How are we feeling about Superman? (HEAVY SPOILERS)

[JulieYBM]

The film isn't portraying a morally gray world, though. Between the kaiju and the clones and the guys in metal suits, the film is lambasting the idea of a morally gray world. It's lambasting the self-importance of the world we live in, with its self-proclaimed moral ambiguity. We don't live in a world of moral ambiguity, we live in a world where we wrap up colonialism, genocide and the greed of capitalism in a pretty, self-important bow and call it moral ambiguity to muddy the waters and prevent the masses from taking a hardline stance against right-wing ideology. The film has a pretty strong, "Yeah, whatever, go fuck yourself" attitude towards that, which is part of what actually makes it interesting and refreshing, especially given the specific context that it is coming out in.

It's somewhat similar to the landshark element of Dragon Ball being informed by the then-present day housing market of the time, but not nearly as meticulously written into the plot.

EDIT: I wrote the above before the below quoted post was made.

Julie I think your point kinda gets at kinda how I feel about the movie at large: I think it’s so empty that people are putting their own experiences into a movie that isn’t really doing the work to justify it.

Like I think you’d have to stretch a lot to suggest that this movie has anything on its mind about Palestine/Israel. I mean I wasn’t thinking about that at any point throughout the film, and instead it reinforced what I think Gunn was actually doing: making an ode to the type of comics that he grew up reading. And “ever suffering brown people needing to be saved by the WHITE omniman” is very much a used trope even during the 70s and 80s

And sure I’ll concede that perhaps that is what art is, that we take from it what we will, regardless of the intentions of the artists. I just so far find a lot of these explanations to be a bit shallow. Mostly because I think Gunn has done this type of stuff better (see: The Suicide Squad) and that I very much view Supes as low-tier Gunn. It ain’t the worst of his: that belongs to GoTG vol 2, but it’s close.

Frankenstein'd the following reply. Brain bad right now and I'm having to multi-task, so sorry if my thoughts come out jumbled:

I think the film doesn't hit as hard because Clark is white, but I also think the film is very much clearly constructed to be digestable to the average cishet white guy. It's very, "introduce your lib/conservative brother-in-law to mildly leftist politics." It's baby's first foray into looking at the world for how ridiculous it is when you're not putting out think pieces about how everything the people in power are doing is actually brilliant 5D chess or whatever. I imagine this is also why Ma and Pa are both portrayed as old white people, as they are in the comics, too. Which I think is a shame, because had Gunn went the route of deepening the found family element by making adoptive parent characters people of color I think that would have been an entirely new layer to explore.

I think it's very clear that the film becomes a White Man's Burden message because it's not particularly and properly directly engaging with the subject of race, though. We live in a world where 'immigrant' is a word that really only applies to people of color. It's why we have the word 'expat', which I've only ever seen used for white people. The film beats around the bush too much while trying to be commercially marketable, but also trying to have its cake and eat it, too. I would call that poor judgment and that the film should have gone harder. I don't think it was intentional, but it does go to show that Gunn has more work to do as a person and filmmaker. We can talk about "expecting audiences to read between the lines" all day, but at the end of the day, a film like this needs to be more explicit.

Speaking of explicit, I have to say, I do think the film makes it as clear as it can legally do so that this is a film that is speaking on Israel's genocide of the Palestinian people. The similarities are just too strong for it not to be. I'd rather defer to the opinions of Palestinian people on the subject of whether or not it is tasteful, though.

I think the movie is decent and fun as-is, but it's also the kind of film where I want more. I wanted more scenes like the interview, more scenes with the Daily Planet staff, more scenes with the adoptive parents. In that respect, it underscores the limitations of a standard film format and makes me wish it were possible to have gotten this story as a longer mini-series with more insight into the characters' thoughts and feelings.

Ron Troupe doesn't even get a single line! There was more room for yaoi! And the three bimbos!!

[WittyUsername]

I honestly think the Palestine/Israel parallels in the new Superman movie are overblown. It’s a fairly basic conflict where a large country invades a smaller one. That could be applied to just about any real world conflict, including Russia and Ukraine.

I also just want to point out for the record that James Gunn is someone who has publicly admitted to having voted for Republicans and Libertarians in the past, and that a major individual in his writer’s room is Tom King, who happens to be a former CIA agent who openly talked about having helped plan out the Iraq War.

