Super Dull

Watch one (or both) of these trailers (they are pretty much the same with different voiceovers).

People have hit on all sorts of problems with it, such as no women appear.  Truthfully?  I get why they do not have shots of Lois Lane or other female cast…it is mostly a montage of images meant to evoke a nostalgic feeling.  There is not really a lot of room for other cast in the teaser (no Jimmy Olson or Perry White-so I do not think it was a conscious excising of women).

The real problem here?  The teasers are generic and dull.    It is trying so hard to look meaningful, it forgets that it is about a guy who can bend steel, fly into space, shoot lasers from his eyes and pound mountains into dust.

A superman teaser should build anticipation…it should swell to a smashing crescendo of amazing clips that let us see the hero…being heroic.  It should make us want to see the film and become absorbed it the characters and the adventure.  These trailer, instead, feel like they are for some ponderous World War II film.  Truthfully, it feels like they are rehashing the Dark Knight trilogy, exploring the Hero as symbol and an ideal to inspire.  Because that is what we need…a Superman movie where Superman is played by Christopher Nolan’s Batman…he even has a super scruffy beard.

Truthfully, I would have rather seen a teaser with Pa Kent working in the barn…fixing something.  Talking with his young son.  He could be saying similar things to the trailer.  The camera could close in on young Clark and then pull back revealing gown Clark Kent with Lois and Jimmy (or something) in a crowd…swiftly we see they are witnessing some tragedy, maybe a construction problem-somebody falls from a great height…suddenly Lois and Jimmy are wondering where Clark is-Superman swoops in and saves te person with only seconds to spare.  Maybe Superman makes some friendly light jest about flying.  Then we get a rapid shot of superman saving people/everting disasters…solid action shots that do not reveal to much…maybe a brief glimpse of of the villain from behind…something mysterious…then a short jump back to the barn, with Pa Kent hunched down, looking his young son in the eyes and making some allusion to the man he hopes his son to be.  Final shot?  That one shot at the end of the trailer with Superman in flight.  Logo and cut.

The Jor-El version could have shown Jor-El watching his infant son on Krypton, saying similar things to Pa Kent-then use the same middle, then jump back to Krypton, where Jor-El could make some comment about his hope for the man Kal-El will become, and maybe even a comment regretting that he will not get to witness it.  And same closing shot of superman in flight, go to logo and cut.

Maybe those would suck to…but they would be less boring.  What would you have hoped for in a Superman teaser trailer?

(of course, I just remembered there is no Jimmy Olson in this film.  Make it Perry White or some unknown reporter from the Planet.)