Gollum's Lair

In our heart of hearts, which actually is a pretty dark and grim place - much like Gollum's sanctuary - we try to maintain a pretty high opinion of ourselves.  Even those of us with the lowest of self esteems and self estimations.  The thing about these beliefs, they need anchors.  And delusions?  Well, they need even stronger anchors.  The anchors of delusions are kind of like illusions - an iceberg, if you will - being much more than they appear.

  And coincidentally, much like these icebergs, the anchors that we use to differentiate ourselves from the rest are those of depth.  Sure, the guy got a plum job at google, but can he like me differentiate a quark from a quasar?  Yeah, you got into IIM-A but can you tell a peptide bond from peptobismol?  We use our obscure fascinations like some arcane practise of secret Dark Arts to build up a sense of superiority for ourselves.  The world may move on out there, but I, Gollum, am here and I have my precious with me and no one else has that, and that is all that matters. 

  We frantically hunt for the obscure.  We force ourselves to develop a liking for something niche, unsullied, undiscovered that we can stake our claim to.  Being a casual or even ardent follower isn't enough then.  It comes to define us.  If we are lucky, we may discover something that is actually pleasant.  Quite often though, it will be something that we aren't really that enthusiastic about.  But as time goes by, it gets hard to tell the forced enthusiasm from the genuine one.  We do not know anymore.  Smeagol? He doesn't live here anymore.

  Thing is, we believe that if we care enough, it will mean just as much to others.  And then we get to have something that others covet.  Not always true.  Obscure art knowledge, new wave French cinema trivia and encyclopaedic knowledge of tropical ornithology isn't really relevant to us, much less to others.  The key, of course, is not caring and being happy.  But not caring is too much work, and being happy sounds too simplistic.  Hence, the anchors.  Happiness, you see, stopped becoming an absolute thing and became a comparative state.  And I bet this is how modern marketing started.  Building imaginary anchors to infuse a sense of superiority that may or may not exist.  Our niche becomes our world and we are then frogs, trapped in a well of our own making.  Never to escape and never to scale fresh heights because we are too busy guarding our imaginary treasure.  Too dark?  Well, what do you expect?  I'm almost thirty with no present, no future, no scope and no prospects.

The Superman Collective

Okay.  Pop culture phenomenon.  Massive Icon.  Global Recognition.  Insignia/crest = among the most recognizable symbols in the world.  All of these make one thing pretty clear.  Superman cannot possibly belong to one particular person.  He is too much now a part of our collective consciousness.  We each imagine and interpret him in our own way.  We each subvert his being, his origin, his powers and his role to our own warped worldview.  His specifics as relating to purpose, standing, ranking, character among the pantheons of heroes is unique to each of us.  

  Then there is the demigod status.  Looks and upbringing apart, everything from his birth, origin powers to weaknesses scream non human.  Even the other superpowered ones have a human origin.  Humble beginnings.  Human element = relatability.  Its why we imagine aliens as humaniods mostly.  Its why we modeled even God in our own image.  Its why George Lucas re-imagined Han Solo from a 8 foot furry green alien to a lovable human scoundrel.  This is where Batman has it easy.  He is unique among the DC heroes and especially the Justice League as being the only non powered human being, relying solely on his skills and intellect.  But this actually makes his adaptation easier.  He is more relatable.  Nolan's masterstroke was to bring his grim, dark, grounded version of the character to this angsty generation.  

  Marvel too has it easy.  The characters are mostly human.  They have gone for a tongue in cheek, fantasy fun element rather than the grounded approach.  The only non human, and therefore technically difficult one to pull off was that Norse demigod Thor.  God of Thunder.  And he was shoved into a marvel phase of movies, then bunged into the Avengers.  Shoved down our throats with the sugarcoating of humanity.

  Back then, to the Man of Steel.  Each one of us owns him too much at too personal a level.  Those who are fans, the hardcore ones, who relate to him, relate to him in a very deep, personal, almost spiritual way.  Non fans are always going to find him hard to relate.  The end result being: no one adaptation, no single interpretation or re-imagination can please everyone.  There have been some amazing, weird and downright absurd interpretations of him over the years.  The birdbrained boy scout of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight chronicles is an iteration I particularly loathe.  Grant Morrison's All Star Superman, Mark Waid's Superman: Birthright, Alan Moore's Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow, the TV Series Smallville and a brisk storyline where Superman is kidnapped by the alien Kanjar Ro and then forced to re-imagine himself in various scenarios, emerging a hero and a force of good in each is a particularly favorite.  It highlights the themes of Destiny, Grander Schemes at work and all that.  My point being - I culled and clubbed moments and themes from each of them to form my very own version.  A version that may not be liked by many others, or anyone else for that matter.  but it is my own.

That is what Nolan, Goyer and Snyder did. Also Zimmer.  To move past John William's shadow and take the soundtrack in an entirely new direction is no mean feat. Took what they considered to be the best elements of the Superman Mythos and created a re-imagination.  A lot of people will be disinterested.  A lot of the fans will be absurdly disappointed.  But given the resources and the time, they have done a damn fine job.  They did not have the 10 seasons luxury of Smallville.  The previous cinematic iterations had run Lex Luthor to the ground.  For people unfamiliar with comic-lore, the time was ripe for a reboot that probed deeper into the psyche of that Ubermensch who is more human than the humans.

  Did the movie have its share of technical flaws? Sure.  I wish introspection wasn't relegated to one part and the action entirely to another.  I wish there were more moments of humor.  But beyond these, the list of I wishes gets personal.  Touches I wanted to see because they matched the version of Superman in my head.

  So yeah, going by my personalized version of Superman, the movie and I had our share of disagreements.  But we agreed to disagree.  Because this is that kind of debate.  To each his own. Because everyone deserves to equally carry his version and his image of Superman.  For inspiration means different things to different people.  Because if everyone was inspired by the same thing, life would be a series of powerful Hollywood scripted monologues in summer blockbusters occuring just before the final act. If you can become a Hollywood force to reckon with who wields clout with Warner Brothers, by all means put your version, your 2 Kyrptonian cents out there.  But till then, appreciate this effort.  Cull what you would from it, and add it to your scrapbook of Superman Mythos.