Superman: Legacy First Look

[ShardWarrior]

13 minutes ago, battlewraith said:

Whataboutism. You should maybe not listen to those people either. 

 

I do not listen to them either.  I make my own judgements.  The fact, which was lost on you it would seem, is that there are extremes on both sides of the spectrum. 

 

15 minutes ago, battlewraith said:

I looked up reviews of the Marvels. Audience reviews are generally higher than the critical reviews were. And if you look on something like Rotten Tomatoes for instance, the highly rated critics gave it an even worse score. So that's not a profound indictment of critics. 

 

Many reviews on those kinds of website have been shown to be paid for by the studios.  Same thing on Amazon.  They are polluted with fake product reviews from people who were paid to leave positive feedback in exchange for free Amazon credit or gift cards.  Yes, people can have their own opinions.  However, a professional film critic heaping glowing praise on flop after flop after flop does tend to make one wonder. 

[ZacKing]

19 minutes ago, battlewraith said:

Always huh? Got some quotes?

 

Yes.

  

3 hours ago, battlewraith said:

It's about grifters. Shitty, formulaic would be critics who crap on films to entertain an aggrieved audience who wants to see these films fail. They'll call out "what we all know" and then clutch their sphincters tight as they wait for the receipts to trickle in, praying for a flop to prove them somehow right. Fortunately, any shtick gets old and played out. And sometimes they themselves reveal why nobody should take them seriously. 

 

These reviewers you're referring to here have a different opinion than you do, but they're "shitty, formulaic grifters" in your own words.

[Techwright]

On 5/14/2025 at 3:12 PM, ThaOGDreamWeaver said:

Krypto is best boy.💖

They’d better not kill him off.

 

I'm more concerned about the potential of killing off Pa Kent...again.  Granted, I'm not a dedicated comic collector, but I don't think Pa Kent died in the comics, at least until the Christopher Reeves movie.  Then, most every version except perhaps Lois & Clark on TV had him dying.  That was Spider-Man's schtick with Uncle Ben.  I'd rather they find the DC crew carve their own path.  Not every superhero needs a relative killed in order to function as a hero.

 

9 hours ago, ThaOGDreamWeaver said:

 I have never heard of Mr. Terrific, The Engineer, or a couple of the other key characters. Guy's also fairly new to me, but he's a Lantern, so we don't need to have that explained (and nothing's explaining that haircut.)

So people with less nerd knowledge than I will need them built out a little and given a reason to be there.

 Mr. Terrific is a technological and tactical genius.  When I've seen him, he most often utilizes a series of tennis-ball-sized tech spheres that can produce a variety of offensive and defensive effects. They had a version of him in the Arrow TV show, though I suspect that version was goofier than the comic version.  He was also in some of the animation.  I believe Justice League Unlimited was where I first encountered him, where the character became something like second-in-command of the Watchtower, Justice League's space base.

 

It is the Engineer I know nothing about.  What I know of Guy Gardner says that he's the bad-to-the-bone human Green Lantern, the one most likely to hang out at the motorcycle gang bars.  The bowl haircut, well, it's long been iconic with Guy.  It's also been some rib-poking fun between Gunn and Fillion.

[JKCarrier]

4 hours ago, Techwright said:

Granted, I'm not a dedicated comic collector, but I don't think Pa Kent died in the comics, at least until the Christopher Reeves movie. 

From Superman #1, 1939:

The Kents were both dead until the Byrne reboot in 1986.

[TTRPGWhiz]

On 5/2/2025 at 12:53 PM, ThaOGDreamWeaver said:

I'm gonna say jury's out on this one until the movie comes out.

 
It’s wild that this isn’t the default take. 

[TTRPGWhiz]

14 hours ago, ShardWarrior said:

 

I do not listen to them either.  I make my own judgements.  The fact, which was lost on you it would seem, is that there are extremes on both sides of the spectrum. 

 

 

Many reviews on those kinds of website have been shown to be paid for by the studios.  Same thing on Amazon.  They are polluted with fake product reviews from people who were paid to leave positive feedback in exchange for free Amazon credit or gift cards.  Yes, people can have their own opinions.  However, a professional film critic heaping glowing praise on flop after flop after flop does tend to make one wonder. 

The Marvels, since that was the mentioned example, has a 50 on Metacritic, with about as many “average” reviews as positive, and a third of that negative. No fan voting, no YT snake oil salesmen. Who is one professional film critic whose reviews are consistently much more positive than the average? And how does this prove payola and not just a “glass half full” perspective?*

 

This idea (not necessarily yours, Shard) that you can’t trust critics from newspapers and magazines but people like CriticalDrinker are here to show you the truth, is mind boggling to me. Maybe there is some truth to studios “buying” good press with access. But anyone who takes their cues from Comicsgate-adjacent “critics” (aka, “some dude with a YouTube channel”) is probably predisposed toward a worldview that places them atop a pile of “sleeping sheeple”, or whatever adorable self-important phrase is in vogue on the social media platforms they canoodle on.

