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Y. M. Nelson: Hello, nerdy romantics! OMG I’m so excited, right?

Gosh, I always say I’m so excited, but I really am excited for this one. OMG we are talking about James Gunn’s Superman today, and I have with me Staci, Jen, Perry, my guest host today to talk Superman.

[​SPOILER ALERT KLAXON]

Y. M. Nelson: So, everybody just, lock in. This is gonna be a really, really good discussion.

This is the Nerdy Romantics Podcast, and I’m your host, YM Nelson.

Alright everyone, how are y’all doing today?

Jen G.: So good, so happy to be here and to talk to you about this.

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[00:01:22] How excited were we about James Gunn’s Superman?

Y. M. Nelson: I’m so happy that y’all are here because I tell you I said immediately when this came out that I wanted to see it. And when I went to see it, I did go with a friend and I talked with that friend, but I was like, I really wanna talk like nerdy comic book.

I, I just, I just wanna just really just go off and talk. And so, I’m so happy to finally talk about this one with some nerdy comic book folks or just comic folks. All right. So, we are going to talk everything James Gunn, Superman. And first off, because I’ve already said, I went and see it with, with a friend.

I did go to the theater when it came out. How about everybody else? How did we come about this? Were we excited to see it? What was going on when it first came out? Or did you just wait until it came on HBO Max, which is where it’s currently airing? Jen, what about you?

Jen G.: Oh, I was a hundred percent in, a hundred percent in to go see this.

I was a little cautious ’cause I know I really liked Henry Cavill as Superman. I think as a, as an actor, I think he’s a great guy. And also, the, the little that I know about him, kind of behind the scenes, I think that there’s, there’s a lot of I, I was like, he, they really chose a great guy for this.

But I loved, I loved Superman back in back when Christopher Reeve was Superman and I especially loved Lois Lane in that movie. And so it was, it was very high on our list, like we wanted to go opening weekend. My husband and I, on more than one occasion have been Superman in Lois Lane for Halloween.

This is a, this is like, yeah, this is a big deal for us. So, I love this. So, we saw it in the theater on the big screen. And then and then I watched it again in preparation for this because I haven’t seen it in a couple months, so, Hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: Mm-hmm. Staci, what about you? How did you feel going in? Did you see it in the theater?

Staci: Okay. So, I wanted to see it when it was in the theaters, but I think it, it came out like my birthday week. I don’t know what happened. I just didn’t go and see it.

And then it just kind of dropped off my radar for the whole thing until we said that you were gonna do this. And I was like, before you said that or mentioned it, you know, I saw it on my Amazon Prime , Hey, Superman’s gonna be coming, whatever, whatever.

And I was like, oh, lemme go ahead and see it. And and I really forgot this podcast was this Friday because I wanted to kind of go back and see some of the previous Supermans like, I mean, I remember Christopher Reeve. I remember the other ones, but the one before Henry Cavill, that one, I, I was trying to see just the different versions that they’ve had over the years and compare that.

And I was gonna do that this weekend. I was like, oh, then know, I got the little notification that this was, this one. I was like, well, I can’t watch those other ones again. But I am excited about it. I was excited about, but not like really overly excited. I wanted to see it. ’cause I remember, I mean, I remember Christopher Reeve.

That was my first Superman experience. The music and the soundtrack and all that. So, I was really excited. But I’ll be honest, I have not been really excited to go into movie theaters for a while now.

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah.

Staci: Yeah. And that, but when it did come out and see it on my TV I’m well, we’ll go about how we thought of the movie in general, but I’ve watched it on my TV and I didn’t go to the movie theater to watch it.

Y. M. Nelson: Mm-hmm. Perry, what about you? Did you go to the movie theater and how excited were you to see this, and was this on your radar? I it was definitely on your radar. What am I talking about?

We talked about it at Superman and Lois. You were like, are you gonna see this? I was like, okay.

Perry C.: I think I may have already seen it when we did that at last episode, if, if I’m recalling the timelines correctly.

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah, yeah.

Perry C.: No, I know, I know. I, we did it, it, it was like just before it came out. Yeah. But, you know, as, as you know, I host my own superhero podcast and Superman’s my favorite character. I’m a frequent guest on a Superman podcast. So, I was totally on board for this. And I love James Gunn, like The Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy is, you know, the best trilogy of the MCU.

And his, you know, the Suicide Squad that he directed and, and Peacemaker. I was not expecting to like Peacemaker, but that show blew me away. I still gotta see the new season, actually, because it just finished. Yeah.

So I was, when they announced that James Gunn was taking over and like, rebooting the, the DC movies, I was so psyched ’cause I thought you could not have gotten a more perfect person.

And, when the first trailer came out, and we saw the first images, I’m like, oh, he’s, he’s. He’s not doing the, we’re gonna make this ground and everything. He’s leaning full on into the, the comic book-y, wacky sci-fi stuff.

And I saw it in the theater. It went opening night, went to a late showing, and I, I loved it. I’ve seen it like three or four times since then. Not only in theater one time, but since then I’ve seen it like three or four times on VOD and yeah. Amazing. I loved it.

Y. M. Nelson: When you went to see in the theater for that, was it packed?

Perry C.: Not really, because there’s, you know, the Japanese theaters, they’re not, there’s not a whole big showing for Western movies like there. At least not in my area.

Y. M. Nelson: Wow. Right.

Perry C.: So, it wasn’t packed. There was a good, there was a decent amount of people there for a late showing though, but it was, I wouldn’t say it was packed.

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah, I always wondered like culturally, like the theater experience, what’s the difference? You know, and then,

Perry C.: Well, one of the big differences is that in Japan, the audiences, they don’t react at all. Like, it’s, it’s so quiet, you can hear a pin drop. So, the only exception was Avengers End Game when when Cap shouts “Avengers assemble.”

That was the only time I could think of when people reacted in a movie in Japan.

