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Designing superman from scratch

Ken Poirier

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In working on my smallville edit, I came across Christopher Reeves as Dr. Swan. When I was a kid I used to play baseball with his son and he would of course be at the games. I understood he was an actor and the dad of one of the kids, but to me he WAS superman. Which was pretty freaking cool when you're 7 years old.

We all have that idealized superman in our heads. In every incarnation superman has had, things have changed and others have stayed the same, not only that, but the characters that surround him have fluctuated as well. This is not only in films, but in the comics as well.

So, for fun, if you were tasked with a completely new resign of superman (a reboot) what would you do and what is influencing that?

I'll ponder this one myself and post when I come up with the answer.
 

Avid4D

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I wrote a Supe reboot screenplay in 2008 after deciding Brian Singer f#cked the movie franchise completely! Obviously I never did anything with it (!) but I did call it Man Of Steel and gave Jor-El an action scene or two, so I was pleasantly surprised to see I was on the right track when the 2013 reboot was released. I chose Brainiac as my primary villain however after Zod was put in the Phantom Zone, setting Zod up for the sequel. I would compare my screenplay's Brainiac as the Krypton equivalent of Cyberdyne's Terminator.
 

Ken Poirier

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Yes, I would say it is true that superman can be defined by his adversaries. I really always like the idea of the Cold War Superman. Him flying up to stop the Soviet Nukes. I think I would set it in the 1980's. I'd also like to see some kind of religious delema where people think he is the second coming and tackle that whole mess. You could have a nice debate whether superman came to the US because the communists are godless. Throw some tim burton style batman-esqe cinematography.
 

MusicEd921

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These are some great ideas!

Bits and pieces of each of the movies I did enjoy (minus Returns). One aspect I did always enjoy in Superman: TAS was how Metallo was handled. This is a villain I would LOVE to see on the screen. What I liked though, was that he was a villain that could very well destroy Superman if it wasn't for help from people like Jimmy Olsen or John Henry Irons. Showing Superman never giving up his fight to stop Metallo only to have humans help him defeat the mechanical maniac would translate well on screen in an uplifting way like when all of the cranes in Amazing Spiderman aided him to get to the Lizard (even though I found that scene supremely cheesy, I understood what they were going for).
 

bionicbob

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Just me spitballing, have not really thought this fully through but I would tackle it as a generational franchise to build the rest of the DC Cinemaverse upon.

I would start with him as a teenage SUPERBOY.

Instead of killing Pa Kent in the first act of every movie, let's take the time to really see his upbringing, the influence the Kents had on shaping his character. Now I am not talking Smallville (though I love the show) but instead embracing more of the classic timeless silver age elements. Full costume, discovering his heritage, dealing with being revealed to the world while struggling with adolescence. Learning what is means to be a hero. Really build his mythology from the ground up. Treat the DCverse as an Epic Fantasy, stop trying to ground it so much in the real world. Introduce Lex and watch their relationship devolve. Follow the Harry Potter model, with each movie as the character ages, you see him grow into the world's greatest hero. As you go, you introduce more and more elements of the DCverse. You can even replace the actor is you want as he matures from teen to adult.

And yes, bring is some major league threats. Brainiac. Metallo. Darksied. Doomsday.

But most of all, keep Christopher Nolan, David Goyer and Zac Snyder far, far, far away from Superman.
 

njvc

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I think a classic 1940's aesthetic would be great for a Superman film. The Christopher Reeve films borrowed some ideas (i.e., Clark wearing the hat), but I would love a movie set completely in that era... Without the cynicism, dark tones or any attempt to cover up the true nature of the character.

Make the colours bold, the heroics... heroic, and the character unashamedly good.

This animated fan film (which pays homages to the Fleischer cartoons) pretty much nails it.

 

MusicEd921

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You have no idea how badly I want to see a feature length adaptation in that style!
 

theslime

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My thoughts mostly echo bionicbob's.