 

“Comics fans”** increasingly treat giant blockbuster movies based on the things they claim to love like indie bands that made it big, except even those indie fans would have gotten over it after 17 years. 

 

I’d be interested to see any news story about studios paying movie critics for positive reviews. AFAIK there are two or three, and they’re explicitly about independent movies.

 

*I looked at the critic profile for Molly Freeman, who gave The Marvels its highest weighted score with a 90. Molly also gave Brave New World a 40. Her average review score is a 59. Does Molly seem like a paid critic?

 

**Almost every time someone comes here with negative opinions about a movie based on something they say they care about, they also mention that “I haven’t read a comic in 15 years, ever since [insert silly reason].” These movies aren’t for you. Comics fandom is about five percent of MCU fandom. Get over it.

Edited yesterday at 11:32 AM by TTRPGWhiz

[ShardWarrior]

4 minutes ago, TTRPGWhiz said:

This idea that you can’t trust critics from

newspapers and magazines but people like CriticalDrinker are here to show you the truth is mind boggling to me. 

 

I never suggested that Critical Drinker or anyone like him are "truth tellers".  Far from it.  I kindly ask you not to distort what I wrote. 

 

8 minutes ago, TTRPGWhiz said:

I’d be interested to see any news story about studios paying movie critics for positive reviews.  AFAIK there are two or three, and they’re explicitly about independent movies.

 

Whether or not these were independent films or major studio releases is irrelevant.   "Astroturfing" is a real thing and it is an ongoing problem across just about every industry.  You may not recall, HBO was caught using fake accounts to undermine critics or their programming.  Periodically, there will be social media posts showing the same word for word review posted on multiple different accounts to give the impression that a film or product is more or less favorable.  This practice erodes trust in review sites and critics in general.

[TTRPGWhiz]

21 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

 

I never suggested that Critical Drinker or anyone like him are "truth tellers".  Far from it.  I kindly ask you not to distort what I wrote. 

 

I literally wrote “not necessarily yours, Shard”.

 

As for the rest, again, if people are getting their movie quality tips from junk sources, that’s on them. I’ve never once seen any of the reviews that I’ve read engaging in that kind of verbatim text copying. Fake accounts writing undermining posts isn’t the same thing as paying an actual critic to write a favorable review. That’s a wild comparison.

Edited yesterday at 11:53 AM by TTRPGWhiz

[Techwright]

7 hours ago, JKCarrier said:

From Superman #1, 1939:

The Kents were both dead until the Byrne reboot in 1986.

Thank you for the clarification.

 

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

46 minutes ago, TTRPGWhiz said:

 It’s wild that this isn’t the default take. 

That doesn't get you clicks on socials, though, or monetise those YouTube clips...

 

Small incoming rant. Every reviewer across time has had their own schtick, from Siskel & Ebert, Barry Norman and Mark "Grumpy" Kermode, through to the old acid-pen theatre critics back in the day. It's how they gain a following. (BTW: hunt out Ian McKellen in full b**ch mode in The Critic if you like that sort of thing.)

 

And people sometimes like reading things getting trashed. I'm a tiny bit bothered these days that there's a direct, easily-gamed monetisation model attached to some of it, but hey, if that's what people wanna read, and a guy's gotta eat.

 

It just ain't Siegel and Shuster's gospel truth until the flick comes out.

[TTRPGWhiz]

20 hours ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

I'm concerned that instead of a good Superman movie what we'll end up getting is a boring and ham-fisted lecture about the current administration.

 

…it’s Superman. His story has INTENTIONALLY been an immigrant story since day one. What are we even doing.

[battlewraith]

9 minutes ago, ThaOGDreamWeaver said:

And people sometimes like reading things getting trashed. I'm a tiny bit bothered these days that there's a direct, easily-gamed monetisation model attached to some of it, but hey, if that's what people wanna read, and a guy's gotta eat.

 

The problem is that, when you are dealing with social media "critics" they are, as you say, driven by clicks--which are fueled by the algorithms driving the various platforms. Material that is more contentious is going to be more visible to viewers. A punchy video trashing a film along ideological lines is going to get more views then a measured, reasonable discussions of a film's quality. And content providers can see this in their metrics and have strong incentive to cater to more sensationalized content in order to make more money. 

[battlewraith]

7 minutes ago, TTRPGWhiz said:

…it’s Superman. His story has INTENTIONALLY been an immigrant story since day one. What are we even doing.

IKR? Especially when the whole Supes-in handcuffs things has been done in other films and animations. 

[TTRPGWhiz]

4 minutes ago, battlewraith said:

IKR? Especially when the whole Supes-in handcuffs things has been done in other films and animations. 