Staci: Hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: Wow. Oh my gosh. Who would be crazy if they went to, you know, I’m not gonna, no, this is not a stereotype or anything, but when my family and my friends get together for a movie! That’s all I’m gonna say to that.

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[00:07:32] A Comic Book Feel – The James Gunn Effect

Y. M. Nelson: But anyway, let’s actually get into the movie. You know, Perry, you mentioned the and yes, we have our Superman shirts on here,

but yeah, Perry, you mentioned, you know, James Gunn getting into the whole comic book kind of feel of it. And that’s kind of how I felt as well.

Even though everybody knows, I say this on every superhero thing that we do, I consider comic books Canon. And I’ve watched a, a lot of animated stuff, but I am not a comic book reader. So, you know, there, there’s a little bit, there’s a, a little bit of disconnect there, but not a lot of disconnect. But I do remember, I do remember thinking when I first saw it, I think, you know, the whole comic book kind of feel was coming out of it and seeing Superman.

Mm-hmm. And the blue blue, the real, that with the logo , it was giving me, even if I didn’t know the comic books, I knew that he knew the comic books and that he was coming from a, a place of reverence for the comic books.

Jen G.: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: Did you feel that way? Or, you know, did we all feel that way? How, how did we feel? Yeah. Yeah. So,

Staci: oh, go ahead. Go ahead

Y. M. Nelson: Staci.

Staci: No, go ahead, Staci. I never read the comic books, but when I saw this version of it, it brought me more to the Christopher Reeves version of, of Superman.

Y. M. Nelson: I was thinking too

Staci: than anything else, and I thought it was more, it felt more, I guess, wholesome looking

Y. M. Nelson: Yes.

Staci: Before I even watched it. I was like, okay, it looks more, it looks brighter, you know? The other one was truly- the other ones in the past, not saying they were bad, but they were like, it’s a dark, dirty world and yeah.

And this is Superman versus this one seems more lighter, brighter. Mm-hmm. It made me feel like it more of the Christopher Reeve, like back when I, when I was a kid kind of a thing. It made me feel more nostalgic.

Than the Harry Cavill, not saying that Cavill, that his version wasn’t good, but it brought me to a different place than this version, which made me feel a lot more like nostalgic for when I was a kid. The first time I’m watching it, you know, of watching Superman.

Y. M. Nelson: Right?

Jen G.: Yeah.

Y. M. Nelson: Jen, you also mentioned Christopher Reeve was kind of your first experience.

Did you feel the same way or or no. How did you feel?

Jen G.: What Staci is saying is that, is that I, I feel like we got we kind of harken back more to that time of, of that type of Superman where the Henry Cavill and the Justice League movies we’ve had in the last few years.

They did, they went to a really dark place and dark and brooding in, in ways that were, you know, they were, it was fine. It was fine. Like I said, I enjoyed them. I enjoyed them for what they were.

But this one sort of brings us back around to the light and bright again. There are so many shots of the blue sky. It’s a very blue, blue, blue when he’s flying through the air. The clouds are beautiful. There’s just something very very, there’s very pretty, the sky is really pretty.

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah.

Jen G.: So, so, yeah. And and I had the same kind of feeling too about, I was very excited for it to be in the hands of James Gunn. I really loved The Guardians of the Galaxy movies.

And I felt like that was a property that I knew absolutely nothing about, nothing. I’m also not a comic book reader. But I loved that he made something that was kind of unknown to, to a lot of us, into something that was that was super fun, super identified with the characters.

So, I was very interested to see what James Gunn was gonna do with the Superman property and where he was gonna take it, especially as he’s like completely relaunching the whole DCU and where that’s gonna go. So, we’ll see what happens.

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Perry, if you can piggyback on that and also bring in kinda what you thought from a comic book perspective of, of what you saw and

Perry C.: Yeah.

Y. M. Nelson: And the Ja- and the James Gunn

Perry C.: a little bit. I’ll totally co-sign all of that. I mean, my thoughts, the, the Snyder films with Henry Cavill, I thought first off, Henry Cavill got robbed. I think that’s something we can we can all acknowledge

Jen G.: mm-hmm.

Perry C.: Be because he,

Y. M. Nelson: we do.

Perry C.: Yeah, he, he wanted to play like the more hopeful Superman, and he was hoping to get to that point, and he was just never gotten the opportunity to, and then he got used as a pawn in Dwayne Johnson’s power play for control over the, and it was just, you know, the-

I think he could have done it right. In the Josh Whedon cut of the theatrical cut of Justice League, we saw like these brief flashes of what he could have done. And if you’ve seen in other movies, like Man From Uncle or Ministry of Un Gentlemanly Warfare, like the dude oozes charm. So, I think he could have done a really great job.

So, I feel really bad for him. But

Y. M. Nelson: Even in the, Witcher when he’s supposed to be grumpy in, in the Witcher, he’s just, he’s amazing. He’s, he’s hilarious. He’s a charmer and yes, he could have done it. You, yeah, you’re, I agree.

Perry C.: I’m, I’m hoping he gets James Bond now, but but that’s another story.

But with this yeah, it it definitely harken back to to Christopher Reeve, to also the comics, which was a much more hopeful version. The idea of this guy who just wants to do the right thing.

And the thing about Superman is you can modernize Superman, you can put Superman in a dirty world, but you shouldn’t have the world dirty up Superman. Superman should be that beacon that shines in the darkness. And I think that’s what this movie really brought out.

And one of the things that I like about it too is, even though David Cornswett, like there’s their shared DNA between his Superman and Christopher Reeves, he’s not doing like a Christopher Reeve impersonation

Jen G.: mm-hmm.

Perry C.: Which was what

Staci: mm-hmm.

