Superman returns
Aug. 1st, 2006 10:06 amIt was well crafted, but didn't really excite me. It looked good, had a good plot (the villian's plan was, well, fairly reasonable), the characters fit, but didn't really grip me.
I think they drew a new perspective on superman's power, making him seem slightly less omnipotent, which I think overall worked well, though occasionally seemed odd in the context of the other films: last time he could fly round the earth in a seventh of a second, how did he have so much difficulty catching up with something? But you did get the impression there may be things he can't do.
Richard was nice. Despite being too good to be true, he was also pleasant, and trusting, and had a sense of humour, but I still felt sorry for him, he still seemed too nice to be interesting, if you see what I mean.
It made me think. Often you're asked, what would you do if you were god? Hard to answer. And omnipotence is hard to define: OK, you can do anything, but even leaving aside paradoxes, eg. can you do everything at once? A more graspable question is, what would you do if you were superman?
Is it a problem with free will if you do too much? Maybe. Ruling the world may or may not be a good idea. But instead of being a reporter I accept a small stipend for large engineering projects. Imagine a vast clean fresh-water river flowing through some countries. Imagine infinite free power. Imagine food and medicine being flown all across the world.
Instead I'd adopt a social life where I don't have the be on time, centred around having normal friends, and preferably something where superpowers don't help, eg. dancing, pub quizzing, or something :)
In terms of tackling crime I'd probably be more systematic. If I prevent one crime every five minutes, that's not *that* much, because no-one thinks *they'll* be caught. I'd adopt a small area, stop *every* violent crime there, and work my way outward. Then no-one would even start something, because with nothing else going on they'd know I'd be right there. He probably is right to just catch people and hand them over to the law though, it's enough of a deterent without becoming a tyrant.
I think they drew a new perspective on superman's power, making him seem slightly less omnipotent, which I think overall worked well, though occasionally seemed odd in the context of the other films: last time he could fly round the earth in a seventh of a second, how did he have so much difficulty catching up with something? But you did get the impression there may be things he can't do.
Richard was nice. Despite being too good to be true, he was also pleasant, and trusting, and had a sense of humour, but I still felt sorry for him, he still seemed too nice to be interesting, if you see what I mean.
It made me think. Often you're asked, what would you do if you were god? Hard to answer. And omnipotence is hard to define: OK, you can do anything, but even leaving aside paradoxes, eg. can you do everything at once? A more graspable question is, what would you do if you were superman?
Is it a problem with free will if you do too much? Maybe. Ruling the world may or may not be a good idea. But instead of being a reporter I accept a small stipend for large engineering projects. Imagine a vast clean fresh-water river flowing through some countries. Imagine infinite free power. Imagine food and medicine being flown all across the world.
Instead I'd adopt a social life where I don't have the be on time, centred around having normal friends, and preferably something where superpowers don't help, eg. dancing, pub quizzing, or something :)
In terms of tackling crime I'd probably be more systematic. If I prevent one crime every five minutes, that's not *that* much, because no-one thinks *they'll* be caught. I'd adopt a small area, stop *every* violent crime there, and work my way outward. Then no-one would even start something, because with nothing else going on they'd know I'd be right there. He probably is right to just catch people and hand them over to the law though, it's enough of a deterent without becoming a tyrant.