Comic Book Movies

[Dr. Insomniac]

Yeah, it definitely feels like a refutation to some views on how superhero adaptations should work. Because it's funny watching interviews with the cast, hearing Corenswet and Hoult say they grew up watching Smallville as kids and used that to inform the way they'd play their characters, when this movie's an antithesis to that as much as it is to the Snyder films. No weird aversion to tights and flights, no attempt to make Lex's neuroticism sympathetic. Though I did hear Gunn say he named it "Luthorcorp" instead of "Lexcorp" because he wanted to sow some seeds for a Lionel Luthor appearance in sequels.

Spoiler

So how's the next season of Peacemaker gonna reconcile some issues now that he and his show technically exist in two DC universes? I guess they can be vague about it, and if enough people ask, Gunn can just pull a George Lucas and edit last season's finale to have Gathegi and Fillion instead of Miller and Momoa. Because it seems like TSS is canon to the Gunnverse, since they mention events that happened in that movie in Creature Commandos, and the woman who clocked Waller with a golf club showed up in Superman as the ARGUS head.

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I also rewatched some of the Reeve movies lately. I retract what I said about IV being hilariously awful. After seeing that Super/Man documentary about Christopher Reeve's life and Hackman's recent passing, going from the first Donner movie to IV was depressing in ways that just weren't there the last time I saw it, especially when you find out Reeve also did some co-writing on the film and genuinely wanted to say something about nukes. At least Batman & Robin you can dismiss as dumb garbage, and Clooney's career went unscathed from it. While IV's one of the last times we get to see Reeve in the lead of a movie, and if it weren't for Remains of the Day, he isn't in anything good after this.

Anyway, my Superman movie ranking:
1. Superman 1978
2. Superman 2025
3. The Donner cut of II
4. The Lester cut of II
5. Superman Returns
6. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
7. Superman III
8. Man of Steel
9. Superman IV

I haven't watched Superman and the Mole Men or Supergirl. Any of the DTV animated movies, I can probably put between Dawn of Justice and III.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, just got back from Fantastic Four: First Steps. Having read a ton of FF comics over the past few years makes me pretty biased, but I loved this movie. It does an excellent job of capturing the spirit of the Kirby/Lee era of the series, and the character representation feels pitch perfect. They absolutely nail the chemistry. Galactus feels like the imminent threat that he is in the comics, and this movie functions as a Sci-Fi story more than it does a more standard superhero movie, which is what set the FF comics apart from everything else.

I really want to watch this movie again as soon as possible, which I haven't felt the urge to do for any MCU movies in a long while (even the ones that I really liked). Definitely a top 5 for me.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Just watched it a few hours ago, and yeah, Fantastic Four was pretty good. I'm glad we finally have an actually watchable FF movie after decades of trial and error, because a lot of it does feel like course-correction both for the Fantastic Four and the MCU. Because like I said earlier in this thread, Fant4stic was pretty fucking awful and a contender for the worst Marvel movie. And the 00s movies weren't good either, but this one actually learned from all the previous mistakes. Fun, retrofuturist aethetic. Characters with actual chemistry who bounce off of each other. Light on the quips and knew when to put them where it mattered. We've known for a while that this was the movie the MCU really had to get right or else they were fucked beyond repair, and they pulled it off.

Johnny's actor felt like the weak spot though. Joseph Quinn just looked confused for the entire movie, and you could tell the reason they made Silver Surfer a woman and make a bit of a romantic subplot between them was to distance Johnny away from the main emotional plot between Reed and Sue. Not too dissimilar from how Miles Teller looked and acted like an alien in the last one. But still, really good versions of the other three balance it out. And the grading curve on Johnny Storm adaptations has been low enough that Quinn's still above most of them.

[Dr. Insomniac]

This video reminded me of Returns' existence, and it had me thinking. If Superman Returns was commercially successful enough to get sequels, were they ever gonna address the elephant in the room regarding Clark knocking Lois up, wiping her memory, leaving her for 5 years, and then not telling their and her son about all that? Because you'd think so, audiences, critics, and probably most producers would prefer a Superman who doesn't pull a John Redcorn and never take responsibility for his kid, but as we know with Singer, he loves keeping boys in the dark and never letting them get any real justice regarding those situations. Since Erik never did find out Peter Maximoff was his son in the X-Men movies he directed, Keyser Soze killed his kids rather than let them live with the truth in The Usual Suspects, the Apt Pupil kid learns the truth about his Nazi neighbor and goes crazy, and the other elephant in the room regarding Singer and boys.

Still feel pretty bad for Routh though. You can tell when he reprised Clark in the CW crossovers that not only didn't he miss a beat, he actually got to have some fun since he wasn't told to just do a Reeve impression.

[Daikun]

First look at Lobo in Supergirl.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Grant Morrison shares his take on James Gunn's Superman: https://youtu.be/jC4XCt7X8Gk?si=XDhXaES5753idWUh

Nothing too surprising here. He seems to like it for what it is while having some issues with Superman's portrayal but also understands that some different choices have to be made for a film version as opposed to a comic book. Considering his general distaste for a lot of comic book to film adaptations, this is still relatively positive coming from him.

[Dr. Insomniac]

They did seem annoyed by the Jor-El/Lara twist though. Same with  Mark Waid. Which reminds me that Waid hated Man of Steel so much that he shouted at the screen in the theater when that scene happened., which Alan Moore made fun of in his What We Can Know About Thunderman novella.

[Dr. Insomniac]

So, I think I know why the Supergirl movie's bombing. Because last year, when Kara showed up on Superman and acted like a drunk loser who called Clark a "bitch", I just remembered everyone I knew groaned. People I knew like friends, acquaintances, even my parents, none of them liked that scene. A few of them asked me why she acts nothing like the CW Supergirl. Take that and throw her into a Mad Max landscape, and I can see why people didn't tune in.

Spoiler

Funny the movie confirmed my theory that Jor-El and Lara are just crazy racists and other Kryptonians aren't like that.

Also, Kara killing Krem is a weird adaptation choice, right? I didn't love the Tom King comic this is based on, but I at least understood what it was trying to do by being a riff on True Grit but about Kara and Ruthye learning to find value in life instead of letting revenge consume either of them. But making the conflict far more black/white here, not gonna lie, it's bothersome. Not a fan. But hey, I guess it's cool Kara gets her own version of the "Clark snaps Zod's neck" scene? Eh.

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