Maybe not skip it all together, but they could dispense with it in the first five minutes, and not drag it out for half the movie...
Dave | Email | Homepage | 12.10.04 - 7:59 pm | #

Yeah, that was the other option we discussed...brief flashbacks or something. I mean, if Peter Jackson can cover all of The Hobbit in about five minutes....
Mikester | Homepage | 12.10.04 - 8:05 pm | #

It works in the first Superman movie, but now, just go straight to Smallville and incorporate a little flashback.

Mmm Smallville.

Maybe Fat Luthor can show up.
BeaucoupKevin | Email | Homepage | 12.10.04 - 8:50 pm | #

you'd better start taking better care of that monocle young man! they don't come cheap y'know!

Dave
David Fiore | Email | Homepage | 12.10.04 - 10:23 pm | #

David F. - what's funny about that is while I do wear glasses (just for driving), the prescription is only for my nearsighted right eye...my left eye is fine. So I suppose, theoretically, I could get away with wearing a monocle!
Mikester | Homepage | 12.10.04 - 10:50 pm | #

I watched the first season of Smallville with a married couple who were neighbors of mine. At one point, the husband and I were talking about how they were playing the Lex / Clark relationship "since we know where it's going."

The wife looked blankly at us and asked "where's it going?"

"Well, it's Clark Kent and Lex Luthor," I replied, mystified by her confusion. Then, as she repeated the question, I realized she had no idea whatsoever that Clark Kent owuld become Superman, nor that Lex Luthor was his arch enemy.

I'm used to people not knowing a lot of comics characters / references I make, but I'd always taken it for granted that everyone knew the basics of Superman. So, anectodal evidence on Dorian's side, I suppose.

Ah, and is that "more bloggers blogging about gay comics" or "more comics bloggers who happen to be gay?" 'cause, you know, you could totally start analyzing the homosexual underpinnings of Swamp Thing.
Jason Kimble | Homepage | 12.11.04 - 7:04 am | #

I had a science class last year where the teacher, trying to explain how some cells fight cancer, brought up Superman and kryptonite. The non-response she got from this refrence only further proves Dorian's claim. This was a class of 20-30 people in their 20's.
Ian Brill | Email | Homepage | 12.11.04 - 9:08 am | #

Normally, I would make some smart ass remark about Dorian possibly inhaling paint fumes...but in retrospect, given movie audiences, maybe a quick montage at the beginning (or even in the middle of the film) might help.
Gordon | Email | Homepage | 12.11.04 - 11:41 am | #

Dorian is right. No one knows anything that isn't on prime time television. That's the simple truth.
N | Email | Homepage | 12.11.04 - 3:27 pm | #

Evidently there's a DJ on Miami radio named Bruce Wayne. When my girlfriend tried to explain to her sister and her sister's friend that this was hilarious she was met with those blank stares we comics readers know and love.
Mark H. | Homepage | 12.11.04 - 3:39 pm | #

"No, they don't. Most people don't know anything about Superman"

it that thought and the idea of wasting 30 minutse on the origin story that may ruin the movie
George | Email | 12.11.04 - 3:41 pm | #

I am somewhat distressed at the anecdotal evidence being presented. Can it really be that a big chunk of our population knows not a whit about Superman?

Sigh.
Mikester | Homepage | 12.11.04 - 7:38 pm | #

I can confirm another "they didn't know it was going to be about Superman" story. My friend Spristy had to be taken through, step by step, how Superman Came To Be.
BeaucoupKevin | Email | Homepage | 12.11.04 - 10:04 pm | #

Actually, you're both right. Everyone knows Superman's origin but, at the same time, no one cares.
John Popa | Email | 12.12.04 - 8:36 am | #

John is right. And just *try* coming to a Halloween party dressed in a Green Lantarn T-shirt. No one will have the slightest idea who it's supposed to refer to (even if they have kids who watch JLA), and once informed, no one will have an iota of further interest in your costume.

And they will probably refer to you later as "the Green Goblin."

I speak, obviously, from personal experience.
N | Email | Homepage | 12.12.04 - 4:09 pm | #

I suspect most of this bewilderment at people not knowing anything about our beloved imaginary friends and childhood super-icons just comes from the phenemonon that Robert Anton Wilson calls 'living in a reality tunnel'. People who live in reality tunnels tend to take for granted that everyone else they meet dwells in the same tunnel, until it's proven otherwise.

