Superman Trailer - Fans Are Hypocrites?

Guys, welcome back to the channel. I hope you're having a great Christmas holiday. Um, so today I just wanted to, um, it came to my mind that, uh, online I was seeing messages and information like, um, you know, the fandom, the Superman fandom, a lot of us are, uh, hypocrites, right? And that is because we're not consistent in, you know, our ideologies about Superman, right? You know, as to say, we greatly criticize the Man of Steel films about the character of Superman, right? We say things like he's too dark, he's not what Superman embodies, right? And we say all these things, and it's led some to believe that we may be facing a level of hypocrisy. And that during the Superman trailer, uh, you know, it starts off kind of dark. Superman falls to the earth, uh, bleeding in the snow. Right? You know, um, so it's kind of already this violent scene. And, and they also reference that he never smiles, you know, through the trailer. And where is this so-called hope we speak of, right? The Superman theme from John Williams, which originates out of the 1978 Superman film, right, done by the Donners, right, the Donner films, and, uh, the great composer John Williams, right, these iconic, uh, sheet of music, uh, and some ideas is the only thing that keeps us, um, you know, really bound to that idea of hope, that nothing in that trailer really occurs or happens that sends out all of this great hope that we seem to speak about, even to the point where we reference the Superman crest on his chest, which is, uh, which is a symbol for hope in the Kryptonian language, that it is not actually like an S that stands for Superman, but that it is literally the concept of hope, right? The symbol for hope in the Kryptonian culture. So, you know, is there validity in what they say, right? Is— was there validity in us to criticize Man of Steel so much for being hopeless? And, uh, and, uh, we not do the same thing for this Superman trailer. So we're going to explore that today, and we're going to talk about why I think the idea that, uh, a good portion of the Superman fan base who are championing this film and making, uh, references like that, why they aren't hypocrites, and why I believe that, uh, there was a lot of hope, uh, in this film. So I first want to just start off by going back to the origins in Superman as far as we know. And that's, and that's going outside the Superman films because we know those films start, started in 19— well, they started before 1978 because you had these, a Superman television show I think started in the 1940s if I'm not mistaken, right? Um, 1950s, early '50s, um, with George— with the George Reeves character, right? And I'm not sure if they probably did like radio announcements, Superman serials and such, right? Because that was popular at the time as well. So, uh, but even before that, right, we get back to the origins of Superman, right? And that starts in about 19— 1933 with Jerry Siegel, right, as he writes The Reign of Superman, right? Now this does translate to Action Comics #1, right? That's when Superman officially makes it to the comic books, right? And so one great statement that was made about you know, many of us who liked the trailer and found this Superman portrayal hopeful was that we were only basing Superman on those movies, on those Donner films, on these television depictions outside the comic books, right? That, that those are just one particular story and area of Superman that over the decades Superman has expanded into all versions and all types of Superman, right? So Who was the first in the origin story then, right? If, if some— if, if one branch of Superman is going to kind of take credit for it, as far as us, you know, uh, trying to make the statement that this is how Superman should be, which one would have a little bit more credibility and validity? So let's, let's look at that by starting from the original creators and the first comics, right, to kind of at least see where it evolved from, right? So So at least in the genesis, you can go, oh, well, this is how it started off. Whatever it became after that was this artist's idea or the donor's idea, you know, or James Gunn's idea or Zack Snyder's idea, right? So we start off with the— with the Siegel, Jerry Siegel, right? In his first draft, The Reign of the Superman, right? Um, and so the original panels were rewritten and redrawn to create the first page of Action Comics #1. Baby Superman is sent to Earth by his scientist father in a hastily devised spaceship from a distant planet, which was destroyed by old age. After the spaceship lands on Earth, the passing motorists, discovering the sleeping baby within, turned the child over to an orphanage. The baby Superman lifts a large chair overhead with one hand, astounding the orphanage attendants with his feats of strength. When Superman, now named Clark Kent, reaches maturity, he discovers that he can leap 1/8 of a mile, hurdle 20-story buildings, raise tremendous weights, outrun a train, and that nothing less than a bursting shell could penetrate his skin. Clark decides that he must turn his titanic strength into channels that would benefit mankind, and so