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Bright-Burn - James Gunn Take on Man of Steel

"Y'know it sure looks terrible that Superman, an alien immigrant everyman who stands against prejudice was made into a sociopathic child who murders the locals and cannot be redeemed or reasoned with because he is fundamentally different from us."

"No that's dumb you're reading into ittttttttt he's just bullied."

Man that sure didn't age well, did it. :V

So, this film was generic, uninspired, and overall as mediocre as expected. There was no thought put into this beyond "hey what if we just made the good guy evil wouldn't that be scary"

No. No, it wouldn't.
 
Seen the movie, thought it was okay. Not great but okay. I think you guys who are watching this movie and going "this is anti-immigrant/adoption" are reading way too much into it.
 
TheLordofAwesome said:
Seen the movie, thought it was okay. Not great but okay. I think you guys who are watching this movie and going "this is anti-immigrant/adoption" are reading way too much into it.
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There's a very wide gulf between someone saying "this looks bad" versus "this is what is being written down in the script."

One is thoughtless - which is precisely how I would describe this film. And the other is malicious. The idea that it's ridiculous to read intent in storytelling is in itself ridiculous, besides. That's why it's called story telling.
 
Spartan Altego said:
There's a very wide gulf between someone saying "this looks bad" versus "this is what is being written down in the script."

One is thoughtless - which is precisely how I would describe this film. And the other is malicious. The idea that it's ridiculous to read intent in storytelling is in itself ridiculous, besides. That's why it's called story telling.
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Sure, but there are times when people read to much into a story and accuse it of being #Problematic when there's little textual evidence to support it.

For example, for Brightburn to have undertones about immigrants being dangerous and a threat to the American WayTM​, you'd at the very least see Not!Clark Kent be coded as Hispanic (or generic "nonwhite"), maybe have characters say "He's not like you and me/Which means he must be evil!" and be depicted as correct, have his supervillainy be an outgrowth of some kind of inherent cultural difference or whatever, etc.

Instead, Brandon (who is racially coded as "White As Hell") turns to evil because he's both overwhelmed with his powers and because the rocket triggers his programming (or whatever). Yeah, you can make an argument for just about anything, but you need textual evidence beyond waving vaguely at the story.
 
Spartan Altego said:
There's a very wide gulf between someone saying "this looks bad" versus "this is what is being written down in the script."

One is thoughtless - which is precisely how I would describe this film. And the other is malicious. The idea that it's ridiculous to read intent in storytelling is in itself ridiculous, besides. That's why it's called story telling.
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It is probably more "this looks bad" than intentionally saying "immigrants/adopted people are bad" at worse, let's be real. Of course, I'm knowledgeable enough to know that it was never the intent of the writers and what they were doing was taking the Superman origin and playing it for horror.

Given at the end of the movie implies there is also an evil versions of Aquaman and Wonder Woman, I'd say it was especially not the intended take away from the movie.
 
Arthur Frayn said:
Sure, but there are times when people read to much into a story and accuse it of being #Problematic when there's little textual evidence to support it.

For example, for Brightburn to have undertones about immigrants being dangerous and a threat to the American WayTM​, you'd at the very least see Not!Clark Kent be coded as Hispanic (or generic "nonwhite"), maybe have characters say "He's not like you and me/Which means he must be evil!" and be depicted as correct, have his supervillainy be an outgrowth of some kind of inherent cultural difference or whatever, etc.

Instead, Brandon (who is racially coded as "White As Hell") turns to evil because he's both overwhelmed with his powers and because the rocket triggers his programming (or whatever). Yeah, you can make an argument for just about anything, but you need textual evidence beyond waving vaguely at the story.
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Not necessarily. Keep in mind, there was a time when "non white" applied to more than just Hispanic/African/Asian ethnicities. And moreover, the sense of "The Other" can still be applied to entities that look like Us but are Not Us - which plays into its own kind of sensationalist fear mongering. Even the cultural difference angle gets some play via a certain element that you're likely aware of, as I infer you've seen the film.

