I watched the latest Man of Steel trailer recently and found myself thinking one thing: Superman has gotten heavy. I mean this both literally and metaphorically. Watch in the trailer as he takes off to fly. The ground cracks from his takeoff.
I find this really fascinating. As Quentin Tarantino put it in Kill Bill, the Superman comic is not great, but the mythology and philosophy of it is amazing and fun to contemplate.
Take the classic superman. Originally, he didn't fly. He bounded over buildings. He was a man with super enhancements, but he was still really just a man. It took a while for the creators to take him to the next level of Superman = demigod.
In the silver age, Superman was feather light. When he flew, he would just flit into the air without effort. Likewise, the problems he solved were simpler. Punch the bad guys, rescue the girl. The problems were light, and so was Superman.
Now the 80's were interesting. Superman was still light, but the problems he faced were increasingly heavy. Should he police the world? Why is he more concerned about first world problems over third world? Should he really be in love? However, Superman himself remained light in his flight; an unconscious allegory for how he as a character is poorly equipped to actually deal with these problems in a realistic way. Subsequently, there is an increasing shift for problems to be on a galactic level, where Superman's duty is to protect Earth from other forces in the universe rather than to protect us from ourselves.
The nineties were primarily occupied with the "Death of Superman" as it were (a topic for another day). This did create a level of depth to Superman and his flying has over the years become increasingly less, well, flighty, especially outside of the comics. In the Smallville TV show, he creates a small concussive blast around him when he takes off. In the "Return of Superman", for his confrontation with Lex, he lands like an anvil, shaking the ground. And now we have a Superman that literally cracks the surface of the Earth when he leaves it. A postmodern Superman who can't rise above the problems of the world without changing the world.
I find this really fascinating. As Quentin Tarantino put it in Kill Bill, the Superman comic is not great, but the mythology and philosophy of it is amazing and fun to contemplate.
Take the classic superman. Originally, he didn't fly. He bounded over buildings. He was a man with super enhancements, but he was still really just a man. It took a while for the creators to take him to the next level of Superman = demigod.In the silver age, Superman was feather light. When he flew, he would just flit into the air without effort. Likewise, the problems he solved were simpler. Punch the bad guys, rescue the girl. The problems were light, and so was Superman.
Now the 80's were interesting. Superman was still light, but the problems he faced were increasingly heavy. Should he police the world? Why is he more concerned about first world problems over third world? Should he really be in love? However, Superman himself remained light in his flight; an unconscious allegory for how he as a character is poorly equipped to actually deal with these problems in a realistic way. Subsequently, there is an increasing shift for problems to be on a galactic level, where Superman's duty is to protect Earth from other forces in the universe rather than to protect us from ourselves.
The nineties were primarily occupied with the "Death of Superman" as it were (a topic for another day). This did create a level of depth to Superman and his flying has over the years become increasingly less, well, flighty, especially outside of the comics. In the Smallville TV show, he creates a small concussive blast around him when he takes off. In the "Return of Superman", for his confrontation with Lex, he lands like an anvil, shaking the ground. And now we have a Superman that literally cracks the surface of the Earth when he leaves it. A postmodern Superman who can't rise above the problems of the world without changing the world.
Granted, in a long running comic book series, you can't tackle this. He CAN'T really solve the "heavy" problems or else the world would cease to be identifiable for the readers (see the TV trope: Reed Richards is useless.) As we've seen with Nolan's Batman, though, a character arc can be explored over a handful of movies before the impact of the character begins to overly warp the world into a place that we, the audience, no longer recognize. With a Superman now looks to be more divorced from the comics than ever, I'm hopeful that we will see a more genuine look at what a super man would have to deal with in this world.
Impressive analysis, CC. I too had noticed that the Superman effects had gotten increasingly over the top, but I simply attributed it to each film maker having to outdo the film before. Yes, Superman lands like an anvil, but so does Ironman, Thor, even Hawkeye (arrow-Hawkeye, not scalpel-Hawkeye.)
ReplyDeleteEven as a kid watching George Reeves as Superman I wondered why the concrete didn't crack as he launched, after all, he didn't actually fly, he leapt ("Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.") So with that much force concentrated in two size 12s, I always thought it SHOULD have cracked.
But in my simple mind I never associated the weightiness of his flight with the weightiness of his problems.
I get frustrated with the outsized effects that all adventure movies seem to need, as suspension of disbelief become every so much harder to achieve without the use of pharmaceuticals. But with the weight of the universe upon him, of course his takeoffs and landings would become more difficult.
Thanks. NM