Honestly, if it weren’t for Gunn’s immigrant comment, I don’t think there’d be much of a right-wing backlash against the movie, and as I said, the immigrant allegory is kinda muddled by the Jor-El revelation anyway. The movie doesn’t have much of an overarching message beyond “be kind to one another.”

As for the Freeza/loan shark thing, I would agree that it’s a pretty surface level thing. I imagine most people aren’t fond of loan sharks in the first place.

[JulieYBM]

I also just want to point out for the record that James Gunn is someone who has publicly admitted to having voted for Republicans and Libertarians in the past, and that a major individual in his writer’s room is Tom King, who happens to be a former CIA agent who openly talked about having helped plan out the Iraq War.

Here's some clips of him giggling about torturing people during the Iraq Invasion, by the way.

[Kunzait_83]

I honestly think the Palestine/Israel parallels in the new Superman movie are overblown. It’s a fairly basic conflict where a large country invades a smaller one. That could be applied to just about any real world conflict, including Russia and Ukraine.

I haven't seen the new Superman yet myself, but from what I gather isn't the invading country in the film also noted to be a U.S. ally? Which is why the invasion in the film is tacitly condoned/supported by the U.S.? And isn't that why Superman also gets into hot water in the film for intervening in the first place?

If so, then that kind of puts the Israel parallel a bit more on the nose I would say. With regards to Russia and Ukraine, Russia is the aggressor and they're certainly not a U.S. ally and we certainly do not support their invading Ukraine.

So I dunno, if the new Superman movie's aggressor/invading country is supposed to be allied with the U.S. and if Superman opposing them puts him at odds with the U.S. government, then that kind of makes the Israel/Palestine parallel pretty difficult to downplay or ignore here.

[JulieYBM]

I honestly think the Palestine/Israel parallels in the new Superman movie are overblown. It’s a fairly basic conflict where a large country invades a smaller one. That could be applied to just about any real world conflict, including Russia and Ukraine.

I haven't seen the new Superman yet myself, but from what I gather isn't the invading country in the film also noted to be a U.S. ally? Which is why the invasion in the film is tacitly condoned/supported by the U.S.? And isn't that why Superman also gets into hot water in the film for intervening in the first place?

If so, then that kind of puts the Israel parallel a bit more on the nose I would say. With regards to Russia and Ukraine, Russia is the aggressor and they're certainly not a U.S. ally and we certainly do not support their invading Ukraine.

So I dunno, if the new Superman movie's aggressor/invading country is supposed to be allied with the U.S. and if Superman opposing them puts him at odds with the U.S. government, then that kind of makes the Israel/Palestine parallel pretty difficult to downplay or ignore here.

Boravia is a decades-old ally of the US in the film. Clark gets into hot water for stopping the invasion to prevent deaths, then flies the president of Boravia out into the desert and pins him against a cactus and tells him not do that shit again or else they would have another conversation.

The dehumanizing language that the Boravian president uses publicly to refer to the people of Jarhanpur is also very on the nose. All this while claiming to be freeing the Jarhanpurians from an oppressive regime, while also planning with Lex to sell off part of the conquered land for its resources.

[WittyUsername]

I honestly think the Palestine/Israel parallels in the new Superman movie are overblown. It’s a fairly basic conflict where a large country invades a smaller one. That could be applied to just about any real world conflict, including Russia and Ukraine.

I haven't seen the new Superman yet myself, but from what I gather isn't the invading country in the film also noted to be a U.S. ally? Which is why the invasion in the film is tacitly condoned/supported by the U.S.? And isn't that why Superman also gets into hot water in the film for intervening in the first place?

If so, then that kind of puts the Israel parallel a bit more on the nose I would say. With regards to Russia and Ukraine, Russia is the aggressor and they're certainly not a U.S. ally and we certainly do not support their invading Ukraine.

So I dunno, if the new Superman movie's aggressor/invading country is supposed to be allied with the U.S. and if Superman opposing them puts him at odds with the U.S. government, then that kind of makes the Israel/Palestine parallel pretty difficult to downplay or ignore here.

I don’t think the current administration is all that opposed to the Russia invasion of Ukraine. Regardless, the movie was written before October 7th and for his part, Gunn denied that the movie was intended to parallel the conflict between Israel and Palestine. Plus, the country of Boravia is supposed to be Eastern European, so there’s that.

I’m inclined to think that Gunn didn’t have a specific real world conflict in mind. Obviously the parallels to the Gaza war are there, but I think that’s more a result of timing than anything else.