he was created Superman, champion of the oppressed, right? So that's all very interesting because this is the very first idea of Superman, and it is almost identical to many of the incarnations of Superman we see, right? There are slight differences, like You know, we oftentimes get the Kent family discovering him crash, you know, in a cornfield or something like that, uh, and, uh, you know, and they take him in and they hide him from the world and they raise him as their own child. Now the original is a motorist just happens to be passing by and he doesn't keep Clark, he turns him over to an orphanage, and Clark just kind of goes on and decides that from living amongst humans, he should help humanity. So, you know, slight differences, but the same idea, the same idea of Jor-El, his father, trying to save him from the destruction-bound Krypton and putting him on a spacecraft and sending him to Earth, right? And, uh, You know, when you think about sending a hero to Earth, right, in an escape craft, right, uh, these— the origins of those stories go back thousands of years as well. They could get very biblical in proportion themselves, right? You can, you can go to the story of Moses, right? Being sent away somewhere to save a nation of people. You can go to figures like Jesus being sent to Earth to save humanity, right? And so the Shusters and the Siegels, you know, possibly adapted those stories from earlier stories they heard themselves so far. And we get a lot of these depictions of Superman. But the, but the bounding idea to all of that is Superman is a hero who's out to save humanity, right? He's just not like an overpowered hero with no direction and, you know, and dark, doing whatever it takes. He's not an anti-villain. You know, he seems to be written as always to be a savior-type hero-based character in every story, right? In every structure. So I think the idea is for many of the Superman fandom is if he even— if he slightly starts to go away from that, right? If he seems a little dark, if he seems a little anti-villain, if he seems a little scary, if he, you know, any of those things— if he's not smiling and he has that warm, uh, you know, inviteful idea that I want to be, uh, I want to be embraced by humans, I want to be accepted by humanity— that any of those things are going to kind of uh, turn away from the idea of Superman, right? Is that fair to say? Right. So let's talk about specifically in the trailer what looked hopeful and what didn't look hopeful and why some people just felt that there was some, uh, hypocrisy or that we weren't being fair in that critique between you know, what we got a lot in those Zack Snyder films and in the Henry Cavill films. Okay, I first like to just point out, you know, in the opening shot, of course, you get Superman who's bloody. He's been beaten and he's thrown to the ground, thrown to Earth. And it looks violent. It looks— it doesn't look warm. It doesn't look hopeful. Right, to some, right? Until, until, until, until, guess who shows up? Crypto the Dog. And Crypto the Dog does look hopeful. What could be more hopeful than Crypto the Dog showing up and saving you? What could be more hopeful than that, right? And I like how they did it, right? Because I think it would have been weird if they showed Krypto flying. He's running and he's pushing up the Earth and he gets there, right? But in addition to that, let me also say this, right? Even if you wanted to say it, it, the opening, uh, looked depressing, right? With Superman getting beat in it. People wanted Superman to be strong and overpowered as such, right? Well, here's a few things to consider, right? First of all, Superman was getting beat up, right? He was getting harmed, right? That is still vastly different from him destroying cities and millions of people being in danger of being killed and all these things, right? You know, uh, remember, like, even if you want to look throughout movie history, a lot of times before Superman would fight in the midst of a city and destroy it, he would do all he could to lead the bad guys away from the city. You know, even if you, you look at like the Superman 2 films, right? Whereas they're in the same exact scenario. In fact, they're in a worse scenario because when they did the Man of Steel movie, Superman was basically fighting just one Kryptonian, right, in that, you know, in Metropolis. He didn't fight— he, he fought the three in Smallville, but it's gonna be more damage done in Metropolis. So he only fought one person in Metropolis, that was General Zod, right? Now in Superman 2, he fought three people in Metropolis. And he went, well, let me stop this, right? I'm just going to run away. And the idea was to lead them back, you know, to him, lead them away from the carnage and danger, right? And damage they were doing, right? And so that's what Superman does. He cleverly finds a way to do things like that. This Superman just stayed and blew up everything. And then he had to end up killing Zod at the end, right? And that's, you know, what's so unhopeful about it now. What we see in this opening trailer, we see Superman not destroying a lot of people, not in a major populated area, but