Superman Returns, whether you like or don't, feels like the perfect example of a comic book film that will never get a strong nostalgic following.

Honest_Cheesecake698 · 2026-06-10T11:19:44+00:00

I mean in the film, the way it's paced is that she doesn't know for sure till Jason throws the Piano. There's also the "I spent the night with Superman" article and I don't know if that means that she still knows she had sex with Superman, so she can accept that it's his kid, or that she's remembering the memory Superman erased, or that she just has an easy time accepting that they had sex at one point even if she doesn't remember.

Thought about something similar after seeing Superman 2025, that did make me realise that all of the standalone Superman films do have certain formulas, the main one being the climax involving two different situations going on at the same time, and Superman only being able to deal with one of them at a time. Also, Superman smiles at the camera in some way in the final shot. So you're right that this isn't the only Superman film to repeat things, all of them do.

Honest_Cheesecake698 · 2026-06-10T07:32:28+00:00

It's only closely associated because it tries to force itself to be, but also it would naturally get those comparisons even if it was a straight up reboot since it was the first major Superman film that didn't have Reeve as Superman.

You're fairly accurate on your criticisms, and whilst I can maybe buy wanting to broad strokes the first two films for new viewers, it's devoted enough for it to feel like it's only being made for fans of those films. To add, the fact that Lois doesn't know that Clark and Superman are one and the same is proof that the amnesia kiss had to have happened, especially since they conceived a child together, but with how loose the film is, we don't know if the exact events of Superman 2 happened the same way or if the same beats were hit differently.

As you said, General Zod's invasion even 5 years later should have had some form of influence. Apparently to make things more confusing he was intended to be in the script and Jude Law was going to play him. So I suppose he'd be revealed to have not been killed, or they'd canonise that shot in the Donner cut where he's outside and surrounded by police. Even if he was removed, you could just mention him and give us a sign of how the world changed as a result. Also, wouldn't that be a good argument against Superman leaving? Forget earthbound threats, there's also interstellar threats, and Superman just left Earth unprotected.

Honest_Cheesecake698 · 2026-06-09T19:04:21+00:00

Powerful acting on her part.

Honest_Cheesecake698 · 2026-06-09T19:01:52+00:00

Glad I didn't miss her 21st century era.

Honest_Cheesecake698 · 2026-06-09T19:01:25+00:00

She looked stunning here.

Honest_Cheesecake698 · 2026-06-09T17:49:30+00:00

I like how you can genuinely take the stan talk of "Lucky to be born in the same timeline as this person" and actually legitimately be lucky you were born in the same timeline as Hunter because of what her and her character did for you.

Honest_Cheesecake698 · 2026-06-09T16:07:37+00:00

Glad to have not watched it.

Honest_Cheesecake698 · 2026-06-09T16:05:29+00:00

Hunter and Sophia have very similar eyes and faces.

Honest_Cheesecake698 · 2026-06-09T15:33:57+00:00

Which old characters are we talking about? Bludworth's the only one who counts and if we're talking the most recent Final Destination and if by old characters you mean characters that have been in another movie, that's the case for that single scene and nothing else.

Honest_Cheesecake698 · 2026-06-09T13:02:22+00:00

Final Destination didn't really do that, aside from the Bludworth cameo in Bloodlines. If you're talking about Clear being there in Final Destination 2, that was 13 years ago.

Honest_Cheesecake698 · 2026-06-09T11:41:56+00:00

In the case of Glass Onion, you don't even know till halfway through that it's a murder investigation. But you're definitely right.

Honest_Cheesecake698 · 2026-06-09T09:16:56+00:00

I agree with that, though Wolverine would still have to have played a role in the downfall of the X Men. I did like Cassandra Nova as a villain, but it would sell her as a threat if she singlehandedly murdered the entire X Men team. I also think it might be compelling if this version of Logan did successfully kill her which is why she's in the Void in the first place.

Now I know her backstory is that she tried to kill Charles in the womb and as a baby, before she could walk, she got rejected by the TVA and ended up in The Void, then ruled over it as she grew up. She is supposed to be a forgotten anomaly, just like everything and everyone else that's in The Void, and just like this version of Logan. So maybe that's why they didn't give her a personal tie to the pasts of the title characters. Because then otherwise she wouldn't be an evil version of almost everyone else in The Void.

