. It also takes an extraordinary act of shortsighted stupidity to do it in such a way that this child's existence depends on the audience remembering one scene from a movie they may or may not have seen twenty years ago.
3) the entire "you have shown me pleasures" 101 Dalmations opening
This should have been left on the cutting room floor. Noel Neil deserved way better than this fucking shit. An absolute disgrace, and completely the wrong way to open the movie.
4) The refusal of the writers to acknowledge any facet of the Superman universe that didn't exist in a decades-old film.
While it was welcome to see many visual and musical cues revisited in SR, an acknowledgment of a wider Superman universe would have done wonders for the pacing and likely, the film's reception.
5) Give Superman more screen-time.
Brandon Routh is on-screen for far too little time, and far to little of THAT time is in the red and blue. An even smaller fraction of that precious red-and-blue-time is spent actually DOING appropriate Superman stuff.
You fix these 5 things, and I can forgive the 95 others. In fact, at least 50 of those would fix themselves once these are taken care of. I'm in the minority in that I enjoyed Spacey and Langella, generally like the suit and Routh's performance, and even the whole "vague sequel" concept.
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ye5man
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Post by ye5man on Mar 4, 2012 10:27:24 GMT -5
I think overall, my biggest gripe is the editing. Which is ironic as I find the editing in the theatrical STM to be astonishingly brilliant.
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Metallo
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Post by Metallo on Mar 4, 2012 11:34:24 GMT -5
The kid is one of the biggest problems with SR because unlike all the other problems its unfixable going forward even in a potential sequel. Things like the tone and the action can be corrected but we couldn't just pull a Chuck Cunningham with Jason.
Blandsworth could be recast. Even in SR itself you can edit out Lex Luthor: Gigolo and imply it but if you take the kid out you take out big chunks of the film. I don't have a problem with Superman having a child per se but thats something you do at the END of his on screen adventures. Not the beginning.
Even with L&C kids = death of what made the premise great in the first place unless its handled brilliantly. It was smart to cancel it when ABC did because I've read the plan for the fifth season was to deal with Clark and Lois as parents.
I hate to see Noel Neill taken out because she's been there for damn near EVERY incarnation of Superman on screen (I see her as the franchises good luck charm) but her whole scene is embarrassing. Its as bad as Jack Larsons ridiculous L&C guest spot. Larson deserved better than to be portrayed as a wasting away old lump dying on a couch and so did Noel. SR DID give Jack a decent cameo and they should have done it for her too.
I'd replace it with the Return to Krypton. Not sure if we need to know how Lex has money. He's a criminal: its what he does. His freedom is explained and thats enough.
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Post by crazy_asian_man on Mar 4, 2012 12:00:04 GMT -5
I agree on STM & am glad that at least Baird got an Academy Award nomination for it...
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Post by crazy_asian_man on Mar 4, 2012 12:07:03 GMT -5
The kid definitely had to be addressed somehow, saying he was sent away to military school for the entirety of the sequel or that Lois misplaced him and forgot about it wouldn't really work--- I agree-
Still...
Even though Singer is someone who goes with his intuition and changes his mind all the time (he even says so during a production meeting, but he wouldn't be the first director, too, either)- but he had to have SOME idea what he was going to do with the kid.
If, as some rumors say, he always planned to kill the kid off in the sequel--- maybe that may or may not be the breaking point with WB... who knows? I think for the sequel, that the kid would have been the 'secret' that the villains eventually discover to use against Supes and that Richard would have been killed off, to raise the stakes. So, (imo anyways) I think it could have worked and may have been setup that way.
But.....not if the kid turns into a teenager by the time a sequel is greenlit. Having Lois' son look a few years younger than her wouldn't be too plausible...
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Metallo
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Post by Metallo on Mar 4, 2012 12:33:26 GMT -5
If I were in charge Bosworth would have been out the door as soon as a sequel was greenlit. It was Katie Holmes all over again. Worse since Lois isn't a made up throw away character like Rachel Dawes.
I often wonder which movie got the more unlikable female lead: Superman Returns, Batman Begins, or Spider-man?
Bosworth and Holmes just seemed incompetent in their roles. Couldn't buy them as a seasoned reporter or ADA but they didn't come off as c*nts. Dunst wasn't AS bad in S-M1 but she got increasingly worse to the point that Mary Jane was such a selfish bitch and Dunst got more and more homely that I hoped Harry would throw her ass off a bridge Gwen Stacy style.