Grounding Superman too much makes suspension of disbelief really hard. The sense of wonder is all-important. It needs to be broad strokes epic adventure from the beginning. While I don't really like Reeve's Superman because of boring plots, the movies had the right mix of fantasy, science fiction and adventure, and there's a reason why people love those movies and mostly dislike Superman Returns and Man of Steel.

A modified and expanded version of the last Grant Morrison Superman story would be a good starting point, I think. I'm probably contradicting myself now, since Morrison's starting point is the most "real" setup for a Superman story in years, but his story shows how you could begin a story grounded in reality only to end with a multiverse-spanning 5D story with Mr. Mxyzptlk in a central part without it seeming weird. That's the beauty of Superman. Morrison's basic idea that (using the basic elements from the 1986 Man of Steel miniseries that Clark's powers evolved gradually and there never was any Superboy) he meets his Kryptonian heritage (including getting his costume) through an encounter with Brainiac makes a lot of sense, making it "real" and yet a lot more sci-fi than any of the films have been so far.
 

hbenthow

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My take would be similar to [MENTION=8922]njvc[/MENTION]'s.

It would be set in the 1930s, and have an art deco aesthetic, very similar to the Fleischer Superman cartoons from the 1940s. It would have a lot of humor and a strong sense of fun, yet be fairly grounded (similar to the first two seasons of the George Reeves show, but be more like the Fleischer cartoons in terms of action). I would have the actors study the original influences for the characters (Douglas Fairbanks for Supeman, Harold Lloyd for Clark Kent, Glenda Farrell for Lois Lane, etc) and come up with performances inspired by them (but not ripped off or directly lifted, of course). I would also have everyone involved in the production read at least the first two years of the Golden Age Superman comics.

Superman would have the jaunty, swashbuckling flair that he originally had in the Golden Age, but in a good-natured way, and not so much that he comes across as arrogant. (Very similar to George Reeves.) He would look and move as much like the Fleischer animated Superman as is possible in live-action. He would have more or less his Golden Age set of powers, sort of a hybrid of the comics and the cartoons (faster than a speeding bullet, stronger than a locomotive, can leap up to 1/8 of a mile, nothing short of a bursting artillery shell can pierce his skin, etc). He wouldn't fly at first (just like he originally couldn't fly in the Golden Age comics), but there would be little hints that he has anti-gravity powers (for example, when he takes one of his huge leaps, he lands on concrete without cracking it), and he would eventually learn to fly in a later episode or sequel (depending on whether it was a television series or a movie series). Clark Kent would be sort of half way between the George Reeves and Christopher Reeve versions. A little foppish and weak, but in a bit more of a subtle way than Christopher Reeve's version. (A little like Kirk Allyn's portrayal.) He would talk in a higher-pitched voice as Clark than as Superman (much like Bud Collyer did in the radio show and the Fleischer cartoons, and yes, there would be at least one time when he says "This looks like a job FOR SUPERMAN".)

The story would follow the Siegel and Shuster comics as closely as possible. Clark would be raised entirely by the Kents (no ghost Jor-El). The movies or episodes would alternate between Superman fighting gangsters, crooked politicians, etc, and more outlandish supervillain or sci-fi plots. There would be some exploration of Superman's ideals and what it is like to be him, but not so much that it becomes Nolan-esque speechifying. The musical score would utilize a souped-up big orchestral version of Sammy Timberg's Superman theme from the Fleisher cartoons, but the DVD/Blu-Ray release would include an alternate track with John Williams' theme.
 

TMBTM

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I read almost no Superman comics so I'm the average audience here.

