WATCH THIS SPACE: QUEST FOR STEEL

I have a tendency to ad lib my narrations so what said in this description doesn't match up with what I said in this video.

So James Gunn’s Superman is good. The guy who did three of the best MCU films surprisingly knows how to make a great superhero film that has a lot of weird, offbeat and obscure elements and makes them work and added to a Superman film, film series that often has trouble to trying to leave the shadow of the 1978 film, and make it seem new. It has elements like Krypto or his robot assistants or additional DC characters like Guy Gardner, Hawkgirl, Metamorpho or Mister Terrific. We haven’t seen goofy stuff like that in a superhero film, especially in a DC film and it sets itself apart from the other films. But I also like how it adds in elements from two of the older films and you’d be surprised which ones 

Yeah, as I mentioned before the 1978 Superman film has a large cultural footprint. Elements like the design of the Fortress of Solitude going from arctic cave to crystal fortress and the “S” symbol being the symbol of the House of El have been adapted into the comic and other adaptations and characters like Lex Luthor’s assistants Miss Teschmacher and Otis have been used other adaptations like the CW series or have been added to the comics and the death of Jonathan Kent from a heart attack has been a major aspect of the character’s mythos. But James Gunn’s Superman film had a surprisingly enough, for me, more connective tissue with Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and Man of Steel. 

Quest for Peace is often considered one of the bad ones out of the Christopher Reeve films, bad effects, low budget hampering everything and Milton Keynes is now New York. But one element of the film is that it involves Superman dealing with geopolitical topics. In Superman IV it has Superman walking in the UN and telling them he’s going to disarm all these countries' nuclear arsenals and they all go along with it. Gunn's film deals with geopolitics, namely Superman intervening in a conflict between two countries, but unlike Quest for Peace it deals with the consequences of that. That film also has Lex Luthor involved and like that film has him trying to benefit to the geopolitical conflict. In Quest for Peace he’s making a play at arms dealing, in Gunn’s film he’s also doing that but trying to get land. I know he’s also doing that just to show he’s better than Superman, but I felt it was similar to Hackman’s version character so I thought I’d bring that up. 

THIS PART GETS INTO SPOILERS ABOUT THE FILM, BEST SKIP THIS SECTION IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE FILM. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. 

Also Ultraman, who turns out to be a clone of Superman in the end. While this does bring to mind Bizarro, especially with him being sent in the pocket dimension which seems like a set up for Bizarro, but also in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, that has Lex Luthor create his own Superman, Nuclear Man. In a bit of dialogue Lex mentioned that he was created from a scrap of Superman’s hair. Yeah, Gunn, a man who put Howard the Duck in the MCU, is not afraid to reference prior 80’s comic book adaptations. Now get Heather Locklear in this universe and he gets a trifecta. 

SPOILER TIME OVER FOR NOW

Now there have been lots of comparisons made between this film and the last Superman reboot, 2013’s Man of Steel. Which I think is fair, as Man of Steel tried to go in a different direction than the previous Superman movies but the end result is a little bit divisive, to say the least. You can Gunn build upon themes and ideas that previous Superman film director Zack Snyder had touched upon in his films.  

SPOILERS AGAIN. PLEASE SKIP IF YOU DON’T WANT TO WANT THE MOVIE TO GET SPOILED

For instance how he handles Krypton. While it isn’t that much of a focus in his film, but Gunn does make a big change in their depiction of what is usually shown as a more utopian, but flawed civilisation as a more colonial one. Man of Steel did touch upon it as well, but with Krypton being more explorers rather man militaristic, along with Zod’s plot in that film was to make Earth Krypton with the DubStep machine. This also isn’t new, My Adventures of Superman depict Krypton in a more militaristic fashion as well, and during the New 52 Lara was made apart of Krypton’s military, but it’s noticeable when comparing the films. 

SPOILER TALK OVER. 

Also Gunn’s depiction feels like a refined version of what Snyder was doing in Batman v. Superman. In the DCEU, Lex Luthor was reimagined as a tech billionaire like Mark Zuckerberg because that was easy screenwriting shorthand at the time, they even got Jesse Eisenberg to play, an updating of the post-crisis Lex Luthor but he also combined with his mad scientist characterization from the pre-crisis continuity. BvS’ Luthor feels a bit derivative of other tech industry characters that were happening at the time, with Jesse Eisenberg’s performance feeling a bit too manic, compare that to Gunn and Nicholas Hoult’s Luthor and you can see he's a bit more defined and a bit more darker. Gunn as a writer knows how to write villains and makes them utterly reprehensible. Him and Hoult’s manic but he has menace and makes a pretty light film dark while Eisenberg’s Luthor was manic but not that threatening and a bit silly in a film that was trying to be serious.

So those were my stray observations about a great I movie I watched recently, is  any observations you made about this film, sound off in the comments and don’t forget to share this video, like it and also subscribe to my channel.