Adapting superheroes for live action

Superhero movies over the years seem to be changing tone and style in reaction to what came before. Meaning—they change quite drastically sometimes based on what the audience loves, and/or gets sick of. I've had some thoughts about this over the years, but right now, mostly related to the new Superman movie.

Take the X-men movies from the early 2000's first. These (and Spider-man) were what properly kicked off the popularity of the superhero film genre I think. They were trying very much to keep stuff as close to realistic as they could, because the comics they were based on were so colourful and almost "camp" at times. Most resemblance to the original characters were reduced to the powers, just a bit of colour (but mostly black), a hint of spikey hair on Wolverine, etc. Then there's Batman Begins - very very serious, gritty and "realistic". That's what the audience wanted at the time. Hugely popular films. 

Then along came the MCU some years later, starting with Iron Man, which became what every superhero series aspired to be – a huge universe of connected movies. Quippy and fun. Less gritty. Lot's of snarky one-liners. People loved them for exactly that. But then eventually came the problem of too much of a good thing. 

I'm reminded a bit of the issues I started having with Doctor Who back in 2013-ish. Mostly the tenth and eleventh Doctors. Both Doctors and stories started off great and "untainted" by the audience's reactions. Then it became apparent to the show runners what people loved the most about those two takes on the character, so we got an excess of that. They hammed it up, they chewed the scenery more and more. More grand speeches, even more convoluted plots. It's like it was feeding back on itself. Like how AI will probably eventually be learning how to do images based on other AI images.

I don't hate the MCU by the way. I really enjoyed Iron Man, and the infinity war/endgame films especially. I just don't get "attached", or the urge to analyse and discuss so much. There's no tingle in my brain that makes me obsess. But I think the main problem I had was that some of the films didn't take themselves seriously enough. And then they started having similar problems to Doctor Who where they played up the popular parts too much, meaning they got even less serious as time went on. I think Thor: Ragnarok was the first film where my eyebrows started raising a bit. Thor: Love and Thunder I actively disliked, and after that I kind of fell of the Marvel train. 

Meanwhile, the DCEU movies took themselves way TOO seriously. Often it didn't even feel like they liked the characters they were making movies about. 

With the release of Superman this year, have we possibly hit an era where maybe, just maybe, they're doing superhero movies in a more genuine way? A way that's not embarrassed by the source material. James Gunn's Superman wasn't perfect, but what it did right was that it was genuinely a Superman film that wasn't embarrassed to be a Superman film. It took itself seriously enough that I got invested, but the universe it takes place in was crazy enough that you can accept so many more things as "that's just the way things work" much more easily. 

So much about Superman gets a bit too silly if you place it into the real world. The cape, the suit, the trunks, the glasses disguise... But make it an animated movie, or make it a bit more upbeat and whacky, have him be called Superman and wear primary colours from the very start, and suddenly, maybe you don't spend so much energy thinking about how little that stuff make sense, and just enjoy the show. I even hated a bit less on the trunks, because they worked so much better in this kind of environment. And why make a Superman movie at all if you don't care about telling a story about what Superman is all about – being kind and helping people. 

One of my favourite fanfic tags is "crack treated seriously". Crack fic is written to be nonsensical, and you'd think the author was taking drugs when they wrote it. Crack treated seriously is when the premise or setting can be similarly crazy, but the author treats the character development etc very seriously. And I feel like something like that is perfect for Superman. 

The MCU's Spider-man was a change based on what came before. Next up, they're apparently doing  "normal" Spider-man again, with non Stark-assisted Peter Parker. Maybe things will swing back around to gritty and realistic for Superman again at some point, but where we are now is the perfect place to be in I think. And I'm sure these films will fall into the trap of doing too much of a good thing eventually as well (sigh), but I'll enjoy the weightlessness on this parabola before we fall again.