Superman Returns Better Than Man Of Steel

Welcome back to the channel, guys. I hope you're having a good weekend. And so today I wanted to revisit Superman Returns, right? Got a comment from the comment section of one of the videos, and it talked about when focusing on flight of Superman, that man— I'm sorry, that Superman Returns had some of the best flight sequences. And I agree with that after, uh, revisiting, uh, some of the flying sequences that was done in Superman Returns. And for good reason, uh, it was a lot of attention to detail, uh, when this movie came out. With the technology at the time spent on getting flying right. This is a very expensive movie for the time. I mean, it was ridiculously expensive, uh, for 2006, right? Today it'd probably be a $400 million mark. But they spent a great amount of time getting the flight sequences correct. Um, so as you can tell by the title of the video, I'm, uh, it's saying that Superman Returns was a better film than Man of Steel. So we're going to talk about that a little bit today and talk about some of the reasons why that is. I know again Snyder fans are going to feel I'm picking on them. Um, sorry about that, Snyder fans, but you know, people pretty much know that I didn't consider Man of Steel a Superman movie. That doesn't mean it was a bad movie, just not a Superman movie, right? It was an alien movie, a good one, but not Superman, right? And so that's— I think that upsets a lot of Snyder fans. But a lot of other interesting details are going to come out, I think, during this video, things I hadn't thought about. I happened to watch a podcast about Superman that kind of went into detail. I think it's called Jody's Corner, right? I think it was on Jody's Corner, and I like his podcast. I think me, himself, and I, we agree on a lot of things about Superman. He, like myself, doesn't consider Superman— I'm sorry, Man of Steel, a Superman film. But he said something interesting. He said based on the generation of Superman you grew up with, that would be the Superman that you felt was the correct Superman, right? I don't know if that's 100% true or not, but I think in relation to Man of Steel, it might be true. Because if you go back, uh, let's say, uh Uh, when Man of Steel came out, that was 2013, so it's like 12 years ago, right? Um, you get— many of you guys, uh, would have been, you know, 12, 13 years ago. Many of you guys might have been only 10, 12, 13 years old, right? Um, and probably going to see Superman, right? Um, and so what that means is then that's, that was the Superman you probably would have been attached to, right? Because the Superman gaps go back real far, because, because if you went back, uh, another 6 or 7 years, which would put you at Superman Returns, many of you all, uh, wouldn't even be born, right? Or, uh, you'd be so very young you probably just, you know, I don't know if that would have attracted you over Man of Steel, right? So you got that element in it, right? And that's an understandable element, right, to say that. So I can understand why some of you all might feel that's an accurate depiction of Superman. But relatively speaking, in the continuity of Superman, Man of Steel to me is the most foreign Superman— I mean, out of all of them. Even, uh, television shows included, Superman Returns is the most foreign, you know, uh, costume and all. It is the most foreign depiction of every Superman ever, right? So it is. So, so if we were comparing this logically, if we were looking at this logically, right, and we took every iteration of Superman, we took every depiction, and we put Man of Steel up there. Man of Steel would be the one that sticks out like a sore thumb the most, right? Right. So it would be the less foreign thing if you did all that. And even if you took Superman Legacy and put him in there, he would be— right, he would still be more, uh, seemingly connected to the Supermans than, uh, Man of Steel. Right, but anyway, let's talk about, let's talk about, guys, why, um, oh, hate when that happens. Guys, let's talk about when, um, why this is just a better film overall, right? Why was this a better Superman film overall? And, um, so the story, right, many of you guys know I'm, I'm big on the Donner films. But the story itself, right, it takes place, um, in the continuity of the Donner films. It take— it would take place right after Superman II somewhere, right? And so, um, the storyline is going to be interwoven into the Donner storyline. So as me, you know, whenever you're creating a movie, you got to get that story and that writing good first, right? You got to get that part right. You can't have, uh, the script off, the writing off, or you can get the best actors in there, you can get the best cinematography, and you're going to have a good-looking film, but you're not going to have, uh, an emotional film. You're not going to have a, uh, a solid a story worth watching, right? And we got filmmakers who are great at making films look good, but besides seeing those, uh, shots— uh, Zack Snyder is a, is a, is a big, uh, example of that, right? Uh, who saw, uh, Rebel Moon? Great looking film, great looking film, and I liked it. I liked Rebel Moon, but the thing is, um A lot of people didn't like it, you know, outside some of the cool shots, the slow-mo cool shots. A lot of people didn't like it. And that's what happens when you don't have a good story, right? And, um, I just didn't like Man of Steel's story, first of all. Um, how it was done. I didn't like the acting. I, I thought it left many things wanting. Um, you know, uh, whereas Superman Returns, it had a more emotional impact on me. Right. Uh, the storyline and the actors delivered good. Now, what was the problem with Superman Returns? Where did things go wrong? Because so many things