Superman Returns

[gsabc]

As a long-time comic book fan, I had wanted to see "Superman Returns" for some time but had never gotten around to it. It was on TV last night. I remembered and tuned in about ten minutes after it started. I will spoilerize the rest in case anyone else has not seen it and wants to.

Spoiler

Problem #1: The idea that NASA or whoever ran the shuttle would allow civilians onto the plane carrying it.

Problem #2: The idea that the shuttle launch couldn't be aborted when the clamps wouldn't separate. I mean, they abort missions now when there's a SENSOR LIGHT malfunction, for crying out loud.

Problem #3: The idea that the clamps wouldn't have immediately broken off the plane when the shuttle engines kicked in.

Problem #4: The idea that any 7x7 or similar plane could have survived even the initial acceleration rate of a space shuttle.

Problem #5: The idea that any 7x7 or similar plane could have survived the lack of atmospheric pressure in near space.

Problem #6: The idea that anything in the interior of the plane (mostly the seats and the passengers) could have survived the massive G forces of the apparent sudden jolts.

And so forth. I turned it off when Lois collapsed off the plane.

I found it easier to believe that a man can fly than the "logic" of the plot.

[danielh41]

Yes, it was totally implausible, but it made for a visually stunning action sequence. Movies are entertainment. I totally enjoyed the new Indiana Jones movie even though the nuke/refrigerator sequence was about the most unbelievable/stupid thing I've ever seen in a movie...

[silverscreenselect]

Problems with airplanes and space shuttles bother you but a guy who can fly around the world in three seconds, is invulnerable and can bend steel in his bare hands is okay.

The biggest problem with a Superman movie is the fact that he's just too super powered. It's tough to construct a plausible scenario in which the audience can allow itself to buy into the the notion that he just might not succeed. They don't want him to fail; they just want to be able to think he might fail. Not to spoiler it, but this movie accomplished that quite well.

[gsabc]

Problems with airplanes and space shuttles bother you but a guy who can fly around the world in three seconds, is invulnerable and can bend steel in his bare hands is okay.

The whole idea of fantasy is the suspension of disbelief. If you take the premise of someone with super-powers, and deal logically with the capabilities and consequences of those super-powers, then yes, I will suspend my disbelief in super-powers and the unknown physical and scientific reason for their existence. Dealing with more well-known physical and structural laws is something else, unless the alternate world with super-powers also has significantly different legal, political and physical laws than exist in ours. Bad science bothers me more than bad science fiction.

The biggest problem with a Superman movie is the fact that he's just too super powered. It's tough to construct a plausible scenario in which the audience can allow itself to buy into the the notion that he just might not succeed. They don't want him to fail; they just want to be able to think he might fail. Not to spoiler it, but this movie accomplished that quite well.

It was for just this reason that much of the Superman myth in the comics was wiped out in the early '80s. It was harder and harder to create stories where someone who could push the Earth out of orbit had trouble taking care of the likes of Lex Luthor or any of the other villains. IIRC, Lana Lang, Jimmy Olsen, Supergirl, the Phantom Zone, all the Superpets, the bottle city of Kandor, etc., were killed off or otherwise disposed of, and Supes himself got rid of his own powers. He was then re-invented closer to his 1938 origins, as the truly "Last Son of Krypton" with much lesser abilities. The 1938 version was more along the lines of the Hulk - very strong, but "nothing short of an exploding shell" could penetrate his skin (hardly invulnerable), and he could only leap tall buildings with a single bound, not fly over them. No funky vision powers or stuff like that. I don't know if they've rebuilt his more godlike capabilities since the '80s or what else has happened to the myth since then.