superman

IJM weighs in on antiheroes, the future of Superman

June 3, 2020 by robmcclel 1 Comment

“Watchmen” TV creator Damon Lindelof was asked in a recent interview what he thought a modern-day Superman film needed to look like in order to be successful at the box office. Basically, he gave the stock response about the myriad challenges of making a boy scout like Supers relevant in today’s age of antiheroes.

As a child of the 80s/90s and as a lifelong fan of this character, I always take umbrage with this assertion. Fact is, there are still legions of fans out there who want to root for the good guys simply because they’re that — good guys. Heck, I’m one of them.

Don’t get me wrong. I like a complex protagonist as much as the next consumer. I also like it when my characters learn things along the path of their journey. At the same time, it’s refreshing sometimes to follow characters who possess an innate understanding of right and wrong, and we as fans know they’ll never compromise that, no matter what the story throws at them.

Does that make characters like Superman vanilla or predictable? Maybe. Know what else is predictable, though? The bonafide awesomeness of my mom’s lasagna, and you can bet your hard-earned dollar that I’ll piledrive every ounce of that plate anytime it’s put down in front of me.

As an aside, Lindelof goes on to express his excitement over the idea of J.J. Abrams directing a Superman film now that the latter is a major player at Warner Brothers (a hot rumor lately).

I want to be clear here: I couldn’t care less about an Abrams-led Superman film. Sorry. Part of that has to do with the mess he helped make of Star Wars. Mostly, though, it’s because I read his script for “Superman: Flyby” back in the early 2000s, and again, as a lifelong fan of this character, I thought the liberties J.J. took with the mythology were way out of bounds (Jor-El did NOT commit suicide and Lex Luthor ISN’T a Kryptonian). 😕

Anywho, I read this story earlier on Twitter and it struck a chord. So, I thought I’d take a sec to chime in while I had a minute.

Cheers and stay safe, y’all. As always, feel free to hit me up on social media if you think I went wrong somewhere.

Ian

PS — Mega-bestselling scifi author Chris Kennedy and I had a great discussion about the subject of good guy characters versus antiheroes on the most recent episode of The Dudes in Hyperspace Podcast. Feel free to go back and give a listen then leave a review on your podcasting app once you’re done. We, the Dudes, REALLY appreciate those. 😉

INTERVIEW: IJM chats writing, “Colonies Lost,” and more with Rob Howell

August 1, 2018 by robmcclel Leave a Comment

Hey gang, I recently got to sit down with my good friend and fellow author, Rob Howell, for a fun chat about all things genre and craft on his blog.

Among the topics discussed include:

Colonies Lost
The craft of writing
The SF genre
Fandom
Pets
Personal favorites for foods, superheroes, music, and more

Click here to read the interview, and be sure to check out Rob’s work when you’re done reading!

Cheers, and talk soon… Ian

IJM finally sees Justice League

March 24, 2018 by robmcclel 1 Comment

Finally got around to watching Justice League last night. Believe it or not, I didn’t think it sucked. Was it the best superhero movie I’ve ever seen? Not even close. However, it was a far cry better than Thor: The Dark World, X-Men: The Last Stand, or Spider-Man 3.

What didn’t work about this film:

The Directors Switch: I’ve got no argument with fans who labeled this picture a train wreck of Frankenstein proportions in terms of tone and story. The change in directors from Zack Snyder to Joss Whedon was totally evident from title to credits, and that manifested itself in every aspect of this film from visual style to dialogue.

Movie Barry needs to be different then TV Barry : Ezra Miller’s Barry Allen/Flash, while relatively humorous at times, was something of a throwaway character. I get why DC didn’t want to use Grant Guston from the television series. However, don’t recast the character then use musical elements and story themes from the show and expect CW fans to give Barry 2.0 a pass. If you’re gonna change the character, change the character.

Me personally? I’d have stuck with Guston and called it a day.

The Return of Superman: Superman’s resurrection was also a bit dodgy for my liking. Without giving anything away, I didn’t like the way this film handled that. I’d have stuck with the source material from the comics and moved on to the next scene.

Eisenberg as Lex Luthor is beyond saving: There are several references to Lex Luthor in this film (one in particular), which suggests that DC/WB has no plans to recast this character. That’s a real shame. I like Eisenberg in certain roles, but he was just, plain awful as Lex. Period. End of story. Peace. Gotta go.

On paper, I get why you’d want to reinvent Luthor for the modern era, ala an evil Mark Zuckerberg. In reality, it just didn’t work. Sorry. Time to cut your losses and move on with a new actor.

Steppenwolf was terrible: I thought Aries from Wonder Woman was the most cookie-cutter, cliché villain I’d ever seen in one of these films. I was wrong. Steppenwolf took the cake, horns and all.

What did work about this film:

The Cast: The core cast DC has assembled for this franchise is spot-on — and yes, I’ll even toss Batfleck into that. Ben is a solid Bruce Wayne, really solid, and Cavill is a fantastic Superman. I also like Momoa as Aquaman, Fisher as Cyborg, and I’ve long since been on record as saying that Gal Gadot’s portrayal of Diana Prince/Wonder Woman is one of the best in comic film history (male or female).

Final thoughts:

At the end of the day, I think this cast could really work with a good story and solid direction. Snyder is clearly not that director, though the Firefly homer in me will forever think Whedon could’ve been had he guided this project from green flag to checkers. Alas, we’ll never know.

With Flashpoint on the way, it’s likely that much of what I’ve discussed above will be changed. As to the length of those changes, we’ll just have to wait and see.

My suggestions: Leave the core JL roster as is, separate Barry’s story from that of the CW series, recast Lex immediately, and bring in some new storytelling blood with some fresh characters to spice things up. *cough* Nathan Fillion as Hal Jordan. *cough*

Cheers, y’all. Thanks as always for the vine, and feel free to drop your own thoughts in the comments below if you’ve got some.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to hammer out some rewrites on Where Eagles Fly then put some finishing touches on the Colonies Lost prequel short story, Nightfall.

Later!