But to me, what makes the Reeves movies great is something that is completely not on the last movie: Clark Kent playing a clumsy journalist. Reeves is so good in that Cary Grant style of play. Specialy because even if he was quite young during the first two movies he looked very manly, even as Clark Kent. And waching a big guy like him playing the fish out of the water so well is very entertaining.
Reeves is amazing as Superman but what makes this character great is that he does not seek the fame and he even not say who he is to the close ones, for their security. (Of course everyone should recognize him and they don't... but that another thing that I like. Personal taste.)
In a way he is the opposite of Tony Stark, who is more than willing to tell everyone that he is Iron Man (specialy to the girls), and that also what makes Tony Stark an intersting character, but the dual role Superman/Clark would be a great deal in a Superman reboot that I would write. I would not skip it like it was done in the last movie (that I liked, but I missed that Clark angle)
 

theslime

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I agree 100 percent. If you take away Clark Kent, you're left with a boring alien called Kal-El. One of my favourite Superman issues (from 1987, I think) has Lex Luthor using a super-computer to analyse all data on Superman to find out what his relationship with Clark Kent really is. The computer (unsurprisingly) concludes that Clark is Superman, but Luthor refuses to believe a God-like being would ever wear glasses as a disguise to live like the common folk and fires the computer staff instead. I like that. It puts Clark Kent as disguise in perspective.
 

mnkykungfu

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Resurrecting this to see if anyone else wants to weigh in.  I've been watching a lot of Superman stuff lately, so here are some thoughts:

Design for a film trilogy (doesn't everything have to be set up for sequels these days?)

First film: I like the idea of showing a progression and growth of Superman.  So you cast brothers, about 14 years old and 24 years old.  Plan it from the start, even though the first film is all Superboy.  He's strong, fast, tough, better senses, even thinks faster, but none of that to the degree we expect.  No special beam vision or flight.  He's vulnerable, and he's growing up, and he's learning.  This film would have to walk a fine line between exploring things we've seen before (Donner/Reeve films) and not straying too far from the core elements of the character (Snyder films).  So yeah, it's a coming of age story, and a "hero's journey", but you bust some tropes by having Ma and Pa Kent anchor the whole movie.  This film is about why Clark develops the value system that he does, and doesn't become angsty or dark and edgy, but has genuine pathos.  Ma and Pa live in constant fear that he'll get found out and taken by the government or some corporation.  Think Spielberg/E.T. vibes.  But Clark has busted other tropes by totally telling his best friends Pete and Lana all about himself.  Clark has to hide who he is and what he can do from everyone else, so he purposely joins stuff that lets him "fly under the radar" in school...no sports or academics.  He joins the yearbook staff and the school paper and the drama club.  He observes people and everyone thinks he's "nice" but unremarkable.  Clark tries to date Lana, and even though she knows his secret, she still friend zones him and dates the school jock instead.  "I just don't see you that way, Clark.  You spend your whole life trying not to do anything remarkable.  I get it.. but I want to be with a guy who really lives."

Like many rural towns in the US, there's a military base nearby.  They're doing experiments here on limb replacements for injured soldiers as well as new weapons testing.  Clark is somewhere he's not supposed to be (maybe ran away from home one night, angsty about Lana?), sees an accident, is torn because he wants to help but has to lay low, ends up saving some soldiers.  One soldier gets almost total body replacement and becomes Metallo.  The military is now looking for Clark.  Thematically, he's very torn because he has that small town sense of patriotism but also a healthy fear of the government.  However, we bust tropes by having he and his parents actually "turn themselves in."  It's all kept super top secret and an agent from a "government office under the umbrella of Homeland Security" is brought in...maybe Amanda Waller?  She says "great, we're on your side.  We'll help you train and keep you secret", etc.  On a personal level, Clark can finally cut loose and gets a bit cocky maybe shows off a bit to Lana's new squeeze.  Lana/Pete tell him off "You're acting like you're superior to us normal humans", etc.

