Poll of the Day > I wish they'd done Brightburn alittle different *spoilers*

(+) Yeah! (+)

Just finished watching it. Had actually been looking forward to seeing it for along time, and it wasn't horrid.

But I do wish they had gone in a slightly different direction, having him start off like a normal kid and fairly good, but be bullied etc, and change to evil because of how he was treated, even while his family tries to prevent that from happening.

Perhaps even having one of him parents killed to start the final transformation.

Also much like in Smallville etc, the ship could be basically telling him he is superior, should not grow attachments with humans and that he must rule them.

It was good, but, they just made him a psycho basically, it would have been much more enjoyable if he was a bit more.....human so to speak.

Superman from the comics has always been too unbelievably good, especially when you see others from his planet are not like that at all. I would have rather seen a more realistic superman, who eventually spirals into a monster, it could have been a really heart wrenching story and really got you to care about the characters.

The problem with brightburn was, I didn't care about any of em, not even the kid, so there was no emotional attachment, in fact I was pretty much just waiting for the eventual conclucsion (her using the ship since they obviously forshadowed it so much), but didn't even care when she failed and died afterwards.

Bad casting I think, and just didn't make the characters relatable or allow you to actually care about them. Sad, because I love the concept and think it could have been a really good movie.

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I mean, that's kinda the point. He was literally just evil.

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Smarkil posted...

I mean, that's kinda the point. He was literally just evil.

Exactly. Every "villian" movie starts out how you wanted Brightburn to be. He's just evil. That's it.

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I guess, but, I still think it would have been more fun to watch a progression to evil, but maybe that is just me.

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wolfy42 posted...

I guess, but, I still think it would have been more fun to watch a progression to evil, but maybe that is just me.

Skeletor evil?
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You want a show/movie about people with powers and a deeper focus on characters' reasons for becoming evil or not?

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It's pretty accurate take on parenting when you let the kids run the jail.

wolfy42 posted...

Superman from the comics has always been too unbelievably good, especially when you see others from his planet are not like that at all. I would have rather seen a more realistic superman, who eventually spirals into a monster, it could have been a really heart wrenching story and really got you to care about the characters.

I think the key problem is, the premise of Superman is that his (adoptive) parents were SO FUCKING AWESOME, that they basically raised him to be the most moral and upstanding person on the entire planet. The fact that he has powers is almost incidental - Clark Kent was going to be an incredibly good man even if he was nothing more than the average human.

(This is also why people were kind of annoyed that the Kents kind of seemed like moderately shitty people in Man of Steel - if anything, Superman's parents are supposed to be more paragons of what it means to be HUMAN than Superman himself ever was. They're the best and brightest of us, which is why the boy they raised became so moral in return. Had they been anything less, Superman would have been less.)

So having a story where the kid turns out to be evil "because reasons" really isn't the "opposite" of Superman. What you kind of need is a story where shitty parents turn him into something evil. Where his slow descent into corruption and super-powered wrath is fueled by the irresponsibility of bad people and a bad situation, teaching him to follow in their footsteps (only with the ability to exponentially DO greater evil because of his powers).

Brightburn wants to have its cake and eat it too, with parents who are mostly good but who raise a monster because alien puberty turns you into the devil, and because his space parents were basically monsters (ie, it seems like it's coming down really hard on the nature side of the "nature versus nurture" debate). Which is kind of boring and meh.

Now crash that baby pod in the middle of Detroit and have the kid get raised by a drug dealer and a alcoholic prostitute, who regularly heap abuse and beatings on him for never measuring up, surrounded by classmates who constantly abuse him with the worst excesses of bullying (and I mean beatings and death threats, not name-calling that hurts your feelings), and I'll be way more interested when he winds up lashing out and realizing that he can murder-fuck his way across the entire world and no one can stop him once he starts developing powers. Because THAT makes sense.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

Now crash that baby pod in the middle of Detroit and have the kid get raised by a drug dealer and a alcoholic prostitute, who regularly heap abuse and beatings on him for never measuring up, surrounded by classmates who constantly abuse him with the worst excesses of bullying (and I mean beatings and death threats, not name-calling that hurts your feelings), and I'll be way more interested when he winds up lashing out and realizing that he can murder-fuck his way across the entire world and no one can stop him once he starts developing powers. Because THAT makes sense.

Now see, thats what I wanted to see, or something along those lines. His experiences don't even need to be that bad, in fact the entire movie could be highlighting how much the KENTS actually made superman who he became.

I just found this version a waste, a total waste in fact, almost in every way. It wasn't absolutely horrible, but it could have been so much more. Again, NONE of the characters, not one, were memorable or someone you grew to care for or be worried about. There was no feeling of torture when she was about to kill her son for instance, just she suddenly remembered his weakness and went off to kill him, happily lying along the way.

There was no reasoning to his decent into evil, he just basically went from being a normal kid, to a rampaging teenager who kills for fun. He didn't seem to actually have any attachment to his parents, his uncle/aunt etc, or feel bad about killing them, there was no emotion really almost from anyone (Even the dad was like...well, I think he's lying to us about stuff, so I'm just gonna shoot him in the head lol). How well do you think that would have gone over with the wifey when he got back if it had worked lol.

