First off, I do want to thank whoever leaked the script to the Internet for this rare moment for me. I have never written about a film that was never made! LOL To be fair to all those people involved with the project, I will not talk about the behind the scenes stuff or what could or could not have been with the film. This blog will only focus on what I have read and what I thought of the script. That is all. So, here we go!
I woke up this morning to find that the script to "Superman Lives" hit the Internet and me being me, I had to get a copy! I want to send out a heart filled thanks to comicbookmovie.com and Superman Homepage for getting their hands on this one.
After I read the script, I was struck by two things immediately: First, it wasn't that bad of an idea! Second, the cast might have worked for the style of film making they were intending
The story picks up with Jor-El of Krypton discovering that his home world is about to be destroyed. In a panic, he refers his findings to Brainiac and discovers that the living machine is behind the whole thing! (Something new) After a brief fight, Jor-El escapes his creation to save the life of his son & wife, while putting a surprise into the ship Kal-El. During the launch of the rocket that housed Kal-El, Brainiac breaks into the launch area and we are not quite sure if Jor-El dies or what but during the second fight, the planet Krypton explodes. Brainiac tries to follow the trail left by Kal-Els' ship only to be lost in the aftermath of the explosion. (Awesome Superman theme begins)
This is a great opening!! I loved it! I do have to nitpick a little...sadly, this is a review! First, I never read in any comic book that Brainiac was responsible for the destruction of Krypton. I will point out that I have not even come close to reading all of the Superman stories, so I might have missed something.
While I was reading the opening of the story, I kept hearing the Superman score in my head!
Lots of time passes and Brainiac is introduced again as a kind of mech-spider thing. The living machine has also been traveling around alot gathering information and making a kind of interstellar zoo. Just when he is about done with a certain galaxy, he discovers that a world has harnessed the atom and is making nuclear energy. He sets his ships course for the planet called Earth and has his crew find the largest nuclear reactor, which is owned by...(drum roll) Lex Luther!
Meanwhile, on earth! Lex Luthor is on the trail of a huge discovery. He has discovered a series of atmospheric disturbances that go back about 30 years. The areas most disrupted are a town called Smallville and a region in the North Pole. He sends his scientists to discover the source, which he believes to be an alien ship, and to reveal to the world that Earth has been visited by aliens. Of course, what he doesn't realize or care about is that he just discovered the trail left by Kal-Els' ship. Perry White, wanting to out scoop the other papers, sends Lois to the North Pole aaand sends Clark to Smallville. A kind of "Local Boy Makes Good" angle on the alien ship story.
Super-cool, huh?
In the life of Clark Kent, things are more real world. Clark decides to reveal his secret to Lois Lane during a dinner. Only to have it kind of backfire...of course. Clark is also dealing with feelings of alienation (no pun intended). To be honest, who wouldn't feel alone! Clark goes on a kind of emo trip trying to figure out what he is actually going to do and whether or not he wants Lois to be part of the journey in his life. While Clark is in Smallville, following the story, he visits the grave of his parents and confides to their spirits and himself that he is just not happy no knowing more about his own origins. He then leaves Smallville to join Lois at the North Pole.
This area of the script needed a little more work, in my opinion. The story left me with the impression that Clark Kent didn't know anything about being from a different world. This is in contrast to the Superman The Movie and Superman II. Also, the whole angle on Lois Lane kind of took out what happened in the previous films. Also, i do believe that Clark Kents' parents are still alive! They did meet Supergirl, after all!
Meanwhile, in Metropolis! Brainiac has decided to drain the power from LexCorp and starts a confrontation with Luthor. The fight doesn't last long and they both discover that world domination is what they both want most in life. This leads to a kind of agreement between the two characters aaand Luthor devises a plan, with Brainiacs' help, to destroy Superman.
Brainiac is not stupid, he is going to observe Superman to discover his weaknesses and try to build a plan of action. During these observations, he discovers that Superman is not from earth but the very Kryptonian he was looking for! Why? Well, it seems that surprise that Jor-El hid in his sons rocket was another living machine called K. Think of a kinder version of Brainiac. Brainiac wants the information that K has to expanded his mind. Where is K? Well, remember that trip to the North Pole that Clark Kent took? Turns out that the Fortress of Solitude is where K is located.
Again, this area needed a little work. The script leaves out the fact that Superman built the Fortress of Solitude. Also, I have never heard of Jor-El making a living machine called K. Then again, I have not read all the Superman stories. I know, I know...I nitpick to much!