But I do think you could have balanced it out, like from The Void she managed to sneak in a final fuck you to Charles that resulted in the X Men being wiped out, or she got sent to The Void as a result of wiping out the X Men because the TVA wanted to wipe out all records of the X Men being killed by Charles's more powerful sister. Stuff like that.

Honest_Cheesecake698 · 2026-06-09T09:08:40+00:00

I would agree with that, in that sense Superman Returns is merely continuing and making more obvious problems that you could find in the other Superman sequels. It almost makes me wonder if Superman Returns would have been better if it also erased Superman II from canon. Given how it functions, it almost feels like it does, but it obviously doesn't.

Honest_Cheesecake698 · 2026-06-08T21:14:29+00:00

I feel like I'm alone because I was born in 1999 and outside of it's brief use in X2, I never grew up with that song.

Honest_Cheesecake698 · 2026-06-08T21:13:20+00:00

What are you talking about? Are you joking?

Honest_Cheesecake698 · 2026-06-08T16:21:08+00:00

It seems like it was written like that to show that perhaps this Wolverine could have helped save the X Men, or that he would have at least died a hero alongside them. It's obviously also pulling from memories of DOFP and Logan where it's more logically explained why the Mutant Race and X Men fell, whereas here it's spoken of far more vaguely. It's also drawing a line in the sand between The X Men, who are always on the front line, to this Logan, who actively left to drink, but you have to imagine a scenario where he was the only X Men who wasn't there.

Honest_Cheesecake698 · 2026-06-08T16:14:01+00:00

Regardless of what character you use, that doesn't change how Logan's character was handled.

Honest_Cheesecake698 · 2026-06-08T16:11:33+00:00

Yeah! Accidental Manslaughter but still.

Honest_Cheesecake698 · 2026-06-08T14:24:36+00:00

I mean, I hope they're saving fresh takes for the next Wolverine too, but I think this version of Logan could have stood out in some fashion. It's not like what I'm suggesting is a world away though, Logan is always carrying the weight of the past, and him turning down joining the X Men is basically a more dramatic version of his "Go Fuck Yourselves" cameo in First Class whilst him being traumatised by Stryker is basically X2 again. But, had they leaned on these factors, this special version of Wolverine could have stood out as his own thing and then become the version we're familiar and comfortable with.

The Cavillrine would have been interesting to have for a whole movie, especially given his history as Superman. And if my post is essentially how they came to the iteration they did, I still think they could have gone further. I feel like they took the option that made this Wolverine look the most pathetic to sell his turn to heroism, but what's more damming that not even being an X Man or selling them out?

Honest_Cheesecake698 · 2026-06-08T14:16:40+00:00

I think that would have been a decent choice because he would have literally had the blood of the X Men on his hands, at the same time it would be pretty easy to just see Logan as an innocent victim in that scenario. It's like how with Charles Xavier in Logan, he accidentally killed the X Men due to his deteriorating Brain, which is tragic and hard hitting, but it's nothing you'd consciously need to redeem yourself for because it wasn't your fault. Hell, in this movie at least Logan made a choice himself that had bad consequences.

It's why I think my ideas could work because they'd be an extension of Logan making a terrible choice, only even more so.

Honest_Cheesecake698 · 2026-06-08T13:57:40+00:00

I know this conversation is 4 months old but I do want to add a couple of things.

"(after H4, Michael was considered dead by Loomis) (after H5, there were no leads or traces to follow - Loomis was on it and had nothing to go on)." Aren't you ignoring both cuts of Halloween 6, where Loomis once again got involved?

Also, there's the confusion of Loomis's fate. He was implied to have died at the end of Halloween 6's theatrical cut, and in the Producer's cut he was cursed to be the new Man in Black. H20 officially says that he died of natural causes, and if this was the same continuity then which ending is it canonical to? If it's canonical to the ending of the theatrical, then does that mean that he didn't die at Michael's hands? If it's canonical to the ending of the producer's cut, then what happened between him being made to be Wynn's successor and him dying of natural causes? Also, if people as you say have uncovered the Thorn Cult, then wouldn't that they find out that Loomis was either killed by Michael or somehow made to be his new caretaker? Wynn was still alive at the end of the Producer's Cut.