Perry C.: Brandon Routh was forced to do in Superman Returns, he [David] is doing his own version of Superman, and it’s a more human version of Superman. Right. This is a Superman who. Makes mistakes who, you know, loses his temper, who, you know, and Christopher Reeve, if I have one criticism of Christopher Reeve’s Superman, is that he was too perfect, right?

He was all- whereas David Cornswett is a Superman who feels like an actual human. So, I really like that aspect of it, too.

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah. Yeah. I, I agree with that. I, I agree with everything that everybody’s saying right now, you know, it, it gave me that hopeful bright feeling. Even the intro, when the Superman graphics come on, you know, it gives you that whole, it’s like, yes, this is, this is James Gunn. Yes, we are in a, we are in a good place right now. You know?

It was feeling all, you know, retro eighties kind of feel, but at the same time, not , you know?

Jen G.: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: It was very much hopeful and bright and, Jen was talking about how the sky was bright, you know, and I didn’t, even think about that until just now.

But even when he’s sitting there and I probably should have said spoiler alert, but everybody knows I’m gonna spoil everything all the time.

But when, Superman is with Lois and they are, in that rough patch kind of conversation, and the Justice Gang is is fighting that, tentacle-y thing. Even that is like, it’s like Aurora Borealis.

The, the colors are everywhere and it’s, it’s just so, it’s like, okay, this is supposed to, we’re supposed to feel sad. This is supposed to be, not a good thing. But, but it’s funny how that works though, because James Gunn puts the sad when you’re supposed to feel sad, right?

Jen G.: Yeah.

Y. M. Nelson: When there’s no color at all, you know, this is not a good place. And then there’s even some, like a few scenes that are kind of like muted, and then at the end there’s kind of a muting, kind of the color kind of mutes a little bit when you know things are coming apart, literally.

Jen G.: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: So, James Gunn makes you feel all the feels and I felt all the feels with this.

Jen G.: Yeah.

Y. M. Nelson: And you know, or he is mentioned of Guardians of the Galaxy and I, I think I’m like Jen- Staci, I don’t know if you feel the same way about Guardians of the Galaxy being something that you didn’t really know the characters until you saw,

Staci: didn’t know ’em at all until they first came in.

I was like, who are they? And I think Right. You know, but he did a good job because I actually liked the whole series and never knew anything about

Jen G.: mm-hmm.

Staci: Any of those characters.

Y. M. Nelson: Exactly. Exactly. And, and I felt the same way. I, I, I was having all of the feelings with Guardians of the Galaxy, you know?

Jen G.: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: I, felt all the feelings about I was rooting for these people and, I didn’t even know these people to begin with. It wasn’t like I was going into this thinking, yes. You know, like we went into Iron Man in the beginning thinking, we know Ironman.

We’re ready to see what Robert Downey Jr’s gonna do with this. I went into Guardians of the Galaxy, I don’t know any of these people. I know the actors and I’m thinking this is probably gonna be fun.

But then the James Gun factor just ratcheted it up. And so, when I heard that, that who was going to do the reboot of the dc I was like, of the D-C-U-D-C-E-U whatever they call it when he was gonna do that reboot, I was like I’m gonna miss him for Marvel, but I’m ready for this.

This is going to make me like DC you know, whereas before, I kind of liked it, but I liked it for, because I wanted to see what they were gonna do with the characters. But I agree that everything was a little bit darker.

Jen G.: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: And now James Gun has brought the light and I’m, I’m, I’m ready to see where this goes.

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[00:17:56] The Origin Story Omission

Y. M. Nelson: But one thing that- and y’all, I’m throwing this at you and you didn’t know that I was gonna say this- but one thing that I noticed that he did not do, even though I felt, and, and Perry, you could correct me on this, I felt this was really close to the comics, especially with some of the things that were brought out.

One thing that he really did not do that some people were just like, “why didn’t he do it?” Was tell us, this origin story. We got five minutes with some words at the beginning before we actually see Superman, but we didn’t get that origin story told over again. We didn’t get Smallville, in a big way. We just got a visit to Smallville. And we didn’t get, any of those other kinds of- I mean, we even got Lex Luther in a different way than we usually do.

So, Perry, what did you think about that? ’cause I know some people who, maybe have a limited kind of feeling about Superman were just like, why didn’t we tell the origin story? And I’m thinking we didn’t need to tell that, but

Perry C.: there,

Y. M. Nelson: what did you think?

Perry C.: There are three origin stories that we never have to see on film again: Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man. Right? We know all three.

Y. M. Nelson: Yes.

Perry C.: Like my, my mother is like 70. She has never read a comic book in her life. She has never sat through a Superman movie. She’s never sat through a single episode of any Superman TV show. She knows Superman’s origin, right? This is like encoded into our cultural DNA at this point.

If you don’t know what Superman’s origin story is, you must be like, you know, have grown up on an I on an island somewhere isolated.

Y. M. Nelson: Exactly. Exactly. And so that’s why, yeah, that’s why I’m glad that it didn’t start that way. Staci, what did you think about that? And are we glad how it, it started?

Staci: It wasn’t, I have to agree with Perry. It’s not needed. It was not needed at all. If you don’t know by now who Superman, Superman is, I mean, it didn’t need all that. We already know Superman came from different planet. I mean, who does not know that? And if they don’t, you got a little blurb about it. You don’t have to have to waste all that time to go over his origin story at this point.

Now when we were watching like Christopher Reeve back in the day, because that was what, the eighties? Yeah, I can see seventies and eighties maybe. What, What’s it, Perry? Make me feel old. Say again.

Perry C.: 78

Y. M. Nelson: And No, I didn’t see it in the theater. So there!

Staci: But I mean, yeah, so, but I remember seeing it, maybe not in theaters, but I remember seeing it.

Jen G.: Mm-hmm.

Staci: And Okay, most definitely not in the theaters I don’t remember seeing it. But but I mean, you remember it and, but every movie that they’ve had, they show that.

