Superman
"FlyBy"
2nd Draft Script Review
Faster
than a speeding bullet!
More powerful than a locomotive!
Able to leap tall buildings at a single bound!
Look, up in
the sky!
It's a bird!
It's a plane!
No, it's Superman!
Who among us hasn't heard all
or part of these legendary words? Bright, colorful images of this
ageless tale are instantly called to mind when one hears the word,
"Superman." Superman stories have been entertaining
generations of peoples in print, film, and radio since Action
Comics #1 featured Superman in 1938. And coming to the big screen
in 2004 (supposedly) is another take on the Superman saga…
"Uh-oh, Babosa. You're a comic book purist. How can you
give this script a fair shake?" Here's why. Superman,
in his various incarnations, has been done and redone many times
in the past 60-odd years. As this isn't the first try to enlarge
Superman from ink to screen magic, I'm totally open to differing
and new interpretations of the stories and the Man. So here we
go…
 Flyby,
by J. J. Abrams (also known as Jeffrey Abrams, he's written several
TV episodes of Alias (2001), Armageddon (1998), and Forever Young
(1992)), is the newest re-write of the next Superman movie being
made and put out by Warner Bros. But before I really get into
this script, let me summarize the typical origin of Superman to
give some points of reference. Far from Earth lay a strong-gravity,
3-mooned planet named Krypton that fostered a technologically
advanced civilization under a red sun (yeh, I know. A red giant
doesn't burn in that phase long enough to develop that kind of
life, but, C'MON, it's a comic!). Krypton was home to the Kryptonians,
for our purposes, most notably Jor-El. A prominent member of the
Science Council, Jor-El called for a council gathering in the
Hall of Wisdom to discuss his theory about the recent spate of
earthquakes (or would they be kryptoquakes there?) plaguing the
planet. Jor-El gave a grand speech, but his fellow scientists
scoffed at his escape-the-destruction-of-Krypton theory and accused
him of trying to exile them to space so Jor-El could seize control
of the government. So Jor-El rushes back to his mate and explains
to her all that went on at the meeting. Using his save-the-Kryptonians
model Space Ark, Jor-El and his wife send their son off to a refuge
planet called Earth. On Earth, little baby Kal-El's spacecraft
crashes on the Midwest farm of Jonathon and Martha Kent. They
are a childless couple (infertile) who desperately crave children
to pass on their wisdom. Long story short, the Kent's raise young
Clark Kent (they don't know his real name), with all his emerging
talents, into the able-bodied Superman.
Flyby begins with a video image
of a hurried, middle-aged television newscaster shakily announcing
the conflict on Earth as a battlefield for warring aliens…then
all hell breaks loose in the newsroom as everything quickly explodes
out of frame. Indeed, the building housing the newsroom is blown
apart, along with 5 city blocks of other buildings, by the thousand-fold
hurricane force winds issuing from the blowing mouth of a darkly
cloaked, sword bearing, handsome thirty-year old man; his name
is Ty-Zor (we'll find out more about him later). The camera pulls
back a couple of blocks to show two red boots hitting the pavement
with a definite THUD. Pan around and rise to reveal a bruised
and bloodied Superman wearing his trademark red and blue tights
(hehe) now shredded from battle. Then follows what seems to be
(if the special effects are cool) a Gandalf vs. the Balrog (latest
Lord of the Rings pic…it's a must see) type of flying, twisting,
punching battle through the streets and buildings of Metropolis.
The chase ends at an abandoned University Observatory at night.
Superman blasts into the building scanning with his x-ray vision
while being taunted by the dark whisper of "Kaaaal-Ellll"
that Superman's super-hearing picks up. Supes tracks the whispers
to a part of the observatory (now a makeshift laboratory) that
his vision can't see through (Rats! Lead-lined walls and doors!).
So he proceeds to tear open each door down a hallway.
"Superman,
it's a trap!"