So Clark does basically an after-school program with the military kind of like super-ROTC, where he "finds out what he can do"...and gets some indoctrination, sorry, I mean training.  He eventually starts training with Metallo (the other soldiers' nickname for the "freak") as they can really push each other.  Of course, yadda yadda, Metallo is in increasingly more pain, cyber brain enhancements and human brain aren't fully meshing, he has impulse control issues and starts to resent his condition, resent the military.  In the end, he goes bad (although directed at the military and government, not "innocent people") and Clark has to bring him down.  We find out that this was Waller's plan all along, as insurance, and that they've been studying both Clark and Metallo.  Clark thinks he killed Metallo and feels super guilty, vows to only use his powers to protect life from now on, no matter what.  He saved Lana/Pete in the big Metallo fight and patches things up with them.  Lana says "you're not superior, but you are pretty Super."  Clark says "Sure a super boy." Lana says "Well, someday you'll be a super man.  But to me you'll always just be Clark."  yadda yadda They start dating. 

Stinger scene: we learn that actually the government saved Metallo and is starting to rebuild him specifically with the data they got from Clark as like an anti-Superboy cyborg, if they should ever need to bring him down.  "We can rebuild him... better...stronger...faster."  Waller is revealed as truly just manipulating Clark, hoping to turn him into a weapon of the state as he grows up.  "And if he turns against us?"  "What do you think Homeland Defense does?  We have some options..." Pan to a lab with rows of large glass cases besides Metallo, containing a clump of tech, an amoeba-looking thing, shiny rocks, etc.  (Eagle-eyed viewers might suspect these will lead to the Parasite, Braniac, Kryptonite, or various devices like Apocalypse tech or the Phantom Zone.)  Duh duh duh.  To be continued.
 

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I'm currently working on a Superman reimagining. I'd originally conceived it as a trilogy of films, but later on realized I had too much material to comfortably fit inside three films, so extended it into a three-season series.

SEASON 1

Our story begins in 1890. Around a red dwarf we find Krypton, a terrestrial planet much like Earth, but with black vegetation instead of green, home to an advanced humanoid race which is a million years ahead of humanity on an evolutionary level. The Kryptonians are aware their planet will soon die, but cannot evacuate due to a genetic flaw which makes them unable to leave Krypton without dying. Through genetic engineering, they create 144,000 embryos — embryos free of the flaw tying their parents to Krypton, with enhancements which will grant them superhuman abilities. Two of these "new" Kryptonians are grown to maturity on Krypton, but the rest remain as embryos, which will gestate en route to Earth aboard hyperdrive-equipped birthing matrices. As Krypton succumbs to cataclysm, the vessels are launched too late, and only thirty-four survive.

Fast-forward to 1914. Thirteen vessels have completed the journey to Earth. One of these vessels lands in Smallville, Kansas, on the Kent farm. Jonathan & Martha Kent find the child just as the nastiest blizzard hits town. They decide to pass the child off as their own flesh-&-blood son, naming him Clark Joseph Kent.

Clark has a happy childhood and adolescence in Smallville. He befriends Lana Lang, Pete Ross, and Kenny Braverman, with Lana being his closest of the three friends. The lessons Martha & Jonathan impart to Clark teach him the value of bravery, strength, selflessness, and mercy. As Clark matures, his superhuman abilities gradually emerge and grow with him.

In 1931, Clark's life takes a new direction. After several years away, Lana's Aunt Helen returns to Smallville. She seduces Clark, and they enter into a secret romance. Though quite physically compatible, they have no emotional connection, and Clark soon wearies of the relationship. Meanwhile, another Kryptonian vessel arrives, crash-landing in Colorado. This vessel is larger than the one which brought Clark to Earth and contains an adult passenger, Luma-Lyn, one of the two New Kryptonians born and raised on Krypton. Drawn by a homing signal, Clark finds Luma and brings her back to Smallville, when she is taken in by the Kents. Claiming to have amnesia, she begins assisting in the chores and learning about human culture. Elsewhere in the country, we find Alexei "Lex" Luthor. Son of German/Russian immigrants, born into poverty, Lex has used his intelligence and ruthlessness to become a multi-millionaire weapons designer/defense contractor. During his rise, Luthor encountered Kryptonians on Earth, and the interaction proved mutually detrimental. Now Luthor is on-watch for other Kryptonians, both on Earth and from the stars. And he knows Luma's ship has landed on Earth.