Moreover, that attitude ("he's not like us, he's evil) is the attitude taken by a character within the film before they are murdered by Brandon. Brandon later kills the same person who argued against that sentiment, as a final conveyance by the film that he is beyond saving - so that particular message is there, and is rooted in meanings that matter whether they were baked into the text or not.

Do I sincerely think that the filmmakers were making a positive commentary on vilification of The Other through deliberate use of a hero known for being an immigrant icon? Not at all. I think the thought began and ended with "what if Superman was evilllllll?"

Thus, thoughtlessness. Not maliciousness. But that doesn't mean I cannot call the film out for that thoughtlessness, either. It looks bad and saying so doesn't mean the same as "it actually is racist propaganda."
TheLordofAwesome said:
It is probably more "this looks bad" than intentionally saying "immigrants/adopted people are bad" at worse, let's be real. Of course, I'm knowledgeable enough to know that it was never the intent of the writers and what they were doing was taking the Superman origin and playing it for horror.

Given at the end of the movie implies there is also an evil versions of Aquaman and Wonder Woman, I'd say it was especially not the intended take away from the movie.
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Yep, see above.

Also your spoilered remark is both correct and amuses me because certain parties were arguing before release that this film wasn't even a "Superman but evil" story.

EDIT: Now that I think of it, I did misread your message as being "don't read anything into stories" rather than "I feel that's reading too much." My bad on that!
 
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You know this could be a good concept for some real slasher movie black entertainment. Just have a movie all about Kiddie Superman going ham and people trying to survive it, and it could be pretty brutal, spooky and unsettling. But... it's not. It's just an origin story to get to that point.

And honestly it just sounds like the movie is just some half-baked elevator pitch summary that they decided to turn into a movie. Not even exploring the concept of 'Superman but BAD' beyond just riffing on the Superman origin story that everybody already knows.

It's a shame, I was looking forward to this being the next controversial filmbro darling like the Snyder movies that preceded it.
 
Arthur Frayn said:
For example, for Brightburn to have undertones about immigrants being dangerous and a threat to the American WayTM, you'd at the very least see Not!Clark Kent be coded as Hispanic (or generic "nonwhite"), maybe have characters say "He's not like you and me/Which means he must be evil!" and be depicted as correct, have his supervillainy be an outgrowth of some kind of inherent cultural difference or whatever, etc.
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What's that I hear?

Oh that's right, it's every fucking German, Romanian, Italian and Irishman in my family history laughing themselves to a second death.
 
TheLordofAwesome said:
Seen the movie, thought it was okay. Not great but okay. I think you guys who are watching this movie and going "this is anti-immigrant/adoption" are reading way too much into it.
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I was going for more tortured soul wanting revenge against mean humans and his mom the only one who liked him

I don't view movies in lens like those
 
Spartan Altego said:
Not necessarily. Keep in mind, there was a time when "non white" applied to more than just Hispanic/African/Asian ethnicities. And moreover, the sense of "The Other" can still be applied to entities that look like Us but are Not Us - which plays into its own kind of sensationalist fear mongering. Even the cultural difference angle gets some play via a certain element that you're likely aware of, as I infer you've seen the film.

Moreover, that attitude ("he's not like us, he's evil) is the attitude taken by a character within the film before they are murdered by Brandon. Brandon later kills the same person who argued against that sentiment, as a final conveyance by the film that he is beyond saving - so that particular message is there, and is rooted in meanings that matter whether they were baked into the text or not.

Do I sincerely think that the filmmakers were making a positive commentary on vilification of The Other through deliberate use of a hero known for being an immigrant icon? Not at all. I think the thought began and ended with "what if Superman was evilllllll?"

Thus, thoughtlessness. Not maliciousness. But that doesn't mean I cannot call the film out for that thoughtlessness, either. It looks bad and saying so doesn't mean the same as "it actually is racist propaganda."

Yep, see above.