[Kunzait_83]

Boravia is a decades-old ally of the US in the film. Clark gets into hot water for stopping the invasion to prevent deaths, then flies the president of Boravia out into the desert and pins him against a cactus and tells him not do that shit again or else they would have another conversation.

The dehumanizing language that the Boravian president uses publicly to refer to the people of Jarhanpur is also very on the nose. All this while claiming to be freeing the Jarhanpurians from an oppressive regime, while also planning with Lex to sell off part of the conquered land for its resources.

Yeah even without my having seen the movie, this all sounds right from the jump pretty spot-on-the-nose a very direct - and hugely unsubtle - commentary on Israel and the U.S.'s toxic-as-hell relationship with it specifically. From this description, this is literally just "legally not Israel" and "legally not Palestine", but with the serial numbers filed off. And not even filed off all that much honestly.

Not recognizing the glaring, written-in-crayon-for-3rd-graders Israel/Palestine parallels/allegory here seems to me to be barely a few steps removed from thinking "Animal Farm isn't a political story: all the main characters are farm animals, not people, and animals don't have politics!"

I mean, is that it? Are we actually at the stage of mass hyper-literalist, hyper-pedantic thinking where there's actually people who are coming at this thinking "This can't be about Israel and Palestine: the movie's countries are called Boravia and Jarhanpur! If the movie were about Israel and Palestine, the countries in the movie would be called Israel and Palestine!"

I don’t think the current administration is all that opposed to the Russia invasion of Ukraine.

The current administration has only been in charge for half a year, and Russia/Ukraine's been ongoing as a full-scale hot war since early 2022. By and large, we've supported Ukraine's side for the vast bulk of the conflict thus far, as testament to the fact that we've provided Ukraine with billions upon billions of dollars worth of weapons and military aid.

Regardless, the movie was written before October 7th

Rewrites to movies - even pretty drastic ones - happen right up to the last minute before production, and oftentimes even *during* production. Do we know that this "Boravia" plotline specifically was set in stone the way it is in the finished film prior to Oct. 7th?

And also not for nothing, but that in itself is a moot point since what's been happening between Israel and Palestine has been ongoing since well long before October 7th.

Way, way before October 7th.

And don't even try to argue for "recency bias" on this, because the nature of this conflict was hardly obscure or unknown to people in the U.S. even going back decades ago.

Hell, not even to a few folks on this very forum of all places.

and for his part, Gunn denied that the movie was intended to parallel the conflict between Israel and Palestine.

Gee, wonder why he'd feel reticent to make a blatant IRL public statement on that issue?

[WittyUsername]

Boravia is a decades-old ally of the US in the film. Clark gets into hot water for stopping the invasion to prevent deaths, then flies the president of Boravia out into the desert and pins him against a cactus and tells him not do that shit again or else they would have another conversation.

The dehumanizing language that the Boravian president uses publicly to refer to the people of Jarhanpur is also very on the nose. All this while claiming to be freeing the Jarhanpurians from an oppressive regime, while also planning with Lex to sell off part of the conquered land for its resources.

Yeah even without my having seen the movie, this all sounds right from the jump pretty spot-on-the-nose a very direct - and hugely unsubtle - commentary on Israel and the U.S.'s toxic-as-hell relationship with it specifically. From this description, this is literally just "legally not Israel" and "legally not Palestine", but with the serial numbers filed off. And not even filed off all that much honestly.

Not recognizing the glaring, written-in-crayon-for-3rd-graders Israel/Palestine parallels/allegory here seems to me to be barely a few steps removed from thinking "Animal Farm isn't a political story: all the main characters are farm animals, not people, and animals don't have politics!"

I mean, is that it? Are we actually at the stage of mass hyper-literalist, hyper-pedantic thinking where there's actually people who are coming at this thinking "This can't be about Israel and Palestine: the movie's countries are called Boravia and Jarhanpur! If the movie were about Israel and Palestine, the countries in the movie would be called Israel and Palestine!"

I don’t think the current administration is all that opposed to the Russia invasion of Ukraine.

The current administration has only been in charge for half a year, and Russia/Ukraine's been ongoing as a full-scale hot war since early 2022. By and large, we've supported Ukraine's side for the vast bulk of the conflict thus far, as testament to the fact that we've provided Ukraine with billions upon billions of dollars worth of weapons and military aid.

Regardless, the movie was written before October 7th

Rewrites to movies - even pretty drastic ones - happen right up to the last minute before production, and oftentimes even *during* production. Do we know that this "Boravia" plotline specifically was set in stone the way it is in the finished film prior to Oct. 7th?