The Mary Jane *I* read about was supposed to be uber hot...not a broad with a bad dye job and a grill like Tim Burtons headless horseman.
Recastings all around, lads!
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Post by crazy_asian_man on Mar 4, 2012 12:45:53 GMT -5
Y'know...
At the time, I thought Bosworth was fine/good enough as Lois...
But now?
After watching a couple of the later Smallville seasons with Erica Durance in the role, and seeing how much spice, spunkiness, and personality she has- I'm thinking that she should definitely have been cast instead of Bosworth.
Bosworth isn't as bad as Katie Holmes imo, but I could see where you're coming from.
While I've argued before that Bosworth had to perform as someone who was a mother and hurt by Supes' leaving--- at the time I thought it justified her downplaying her energy, but now--- I just think someone else would have been more right to play her.
She does have chemistry with Routh, but someone else could have brought more to the table and fit better.
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Metallo
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Post by Metallo on Mar 4, 2012 13:08:58 GMT -5
Durance was better than Bosworth but she was still the second worst Lois. If Bosworth looked too young Durance looked too old when she debuted. She looked like the Skinemax stripper version of Lois. I thought she was terrible at first (like one of those actors from a bad SyFy channel movie) but she got better as the show went on. Hatcher had the opposite problem. She was well cast (feisty and sexy at first) and was a good Lois but she got worse as the show went on. The writing didn't help but she seemed like she had no interest in being there. Her whole character got whinier and whiner and bonier and bonier. "Real and spectacular" became "fried eggs hanging on nails."I think she looks better now than she did at the end of L&C. Even with the age difference THIS is still a better combination than Routh and Bosworth to me.  Best Lois Lanes are still Coates, Kidder, and Delany...with Delany arguably taking the top spot. If she'd have played Lois in live action she would have been fantastic. If I could combine those three we'd have the perfect Lois Lane. |
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Post by Valentine Smith on Mar 4, 2012 15:08:32 GMT -5
I dunno. I think Durance with better material could have been as good as any of 'em (speculation, of course). She was WAY off at first, but yeah, by the end of the series, she was pretty much the highlight of the show. For example, she would have been FAR more convincing than JarJar Bosworth in SR as a world-weary, award-winning reporter/single mother. I'd have loved to see her play off of Routh, a guy who actually ENJOYED being Superman, unlike Welling...
I tell ya, though...after recently re-watching that entire first season of L&C, I think Hatcher is pretty much my favorite live-action Lois of all time. I know that if I average in the later seasons her score decreases, but that first season she's damn near perfect.
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Metallo
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Post by Metallo on Mar 4, 2012 15:23:11 GMT -5
Really? C'mon now. Kidder and even Hatcher had much more experience than her before Superman. So far Drurance has spent her post Smallville career prancing around in a hand me down Wonder Woman costume from a piece of sh** pilot that most people have never even seen.
Durance looks like a stripper who just got off her shift so I could easily believe her being a single mom over 12 year old Kate Bosworth.
One looks like an easy hit after 2 drinks and the other one doesn't even look OLD enough to drink. ;D Bosworth looks like she should have been on that MTV 16 year old mom show or writing for the high school newspaper.
Jesus here's hoping Amy Adams doesn't suck because I haven't seen a truly great take on Lois Lane in live action in 18 years. Hatcher WAS pretty good when L&C started but she quickly devolved into something akin to a pilled out mannequin.
One good thing I can say about Bosworth and Durance is at least they weren't as bad as Kristen Kruek as Lana Lang. Worst Lana ever. EVER. Worst girlfriend ever.
Dumping Kruek and keeping Durance was one bright spot for Smallville
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Post by crazy_asian_man on Mar 4, 2012 23:43:46 GMT -5
I would have been fine with a young Teri Hatcher in SR.
The second Lana was written as defending the football player who strung up innocent students as scarecrows to freeze to death, was the death of any sympathy for her character.
The character was written and conceived badly. Some actors have some pretty strong personas naturally and can cover up weak writing, but that wasn't Kreuk.
