The trailer of Man of Steel has been released, and thankfully, it looks as far from Superman Returns as you can get. The official trailer can be viewed here – http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/man-of-steel/
We have thus far had four mainstream Superman movies (and then the whole Smallville series, which I will not get into, because let’s face it – it was a mess). I think we can all agree that the last attempt at bringing Superman to the big screen – Superman Returns – was tacky, awful, and overlong. However, the reboot – called Man of Steel – actually looks more intriguing and unique than anything that has come previously in the Superman-verse. Of course, this makes sense as the producer of this film is Christopher Nolan and the story credit goes to David S. Goyer, who both also collaborated on the Dark Knight Trilogy.
It’s very clear that this is a different Superman that we’re used to – we know this because the trailer makes it abundantly obvious for us. Firstly, they’re using Lord of the Rings music. For people like me, using Lord of the Rings music is a sure-fire way to get us excited and tell us that this is a serious movie. Secondly, there are almost no scenes of the actual superman outfit until the very end, where he’s flying up into the sky. From the shots of a young Clark Kent and a grown-up Clark spending time travelling around the world, everything looks incredibly evocative of Batman Begins. We see little to no special effects, all of the scenes seem very grounded in reality, and the tone is bleak and depressing. After seeing both the Batman and Spiderman films try to remake themselves with varying degrees of success, it’ll be interesting to see Superman give it a go. Superman, in its essence, is the very epitome of a comic book character – it’s harder to ground him in reality than it is Batman or Spider-man because he’s not human. But if there’s anyone that can do it, it’s Chris Nolan. It doesn’t hurt that Henry Cavill can actually act (not to be disparaging against Brandon Routh, but from my recollections of Superman Returns, his arsenal of expressions ranged from blank to blanker).
Man of Steel releases the summer of 2013.
First of all I thought Smallville was a mess too until i Watched all ten Seasons. The show was actually amazing with its own unique look of Clark Kents life. Second dont compare Superman Returns to any superman flim. Yes it did suck. 3rd no one should compare the old movies to the reboot! Its a reboot!!! meaning new Director and Writers. This is Zacks, Goyer, and Nolan’s view of Superman.
If you study the making of Superman Returns, you will learn that virtually every close up of Brandon Routh as Superman (ie whenever Superman was flying… even in close-up) was CGI! So, if you think Brandon’s expressions were “blank”… that’s because you were NOT watching Brandon. You were watching computer artists trying to make a CGI image of Brandon emote… and failing in the attempt!
Smallville was great most of the time and almost every episode you were reminded of Clark’s mid-western values. Also, it was the only “Superman” we had for the longest time. Tuned in every week and while some episodes were…..well….We loved EVERY second…
The first few seasons were amazing. Had me on the edge of my seat. When they moved him to Metropolis, things got fishy, though… most of the things that I loved about the characters went away, replaced by lots of capes and costumes. It was a great show that went downhill.
The trailer gives me hope. Unfortunately, the Bryan Singer trailer was almost a masterpiece as well, and look how that turned out. Still, I feel good about it so far.