And also not for nothing, but that in itself is a moot point since what's been happening between Israel and Palestine has been ongoing since well long before October 7th.

Way, way before October 7th.

And don't even try to argue for "recency bias" on this, because the nature of this conflict was hardly obscure or unknown to people in the U.S. even going back decades ago.

Hell, not even to a few folks on this very forum of all places.

and for his part, Gunn denied that the movie was intended to parallel the conflict between Israel and Palestine.

Gee, wonder why he'd feel reticent to make a blatant IRL public statement on that issue?

Dude, I never claimed the movie isn’t about Israel and Palestine because the countries aren’t literally called Israel and Palestine. I’m saying that I have my doubts that Gunn was going out of his way to deliver commentary about a specific and widely polarizing international conflict in a silly superhero movie. In fact, Gunn even claimed that he tried to distance the movie from the Gaza situation after October 7th.

Also, FYI, I’m a Palestinian American. I’m well aware of the long history of conflict in that region. Again, I’m simply expressing my doubts that James Gunn was trying to deliver a scathing commentary on that specific region in his dumb Superman movie that’s supposed to kickstart a brand new shared universe, especially when the movie has at least a couple of Zionist actors and one of Gunn’s big collaborators at DC Studios is a former CIA agent who was gung-go about invading Iraq.

[Kunzait_83]

Dude, I never claimed the movie isn’t about Israel and Palestine because the countries aren’t literally called Israel and Palestine.

That part of my post wasn't aimed at you specifically. It was under the quote from Julie, not you.

In fact, Gunn even claimed that he tried to distance the movie from the Gaza situation after October 7th.

And like I said, he has good, practical reasons to try and make that distance.

Also, FYI, I’m a Palestinian American. I’m well aware of the long history of conflict in that region.

My apologies, I had no way of knowing that. Regardless, the parallels seem WAY too specific to be a coincidence.

[WittyUsername]

And like I said, he has good, practical reasons to try and make that distance.

I’m inclined to believe Gunn was telling the truth in that case. Supposedly, the movie’s conflict was originally supposed to be more blatantly set in the Middle East, with there being a casting call for a “Middle Eastern dictator” in early 2023, but that was apparently changed into having the conflict take place in a more vague geographic location.

To be clear, I’m not trying to make any judgments about where James Gunn stands on that conflict. I just don’t think he was actively trying to comment on Israel and Palestine. I genuinely think people are reading too much into it. I think Gunn mostly just wanted to include an international conflict for Superman to intervene in so the movie could present a moral dilemma.

[Kunzait_83]

I genuinely think people are reading too much into it.

Given how stark the parallels are, I don't think you can really accuse people of "reading too much into it". Its kind of staring you square in the face, you don't have to make some kind of big mental leap to get to "Israel/Palestine" from just the basic setup. This is hardly some kind of Room 237-level depth of analysis/extrapolation. If Gunn was truly not intending to make that parallel, then this stands as one great big whopper of a fucking coincidence.

[WittyUsername]

I genuinely think people are reading too much into it.

Given how stark the parallels are, I don't think you can really accuse people of "reading too much into it". Its kind of staring you square in the face, you don't have to make some kind of big mental leap to get to "Israel/Palestine" from just the basic setup. If Gunn was truly not intending to make that parallel, then this stands as one great big whopper of a fucking coincidence.

I mean, it’s not like Israel is the only controversial ally the U.S. has had. There’s been a long history of America allying itself with oppressive regimes.

[Kunzait_83]

I mean, it’s not like Israel is the only controversial ally the U.S. has had. There’s been a long history of America allying itself with oppressive regimes.

I suppose the next one that springs to mind is Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has had the full support and backing of the U.S. for eons, and they too have waged incredibly horrific assaults and wars of aggression on other countries: namely Yemen. I guess that paradigm also fits here, more or less.

[WittyUsername]

I mean, it’s not like Israel is the only controversial ally the U.S. has had. There’s been a long history of America allying itself with oppressive regimes.

I suppose the next one that springs to mind is Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has had the full support and backing of the U.S. for eons, and they too have waged incredibly horrific assaults and wars of aggression on other countries: namely Yemen. I guess that paradigm also fits here, more or less.

As I said, I think Gunn was more or less trying to depict a general international conflict that Superman would get involved in and due to the timing of it all, Gaza is the one that a lot of people are comparing it to.