It didn't have to be anything really different, I just wish they had done more with it. He still could have been a rampaging demon once puberty hit, but they could have done more with the relationships he had BEFORE that. I mean, they kinda showed a bit that he has a close relationship with his mom...kinda? But that was mostly just shoved to the side after the first few minutes, and then VERY briefly your reminded of it at the end with the whistle.

It sadly seemed like a 2 dimensional movie that just played on a what if scenerio and didn't really do anything with it. The cast didn't work or have any chemestry. I didn't get any feelings of love etc from the mom and dad, and even the mom's (I'll always love you and defend you etc) seemed false, and almost mental lol.

Oh well, I'm just dissapointed as I was looking forward to watching that for quite awhile. Love the idea of an evil or even just chaotic neutral superman. So many ways you could go with that. Sadly they are just about to make another lois and clark type superman show on the CW. I'd love to see a TV show that redoes the whole thing pretty much. Smallville did that to some degree in a few ways and Lex wasn't pure evil (for most of the show at least).

The dude who played Lex in smallville was the best actor in my opinion and that character was awesome. HE is up there with Kingpin from the Netflix daredevil shows as far as villians for me (Micheal rosenbom or something like that). IF they are going to make ANOTHER tv show at this point, I'd rather see a re-imagining where everything is the same (kents find him etc) but he doesn't become super good but more morally ambiguous and slowly power corrupts him. Lex meanwhile starts off as his friend (and is saved by him early on, but he doesn't hide it) and watches him eventually be overcome and corrupted by his power, eventually becoming the actual hero of the story.

Now that could be a blast to watch, especially if it takes awhile for him to start sliding and we get to see his relationships (with his parents, Lois, Jimmy and especially Lex) start to crumble and perhaps he starts hanging out with actual villians from the superman universe as well. I'd eat the hell out of that show for years man. I'd be glued to it, but another rendition of the normal superman story? Yeah, I'm pretty much done with that.

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ParanoidObsessive posted...

I think the key problem is, the premise of Superman is that his (adoptive) parents were SO FUCKING AWESOME, that they basically raised him to be the most moral and upstanding person on the entire planet. The fact that he has powers is almost incidental - Clark Kent was going to be an incredibly good man even if he was nothing more than the average human.

(This is also why people were kind of annoyed that the Kents kind of seemed like moderately shitty people in Man of Steel - if anything, Superman's parents are supposed to be more paragons of what it means to be HUMAN than Superman himself ever was. They're the best and brightest of us, which is why the boy they raised became so moral in return. Had they been anything less, Superman would have been less.)

So having a story where the kid turns out to be evil "because reasons" really isn't the "opposite" of Superman. What you kind of need is a story where shitty parents turn him into something evil. Where his slow descent into corruption and super-powered wrath is fueled by the irresponsibility of bad people and a bad situation, teaching him to follow in their footsteps (only with the ability to exponentially DO greater evil because of his powers).

Brightburn wants to have its cake and eat it too, with parents who are mostly good but who raise a monster because alien puberty turns you into the devil, and because his space parents were basically monsters (ie, it seems like it's coming down really hard on the nature side of the "nature versus nurture" debate). Which is kind of boring and meh.

Now crash that baby pod in the middle of Detroit and have the kid get raised by a drug dealer and a alcoholic prostitute, who regularly heap abuse and beatings on him for never measuring up, surrounded by classmates who constantly abuse him with the worst excesses of bullying (and I mean beatings and death threats, not name-calling that hurts your feelings), and I'll be way more interested when he winds up lashing out and realizing that he can murder-fuck his way across the entire world and no one can stop him once he starts developing powers. Because THAT makes sense.

Johnathan Kent spanked him though.

wolfy42 posted...

Now see, thats what I wanted to see, or something along those lines. His experiences don't even need to be that bad, in fact the entire movie could be highlighting how much the KENTS actually made superman who he became.

I just found this version a waste, a total waste in fact, almost in every way. It wasn't absolutely horrible, but it could have been so much more. Again, NONE of the characters, not one, were memorable or someone you grew to care for or be worried about. There was no feeling of torture when she was about to kill her son for instance, just she suddenly remembered his weakness and went off to kill him, happily lying along the way.

There was no reasoning to his decent into evil, he just basically went from being a normal kid, to a rampaging teenager who kills for fun. He didn't seem to actually have any attachment to his parents, his uncle/aunt etc, or feel bad about killing them, there was no emotion really almost from anyone (Even the dad was like...well, I think he's lying to us about stuff, so I'm just gonna shoot him in the head lol). How well do you think that would have gone over with the wifey when he got back if it had worked lol.

It didn't have to be anything really different, I just wish they had done more with it. He still could have been a rampaging demon once puberty hit, but they could have done more with the relationships he had BEFORE that. I mean, they kinda showed a bit that he has a close relationship with his mom...kinda? But that was mostly just shoved to the side after the first few minutes, and then VERY briefly your reminded of it at the end with the whistle.

