No Right Answer: Superman Red Son vs. Kingdom Come

Carboncrown

New member
Oct 17, 2009
368
0
0
Having watched the new Two and a Half Men(hey, it's not brilliant but I enjoy it) I just realised how much the guy on the left looks like Ashton Kutcher.

Also, Superman is stupid. [sub]Why yes, I did base that entirely off of Smallville. [/sub]

...no, I don't actually have anything smart to contribute.
 

Therumancer

Citation Needed
Nov 28, 2007
9,909
0
0
I'd see a "Kingdom Come" movie, and I think the characters are iconic enough for it to work and for people to identify with them. I would however NOT watch a "Red Son" movie as I am strongly anti-communist, even if I do have some left wing beliefs.
 

Mr Inconsistent

New member
Mar 29, 2009
80
0
0
So like, completely off topic, but did you guys notice that they had all the twilight books just sitting there, on the bottom shelf?
 

N_of_the_dead

New member
Apr 2, 2008
423
0
0
rancher of monsters said:
Those results were bullshit. Goku only one because of his popularity. Ozai is a horrible parent when he hates his children and even when he loves them. There is nothing he has done for them that was even remotely positive. Goku might be stupid, but even he occasionally did things for the benefit of his children.
I gotta disagree man, if I told you that both were bad parents which would surprise you more? The sociopath who's idea to unite the world is by burning it or the altruistic one who literally pulls the martyr card like clock work. Also awesome name dude, very few people I know played Monster Rancher (sorry if I'm somehow way off on guessing the meaning)


On topic I would love to see Kingdom come but as live action impossible, animated yeah it would work and be cool. Red Son can be done live action but I imagine the biggest flaw is that only people who know of the "what if" wouldn't be horribly confused. My cousin loves super hero movies but if I told him they were making a superman where he was communist he would just go "....the F--K?!?!".
 

Aureliano

New member
Mar 5, 2009
604
0
0
My rule is pretty simple: no superman unless you're going to go full-on camp. His powers are too retarded to work any other way. If he's gotta be in it, use him as little as possible.

So I gotta go with Kingdom Come, if only because it sounds like there's less Superman in it than Red Son.
 

MDSnowman

New member
Apr 8, 2004
373
0
0
You do have a point that a Kingdom Come movie would require set up for everyone involved, but Red Son is NOT the way to set up Superman. You want something that actually encapsulates what the character is to set him up for Kingdom Come, a what if where Supes is a communist is interesting, but it doesn't accomplish the character set up.

Also it will never happen because DC will crumble under the media backlash if someone even says communist and superman in the same sentence.
 

rancher of monsters

New member
Oct 31, 2010
873
0
0
N_of_the_dead said:
rancher of monsters said:
Those results were bullshit. Goku only one because of his popularity. Ozai is a horrible parent when he hates his children and even when he loves them. There is nothing he has done for them that was even remotely positive. Goku might be stupid, but even he occasionally did things for the benefit of his children.
I gotta disagree man, if I told you that both were bad parents which would surprise you more? The sociopath who's idea to unite the world is by burning it or the altruistic one who literally pulls the martyr card like clock work. Also awesome name dude, very few people I know played Monster Rancher (sorry if I'm somehow way off on guessing the meaning)


On topic I would love to see Kingdom come but as live action impossible, animated yeah it would work and be cool. Red Son can be done live action but I imagine the biggest flaw is that only people who know of the "what if" wouldn't be horribly confused. My cousin loves super hero movies but if I told him they were making a superman where he was communist he would just go "....the F--K?!?!".
You're right about my name, Monster Rancher was easily one of my favorite games growing up. I know that we expect better of Goku, but I still don't think that makes him the worse father. At the end of the day you just have to look at the results. Does Goku make bad decisions? Yes, but he's also done things for the benefit of his children and they all grow up to be good people. Ozai's only good child only became so when he stopped trying to live up to his father's will. The one who didn't suffered a massive mental breakdown.

tl;dr Abandoned child > Crazy child.
 

ace_of_something

New member
Sep 19, 2008
5,995
0
0
I think they'd both be terrible movies, elseworlds that would make money hand over fist?

Batman Red bloodstorm/red Rain/Crimson Mist.

Batman as a vampire. It would make so much money.
 

The Grim Ace

New member
May 20, 2010
483
0
0
As much as I love both Kingdom Come and Red Son, I don't think the average consumer is going to be intrigued by either. Also, they might be able to do Red Son live action but Kingdom is going to be ridiculously expensive if it's live. I otherwise totally agree that Red Son must be made, less for Superman as a communist, more for Russian Batman -- that was every kind of win.
 