[JulieYBM]

I'm just tossing this out there for clarification, but: filming began on February 29 and lasted through July 30 of 2024. Being the script writer himself, it isn't exactly like Gunn isn't there on set to make script changes—a common practice for any production. I think it's telling that the changes he made to his pre-filmming draft still ultimately took on a shape that reflects what it does in the film. People don't just release these big films based only the draft completed before shooting. Changes happen all of the time during the course of all stages of production.

I don't exactly expect him to come out and ever say that anything was intentional, though. Gunn doesn't appear to be a Zionist, so he has no reason poo-poo the discussion of the film in that respect, especially now that the film is out there in the hands of the people.

Anyway, I'm curious if Jor-El and Lara will be involved in future DCU stuff and what role they'll play, exactly. It seems like one can go anywhere in that respect. How much more Dragon is going to Super this Ball Man?

[kemuri07]

I mean..yeah I do think people are reading way too much into this.

Let me put it this way. If Gunnman (and i am calling that because it both amuses me and I don’t really want to deal with going back and forth between Superman the title and Superman the character) released in 2006, largely intact, then we would have articles detailing how Superman flying into Middle Eastern territory is meant to be an allegory for the Iraq war. My point is that the “non distinctive middle eastern country” is less about a specific conflict or genocide and more just a stand-in for any middle eastern country/conflict. In many ways kinda how Iron Man was criticized back in 2008 for similar reasons. Hell it’s what superhero films/cartoons/and comic books were doing post 9-11

I don’t know what Gunn’s intentions are; it is possible that maybe he was thinking of Palestine when making the script. But then if so, none of it really appears in either the text or subtext of the movie. Basically what Witty is saying. And it’s a problem I have with a lot of the points people are trying to make about the movie. Because the movie doesn’t put in the work to be about the things people are claiming it is.

Edit: an no I’m not making this point because the region is not literally called Palestine. An example that does this way better and actually a piece of media that feels likes it’s “of the times”: X-men 97. That is so very clearly about the Palestinian genocide, not only because a mutant genocide occurs, but because the show is absolutely about “tolerance” and standing by when an atrocious act of violence is enacted on a people. The “Magneto was right” speech hard because the show properly dramatizes these ideas so that it all coalesces in this singular moment that transcends the medium in a a way that even live-action movies struggle with. Superman does not even come close to this. And sure I’m cheating a bit: X-men ‘97 is a tv show, and Gunnman is a pg-13 2hr film, but I think the point still stands. In this point X-men 97 does not simply make mutants a generic stand in for Palestinians, but makes the anger and sadness following all of this the thesis for the show. Gunnman is not willing to do this.

Maybe there is a version of this script that does deal with all of these different ideas that the movie merely hints at, but whether streamlined to make a more accessible entry into the first new film in the new DC cinematic universe, most of it does not appear in the Final Cut.


It’s cool if people are digging it, and I’ll admit that I’m just mostly tired of superhero movies in general. I read comic books habitually, and so I see the movie counterparts as hollow versions of better interpretations of these characters. There are great SuperMan stories—I just don’t see Gunnman as one of them.

[Kunzait_83]

I mean..yeah I do think people are reading way too much into this.

Maybe its just me and how I think of the phrase, but to me "reading too deeply into something" signifies that people are really going out of their way stretching, reaching, and grasping at straws to fit a round peg into a square hole.

Whatever Gunn's intentions were, right now - and really for the better part of the last couple years now - the most politically prominent U.S.-connected violent conflict in the world is currently Israel/Palestine: its at the forefront of a LOT of people's minds presently, and the movie's basic plot/setup - by all accounts - pretty closely lines up with it.

Whether or not Gunn had this specific conflict in mind when he wrote the movie, I don't think people are stretching or reaching all that much or that deeply to see the parallels.

Again, I didn't even see this fucking movie. I don't have a dog in the race for it one way or the other. But literally from the first plot synopsis I read about the Middle East/Boravia conflict that undergirds the movie, Israel/Palestine *immediately* sprung to my mind. Just on the sheer dynamics of it.

If Gunn genuinely didn't have the intent to parallel this specific conflict, then I don't think the blame can be cast on the average rando for seeing it when it A) lines up pretty glaringly directly and B) its literally one of the single biggest geopolitical issues in the Western world right now.

This isn't like people are watching something like The Hangover and claiming its an allegory for French Existentialism: if Gunn decided "screw it" and just made the two countries Israel and Palestine outright, it sounds like he wouldn't really have to change THAT much about the script in order to do it: basically just change a few names around, and that's it.

