RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Media Superman/Doomsday

I could forgive the voice acting and the (near) complete rewrite of the story. It's three-plus years of story, and that's not including the plot threads and characters created years prior...something had to give. I can forgive the slugfests as well. However I can't forgive the Act of God return of Superman. It was fun to watch, but it's proof that you can't mess with a classic.

*Spoilers*

From AICN:

• this is quite possibly the gayest Superman ever portrayed on film.
  
  I don't mean that in a derrogative sense, I mean that in the sense that this film is laced with slightly veiled homo-erotic phrases or imagery. At more then one occasion, Lex refers to Superman as a "Beautiful God." There's a seen were Lex is fighting his evil Superman clone, straddled on top of him and asking "Why did you leave me?" For a moment, not just myself but the others watching the film with me, honestly thought Lex was gonna kiss him! Throw on top of that a few shots of Supes in a thong with his flowing locks and some oil wrestling between the two Superman and you really get to wondering.
  
  My favorite part had to be when evil Superman grabbed the now long-locked Superman by the hair, repeatedly pulling him down to "Knee" him in the face. Of course, all we see is Superman's head bobbing up and down a few times, before falling to his knees and onto the ground. Evil Superman follows this attack with, "Now who's better EQUIPPED to defend the city." I almost fell out of my chair.

Wow. This could finally make Rob a Superman fan.

Superman's face looked kinda goofy and it didn't follow the story exactly (of course, it wasn't trying to get you to buy comic books about four different "Supermen" the next month) but I enjoyed watching it.

If nothing else, it made Superman Returns look like crap.





























Oh, wait. Superman Returns did that.

This dvd sounds gayer than I am!

thats just not possible jerry...

This is disappointing to hear - I still plan on seeing this, but if they are completely rewriting the "classics" for all of the DVDs they are releasing, then all the animation is going to be disappointing to the fans...

unless of course you were rob...

you guys had to know that with a running time of 70 minutes (little more than an hour) that there would be a lot of things that would be cut out and re-written. hell, there've been interviews posted on this very site that have said as much.

Superman dies and comes back!






























SPOILERS!

He was only "mostly" dead.

Thank God for PJP.

Don't Tase me Bro!

I understand that but my problem with this and considering the accompanying documentary and ad campaign which suggests it, it'll lead non-fanboys to assume that THIS was the story of the Death of Superman, which just isn't so.

Imagine you're curious because either you remember the press for the story and are curious to see what it was all about OR you're one of those people who bought Superman # 75 and didn't realize the story continued on. So you pop this turkey into the player and what are you going to think?

Nothing good I'm sure. You're going to think that comic books are indeed idiotic crap and move along. And I'll also blame the entire DC ad campaign for these cartoons too since they're touting them as animated retellings of classic stories, not re-imaginings. Bad re-imaginings at that.

well, to be fair, most comics right now are idiotic crap. . .

DC's not really doing much to change that impression.


but for me, it's all about New Frontier and how it comes out. if it's well done, I'll be happy.

I have a lot more faith in New Frontier mainly because Darwyn is involved in it's production plus the clips so far look AMAZING!

After this turd pile, i'm keeping my fingers crossed though.

i don't see why that'd be so bad -- or how it would be any different from the impression given to fans by, say, the chris reeve superman films or bale batman.

its not 100% accurate to the comics, but its pretty close.

But the Chris Reeve Superman films wearn't attaching themselves to one particular Superman story.

As far as perentage, I'd say this film was about roughly 35% faithful to the comic. mainly the fight sequence. Everything else pretty much deviated majorly from the comic. And while I appreciated scenes such as how Doomsday was killed which was a deviation of the story, the plot of a gay Luthor Superman clone really sucked in comparison.

Plus I've already outlined why I dissaprove of hawking this DVD as a retelling of the famous story of the "Death of Superman". No, this is another story about Superman dying. NOT the classic 90's era story.

personally, I think it's a bit of a stretch calling that story a "classic." I mean it's just one, long, drawn out fight scene. and it's really not even a big enough fight scene to be worthy of something that was supposed to be the death of the character who holds the historic and iconic importance in comics that Superman is supposed to.

I mean it basically comes down to two guys fighting on a sidewalk. hell, that's been in comics for decades. kinda meh when you really think about it. and Doomsday himself? just an awful character. great name, but terrible character. with such a convoluted backstory. utter crap.

the follow up stories were much better than the actual "death" story itself.

perhaps not a particular issue, no. but the first film (as well as many other comic films) was hailed as "the origin of superman." the krypton explosion, the growing up/superboy moments, the power levels, etc. many known as "definitive". yet there are any number of differences between the '70s film and the comics now, or even at the time. same with "batman begins" being (or not being) the definitive origin of batman / batman: year one. similar, but not the same.

i get your point about how this isn't, literally, comicdom's "the death of superman" in animated form. but i dont think it was billed as a literal translation -- nor do i think it is at all bad to have the movie only be 35% similar to the comics

now, if the quality is poor, that is a separate question all together.

Well yeah. That's where this film screwed up. The "meat" of the Death of Superman story was "Funeral For a Friend" and "The Reign of The Supermen". Which I think this film understood as well otherwise "The Death of Superman" DVD would simply have been one long slugfest.

The Death both in the comics and the DVD was just the setup to tell the story itself. The DVD's story however sucked royally.

Well with any movie, that's pretty much all that matters. I'm sure WE all know the difference but as I sad before, I don't think the public at large is going to differentiate between this movie and the actual comics story, not if they haven't already read it. And if they haven't, I don't think this is going to inspire anyone to want to.