After discovering the source of Supermans' powers, Brainiac and Luther hatch a plan to hide the sun and unleash Doomsday upon Metropolis. This in turn, will cause Supermans' death and make the world easier for Brainiac to take over. The removal of the sunlight has an immediate effect on Clark Kent. His memory and strength are beginning to fade, causing him to become feverish and slow. Kind of like how a human gets the flu. The Doomsday creature is described as a type of furry creature, until the growth hormones take over and cause him to become a huge monster that takes apart everything in its path.
The Doomsday creature is released after several days and those of you who have read the comic know where this story is headed. The "death" of Superman is very action packed filled with lots of heart from the hero as he begins to realize that he is seriously outmatched on every level. Then there is the issue of the sun not helping with his power loss. The Superman/Doomsday clash ends with each character hitting the sweet spot and the iconic picture being taken by Jimmy Olson.
This portion is close to the source material. However, the history of Doomsday is such a long and complicated story that I won't go into the background. Suffice to say, I would have loved to seen the fight between the two on screen! Wow!
The burial of Superman is kind of melodramatic. There is no mention of any other heroes being at the burial. Interesting Easter egg though, the story does have a reference to Gotham City and how it's plagued with crime.
In a moment of madness, Lois Lane discovers that Superman may not be dead but in a type of coma. She drags Jimmy Olson along and takes Superman to the North Pole, where the body is kind of accidentally dumped into a kinda of catacomb. The sun is still blackened out.
Weeks pass and Superman is finally revived with the help of K. Much of Supermans' memories are gone. His ideals and sense of purpose are still there but friends, family and loved ones are all wiped out. His powers are still gone! K comes up with a plan to help him out with a type of mechanoid suit until his powers return. This is where the dark, brooding, Superman comes into play. This, film noir, Superman has little fanfare as he goes around trying to help but not really knowing why. When he finally comes to Lois Lanes' help, the script has it as a kinda of "lost in darkness" feel to the whole setup.
This whole area is all wrong. The return of Superman is not an easy story to tell. There are clones, cyborgs, posers and one long event that covered so many issues it's difficult to put it all together unless your a really hardcore reader of the Superman titles. To make it short, Superman had a long physical healing period and he had to deal with the emotional trauma of being beaten by something he didn't understand. Then you added all the poser Superman types into the story and you get an almost mess of writing. In the comics, it all worked out! In this version, the story falls flat. The suit, however, is correct. In the comics, Superman did have to wear a special suit until he regained full strength. In the film, the suit is more like what Batman wears. LOL Personally, I thought it was wrong to do this to him. He had to really completely on suit to do everything.
Superman finally figures out what is going on and heads to Brainiacs' ship to force a final confrontation. During the trip, Lex Luthor fires a weapon powered by earths' sun and whoops! gives Superman his powers back. Superman fights his way through Brainiacs' ship to find that Lex Luthor and Brainiac have bonded together to become a hybrid mind!
This area is almost all cheese! However, there is one bit of writing that does make me wonder. The bonding of Brainiac and Luthor is something that has been explored in the comics and in the animated series. I would have liked to see how this would have been done on film. To have the over ambitious Luthor combine with the cold, living machine of Brainiac would have been a sight to see.
During the fight, Superman uses every trick in the book to defeat Brainiac and eventually it does work. I get the feeling that Brainiac and Luthor are both killed in the final battle. Superman hurls the ship into earths' sun and the fight is over.
Superman returns to earth to a huge fanfare! People rejoice and thank him for being their savior! Then Superman pops the question (sort of) to Lois Lane. This is kind of accepted and rejected by Ms. Lane as she is an adventurous sort. Then they walk off into the sunset.
Ummm ya, the ending is terrible! In this type of film, you don't have such a cheesy ending. The hero always goes on with mission! Walking off into the sunset is not what I would call a heroic ending.
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This script had alot of potential to make a great film! First, it's only time Brainiac has come to the Hollywood script of Superman. Second, it does a pretty good job overall of telling the death of Superman. To me, where the script falls short is where I believe the writer was running out of steam.
On the negative side, the humor was seriously misplaced. Doing Don King impressions is not cool, neither is the humor? of Brainiac. Humor is a fine thing, but not on something like this type of film.
Since so many people like the star review thing, I would give it 4 stars out of 5! I do believe that they were on to something with this story, they just needed to work on it a little more. Sadly, we will never see it go to the silver screen.
Script by Wesley Strick based on the original idea from Kevin Smith