Superman's Red Trunks and the Man of Steel Costume
Planeis
Posts: 980
Interesting opinion piece on i09.com about the loss of the "underwear on the outside" for Superman and other heroes, but especially Superman. Also has a picture of Cavill in the new uniform I've never seen before. Good lord is it awful. Maybe it'll look better on film, but wow, its ugly. Way way too busy.
http://io9.com/5966540/?post=54993536
He basically posits that 1) its become so much a part of the uniform that its silly to get rid of it and 2) that the trunks serve to break up the super skin tight uniform compared to his legs and chest so that his "area" isn't super skin tight as well. Also it looks better with the red trunks.
http://io9.com/5966540/?post=54993536
He basically posits that 1) its become so much a part of the uniform that its silly to get rid of it and 2) that the trunks serve to break up the super skin tight uniform compared to his legs and chest so that his "area" isn't super skin tight as well. Also it looks better with the red trunks.
Comments
The people I know who are over 40 have no problem with the trunks and want them to stay as part of the costume.
I was wondering if you fall into that over 40 group.
For me, the trunks work on the page and in animation. When you move them to live action, it just looks weird and silly. The Superman costume from the Reeve movies looks laughable to me. It just doesn't make sense for an adult to make a costume and put underwear on the outside.
In the new movie, the absence of the trunks is because his suit isn't of Earth origin. He's wearing the same suit we see Jor-El wearing in the set pics, minus the armor and robes.
The suit wasn't designed by Clark or Martha, so it wouldn't have "underwear" because underwear is something worn on Earth, not Krypton.
I like the new suit and look forward to seeing it onscreen.
Secondly, I never thought they looked funny, in print or on the screen. The character has been around so long, that they just looked natural to me. I never understood why people ever had a problem with them, or thought that they would be 'laughable'.
Thirdly, with or without the trunks, the new costume looks hideous. And I'm not all that crazy about Jor-El's outfit either.
Finally -- how the heck would you even know whether or not Kryptonians wear underwear!?
If this unitard is what they wear under their clothes on Krypton, then wouldnt that make it kryptonian underwear?
Who knows what aliens wear or not. Could be anything right? could even be something that looks like swim trunks over tights.
No trunks looks wierd. Period. Not just because of our familiarity with the character after 80 years, but design / aesthetic wise. There is a reason the designers of this new suit were compelled to add all those silly lines and pieces to the waist area. To break it up and give the illusion of what the trunks and belt did. A fake belt buckle thing glued to the middle of his waist looks more rediculous to me than "underwear on the outside".
As for not trunks looking weird, it's pretty much debatable. Some think they do (like me) and some think they don't (like you). Weird or not, they seem to be falling out of "style". Look at Marvel Comics. Over the last decade or so, they've redesigned nearly every hero's costume to get rid of them. Outside of Magneto, you'd be hard-pressed to name any who still wear them. I don't read as much DC, but they may also be in the same boat.
Regarding live-action, I honestly believe you will never see an adult hero wearing trunks as part of his costume ever again. For me, they're outdated. The people who make decisions about these things seem to feel so, as well.
Dammit, now I've got this image in my head of an entire planet of Kryptonians all going commando!
Anyway, judging by past Zach Snyder movies I think its safe to say he is a very visual person. So I'm hoping when its all on film it will be better.
As for this thought that we'll never see trunks on film again, I feel very very confident that we will.
There was a prior decision that, I believe, said that S&S could lay claim to 50% of the character that appeared on the cover of Action Comics #1. It was something like that, which could actually explain why, at a certain point in the process, the went forward with a likeness that is actually not the same. There was a point (maybe there still is?) where there could be a legal distinction made between the 1938 character on the cover of Action Comics and the modern one. Again, I would defer to Joe, or Cory, or others who know the history of this better than I do, but the idea that next year's Man of Steel was made with an abundance of legal caution, including avoiding any argument that the character in the movie shared a likeness with that 1938 character, may make more legal sense than you think.
Well, as usual, we're just going to have to disagree. I do know about the lawsuit, been reading about it for years. But I'm not going to argue with you about it
Not arguing. Explaining what I am talking about.
I think the new suit is just the artists being "artistic". There's an interview with one of the costume designers from SDCC saying they wanted to make it "alien" and didn't even consider the New 52 costume either.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/07/12/comic-con-take-a-closer-look-at-the-man-of-steel-costume
The pictures on IGN look much more like the normal colors. So, hopefully they look brighter in the film. Cause some of the pictures make it look soooo dark, if there's any night time scenes it might look almost black.
I like Snyder in a lot of ways, so I have hope..... I'm just skeptical.
DC and WB may be trying to assert their copyright to Superman, but SONY can't do that with Spider-Man because Marvel owns the copyright to Spider-Man. SONY is trying to assert their license to the character, to make more movies and/or merchandise as spelled out in whatever contracts they signed with Marvel. Quite a different thing altogether.
For instance, a writer who helped Ian Fleming won certain rights to use the character James Bond because of how the movie Thunderball came to be about. He used those rights to make "Never Say Never Again" starring the original James Bond. So what did EON Productions do? They scheduled their own Bond movie to come out the same year "Octopussy". Octopussy made more money and the rival Bond series never came about.
If the Superman rights have to be shared between WB and the heirs, which I think is highly unlikely because the WB has won everything in the past, their chances of getting a rival franchise started would surely be limited if the WB just finished putting out a billion dollar movie with their version.
It very well may be that the Man of Steel makers went with this costume (and the New 52 designers went with the current Superman armor) just because they liked that design and thought it would look better in a film. But if any legal strategy entered into it, they were certainly never going to talk about it when promoting the movie. They were always going to make it sound like all the decisions made were exactly what they wanted to do, artistically.
You DON'T want to be the executive who allowed rights to revert to Marvel in case Marvel makes a huge blockbuster using the character.
I do know that Daredevil and Punisher have reverted back to Marvel due to them not making movies during the prescribed time frame.