The season ends on a bittersweet note. Luthor has his spinal cord severed and his hair burnt off. Luma disappears (I won't say how. She ain't dead, but her departure's a sad one.). Clark's eyes are injured, necessitating the use of glasses. Finally, Clark reveals his powers to Lana.

SEASON 2

1932-1938

Clark travels across Depression-era America. He visits Georgia, where he encounters the Ku Klux Klan. He joins a circus, where he meets and falls in love with Lori Lemaris, one of the sideshow freaks, a "mermaid" with fused legs and webbed feet. He eventually moves to New York, to the city of Metropolis. He moves into an apartment, next door to a man who regularly beats his wife. He prevents an experimental jet aircraft from crashing, saving the life of investigative journalist Lois Lane, alerting the world to the existence of a living god in their midst. With his parents' assistance, he creates a costume based on the outfit he wore as a circus strongman. Then adopting the name Lois gave him in the papers, he makes his debut as Superman.

SEASON 3

Clark joins the Daily Planet. Luthor synthesizes red kryptonite, which robs Clark of his powers and gives five of his underlings — his "Team Luthor" — various and sundry superpowers.
 

mnkykungfu

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Duragizer said:
I'm currently working on a Superman reimagining. I'd originally conceived it as a trilogy of films, but later on realized I had too much material to comfortably fit inside three films, so extended it into a three-season series.

Wow, interesting.  The Golden Age approach is definitely not something I was considering, or that you see much these days.  That would be pretty original.  I was planning on using Red Kryptonite too!  Though differently...
 

Duragizer

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mnkykungfu said:
Duragizer said:
I'm currently working on a Superman reimagining. I'd originally conceived it as a trilogy of films, but later on realized I had too much material to comfortably fit inside three films, so extended it into a three-season series.

Wow, interesting.  The Golden Age approach is definitely not something I was considering, or that you see much these days.

I don't enjoy writing stories set in modern times, with modern slang, technology, etc., so a Gen Y/Gen Z Superman was never on the cards for me. I was originally going to place my story in a timeless quasi-'70s/'80s setting, but then I watched Justice League: The New Frontier , and I feel in love with the concept of superheroes who operated in real time. So I ultimately made my story a 1930s period piece.

I've got further ideas for stories which span the 1940s through to the early 2000s. Dunno if I'll ever get around to them, though.
 

Gaith

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mnkykungfu, I like a lot of what you have to say. I also would like to reboot supes on the big screen, and make Smallville a bigger part of a first movie than either the original film or the Snyder version did. Specifically, I want to understand the contradiction by which a humble, decent guy decides to put on such a flamboyant suit and adopt such a highfalutin moniker. That's a decision both the movies essentially gloss over by presenting the suit as an inheritance from the Jor-El hologram, which I feel is a cop out.

I also want a real-world, psychologically realistic and political Clark Kent. I want a Clark that wrestles with whether he should enlist in the US military, and smash up terrorists, drug cartels, and maybe even authoritarian regimes. (Credit to Smallville S1/S2 for giving young Clark a personal connection to the military in Whitney Fordman, even if the Middle East wars weren't mentioned, and the battle he died in looked like Vietnam.) I want a Clark that opposes vicious and violent international drug gangs, but also demands that Americans reckon with the fact that the War on Drugs is largely a repeat of Prohibition, but with the terror and misery of drug production exported to foreign countries, and how that consistently creates refugees that many Americans in turn view with suspicion and hostility. I want a Clark that points out that the overwhelming majority of scientists believe climate change is a huge threat to the global society, which, as the sole survivor of a dead world, he probably has some feelings about. And I want him to use Kryptonian tech to disguise his face and voice in Superman mode, because the whole invisibility-via-glasses shtick is beyond lame at this point. Either ditch the secret civilian entirely, or use tech to hide.