Also your spoilered remark is both correct and amuses me because certain parties were arguing before release that this film wasn't even a "Superman but evil" story.

EDIT: Now that I think of it, I did misread your message as being "don't read anything into stories" rather than "I feel that's reading too much." My bad on that!
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Even if we were to say the movie was unintentionally saying immigrants/adopted people are bad, that line of thinking kind of falls apart when one recalls that the movie outright shows that Brandon was a pretty normal kid until shit went down. It would be more accurate to say that it was anti-immigrants/adoption if he was evil by default and was just a sociopath from minute one, but the movie makes it clear that a combination of his ship fucking with his mind, with the added help of bullying and his own parents telling him he is special/going to great things, is what ultimately causes him to go bad. Real racist propaganda tends to have their designated villains be evil by nature, not have them corrupted and turned evil.

Also, I'm not sure why anyone would have thought the movie wasn't going to be that. The film pretty much advertised itself as being that. I mean, alien kid adopted by a childless couple living on a farm, and turns out he has superpowers (he is an outright Superman Substitute). It couldn't be more obvious.... which they did by making a TV ad that outright says "Evil has found its Superman." How much more obvious can you get?
Reveen said:
And honestly it just sounds like the movie is just some half-baked elevator pitch summary that they decided to turn into a movie. Not even exploring the concept of 'Superman but BAD' beyond just riffing on the Superman origin story that everybody already knows.
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I mean... That's kind of the point? The whole idea was to play Superman's origin for horror, specifically using people's knowledge of Superman's origin going into the movie.
 
I have no idea why everyone is so down on this film. I saw it just today at it's awesome. Yeah they didn't go with the Carrie story of bullied kid goes evil on everyone, but that's ok. They state outright what his nature is when talking about bees vs wasps and how some wasps insert their young into nests to feed on the population. Even the argument that this has been done is a bit suspect because this one of the few times I can think of where the Evil!Superman is that way as a child. Plus this is the first film version I can think of, I honestly hope that there are more of these with the other heroes. I want to see Evil!Wonder Woman here.

Oh also Called It:

VolantRedX said:
I was thinking more like the Goku plan. You send a baby to the planet, they gain their powers after a few years, their programming kicks in and they kill every living thing on the planet and then they show up later to take over.
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Really, this whole UNIVERSE is basically DC Comic's Earth 3, where every super is evil.

Now I wanna see a 'Crime Syndicate' film that parodies Justice League.
 
I'm just disappointed at how you could had a superhero-themed thriller about someone gaining superpowers, that especially early on can be overwhelming being able to see everything and hear anyone being confronted with everyone's darkest secrets and thoughts behind closed doors, affect a kid who lacks emotional maturity and is hitting puberty made more problematic with an alien physiology, with it now being Clark Kent instead of Carrie.

Like have him try to be a hero at first but not knowing his own strength and underestimating how fragile people are compaired to him leads to bad things and poor communication making things worse and escalating from there.

Instead they just made Superboy 1-dimensional EVIL in the laziest fastest way and most of the movie is just CGI fanservice for the gore hounds.
 
So three years after the last post, and based on Guns continuing work in this genre, I am kind of wondering if everyone missed the point, myself included on this film.

This takes the quintessential beacon of hope that is Superman, and feeds it to the darker and edgier machine turned up to 11.

Choke on it.
 
Three years on, I think how boring this movie was compared to his equally dark but far less po-faced The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker shows that not having him in the director or writer's chair really hurt this movie.
 
Three years on, and I have come to develop a distaste of the "evil Superman" genre. This movie plays that trope harder than most others of the genre.
 
Really, brightburn just seems quaint in a post omni-man world.
 
I mean, if we're being real Homelander from the Boys (show only) is the peak of evil Superman. That GG, it's over. Either start doing evil Batman or go home.
 
It leads to the inevitable edgefest. First it is evil Superman, then it is evil Batman, but then we get evil Spider-Man or Aquaman or something.
 
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