My True Inner Nerd Revealed

Disclaimer: If you do not like or have any interest in Superman, skip this post. It's all I talk about for paragraph after paragraph. :) However, if you do like him, you're awesome! And please enjoy my thoughts! 

You know that feeling when you're really exhausted, but you just can't seem to fall asleep? Sundays are always my "definitely napping" days, yet so far, no luck. And honestly, I think it's because I haven't gotten all my thoughts and feelings about Superman out in the open. You see, I watched "Man of Steel" last night and really need to get my reaction to the movie (and perhaps years of other Superman notions) out of my system. Are you guys sure you're ready for this? Here it goes!

My earliest memory of watching Superman (though the memory is a bit hazy) was when we lived in Thailand when I was between the ages of two and six. It was one of the Christopher Reeve movies. The only scene I can really remember was where Superman asked to have his powers taken away (or something to that effect) and then, shortly after losing said powers, gets beaten up at a restaurant. I don't know why this scene is the only scene I can remember from the entire movie, and I don't even know which movie that one was. And for all I know, since I was only about five years old when I saw it, I'm remembering the scene horribly wrong. Anyway, after that one encounter with the wildly popular Superman movies, my real obsession with Superman began when I was introduced to the TV series "Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman" from the early 90's. I loved that show! There were only four seasons (and I could kind of see where the show started going downhill), but I thoroughly enjoyed watching it! But you see, in this series, Clark Kent was the main character. I mean, Superman was too (obviously!), but Superman was not who he was. Clark Kent was who he was, Superman was his job. And I really think that makes so much more sense! I mean, supposedly Clark doesn't become Superman until he's in his thirties. So why does it make sense that now Clark is his "cover" identity when it was his only identity up until that point? This has always bothered me with what I've heard and seen in the Superman movies from the 70s/80s. Clark was just a boring, plain nothing character. But in Lois & Clark, Dean Cain played Clark Kent as a normal, likable guy. He and Lois were friends, a writing team, and you enjoyed seeing them together. They joked, they teased, and you didn't feel like Lois was a shallow jerk. Yes, she still had a crush on Superman but not on Clark (initially), but she still liked Clark. In the movies, Lois seems to treat Clark like he's completely invisible. How lame is that?

Then I got into Smallville. Smallville had a bit of an advantage because Clark Kent is the only character. (That may sound confusing, but just go with me on this.) He's in high school and doesn't even have Superman on his radar. Therefore, he's a normal, likable guy who's trying to figure out who he is and what's going on with all these crazy powers that keep showing up. I'll admit that I pretty much lost interest right around season...seven? Something around there, but I love the earlier seasons. Then came "Superman Returns." I looked forward to this movie for months and months and months. Probably over a year. And you know what happened? It was pitiful. Clark was, once again, a lame, ignored character. And from what I can remember, even though Clark and Superman are the same guy, I'm pretty sure between the two of them, they only said about ten words throughout the whole movie. Lois came off like a shallow jerk (again!) and the movie itself was just boring. PLUS, I really think Hollywood has plenty of very attractive actors to choose from. I mean, I know they do. And yet, for some reason, when choosing to cast for the role of Superman (Superman!) they chose someone that I'm not sure I'd look twice at if I saw him walking down the street. Just sayin'...

And then came the news that there would be another Superman movie and THANK GOODNESS, it was going to have nothing to do with Superman Returns. A fresh start. A different actor! And, hopefully, a much better storyline. Since the movie came out a few weeks ago, I had already seen a bunch of Facebook statuses telling me that it was really very horrible. I mean, some people hated this movie so much, I started to feel real concern about their well-being. (Not really...) But I do think it helped me to lower my expectations a bit. So what did I think of Man of Steel? To be perfectly honest, I liked it! I mean, I didn't love it. But 98% of the movie was violence and gore and fighting and crazy commotion so the fact that I liked it at all is pretty incredible. I'm not a crazy "fight scene" fanatic. I like for there to be calm, character-building, plot-driving scenes dispersed throughout the fighting, but here's my take on this particular movie. Superman is, for all intensive purposes, invincible. No human can actually challenge him to a fist fight and think they have any chance of even hurting him, much less winning. But if you bring in another Kyrptonian with the same strength and abilities as Superman, you've got yourself quite the battle. And the directors decided to take advantage of this. I mean, when Superman takes on Lex Luthor, they're not going to brawl it out. At least, not like that. So really, unless the director decides that only other alien enemies should be brought in to take on Superman, I wouldn't think the next movie (hopefully!) would be nearly as battle-crazed. I could be wrong, but I hope not.

I felt that the backstory they told about Krypton and Clark's journey to becoming Superman made a lot of sense. It makes sense that the world would recognize him as Superman without the glasses first, so now he needs to disguise Clark. He would have had no reason to wear glasses growing up. Who randomly decides to wear glasses for no reason? It's not as if he could anticipate that one day he might need a disguise so, therefore, he should go ahead and prepare for that day. The way they set it up here made sense! And I liked that. I also much preferred his relationship with Lois in this movie. They were friends! (What a notion!) The two didn't get to interact all that much, but considering how much of the movie was one big, never-ending battle, I was surprised how often they were onscreen together. And I liked Clark's relationship with his mother. And, to just get it out there, I liked Henry Cavill as Clark/Superman. Aside from the fact that he's very gorgeous (my husband knows I think this and doesn't feel threatened in the least, haha!), I liked his portrayal of Clark/Superman much better than both Brandon Routh and (don't kill me!) Christopher Reeve. I don't feel that Tom Welling can count since he never really played Superman, and the superhero he did play became so brooding and emotional. And Dean Cain is still my favorite! Hah. I might be completely in the minority on that one, but I don't care. If you do happen to watch Lois & Clark at some point, I'm going to go ahead and warn you that the special effects are not really all that special. But it was a TV show in the early 90s, so you need to cut them some slack. ;)

Ah. I think that finally does it. I'm sure none of you made it to this point because I bored you to tears. But to those of you that did make it to the end, I hope you enjoyed learning about the true source of my inner nerd. I've never denied being a nerd, but I haven't always admitted to being a Superman nerd. I don't think I would be accepted in the true "Superman Nerd Club" (if such a thing exists) because I neither read the comics nor like the old(er) movies. But that's OK. I'll be in my own category. :) I tried to avoid any spoilers (in case there are those that still want to be surprised when they watch it), so hopefully I succeeded. Much love to you all! And lastly, Superman is awesome. The End.