fevered.earth

Tag: Superman

  • Superman: Solar

    This review was originally published on Letterboxd, but Superman: Solar was removed from that service.

    Superman saves the cow.

    You can’t get mad at a fan film! It’s always nice to see people play the hits, and when Superman: Solar stays in that ball park it’s positively lovable. Much like the titular character, the film is at its best when allowed to ‘cut loose’ and do a flying action scene with a dynamic camera which captures no small percent of the dynamism of Man of Steel, the short’s obvious inspiration.

    Everyone involved here is giving it their all, but the standard deviation of quality scene-to-scene ends up quite wide. For example, there’s a scene towards the end where Clark meets Lois Lane to accept a job at the Daily Planet suffers terribly from the choice of set location, which ends up making the placid Clark seem like he’s borderline harassing Lane simply by remaining present in the tight corridor. Lex Luthor has an extended cameo by a chap doing a stellar Jason Statham impression, which is certainly a new direction for the character — I wanted more of that guy. And the green screen is pretty competently done, with only some evidently strained lighting choices and backspill in the desert fight to complain about.

    It’s that connection to Man of Steel which is Superman: Solar’s Achilles’s heel though. Snyder’s film is both saint and sinner to this adaptation, with constant commendably-executed visual references somewhat at war with a script that has a little of the ‘fix-it’ ethos about it. When it’s not dubious pablum put into the mouths of side characters (the Clarks “saved our business” says one man, so he won’t be turning them in to the FBI) the script is relitigating twitter arguments which border on theodicy. Aping Batman v Superman’s news studio scenes, a pair of broadcasters debate whether an invincible man is braver than the troops. A delightfully hard-nosed Lois Lane asks directly if Superman is a ‘dictator’, but is bizarrely placated when he basically answers ‘yes’.

    The central conflict of the film isn’t drawn from Man of Steel however, it’s ostensibly pulled from the page of Grant Morrison’s All-Star Superman where Superman rescues Regan, a suicidal teen, from a rooftop. I’ve long argued that the page in question is very specific to the format and context and would prove difficult to adapt to another medium, and this does not dissuade me. The scene as adapted quickly swings into bathos, but the absurd dialogue between Superman and the teen — who gives a performance that rescues the affair — ends up coming round to its own poignancy. They connect, not because any of Superman’s mantras hit home, but just in that they make a silly shared conversation on this rooftop, and connect, and sometimes that’s all someone needs.

    Damn Superman, gonna make the kid host you for dinner?

    As I said above, ultimately it’s quite a fun watch. Making films is hard! Hollywood, with its outlandish budgets, often makes it seem like the easiest thing in the world. This fan film aims high, and I can’t hate that.

  • A response to “Superman Saves the Cat”

    This short essay responds to the video “Superman Saves the Cat” by essayist Maggie Mae Fish.

    In Superman (1978) a mother slaps her child for a presumed lie about a man swooping down from the sky.

    My problem begins with the slap. The child, having met and interacted with Superman, and having received a light scolding from him, heads indoors and — by her mother — is slapped. I agree with you about the cycle of violence and the message conveyed — that Superman is the embodiment of America’s better nature — but the truth of the scene is belied in that slap. Richard Donner is a cynic; I don’t think it’s credible to claim that the director of Lethal Weapon is so doe-eyed that he was unaware that this is how the scene plays out. Superman could have intervened and prevented that child coming to physical harm; he could have walked her home and met her mother, and found out for himself what kind of cycle of violence was being incurred. But Donner’s Superman does not use his powers to fix the world.

    The status quo, being very literally restored in the scene from Superman (1978) where time is reversed.

    There is a difference, as I don’t believe you note in your video, between the things that happen in a film and the message the film sends about them being done. I agree that the sequence of shots from Batman v Superman are intended to convey Superman’s actions with a degree of ambivalence and separation. The sequence is intercut with talking heads criticising Superman, if it weren’t clear enough. But crucially, the actions he is depicted as performing are heroic. They might be presented in any given way, but they are unambiguously heroic and are not undercut for humour or cynicism like Donner chooses to do. Is it not heroic to save people if you feel conflicted about the positions you are put in? Does it become less heroic to have rescued people from a burning building if you are later frustrated or angry when criticised? Which is to say: your thesis appears to be that the content of a message is irrelevant if it is perceived to have the wrong tone. This is the crux of your criticism of Man of Steel.

    Clark saves a family in this scene from the climax of Man of Steel.

    Clark in Man of Steel is never shown to do other than the correct thing, save human life discerningly and unconditionally. You specifically mock the scene where he kills Zod to protect a cowering family; would it have been more heroic to let them die? He acts; he would presumably have intervened in the young girl getting slapped. Perhaps he would have overreacted, as when he wrecks the driver’s truck. Donner’s Superman, for all his merits, does not act in the scene. He rescues the cat from the tree, a trivial, superficial heroism, but he goes no further. His heroism is restricted to maintaining the status quo. You compare the Superman of Man of Steel to a cop in that he “doesn’t care about human life”, an utterly torturous (and perhaps distasteful) allusion to of the problems with policing in the United States. But what is worse, to use power fairly but wrestle with misgivings, or to use power unquestioningly to maintain the status quo?

    There’s a dog, I guess.

    Man of Steel does not literally save a cat, but it has scenes where Clark performs selfless acts which help others at a cost to him; it is slightly dishonest, in my opinion, to intercut these with scenes from Batman v Superman which are intended to distance us from the character, as if they were all of a kind. Donner’s Superman has a scene where he literally saves a cat, and literally allows a child to be slapped. Cinematic language can convey many things and is very interesting to develop, but it first and foremost conveys the literal events which happen onscreen and a project which bypasses those to speculate on psychoanalysis of the director is misguided at best.

    If you’re interested in more writing on Man of Steel, please check out my essay “Morality and choice in Man of Steel”. For more of my long-form work on comic book films, watch “Sixteen attempts to talk to you about Suicide Squad”.