 Yep,
Superman is brought to his knees by… well, we don't see what
he sees, but we do hear a voice over of Ty-Zor saying, "I
want to hear you cry, Kal-El. Like your mother cried…(hehehe),"
at which point Superman screams and we cut to an idyllic pasture
scene with a young 5-year old girl plucking crystal flowers from
a landscape of field and forest under three moons in the crimson
glow of a red sun daytime sky. This scene is 29-years earlier
than the opening battle scenes. She is roused from her innocence
by the distant, yet growing ever closer, ground shaking thumps
of something mighty big coming her way. From a nearby forest edge
lumbers out a 12-story tall, 2-legged walking mech warrior (like
the video game of the same name) followed by dozens of his fellow
"Rousers". All are manned by seemingly evil Kryptonians
led by the ruthless Kata-Zor (Hmmm, related to Ty-Zor? We shall
see.) who is bent on destroying the main (good) society of Kryptonians
in the capital city of Kandor. The leader of the Kandor group
is the brother of Kata-Zor, Jor-El (39 years old at this time
according to the script). Jor-El, sensing the impending doom of
his civilization as he knows it, convinces his wife, Lara, to
go through with their plan to launch their baby boy, Kal-El, to
a safe haven far away from the planet Krypton. WHOOOOOSH!!! The
escape pod blasts into space as Jor-El sends Lara off with a trusted
ally to somewhere else on Krypton. Jor-El goes back to kick ass…er…um…get
captured by his younger brother's cronies. This bit ends with
Kata-Zor telling Jor-El that he knows Kal-El was sent off planet
in a futile attempt to fulfill the Great Prophecy; so we watch
from off-planet as Kata-Zor sends a thousand pods (with one evil
dude in each) off to search for and kill the baby Kal-El. Oh,
by the way, at this point an extremely large explosion-like tear
a hunk of the planet out kind of explosion-rocks Krypton (presumably
the capital city and it's population seat). Back to Earth as Martha
and Jonathon Kent, in their late thirties, are eating breakfast
when Kal-El's pod comes crashing onto their farm sliding right
up to their doorstep amongst a heap of dirt (good Midwest farmin'
soil!). Mr. Kent climbs down into the unnaturally excavated ditch,
and out pops nine-month old Kal-El from the once liquid-filled
capsule; of course, this is where Martha's maternal we-gonna-keep-this-here-baby-cause-we-cain't-get-preggers-natchrally
(well, not exactly with those words…hehe). So they do. Then
follows scenes and flash-scenes illustrating the highs and lows
of raising a child that has ever emerging superpowers of Superman
kind (ya know…super-strength, flying, super-hearing, etc.)
in poignant and sometimes quite humorous ways. Young Clark Kent
grows up as a reserved thoughtful farm boy in the small Midwest
town of Smallville.
 Meanwhile,
during part of that timeline, we meet Lex Luthor. In the comics,
Lex is a same-aged peer (on Earth) of Clark who only starts resenting
Superboy (a separate comic series - Superboy comics were pretty
good. Even Kal-El's childhood pet dog on Krypton, Krypto the Superdog,
had a series!) when a lab accident has Lex losing his hair when
Superboy's super-breath sprays chemicals on Lex; this script plays
it differently. Here, Lex Luthor is a forty-ish, disheveled, failing
salesman hawking "quality" shoes door to door while
those doors all slam in his face. One particularly rough day,
Lex, driving at night in the pouring rain, has an encounter that
will reshape his life. What Lex thinks is an out of control small
aircraft, with its lights flaring, hurtles over his moving car
to crash nearby. Luthor stops to investigate and comes upon the
shattered remains of one of Kata-Zor's hunting pods surrounded
by glowing green rocks (Hmmm, what could those be?). Lex leans
in close to see a shriveled up one of Kata-Zor's soldiers. Aaah!