If just changing some names is all it takes to make the allegory outright literal, if the line separating allegory from literal is THAT paper-fucking-thin: then I'd say definitionally that people aren't "reading too deeply" into things when they notice some glaring similarities to real life events here.

My point here being, people could be misreading Gunn's intent, but they aren't stretching or looking all that deeply in order to get to that conclusion. Not when the similarities are this direct and this surface-level obvious to the naked eye.

And also bear in mind, and this is a point that I've made in a few other threads around here in the past: just because something references or touches on real life politics in some way doesn't mean that that work is inherently, nor is necessarily even trying to be, "deep".

Some of the most overtly, blatantly political movies I remember from when I was a kid growing up were also incredibly, insanely stupid and shallow as all get out. I think too many people have this kneejerk reaction towards thinking that a work being "political" somehow inherently means that it innately is or at least aspires at being something "deep" or high brow or complex.

That isn't always the case! It certainly can be in many cases, but in just as many other cases its not!

And sure enough, if we were to assume for a moment here that Gunn did indeed have Israel/Palestine in mind when he wrote this Superman movie... really, what exactly is he ultimately saying here about it that's any "deeper" or more meaningfully introspective and insightful other than "killing innocent people is bad, no matter who's doing it or what their stated reasons are for doing it"? That about sounds as on-brand surface level and simple as I'd expect from any classic Superman story from the Silver Age.

Placing it in the context of Israel/Palestine might make that otherwise incredibly basic and very simple narrative extra uncomfortable for certain kinds of people to sit with (*cough*Zionists*cough*)... but nobody is, or should be, claiming that this is somehow inherently profound insight for the ages that this movie is espousing.

The Zone of Interest this is not, nor do I think anyone here is mistaking it to be that. Its still just fucking Superman. Superman flies in, punches the bad people, and saves the day. That's all this still ultimately amounts to when all's said and done.

And while I haven't seen the movie, I think me saying "this is still ultimately just Superman punches the bad guy and saves the day, with little else that's much deeper than that" is neither an inaccurate assessment of its content, nor a spoiler of any kind.

Let me put it this way. If Gunnman (and i am calling that because it both amuses me and I don’t really want to deal with going back and forth between Superman the title and Superman the character) released in 2006, largely intact, then we would have articles detailing how Superman flying into Middle Eastern territory is meant to be an allegory for the Iraq war.

Again, the dynamics of this movie's fictional conflict are wholly different from the Iraq War. There wasn't a U.S. proxy-state involved in Iraq: we did it ourselves. The U.S. itself WAS the invading force. We were closer to Boravia in that conflict than we were to Superman.

Boravia being a literal U.S. proxy I think takes this out of being mistakeable as an Iraq War allegory and puts it WAY closer to something like an Israel/Palestine. Or hell, even a Saudi Arabia/Yemen one like I mentioned earlier.

Furthermore, if this movie were written during the time of the Iraq war as an Iraq war allegory and Superman were meant to represent the U.S. in his "invading and getting involved in another country's issues"... he wouldn't be in trouble with the U.S. in the film! He'd be celebrated as an American patriot! Your whole Iraq War variation of this movie's basic plot just doesn't even come close to holding any kind of water here.

An Iraq War version of this story would posit Superman in WAY more of a "morally gray" light. Superman would swoop into Boravia - which in this version I guess would be the Iraq stand-in - and would take out the Saddam stand-in, and he'd be celebrated as a hero at home in the U.S. while being criticized and possibly vilified heavily by the rest of the world.

And since Superman - and by extension, the U.S. - can never be an outright "bad guy" (which lets be real, the U.S. absolutely was the bad guy in the Iraq War), the movie would have to be all wishy-washy and hand-wring over whether or not he did the right thing, even though his "heart was in the right place".

By all accounts, that's NOT what this movie is!

In this movie, unless I'm getting something wrong here, Superman is painted as unquestionably, unambiguously good and correct for DEFYING U.S. interests and attacking an ally/proxy state of ours in order to defend innocent, indigenous people in the ME from being killed by them.

This is incredibly far afield from Iraq War politics and political dynamics. This is Superman acting not as a stand-in for the U.S. but as a truly "free agent", divorced from any national ties or allegiances to any specific country. The U.S. ally/proxy stand-in in this movie are the unambiguous bad guys!