I agree that once Kruek was gone and Durance was the center love interest, it bumped up Smallville's quality a LOT. At least it felt like more a reboot of Lois and Clark than something that was starting to resemble Dawson's Creek more than Superman.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 5, 2012 3:54:23 GMT -5
Here are my most petty nitpicks:
-Not understanding the difference between load bearing and non-load bearing structures. The bulkhead Superman was holding on to should have broken off the ship. It was never engineered to hold that much weight.
-Using military hardware in "New York" + flying around in a helicopter with no flight plan = a Sidewinder missile up your ass. Worst bank heist plan EVER.
-The F-35 won't enter active service for a while yet. How the heck did they have them already in 2006?
-Who the heck designed Krypton's data storage technology? "Oh, crystals are awesome! They store so many movies and mp3s! Just don't get any water on them, though. You'll destroy the world."
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Post by Deleted on Mar 5, 2012 14:46:39 GMT -5
I dunno. I think Durance with better material could have been as good as any of 'em (speculation, of course). She was WAY off at first, but yeah, by the end of the series, she was pretty much the highlight of the show. For example, she would have been FAR more convincing than JarJar Bosworth in SR as a world-weary, award-winning reporter/single mother. I'd have loved to see her play off of Routh, a guy who actually ENJOYED being Superman, unlike Welling... I tell ya, though...after recently re-watching that entire first season of L&C, I think Hatcher is pretty much my favorite live-action Lois of all time. I know that if I average in the later seasons her score decreases, but that first season she's damn near perfect. I'd go with that. The first season is excellent and thats as good a live action Lois as there has been. Tallo I agree with your comparisons with Bosworth and Holmes, like you said though, its a huge fuck up in SR because its not a throw away character. Also agree that by the last Spiderman film Mary Jane came across as a selfish throughly dislikeable whore bag, I'd have smothered her in her sleep. Shiny, those are worth a mention. If you want to nit pick about things like that (and I can see why it would bother you) then its worth mentioning the plane rescue too. All i'll say is, theres no way everyone would have come out of that rescue intact and all smiles at the return of superman ;D |
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Post by roffels on Mar 7, 2012 14:48:32 GMT -5
Superman Returns is in continuity with Turkish Superman (AKA Supermen Returns)
- at the very end, Superman says he's off to find his lost home of Krypton. I can't decide if this is a problem, or awesome.
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Post by EnriqueH on Mar 7, 2012 23:37:26 GMT -5
1. Superman gets beat up too many times.
2. Superman gets beat up too many times...when there's no super-villain.
3. There's something that feels a little too restrained about Routh's performance.
4. Luthor is too goofy.
5. Parker Posey and Kevin Spacey have no chemistry. They are more like brother and sister than lovers.
6. Superman looks and acts more like Superboy than Superman.
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Post by Jimbo on Mar 8, 2012 1:11:50 GMT -5
Is it just me, or is the whole "gone for 5 years" thing done in order to explain why Superman wasn't around to prevent 9/11? As soon as he gets back, he watches TV to see all the sorrow and strife in the world. I can't help but think the screenwriters had 9/11 in mind when they wrote sequels to movies that featured the twin towers.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 8, 2012 2:01:43 GMT -5
Teri Hatcher as Lois Lane has fucking RUINED me regarding women. RUINED ME. It's what I want. Like, it's WHAT I want. Nothing else. It sucks.
My main nitpicks for SR:
1. The editing. It's just flat out awful. There's so much shit that could be taken out, it's almost ridiculous. How many scenes of shit shaking around are there? Total up that time. It's like TWO fucking minutes of just shit shaking around. What the fuck? Seriously? The pacing is pretty rough, too. It's as uneven as Return of the Jedi.
2. The CGI. Ohhh, the CGI. I wanted to see a dude on wires with the wires taken out. I think that's what we ALL wanted. That's not what we got. We got that maybe ten times. Everything else was CGI, and shit CGI at that. You couldn't do a closeup of him flying at the end?! C'mon!!!
3. The plot. The land shit. Jesus Christ. Creating new land, Luthor? That's your big plan? That's your big return to crime? I mean, yeah, that'd fuck up a lot of people's day, but...fuck...you were going to evaporate millions of people in an instant with TWO goddamn nuclear missiles before! Now you want to make a big island in the middle of the ocean? Kill BILLIONS? How are you going to profit from this? At all? You dumb fuck! What a stupid fucking plot. That's what we got? After all this time?