Shock as the barely alive soldier grabs Lex's hand and transmits
his Kryptonian knowledge and consciencness into Luthor (not enough
mind stuff to take Lex over, mind you, just enough to infuse Lex
with a renewed strength and purpose). It's during this "infusion"
that Lex's hair falls out to wash away in the rain as the Kryptonian
dies. CUE THE FRIGGIN' LIGHTNING! The next few scenes show more
of Clark growing up as an extraordinary ordinary kid, for good
and for worse. And just as Martha and Jonathon are telling Clark
he's an alien of some kind from somewhere they know not of, we
transition back to Krypton where Kata-Zor's soldiers capture Queen
Lara. Ty-Zor brings her to the racked and tortured Jor-El to try
to get the whereabouts of Kal-El from him so the prophecy (we'll
find out more about that in the next 2 Super films, I guess…)
won't come to pass. Doesn't work, so Ty-Zor shows his prowess
with a Kryptonian blade. Transition back to Earth where Clark,
in college, meets the fiery Lois Lane for the first time. Blah-blah-blah,
then we fade-in to a now 29-year old Clark Kent being escorted
by young photographer Jimmy Olsen down the halls of the Daily
Planet, Metropolis' major newspaper. There he encounters the cantankerous
Perry White (THE BOSS!) and meets up again with Lois Lane who
is now a driven reporter/writer for the newspaper. Clark, now
a cub reporter assigned to shadow Lois, experiences Ms. Lane's
out of control nature as she publicly (at a banquet) accuses the
now quite economically powerful Lex Luthor, head of the huge technology
firm of Lexcorp, of monitoring all information traffic that goes
through Lexcorp computer chips (basically everything as the chips
are in computers, cell phones, phone switches, etc.). Of course,
Luthor eloquently dodges the question and has Lois and Clark escorted
out by security. Mr. White is pissed, but assigns Lois, and Jimmy,
anyway to interview the President of the United States aboard
Air Force One. Just as Lois is about to start the interview (uh-oh),
one of the engines explodes and Air Force One rolls into an uncontrolled
dive. WHOEVER CAN SAVE THEM!?! As Clark lazily sleeps in his new
apartment, a TV voice over alerts him to the impending disaster.
Clark, usually mild mannered, gets a sudden dose of courage, puts
on his blue and red flying suit (his mom gave it to him years
ago in the "growing up" scenes), scans the sky, then
races off into the cloud filled blue as SUPERMAN! Yep, Supes saves
the plane in Super fashion (setting it down in the middle of a
televised game at Fenway) while ignoring the President to see
if Lois is all right. Lois doesn't recognize that this handsome
hunk with a big "S" (if only all us guys had a big "S"
to attract women like Supes…hehe…she's smitten in a
big way!) is really Clark Kent, so Clark decides to help the world
via Superman while maintaining his true low-key lifestyle of being
Clark. And Lex Luthor, with a slight grin, saw the whole thing
unfold on TV. So Lex, still possessing the Krypton Soldier's space
vehicle, intuitly activates some controls on the kind-of-repaired
pod back at his main laboratory. He has summoned Ty-Zor, and three
of Ty-Zor's dark comrades, to where Kal-El lives. While we wait
for those guys to show up on Earth, Superman flies across the
globe (Earth) helping out as much as he can. We also witness the
love posturing twixt Superman and Lois as well as Lois and Jimmy
continuing to snoop on Lex. Speaking of Lex, he finally meets
up with the Kryptonians and manages to "convince" them
they should help each other. Ty-Zor wants Kal-El dead and Lex
wants to rule the Earth. The deal is struck.
"KAAAAAAL-ELLLLL…"
 Oh
crap! Superman's super-hearing picks up an ominous whisper. He
flies (really fast!) through Metropolis looking for the voice
and finds it in Ty-Zor who is hovering mid-city while city folk
gape and TV cameras stare at the scene. Ty-Zor takes off with
Superman following. What follows is a big time, quick chase superspeed
battle through the streets and skies of Metropolis. It's during
these scenes that we meet up with the chaos of the script's opening
scenes. Alas, Supes is led into a trap of dire proportions. I
won't reveal what EXACTLY happens (Babosa likes to keep some things
about a film a mystery, but you've probably figured that out now
from reading my previous script reviews - by the way, if you've
seen the latest Steve Martin/Queen Latifah flick, let me know
how you think the actual movie compares to my script review of
the then entitled In
The Houze…), but, suffice it to say, Kal-El manages
to become very powerful indeed. Anywho, with Superman seemingly
out of the way, the Kryptonians fulfill their part of the bargain
with Lex by laying waste to all the Earth's peoples so that Lex
can make all of humanity bow to him (Lex just can't take a bite
without eating the whole thing.). What follows is a spectacular
end-fight sequence between Superman, the four Kryptonians, and
some surprise dinner guests. But what becomes of Lex? And what
becomes of Superman/Clark Kent/Kal-El? The answers to those questions
and more will be answered (hopefully, it would suck if they just
did one film and then left us high and dry with questions) in
the 2nd and 3rd Superman movie in this supposed trilogy.