Rob. Why is it your lol graemlin looks like mocking laughter rather than amusement in general?

because thats what we do here...

but why do you think that is so bad? why can't this movie (or the reeve superman film, or smallville or batman begins, or BTAS, etc) be cannon to fans? maybe its their bridge to the world of comics, or maybe its simply their exposure to comic characters, but why is either so terrible?

(on a related note, the comic book "death" story wasn't exactly the iliad. in fact, other than the "big iconic moment" many would say it was kinda terrible. and messy. ... and i still don't understand how the fucker came back.)



is friends with

does that make it the second most powerful force...?

even if it did, there'd be an enormous gap between them

well obviously...

Well, you're right, it can be an introduction to someone but my argument is that it's a poor product. What's more while it's billed as being "inspired" by the best selling graphic novel of all time, there's very little that feels inspired.

I hope some kid does like it. Just as I hope Smallville (and Heroes) is drawing in people who would otherwise dismiss superheroes as corny dated relics of a pre-mass media culture. With Smallville and the films (and the cartoons etc.), i have no problem with their continuity. It's obviously going to occupy it's own. and I'm sure people understand that. My wife for instance isn't confused as to why the films deviate from the Smallville show or the cartoons. I don't think anyone is. We're all too savvy nowadays and understand that it's an interpretation, a version of the character.

Now this cartoon is "inspired" by the Death of Superman. I'm only speaking for myself but when DC announced it was making animated films based on their classic tales. I was expecting the films to be animated films based on the classic tales. I wasn't expecting them to only be 35% or whatever based on the classic tales and the rest we make up.

And even that wouldn't be so bad if only it was GOOD. Now this is my opinion of course. I've yet to hear from anyone who actually LIKED this DVD though.

my main problem was when he lifts doomsday into space, why didn't he just let him go and have momentum carry the creature away? instead he did the neat looking body slam, which only accomplished bringing doomsday back to earth. he was in the position to just let him go.

i did like the violence, it felt like a big fight. though some of the sexual innuendo seemed out of place and awkward in a Superman story, animated or not.
and it was weird that Lois was dating Superman. That seemed somehow wrong, it should be she falls for Clark first.
Also, why did he publically kiss her as Superman when he was going to reveal he was Clark later on? Now they still can't go on regular dates unlike if she started publically dating Clark.
Just seemed odd to me.

Completely agree with you there. I dunoo about you but were you sort of weirded out that Superman takes Lois Lane to the Fortress to engage in some pre-maritial secret fucking?

Superman is supposed to be this squeaky clean paragon of virtue. That he has a love nest and that he skulks about with Lois in secret trysts just felt.. Wrong. Wrong for Superman that is. Don't get me wrong, I'd probably use my Fortress to fuck all manner of women. But then again, I'm not Superman.

And no, it didn't feel like a "relationship". It felt like SUPERMAN, not Clark, takes Lois Lane to bed on account of her Superman worship.

Just saw the movie. Holy shit, what a fucking waste of time!

I knew they were gonna change parts of it, but I didn't expect it to be 90% of the story. They talked about how they couldn't use long haired Luthor or gooey Supergirl because it'd be confusing, and that makes full sense. But then it turns out that they also changed pretty much every other part of the plot. Why bother saying "OH BY THE WAY, WE'RE NOT USING LONG HAIRED LUTHOR IN THIS!", if that's the least of the changes they're gonna do? More importantly, why change the whole story? Right. Luthor's confusing. Get it. What about the rest? I mean, since they're in explaing mood. Seems contradictory to me.

I'm usually not a big fan of the "I hate it because it's different" argument, but... wasn't the whole point of these movies to adapt classic stories for the fans? I assumed that meant the target audience would be the people who enjoyed the original, but obviously I was wrong. Who is this movie directed to, then? Comic fans who didn't like the original? Why the fuck would they buy a DVD adaptation of it, then?

But, whatever. None of this would be important if the new story they came up with was any good. It ain't. It's just dull and uninspired. I feel like Bruce Timm or whoever was in charge didn't care much for the whole idea. Beyond all the problems in logic (which you wouldn't care about if you liked the movie), the plot and the characters are just insipid. Say what you will about Death of Superman, at least it was cool. It also had some emotional resonanca (espcially in the Funeral part)... it was kinda corny, but it was real emotion in the end. There's nothing cool or moving about this movie. Waste of time.

The worst part is that New Frontier looks like it's coming along pretty well, and if this DVD bombs they could pull the plug on any future projects.

Which is a shame because JL/JLU adapted some classic stories rather nicely. Superman/Doomsday should have been a two part DVD.

Part 1: Clark/Lois/Superman development, establish a kick ass non-gay Lex Luthor, Doomsday gets free, big fight, emotion, Supes dead, funeral. Maybe toss in Superman's body being kidnapped or some related subplot. Cliffhanger end.

Part 2: Quick recap of part 1, Metropolis tries to move on, Lois and Martha still mourn, Kryptonian force (Eradicator) takes over as a new Superman working with Lex, Superman is reborn thanks to Eradicator, Supes fights power mad Eradicator and Lex, Supes wins, happy ending, AD!

I think they could have gotten away with adapting Death of Superman, Funeral for a Friend and Adventures #500 in one movie, then Reign of the Supermen in another, if they really wanted to. But nah, it felt like they didn't care much for the comics and didn't even bother following them.

Obviously they'd have to cut and change a lot of stuff but it would have been nice if they had at least captured the spirit of the original story, instead of going with something completely different.

I would have liked to see Cyborg Superman destroy Coast City.

Reign was full of cool moments: