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josyards · 1 year

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AFTG Instagram HCS

Andrew

Andrew has social media, but it's a faceless 'user929485829394' kind of account (or aminyard maybe... but nobody thinks it's him) that has no followers because he just goes on there to keep up to date w stuff.

All the foxes find it eventually because someone (Nicky...) saw it open on his phone & the fans are so confused why the foxes all follow this random anon account

(Andrew deletes his account the second people start to realise who the account belongs to and makes a new one that only Neil knows about)

(Nobody questions why Neil follows a random anon account that is private because it's so... Neil of him. So nobody realises that it's Andrew this time around.)

With his only audience as Neil, Andrew posts a little. Not a lot. But it's nice, Neil thinks, when he opens Instagram to see that default icon with the ring around it.

Neil

Neil doesn't really post much but when he does it's of other ppl (primarily Allison and Matt but sometimes there is a 'soft launch' of Andrew which the goalie says he hates but never tells him to delete), his account is mainly centred around exy -- all his stories are exy related etc.

Sometimes he tags Kevin in random shit that makes no sense to anyone but them. One time he reposted this random french tumblr post about mafia relations and tagged Kevin and Kevin was hysterical because what the fuck are you doing neil are you trying to get us killed.

Funnily, his pfp is a photo of Kevin smashed drunk because he found it really funny and Kevin ends up blocking Neil on social media when he refused to change it (and because of the shit he gets tagged in).

Kevin

Kevin keeps his Instagram very professional. He posts his magazine photoshoots & has stupid shit like clips of him on Kathy's show saying. "Thank you for having me @kathy, it was a pleasure." and the fans EAT IT UP.

The foxes don't let him live it down and every time he posts anything the foxes all repost it w stupid music or something like that, or just with "HAHAHAHAHAHAH".

But that's not just it, sometimes Kevin posts photos from practice; sneak shots that nobody realises he's taken. It seems sweet; it would be sweet if he wasn't such a raging asshole when they practice. He also posts their match scores on his story.

What shocks the foxes the most out of everything is how open he is about his obsession with USC Trojans. Sometimes they wonder whether they accidentally followed a Trojan fan account but no, it's just Kevin Day shitposting about Jeremy Knox.

Nicky

Nicky predominantly posts loads of selfies and shit, lots of candid photos of the others!!!! He does 'camera dumps' and 'monthly dumps' of photos. He posts everything that he can and his story is like a vlog.

He's also very outspoken with his opinion of social media and goes live all the damn time. It drives the monsters insane when they hear "hey guys!" from their living room.

He actually gains quite a bit of attention as the only fox who isn't completely shutdown secrative about his life and so his reason for posting is fed constantly.

He likes to do those "ask me question" stories and it's really entertaining to see him suddenly rush up to one of the foxes and ask questions that the fans want to know. If you're a new fan, your go to Instagram is 100% Nickys. His highlights are full of info on everything and everyone.

It surprises the foxes immensely when they find out his Twitter time is more than Instagram.

Allison

Allison is similar to Nicky in some sense but more professional, it has more of a 'model/fashion student' vibe to it; she likes to post random stories of her having dressed Neil up (bonding she calls it) and has a little highlight for him (the foxes appreciate her efforts).

She likes to do reels, like "dress up neil w/ me!". She also does advertisements w/ skincare & makeup groups.

She has a very aesthetic-looking account; she likes to do GRWM's (and sometimes they star a fellow fox which makes the fan so excited for each new release). She's extremely charismatic and draws a lot of followers from industries other than sport/exy.

Dan

Dan posts about Exy A LOT which surprises the foxes because even though they know that she loves the sport they didn't realise she followed it with such ferocity.

She has a lot of Foxes content on her page, like group photos or post-match selfies etc. She always posts something like that with the score of the game in the caption.

Her pfp is either one of her and Matt's eyes or a photo of them kissing at the end of a game (maybe the Raven one?).

Matt

Matt's Instagram is a shrine of Dan...andNeil. His focus is largely selfies w them or candids of them. He has highlights for them, named "<3" & "Neil!" (they used to both be <3 but then someone asked if they were poly and the foxes lost their shit).

Matt doesn't really post about exy that much, his Instagram seems to capture the domestic side of the Foxes that don't get shown too much through the other's accounts.

Matt's favourite passtime is posting photos of Neil where he blatantly crops Andrew out of the photo. So you get: Neil looking in adoration at... someone? something? The fans go crazy every time.

Renee

Renee's Instagram is the epitome of domestic. It's crazy. She's private and only accepts people she knows (aka the foxes). She posts the most beautiful candids of the foxes you will ever see; them in their Halloween outfits in Eden's Twilight, (an extra slide of Andrew and Neil looking at each other (it was a collective agreement to ignore Kevin who was slumped on the table)), them post Raven match which was taken by Stephanie Walker, a games night which Neil somehow coaxed everyone into (including Andrew) etc.

It's an account almost solely for documenting the PSU Foxes adventures together. Sometimes she posts a quote about her beliefs or music that she likes.

Her account is the foxes favourite, though they'd never admit it.

Even at gunpoint.

Aaron

Last (and very much least), Aarons Instagram (post book three) is almost entirely soft-launching Katelyn.

Library study photos where you can see a girl's hand and someone else's book?

Check.

Two coffees one which has a lipstick stain on it?

Check.

He's done it all.

(Pre-book three as well) He also sometimes posts random photos of like locations (#courthouse /j) but nothing more than that, all of it is Katelyn and it makes the foxes ill.

I may do more. or edit this

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earl-grey-orange-tabby · 3 months

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my aftg fan cast

disclaimers:

a lot of these, especially in the next part, aren’t actors, so this is less a fancast and more of a “i have a horrible imagination and need to visualize characters so they feel more real to me” list

if they don’t look like what you picture, agree to disagree! i love seeing other ppl’s perspectives of what the characters look like and i hope you do too

without further ado,

neil josten - benjamin wadsworth

okay listen just because i picked the most used neil fancast DOES NOT MEAN THE REST OF THIS LIST IS BORING!!! he’s just so neil-coded to me in deadly class! i even put him into a photo editing app to change his hair and eye color and he still fits!!! plus the top right pic is exactly how i imagine a nathaniel smile.

andrew/aaron minyard - vlad konoplev

i’m gonna give credit to @kalu_aftg on tiktok for this, because i saw this actor in their tik tok. he’s in a russian series called my biggest secret (i watched a couple clips but i haven’t seen the show)

but come on!!!! this is andrew minyard!!!! and always with andrew fancasts it’s difficult to see them as aaron but i feel like this could go both ways, especially in the bottom right pic. identical, but different vibes, yk?

dan wilds - kiersey clemons

i first saw kiersey clemons in new girl as kc and she feels so dan! then i saw the pic on the top left and i was like YES! this. is. dan. she seems very sweet and friendly but i know she could give a great game face.

nicky hemmick - conor husting

even his pics give off major nicky vibes. he also has a very similar hair length to what i picture nicky with. fun fact: he’s also half-mexican on his mother’s side which is strangely accurate lol!!

allison reynolds - jessica lord

i’m gonna be honest i just searched up “blond actresses 20’s” and that top left photo popped up and it was just so so so allison!! i included a couple pics of her in the ballet movie “find me in paris” because i couldn’t find a lot of pics of any of these actors in active wear and this felt close enough.

kevin day - nicholas galitzine

honestly i got this idea from an instagram live he did where he was yelling about being 6 foot and my brain was like “that is kevin day IN THE FLESH”. i originally saw him in bottoms and he totally cracked me up.

matt boyd - daniel ezra

like come on!!! his smile is so bright and inviting, it gives off such strong matt energy. he played spencer james in all-american and i haven’t watched it but ive seen ppl say good things. bonus: he’s the only one i could find with any form of a face guard (even tho nick galitzine also played a football player in bottoms lol)

renee walker - sydney park & lana condor

okay SO my criteria was soft-looking people that can look sharp in other pictures, and i came up with these two! it’s kinda hard to picture renee without the pastel/white hair but let’s suspend disbelief.

seth gordon - young david beckham

speaking of suspending disbelief, LMAOO. just hear me out, okay. seth was a fifth year, slightly older than the rest of them, so i was looking for that + blond buzz cut and this is the result!

and that’s all! i have more so i’ll probably make a part two, but im having trouble finding a nathan because it’s so hard NOT to picture nathan as a redhead but that means he probably won’t look like benjamin wadsworth.

#aftg #all for the game #andrew minyard #neil josten #dan wilds #matt boyd #renee walker #seth gordon #kevin day #allison reynolds #nicky hemmick #foxhole court #fancast

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maxwell-grant · 1 month

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I guess it's also time for the annual ask: Thoughts on The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen?

@mirrorfalls asked: Perhaps it's time to touch the elephant in the room: thoughts on League of Extraordinary Gentlemen?

anonymous asked: Any thoughts on Moore's LOEG? anonymous asked: any advice on how to do a fictional character mashup story ala chimera brigade, league, etc? anonymous asked: you wrote a bit on the wold newton universe and the chimera brigade, any thoughts on league of extraordinary gentleman?

(TW: sexual assault, also a whole lot of racism)

(clip from Anti-Spook Squad by Doctor Lalve)

Let it never be said I don't love or do anything for you people because Jesus Christ what an ordeal.

It was pretty inevitable that I'd eventually have to talk about LOEG given the, niche, I made for myself here, and given I'd read and touched on all these other works that either inspired it or were inspired by it, like the Wold Newton Universe, The Chimera Brigade, Tales of the Shadowmen and etc. I'd read through plenty of different LOEG takes and fics, it's an idea that has a lot of appeal on it's own and is easy to flirt with, if not so easy to pull off.

One thing to put upfront: Kevin O'Neil was a brilliant, one-of-a-kind creator and his work here is great, it's the one thing almost unimpeachably great about the whole thing except when he's asked to draw racist caricatures, which he does quite a bit, we'll get into those. I love the collaboration between Moore and O'Neil and I frequently enjoy the little tidbits where they show up as themselves within the supplemental material. O'Neil does a lot of heavy lifting in these even at their worst, in fact especially at their worst. This comic is a legitimately impressive achievement, and I don't regret reading it, if nothing else I think it was a hell of a wake-up call in regards to all of it's warts I may have been overlooking or replicating in my work or that of others.

I'm gonna break it down by going through the individual installments:

Volume 1: One of the nicest things there is to League is that it only keeps getting better, in the sense that it starts off on the worst foot and it gets better by virtue of not really being able to get worse (yes, even with the Golleywog and Harry Potter sections and whatever). From the moment you open the book it takes about six pages for Mina to be assaulted by Brute Arab Rapist Hordes that Quatermain and Nemo have to gun down, and that pretty much sets the stage on what to expect. Volume 1 is where the series has yet to jump off the deep end in tackling all of fiction, being a more grounded adventure story based on it's premise of being a comic book crossover/hero team comprised of Victorian era literary characters. It's LOEG at it's shallowest and most straightforward, and also at it's least impressive. I'm not remotely charmed by much of what's done here, I've seen a million variants of these before and many of those weren't that great either, but their lows weren't as catastrophic.

(text comes from an essay Alan Moore wrote regarding his usage of Fu Manchu in the book, which was scanned and sent to me by @mirrorfalls, thank you for that.)

The LOEG's first enemy is Fu Manchu and the book sure likes depicting leering hordes of yellow peril cartoons for our heroes, Mr Hyde in particular, to brutally mow down. Alan Moore thought the genius trick to making Fu Manchu not-racist was to make him as inscrutable and sinister as possible so as to not even appear human, which is a great understanding of how racial caricatures work guys, the "not potentially offensive" shirt has people asking a lot of questions answered by it.

I've heard a lot of claims over the years that LOEG was intended to be a parody, or satire, and that it's using Fu Manchu to make a point as a criticism of the British Empire and imperialism, and I'm gonna make this clear before we move on: LOEG is not a parody or satire, not as a whole. It parodies and satirizes a lot of things, but it is neither parody nor satire. It is very much in love with much of it's subject matter even when it wants to burn it down. LOEG is also a frankly terrible critique of imperialism, it is one of the most imperialist things I've ever read. Part of it is because you can't just recycle problematic garbage and claim it's commentary, especially when you're going out of your way to sensationalize said garbage to be provocative or in many cases add shit that wasn't even there in the first place. Moore asked if anyone else was gonna try and criticize colonialist bigotry in fiction by tripling down on reproducing it as hard as possible, and then didn't wait for an answer before doing it.

Volume 2: Objectively an improvement over the first if only because Fu Manchu isn't there. It's also where the book kinda improves in terms of making a critique. LOEG never really has much to say about it's characters, instead developing them in service of the story or social commentary, and Volume 2 is better at it than the first. Still has a lot of the same problems as 1, it's still a shallow team-up thing that wants to have it's cake and eat it too, it's still the worse version of a concept that's been done many many times before and after. Edward Hyde gets the bulk of the focus here and he was very clearly Moore and O'Neil's favorite character to work on, he gets the most memorable sequences for better or worse. I don't wanna talk about him much and I don't wanna talk about how the book wraps up the Invisible Man's subplot (and how it's not even gonna be the last time sexual violation of a villain is played for oh-so-horrific catharsis), I'd frankly like to stop thinking about it.

The Traveler's Almanac was definitely the most exhausting part to read in full and only not a total waste of time because of Jess Nevins' annotations, which turn this into fairly valuable research material. But so do Wold Newton articles and they're really not the most riveting thing to read, and at least those have a point or constrain themselves to a single topic or character, or are briefer and come with resources on hand or have a point or even can pitch some neat/cool ideas and concepts as a whole. Jess Nevins even did the better version of this in his own WNU chronologies.

Where as this is just complete ass and there's only so many times you can read a variant of "and then we went to this place with horrible cannibal savages and then we went to the other place with beautiful cannibal savages and then we found this utopia and then we found this dystopia and then we referenced this and that and this and that", and it brings me to another point I'd also seen brought up a lot in regards to LOEG: that it's too damn anglocentric to live up to it's premise, too contradictory within itself, and it was always too big of an undertaking to be done the way Moore and O'Neill did it.

I appreciate Moore trying to make this world feel like a world, in as gigantic all-encompassing a scale as he could possibly account for, with a full world tour and internal chronology. I sure would have liked a big fiction crossover almanac with entire chapters for Africa and China and South America, but we don't get that, because EVERYTHING in them is taken from colonial texts elevated to fact. Literally, entire paragraphs taken from political and colonial texts. All the time spent dicking around with all of those Euro political texts and ancient lore that just had to be paid it's due, and then Orlando goes to China and finds Sun Wukong stuffed as a public freakshow and dismisses his mythos as a bunch of loony (but intriguing and exotic!) hogwash, and Godzilla is later brought up in one line of dialogue to mention how Hugo Hercules killed him offscreen. (I think those might be the only two texts Moore brings up that aren't from European/American sources? There might be others but good luck finding them in the annotations).

Is it unfair to expect Moore to have read all of fiction? Of course it is, but that's what he wants this to be about, he wants this to be about All of Fiction and he wants to write about Africa and China and South America with nothing but colonial texts about those places as reference. He wants to write about how the things he likes are cool and happened and are real while the things he doesn't like don't count or are garbage or didn't happen the way we were told happened. He wants to make a story criticizing racism and misogyny in fiction while writing a text far more racist and misogynistic than most of the things he's bringing up. It's irreconcilable.

Black Dossier: It's constantly jumping between different formats and having to adjust it's prose and visual style accordingly, and it does that fairly well (the beatnik section is completely fucking unreadable though, the prose sections are already a handful to get through as is but that one was too much even for me), although Tempest I think is gonna do it much better. It's got some good parts, it's also got some bad ones. Definitely more readable than the prior two + Almanac.

This is the one with the Gollywog in it and I'm not gonna talk about that thing, I think what's wrong with it is self-explanatory as is. Look, I truly love a lot of Moore's work I've read, and I think a lot of the pushback against Alan Moore painting him as just a cranky old man who hates comics is overblown and shitty and symptomatic of bigger issues with how fans discuss comics and superheroes, but his defense of the Gollywog and his response to the criticisms of LOEG was embarassing and beneath him.

Century: This is the one with Harry Potter and The Lightning Penis in it. To those of you who heard at some point that Alan Moore had done a much-maligned pisstake on Harry Potter and got curious, don't get your hopes up. It's nothing, it's not even that mean, it's just a crude crayon doodle in service of a larger and very dumb critique of modern fiction that could have been anyone. Shame that he bullseyed ahead of the schedule the cultural about-face against Harry Potter without having anything actually criticizing Harry Potter to show for it.

Century does work for me a bit better because it dispenses with the pretense of the series and has it build up to the big awful tragedy it ends on, with all of it's remaining characters miserable immortals and all the fictions having curdled up and gone sour. It works for me only because I have no love whatsoever for this world and so it destroying our characters in the service of the larger narrative about stories and fictional immortality and whatnot is a decision I agree with and I think makes it stronger, even if the social commentary / the story's criticism of modern stories compared to the old ones is frankly absurd. Century I think was perceived as Moore/O'Neill having lost the plot, but to me it feels like the plot (more importantly, the point of it) finally showing up after so much pointless dicking around.

The Nemo trilogy: Easily the one I most enjoyed reading, the Nemo Trilogy is almost like a breather set in between books, just fairly straightforward pulp adventure stories done in far less rancid a fashion than Volume 1. It feels less like a LOEG book and more like one of those LOEG fanfics made by people who like the concept and characters but are dissappointed by the books, so they fill or add or rewrite in the blanks with their own ideas, which is basically every LOEG fanfic ever made. I quite like Janni Dakkar as a character and I'm already a huge mark for Captain Nemo, one of my favorite characters ever, and I was of course very glad to get away from the extremely tiresome Mina/Allan/Orlando trio for a change. Frankly I'd even recommend these as a standalone, they're so disconnected from everything else in LOEG.

If you guys want to read a comic take on Captain Nemo though, read Mobilis by Juni Ba. Infinitely better than anything Moore did with the concept of Nemo, takes far less pages to actually explore the character meaningfully and has far more interesting, more humane and personal things to say and do in general, one of the best things I ever read and a tremendous palette cleanser after LOEG.

Tempest: Tempest is what I'd call the best of the LOEG books, in terms of craft and in terms of achieving what it sets out to do. Namely, it's one of the most elaborate and most artistically impressive slowly unfurling middle fingers I'd ever read, Alan and Kevin in full burning down the house mode throwing everything they've got at the wall, playing around with as many different styles and gags and ideas as they can cram into the great apocalyptic ending of their collaboration. It's a very spiteful work that has a lot of joy and humor to it, fully divested from giving a shit about it's characters and instead recasting them as the bit players they always were in the grand fuckening of humanity at the hands of our fictions.

It gets to burn down everything and also preserve everything in a big dreamy Noah's Ark forever, it plays to every strength the series had, and frankly I barely minded the detours because this thing is all detours. The superhero parody that takes up so much of it isn't really anything funny or insightful or really anything, but there's good bits in it, and I like Alan Moore talking trash about superheroes (of course, it pales in comparison to What Can We Know About Thunderman, but that one is a league of it's own). It's Alan and Kevin's farewell to comics with all the mixed feelings towards it and the industry and the subject matter they both have decades of so much experience with it. It is The End of Everything and I think it ended on the best note it could have ended with.

In summary, I think LOEG has a lot of individually cool or neat or even great ideas that I think get lost, because there is so, so much of it, and so much of it is impressively painted sludge. Sometimes it is ingenious, sometimes it is fun, it is never not visually impressive, but it's more frequently dull and grotesquely self-indulgent and far too shallow. It suffers from an almost inescapable side effect of doing this dealing with the fiction he was dealing with without accounting for taste or bothering to reign in his worst impulses, too much to cover and not enough actually being said about it. In truth, much of it doesn't feel much different than reading the wiki summaries for it I had already read forever ago. It is a unique beast taking swings that I'd never seen before that most wouldn't, probably for very good reasons most of the time. It is also guilty of literally everything it's criticizing other works of being and doing, and sometimes it actually provides it's best commentary because of that! It's a complicated thing to tackle and wrap your head around. God knows what Jess Nevins must have gone through to make the annotations for this, as they put it on the Almanac annotations.

I don't consider it wasted time because, I did really enjoy the final two installments, there are good bits scattered across the other books and I learned some good things from it as a whole, but would I recommend it in it's entirety? Unless you're really a huge fan or completionist for it's creators (although reading LOEG really disillusioned me on Moore in a lot of ways, not that this is a bad thing, if anything that's a necessary thing to really try and grasp a creator's body of work) or you're the kind of sicko who'd be in the tank for the whole thing, no, not really.

It is one of the most impressive and accomplished works I've ever read, I will probably come back to it for research purposes, but holy shit am I glad to put it behind me.

#also thank you davidmann for sending me the epilogue #replies tag #loeg #league of extraordinary gentlemen #alan moore #kevin o'neill #abc comics #comics

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flanaganfilm · 1 year

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Hey Mike! Can you talk about your experience going from Absentia to Oculus? That process after Absentia went on its festival run to pitching Oculus? Would love to learn about that time in your life & career!

I moved to Los Angeles in 2003, right after I graduated college. I went to Towson University in Maryland, was an EMF major (Electronic Media & Film) and had wanted nothing more than to make movies my whole life. We were a comfortable middle class military family (my dad was in the Coast Guard) and for most of my life, making movies for a living felt like an impossible dream.

When I moved to LA I took whatever work I could find. I shot and edited those local car commercials you see on TV at 2am, I was a logger and an AE for reality TV shows, and I eventually worked my way to editing.

I said I'd give myself 5 years to make it in Hollwood. By the time we shot Absentia, I'd been here for 7 years, and in that time I hadn't gotten any closer to my dream.

I've already written at length about how Absentia came along and what it was like to make that little movie, and I've recently blogged about how the Oculus premiere changed my life and birthed my career, so I won't rehash those - but I don't often talk about what went on in between.

I finished editing Absentia just before my oldest son was born in 2010, and went back to working full-time as a reality TV editor. In fact, in the months leading up to his birth, I was working double-time - I spent my days at a company called Film Garden working on a series for DIY Network, and my nights editing packages at Nash Entertainment for those true crime clip shows. Whatever it took to keep the lights on and provide as much support as I could for my son.

While this was happening, I'd submitted Absentia to a pile of film festivals. We didn't get into any of the majors - Sundance, SXSW, and Toronto all passed on the film. Our world premiere was at the Fargo Film Festival, where Tom Brandau, one of my former professors from Towson - and one of my mentors - was teaching.

(Our original festival poster, WAY better than the weird clip art that would come later)

The movie got into a fair amount of film festivals, and we traveled with it as much as we could. I have fond memories of the Phoenix Film Festival, San Luis Obispo (where I met Greg Kinnear at a party and very awkwardly asked for a picture - you can see how thrilled he is about it) and my personal favorite: the Fantastia Film Festival in Montreal.

(At one of the screenings, I believe the San Luis Obispo Film Festival)

While this was happening, the film was picked up for a tiny VOD and DVD release through Phase 4 Films.

They were a Canadian distribution company whose claim to fame was putting out Kevin Smith's Red State under a very unusual distribution model. They acquired the movie, which led to a company holiday part in Hollywood.

There, I briefly met Kevin Smith for the first time. We've met again since, and I've now had a chance to thank him for the kindness he showed me back then - I was just some starstruck kid at a party, but he was gracious and available and inspiring. I really admire the way Kevin deals with his fans, and I've tried to emulate it over the years.

So that was kind of it for Absentia. We went to a few festivals, went to a few parties, and posed for a few pictures with some people we admired. Phase 4 designed some truly godawful cover art, dropped the movie into video stores, and that was that.

($2.99 is a pretty good deal)

So Absentia had pretty much run its course. It had a passionate following of fans, but between the crappy art design and glut of low budget horror films on the market, its moment had already come and gone. I was back at work, editing a series for DIY Network called Extra Yardage, and yearning for another chance to make a movie.

Absentia might not have broken open the industry doors like I'd wanted it to, but one thing it did yield was a meeting with an entertainment attorney named Joel VanderKloot.

I had been represented a few times over the years by various managers (to be honest, they were actually Jeff Howard's managers, and they took me on because we had a co-written project together.) But those relationships hadn't gone anywhere, I'd never sold a script or booked a job, and when I suggested making Absentia they were not supportive ("You've already tried the indie thing, haven't you?") so by the time Absentia was made, I was completely unrepped.

Joel was a family friend of Jason Poh, who was one of our Absentia Kickstarter backers. He was a guy who'd just found the project online and donated a thousand bucks. He kept up with us, and loved the final movie. He told me he knew an entertainment lawyer and offered to arrange a lunch.

I left my editing job at Film Garden for a long lunch and met Joel in Santa Monica (this was a day-killing drive for me). Joel had seen the movie and really liked it. We had a good lunch, but wasn't immediately sure about taking me on - it's a lot of work to take on a new client, and there wasn't much heat on my movie. But there was something there that he liked, and he called later that day to say he would take me on as a client.

I was elated. I felt like I'd made my movie to the best of my ability, and that it had flashed in the pan and then died... no one had noticed outside of a few festival audiences and critics. But here was someone who worked in the industry and he saw something in the film that he believed in.

Joel started looking for managers while I clung to my day job. He passed the movie around and we had a few nibbles, which led to the first manager in my career who wanted to simply represent ME: Nicholas Bogner.

Bogner went about setting general meetings at production companies who specialized in horror films. There weren't a lot of takers, and not everyone was willing to watch an entire feature film in consideration of a general meeting. So it was hit or miss - I was a nobody, after all, and they get these kinds of incoming inquiries all the time.

But there were a few takers. And the very first meeting I had was with Anil Kurian at Intrepid Pictures.

Again, I took an extended lunch from my editing job and drove across town to Intrepid's offices in Santa Monica. I was beyond nervous when I sat in the waiting room. The young man working the front desk signed me in and offered me a water. And then, just before the meeting started, he leaned over and he said "I loved Absentia, by the way."

Anil was a really cool executive and we had a good general meeting. At the end of it, he introduced me to the heads of Intrepid: Marc Evans, and Trevor Macy.

We all ended up in the conference room, where posters for Intrepid's other movies - at that time, The Strangers and The Raven - were hanging. I vividly remember staring at them while I pitched all five of the ideas I had for movies.

One of them was a story about a little boy whose dreams manifested in real life, and another was a take on Stephen King's novel Gerald's Game. But at the time, none of these ideas worked. The meeting was over, and everyone was politely going about their day.

I felt a panic in me. It was my first real meeting, the door had been cracked open just an inch by Absentia, and I was about to walk away with nothing. Would my new manager want to keep me? Would my new lawyer think he was wasting his time?

I stopped in the doorway and turned back. "I've got one other thing," I said. "I made a short years ago about a haunted mirror, and I have a take for a feature."

They kind of laughed at the idea of a haunted mirror. "How do you make that scary?" Trevor asked. I said "Think of it like a portable Overlook Hotel," and the room got a little quieter.

"I'd like to see that short," Trevor said. I agreed to send it immediately.

I ran back to work, stayed a few hours late to make up the time I'd burned on my lunch hour, and went home to find a DVD copy of Oculus: The Man with the Plan.

I'd made that short in 2005. It was 20 mins long, and a lot of fun. Over the years whenever I'd get into meetings (all courtesy of Jeff Howard, who had sold scripts long before we started writing together), people would see it and ask about a feature. Every time, though, the conversation stalled because they wanted the film to be a found footage movie, or they'd balk at the idea of me directing a feature.

I sent the DVD to Intrepid and waited. About a week later, they called and asked me to come back in.

I took another long lunch (this would become quite a habit as the project advanced) and drove back down. We met again in the conference room, but this time the mood was a little different.

Trevor said "We're interested in this. How would you expand it? I know there are cameras in the room with the man and the mirror, which begs the question of found footage..."

My heart sank.

"... but we're thinking that's a mistake. It looks like all the fun is in playing with reality, and you can't do that with found footage. So how would you do it?"

And we were off.

I won't rehash the long journey between this meeting and the Oculus premiere at Toronto (scroll down to find another blog about that), but that was really the moment when things changed.

I drove back to work a little giddy. Intrepid optioned the short film, I called Jeff Howard to see if he'd still want to work on a feature with me, and we were commissioned to write the script.

It was my first Hollywood job. I was paid the bare minimum, but I was also able to join the WGA because of the deal. I still didn't quit my day job (and wouldn't for a long time, not until the movie was really shooting in Alabama the following year) but I was off to the races.

Once the script was done, Oculus would lead to my first agents (at APA, and they treated me very well) and my first "real" movie.

What's particularly neat about this time, looking back, is that I owe it all to Absentia. We'd made this tiny little movie to try to kick open the door of Hollywood and start a career. And despite the enormous pride I had in the finished film, it felt for a long time like it hadn't quite succeeded in that.

But quietly, subtly, the movie did exactly what I hoped it would. The festival screenings built up a small but confident word of mouth. The movie led directly to my attorney Joel (who still represents me to this day), which led directly to my first real representation, which led directly to Intrepid Pictures.

Trevor Macy is now my business partner and has produced every single thing I've ever made since. We run Intrepid Pictures together, and I see that same eagerness in the faces of young filmmakers who find their way to us for general meetings. I try to be as supportive and accessible to them as I possibly can, because I remember very well what it feels like to stand in their shoes.

And Trevor even ended up making those other pitches he'd rejected all those years ago - Before I Wake and Gerald's Game followed soon after Oculus was done.

Absentia did everything I could have wanted it to do, and much more. I'll always remember that period of time with great affection... but man, it was stressful. The uncertainty of those years still exists in me, I don't think it'll ever leave.

Someone told me, along the way, that there wouldn't be a moment when I realized I "made it." It would happen while I wasn't looking. That ended up being absolutely true.

#absentia #oculus #intrepid pictures #hollywood dreams

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lizaluvsthis · 5 months

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PUTTING AN INFO DUMP-

Btw James Bailey AKA Voice actor of SMG3 is out on livestream saying something about SMG3's character

James: Okay so- Imagine shadow the hedgehog... but GAY *proceeds to laugh*

If anyone who doesn't know- Shadow the hedgehog's character seems to almost match SMG3 without deep tone of his voice and other of the stuff- but his ego, temper, edgy, and eye color matches SMG3

---

The Title from Hobo Bros called "About SMG3"

youtube

I guess it leaves a confirmation there that Kevin (aka Luke's brother) had wrote the episode "Snowtrapped" And Luke adding in that SMG3 and SMG4 Had S3X in that Igloo, not Kevin knowing about it.

So it actually turns out that he didn't put that in there and Luke DID THAT ON PURPOSE- (i mean- we love an enemies to lovers trope AHRIGJEQJ)

And also reading the wiki about smg3

"Smg3 appears to be smarter than smg4 in the series, but is also gay like him (even though it isn't fully confirmed that SMG4 is gay)" so this is also part of the smg4 mysteries as mentioned.

But later on the episodes, smg4 is hinted as Bisexual coming into full aware that he's been gay ever since the start (not sure if it really is canon but it IS hinted)

If you don't believe me I suggest you take a look back in SMG4'S new castle, where SMG4 moves in feom his room. And smg3 telling him- whats gonna happen if you bring home a girl? AND OR- BOY?

And also hinted smg3 as Pansexual back in the episode- The mystery of the missing Blue and White

When SMG4 goes missing, Mario asks SMG3. "Look, do you know where your girlfriend SMG4 is?" SMG3 tells mario something.

"well first off he would be the boyfriend and I would be the girlfriend. And second yes I sorta do. He's in... wait a minute..."

Smg3 starts to panic cuz the dude told SMG3 that he should never tell anyone where they are or where he is.

Mario says this. "LOOK DUDE THIS GUY WAS YOUR GAY FRIEND! you two had fun trying to kill each other! And he's going to die if you dont help!" AND SO SMG3 EVEN HELPED THEM- LIKE- AAAAA-

----

HOBO Theatre: SMG3 Prepares for WOTFI 2020

youtube

The first start of the clip is a great way to clap your hands on.

-----

Its impossible- HOW CAN THEY NOT BE CANON STILL??? LIKE ITS RIGHT INFRONT OF OUR EYES- CHILL? NO- I DONT NEED TO BE CHILL- AND HERE WE ARE WAITING- UUURGGHHHHHHHHH

#lizaluv #smg34 #smg3 #smg4 #smg4 smg3 #mario #Youtube

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l-gengar-l · 9 months

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YouTube Channel:

CallMeKevin

Full Video Name:

This game is like Sesame Street and Resident Evil combined

#my friendly neighborhood #callmekevin #callmekevin clips #call me kevin #call me kevin clips #youtube gamer #video game #games #video games #game clips #youtumblr

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edith-hyde · 4 months

Text

Norman Osborn X Female Reader

I Forgot My Umbrella - Part 44

Word Count: 1548

Summary: When trouble appears, an unlikely savior comes to the rescue. But at what cost?

Warnings: Age gap. PG/PG-13.

A/N: The end of last year was certainly... something. I cannot promise a proper schedule, but I will do my best. If you want to be tagged for the next chapter, let me know!

Tagging: @druigswh0ree @digital-demise @maskmare931 @b1ueoff1ine @imwithyoutiltheendofthelinebucky @wtfhasmy-lifecometo @ghnaim24 @sitkafay @itsflowertrashsselfshipblog @that--thing @winterinhimring @goodnightboi @moonsienoonsie @madzillo

Archive

Norman awoke early in the morning, unable to sleep soundly due to his worries. The fear he felt for you twisted in his mind. And that fear was a portal for an unwanted guest.

‘We should go now. Be there before the little twerp even shows up.’

Norman groaned, rolling over to check the time. It was only 7am. He still had another 3 hours before he promised to arrive.

“She will be alright,” Norman promised himself and the Goblin.

‘Don’t be so sure, Norman. Anything could happen between then and now. You cannot leave our precious Y/N alone. She’s ours to protect.’

Norman rolled his eyes.

“From what she describes, this Dan miscreant is a pathetic waste of space. There is very little chance that he actually poses a threat of any kind.”

‘Are you willing to take that risk?’

No.

Norman was not.

Throwing his covers to the side, Norman got in the shower. He hoped that you wouldn’t mind him coming early. He’d probably just wait in his car outside.

Yes.

That would suffice.

——

You were awoken by the sound of banging. Bolting upright from your bed, you scurried into the front room to find Tracy hiding by the phone as someone knocked angrily on the door. You barely had time to process what was happening before an venomous shout reached your ears.

“I know you’re in there Tracy! Come on! You called me!”

Dan was here.

Tracy looked at you with fear, too frightened to say a word. You snuck across the room to her, afraid that Dan might hear you.

“I am so sorry,” she whispered, “I am never drinking again so long as I live!”

“Shhh. If we wait him out, he’ll probably leave.”

The two of you stayed against the wall, eyes on the door. Dan shouted a few more times before you heard his footsteps leave off down the hall. After waiting for a long moment, you smiled.

“See? He can’t do anything-”

CRASH!

Glass showered into the room as a brick smashed through your window. Tracy screamed, grabbing onto you as Dan climbed in off the fire escape.

“This is ridiculous!” He snapped, “Why didn’t you answer the door?”

“What has gotten into you?!” You demanded, “Are you crazy?!”

Dan fixed you with a glare and in that moment you realized a horrific truth- you had never really known him. Right now, looking into those eyes, it was clear that he was capable of anything.

You stood between Dan and Tracy, slowly moving towards the door. Dan picked up the brick and pointed it at you.

“I am sick and tired of you messing everything up.”

“Me?” You squawked.

“Yes, you. You messed up the whole dynamic. First you turned Kevin against me, and then you took Tracy!”

“You did that to yourself,” you snapped, “Don’t blame me for your own stupid behavior.”

“I won’t let you take her from me,” Dan snarled.

Then he charged.

“Go!”

You shoved Tracy ahead of you toward the door. Dan swung down at you with the brick, but you rolled out of the way. Frantically, you kicked upward between his legs causing him to double over. Tracy had gotten the door open and was standing there, hand outstretched to you.

“Come on!”

You scrambled to your feet, desperate to reach her. But the brick came sailing past your head. You were quick and dodged it.

Tracy was not so lucky.

The edge of the brick clipped her temple and she fell back into the hallway on her knees. You screamed in horror, trying to gather her in your arms to see if she was okay. But Dan came up behind you and grabbed a fist full of your hair. He yanked you back and then did the unthinkable.

He hefted Tracy up and threw her down the stairs.

You stared in horror at Tracy’s seemingly lifeless body laying broken on the floor. She had to be breathing… Please God let her still be breathing.

“Now look what you made me do,” Dan growled, “This is your fault.”

He yanked you back into the apartment by your hair and slammed your head into the wall. It wasn’t hard enough to knock you out immediately, but your vision blurred as your thoughts ran together. You wanted to scream again, try to alert your neighbors. But you couldn’t form words.

“You always acted like you were so much better than me,” Dan said, “Like you couldn’t even give me the time of day. Ya know, the only reason I went out with Tracy was because you were too much of an arrogant bit-”

Dan’s rant was cut short by a hand grabbing his throat. He released you, allowing you to fall to the ground. Looking up, you smiled at your savior and finally managed to whisper something before you passed out.

“Norman.”

——

Norman was on sabbatical.

The sight of you held in Dan’s grasp was enough for him to relinquish control to someone actually capable of protecting you.

“Are you prepared for the kind of death you’ve earned, little man?”

Dan’s eyes bugged out of his head as The Goblin’s grip got even tighter. Raising him up into the air, Goblin slowly walked him towards the window.

“What… what are you… gah!”

The Goblin stepped out onto the fire escape and pinned his prey up against the banister.

“Any last words?”

“Please! Please don’t kill me! This is all a misunderstanding!!”

The Goblin leaned forward into Dan’s face, teeth bared.

“You never should’ve touched her.”

Then Goblin smiled wickedly.

“Have a nice trip!”

And with that, he flipped him over the railing.

Dan screamed the whole way down and the Goblin waited for the satisfying wet SPLAT of his corpse hitting the concrete. His brains sprayed the ground in an almost artistic way.

“Beautiful,” the Goblin mused.

“Nor-Norman?”

The Goblin shuttered at the sound of your voice. Thankfully, his back was to you, so you couldn’t see his face. This gave him time to compose himself, loosen his tie and shirt, and turn to you looking properly disheveled. As if Dan had actually put up a fight.

He had to play his part after all.

“Y/N?!” He said in an almost perfect imitation of Norman, “Are you alright?!”

He ran to your side, hands running over you under the guise of checking for injuries. Touching you brought him great joy. He had begged Norman to let him out just so he could know every inch of you. However, when he touched the bruise that was forming on your head, he felt the rage that had caused Norman to relinquish control in the first place. If Dan wasn’t already dead, The Goblin would’ve killed him again.

“Tracy… is she-?!”

“She’s not my concern,” the Goblin answered honestly, “All that matters is you.”

The look in your eyes let him know that he had made a mistake. You pulled out of his grasp and ran out into the hall. He followed after you, watching as you checked the young woman’s pulse. You smiled through your tears, happy that she was alive. But the Goblin did not share in your joy. Jealousy spiked within him and he wanted to jerk you away from her. After all, this entire situation was Tracy’s fault to begin with.

“Norman! Call for an ambulance! Please.”

The pleading look in your eyes caused the real Norman to start rising to the surface.

But the Goblin wasn’t about to give up his control.

Knowing he had to play along, Goblin did as you asked of him. He waited in jealous silence for the authorities to come. You had wanted to ride with Tracy to the hospital, but instead you stayed and gave your statement. And then the police turned their attention to “Norman”.

He could see the recognition in their eyes- they knew who he was.

“So what exactly happened here?” The officer questioned.

“I was outside when I heard the shouting. By the time I got inside, Miss Lombard was already unconscious. He didn’t give me much choice. I had to defend myself and Miss Y/N. It all happened so fast…. The next thing I knew he was going over the railing. I… I didn’t mean for that to happen. I tried to grab him….”

The Goblin had to fight to keep from laughing. So instead he tried his best to look distraught, turning his stifled laughter into a fake sob.

“And you just so happened to be in the area?”

The Goblin glanced at you, as he answered.

“No… I was coming over here to discuss work with Miss Y/N. She is my secretary.”

The officer nodded, accepting the answer.

“You did a good thing here today, Mr. Osborn.”

With a nod, the Goblin smiled.

“If we’re done here, I’d like to take Y/N to the hospital.”

“I’m fine I don’t need-”

The Goblin gave you a stern look and you fell silent. You looked confused, no doubt noticing the subtle differences in your boyfriend. That was to be expected- you were quite clever.

“You’re free to go,” the officer said, “We’ll clean up here. You go get that head looked at. You could have a concussion.”

#i forgot my umbrella #norman osborn #norman osborn x reader #sam raimi spider man #green goblin #fanfic #fanfiction

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spaceorphan18 · 4 months

Text

Okay. The Kevin and Jenna thing.

Let's talk about it. Mostly, I'm going to repeat a lot of what I said : HERE. After listening to the clip, my thoughts are exactly what they were originally...

I'm going to guess, after the box scene stuff kinda was the straw that broke the camel's back, the producers finally went, hey guys -- we have a lot of unhappy Klaine fans, you need to address this. (And/or - probably and - they did get a lot of email about it.) So, they addressed the Klaine thing.

(As an aside - the transcript, for me, was exactly how I thought they'd sound, and listening to it confirmed it? Just putting that in the fwiw category.)

but anyway, like I said in my original thoughts on the whole thing -- I think I was correct in saying that Kevin and Jenna have been latching on to things they were a part of and they remember and kind of glossing over the rest of it. Layer into that -- they have a strong affection for Naya (and to Cory) who are both no longer with us, and even though we may think that Santana is terrible or Finn makes dumb decisions, that actor/character bleed does happen for them.

And I've always found that fair.

I've said it before, but, I think it's like when Darren decided to rewatch Never Been Kissed -- and he literally ended up fastfowarding through things that weren't related to the Kurt/Blaine story line. And he expressed fondness for Dot, etc, etc, but his memories were about his story line, and that's what he focused on.

And I think that's what Kevin and Jenna are doing, too.

Now, I will ding them with the fact that they are supposed to be being a little more professional about it (Darren was just doing it for fun) but from what I could tell based on my own experiences -- they only have 'x' amount of time in the studio, and just are not organized and proficient in the same way as -- say The Office Ladies or Pod Meets World are. So things are going to get glossed over -- and those things are things they have no emotional attachment to.

I don't think they realized they were doing it -- which is why they are finding it so funny now. I don't think there was any conspiracy behind it. And I don't think it was deliberate. I do think they're going to be ever so slightly asshole-ish about it going forward because they are more aware of it now. But I think everything they said on the podcast kind of goes back to what I said in my original post way back when.

That's my two cents.

(Also, another minor aside nitpick - they claimed that Ryan himself edited the box scene out of the episode which I find unlikely. I think the editor edited out because of time and... that's it. Kind of like they did with Santa Baby. I just think Kevin and Jenna were being salty about being called out on about a beloved deleted scene and wanted to dig in their heels a little there. But again, they weren't there on the fandom side, and they don't know.)

Alright I'll shut up now.

#that's how s.o. sees it

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samepisodebracket · 1 year

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justice for sam

If the spnepisodebracket craze has shown us anything, it's that the supernatural fanbase is extremely divided, with the lowly sam stan seemingly at the bottom of the pile. sam is always last in polls, so this is a bracket for the 10% or so who always votes for him. because yeah, there's 327 episodes of Supernatural, but how many are popular because of a dean or destiel moment? how many good episodes are drowned out because they focus on sam?

i've chosen, with some crowdsourced peer review (special thanks to @spneveryseason, @suncaptor, and @ambersock!) 125 episodes that are Sam Relevant. Some are extremely sam-centric, some just have a shot where sam looks like he's being crucified that gives me brain worms -- i tried to be generous about it to keep a relatively even seasons distribution! matchups will be random and polls will last 24 hours each. in the tradition of @spnepisodebracket (who this is obviously inspired by and would not be possible without!) i'll try to rb a gifset for every episode in the poll!

a final note: no this is not that serious but the criteria for voting here should be how good the episode is as a SAM episode, not as anything else, so please vote accordingly! i am making this for people who actually enjoy sam and if that is not you, then this is not the poll for you!

with that out of the way, here is the compiled list of episodes! voting starts this sammy sunday, 3/26!

Season 1 Pilot (1x01) Bloody Mary (1x05) Home (1x09) Asylum (1x10) Scarecrow (1x11) Nightmare (1x14) Shadow (1x16) Provenance (1x19) Salvation (1x21) Devil's Trap (1x22) Season 2 Simon Said (2x05) Croatoan (2x09) Hunted (2x10) Playthings (2x11) Houses of the Holy (2x13) Born Under a Bad Sign (2x14) Heart (2x17) All Hell Breaks Loose Part 1 (2x21) All Hell Breaks Loose Part 2 (2x22) Season 3 Bad Day at Black Rock (3x03) A Very Supernatural Christmas (3x08) Mystery Spot (3x11) Jus In Bello (3x12) Time is On My Side (3x15) Season 4 Metamorphosis (4x04) It's the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester (4x07) I Know What You Did Last Summer (4x09) After School Special (4x13) On the Head of a Pin (4x16) It's a Terrible Life (4x17) Jump the Shark (4x19) When the Levee Breaks (4x21) Lucifer Rising (4x22) Season 5 Good God, Y'all! (5x02) Free to be You and Me (5x03) Changing Channels (5x08) Sam, Interrupted (5x11) Swap Meat (5x12) The Song Remains the Same (5x13) My Bloody Valentine (5x14) Dark Side of the Moon (5x16) 99 Problems (5x17) Two Minutes to Midnight (5x21) Swan Song (5x22) Season 6 Exile on Main St. (6x01) You Can't Handle the Truth (6x06) Family Matters (6x07) Clap Your Hands if You Believe (6x09) Caged Heat (6x10) Appointment in Samarra (6x11) Like a Virgin (6x12) Unforgiven (6x13) The French Mistake (6x15) The Man Who Knew Too Much (6x22) Season 7 Meet the New Boss (7x01) Hello, Cruel World (7x02) The Girl Next Door (7x03) Season 7, Time for a Wedding! (7x08) Plucky Pennywhistle's Magic Menagerie (7x14) Repo Man (7x15) Out with the Old (7x16) The Born-Again Identity (7x17) Season 8 We Need to Talk About Kevin (8x01) Hunteri Heroici (8x08) Trial and Error (8x14) Taxi Driver (8x19) Pac-Man Fever (8x20) The Great Escapist (8x21) Clip Show (8x21) Sacrifice (8x23) Season 9 Holy Terror (9x09) Road Trip (9x10) First Born (9x11) The Purge (9x13) Meta Fiction (9x18) Season 10 Black (10x01) Soul Survivor (10x03) Fan Fiction (10x05) Inside Man (10x17) Book of the Damned (10x18) The Werther Project (10x19) The Prisoner (10x22) Brother's Keeper (10x23) Season 11 Form and Void (11x02) Baby (11x04) Just My Imagination (11x08) Oh Brother Where Art Thou (11x09) The Devil in the Details (11x10) Into the Mystic (11x11) Ouroborus (11x14) Red Meat (11x17) Don't Call Me Shurley (11x20) Season 12 Keep Calm and Carry On (12x01) Mamma Mia (12x02) American Nightmare (12x04) Rock Never Dies (12x07) The Raid (12x14) Who We Are (12x22) Season 13 Lost and Found (13x01) Patience (13x03) The Big Empty (13x04) Various & Sundry Villains (13x12) A Most Holy Man (13x15) Funeralia (13x19) Beat the Devil (13x21) Exodus (13x22) Let the Good Times Roll (13x23) Season 14 Stranger in a Strange Land (14x01) Mint Condition (14x04) Nightmare Logic (14x05) Byzantium (14x08) Prophet and Loss (14x12) Lebanon (14x13) Peace of Mind (14x15) Game Night (14x17) Moriah (14x20) Season 15 Back and to the Future (15x01) Atomic Monsters (15x04) The Rupture (15x03) Golden Time (15x06) The Gamblers (15x11) Unity (15x17) Inherit the Earth (15x19) Finale: Carry On (15x20)

Edits: Bugs (1x08) will be added, polls will not be completely random bc im not doing this for science im doing this to see a good episode win and my randomizer pit when the levee breaks against swan song in round 1

#samepisodebracket #sam winchester #polls #spn #spn polls

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armageddon-generation · 1 year

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Justice for Brandon Routh: Everything Cut From Superman Returns that makes it Great

Ultimately it's good Superman Returns didn't get sequels because of Bryan Singer & Kevin Spacey, but I'm kinda obsessed with the forgotten middle-child of Supes' movies, and it's infuriating how the movie's thematic spine and most of its best character-beats got cut.

The Theatrical Cut of Returns is literally half a movie. Brandon Routh deserved so much better.

Sources:

Deleted scene compilation (+Return to Krypton)

The Shooting Script (available to buy)

Superman Homepage deleted shots Page 1 and Page 2

Novelisation by Marv Wolfman (this, the graphic novel & junior novelisation all used the 2005 shooting script.)

Superman Returns: The Visual Guide (available to buy)

Chew Chan comic art

Requiem for Krypton: Making Superman Returns

Prequel Comics (based on scenes from early drafts, with stories by writers Singer, Dougherty & Harris):

Prequel Comic #2: Ma Kent

Prequel Comic #3: Lex Luthor

Prequel Comic #4: Lois Lane

Comic book recap

‘78 opened with a boy narrating an issue of Action Comics. Returns pulled back red theatre drapes on a comic narrated by Clois’ son, Jason.

Actor Tristan Lake is recording the voiceover in Requiem for Krypton

From the Script (p.1):

RED THEATRE CURTAINS, drawn shut. The kind found in classic movie houses of yesteryear. The slowly open ... the film flickers to life, fading in on an old comic-book

SUPERMAN. A BOY'S HAND reaches into frame and opens it.

JASON (V.O.): On a distant planet orbiting a red sun, a wise scientist predicted his world's imminent destruction. Despite overwhelming evidence, his pleas to evacuate the planet were ignored, leaving him and his wife no choice...

He turns the page to a panel of JOR-EL and his wife, LARA

JASON (V.O.) (CONT'D): ...but to place their only son into a spaceship and launch it to another galaxy, in hopes of finding the child a new home. A child destined to become Earth's greatest protector...

“In Golden Age style art, Kal-El is placed in the rocket by Jor-El and Lara, comes to Earth, grows up with the Kents, & learns that he possessed amazing powers.”

The script cuts the Smallville part because it’s covered later in flashback.

5 years on, Superman has been mythologised. In-universe, to kids he seems as make-believe as comic books are to us.

This develops Jason’s POV of Superman. He was supposed to have this comic (from 'Uncle Jimmy') when he meets Clark in The Daily Planet

This could be why Smallville was cut; the public only knows about Krypton

The opening scene of Gertrude Vanderworth’s death was originally replaced by:

Prequel: Lex in prison

Lex’s cell is covered in Daily Planet clippings. He nonologues to henchman Stanford

LEX: I didn’t get you visiting privileges to my private suite so I could repeat myself … My work was more than mere greed … It’s a calling. Why can’t they see the danger? He’s a vanguard for an invasion of super-powered beings. I knew. I always knew. Making sure there was a line of defence against him. The Conquistadors carried a plague that decimated entire civilisations. Who knows what kind of spaceborne diseases he carried? Oh, they may not appreciate my genius now, but they will worship me for delivering them from this menace they so affectionately embrace.

Kitty Kowalski & Gertrude Vanderworth

Lex has a medical exam before his release. His henchwoman Kitty is the nurse. She flirts with him but complains Superman is all Lex thinks about

Lex burns his old toupé to “cleanse” himself

In flashback, Kitty sees Lex kill an inmate in self-defence. Lex threatens her to protect his perfect record. But Kitty says she’s his “biggest fan” & anger becomes lust

This is in The Visual Guide (p.26):

"She witnessed Lex murder a fellow inmate. Kitty refused to squeal to the guards, and she and Lex made clear their attraction for each-other."

Kitty is the Vanderworth widow's maid & suggests Lex write to her

She doesn’t like the name Kitty: “My name is Katherine”

An imaginary Superman hovers above, watching Lex leave prison.

Gertrude Vanderworth is waiting outside:

LEX: Gertrude! I’m dying in here. I’m dying without you. Please, take me home. If only you could imagine the grotesque living conditions I’ve been exposed to, dear, sweet Gertrude. You’ve rescued me from Dante’s Inferno, from the depths of human depravity.

Shows how prison changed Gene Hackman’s Lex into Returns’ philosophical maniac

Characterizes Kitty as Lex’s ‘Harley Quinn-lite’ & makes her more active

Stronger explanation for Lex's escape than Clark missing his court date

The comic's final panel is Lex looking up at the imaginary Superman in the sky, zooming out into space, then leading into...

The Opening Titles as Clark’s journey to Krypton:

(from the Script):

“Stars interspersed with DAILY PLANET HEADLINES tracing Superman’s history, many by LOIS LANE;

“METEOR SHOWER BAFFLES SCIENTISTS”

“CAPED WONDER STUNS CITY”

“I SPENT THE NIGHT WITH SUPERMAN”

“SUPERMAN STOPS CRIMINAL MASTERMIND, LEX LUTHOR”

“LEX GETS LIFE THANKS TO MAN OF STEEL: SWEARS REVENGE”

“ASTRONOMERS DISCOVER KRYPTON INTACT – SIGNS OF LIFE FOUND”

And then the biggest headline of them all:

“SUPERMAN DISAPPEARS”

More headlines follow as the world is besieged … war, famine, crime. Soon, these headlines push Superman to the back pages. Within years, he’s all but faded from public consciousness. Finally, one last headline:

“WILL HE EVER RETURN?”