Hyper-space

New member
Nov 25, 2008
1,361
0
0
Both of those "What If's" have a movie-prospect measured in zeroes. For one, Red Son features Superman, an ostensibly TRUTH, JUSTICE AND THE AMERICAN WAY-esque character, as a communist meaning that in no way would this make any money in the states. Kingdom Come features about seven billion characters and side-plots and is simply too long to be made without turning it into an 12-hour trilogy.

Kyle mentioned X-men: First Class for its cold-war espionage setting and aesthetics, so I propose this: a movie-adaptation of JSA: The Liberty Files. For one, it features a solid trio of characters to work with, numerous shout-outs to obscure characters and an epic period-piece story-line set in WWII (can't go wrong with those Germans, can ya?).
 

The Random One

New member
May 29, 2008
3,310
0
0
Ha ha, Chris is a horribly sore loser!

OT, I disagree. Americans are finnicky and they wouldn't like a story like that. It worked for comics because there are a bunch of comics that come out every year so comics like that will find their audience, but movies are huge affairs and superhero movies particularly need to throw the ball out of the park every single time. Kingdom Come is, if nothing else, a more classic story.
 

Starik20X6

New member
Oct 28, 2009
1,685
0
0
Kyle is right- you couldn't make a Kingdom Come movie without establishing everyone, but I'd go a step further- I'd say a Kingdom Come movie would have to be a sequel to a Justice League movie. It'd be weird to establish them all at their current ages then BAM suddenly they're all old and hanging out, feels like a huge gap in the story.

Besides, you'd have to wait until Dark Knight Rises comes out and make an unrelated Batman movie, Nolan has pretty much sealed his Batman off from any team-up shenanigans. My suggestion would be a CG Animated Series Timmverse batch of movies. You know what, forget about Kingdom Come, I want a damn Batman TAS CG movie!
 

WolfThomas

Man must have a code.
Dec 21, 2007
5,292
0
0
Neither of them really would make that great a film. You're best sticking to the good semi-canonical stuff, cherry pick the best elements from Allstar Superman, Birthright, Man of Steel, Superman for all Seasons and heck even the relatively new Earth One. Once you had a decent couple of films you could wrap it all up with a lot of elements from Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow.

The one Elsword that could work? Secret Identity. It's the story of a young man growing up in Kansas whose parents, the Kents, name him Clark because of the Superman comics. He grows up being constantly teased and given Superman stuff as presents. Eventually one day he comes in contact with an alien energy source that gives him Superman's superpowers (it's implied his reading of the comics subconciously shaped his powers to be that way). He decides to save people in a Superman costume because no one would ever believe it. He deals with the military hunting him, the emergence of other super beings and his own personal life.

It's so deliciously meta and the whole thing plays on the fact everyone in the audience knows who Superman is and twists it.
 

Redd the Sock

New member
Apr 14, 2010
1,088
0
0
I'd say neither myself. I'm just not sure the casual audience would accept such drastic AUs. They can take subtile ones that leave the basic tone of the character intact, but those are some drastic choices.

If I had to pick, I'd say Kingdom Come. Red son came late in the elseworld game and never really resonated with me. It was just another "superman is raised by someone else" story to add to the Waynes, the Ahmish (never becoming Superman) a blacksmith in midevil england, Drakseid, wolves, and even Kryton from a doomed Earth, and tht's just what I remember. It's better than most, but I never saw the mass appeal.

Kingdom Come is more epic, and the challenges aren't impossible to overcome. The BBC fit the thing into a 3 hour radio drama, so a movie could be made to fit the time with some creative editing. Most of the important cast is iconic and requires no real knowledge of backstory. Most of the rest are placeholders (you need to know nothing of Green Lantern, Flash, Captain Comet, Deadman or Martian Manhunter to follow things) easially understandable (the Spectre is pretty self explainatory) or could be squeezed in (Captian Marvel).

The challenge to both is content. Touching on comunism right no is a minefield regardless of what side he'd come out on in a movie draft, while Kingdom Come is full of overt religous symbolism, which again, doesn't go over well.

Not that I wouldn't love to see Kingdom Come done as one of their animated movies, or rather several. Minimum 2. More realistically 4 (one for each issue of ther original series.)
 