went right. Let's talk about some of the things that went right. Uh, as one of the commenters were saying, the flying scenes were excellent, right? They did a lot of research studying, uh, Brandon Routh swimming underwater, how he would move underwater. and how he would move through an atmosphere, right? So there's just a lot. I've seen a lot of the behind-the-scenes, uh, stories about it, right? Uh, feature featurettes and such. So what, uh, so, so, so everything that went right was the flying. All the flying scenes were awesome, right? The action scenes, right, the ones that they had saving the plane Excellent. Uh, the city, uh, chaos as a result of the, uh, Lex Luthor, uh, stealing the crystals and building the continents. Him saving the people in the city, doing all of that. Excellent. Well done, right? Um, the stopping the bandits, right? The, the bank robbers, right? And the bullet falling off his eyeball, right? Awesome. The only problem with this movie was— there's a few problems, right? This is what they probably should have did. They probably should have shortened the movie, right? They shortened the movie, and a lot of complaints were on the action sequences. I agree, could have been a little bit more action sequence, shorter movie, right? On that storyline about him and his kid, right? Even though I find that interesting. Um, you know, I didn't think it was important to that movie. I think if that wouldn't have been in that movie, I don't think it would have been that big of a deal, right? If, if it wouldn't have been— if it wouldn't have been Superman with the family and the kid, I think if, uh, he had just been off the Krypton, came back, Lex Luthor has once again stole— or has stole— has not only stole the crystals but he's used them, right? He's actually got them. And, you know, because it's an interesting story, it makes sense because if you think about it, if you go back to Superman 2, Lex Luthor finds the crystals, right? I think they could have even went back to him, You know, from Superman 2, when he stole the script— sorry about that, guys, I forgot to turn off my notifications. I'm gonna try to get through this, guys. I don't want my camera to freak out on us. But anyway, um, in Superman 2, he had— he got those crystals, and had he, um, you know, held on to some, right, it would have made sense to me because Lex Luthor is supposed to be one of the smartest humans on the planet. Uh, to steal the crystals would have made sense, not to leave theirs empty-handed, right? And as you recall in Superman 2, he just kind of goes off and he mingles with Zod and the, uh, and, uh, Ursula and Nod, right? And he, he, he, he, he, you know, he just leaves all that stuff at the Fortress. No artifacts are taken out of Fortress, which doesn't make a lot of sense for Lex Luthor, right? So that could have just been a continuation. They didn't really have to have Lex Luthor go back to the Fortress, right? Uh, also what was excellent, what was, was only I think featured in the director's cut, that was when Superman went back to Krypton. They spent $10 million just on a few minutes of that opening shot. That was a lot of money back in 2006, super expensive, right? Then they cut it from the film, which I think was dumb. from the theatrical release. I think that was dumb. I think it would have— it would— it'll make so much more sense to have that in that film. They'd have done better off cutting off some of the emotional stuff because that's what a lot of people didn't like, that emotional stuff. See, what Bryan Singer was doing, the director of Superman Returns, he was pulling a, uh, basically a Force Awakens, right? Where those of those, uh, uh, sequels to New Hope and all that, where if you look at those 3 movies, they kind of repeat episodes 4, 5, and 6, right? Um, you know, whereas you have, you know what I mean? So, so Superman Returns kind of tried to do a similar thing. It was trying to kind of repeat the Christopher Reeve, the Donner films, right? Where you're gonna first have this emotional movie where you're attached to Superman and his family. And then he was saying that the next movie, it was going to be very action-packed, where this Superman was going to be fighting maybe like Brainiac or somebody like that, which I think would have been excellent, right? They didn't give this movie— they didn't give this movie, um, enough, um, you know, enough chance, right? It deserved more. Uh, but this movie, if you cut out some of the unnecessary parts, there was nothing wrong with the choices done in the movie. Unlike Man of Steel, I thought Man of Steel, oh, it was such an ugly movie. The costume design was ugly. Superman, the costume design, very much Kryptonian-like. Everything looks great. It doesn't look crazy and weird looking with the bugs and the Prometheus body armor. Uh, with the weird, you know, that's another thing. Man of Steel had copied a lot of films of the time. It had copied Prometheus, uh, with the organic body armor, you know. And I can only imagine the studios and the investors were on Zack Snyder to make it, uh, you know, attractive to a lot of people. Remember, this was at the Dragon Ball Z age, right, where people want to see destruction. And that's what they got in Man of Steel, right? But they, they want to see that at the time Superman Returns came out. They didn't understand Bryan Singer was setting it up to be like the Donner films. Fast forward, whereas everybody was saying they hate Superman Returns, you fast forward and what do you get? You get— they get what they asked for. They get Man of Steel, which is Dragon Ball Z, right? But then what happens, right? The studios, they scrap that whole Man of Steel Superman era because it's not able to bring them the money and the value that the Donner films