And then I use- the movies, they had the TV shows and then they have Smallville, the whole thing was about when he was there in Smallville, you really don’t need that.

And because of time constraints and all that, I would rather go into the meat of the movie than regurgitate something that’s been done just so many times already.

Jen G.: Mm-hmm.

Staci: And I think that would’ve been a waste of time if you would, if you’re gonna show that original again.

Jen G.: Mm-hmm.

Staci: I’d rather you go with the story.

I don’t need to see how he came. We already know. ’cause there was already Smallville. There was Krypton, there was a whole slew of stuff about the early days or you know how you got here.

Jen G.: Yeah.

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah. And you know, which makes me wonder why in the world people are like, because we know this story, why in the world are people like up in arms?

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[00:21:49] If you know the story, why are you upset that Superman is called an immigrant?

Y. M. Nelson: Because we mention in this, one of the themes in this is that Superman is an immigrant. So that’s one thing that was really brought out in this particular version of Superman, is that he’s an immigrant and people are just like up in arms. And I’m thinking, but you know, the origin story, I mean,

Staci: they didn’t even change the origin story.

His whole origin story would make him an immigrant. So, I’m not,

Perry C.: Not just an immigrant, a refugee!

Staci: A refugee because his planet’s destroyed. So why I, didn’t see when it came outta theaters, but I did hear about that, and I was like, they didn’t even change the cannon of the story. So why are y’all upset?

And I mean, I just had to think about what’s going on in the world. That that’s probably why.

Jen G.: Yeah.

Staci: But but the thing is, they hadn’t changed the story. They never changed it. And he was always an alien that happened to land in America. That was it. That’s his whole story. We’ve all known that if you know the Superman story, then you know that’s what he did.

That’s what happened. So why get upset unless you. Well, we know why, so

Perry C.: I know. We know why.

Staci: It’s

Perry C.: all just part of the, it’s, it’s all the feeding the internet outrage machine. That’s all. Yeah. In fact, all these people who are complaining about this, I guarantee you, they have never read a Superman comic book in their life. They’ve probably never even watched a Superman movie.

I mean, Dean Cain, worst Superman ever has clearly never read a Superman. I’m not even sure if he can read honestly. So,

Staci: But I don’t know. I mean, I just, I don’t understand. I did well. No. The whole thing, what was going on with it is just. That was Superman to begin with.

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah.

Perry C.: There’s also a big, like, I see this all the time. It drives me nuts when I see this happen because people are saying that they hate when comic books that go too woke.

Superman has always been woke. He was created by two impoverished Jewish kids as a way to combat, like the rising threat of fascism. He was literally, in his early appearances, he was going after slumlords and crooked politicians.

Y. M. Nelson: Mm-hmm.

Perry C.: Yeah.

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And, you know, and like a, a few people that I’ve seen have said, you know, people are like, when did Superman become an immigrant?

When did the Superman comic become woken? They were like, in 1930, blah, blah, blah. Whenever the first time it came out, it was like, like, duh.

But it’s so funny how there’s such a disconnect between the actual story that’s there and what people want to see. I agree. There are a lot of people out there talking junk that don’t know anything about Superman at all.

But then there are a lot of people talking junk because in their minds they’re thinking one thing, and they’re seeing one thing.

Jen G.: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: And for some reason they are blocking out a lot of other stuff.

Jen G.: Yeah.

Y. M. Nelson: You know, you see Christopher Reeve, you see what he looks like. You maybe identify with that look and maybe you think, okay, yeah, he is all for X, Y, Z. He’s got on blue and red, so he’s all about this. You know what I’m saying?

Staci: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: And so, you block out the whole backstory of who Superman is and what he’s about and what he’s actually doing.

Jen G.: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: You know? And then get upset when somebody actually says, “well, this is what Superman is about, because here’s the comic books here .”

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[00:25:26] The Superman message plot line

Y. M. Nelson: And you know, another thing about- I feel like I’m kind of jumping all over the place, but it’s kind of connecting in my mind.

Another thing that is kind of a comic book maybe staple maybe that we didn’t realize, and I’m gonna ask Perry to maybe confirm or deny what, what I’m thinking here is the whole message that Superman’s parents sent with him.

Was that in the comic, kinda how that was done in the movie? Or is it different or. I’ve, I’ve heard things and seen things.

Staci: Yeah. Was he sent there to create harem?

Perry C.: No that was,

Y. M. Nelson: yeah. Not the harem part. No, but I meant the, the other part. I don’t know about the fact that he didn’t hear the other part or the fact that the other part was there and he didn’t know it was there.

Or was there even another part, or was that all for the movie?

Perry C.: Pretty much all for, it’s like in the comics there have been many different versions of the origin story. Yeah. So there have been some where like you actually never had the whole, the Ai Jor’El thing, like from Marlon Brando and the, that was not from the comics, that was all the creation for Superman, 78.

So that was never in the comics. Okay. So, you never had that kind of thing where you had like this personal relationship with his father or anything like that? In most iterations it is basically just a message and the message. And it’s Jor’EL is always pretty much, there’s some recent reccon and stuff that have brought the character back and it’s, it’s a whole comic book mess thing, so I’m not gonna get into that.

But for the most part, Jor’EL is mostly a benevolent character. And there, there are two basic versions of the, of the message of the, like, it’s one where it’s like, you know, it, it’s the, it’s the, it’s like the last chance and they’re just, he’s, he knows where he can send the baby and he knows like it’s a, it’s a habitable world that he’ll be strong there and all that.

But the whole idea of serving humanity and all that, sometimes that’s present, sometimes that’s not, so that’s not always a thing. Mostly it’s just that. And you’ve had different versions where like in Smallville, they, they kind of hinted that for a while that Jor’EL had like sinister motivations to send to send Kelle out to earth.

But then they ended up trying to change that around. It was just like covered up as like misinterpretations. The recent, My Adventure with Superman had a little bit of that in there too.

