What next for superman?

What a weird decision Warner Bros made while deciding to bring superman back to the movie screen. It's clear they wanted it both ways, to continue the Reeve/Donner movies, keeping what worked so well about them, and gaining a newer audience with the modern fx budget that can create very cool visuals. Oh and suddenly superman has a son which is another way of letting people know this superman is a new one only disguised as the old one.

I know some 8 year old won't care about all that and love the movie to death anyway, so I'm not against it. It is a powerful drama after all. What people will think about its status alongside the old movies is where things get strange and funky....

That's why there's still such a battle happening between superman fans. There are 3 sides to this: Comic fans (who I would say are the most righteous and their discontent), Smallville fans (Who were battered and teased by Returns fans and want revenge) and Returns fans (Who are some of the most pretentious jerks on earth, but at least now are starting to relax and see that there are some legitimate criticisms towards it...)

Superman Returns came in 2006 and brought with it a storm which I've never witnessed before online. I was there when the infamous star wars prequels came out and although we got into some heated arguments over Jar Jar, or the acting, or the story line, we found common ground in our love for star wars, always able to keep in mind that this is all in fun. I was there for Batman's new movie. This I'd say was like a practice run for superman's return. Batman fans are some of the worst you'll ever find, they'll destroy anyone who isn't in their bubble etc... and I thought they were pretty awful, but even they found fault with their movie at least, even if it's just a superficial thing. I thought I'd seen the worst in people's behavior back in 2005, but no... no no no..... Returns gave us people who though are probably normal regular joes with no real mental issues, became monsters all in the name of earth's greatest hero. War does that. It blinds you to what's right in front of you and makes you crazy.

The Superman Movies War was a fiasco. Basically, what happened, no one saw coming. Sure there was a new superman and sure there were people who constantly criticized things and discussed how it could be done better etc... but I think the movie being such an event, the first superman movie in decades, really elevated people's desire to actually convince people that they're right, so much so that they'll fight for it, develop clans and gangs to hopefully gain power and dominate the forum. It's that level of losing touch with reality I never want to do again...

I don't know what'll be the real outcome of this thing. The prequel movies came and went and are now either viewed as 3 big wastes of film or simply kids movies that shouldn't be taken too seriously. Batman Begins still has its overly zealous fans, for sure, but even less so now that the new batman movie makes it look less great in hindsight. I guess Superman Returns will be looked back on as a weird experiment that seemed like a good idea at the time. What else could they do with superman but I guess push him into a new level, with smallville covering the origin already, what else is there to do but make a sequel. Of course the problem there was that people have actually moved on from the original movie. Perhaps it was too late to make a sequel to that in light of how much has changed for superman over the years. It's funny though, if Superman Returns were released directly after the decent superman 2, would there have been such a uproar? The kid thing probably would have caused some problems... Oh it's just so confusing.

What is this movie, is it a bird, is it a plane, is it a sequel? No, it's the end of superman on the movie screen for quite a while...