It's been hyped for years now and as
Duke Nukem and others have shown too much hype just means the end product can never meet the audience's expectations.
Superman Returns was good because it was Superman dealing with mostly normal stuff, which has been one of the better selling points about an unstoppable alien that can exceed anything humanly possible. Yes the crescendo of the film is tearing an island off the seabed, lifting it into orbit, and throwing it into space, but that's just a reflection of the character. The human story there is the self sacrifice required. Lex told Superman the island was laced with Kryptonite so Superman knows the attempt may very well kill him.
As Batman put it:
It is a remarkable dichotomy. In many ways, Clark is the most human of us all. Then… he shoots fire from the skies and it its difficult not to think of him as a god. And how fortunate we all are that it does not occur to him.
Not crossing that line where Superman could so easily do whatever he wanted, including take over the world, is part of the reason Homelander, The Plutonian, Hyperion, and other pastiches have been enjoyed because they go down that unleashed path.
What you say about the superhero movie zeitgeist changing towards 'dark and gritty' being a reason Superman Returns failed is likely, but as shown with the DCCU a character that's meant to inspire hope doesn't work at all when things are too dark and gritty.
Damnit, I wish Amazon hadn't cancelled The Tick. I was enjoying that, as a humourous deconstruction of capeshit. I only saw a bit of the cartoon in the 90s (I was in my 20s and busy for that golden era of television cartoons.) But, no one's got any sense of humour any more, so now we have The Boys instead. Oh, wait, it is supposed to be a comedy. I forgot. It's not that I don't like it, I just don't find it ... funny. It's like poking at a sore, and wondering how much worse it could get. My memories of it mostly involve the freakish stuff, and Homelander having that fantasy of laser-eyeballing pretty much everyone. Ha, ha. I got more of a laugh when Resident Alien had his dream, and the dog just stood there.
Yeah, Superman is definitely from an older, less apparently-cynical generation that actually believed in Hope, rather than in wallowing in self-pity. They looked for light in darkness, rather than ... embracing the darkness.
I would hate to imagine if Superman hadn't already been invented, and someone was just coming up with the concept of the superhero now. Ugh. And when I was a kid, it was the "dork age", and he was basically just a collection of whatever bullshit superpower the writers pulled out of their asses that month (seriously, superhero comics were bad in the 70s, which is why I preferred the war and horror comics. And Uncle Scrooge.)
It's been hyped for years now and as Duke Nukem and others have shown too much hype just means the end product can never meet the audience's expectations.
Superman Returns was good because it was Superman dealing with mostly normal stuff, which has been one of the better selling points about an unstoppable alien that can exceed anything humanly possible. Yes the crescendo of the film is tearing an island off the seabed, lifting it into orbit, and throwing it into space, but that's just a reflection of the character. The human story there is the self sacrifice required. Lex told Superman the island was laced with Kryptonite so Superman knows the attempt may very well kill him.
As Batman put it:
Not crossing that line where Superman could so easily do whatever he wanted, including take over the world, is part of the reason Homelander, The Plutonian, Hyperion, and other pastiches have been enjoyed because they go down that unleashed path.
What you say about the superhero movie zeitgeist changing towards 'dark and gritty' being a reason Superman Returns failed is likely, but as shown with the DCCU a character that's meant to inspire hope doesn't work at all when things are too dark and gritty.
Damnit, I wish Amazon hadn't cancelled The Tick. I was enjoying that, as a humourous deconstruction of capeshit. I only saw a bit of the cartoon in the 90s (I was in my 20s and busy for that golden era of television cartoons.) But, no one's got any sense of humour any more, so now we have The Boys instead. Oh, wait, it is supposed to be a comedy. I forgot. It's not that I don't like it, I just don't find it ... funny. It's like poking at a sore, and wondering how much worse it could get. My memories of it mostly involve the freakish stuff, and Homelander having that fantasy of laser-eyeballing pretty much everyone. Ha, ha. I got more of a laugh when Resident Alien had his dream, and the dog just stood there.
Yeah, Superman is definitely from an older, less apparently-cynical generation that actually believed in Hope, rather than in wallowing in self-pity. They looked for light in darkness, rather than ... embracing the darkness.
I would hate to imagine if Superman hadn't already been invented, and someone was just coming up with the concept of the superhero now. Ugh. And when I was a kid, it was the "dork age", and he was basically just a collection of whatever bullshit superpower the writers pulled out of their asses that month (seriously, superhero comics were bad in the 70s, which is why I preferred the war and horror comics. And Uncle Scrooge.)