I should mention that I've been drinking.
4. The lighting. Sure, all these have been mentioned before, but goddammit, they're MY nitpicks! WHAT THE FUCK, SINGER AND CREW?! You made a SUPERMAN movie. It's okay to have it bright! Did you really have to keep sunlight from directly hitting the film? Or any proper lighting? Throws off all the coloring, you can't even SEE shit sometimes, I remember not being able to tell what the fuck was happening in theaters because it was so damn dark. Are Superman and Lois flying by that bridge? Is that just a shot of a bridge? Nice! Neat bridge! Oh wait, they WERE in that shot? Who the fuck could tell? No one!
5. The news montage scene.
So.
We wait how long for a proper Superman movie? Realistically, since 1980? We all know the last two are crap. We all know it. Even if we love the movies, we KNOW they fucking suck. We wait 26 years for a GOOD Superman movie with Superman doing shit in it, and we get this. We get a minute or two montage of Superman being Superman VIA NEWS CLIPS.
How absolutely AWESOME would it have been to see him actually DOING all that shit with just the main theme playing? Like get the entire main theme while we see Superman going around the world saving people and doing shit? How fucking INCREDIBLE would that have been? I've been wanting to see something like that for ages. Him just doing his thing everywhere for a couple of minutes. And we get that.
On the news.
Fucking awful.
I'm done.
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Post by crazy_asian_man on Mar 8, 2012 11:05:57 GMT -5
I think it was a side benefit- but not the sole reason-
I think the 'gone for five years' works wonders storywise for a few reasons...
#1: The 10-15 year olds who were cynical enough to say that Superman wasn't a character they could relate to - could see the character who 'hadn't' been around during 9/11 could appreciate why he/she might still have a bit of innocence and optimism despite it, if they saw the film and give him a 'pass' on cynicsm if the character wasn't around- (although I have a hunch the 10 year olds would have a tough time relating to the film, maybe the older ones would be fine with it- the TDK audience age).
#2: It allows the openness of whether or not 9/11 happened or not in that universe. If it didn't, makes the world of SR as somewhat dated/out of touch.
If it did, where was Superman and why didn't he do something about it?
#3: It allows the audience to allow it to happen or not, their choice. If so, it can also can tie into Clark's guilt and hesitancy of returning. (A similar scenario i would have loved to have seen in the Donner SII ending Spengler mentioned-- where Supes was supposed to have SEEN all the devastation done by his absence, and then that prompts him to turn back time)
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Post by crazy_asian_man on Mar 8, 2012 11:11:08 GMT -5
I'm surprised how many folks hate the editing.... Except for a small bit here or there, I thought that overall it was pretty strong, with some really strong moments with the music (not suprising as he's the composer too). I didn't mind the stuff shaking around- I thought it echoed the "Jurassic Park" moments of the glass of water shaking before the dinosaur showed up.  |
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Metallo
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Post by Metallo on Mar 8, 2012 11:23:21 GMT -5
Is it just me, or is the whole "gone for 5 years" thing done in order to explain why Superman wasn't around to prevent 9/11? As soon as he gets back, he watches TV to see all the sorrow and strife in the world. I can't help but think the screenwriters had 9/11 in mind when they wrote sequels to movies that featured the twin towers. That was probably running through their heads. Its certainly implied in the film things like that happened because he wasn't there.. But A least there is an explanation there. Marvels handling of 9-11 always bugged me. I kind of wish they had never addressed it so directly. Some of the same issues as superheroes fighting during WWII creep up. I felt DC's response was still respectful but they didn't go into the whole real world issue too much. Stuff like that is always touchy. Did every Marvel hero in NYC have his thumb up his ass on Sept 11? Where the heck were SHIELD or The Avengers? Its always dicey to address things like this in a fictional universe that so closely mirrors the real world. On the other hand it was almost an unavoidable issue for Marvel since so many characters are based in a real city like New York. |
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Post by crazy_asian_man on Mar 8, 2012 11:44:42 GMT -5
Agreed.... it was interesting to see the different responses from the comics' companies.
But, given that (initially) one of the things that made Marvel great was including real world elements - it was good that they DID address it..... and I was wary, but the story that Stracinski did for it, was moving- and done with delicacy.
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