But yeah, from the comics, that’s not really been there. And that’s, that was one of the problems. I, I had a few issues with this movie and that was one of ’em. I didn’t like the idea of Jor’EL and Lara telling him to like rule over humanity.

And my own head canon is that there is some manipulations going on with the message, and that that’s not actually. Or like misinterpretations, or I think, and this could be a through line that happens in other movies going forward, right? So, we’ll see what happens in other movies. But my head canon right now is that Luther tampered with the message.

Staci: Okay.

Y. M. Nelson: Yes. Yeah, that, that’s kind of what I felt as well. And to me it also kind of goes with the narrative of kind of what they’re doing. By bringing in the, you know, the Luther bots talking,

Perry C.: The Engineer,

Y. M. Nelson: you know Right.

And the engineer, but also the, you know, the bots online that are, you know,

Staci: Superman.

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah, right. And doing the hashtags and all that stuff. Actually, showing how misinformation can create fear.

Jen G.: Mm-hmm.

Staci: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: And I think kind of that’s part of that. And, you know, you mentioned ai, so you know, there’s a whole,

Jen G.: Honestly, that is 100% where I thought they were going.

Yeah. And I was, I was really thrown by everybody like, oh no, I know those tech guys, they won’t, they wouldn’t lie about that. And it’s like, where is that evidence? There’s nothing, there’s no evidence.

Y. M. Nelson: Right? Yeah.

Jen G.: There’s no reason to believe that could be true.

Y. M. Nelson: Then Mr. Terrific said it, and I’m like, oh, no,

Jen G.: I know. Like, like I was like, Mr. Terrific, you have all people know that that is absolute crap that’s coming outta your mouth. No, there’s no such thing as like, well you know, this is, we know this to be true. No. Until you get the, until you have the actual file in your hand to decode it, then you might have some, some version of that.

Staci: Mm-hmm.

Jen G.: But, and I, so for me, like, you know, speaking of some of the, the, the problems that I had, that was one of ’em is that I felt like they were setting us up to get a misinformation storyline and, and that’s not where he was going.

And because he wasn’t going that direction, I felt like that interpretation of the video from his parents was created so that he could have a conversation with his earth dad about you get to choose who you are. Right.

Y. M. Nelson: Plot device.

Jen G.: And I feel like that was, like, that was the solve to get to that conversation. They had to create some sort of, you choose who you are. And and that bothered me.

I didn’t like, I didn’t like that sort of triangulation of, of that. ’cause there’s lots of ways that you can make Superman into a bad guy, you know, and change public opinion about him.

I thought they might be going there with damage. There’s a, there’s a few times when it’s mentioned, “oh, that was probably $12 million of damage.”

The you have the big whatever that creature was. I don’t think it ever got a name, but the big creature that is like, stumbling around the city and the thing

Staci: it looked like Stitch.

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah, it did!

Jen G.: It was kind like Stitch, like Stitch hasn’t showered in a month, is kind of what that looked like. So, I thought, yeah, so we had that. And so, then the news, you know, the news that’s like in the, in the little corner has a little conversation about the amount of the dollar, amount of damage, the and then how the city is broken and this building got broken and the, and, and kind of the super hero damage cost and insurance rates or something like that is gonna come up more so than. Yeah.

So, it kind of took a, a weird turn for me, especially with the whole like have a bunch of wives and like, you know. Make sure that our, like, that’s not weird

Staci: here on earth. You know what?

Jen G.: That, that’s super weird. Yeah, yeah,

Staci: yeah. It’s the Superman version of the Epstein Files.

Jen G.: Yeah. Oh my God.

Y. M. Nelson: Well, Staci, tell us more about what you think!

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[00:32:11] Eerie real-world similarities … that no one seemed to talk about

Staci: Well, no, I mean, I was just thinking that I wanna ask like, for Perry, when did they start filming this? Because I was, you know, like when they filmed it and then we was released and their expectation of what was going to be happening in our world at that time. And they may have been like, oh, we didn’t expect this. I don’t know.

But when watching this and, and also like the whole thing about the misinformation about Superman, I was like, okay, that. I don’t know how you can make this not political or, or somewhat about what was going, what’s going on here. I mean, in this case we see Superman and like meta humans and how that distrust of someone who’s here, who came here from outer space and we see that in Lex Luthor, and he’s trying to do all that he can to make sure that everyone hates this group of people just like he does.

Y. M. Nelson: Mm-hmm.

Staci: And I mean, I don’t know, I, I’m trying to put into words what I wanna say without these.

Y. M. Nelson: Well, okay. Okay. How, how about I say this and then maybe this will dislodge some stuff, so, okay. Perry I, I’m, I’m going to ask the same thing. When was this filmed? Be because I felt the same way. What I felt like when I watched it, I felt like I was basically looking at the news that was going on.

Right. And that is still going on. And I’m thinking to myself now, this had to have been pre-election, right? Yeah. When they filmed this, at least pre-election, when they filmed this, even pre, we’re gonna say even pre–Kamala Harris gets in the election when they film it.

Perry C.: Yeah. It was

Y. M. Nelson: way in the, you know but

Perry C.: so principal photography began February 29th, 2024, according to Wikipedia. And filming in studios in Atlanta begun by March 8th and filming wrapped on July 30th. So, I think, I’m not sure when did

Staci: July 30th, 2024?

Perry C.: Yes. Yes. So, I’m not sure when exactly, so I think that was right before Biden dropped out of the election. If I’m not, if I’m getting my timeline correct,

Y. M. Nelson: it it is because I think Kamala says she had 107 days. That’s about three months. That’s right there. It’s right there.

Jen G.: Yeah.

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah, yeah. And so, the thing,

Perry C.: well, the but pre-production actually began in 2023 too. So, but this stuff was all in the air too, like going all the way back to, you know, the whole, the DeSantis stuff and all that kind of stuff.