Primus1985

New member
Dec 24, 2009
300
0
0
Therumancer said:
I'd see a "Kingdom Come" movie, and I think the characters are iconic enough for it to work and for people to identify with them. I would however NOT watch a "Red Son" movie as I am strongly anti-communist, even if I do have some left wing beliefs.
I agree with most that Kingdom Come can be done(and should be done) as an animated movie. DC's animated features are better than their live action films as of late, Bat-franchise excluded of course. The only thing is they need to not pussy out and try and cram it into a 90 minute garbage heap. The "Crisis on Two Worlds" feature proved they can do a big cast picture with great action and depth they just need to really buckle down on it.


As far as "Red Son" goes I said Hollywood wouldnt make it not out of any animosity towards communism itself but because for one most people would see it as a insult to see Superman as un-American(even though techniqually he is an Alien but I digress), and for two it would never pull in enough revenue to make up for even 25% of what it would cost to make, even with DVD sales.

Actual pure communism in its truest form, not the in name only form that China has, is not a bad thing. Ideally its supposed to be everyone in the collective working and sharing for the benefit of all the people. However in practice it hasnt gone over very well. The reason is simply the old adage "Absolute power corrupts absolutely" or to quote Dr. McCoy from Star Trek "If you give anyone that much power they cant help playing God" Communist states in the 20th usually centered around one figure in government, and once they got that power and realized what they could do with that power...Well you can fill in the blanks. Now if you could combine pure communism with the system of Checks and Balances the US has, I think it could work.
 

CrazyGirl17

I am a banana!
Sep 11, 2009
5,141
0
0
Eh, personally, I love both comics, though I doubt they'll ever be turned into movies, considering DC's track record with (non-Batman) movies...

I LOLed at the Kim Possible multiverse pic by the way. Where's it from?)

(Also, Goku a worse father than Fire Lord Ozai? Seriously?! Ozai permanently scarred and then banished his only son over a perceived slight! What's wrong with you people?! *SIGH* It's all just a big popularity contest, isn't it?)
 

Therumancer

Citation Needed
Nov 28, 2007
9,909
0
0
Primus1985 said:
Therumancer said:
I'd see a "Kingdom Come" movie, and I think the characters are iconic enough for it to work and for people to identify with them. I would however NOT watch a "Red Son" movie as I am strongly anti-communist, even if I do have some left wing beliefs.
I agree with most that Kingdom Come can be done(and should be done) as an animated movie. DC's animated features are better than their live action films as of late, Bat-franchise excluded of course. The only thing is they need to not pussy out and try and cram it into a 90 minute garbage heap. The "Crisis on Two Worlds" feature proved they can do a big cast picture with great action and depth they just need to really buckle down on it.


As far as "Red Son" goes I said Hollywood wouldnt make it not out of any animosity towards communism itself but because for one most people would see it as a insult to see Superman as un-American(even though techniqually he is an Alien but I digress), and for two it would never pull in enough revenue to make up for even 25% of what it would cost to make, even with DVD sales.

Actual pure communism in its truest form, not the in name only form that China has, is not a bad thing. Ideally its supposed to be everyone in the collective working and sharing for the benefit of all the people. However in practice it hasnt gone over very well. The reason is simply the old adage "Absolute power corrupts absolutely" or to quote Dr. McCoy from Star Trek "If you give anyone that much power they cant help playing God" Communist states in the 20th usually centered around one figure in government, and once they got that power and realized what they could do with that power...Well you can fill in the blanks. Now if you could combine pure communism with the system of Checks and Balances the US has, I think it could work.

No it couldn't. Communism can only work on a very small scale.

The problem is that Communism requires a lot of people to do the grunt work of society more or less willingly. Society needs more labourers and people doing crap jobs than it does leaders and important people doing skilled labour. The problem with Communism is people not wanting to go out there and farm, work the assembly lines, dig the ditches, clean the toilets, and other things.

This is why Communism ultimatly turns into socialism, even if it continues to call itself Communism. Someone, namely a goverment or leader, has to step in and ensure that people do all the needed jobs for the good of the whole. As communism is about the subversion of the individual to the needs of the community, where nobody owns their own property, etc... you wind up with a socialist system where the goverment winds up deciding who does what job, and who is entitled to what share of the society's wealth. Of course the people making the desicians are the most important, take the most wealth, and of course decide who is going to be rich and well off and who is going to be poor and struggling based on personal opinion and give the best jobs to their friends and family and so on.