I don’t know what Gunn’s intentions are; it is possible that maybe he was thinking of Palestine when making the script. But then if so, none of it really appears in either the text or subtext of the movie. Basically what Witty is saying. And it’s a problem I have with a lot of the points people are trying to make about the movie. Because the movie doesn’t put in the work to be about the things people are claiming it is.

I mean, fuck it, I should probably just see this fucking movie now at this point: but the text itself, like from just a simple fucking plot synopsis, makes the parallels pretty fucking glaring and obvious to me here.

And again, unless I'm not getting what you're trying to get at here: I don't think this movie, from all accounts, is trying to make some kind of deep, grand, or dense statement on Israel/Palestine. A movie/work can be "political" and touch on political themes WITHOUT being particularly deep about it, while still just being surface-level and simple with it.

This movie doesn't need to be - and sounds like it isn't - anything more deeper than "Superman stands for everything good, just, and noble in humanity" and will always do the right thing and help the innocent and vulnerable, no matter how messy it gets for him in doing so.

That Superman wades into an Israel/Palestine allegory (intentionally one or not) while doing so doesn't mean that this movie is therefore under any obligation to have any grand or densely insightful things to say about it beyond "killing innocent people is bad, no matter who's doing it or whose side they're on when they do it, and Superman will always protect those people and stop the people harming them, no matter who he has to defy to do it".

Edit: an no I’m not making this point because the region is not literally called Palestine. An example that does this way better and actually a piece of media that feels likes it’s “of the times”: X-men 97. That is so very clearly about the Palestinian genocide, not only because a mutant genocide occurs, but because the show is absolutely about “tolerance” and standing by when an atrocious act of violence is enacted on a people. The “Magneto was right” speech hard because the show properly dramatizes these ideas so that it all coalesces in this singular moment that transcends the medium in a a way that even live-action movies struggle with. Superman does not even come close to this. And sure I’m cheating a bit: X-men ‘97 is a tv show, and Gunnman is a pg-13 2hr film, but I think the point still stands. In this point X-men 97 does not simply make mutants a generic stand in for Palestinians, but makes the anger and sadness following all of this the thesis for the show. Gunnman is not willing to do this.

I mean right from the jump here, you're wading into inherently unbalanced and heavily skewed waters. X-Men is, to its utmost core essence, just a fundamentally deeper, more nuanced franchise than Superman ever was or has been. From just its baseline alone, much less its general execution of its themes throughout the vast swath of its best runs and best stories.

This is the Superhero equivalent of comparing a classic Spike Lee movie to a 1930s Saturday Matinee Serial.

Of course X-Men is going to have something WAY more profoundly meaningful and more emotionally hard-hitting to say about Genocide and is going to have a vastly more layered, rich portrayal of how hatred warps and scars humanity: its the fucking X-Men!

Dealing with the deeper scars of hate, intolerance, and even something like Genocide is literally standard fare for that franchise! Its most singularly iconic antagonist is a fucking Holocaust survivor for fuck's sake! Dealing with something as heavy as generational trauma from genocidal bigotry is just another average Wednesday for that team.

Superman meanwhile is... well, Superman. He's generally not that deep, and he's not supposed to be, and its not necessarily a bad thing that he's not.

Superman is nothing less than an avatar for all that is good, moral, and righteous. He's heroism and altruism personified. He's THE original Superhero archetype. Not that Superman can't have good stories, or even some stories that are a bit more meaningful and profound in their own right. I'm a longtime comic reader, I know firsthand that he's has had some.

But its just... not the thing he's generally most known for. Superman is known for always helping the innocent and saving the day from bad guys. He punches Lex Luthor's giant robot, he saves babies and kittens from harm, and everyone cheers and loves him for it. That's the character. That's his whole thing in summation. And again, there's nothing wrong with that and he doesn't have to be anything more than that.

Seeing him in a story where he wades into a geopolitical clusterfuck and getting disappointed that the story didn't have anything more meaningful or more emotionally deep to say about it is just... kind of missing the point of the character here. Obviously the story is going to be Superman basically saying "I don't care who's flag you're aligned with on the global stage, you're hurting innocent people and I'm going to stop you, no matter what kind of trouble it gets me into afterward". That's Superman.

If you want something that tackles the deeper nuances of the kinds of trauma that people who are victims of that kind of genocidal/generational oppression deal with... then yeah, something like X-Men is obviously going to have your back way, way more on that front.