The whole anti-immigrant, the xenophobia was hanging around in the air, obviously the social media stuff.

I don’t think we had quite gotten into like, the AI stuff when they started writing it. Maybe if he had written it a, I think that was probably about like around the same time that AI started to become a big thing.

So, if this had happened, I think if he had written it now, that you might’ve had some stuff with like AI generated footage being introduced or something like that, which

Y. M. Nelson: mm-hmm.

Perry C.: Yeah. But I, I was with Jen on that. Like, I was hoping that was what we were going for, but I guess, yeah, I, I, I didn’t like that part of it that we, that we did that.

Because I’m all, I’m all for elevating Jonathan and Martha Kent. I feel like the movies often they kind of downplayed the Kents in favor of like mm-hmm. Putting more of the focus onto Jor’EL and

Y. M. Nelson: yeah.

Perry C.: So, I’m all for, elevating that aspect of the relationship because that whole nature versus nurture aspect, nurture that is key to, to Superman’s character, right?

That’s key to the, immigrant story, right? He came here as a baby. He knew nothing. He was a Dreamer basically, Right?

Jen G.: Mm-hmm.

Perry C.: Essentially,

Y. M. Nelson: yeah.

Perry C.: And so, yeah, so he comes here and then he is raised, he’s shown love by the native people, by the, you know not native, native people, but you know what I mean, the, you know, natural born American citizens.

Jen G.: Local.

Perry C.: Yeah. Yeah.

Y. M. Nelson: Mm-hmm.

Perry C.: And then, so, and then he, here it’s their values. He ends up, adopting it as his own place. He ends up assimilating. Like that’s, that’s the immigrant story. That’s so, and I think that aspect of it is so key to his character.

So, I’m glad that they elevated the Jonathan and Martha of it, but I didn’t like it that they were doing it at the expense of tarnishing up Jor’EL and Laura.

Y. M. Nelson: Mm-hmm. Right. And maybe this is just also me picking out kind of what I wanna see a little bit too, but, you know, every time we’ve seen like a picture of Jor’EL and, of his parents, or even like in Superman and Lois, where they were very interactive, you know, with the, holograms of his parents, it seemed like they wanted the best for him.

They just couldn’t give him the best for him because they were on Krypton, they had to send him off, they couldn’t leave with him. But yeah, they to, to do one thing.

To, yeah. Yeah. I don’t, I don’t think I, I don’t think I like that either.

That vision of that, and then too this is part of, this iteration of the story that, that also kinda weirds me out.

But but yeah, so Staci, I don’t know if that that dislodged anything that you may have wanted to say.

Staci: Nothing still dislodged anything, but it did make me think, because when y’all were talking about the how they did his, his Kryptonian parents and everything, and it’s like as soon as Gary said they, that they couldn’t get the last of the of that recording that it was whatever, I was like, something’s gonna happen.

Something’s gonna be with that footage. And I mean, I kind of thought something’s gonna happen or that’s gonna show more. Something like that. But I didn’t expect them to do that. They were the, you know, evil Kryptonian kind of a thing going on.

Y. M. Nelson: Right.

Perry C.: Also, but I, well there’s also the fact that, you know, we have Supergirl in this, and Supergirl was raised on Krypton, so if that’s,

Y. M. Nelson: yeah.

Perry C.: So, I, I feel like there’s some, here’s, here’s kind like my theory, because the, the, the rumor is that the, the next movie Man of Tomorrow is going to feature Superman and Luther teaming up against Brainiac, and so my theory is maybe Brainiac had manipulated the message somehow in transit.

Y. M. Nelson: Oh.

Perry C.: And because he says that, he says the ship was damaged in transit, so I wonder if that was Brainiac. And so, if this is like Brainiac trying to, this was his attempt to try and manipulate Superman. So that’s kinda like where my head is going right now. We’ll see if that ends up being the case.

Y. M. Nelson: Ooh. Okay.

This is making me feel a little bit better about the, the way that storyline is going.

Jen G.: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: But yeah, getting to kind of what Staci may have been alluding to, there are a lot of very obvious things that are happening in this particular movie, which is funny because nobody, nobody really talked about the obvious stuff that’s happening in this movie.

Instead, they’re talking about Superman is an immigrant and, and getting all crazy about that. But there’s obvious stuff happening in this movie that just-

This is- the modern, is where the story is and, how the story plays out. The whole, Jaranhpur and Boravia. That whole conflict speaks to Gaza and Israel right now.

I mean,

Staci: mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: The whole pocket universe slash Fort Kramer, you know, is very Alligator Alcatraz looking.

Jen G.: Mm-hmm.

Staci: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: Which is so weird.

Staci: Weird.

Y. M. Nelson: That’s so creepy. Weird. You know, the Raptors swooping in on cities is very much like what we’re seeing now in Chicago and Portland is.

You know, I mean, were y’all as weirded out by this as I was? Oh, I think this Staci, this may be where you’re going. Were you weirded out about this as I was

Staci: really weird. Like that’s why I was wondering when they produced, when it was actually, you know, being produced and created because it’s like this, some of the stuff is happening.

That’s, to me, so similar in a way. It’s like, what did they do? I mean, what did they actually see? ’cause it’s just- some of the things that are happening now and we’re seeing it a movie version of it in a way.

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah.

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[00:41:03] Superman’s relationship to Lois

Staci: And just to kind of backtrack a little bit about them not showing his, his origin story, which I was glad of, I’m glad they skipped over a lot of stuff that they had in the previous version about him and Lois and Spoiler: they already together.

And she already knows who he is, and I’m glad they skipped over that ’cause usually when they show that in earlier versions of movies, it’s like half the movie.

Jen G.: Mm-hmm.

Staci: Him trying to hide that from her. And we don’t need all that. So, we kind of went straight into what, for previous movies would’ve been like the, the center of the movie to the end. And we started with that at the very beginning.

