Originally published at: Matthew Vaughn thinks Zack Snyder wasted Henry Cavill as Superman | Boing Boing
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Given how charismatic Cavill can be, I feel he could play a great superman.
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Cavill had the look of the perfect on screen Superman. But the scripts were terrible, and the wholesale destruction of whatever environment Superman happened to be standing in at the moment was just ridiculous. I may be old, but i remember the adventures of Superman quite differently. Does the world need another Superman movie? Only if it is a good one.
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Exactly. And the way to do that is, as Vaughn suggests, is to lean into what Superman has always been, not try to make him Batman like Snyder did. And I think Gunn will do that. I mean, I was super skeptical before the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie. Talking raccoon, sentient tree, and a lead named Star Lord? How could that possibly work, I thought? Well…Gunn leaned into the inherent ridiculousness of it rather than try to run away from it and make something more grounded in reality. And it worked. It worked really, really well. The idea of Superman (truth, justice, etc. and always a goody-twoshoes) sounds corny and ridiculous in 2023. But I am convinced it will work. Honestly…we kind of need an idealized goody-twoshoes hero in the world right now.
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Look at how Captain America was handled in the MCU - there absolutely is a way to portray Superman’s idealism that works even for today’s cynical audiences.
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Yeah, Cap came off much better in the movies than I would have expected.
Superman is inherently slightly goofy. Not just because he wears his underwear on the outside, but he’s a walking brick who dresses up as a reporter with his only disguise being a pair of glasses. I mean, I don’t know if you’ve ever had a family member come home from the optometrist, but you can likely still recognize them.
Heck, he could still easily bring back Cavill. Multiple universe, rough handwave, move on. It’s comics.
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Snyder wasted just about everything.
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Is that Matt Gaetz?
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I am here for the Zack Snyder hate-fest. I mean, the guy may be a competent editor, but he is one of the worst storytellers. He doesn’t even tell stories, he just does set pieces based around comics, but I have yet to ever, ever see him capture the soul of what a comic author was saying. How badly he missed the point in Watchmen is well known. Where Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons made the violence seen ugly, something to detest, ol’ Zack painted it all in loving detail, as if the authors talked of dog shit and Zack decided it was mousse au chocolat that needed to be presented on a silver platter. Hell, he even flubbed Frank Miller in 300!
No, really, the guy is almost as bad as Uwe Boll. No, he’s worse because he still cons studios into giving him projects!
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Some people lamented how his adaptation left out the whole space squid plot, meanwhile I couldn’t get over how he omitted Nite Owl’s beer gut and had him and Silk Spectre brutally fight their way through a bone-shattering prison riot as a form of foreplay.
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Since Professor Mindy already beat me in posting the prerequisite Lebowski reply:
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The 1978 Christopher Reeve movie opened with an image of the 1938 Action Comics cover for a reason: because the filmmakers were signaling that they respected the original source material in all its cheesy, colorful and idealistic glory.
Man of Steel kicked off the most recent slate of DC movies by abandoning everything that made Superman a bright symbol of hope and basically turned him into a caped version of Wolverine.
I don’t blame Cavill for that, he was just acting the part that was written for him. But it’s impressive he was able to read the script at all given how dark the movies were.
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It’s like people believe that the darker, grittier DC Universe that is associated with DC comics of the 80s and 90s is the only one that ever existed…
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All I can say is that Batman v Superman: The Dawn of Justice is one of the worst movies of the 21st century, and I expect it won’t look any better when looking back in 2123. Even the title of the movie is bad!
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“I demand my thoroughly ridiculous comic book superheroes be treated very seriously” is a pretty boorish trend in fandom IMHO. I prefer movies that respect the source material but also aren’t afraid to get a little silly now and then.
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And then… when you do treat it seriously as a work of literature, they get mad that you don’t just praise it mindlessly, but actually, you know bring a critical analysis to it!
Indeed! And that understand that comics and films are different mediums and you can’t just reproduce one mindlessly from the other (such as Snyder’s attempt to do that with Watchmen).
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Unfortunately, not just their opinion. 
I really enjoy Casually Comics dives in to Golden Age books, like “Superman’s Girl Friend, Lois Lane” and “Superman’s pal, Jimmy Olsen”.
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