Moreover though, I think this movie - again, without my having even seen the damn thing! - is hitting on a nerve for a lot of people is because people are obviously - and frankly, not unreasonably - desperately hungry and clamoring for some forthright moral clarity and simplicity here. Both in a broadly general sense, and particularly with regards to something like Israel/Palestine specifically.

In the case of the former, its not hard to see why given the general state of both the world broadly and the U.S. specifically. And in the case of the latter, Israel/Palestine - beyond being an incredibly heated issue in the moment - is also an issue that people have been "nuance-trolled" to death with.

The public has been told continuously time and time again for literally decades now that Israel/Palestine is "too complicated for you or anyone to understand properly without a Doctorate in Middle Eastern History, so don't bother thinking too much about it".

I think the zeitgeist has hit a point now where there's clearly a desperate yearning in the cultural climate for someone to stand up and say "Yeah, at a certain point I don't give a shit who started this or how closely aligned 'U.S. interests' are with Israel: we're watching whole families, including babies and children, be starved and massacred in the most bloody, gruesome, and horrible way imaginable, and nothing can conceivably justify this for any reason whatsoever."

This Superman movie - of all things - just happened to come around now during the height of this particular national moment, and it just so happens to feature a central storyline that parallels/mirrors this EXACT circumstance almost nearly one to one (other than some changed names), and it has Superman - again, everyone's immediate mental image of the comic book personification of Everything Good, Right, and Just, and a global icon - step in and basically say what a large, large number of people are thinking exactly about this current state of affairs: That this is wrong, no matter who's doing it and no matter if they're our ally: nothing makes this ok. Someone has to stop this.

"This looks like a job for Superman!" etc. etc.

I dunno, even when I put on my "cynical capitalist" glasses to look at this for a moment, tapping into that exact national zeitgeist - which you don't need to look all that far or deeply to see all around you - which we're currently in to sell a few more tickets seems a pretty logical tack for a Hollywood screenwriter/director to take here.

And even if its in fact 1000% a total bugfuck whopper of a coincidence, and Israel/Palestine was as far from Gunn's mind as can be when he wrote this: again, I don't think people are "stretching" or "looking too deeply" into this movie to come to that conclusion. I think the movie's narrative, on its naked, surface-level face of it, invites that comparison (intentionally or not), and the current national mood/climate makes it all that much more likely and reasonable that a lot of people would end up at that conclusion about this particular story here.

I’ll admit that I’m just mostly tired of superhero movies in general. I read comic books habitually, and so I see the movie counterparts as hollow versions of better interpretations of these characters.

This is pretty much exactly the reason why I myself haven't rushed out to see this movie myself, and am still not in much hurry to, even with all the Israel/Palestine discourse surrounding it.

I've been basically totally sick of and thoroughly done with superhero movies since just before the MCU first started circa 2007/2008. Since then, there's only been one or two that have bucked the trend and have captured any degree of real fondness from me (namely Logan, specifically): everything else has been largely tedious, mind-numbing slop to me.

And like you, I say that as someone who grew up DEEPLY immersed in superhero comics, and still has a great deal of love for many of them to this day.

[BlazingFiddlesticks]

To the original question, I didn't think of Dragon Ball in that moment either. I had figured Superman being as old a character as he is that angle must have been explored at least a dozen times by now.

[Peach]

I thought the first half of the film was good. Where it was sort of All Star Superman inspired and was Superman dealing with different events and navigating his personal relationship with Lois.

The film fell apart for me towards the middle half when Superman is imprisoned and the focus was placed on the Quasi-Justice League and Lois teaming up. It became a very standard good versus evil and hero/villain confrontation after Superman was broken out.

I think I would have liked a gentler movie about balancing Superman and a variety of situations that just keep coming with being Clark Kent.

[nineko]

I just watched the movie (late, I know, but I don't do cinemas because I can't afford them), and I didn't like it at all. I'm not going to comment on the movie itself, and I'm not going to partake in the discussion about potential parallelisms to real world conflicts, because I don't like to bend the forum rules.

I'll just say that it indeed feels like Toriyama and Gunn have been dancing tango with each other. I don't know if this was intentional or not, though I wouldn't put it past Gunn to have thought "if Toriyama made the new Bardok similar to the old Jor-El, I'll just make the new Jor-El similar to the old Bardok", in an attempt to keep them different. You know, like a child who plays with a toy.

Now, in a couple of days I'll probably be able to watch The Final Reckoning as well, I wonder if there are going to be nods to Dragon Ball even there?