Superman Returns: Pixar Was Right

The amount of quibbling over Superman Returns is unbelievable.  The blogs and websites are all going nuts about whether he's gay, whether his cape should be that shade of red, whether the lack of Perry White saying "the American way" constitutes a reflection on today's geopolitical affairs, whether a 24 year old Lois Lane could have a young son and a Pulitzer Prize, why Supes didn't visit Ma Kent after recovering, in fact - why would Superman even go to a hospital anyway, is he violating Lois's rights by using his x-ray vision and super hearing, and on and on and on and on.

It's truly mind-boggling.  To me, it's beyond the simple comic book fan-boy mania, beyond the normal movie blog comments.  It's starting to border on inappropriate - and I haven't even seen the damn movie yet.

Now, remember The Incredibles?  They created a world where superheroes went into retirement based on lawsuits, bad press, politics, etc.  To me, that's exactly what's happening here.  Based on all this lunacy, I am convinced that is exactly what would happen if a real live Superman showed up tomorrow.  Nothing is good enough for anyone, and everyone's a critic.

"Sure, he saved Perry White from having the Daily Planet globe fall on him, but he placed it on that car!  Who's gonna pay for that?  Does Supes have insurance?  I can't believe he left for 5 years - what a creep!"

That's what all this noise sounds like to me.

I'm not here to say, "lighten up - it's a comic book film."  Obviously people feel very strongly about their iconic characters.  The point here, is that it's fine to criticize a film.  It's fine to have different opinions.  But in some cases, both the anonymity of the web and the allure of the global microphone called "the internet" has just sent many, many people completely off the deep end. 

Comments

[Jesse]

As a long time Superman fan, since the 50's from the first series to the present and everything in between, I think you may be overreacting. Unfortunately Superman has to change, the last 3 movies with Christopher Reeves were not that great, but as a fan I saw them and I own them. But I saw the movie and I really liked it, it had touches of everything, but not a lot of everything. I read in my local paper about a lot of violence, but I saw that there was just enough to keep it interesting. One thing about bloggers though, they are too wrapped up into what they write instead of enjoying what they see.

Example, several years back I had a lady friend at work, she asked me if she bought the tickets if I would go with her to see Plant and Paige at their LA stop. I said hell yea. After the concert she said she was disappointed, I asked why, she replied she wanted to hear the old Led Zepplin to which I replied thats why you did not enjoy it and I explained it this way to her; The difference with you and I was I went to see Plant and Paige and you went expecting to hear... Zepplin.

Gay? Cape color? political affairs? These bloggers need to chill!