But I mean, it’s just to me that the whole concept that kind of going, still going back about that, of him being woke just for just, that just still bothers me. I mean, every time I think about it, it’s like that was his origin story that he was, oh, he came here from someplace else.

And the fact that it was how he was raised, that he became the person he is. And I always thought that they always concentrate on his Kryptonian family. But I did like the fact that they talked about, his, parents here now. I can’t remember the name of the parents. I shouldn’t know those right off the back of my head.

Y. M. Nelson: Jonathan and Martha,

Staci: Jonathan, Jonathan and Martha. And I was like, why? You know, I always thought that they always kind of in the movies because they kind of glossed over them in a way. And they did kind of gloss over them a bit here and they made them ultra wholesome. But I like that about this movie because the whole movie was wholesome.

But I like the fact that they kind of showed where he came from in that sense, and that he was a regular kid. But not concentrate the whole movie on how he was an outsider ’cause he could do all this stuff, they told him he couldn’t do it. But when you saw his, his room, he had the posters on the wall.

He had little, he had little

Y. M. Nelson: yeah.

Staci: Little awards for whatever. You could tell that they treated him and they raised him like he was just a regular kid.

And the fact that he became Superman raised here, versus if you watched Bright Burn, it did become a light, a a little monster in, in Bright Burn, which is the dark Superman, the darkest Superman movie kind of a thing.

Do you ever watch that?

Perry C.: And Gunn produced that, by the way.

Staci: Oh, I didn’t know that.

Y. M. Nelson: Oh my, wow.

Staci: With Bright Burn you’re like seeing that what Superman could have been and how he is, it is really a big difference. If you haven’t seen Bright Burn, you should see it just for, just for that.

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah.

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[00:43:41] Power, Knowledge, and Responsibility

Staci: But I mean, I’m really just all the things that’s, that you said that’s happened, like when we saw the trolling of Superman, you know, in the you know, mm-hmm.

His conversation with Lois, basically interview him, like she would interview anyone else and how he became defensive about certain things, “what was I supposed to do?” And it’s like, that’s the whole thing. You can do this, you are doing, you know, she wasn’t, say he was doing the wrong thing, but the fact is that he was making decisions a, about what’s happening all in the world without anyone’s input, you know?

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah, yeah.

Staci: And how that is a slippery slope. Like we know that he’s doing a good job, but at the same time, at what point will, could it be that he’s, he’s gonna go down to our pathway? I mean, we don’t Superman, we, and hopefully it’s good when we won’t get that. But at the same time, how easy it is for someone to slip and slide with all that power.

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah, exactly. And I may have gone all off topic now

Staci: I’m just talking.

Y. M. Nelson: It’s totally fine. But you say something too that makes me think, on the other side of that, Lex Luther was given all of this power and had a warped vision of what to do with it, and then wanted to take some more power by taking half of Jarhanpur

Jen G.: mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: To be his own and things like that. And two, him with the whole pocket universe makes me think about how when people, take power and

Staci: put them in jail without due process.

Y. M. Nelson: Right, exactly. Put ’em in jail without due process.

But also, how they don’t know what they’re doing.

Because when Mr. Terrific goes in and he says, who created this pocket universe and they dunno what they’re doing! And it’s like, it also makes you feel like we need to have people who know what they’re talking about as well.

Staci: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: If you’re going to be given power, you need to also kind of know what you’re talking about because a lot of stuff is happening here, and it’s because people have power.

Like Lex has this power, but is using it in ways that really, you, you need to be more educated to use this. Right? You shouldn’t be putting people in a pocket universe just because you didn’t like what they said, right?

Staci: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: You know? But but yes.

And then too, some other things that were kinda happening that were just weird, when he got arrested, and he was like, “are you gonna read me my rights?”

Staci: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: Didn’t get his rights read because we didn’t feel like he needed rights.

So, you know, all of this is kind of going through my mind and I’m kind of thinking, whoa.

Jen G.: Mm-hmm

Y. M. Nelson: This is really, this is really weird, but nobody said anything about it, right? Do we see? But nobody said anything about it. Instead, they wanna, say some, stuff about him him being woke.

And I’m with you, Staci. That was what was making me angry. I’m like, now how is this even something that we gonna rage bait over?

Perry C.: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: You know, why are we putting rage bait out over this when there’s so much other stuff?

Jen G.: I think, I think- so the, the rage bait is I think exactly the right terminology.

This is just me. I do not have data or like, or anything like that. Okay. But I think that they chose a couple of key words that would like inflame people. And there were some bots that sort of helped to amplify some of that messaging that especially about the word immigrant.

Staci: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: Mm-hmm.

Jen G.: And, ’cause we’ve seen that happen in other, in other situations where something you feel like something’s really, really, really blown out of proportion, a lot of times there’s, there might be a, a person or a company behind it that is paying to have to have the noise created. Which is just, it’s a fascinating part of, of the way that social media works now.

Staci: Mm-hmm.

Jen G.: Yeah. That is different than maybe what it was 10 years ago.

Y. M. Nelson: Mm-hmm.

Perry C.: Mm-hmm.

Jen G.: And so, it makes us always need to question like, where is the noise coming from? Where exactly is that coming from? Even when like something goes viral, you can you know, something goes viral and then it gets quiet, right?

It goes up and down.

So, the, when something is in the zeitgeist for like longer than a few days, you kind of go, who, who is driving this? And why is it continually, because famously we have a very short attention span.

Staci: Very,

Jen G.: you know, and and so I do kind of question where and why, and well, why did they pick the immigrant word, right?

Y. M. Nelson: Mm-hmm.

Jen G.: Well, immigration at the time was, was and is continually a whole conversation. And even before, the last couple of years there, there was a lot of discussion about immigration in Europe. And that was about the boats of immigrants that were trying to escape from one area to the other area and, and how people are treated.