Supes gets arrested and handcuffed and is explicitly called an illegal immigrant in Man of Steel. Which is the stated favorite Superman movie of at least one person who does not want to see this Superman movie be political. Help.

[Ghost]

48 minutes ago, TTRPGWhiz said:

Supes gets arrested and handcuffed and is explicitly called an illegal immigrant in Man of Steel. Which is the stated favorite Superman movie of at least one person who does not want to see this Superman movie be political. Help.

For the record, I don’t believe that’s the political issue they are referring too.

 

[Ghost]

Only posting the first link because some people seem astounded to hear that their could ever be any type of suspicious reviews.
 

https://www.ign.com/articles/rotten-tomatoes-under-fire-after-pr-firms-scheme-to-pay-critics-for-positive-reviews-uncovered

 

Older article, but I think a lot more telling of how reviews work - and is still a disservice to readers

 

https://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/research/why-critics-dont-pan-blockbusters-least-not-right-away
 

 

Edited 23 hours ago by Ghost

[Jacke]

21 hours ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

I'm concerned that instead of a good Superman movie what we'll end up getting is a boring and ham-fisted lecture about the current administration.

 

Well, what would Superman--or any other character of good moral character, like Captain America--think of the current regime?

 

A critique can be skillfully worked into a story.  It's actually what most stories have.  Let's hope whatever the story of the film is, it is well scripted and then produced into an excellent film.

[ShardWarrior]

1 hour ago, TTRPGWhiz said:

I literally wrote “not necessarily yours, Shard”.

 

After you edited your post, yes.  😉

[battlewraith]

11 minutes ago, Ghost said:

https://www.ign.com/articles/rotten-tomatoes-under-fire-after-pr-firms-scheme-to-pay-critics-for-positive-reviews-uncovered
 

https://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/research/why-critics-dont-pan-blockbusters-least-not-right-away
 

 

 

So, the first article concerns a pr firm's attempt to game rotten tomatoes over a film that hadn't even been picked up yet. And this example, which would've had a tiny sample size is extrapolated to all reviews.

 

The research article talks about strategies the reviewers take to not piss off studios--the key one being to delay unfavorable reviews by 1-3 days. That's it.

Additionally, the article talks about media outlets wanting to differentiate themselves. So reviews that come out later will tend to be more negative. 

[battlewraith]

34 minutes ago, Ghost said:

For the record, I don’t believe that’s the political issue they are referring too.

 

That's the funniest thing about it. As someone who sees the current administration as an Onion parody come to life, I have no idea what the "political" issue is. 

I watched that trailer and just saw a bunch of standard Superman story tropes.

[TTRPGWhiz]

23 minutes ago, battlewraith said:

 

So, the first article concerns a pr firm's attempt to game rotten tomatoes over a film that hadn't even been picked up yet. And this example, which would've had a tiny sample size is extrapolated to all reviews.

 

The research article talks about strategies the reviewers take to not piss off studios--the key one being to delay unfavorable reviews by 1-3 days. That's it.

Additionally, the article talks about media outlets wanting to differentiate themselves. So reviews that come out later will tend to be more negative. 

Yea, the first is one of the few I found earlier. The takeaway there was, “if ‘lower level’ Rotten Tomatoes critics can be bought for $50 a pop, then they probably aren’t legitimate critics”. Reinforced why I never reference that site. And again, it was an indie studio buying positive reviews so that it could gain wider distribution. I don’t think that’s what we’re talking about in this thread about a major summer superhero movie.

[TTRPGWhiz]

57 minutes ago, Ghost said:

For the record, I don’t believe that’s the political issue they are referring too.

 

It reads like the issue is less about the politics and more about how it’s addressed. If it isn’t ham-fisted, would that be OK? I’m dubious.

[PeregrineFalcon]

11 minutes ago, TTRPGWhiz said:

It reads like the issue is less about the politics and more about how it’s addressed. If it isn’t ham-fisted, would that be OK? I’m dubious.

Yes. The issue is that I want to watch a good Superman movie. Now, if there's also a little bit of a political story in there, as there was in Man of Steel, that's fine. One of the things that I liked about Man of Steel is that the authorities reacted realistically instead of just being non-existent like they have been in most Superman stories.

 

But if the dialog comes off like a blue-haired, patriarchy hater is condescendingly lecturing me about "Orange Man Bad". . .  Well, I don't plan on sitting in the theater for two hours listening to that garbage.

[Ghost]

36 minutes ago, TTRPGWhiz said:

It reads like the issue is less about the politics and more about how it’s addressed. If it isn’t ham-fisted, would that be OK? I’m dubious.

 

Movies can be political without being preachy.  That’s what I want.

 

 

[GM_GooglyMoogly]

 

Our players have strong opinions on superhero movies.  It makes sense considering we're all playing a superhero game. 

 

But sometimes those strong opinions lead to heated personal arguments.  This is a preemptive request to be excellent to each other and also not get into politics before it's too late!  

 

Thanks!