Last of an 8-part series. Click Here for Part 7.
So today is the big wonking day. Over the course of the last week and a half, Flixens has decided to prepare you for Superman Returns a little differently. No one is sending us advanced reviews and no one wants us at their stupid advanced screenings. So instead of doing the typical thing, we have used this forum to talk about the Real Heroes of Superman, Parts 1 – 7. The idea is to totally promote discussion about all the real people who have helped in shaping the myth and legend of Superman. And today, we talk about Bryan Singer! Yeah!
But first, and also kind of a part of it, I think some shout outs need to go out to a few other people that have helped in making Superman the coolest thing since honey on toast. And truthfully, we could never remember or even know all the people who made Superman great. There are so many editors and comic writers and artists and movie writers and TV show writers. I am not that much of a boy-nerd to remember all these things. So if your name was left off, forgiveth me, I am but a dingbat.
So first, let me say that I fought hard, but they didn’t make the list, but I seriously thing the creators of Smallville, Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, and their two primary cast members, Tom Welling and Michael Rosenbaum, definitely deserve to be on this list. It is no small accident that Superman has had a resurgence of interest in the last 5 years, and I think it has a lot to do with the super accessible show that these four helped bring to light.
Sure, I totally get that it all started with kind of a cynical play where Gough and Millar were all, “omg let’s make superman for those dawson’s creek wanks!”, and the show still has the baggage left over from the days of Buffy, Dawson’s Creek and others. We still get the swoony pop ballads and the long meaningful stares to that space just to the upper left of the camera lens. And we still have characters that make the most random decisions, not because they are logical, but because it would be better for the over all story, right? Yeah, I recognize that Smallville is never going to have the street cred of shows like the Sopranos or West Wing, but it’s still special. AND it’s special when looking at the big picture of who Superman is today. The slow trickle of Superman mythos and continuity may not be the punch in the gut each season of Buffy was, but boy howdy, it still has the ability to send the chillies down my spine. And consider Tom Welling who was, like, nobody before this. He is totally young Clark. What a casting coup it was to find him! There is still a part of me that longs for him to be playing the grown up Man of Steel.
But even with all this, the most amazing thing about Smallville, and the reason the show will have lasting impact long after it burns in the fire of a thousand red suns, is because of Michael Rosenbaum. Until him, we had jokey Lex. We had mad scientist Lex. We had ego-dork (and fat!) Lex. We even had Lex in purple and green. But Michael Rosenbaum was the first to give us a Lex that is both human and totally sympathetic. As the seasons have gone on, we have seen a slow transformation to the Lex Luthor-as-villain we know he becomes, but dang it, every step of the way, we can almost reason with him as to why he does these awful things. He’s just totally compelling, and we salute YOU, and your buddies Tom Welling, Alfred Gough and Miles Millar.
So the next horrifically overlooked personal was actually a little more planned. See it would be really easy to have put Richard Donner someplace on this list. Someplace close to the top. Superman: the Movie is still a great piece of entertainment despite the limitations of the special effects at the time. And despite that totally retarded scene where Superman flies Lois around and she gets high on stratosphere and goes into all the “Can you read my mind?” But you see to put Donner on this list sooner, would almost invalidate Bryan Singer’s inclusion, because by all accounts, the movie I will be seeing on Wednesday would not exist if not for Donner’s exciting 1978 Version.
When the Salkinds approached Richard Donner about directing Superman, the producers had the right idea, but their execution was somewhat lacking. The Salkinds wanted a huge epic, but in reality, their original script was too joke-filled and even had cheesy cameos. I mean, it was originally supposed to have Telly Savalas as Kojak with a whole “Who loves ya baby” bit.
Donner imagined something more traditional, but still utilizing the very best special effects of the time. I don’t know if Donner was ever a fan of the comic and I am too lazy to call him, but he managed to find a perfect balance between the hero’s journey of the Superman myth and contemporary action films, and the movie is romantic as all heck. From it’s opening frames under the proscenium of a real comic, the story unfolds like something that is ripped right from the fabric of America’s past. From there we are introduced to Ma and Pa. We see a classic scene where Clark hoists that car up, and we get totally caught up in his life. Then the movie kicks everything we have seen in the teeth as Clark goes off to the cynical world of Metropolis, and his debut to the world as Superman. Honestly, there are so many fantastic moments in the movie, I just get like giddy. I want to see it again and again, because it’s just sooo right.
Superman spawned a sequel that was supposed to be a direct continuation of the first film. In fact, Donner actually filmed most of it before disagreements with the Salkinds forced his replacement by Richard Lester. Fans still wonder what Donner’s vision of the second movie would be. Perhaps without the big honking cellophane S. Superman II still managed to knock it out of the park, but from that point on Superman was damaged goods.
The success of Batman in the late 80s and early 90s prompted a renewed interest in bringing Superman back to the big screen, but producers just couldn’t manage to get the damn thing right. I mean there has been talk of polar bear guards at the entrance to the Fortress of Solitude, and Superman in a dark black costume, and Superman feeling like the ultimate alien outsider, and worst of all, Superman as played by Nicolas Cage! YIKES!
The next Superman movie would languish in what hip Hollywood insiders like me call “development h-e-double-hockey sticks” for like 10 years. The movie went through directors Tim Burton, McG and Brett Ratner and still the movie could not get one step closer to execution. Even Lost producer J.J. Abrams gave the script a crack that sent fan boys and girls screaming from the internet. It seemed like it would be totally impossible for Superman to ever take flight.
This looked like it might be a job for…
Uh, Bryan Singer!
Bryan had just come off two really awesome X-Men movies when he approached Warner Brothers with an idea so revolutionary that it was amazing that no one thought about it before.
Skip going back to the drawing board… Go back to the basics.
Singer pitched a follow-up to the first two Superman movies. In his estimation, the character of Superman didn’t need to be rethought. He just needed a good story built on top of the movies audiences were already familiar with. And it totally makes sense, right? I mean does the world need another Superman origin story? At this point, it’s like more know it than the nativity. So instead, let’s just pick up where we left off, and at the same time, can we somehow miraculously forget about Richard Pryor in Superman III (NO Jenny. No matter how many times you ask, he will never be a Real Hero of Superman)?
The Warner Brothers brass was immediately enchanted and the rest, as they sometimes are heard to say, is history.
Singer has professed again and again that he was never a comic reader, but that never stopped him from creating those X-Men movies. What sets Singer apart from the gaggle of directors who stepped up to bat before him was that Singer had an understanding of the character that people can relate to. There is no need to take Superman and jumble him up with Star Wars and stuff. Superman, as he was in the Donner movies and now in Superman Returns, appeals to the basic thingy inside all of us that makes us want to be good. We aren’t all super-human and stuff (at least you aren’t), but that doesn’t stop firemen from saving kittens, FBI Agents saving kittens or Soldiers saving kittens. No, those people do it because heroism is what we all aspire to, right? You might want to be a hero to your kid, or to your boss, or that guy you fancy. Well Superman appeals to that within all of us. Singer gets that. Superman is just a lonely Midwestern guy who daydreams about the girl he works with. It just so happens he can see her panties with X-Ray vision. Oh and he does that whole saving the world stuff too.
Because of your creativity and inspiration, Mr. Singer, you are totally a Real Hero of Superman. Thanks for finally bringing the big lug back to the screen!
JUNE 28, 2006
To our readers: We hope you've enjoyed reading this series as much as we enjoyed writing it! If you missed the beginning of the series, click here to go back to Part 1. Like Samantha said, we couldn't include everyone who probably deserved to be mentioned. Think we missed anyone significant? Leave a comment and let us know! -- Nina