Or, if the filmmakers/studio just want to give us a classic, old-school, and boringly apolitical Supes, then go all the way with that and make a full-on 1930s period piece; that could be great, too. I'm just sick of the recurring approach, from later-season Smallville to Superman Returns to even the DCEU, for all its grimdark trappings, of splitting the difference between a modern setting and the quaintness of the Daily Planet world. If Clark must still work at a newspaper, then at the very least show us he gets there, by toiling away in academia, lame internships, and then facing the realities of corporate-owned media timidity. Don't just cheat and give some nobody with a nothing resume a reporting job out of nowhere, like Man of Steel did.

In conclusion: I've seen a lot of online commentary that says that Superman can be a successful character if he's just portrayed as a simply and classically good dude, a la Justice League, but I don't buy it, especially on the big screen. Yes, that approach worked for Cap, but that's because Cap grew up in the 30s and 40s; there's narrative justification for old-school candor. So unless they want to have a 1930s Superman fall into a wormhole and emerge in the present day, "because Heartland values persist to the present day" is not a sufficient explanation for him to act the way he does in JL and Supergirl. IMHO. :cool:
 

mnkykungfu

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Gaith said:
mnkykungfu, I like a lot of what you have to say. I also would like to reboot supes on the big screen, and make Smallville a bigger part of a first movie than either the original film or the Snyder version did. Specifically, I want to understand the contradiction by which a humble, decent guy decides to put on such a flamboyant suit and adopt such a highfalutin moniker. That's a decision both the movies essentially gloss over by presenting the suit as an inheritance from the Jor-El hologram, which I feel is a cop out.

I also want a real-world, psychologically realistic and political Clark Kent. I want a Clark that wrestles with whether he should enlist in the US military, and smash up terrorists, drug cartels, and maybe even authoritarian regimes. (Credit to Smallville S1/S2 for giving young Clark a personal connection to the military in Whitney Fordman, even if the Middle East wars weren't mentioned, and the battle he died in looked like Vietnam.) I want a Clark that opposes vicious and violent international drug gangs, but also demands that Americans reckon with the fact that the War on Drugs is largely a repeat of Prohibition, but with the terror and misery of drug production exported to foreign countries, and how that consistently creates refugees that many Americans in turn view with suspicion and hostility. I want a Clark that points out that the overwhelming majority of scientists believe climate change is a huge threat to the global society, which, as the sole survivor of a dead world, he probably has some feelings about. And I want him to use Kryptonian tech to disguise his face and voice in Superman mode, because the whole invisibility-via-glasses shtick is beyond lame at this point. Either ditch the secret civilian entirely, or use tech to hide.

Or, if the filmmakers/studio just want to give us a classic, old-school, and boringly apolitical Supes, then go all the way with that and make a full-on 1930s period piece; that could be great, too. I'm just sick of the recurring approach, from later-season Smallville to Superman Returns to even the DCEU, for all its grimdark trappings, of splitting the difference between a modern setting and the quaintness of the Daily Planet world. If Clark must still work at a newspaper, then at the very least show us he gets there, by toiling away in academia, lame internships, and then facing the realities of corporate-owned media timidity. Don't just cheat and give some nobody with a nothing resume a reporting job out of nowhere, like Man of Steel did.

In conclusion: I've seen a lot of online commentary that says that Superman can be a successful character if he's just portrayed as a simply and classically good dude, a la Justice League, but I don't buy it, especially on the big screen. Yes, that approach worked for Cap, but that's because Cap grew up in the 30s and 40s; there's narrative justification for old-school candor. So unless they want to have a 1930s Superman fall into a wormhole and emerge in the present day, "because Heartland values persist to the present day" is not a sufficient explanation for him to act the way he does in JL and Supergirl. IMHO. :cool:

Thanks Gaith, yeah, I agree with a lot of what you say here, too.  I actually have been writing the sequel summary with some ideas that directly address a couple of your points (I'd like to see the film based off/including parts of the classic stories "A Superman For All Seasons" and "Must There Be a Superman?").  I'm just trying to figure out how to sum it up in something shorter than a book-long entry.  :)
 
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