IS IT KRYPTON? (p.12), LUTHOR GETS LIFE (p.24) & VANDERWORTH TOPS THE FORTUNE 500!! (p.22) are in The Visual Guide

This gives the indulgent title-sequence a purpose. It sets up the consequences of Clark leaving, his history with Lois & Lex, Krypton’s discovery, and the Vanderworth fortune Lex will steal

This transitions into:

Return to Krypton

Concept art by Ben Proctor

The script describes “the remnants of this great civilisation… cities, monuments… all made from the same crystal technology” not in the filmed scene

Clark finds the House of El crest in the “VALLEY OF THE ELDERS . . . a VAST CANYON OF CRYSTAL MONOLITHS arranged in a circle” with more family crests.

Clark's escape is more visceral (Script pp.2-3):

“GIANT SLABS whiz by ... thousands of pieces of glowing kryptonite are hurtling towards him ... Parts [of Clark’s ship] shatter and break off ... The crystal immediately GROWS BACK ... more kryptonite smashes against the window, cracking it. Crystals work quickly to repair the damage, but it keeps coming.”

The filmed version puts Vibes over story:

The Valley of Elders returns on Lex’s New Krypton in the finale.

Without the other House crests the El one feels random

Showing Krypton's achievements validates Lex’s plan to resurrect it.

Clark’s ship self-repairing introduces ‘growing’ crystals immediately

Opening an action beat is important because the next one isn’t for 40 mins

Famously, this scene cost $10 million. Videographer Rob Burnett said:

“This was always meant to be the original opening [it] explained why he was so weak when Martha found him [&] that Kal-El sweats in the presence of kryptonite which Luthor notices later ... It wasn't cut until some last-minute test screenings … people unfamiliar with Donner's Superman films & Kryptonian crystals/tech found this dialogue-less opening confusing & uninteresting”

To solve this dialogue problem it was suggested Clark bring his mother Lara's memory crystal with him. She would narrate Krypton's history as Clark explored, contrasting its past glory with its current ruin. But the scene was already finished & Singer decided:

I didn’t feel it ... No-one told me to do it. I had no time restrictions or pressure whatsoever. I just felt the movie doesn’t need this."

But Marv Wolfman did something similar when retelling Jor El and Lara sending Clark away in Chapter 1 of his novelisation:

“It had been a timeless city, strong and powerful. It survived the vast armies of three great nations waging war on its bloodied streets. It stood proud as the signing place of an everlasting peace . . . [Lara] spent her early years dreaming of living where Krypton’s earliest founders had once walked, did not want to believe that this magnificence and all it stood for would soon be gone. She had spent her first year out of university touring the city . . . She trekked out to the Valley of the Elders . . . the fabled roads that Sor-El, Kol-Ar and Pol-As, the chosen representatives from the three warring nations, must’ve taken when they created the original laws of humanity that governed Krypton. From the ground, those crystal monolith towers, reflecting the full spectrum of light, looked to Lara like hands raised in reverential prayer. Kryptonopolis had been grown from a single crystal more than 10,000 years before ... shaped by the earliest Kryptonians into vast cities millions of buildings strong"

The Visual Guide also explains the Valley of the Elders is “Where Sor-El, Kol-Ar, and Pol-Us established the laws that governed Krypton" (p.79)

This is a great parallel to ‘78's opening. That was Clark’s origin. Returns is him mourning

Seeing Krypton contextualizes Clark’s arc. We understand his alienation instead of being alienated by him

It bookends the movie with New Krypton, and gives Returns’ oft-mocked climax ‘Superman Lifts a Big Thing’, thematic weight: Clark is excising the grief that drove him from Earth

Lara's narration about the wonders of Krypton both heightens the tragedy & establishes what their tech can achieve, crucial to Lex's plan

Writer Dan Harris said:

“Lex Luthor’s trying to turn this world [Earth] into the dead world, the place [Clark] can’t live, so it becomes a person’s search for identity and home and their place in the universe.” (The Shooting Script interviews p.27)

Martha Kent and Ben Hubbard play Scrabble

Martha spells ‘Alienation’ (THEMES!!) & touching Clark’s name carved into the table is lovely visual storytelling

Ben is there when Clark crashes. Martha stops him calling the cops.

BEN: Martha-

MARTHA: (firm) Tomorrow. Bingo.

She looks at him, stonefaced. He takes another look outside – and at her, and realizes what’s happening. He sighs and shakes his head.

BEN: A meteorite?

She nods.

BEN (CONT’D): Martha Kent, I knew you’d be trouble

There’s a blooper of this scene in Requiem for Krypton & it's mentioned in The Visual Guide (p.20)

Gertrude Vanderworth's death, and Lex stealing her fortune, is shown after Clark passes out in Martha’s arms when he crashes, followed by Lex taking the yacht to the Arctic

Lex Finding the Fortress

Cool details about the Fortress' warm crystals & creating protective weather patterns, explaining the storm around New Krypton in the finale

While exploring the Fortress they find Clark's garage:

From The Visual Guide:

"Lex lingers in a cavernous chamber he dubs 'the garage', where he sees evidence of the construction and launch of Superman's spaceship"

KITTY: So did he?

LEX: Did he what?

KITTY: Take off for his homeworld?

LEX: (looking at Stanford) Well… We gave him a little push.

In the novelisation (p.89)

Lex’s First Experiment

After plundering the Fortress, Lex would test the crystal immediately- “he created a kind of giant Fortress of Solitude in the ice” (Script interviews p.28), destroying the original. Such a great way to raise the stakes!

Extended Clark waking in his childhood room

Clark waking to his starry ceiling & the Kent family photos give his return more emotional heft

Extended Young Clark’s first flight,

Which leads into…

“Little Secret”- Clark finds the Kryptonian ship as a boy

From The Visual Guide (p.11): “When he holds the Father Crystal, Clark feels a primal connection to the vanished world of his ancestors”. Martha’s prequel comic shows Jor El & Lara reflected in the crystal.

The Father Crystal is the key to Lex’s plan, so it's important to see its importance to Clark.

'Little Secret' leads into:

Martha Kent Prequel: The Kents tell the truth

The Kents find Clark on the cellar steps with the Father Crystal, staring at his ship.

They talk in the kitchen:

MARTHA: … I wish we could tell you more… well, anything about your real parents

CLARK: You are my real parents. Those other people, the ones that gave me away… They mean nothing to me. [he bends a fork in half]

JONATHAN: I understand that you feel that way now, Clark. But I have something to show you. [He leaves the room to get something]

CLARK:Ma, I- I… Am I even human? Am I some sort of monster?MARTHA: Clark Kent, bite your tongue! You are our son and we love you. That’s all that matters.

JONATHAN: Clark? This is yours. You were wrapped in it when we found you.

He gives Clark the cloth he was wrapped in when they found him - blue fabric with the “S” shield

This is a big change from ‘78, where Clark didn’t find the Father Crystal until after Jonathan dies. Martha wasn’t there & they didn't discuss it. The Fortress of Solitude made his suit.

Clark's anxiety is more in-line with MoS (“Can’t I just keep pretending to be your son?” / “You are my son.”). Rejecting Krypton is important, as his adult desire for a home drives him from Earth

Here we see Clark feel the alienation he fears for Jason in his final speech ("you will be different..."). Parenting is a big theme of Returns

Clark reads Why the World Doesn’t Need Superman in the Kent barn

In the script, Clark taking the tarp off his ship leads into the Little Secret flashback- which the deleted scene cuts around. The shots following him back to farmhouse include this voiceover (Script pp.13-14):

LOIS LANE (V.O.): For five long years, the world has stared into the sky, waiting, hoping, and praying for his return. We have spent our days asking where he went, debated why he left, and wondered if he’s even alive…

People have always longed for gods, messiahs, and saviors to swoop down from the sky and deliver them from their troubles. But in the end, these saviors always leave, and we are faced with the same troubles that were there from the beginning.

So, instead of facing them ourselves, we wait for the savior to return. But the savior never does, and we realize it was better had he never come at all.

Reading WTWDNS is referenced in The Visual Guide (p.29)

Articulating Lois’ POV makes her more than a bitter ex. Even the Junior novelisation has this!

In the Theatrical Cut Clark returns to the Daily Planet trying to reclaim the old status quo, until he learns Lois has a family. Here, he faces consequences for leaving before learning Lois has moved on, so he’s less selfishly motivated, and returns to the Planet to actively reconcile with her

Parallels Young!Clark finding the Father Crystal- the inciting moment of ‘78’s plot

Martha encourages Clark to return to Metropolis / Clark meets Ben Hubbard

This is a cute scene, humanizing Clark

Martha is selling the farm & moving to Montana

(Script p. 76), cut dialogue in purple

MARTHA: Clark, dear… No one will ever replace your father. But, Ben and I have found something special. Together. And, well, this might all come as a shock…

Clark gives her a look. Just level with me.

MARTHA: I’m selling the farm. We’re moving to Montana.

CLARK: Montana?

MARTHA: The lakes are great. And we love the fishing.

CLARK: Fishing?!

MARTHA: Clark, you’ve been gone a long time. And not even you can stop the world from spinning.

In the novelisation (p.76)

Building this subplot from a background character from ‘78 is neat.

It expands Returns’ narrow emotional scope: It's not just Lois moving on

Superman suit in Clark’s case & changing in The Daily Planet closet

As Clark puts his suitcase in the janitor’s closet he opens it, revealing his Superman costume & a Kent family photo.

So, when he rips his shirt open there’s "NOTHING. Where's his suit? He panics, then remembers." . He must change in the Daily Planet janitor’s closet. As he leaves he "catches a glimpse of his reflection in a window -- he's still wearing GLASSES" (the Script p.44)

Love Superman in glasses as a metaphor for the transition from Clark to Supes.

The Theatrical cut emphasizes Lois’ POV of Superman’s return but this is more balanced & impactful for Clark

Lex and Stanford discuss Superman’s return

When Lex learns Superman is back he & Stanford discuss luring him away. You can see Stanford running to catch up with Lex before the Theatrical scene cuts away. Deleted dialogue in purple:

STANFORD: So, what are we going to do?

LEX: You’re going to modify it and attach it to the stern, I don’t care of the instructions are in Russian

STANFORD: You know what I mean, Lex. He’s not stupid. How long do you think it’s going to take him to trace all that stuff back to me– and you. He was supposed to die up there.

Stanford paces. Lex clenches, obviously stressed. He hears the WHIMPERING of Gertrude’s dog.

Infuriated, Lex hurls the newspaper at it but misses. Enraged, Lex snatches a heavy crystal off the desk, when he STOPS. He stares at something on the NEWSPAPER

Lex bends down and picks up the paper. He smiles, and hands it to Stanford.

LEX: Stanford, you worry too much.

Stanford looks at the article, intrigued.