It sadly seemed like a 2 dimensional movie that just played on a what if scenerio and didn't really do anything with it. The cast didn't work or have any chemestry. I didn't get any feelings of love etc from the mom and dad, and even the mom's (I'll always love you and defend you etc) seemed false, and almost mental lol.

Oh well, I'm just dissapointed as I was looking forward to watching that for quite awhile. Love the idea of an evil or even just chaotic neutral superman. So many ways you could go with that. Sadly they are just about to make another lois and clark type superman show on the CW. I'd love to see a TV show that redoes the whole thing pretty much. Smallville did that to some degree in a few ways and Lex wasn't pure evil (for most of the show at least).

The dude who played Lex in smallville was the best actor in my opinion and that character was awesome. HE is up there with Kingpin from the Netflix daredevil shows as far as villians for me (Micheal rosenbom or something like that). IF they are going to make ANOTHER tv show at this point, I'd rather see a re-imagining where everything is the same (kents find him etc) but he doesn't become super good but more morally ambiguous and slowly power corrupts him. Lex meanwhile starts off as his friend (and is saved by him early on, but he doesn't hide it) and watches him eventually be overcome and corrupted by his power, eventually becoming the actual hero of the story.

Now that could be a blast to watch, especially if it takes awhile for him to start sliding and we get to see his relationships (with his parents, Lois, Jimmy and especially Lex) start to crumble and perhaps he starts hanging out with actual villians from the superman universe as well. I'd eat the hell out of that show for years man. I'd be glued to it, but another rendition of the normal superman story? Yeah, I'm pretty much done with that.

That was a great show.
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The parents didn't matter, the kids didn't matter, it seemed like the ship just started communication and that was that. Aside from one thing with the dad, that was so stupid it felt like the dad was straight up just a plot piece.

Even with that the parents 2-dimensional nature annoyed the piss out of me. The mom was overly doting to the point the kid 'could do no wrong' and the dad was so much of a hardass that sometimes there felt to be no room for errors and growth.

The sad thing is it seemed like the kid was actually happy to go out hunting with his dad, and that was such a stupid thing for the dad to do but he basically had to be stupid for the plot to do what they wanted.

I'd be lying if I said I hated the movie, but I'd be lying if I said the more I thought about it it didn't start to feel like 'plot points: the movie'.

ChaosAzeroth posted...

The parents didn't matter, the kids didn't matter, it seemed like the ship just started communication and that was that. Aside from one thing with the dad, that was so stupid it felt like the dad was straight up just a plot piece.

Even with that the parents 2-dimensional nature annoyed the piss out of me. The mom was overly doting to the point the kid 'could do no wrong' and the dad was so much of a hardass that sometimes there felt to be no room for errors and growth.

The sad thing is it seemed like the kid was actually happy to go out hunting with his dad, and that was such a stupid thing for the dad to do but he basically had to be stupid for the plot to do what they wanted.

I'd be lying if I said I hated the movie, but I'd be lying if I said the more I thought about it it didn't start to feel like 'plot points: the movie'.

Least it wasn't just me. I honestly didn't read/search up any reviews, I just posted here after watching it lol. I wasn't really that upset while watching it, but on reflection the way they told the story really pisses me off lol. It's just that I would have really liked that story to be told well, and it's such a letdown.

I'd really enjoy a good spiderman tv series, but for superman, there just have been so many that something new is what I really would want (same for a movie). They had the opportunity to present that, and totally blew it.

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wolfy42 posted...

Least it wasn't just me. I honestly didn't read/search up any reviews, I just posted here after watching it lol. I wasn't really that upset while watching it, but on reflection the way they told the story really pisses me off lol. It's just that I would have really liked that story to be told well, and it's such a letdown.

I'd really enjoy a good spiderman tv series, but for superman, there just have been so many that something new is what I really would want (same for a movie). They had the opportunity to present that, and totally blew it.

No shot at that with Sony owning the rights still. A love action Spider-Man would be awesome.
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Idk, I had basically the exact opposite feeling when I watched it. I wished they had made the kid evil without any sort of intervention.

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wolfy42 posted...

I just found this version a waste, a total waste in fact, almost in every way.

One problem is that a lot of people think "James Gunn" and then go "Man, Guardians of the Galaxy was awesome!", and they're left with a somewhat inaccurate view of just what sort of director he actually is.

But James Gunn is also the person behind Slither (which was pretty twisted) and Super (which was pretty damned dark). He got his start working for Troma (which... well... is Troma).

That's actually part of why I lack the optimism a lot of people have for Suicide Squad 2 that those people developed once he signed on to do it. Because a lot of the systemic studio problems that have hurt DC's attempt at a cinematic universe from the very beginning still exist behind the scenes, and because Gunn doesn't necessarily have a Midas Touch where everything he works on is gold. It's possible GotG turned out so well because Marvel's rigid administrative grip synergized with his talents to let the best aspects of his ability shine through, but working with DC will encourage his worse traits (or at least let him get away with more that might pull down the overall product).

Hard to say for sure at the moment WHAT the movie is going to look like, but I could easily see it going either way.
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