he's, he's getting beat up in Antarctica, looks like, at the Fortress of Solitude. Maybe because— and I'm just going to assume here— maybe because this Superman did lead his enemies away from, you know, harming humans, right? Or maybe they just came looking for him, they knew where to find him, right? But in any event, it's still not the same, right? And there is hope because when he falls on the ground and he calls for Krypto, right? We have so many, uh, online, uh, videos now, these very hopeful, inspiring videos of animals saving their masters in, in bad situations, right? They're all over YouTube, right? And so a vulnerable Superman that looks more human, right? Because it's very difficult to, you know, if you're going to overpower a character, it's nothing is at stake, right? And that's another thing with Man of Steel. There were very few times when Superman was actually ever in any danger, right? You know, they were beating each other up, but it was just like two people beating each other to the end of nowhere, right? You know, nobody could overpower one another. The only thing they could do is just destroy, uh, the Earth. So, uh, there was no really high stakes of this Superman where he could be, you know, destroyed. Even when Zod took him on the ship and depowered him, you know, he didn't kill him or anything, right? You know, it was, you know, Superman's life was never at stake, never in danger, you know, in that sense. So, you know, in this film, um Uh, you know, the hope is obviously it's the great connection of you seeing this dog, right? Uh, a lot of animal owners out there and dog and pet moms and dads and whatnot. And so that just put a warm fuzzy feeling in your— in your— in you about it. But you know, but then you, you have some people say, oh, well, you know, even when he was kissing, um Uh, Lois Lane, right? Yes, they say even when he was kissing Lois Lane, I was hearing things like, oh, he wasn't smiling, then he wasn't happy about that, he wasn't hopeful about anything in this trailer. I, um, I saw something different though. What I saw was that them finding hope in the worst possible situation, right? And you're not gonna— hope doesn't necessarily mean you're excited or giddy, or, you know, you're— you know, hope is, is, is just that things are going to be okay, right? And so, you know, in some of the shots and some of the kisses, you see Superman kisses— kissing Lois Lane, but look what's going on behind him, right? The world's coming to the end, um, behind them, right? You see the, the sun's being blotted out by something. Uh, it looks like it's Armageddon or it's the end of the world happening as they're trying to find hope within each other, right? So that's what I saw, right? That's why I thought it was hopeful. In a, you know, in addition to that, uh, romantically there's a lot of hope because in the, in the Superman, um, I'm sorry, the Man of Steel films, uh, you know, and I like Amy Adams. I remember her from the Smallville days. A lot of people don't remember she was on— she got her start on Smallville. Smallville. So she is a— I wanted to be one of my favorite episodes, actually, uh, when Pete the Boss Ross was dating Amy Adams, right? So he can go say that, uh, I forget the actor who plays him. Sam, Sam Jones III. Yeah, I think it's Sam Jones III. Sam Jones III could say, hey, you know, I kissed Oscar-winning Amy Adams once upon a time, right? But, um, you know, unfortunately, even in Man of Steel, we just weren't buying that romantic connection. I never bought it. I never bought than Henry Cavill and Amy Adams, right? And a lot of people agree. This, this, this— I forget her name who's playing Lois Lane— she seems to be selling it, right? I'm— I just— in that little trailer, it looks real to me. It looks like, you know, it, it just— that little clip, right? And, uh, it just seems so forced in Man of Steel, and that was because You know, they have put so much energy and effort into, uh, you know, making this, uh, this, this badass Superman that they forgot to, uh, focus on his character and his story and focus more on, on him being Superman than destroying the, the globe. And of course, uh, they wanted to do that because Uh, you know, Marvel had already done such a great job of, you know, putting— so, you know, put— but Marvel had a long time to get their stories right, and DC was always behind and trying to rush in and catch up, so it didn't work. Um, and so, um, yeah, this is hopeful. It's a lot more believable. And, um, you know, and yeah, so that's kind of how I see the film. Now, you know, again, some say, uh you know, we're resting on the John Williams theme, right, from the Donner films, right? But let me— let— but let's kind of put that in a proper perspective, right? It's not exactly the John Williams theme, right? This is— this is an electric guitar version, right? So this is kind of like a mix between a Hans Zimmer and a John Williams, right? Which is— I thought was a great choice, right? Because it kind of modernized it, right? And it still had those elements in it, right? And yeah, I get it. I, I, I'm, I'm not taking away from that point, right? But, but it also just, I think, means that, you