did, right? That the early Superman franchise did, right? So they're going, okay, that doesn't work. And so now we get the, the Gunn, the Gunnverse, right? We get what's going on with James Gunn. So when you put it all together, right, this is why Superman Returns was a bad— even Super— even so, I know that's going to piss off a lot of Snyderverse people. Even Superman Returns was better than Man of Steel, right? But it had a lot of problems onto itself. I don't disagree with that. At times I found myself watching the clock with Superman Returns. You know, there were scenes in that movie that didn't have to be there. Also, I like Kate Bosworth, who played Lois Lane, but she just wasn't the best Lois Lane. She was like an Amy Adams. She's like the Man of Steel Lois Lane. My idea of who's going to be a good Lois Lane is the one that's in this movie, right? The one that's in this movie, the one like Margot Kidder was. I think this version, this in this new one uh, from some of the work I've seen her in, she's going to get closer to that good depiction of Lois Lane, right? Mid— more comic book accurate. I think she's going to be a lot more spunky. See, that's what they missed. That's what Amy Adams in Man of Steel, trying to be this grounded Lois Lane, that's what they missed with her. And that's what they missed with Kate Bosworth, because— and it's not the actress's fault, but Kate Bosworth I'm sure they were under pressure to kind of create a grounded, a more grounded Superman, which was fine, right? That was fine, right? Uh, uh, how they did it. But she wasn't spunky, right? She wasn't spunky. She wasn't— it was just she did— she didn't have that je ne sais quoi, right? That Margot Kidder, that Margot Kidder had. Again, sorry about that, guys. I don't want to go in here because my camera might die whilst I'm doing that and I can't end the video. But I'm gonna end it now. I'm gonna leave off with the lawsuit that's been looming, that some of the SnyderVerse fans are thinking is gonna stop the movie from being put out in July, because they would like that to happen. Not all SnyderVerse fans. I know some people— I know some people like both, okay? So I'm not talking about you guys, right? But I'm gonna wrap it up now because my notifications are going crazy, guys, and I don't want to, uh, kill my camera while I'm trying to go in there and disable them. But that lawsuit that's going on with Warner Brothers, right, Superman Returns, you need to understand, the Schusters, um, and, uh, Siegels who've created Superman, it's only right that they try to be compensated for their hard work. We're very thankful for the work they've done, uh, in creating, uh, something great like Superman. I hope they get all the money deserved to them, right? But what you have to understand about that is that this is something that they've done every movie, right? They did it with Man of Steel, they did it with Superman Returns, right? The estate, uh, suing Warner Brothers, right? And the problem within the United States with that is Once, once, uh, there's a legal precedent set, meaning that they keep doing this back and forth, it's more unlikely that they're going to either have a little out-of-court settlement and everybody's going to be happy, or it's going to be pretty much the same situation as before with the decision of the courts. It's probably not likely the courts are going to come into some revelation about the Schuster estate, uh, after you you know, the last, uh, several decades of this, right? So even though, you know, people keep coming out saying this or that, I don't think it's going to be anything more to that than what's already happened with the previous movies, right? I think the legal precedent is set on that, and that's what you're going to get in that, right? If, if there's going to be anything different, I feel like it would have happened probably already, you know, before. But that's all I want to say in this video, guys. Tell me if you think Um, you know, Superman Returns was better than Man of Steel. And when I say— I, I, I, I don't want you to just think about the destruction of Metropolis, right? There's a lot more that goes into a movie than CGI and tearing up the buildings and things like that, right? What I'm talking about— your emotional investment in the characters, the acting. Uh, I'm not just— you know, I'm talking about, um, you know, uh, because Man of Steel to me when it comes to story and when it comes to the acting, I thought it was, um, poor, right? I really did, with the exception of Russell Crowe. I thought Russell Crowe lines, when he's like Jor-El, because, you know, Jor-El's always going to have the epic deliveries, just like Marlon Brando did, uh, in the, in the Donner films. But, uh, all in all, all the other acting in that movie was weak. You know, I even thought Kevin Costner's, you know, performance as Pa Kent, you know, uh, which I thought he could have killed if given the right stuff. I just didn't— you know, it wasn't a lot there because it wasn't a lot of substance to The Man of Steel as a film. What Man of Steel was, was it was a big CGI crap show, right? It really was, right? And then the CGI looked terrible, right? At least the one thing that Zack Snyder does shine in and making movies, films look good And, um, it did look good to, to a certain degree, but you know, with the, the design choices, I just, you know, it just wasn't working. Not as a Superman film. If it had been anything else, it would have been excellent, but not as a Superman film, right? And that seems to be what James Gunn is going to get right. That's all I want to say in this video, guys. If you like content like this, uh, make sure you hit that subscribe button, guys. Don't be lazy. 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