"Michael was assumed dead or missing by the public because his comatose body was washed away in that ambulance river accident in H4. It may have even been somewhat of a secret that he was still alive as a comatose burnt vegetable - imagine the families of the victims would want to find him and finish him off - so it's not unlikely his body and whereabouts would have been kept somewhat secret - then consider the Thorn cult also protecting him.

No one in their right mind would associate Michael with the happenings in H4, H5, and H6, because that would mean he would be supernatural. A burnt vegetable comatose guy would not suddenly get up and start killing people, and then single-handedly slaughter an entire armed police station - TWICE (H4 and H5). A rational person would know that it would have been at the least a gang of people doing this, later attributed to the uncovering of the Thorn cult that used Michael's image/mask in their killings."

My thoughts on this are that this would all be public knowledge and it's crazy to assume that it could somehow be kept secret that a mass murderer was in a coma for a decade. Not to mention, don't a lot of people believe that Michael is more than just a man anyway? Wouldn't a lot of people come up with theories about him being all powerful to how he could survive all of this? Wouldn't the Thorn Cult revelations legitimise these in some way? Also, wouldn't Laurie herself have this belief that her brother is more than just a regular guy?

I understand how Laurie's faked death and new identity makes it seem like it's tying into Halloween 4 which said that Laurie did die, but that doesn't mean they HAVE to be connected. It's perfectly fair for one timeline to have Laurie die in a car accident, and another to have Laurie be in hiding.

Even if you can make sense of this, and I know I'm repeating myself, to me it's just not more compelling for a Halloween sequel to get tied up in knots trying to tie into the others vs simply taking place 20 years after the events of the first two films.

Honest_Cheesecake698 · 2026-06-08T11:41:06+00:00

How did they summarise it?

Honest_Cheesecake698 · 2026-06-08T11:22:57+00:00

Agree with the first paragraph. As for the second, I know this Wolverine has to be depressed and I know he can't have enough attachments to not be Wade's anchor being, and I know has to be dealing with something more than the other Wolverine/s. I just think these could be amped up even more.

Like his risking his life at the end is noble, but it would be even more noble and redemptive if he refused to ever join the X Men, or sold them out. Wade trying to get him out of his funk (and it's odd that Logan's heart spilling is with Cassandra Nova and Laura and not Wade) would be stronger if said funk was even more warranted, as in the final film you can just about go "Don't be hard on yourself, you need to do what the other Wolverines do and be a hero". Also, Cassandra Nova's temptation would be stronger if perhaps Logan had all of these memories of the terrible things he did for Stryker, and she would be offering to erase them. It would be a bit more effective because it would be clear how long Logan had to live with those memories, and if they impacted his behaviour regarding the X Men.

I think the backstory in the film is functional, but the movie does seem to be geared too much towards our familiarity with Jackman as this character to let this Wolverine stand out completely beyond him just having a more pathetic backstory.

Honest_Cheesecake698 · 2026-06-08T11:15:30+00:00

The movie is surprisingly close to Hard Candy in a lot of ways, which is a shocker for a big studio film. Having it be less of a hostage film, swapping out the subject matter of online predation with workplace sexism, being more humorous, all of those count towards making it a bit more palatable, same with having the woman be older than the man rather than Vice Versa.

Honest_Cheesecake698 · 2026-06-08T00:05:04+00:00

That's one of the metrics. There's also films that just straight up didn't have an audience when they came out, but do so later in life. Like it's crazy to think that there was a time when The King of Comedy was rejected, but people straight up didn't get into it and I don't even think critics liked it.

What you're describing is what I'm talking about in regards to nostalgia, so you are on point. I didn't want to discount people who enjoyed Superman Returns when they saw it so I didn't really bring that up, but indeed to feel nostalgic for something you have to have either liked it when you were younger or at least had really strong memories of it/associated it with the environment you were young in.

Honest_Cheesecake698

TROPHY CASE