 Wow,
this is a damn good script! It reads quite well and is filled
with vivid imagery that should be able to be translated to the
big screen rather easily and realistically with today's computer
technologies. J.J. Abrams does a great job of building a director's
view right into the script. Some of the dialogue and scenes, especially
between Superman and Lois, are strongly reminiscent of Christopher
Reeve's first Superman flick (1978), but, like I mentioned earlier,
some recurrent theme information strings are going to happen;
indeed, they probably should happen to maintain a cohesiveness
of the thought and ideals that the Superman saga oozes. But who
doesn't love a classic fight between good and evil. The fighting
scenes in this one (especially the flying ones) should play incredible
IF the film is given enough money in it's budget to wow the audience
with dazzling special effects. And with Peter's Entertainment
( Ali (2001), Wild Wild West (1999), My Fellow Americans(1996))
backed by the powerhouse of Warner Bros. ( Smallville TV series
(2001-present), some of my favorite cartoons ( I love the young
vulture flying home to ma singing, " I'm bringing home a
baby bumble-bee…"), and a crapload of TV and film stuff
for the last 70 years), legendary might, methinks they just might
have a large enough budget to make this film a blockbuster hit
if…IF…IF…( drawn out fading echo…)
 Well,
there's a lot of "ifs" associated with this film which
is still in proloooooonged pre-production. Brett Ratner is directing
this pic…uh..er…was directing this pic, but it's dragged
on way too long in pre-production for him to stay on. McG (a.k.a.
Joseph McGinty Nichol, director of Charlie's Angels (2000)) has
been rumored as a possible director. And the studly man (seems
like they're looking for a guy about 6' 2" tall) to portray
the Man of Steel is…hmmm, for a while it was 25-year old
Josh Hartnett (Black Hawk Down (2001), Pearl Harbor (2001), The
Faculty (1998)), but rumor was that he didn't want to commit to
3 Superman films over a 10-year period. Others rumored to have
tested for the lead include 26-year old Matthew Bomer (All My
Children (2000) and The Guiding Light (2001-present)), 35-year
old Brendan Fraser (The Mummy Returns (2001), Dudley Do-Right
(1999), Airheads (1994)), 30-year old Paul Walker (Timeline (2003)…see
Babosa's script review on that one…, The Skulls (2000), Pleasantville
(1998)), and 32-year old David Boreanaz (Buffy the Vampire Slayer
(1997) TV series and Angel (1999) TV series - but he had scheduling
conflicts with the film and his Angel series). But, then again,
maybe it will be Josh Hartnett after all; he looks more the part
(facially) out of all of them. There's even a petition by adoring
TV fans to try and get Dean Cain ( he did the TV series Lois &
Clark (1993)) to be granted an audition. Most other roles aren't
cast either. Rumor mill has Laura Flynn Boyle wanting to play
Lois and Justin Timberlake wanting to play Jimmy Olsen. Who knows.
The only lock is 66 - year old Anthony Hopkins as Jor-El (that
one sounds good). Jon Peters and Jay Stern are, supposedly, still
the producers. Also sounds like they might reprise music created
by John Williams (Man, this guy has written a LOT of musical scores!)
for Superman the Movie (1978).
THIS MOVIE IS IN PRE-PRODUCTION
HELL!!! Will this spell the end for this project? Probably not,
as long as films based on comic books continue to be big draws
to the box office, but they had better hurry. The last comic book
fad from the late 1970's to the early '80's ( with such corny
TV favorites as Wonder Woman (1976 - 1979), The Incredible Hulk
(1978 - 1982), the "hit" film Puma Man (1980) although
originally released as Vomo Puma), as well as the aforementioned
Chris Reeve's Superman Movies ( 1978 - 1987 ) faded in just a
few years (granted, the special effects then left a lot to be
desired when compared with today's). So the longer this Superman
movie waits, the harder it might be to recoup the cost of production
if interest does wane for the genre. I hope this movie gets off
the ground (pun intended) soon, as I would like to see it. I liked
how the script grabbed me by starting out with the flash-forward
action sequence then leading the story back to that point. Interesting
touch. Not too crazy about the name of the movie if it stays Flyby
though. But the special effects paired with all the various fight
scenes promise to make this one a wonderfest for the eyes and
ears. Hopefully they'll resolve their casting issues soon and
get their collective butts in gear to put out a quality movie…hmmm,
maybe Babosa should try out for the lead…SuperSlug…"Faster
than a snail, more powerful than a big-ass beetle…"…Naaah,
my beergut would make me aerodynamically unstable anyway…sigh…
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