There are several Born Again Christians at work, and I've watched them bump their noses against this many times, whenever they start talking to, well, nearly anyone else. Their assumptions about the common, mainstream database, primarily regarding Bible quotes and Christian theology/metaphysics, are continually frustrated.

Of course, we geeks just tend to be flabbergasted when someone doesn't know who Bruce Wayne is. Born Again Christians, at least the ones at my job, are equally astounded, but they also often immediately jump off of that into affronted, offended, infuriated, and determined to Change The World For The Better.

But maybe that's the sane, reasonable approach. I'm sure the world would be a much better place if all us comix nerds made a determined effort to enlighten every living man, woman and child as to Jor-El, Lara, Kara, and all the Phantom Zone inmates...
Handsome | Email | Homepage | 12.12.04 - 5:08 pm | #

Robert Anton Wilson is a puffed-up, arrogant gasbag who hasn't had a new idea in 20 years. Trust me; I've had the misfortune to have to talk with him several times.

I would like nothing worse than to have everyone know the fine details about Superman's fictional existence; why the hell should they care about such trivial and childish matters? But I think I speak for most of us nerdlings when I say that most folks really ought to know that there *is* such a character, and some barebones idea of the character's history, such as I think they ought to know the basic plots of Shakespeare's plays, or to recognize the name Oliver Twist, even if they've never read the actual works. After all, I know that there does exist a game called football, and there are plays of that game named Elway and Aikman and such like.
N | Email | Homepage | 12.12.04 - 8:10 pm | #

N, that's exactly what I was going to mention, that no one is expecting everybody to be an expert on whatever our particular obsessions are, but people should have at least a minimum "cultural literacy" just to get along in today's society, if only to understand references in news stories, day-to-day conversations, etc. If, for example, someone hears a reference to "Beowulf," that person should be able to at least identify Beowulf as a guy in an old story who fought monsters, instead of just getting "white noise" static in the brain.

In regards to Superman, I think that he's been enough of a cultural and corporate icon over the decades that the people who can't recognize him are the ones with the problem. I may have overstated my case by claiming everyone knows his origin; I concede that perhaps not everyone does. But everyone should be able to identify him...in the same way that everyone should be able to I.D. Sherlock Holmes, or Mickey Mouse, or George Washington, or Adolph Hitler.
Mikester | Homepage | 12.12.04 - 9:53 pm | #

Wow. Smackin' on the R.A.W. It's a bold move.

I've never talked to R.A.W., and looking at his current blog makes me think he is a little stuck on himself. But if I'd written THE NEW INQUISITION, I might feel justified in thinking I'm somewhat superior the herd mind, too.

There's a startling amount of self hatred in referring to a knowledge of something we all love as "childish and trivial", especially with the angry use of the "why the hell should they" phrase preceding it. I wasn't out to crap on anyone's anthill with the R.A.W. reference. In fact, my assertion that we should educate everyone as to the facts regarding The Last Son Of Doomed Krypton was meant as irony. However, I think I'll just excuse myself now.
Handsome | Email | Homepage | 12.13.04 - 10:45 pm | #

Hey, I don't mean to come across as angry or bitter or anything. You know how text and email is --- things read much worse than they would sound with a smirk in the voice or mischeivous eye twinkle. Please don't take anything I wrote as a snide attack on you or anything you like. (Even RAW! I loved Illuminatus!)

Sure, (most) (superhero) comics are childish. I don't see any self-loathing in admitting that simple truth. And they're very trivial next to our soldiers dying and worse in Iraq every day. But we all need these escapist hobbies, like fantasy football, fly fishing, anime and photoshopping for a hobby. So I don't see any contradiction in loving a thing you know to be trivial and even childish. Hell, I wish more people were willing to be childish and carefree. I'm a Pre-K/kindergarten teacher! I *like* childish!
N | Email | Homepage | 12.14.04 - 8:05 pm | #

That's turned out to be a Spooky Prediction. What's next for the world I wonder? Do you have anything else you care to bend your miraculous Oracular powers to?
Richard | 08.24.06 - 12:05 am | #