“WORLD’S LARGEST COLLECTION OF METEORITES TO EXHIBIT AT METROPOLIS MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY”

Lex & Stanford faking Krypton’s discovery makes all Clark's problems his fault. Clark did nearly die, & it makes Lex a more formidable villain

It makes the plot more cohesive

Clark being tricked by his nemesis > ‘he just left lol’

Lex’s desperation gives him depth. Stealing Kryptonite is now a response to Superman, where in the Theatrical cut it’s so underplayed it seems like just the next step of his plan.

Stanford and The Daily Planet

I can’t find it, but Mr. Sunday Movies cites an interview where the actor revealed Stanford was a disgraced Daily Planet science correspondent, & wrote the articles about Krypton.

More plot cohesion, connecting The Daily Planet & Lex plots. If Lois recognises Stanford when she’s on Lex's yacht, she could figure out Clark was tricked, helping her forgive him.

Extended Clois outside The Daily Planet

Deleted dialogue in purple, (Script pp.58-60):

CLARK: Well … Maybe saying goodbye was so hard because he didn’t know whether it would be goodbye for a little while … or goodbye forever.

Lois doesn’t seem to be listening

CLARK (CONT’D, QUIETER): And maybe he had to go and he wanted to say goodbye, but he couldn’t find the guts to do it, because maybe if he saw you, even one last time… Well, maybe he was afraid that if he even looked at you just… once… he would never be able to… leave (beat) Maybe it was too difficult for him.

. . .

CLARK: So… Do you want to grab a quick bite? Catch up? My treat.

LOIS: Oh I’d love to, but Daddy took the car and it’s my turn to ‘cook’ the family dinner, which means I’ve got just enough time to get back to the ‘suburbs’ and order the Chinese

CLARK: Suburbs?

LOIS: Yeah, we have a really nice place on the river. You should drop in sometime.

CLARK: I’d love to.

Brandon performs this dialogue for a screentest in Requiem for Krypton

Much better reason for Clark not saying goodbye. Corny, but if your gonna justify an OOC decision, do it with the romance at the heart of your movie.

Lois is much nicer & less dismissive of Clark. Theatrical Lois seems to actively dislike him.

Hints Lois feels stifled as a suburban mom

Lois Prequel: Writing Why The World Doesn’t Need Superman

The ‘Lois at home’ scene begins with a flashback:

Perry tells Lois to write a piece for the 5th anniversary of Superman leaving. She struggles with writer’s block at home, & goes out to smoke. She thinks Clark blows out her lighter, but she’s imagining it & realizes she must move on. That night she writes WTWDNS

Then Richard asks about I Spent the Night With Superman, then Clark is revealed to be watching at the end of the scene.

[After Clark flies away, Script p.63]

Lois picks up some food, then suddenly stops and turns to the window, staring into their backyard. Beat.

RICHARD: Lois? You okay?

Lois snaps out of it.

LOIS: Yeah, sorry. Hey, didn’t I have four won-ton’s?

Jason stuffs a won-ton into his mouth.

LOIS (CONT’D): JASON!

Lois & Richard dive, trying to snatch it from his mouth

A cute Jason moment, & Lois ‘sensing’ Clark makes his spying a little less creepy, selling their 'stracrossed lovers' connection

Superman On Patrol

Two scenes are omitted from the script (p.64) before the ‘Bulletproof’ bank robbery. Presumably they formed a full crime-fighting montage, like in ‘78.

The Visual Guide describes two cut sequences that perfectly fill that gap (p. 60):

“In Switzerland, he saved 12 stranded climbers from the peak of the Matterhorn. In Venice, he prevented the famous canals from flooding the city streets. Superman seems to be everywhere at once, but nowhere is he more prominent than in Metropolis…”

Full Deli Robbery Segment

MONTAGE REPORTER #3: Sir, after he captured the men trying to rob your Deli, did he do or say anything?

DELI OWNER: He tried the hummus. He said he liked it – and Superman never lies!

More action! More wholesome Superman! Expanding the scope of the movie beyond Metropolis!

Lex’s Plan

Higher-key Kryptonite heist where Lex’s gang fool guards and witnesses

The movie needs more energy. Like the stolen missile earlier, in the Theatrical Cut Lex’s plan is afterthought bullet-points

When Kitty returns to Lex after Superman saves her, the stolen missile is being disassembled. Lex takes its explosive & the kryptonite he’ll stab Clark with

Lois Prequel: Why she resents Superman and meeting Richard

After Perry demands Lois interview Superman we flashback to him doing the same thing after Krypton was found:

But Superman never shows. Months pass until “the world had to admit” he was gone.

The world turned to Lois as their 'Superman expert.'

JIMMY: Miss Lane. You okay?

LOIS: I will be once Perry lets me cover something over than Superman. He left. He's gone, and maybe he's never coming back. How many different ways can I write that?

JIMMY: I know Miss Lane. I miss him too.

The world refusing to let Lois move on by pigeon-holing her as ‘Superman’s Girlfriend’ is important context.

Now Perry refusing to let Lois cover the blackout is part of a sexist cycle she’s fought for years

Lois escapes to the roof for a smoke: "Even as the days kept passing, I held out hope. I mean, he never disappointed me before, right?'

Richard White introduces himself just like Clark:

RICHARD: Those things will kill you, you know. Hello, Lois. I'm Richard White.

LOIS: White, huh? Did Perry even read past your last name on your resume?

RICHARD: I won't deny what it looks like, but my uncle hired me because I'm damn good at what I do. And with you I see wasted talent. The Superman story is old news. The Planet's best reporter should be used elsewhere.

LOIS: You're certainly more insightful than you look, White.

Directly parallels Richard and Clark

And contrasts the rooftop interview with Superman immediately afterwards; we now know she waited here for Clark to return every night until she met Richard

Clark Visits the Fortress of Solitude

When Clark visits the Fortress of Solitude he has cut voiceover (Script p.89):

SUPERMAN (V.O.): Father... It’s been a long time since I’ve come to you… But I’ve never felt so alone.

EXT. FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE - SAME TIME

Superman lands & approaches the console. The crystal has been taken. WITH A VOICE ECHOING THROUGH THE ARCTIC LIKE THUNDER:

SUPERMAN: FATHER!!!

FATHER!!! Is OTT but important when Superman has so little dialogue

Clark is now clearly driven to the Fortress by Lois’ rejection. In The Theatrical Cut, he just checks in because it’s time for Plot to happen.

Losing Jor-El emphasizes the theme of parenthood- Clark loses a father as he gains a son- & justifies Jor El’s voiceover later

Lex's Fortress

In an earlier draft, Clark found the new Fortress Lex grew in his first experiment, and "Clark sunk it and put it underwater"

Originally “Richard & Lois flew there with Clark to investigate & take pictures" (Script interviews p.28) but later on these became satellite pictures that were delivered to the Planet. Lois saw them & understood what Clark had lost.

Lois seeing & understanding Cark's losses is important

Clark destroying Lex's Fortress would be an impressive action beat & Returns is desperate for those. Showing Lex's impact through action!

Extended dialogue on the yacht explaining Lex’s plan

LEX: It’s not just an island. It’s an entirely new continent. Virtually indestructible and self-sustaining. For lack of a better name, it’s Krypton. An extinct world, reborn on our own.

LEX: I’ll have ADVANCED alien technology thousands of years beyond anything anyone could throw at me. Weapons, vehicles, you name it.

Gives New Krypton more credibility & makes Lex's plan more concrete, especially after Return to Krypton showcased Kryptonian tech

Saving Metropolis

Earlier drafts of the ‘Saving Metropolis’ sequence had “monster waves surging in every direction” (The Visual Guide p.70) Dan Harris also mentioned "waves coming in" and Clark “pulling a subway train out [of the ground]”. (Script interviews p.28) The script omits several sections that could fit these moments.

The script includes Clark saving people from cars set on fire by the gas explosion.

Again, Returns copies ‘78, but that earthquake was way bigger - a dam explodes, a bridge collapses, a train derails. Clark shifts tectonic plates to stop it.

Perry White meets Superman

I understand why this was cut but it’s still cool

The Missile Explosive

After Jason kills Brutus, the deleted scene of Lex finding Brutus’ body is followed by (Script pp.113-114):

INT. YACHT - PANTRY Lois & Jason sit against the far wall, exhausted & worried. The door swings open, revealing LEX. He looks at Jason & winks.

LEX: Catch.

He tosses SOMETHING into the room, wrapped in the handkerchief. It rolls towards Jason’s feet. LOIS CHARGES just as Lex slams the door. Jason removes Lex’s handkerchief, revealing the EXPLOSIVE from the missile.

LOIS: Honey… don’t move.

Lois is panicked, searching for any way to get rid of the explosive. Finally; a SMALL AIR DUCT. She kneels & pulls at the VENT COVER. It won’t budge. She looks around & finds a LARGE METALLIC SOUP LADLE. SHE JAMS THE LADLE INTO THE VENT, using it like a crowbar.

JASON: Mommy?

LOIS: JASON DON’T MOVE!

Lois strains to pry the vent away. After what seems like an eternity, it finally pops off. She approaches Jason VERY CAREFULLY.

LOIS (CONT’D): Okay Honey, stay still…

Lois THROWS IT into the air duct … grabs Jason & rushes him to the other side of the room. The explosive drops down a series of air ducts … Silence. Lois and Jason open their eyes, relieved.

Then – BOOOOOOM! THE BLAST ROCKS THE ROOM. A burst of flame shoots from the vent. Lois shields Jason. The flames are followed by a GEYSER OF SEAWATER. The room is tipped upward. Water is streaming in. Lois tumbles backwards into the water, struggling to reach Jason, but she’s STUCK.

ANGLE UNDERWATER: Lois’ leg tangled in a LIFE PRESERVER.

LOIS: HELP ME! Oh God…

Water floods into her mouth. She disappears under the surface when the DOOR is RIPPED OPEN, AND THE SILHOUETTE OF A MAN STEPS INTO THE ROOM. He dives underwater.

The man rips Lois’ leg free from the cables and pulls her to safety. Lois finally opens her eyes and comes face to face with… RICHARD. She and Jason are stunned.

LOIS (CONT’D): How –How did you get here?

RICHARD: (obviously…) I flew.

Lex’s response to Superman’s son here is more appropriate & threatening.

Another setup & payoff with the missile explosive gives the film more structure. Plot, y'know?

Makes Lois more active

Richard/Clark parallels

Jason recognizes Clark

[in the seaplane after Superman saves them from the yacht]

Jason curiously looks up at Superman.

JASON: Hey, you look just like–

SUPERMAN: (Cutting him off) Can you fly?

For a moment, it looks like Superman is speaking to Jason – then he turns his head to Richard.

Also in the novelisation (p.285)

More Jason/Clark connection & more payoffs (Jason suspected Clark's identity after seeing him next to Superman on TV earlier)

Context: New Krypton

The script describes it as “almost identical to the ruins of Krypton ... Unlike the ruins, this place feels like it could be full of life – what he hoped to find when he went to Krypton,” with buildings “resembling the Fortress of Solitude”. made of the Fortress’ glowing white crystals, presenting the facade of life.