With a very small group of people it's possible to make communism work, because everyone is already a substinance worker to begin with, and you generally don't have any huge classes of people or need massive factories to produce goods or whatever. A commune can function this way, a major society of hundreds of millions or billions of people cannot.

The reason why Communist societies have turned out the way they have is because you wound up with all of the people who won the glorious revolution wanting a better life. All the oppressed peasants in Russia wanted to stop being farmers and workers and become artists, leaders, and other important people who could live comparitive lives of leisure. Obviously since Russia still needed food this couldn't happen. Stalin is a contreversial figure, and known as "The Steel Angel" because while brutal, he arguably saved Russia. His Gulags were all about re-educating the people into workers suited to serve society. His basic attitude was that even if he killed 99% of the people going through them, that 1% that became productive was worthwhile. His intentions make him a little differant from say Hitler (despite them being lumped together), especially seeing as he did pretty much stop Russia from starving to death, and also was able to forge it into a global super power.

China is a very similar situation to Russia, they had their glorious "people's revolution", only to find out that those people fightint for a better life were going to be just as oppressed under the new regime, because all the same stuff needed to be done. It's just that with China they were more immrdiatly brutal about forcing social order, as opposed to it coming down to something akin to a Stalinist era. The greater ovepopulation in China has also created a bigger disperity between the haves and have nots, where some parts of their country are almost in an entirely differant world from the others. You have the huge, modern cities of the elite, and farms where peoples homes double as their livestock pens (which is how SARS got started).

At any rate, in the end for society to work, someone needs to go out there and mop the floors, farm the food, shovel the manure, and do all the horrible work. Far more of those people are needed at the base of society, acting as a foundation, than above it. No system of goverment can change this basic reality. It all comes down to how you determine who does what. Within a capitalist society it's done through competition, and people own their own property, within a socialist (communist... because communism can't work ona large scale) society people wind up being put into roles based on need, and nobody technically owns their own property but is assigned what they own by the goverment based on their perceived contribution and what the goverment decides the people in that role are worth.


Almost any societal plan sounds great on paper, but only a few come close to doing what they are supposed to in reality. With Capitalism our problem is that without severe enough limitations there is nothing to prevent a few greedy buttheads from ruining everything and sucking the life out of society. Of course it takes a little longer to get to the point of that kind of degeneration than happens with Communism, where the problems are almost immediate when you see people trying to apply it on a large scale.

Ideally, producing a society that would self sustain, maintain order, and let everyone exist with total leisure and choose to do whatever they wanted would be great, unfortunatly that's never likely to happen, and speculative fiction is full of problems that would doubtlessly occur if we were ever able to achieve that goal as it is... most frequently since it would involve developing machines capable of doing everything for us, then questions arise as to who takes care of those machines. Barring the popular "mechanical revolt" idea, issues where the master programmers/mechanics/engineers become god-emperors are common, as are scenarios where the machines break down and people have to learn to survive again after having devolved into being able to actually do very little.

John Ringo wrote a series of books starting with "There Will Be Dragons" which proposed an interesting view of a utopian society, and it's collapse into warfare (when those controlling it wind up squaring off with each other).
 

Squato

New member
Dec 12, 2008
17
0
0
Ok, I got to ask. Where can you find that image of all the different Kim Possibles...

(3:54 mark)
 

Primus1985

New member
Dec 24, 2009
300
0
0
Therumancer said:
Primus1985 said:
Therumancer said:
I'd see a "Kingdom Come" movie, and I think the characters are iconic enough for it to work and for people to identify with them. I would however NOT watch a "Red Son" movie as I am strongly anti-communist, even if I do have some left wing beliefs.
I agree with most that Kingdom Come can be done(and should be done) as an animated movie. DC's animated features are better than their live action films as of late, Bat-franchise excluded of course. The only thing is they need to not pussy out and try and cram it into a 90 minute garbage heap. The "Crisis on Two Worlds" feature proved they can do a big cast picture with great action and depth they just need to really buckle down on it.


As far as "Red Son" goes I said Hollywood wouldnt make it not out of any animosity towards communism itself but because for one most people would see it as a insult to see Superman as un-American(even though techniqually he is an Alien but I digress), and for two it would never pull in enough revenue to make up for even 25% of what it would cost to make, even with DVD sales.