There’s a lot of there’s a lot of conversations in a lot of countries about what that really looks like and how that plays out. So, I think that that that part of the story for, for James Gunn as he was doing the writing part of it would make sense.

Staci: Mm-hmm.

Jen G.: But, but yeah, I think that’s why that word came up so clearly once the movie was released.

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah. Yeah.

Perry C.: So, I, I got something to say about this with the, the real-world parallels. You guys are talking about being kind of surprised at how accurate it was. It didn’t, that didn’t surprise me based on when it was written, because fascists have no imagination. They always use the same playbook, so mm-hmm.

The stuff that they were doing in the thirties, they, they were doing in, in the fifties they’re doing now as well. Like, they always do the same thing. They always, it’s the same song and dance, right?

It’s always like, you know, extra judicial prisons, you know, not reading your rights, storm troopers swooping in you know, demonizing immigrants and all that. It’s, it’s the, it’s the same tired old. They have no imagination, which is why all their media sucks. And that’s what we’re looking at here.

Which is why they, you know, why they get pissed off about something like this? Because they want to be part of the cultural conversation, but they can’t be because they have no imagination and they can’t write for, for Jack

Staci: m

Y. M. Nelson: Oh, my goodness. Now I just like, I totally lost what I was gonna say. Oh my.

Oh wow. Okay. It’s, so let’s talk about- why is this making me laugh so hard?

Okay. You know, okay. I think we’ve ended that conversation about the real-world parallels, which was really, you know, striking to me. But you’re, you’re, you’re right about that. It, it very much feels like. You know exactly like what we’ve, we’ve seen before, just in a different iteration.

Jen G.: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: It’s just funny how close the

Staci: mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: The time, you know, the timing, I guess, is what really got to me. But you know, that was one thing that made it real.

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[00:51:13] Lois, Superman, and the whole hidden identity thing

Y. M. Nelson: But another thing about Superman that made this really good and it really real for me is something that Staci mentioned a little bit earlier about you know, one thing that I’m glad that they didn’t do was the whole Lois and Clark and then Lois and Superman, and then them getting together.

They’re already together, but not only are they already together, but they’re already together, and they’re already arguing with each other, which is so real. I like that. And and also, they’re also, they’re also kinda hiding it, but not really hiding it.

So that’s the other

Jen G.: mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: Kind of thing that goes around is that, you know, who knows that Clark is Superman? And who knows that Lois is with Superman and who know, you know, because there’s this whole thing kind of throughout, right?

Staci: Mm-hmm.

Y. M. Nelson: And then Guy Gardner, the green lantern that’s here , just basically spill the beans. Somebody that he didn’t even really know- if he’s doing.

Staci: Okay. I have a question. It is probably for Perry, ’cause of the comic books and everything. His glasses, maybe I missed that, but was it always been hypno glasses?

Perry C.: Okay, this is, this is another problem I had with the movie. The Hip.

Staci: Yes.

Perry C.: Okay, I’m gonna get started now.

Y. M. Nelson: Yeah. I don’t think that’s, yeah, go ahead, Perry.

Perry C.: No, it is, it is from the comics actually. Okay. But it was like, from like one comic story that’s no longer in continuity anymore. So, the hypno glass, it was like this idea that it, they came up with, and it was used like one time and it was never really used after that. Mm-hmm. And so, like for the most part, in most modern versions, like it’s not hypno glasses or anything, it’s just, it’s the whole performance as Clark Kent.

Right. The, the greatest special effect in Superman, the movie was when Christopher Reeve changes from Clark to Superman in that one scene in Lois’s apartment. Right. He takes off the glasses and he like straightens up and his voice changes and you can see him physically transform in that moment. Then when you see that scene, you’re like, oh, now I see why this disguise works.

Y. M. Nelson: Mm-hmm.

Perry C.: So, it’s a personality change,

Y. M. Nelson: more person than change. It’s what we see. It’s, yeah.

Perry C.: Right. It’s not just the glasses, it’s, it’s everything. It’s the, it’s the perception. Like he’s, he wears like suits that are like two sizes too big to make him look smaller. He hunches over, he speaks in like a different, in a higher register and all this kind of stuff. So, it’s all that working together is what creates Clark Kent.

So, the hypno glasses thing, I hate that. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. But I have a, I have a head cannon for this as well. Like my head canon is that, ’cause like everybody, like every Superman fan knows you are always gonna get people who are gonna be like, how do the glasses work? How is, how can people, nobody know? And it’s like, all right, here we go. I have to explain this again and again.

And so, I imagine in my head, canon I’m imagining like Superman explaining it to, to Guy and Guy constantly has, but it’s just glasses. How come nobody can tell?

And then Superman just getting exhausted and just being like, actually, they’re hypno glasses. Hyp no glasses. And then was like,

Staci: that’s when I heard that I was like

Y. M. Nelson: Guy Gardner,

Perry C.: remember I, I imagine him telling Lois, he’s like, so look, I, he’s like, you won’t believe what happened today. I was hanging out, I told him about it, and he was like, and he, he was not buying the glasses thing, so I told him it was hypno glasses. And he bought it. And he bought it.

So that’s my head canon for it. And that lo- because Lois even kinda like rolls her eyes when he mentions the hypno glasses. So, my head canon is that this is just, this is a joke Superman played on Guy and Lois is just going along with it.

Y. M. Nelson: Which, which is good because Guy’s such a jerk.

Perry C.: And I imagine Yeah.

Guy Gardner is someone who would buy that. So, I totally imagine that.

Y. M. Nelson: He totally would! He totally would. I mean, oh gosh.

We will continue this discussion on our next episode. Make sure you’re subscribed to Nerdy Romantics Podcast, wherever you get your podcasts and visit nerdyromanticspodcast.com to subscribe to our newsletter, where you can get show notes directly in your inbox. Thank you for listening.

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