Clark confronts Lex in “an exact reproduction of the Kryptonian VALLEY OF ELDERS" (where we saw the El Crest in Return to Krypton). Flickering x-ray vision reveals “IN THE GROUND AND WALLS are pockets and veins of kryptonite”

From The Visual Guide (p.79):

“New Krypton recreates its planet of origin according to an ancient blueprint, beginning with the vanished capital of Kryptonopolis ... [it] will eventually replicate the towering face of Mount Argo, the bottomless depths of the Xan Chasm, & the polished dome of the Krypton Science Council”

Superman hears something else in the wind, coming from inside the structure: a VOICE. Faint, but familiar. Maybe JOR-EL? LARA? It’s joined by other ghostly whispers before another familiar voice calls out:

LEX (O.S.): See anything familiar?

The ghostly whispers are a cool detail

Now New Krypton is literally a ‘dead world resurrected’, not just some land, & will terraform the whole planet. It brings the movie full-circle- Krypton followed Clark home

After beating a powerless Clark, Lex reveals the truth

LEX (CONT’D): Look, buddy. We sent you there to die, but ya’ had to come back…

Superman looks at Lex, his expression turning from agony to realization.

LEX (CONT’D): Oh yeah. All those photos? Those stories about Krypton still existing? It was me. (Beat) And him.

ANGLE ON: Stanford.

LEX (CONT’D): Thankfully the press doesn’t check facts like they used to. (Beat) Hey, you took away five years of my life. I just returned the favor.

In the novelisation (p.297) & literally every other adaptation of the story. Why the fuck would you cut it?

As Clark drowns:

“Crystals are growing towards him from every direction. ALL GLOWING GREEN from Kryptonite. He tries swimming to the surface, but he’s too weak. He’s trapped ... A mesh of crystal walls are closing in around him, over him like a tomb."

The tomb is a thematically resonant image (New Krypton = graveyard) & heightens the crystals’ threat

Jason ‘senses’ Clark instead of seeing him from the plane window

In the script, Jason wants to help Clark too- not just Lois & Richard deciding.

Jason looks out the window, pointing down to the water.

JASON: There.

He turns to Lois. Beat. She can’t see anything.

LOIS: You’re sure?

Jason nods. He’s certain.

While Clark in hospital, Lois names ‘New Krypton’

it's gone “into orbit somewhere between Mars & Jupiter. Supposedly it’s laced with Kryptonite & still growing”.

Again, creates a thematic bookend with 'Old Krypton' in the beginning

Outside the Hospital

Ben Hubbard waits with Martha Kent- you can see his shoulder next to her in the Theatrical Cut

There are shots of Lois, Jason & Martha talking while they're in the crowd- presumably Martha offering support without Lois knowing who she is

Martha meets her grandson! The two mothers of Kryptonian sons talk!

Bringing Martha & Ben back ties the Smallville section of the movie back into the plot

Final Clois Exchange

SUPERMAN: Thank you, Lois.

Tears well in her eyes, struggling for something to say.

SUPERMAN (CONT’D): It’s alright.

It’s what she’s wanted and needed to hear for years.

It’s such a small thing, but gives Clois closure, and Clark more lines

OTHER CHANGES

Color-grade: Returns’ drab sepia look ruins beautiful cinematography. The original color-grade in the teaser trailer (which is like 70% deleted footage) is much better, as is this color-corrected shuttle sequence

A tighter edit to compensate for the action-light script. They went for a classic, unhurried edit, but you could shave multiple seconds off most shots without losing anything. The Superman Restored fanedit re-inserts 25 mins of deleted scenes and is still 8 mins shorter than the Theatrical Cut

Tldr;

Returns is inherently slow-paced. Even with a faster edit, adding all this would push it past 3 hours. Regardless, Singer shot his own film in the foot because his priorities were wrong: Outlined above is a more balanced, cohesive story with richer themes. The Lex and Krypton subplots are complete. Clark feels like the main character, & Lois is more sympathetic.

Brandon deserved so much more.

#superman #superman returns #brandon routh #clark kent #lois lane #clois #cbm #richard donner #superman: the movie #superman ii #deleted scenes #krypton #lex luthor #martha kent #dc comics #dc movies

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tmntkiseki · 2 months

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Batman vs Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles liveblog reaction

Just a little over a minute into the movie and Barbara Gordon stops some shuriken with nothing more than a filing folder. Awesome.

Not going to lie, when I first saw a clip from this movie on Youtube, I had no idea that Batman was being played by Troy Baker and not the late Kevin Conroy. I'm looking forward to how he plays The Joker in this movie.

These heavily stylized intro credits, man. Absolutely in love. The music also fucking slaps.

Is it bad that I genuinely like Leonardo carrying his katana on his belt rather than his back like in most iterations? I know it makes him look more samurai than ninja, but it looks so badass.

I love that the Penguin is only mildly perturbed at discovering he's being attacked by mutant turtles.

"It's always the time for accuracy, Leo." If I don't see that line pop up in another TMNT iteration, I'm rioting.

I had to avoid hooting and hollering when some blood finally showed up. LET MY ANIMATED TMNT BOYS BE BLOODY!

"It's a sword-brella too? I think I love this little guy!" MIKEY

SHREDDER JUST KILLED ONE OF HIS OWN GUYS <- Less shocked that it happened and more shocked that it happened explicitly on-screen

I love that the Turtles' battle with Penguin was full of goofy wise quips whereas Batman's battle with the Foot + Shredder is 100% serious with very little dialogue to speak of

Mikey is gonna spend this movie fanboying over all the stuff in Gotham, isn't he?

RAPHAEL LITERALLY JUST KICKED PENGUIN'S HENCHMEN OFF THE ROOF SFJGKDJFKFH

Raphael throws the first punch; gets his ass kicked by Batman

"I think we should see other people." "But I don't like other people." Awkward lesbian breakup is interrupted by random turtle being thrown into the pizza parlor by Batman.

"Ninja... turtles?" That's TEENAGE MUTANT Ninja Turtles to you, Bruce Wayne!

Ah, so this is one of the iterations where Baxter Stockman was turned into a mutant fly? He's also surprisingly polite. (I'm used to him being more self-centered and egotistical.)

"So he wears a Dracula costume and punches clowns. Who cares?! Dirtbag stole my sai!" "Dracula costume? What kind of Dracula movies are you watching?" SJGKDFJGKFDHJKGH

I am loving how Leonardo and Raphael were characterized for this movie. I'm kinda wishy-washy towards Donatello and Michelangelo.

The shots where the turtles are silhouettes with the only colored parts being the masks * chef kiss *

Mikey is 100% fully aware that he is touching things that are not supposed to be touched.

"What are you, five?" Says Donatello before having his bo stolen by Robin. "Hey, little guy. We didn't come here to fight," says Leonardo before Robin beats his kneecaps.

I keep forgetting that most iterations have the turtles capable of partially or completely retracting inside their shells. (The 2003 series is one of the few iterations where they can't, although they might have if Peter Laird got his way.)

"So, are we not going to beat up these green losers?" "It's not looking like it, no." Robin is literally a mini Raph.

Ra's al Ghul: * decapitates a security guard * Me: * proceeds to check the movie rating online * I'm sorry, it's only rated PG-13?!

God damn, this movie is literally what TMNT 2003 could have been if it didn't have to SOMEWHAT restrain itself so it could air on the 4Kids block.

Harley Quinn literally beckoned Shredder over to her cell just to check her makeup in his mask.

"I offer to cook a gourmet meal and they want pizza. Teenagers." To be fair, I'm one of the cheapest dates around. You could take me to Wendy's and I'd be happy.

"An immortal Shredder? That would... suck." Is someone gonna tell him?

"Calling me 'dude' is not helping your case, Master Michelangelo." It's worth noting that Alfred said his name how it's actually pronounced in Italian. Nice touch.

Donnie soothing Mikey by putting a slice of pizza in his mouth while patting his head. Weird, but oddly wholesome.

Okay, how the ever living FUCK is Troy Baker not only able to channel Kevin Conroy's performance as the Batman, but Mark Hamill's as the Joker?

Fucking Commissioner Gordon's reaction to the turtles just breathes "this might as well just happen at this point."

Harley Quinn being offended at Joker referring to her as "Nurse" instead of "Doctor," oh my god.

Even Batgirl and Robin are aware of how much of a downer Batman is.

Oh god, this bit where Scarecrow's fear gas makes Leonardo hallucinate his brothers being devoured by crows is absolutely brutal.

Is it bad that I think Donnie and Batgirl actually have quite a bit of chemistry?

Welp, Poison Ivy learned the hard way that being mutated into a giant Venus Fly Trap does not have its perks.

Mikey's reaction to Joker and Harley kissing with tongues was basically my reaction.

Okay, the reveal that combining the Joker Venom with the TCRI Ooze not only transforms you, but drives you mad is highkey disturbing. And Joker just injected Batman with it. Oh fucking shitnuggets.

Did Batman just kill Mr. Freeze?

Batgirl just proved that you CAN give your superheroes capes as long as they're detachable.

"You saved him... Thank you." * MIKEY GIVES ROBIN THE BIGGEST BEAR HUG * "Please stop!"

Mikey freaking out over Batman being Bruce Wayne, and Raph facepalming... god, I love these brothers.

Damn, Raph being the one to give Batman the talk about what a family is and how it works...

How is it that Robin and I had the same reaction to the Turtle Wagon in this movie. "Lame... OH FUCK, IT'S ACTUALLY AWESOME."

Did Donnie just take out the crane using manhole covers painted with pizza designs?

Donnie and Batgirl continue to bicker over calling the antidote "anti-ooze" or "retro-mutagen"

"Michelangelo, press some buttons." "I've always wanted to hit every button." Bruce, you need to be nicer to your child.

I'm 100% Ra's al Ghul took off his shirt just to show how muscular he is to Leo and Don.

"You... are a terrible disappointment." I feel like that's something Shredder wanted to say to Stockman for a while.

RA'S AL GHUL JUST BROKE DONNIE'S ARM, THE FUCKER

God, this movie's climax is just the definition of TENSE

"Foolish child. I'm hundreds of years old, and have trained with the greatest teachers in history. How could you possibly--" IS KICKED IN THE BALLS. "Oh yeah? Well, I'm 16, and I learned this from a rat."

We literally have Mikey to thank for Gotham not becoming infested with feral mutants. He and Donnie are also saved from falling to their deaths by a combination of their turtle physiology and sheer dumb luck.

So, uh, is Shredder going to become crazy like The Joker now?

Movie ends with a pizza party in the Batcave just before the turtles head back to New York. Friggin wholesome.

These ending credits are so awesome

Why did I have to fucking right about Shredder becoming a second Joker? AND WHERE IS THE SEQUEL?

#star's turtle talk #turtle liveblogging #teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt #batman vs teenage mutant ninja turtles #batman vs tmnt

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