know, even if you want to say something like the, the Donner films are just one aspect of the Superman mythos, uh, and that we keep making it the pinnacle, and, uh, Superman is so much more than that. Yeah, I agree with that, but I also— I think we also have to accept that even in the comic book world, after the success of those Donner films, which was a huge success, all of the comic books kind of were influenced then from those Donner films. So even when you would go into comics, you would still be still pulling from those Donner films. You would still be kind of, you know, etched into them. And so it was kind of like no escaping them. So it was almost like an accepted cultural switch to this is what Superman is going to be going forward, right? And because up really up until the Schusters in the '30s and maybe that 1940 Superman serial, you— most of the years were spent in that period of the Christopher Reeves films, which went from like the '70s to the late '80s, right? So you had a long span, uh, there, right? Uh, and, and so on, right? And, um, let me see, I can't think of some of the other complaints about it being dark and Superman. I think they just mentioned Superman fighting, you know, fighting quite a bit. Fighting a lot of people, right? He was battling, and there was some city destruction, right? And that is true, right? That we did see elements of that, right? We were gonna have to see some elements of that. But I think we expect to see that. But so far, what we get in the trailers is— is— could nowhere be in comparison to what we got in Man of Steel. And not even in the Man of Steel trailers. I think even the Man of Steel trailers were just When they had those— when they were showing like the world-building machines in those Man of Steel trailers, even that was just so destructive, you know, went far beyond what we got here. So, you know, of course you gotta see Superman, you know, dealing with, you know, fighting enemies. But I would say this is quite a bit of, uh, of hope, uh, you know, uh, that, you know, with the kid hosting, posting up, you know, lifting up the pole, the poles and stuff, to, to praying for Superman to come. Now, to be fair they, they did, you know, a lot of references made to like Batman vs Superman, some of, you know, going into the other Man of Steel movies where, you know, you see like montages of him saving different people. You see, you know, montages of him doing this and that, but that's after the fact that he's done so much damage, you know. It's hard to recover, you know, from that after you've killed people and you've, you countless humans likely have had to die, and then, uh, you've had to kill Zod. You know, that's the best thing you could come up with. And, um, you know, it's just so hard to recover from that. Now, if this Superman is faced with choices like that and he can't get out of that situation any better than that, then yeah, I, I think that it would be a lot of validity in that, and it would be time to make a fair comparison. But at this point, from the trailers, uh, there— to me, there is a lot more hope. Even how the film looks, like, let's not forget that as well. The film itself looks hopeful because bright colors, just like the sun shining, typically seem to suggest hopefulness. You know, this not Gotham City. Gotham City doesn't look hopeful. It looks full of crime, right? Metropolis looks like your major metropolitan city in an advanced culture trying to go forward, right? So anyway, that's all I wanted to say in this video because I could go on and on and I don't want to just create nothing burgers and nitpick everything. But that's our take on it. Tell me guys what you think. Do you think we are a bit unfair and our critique of man is still, you know, trying to save humanity and running into hiccups that maybe nobody could avoid, right? You got these superpowered villains that are destroying the city, and how much can you do, right? Are we being fair in our critique of that film, right? And where the focus should be, right? And do you feel this trailer did show a hopeful Superman, right? Uh, you know, uh, you know, obviously it showed a, a Superman at the time who was being overpowered, and to me that just made him look more human. And that suggested that if he could overcome this, uh, which I'm hoping he will through this movie, that, uh, he is a hopeful Superman and he is trying to get the hope. Uh, the, the Man of Steel Superman seemed to me fully in control. I don't remember most times where he was, he was, he was, you know, down on his luck. He couldn't win. Uh, everything Zod did to him seemed to be a lesson, uh, with no real far-reaching consequences, not to him at least. And so, uh, yeah, that's where we're at. But I'm going to end the video here, guys. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button if you like this content. Uh, it's very important to the algorithm, is very important to getting more of us on the channel in the discussion. And we would very much like to discuss with you all about the type of Superman you would like to see. But that's all I want to say in this video. Until next time, as always, take care of yourselves and each other.