Actual pure communism in its truest form, not the in name only form that China has, is not a bad thing. Ideally its supposed to be everyone in the collective working and sharing for the benefit of all the people. However in practice it hasnt gone over very well. The reason is simply the old adage "Absolute power corrupts absolutely" or to quote Dr. McCoy from Star Trek "If you give anyone that much power they cant help playing God" Communist states in the 20th usually centered around one figure in government, and once they got that power and realized what they could do with that power...Well you can fill in the blanks. Now if you could combine pure communism with the system of Checks and Balances the US has, I think it could work.

No it couldn't. Communism can only work on a very small scale.

The problem is that Communism requires a lot of people to do the grunt work of society more or less willingly. Society needs more labourers and people doing crap jobs than it does leaders and important people doing skilled labour. The problem with Communism is people not wanting to go out there and farm, work the assembly lines, dig the ditches, clean the toilets, and other things.

This is why Communism ultimatly turns into socialism, even if it continues to call itself Communism. Someone, namely a goverment or leader, has to step in and ensure that people do all the needed jobs for the good of the whole. As communism is about the subversion of the individual to the needs of the community, where nobody owns their own property, etc... you wind up with a socialist system where the goverment winds up deciding who does what job, and who is entitled to what share of the society's wealth. Of course the people making the desicians are the most important, take the most wealth, and of course decide who is going to be rich and well off and who is going to be poor and struggling based on personal opinion and give the best jobs to their friends and family and so on.

With a very small group of people it's possible to make communism work, because everyone is already a substinance worker to begin with, and you generally don't have any huge classes of people or need massive factories to produce goods or whatever. A commune can function this way, a major society of hundreds of millions or billions of people cannot.

The reason why Communist societies have turned out the way they have is because you wound up with all of the people who won the glorious revolution wanting a better life. All the oppressed peasants in Russia wanted to stop being farmers and workers and become artists, leaders, and other important people who could live comparitive lives of leisure. Obviously since Russia still needed food this couldn't happen. Stalin is a contreversial figure, and known as "The Steel Angel" because while brutal, he arguably saved Russia. His Gulags were all about re-educating the people into workers suited to serve society. His basic attitude was that even if he killed 99% of the people going through them, that 1% that became productive was worthwhile. His intentions make him a little differant from say Hitler (despite them being lumped together), especially seeing as he did pretty much stop Russia from starving to death, and also was able to forge it into a global super power.

China is a very similar situation to Russia, they had their glorious "people's revolution", only to find out that those people fightint for a better life were going to be just as oppressed under the new regime, because all the same stuff needed to be done. It's just that with China they were more immrdiatly brutal about forcing social order, as opposed to it coming down to something akin to a Stalinist era. The greater ovepopulation in China has also created a bigger disperity between the haves and have nots, where some parts of their country are almost in an entirely differant world from the others. You have the huge, modern cities of the elite, and farms where peoples homes double as their livestock pens (which is how SARS got started).

At any rate, in the end for society to work, someone needs to go out there and mop the floors, farm the food, shovel the manure, and do all the horrible work. Far more of those people are needed at the base of society, acting as a foundation, than above it. No system of goverment can change this basic reality. It all comes down to how you determine who does what. Within a capitalist society it's done through competition, and people own their own property, within a socialist (communist... because communism can't work ona large scale) society people wind up being put into roles based on need, and nobody technically owns their own property but is assigned what they own by the goverment based on their perceived contribution and what the goverment decides the people in that role are worth.


Almost any societal plan sounds great on paper, but only a few come close to doing what they are supposed to in reality. With Capitalism our problem is that without severe enough limitations there is nothing to prevent a few greedy buttheads from ruining everything and sucking the life out of society. Of course it takes a little longer to get to the point of that kind of degeneration than happens with Communism, where the problems are almost immediate when you see people trying to apply it on a large scale.

Ideally, producing a society that would self sustain, maintain order, and let everyone exist with total leisure and choose to do whatever they wanted would be great, unfortunatly that's never likely to happen, and speculative fiction is full of problems that would doubtlessly occur if we were ever able to achieve that goal as it is... most frequently since it would involve developing machines capable of doing everything for us, then questions arise as to who takes care of those machines. Barring the popular "mechanical revolt" idea, issues where the master programmers/mechanics/engineers become god-emperors are common, as are scenarios where the machines break down and people have to learn to survive again after having devolved into being able to actually do very little.

John Ringo wrote a series of books starting with "There Will Be Dragons" which proposed an interesting view of a utopian society, and it's collapse into warfare (when those controlling it wind up squaring off with each other).
Wow...thats pretty deep. You raise some interesting points, but gloss over some things. Give me a little bit to respond in kind.