Alright, let’s explain James Gunn’s Superman. Our standard Opening-Closing framework will do the trick.
Superman opens with Supes crashing into the Arctic snow. The opening scroll already informed us that three minutes ago he lost a fight for the first time in three years of being Superman. He’s alone, bloodied, and in pain. Once Krypto arrives and drags Superman to the Fortress of Solitude, the lead robot therein—4— preemptively plays the message from Kal’s Kryptonian parents, explaining that it soothes Kal.
Superman ends with Supes back in the Fortress. The lead robot, Gary (formerly 4), once again plays a message from Clark’s parents, saying it soothes Clark. Except it’s no longer the Kryptonian message. It’s footage from Clark’s childhood with Ma and Pa Kent. Christmas mornings. Tire swinging. Cornfield running. Superman smiles, happy.
When we compare the beginning to the ending, what do we see? The biggest change is the switch from the Kryptonian parents to the Earth parents. The implication is a change in priority and identity, from Kryptonian to human.
That would be the hypothesis. We would then check that by going through the events that happen over the course of the film. Does Superman struggle with his Kryptonian heritage? Does he have a moment that causes him to identify more as a human?
Hopefully, you already know the answer to that. Yes and yes. There’s the whole big revelation that his Kryptonian parents actually wanted Kal to subjugate Earth. “The people there are simple and profoundly confused, weak of mind and spirit and body. Lord over the planet as the last son of Krypton, dispatch of anyone unable or unwilling to serve you, Kal, take as many wives as you can so your genes and Krypton’s might and legacy will live on in this new frontier. Do us proud, our beloved son, rule without mercy.”
At that point, Superman loses faith in himself. He ends up back in Kansas, and that’s where we have the big conversation with Pa Kent.
- Clark: You don’t understand. I’m not who I thought I was. They sent me here to hurt people.
- Pa: Parents aren’t for telling their children who they’re supposed to be. We are here to give y’all tools to help you make fools of yourselves all on your own. Your choices, Clark. Your actions. That’s what makes you who you are. I’ll tell you something, son. I couldn’t be more proud of you.
That leads directly to Clark’s big speech to Lex, at the very end.
- Lex: You piece of shit, alien!
- Clark: That is where you’ve always been wrong about me, Lex. I’m as human as anyone. I love, I get scared. I wake up every morning and despite not knowing what to do, I put one foot in front of the other, and I try to make the best choices I can. I screw up all the time, but that is being human. And that’s my greatest strength. And someday, I hope, for the sake of the world, you understand that it’s yours, too.
So the arc that plays out is that Clark initially feels somewhat disconnected and alone. He literally starts the movie in the barren cold, alone, with only a dog and some robots to care about him. His relationship with Lois isn’t going well. And part of that is because he feels more Kryptonian than Human. Different. And he’s clinging to that part of himself.
Ultraman becomes the physical embodiment of this identity crisis. We don’t know it until near the end, but Ultraman is a Superman clone that’s pretty much an idiot but has all of Superman’s Kryptonian strength. When Supes fights Ultraman, he’s actually fighting himself. This is a classic metaphor for internal struggle, and because film is a visual medium, it’s a way to visualize that internal struggle. Clark’s victory over Ultraman represents the end of his identity struggle. He finally knows who he is. And that’s why the “I’m as human as anyone speech” immediately follows.
Gunn’s goal of humanizing Superman is why the character is often so ineffective. He has moments, but he’s never really the one saving the day. He fails to defeat the Hammer of Boravia (Ultraman). He can’t solve the kaiju issue. He’s not the one to stop Boravia’s second attempt to invade Jarhanpur. He doesn’t stop the rift in space-time. He doesn’t find the materials that bring down Lex. Most of what Superman does in the story isn’t meaningful in the larger scheme of things. His biggest contributions are saving people, and squirrels, from things crushing them. He’s not a God-figure. He’s not a Mary Sue. Instead, we see him still figuring it out.
In Gunn’s Own Words
In an interview with NPR, Gunn said, “We go into the movie wanting to be Superman, and by the end we realize Superman wants to be us. He wants to be a human being.” Hopefully you don’t need much else to buy into the Krypton-to-Kansas arc.
Superman And Immigration
Superman is an immigrant. That’s the context and subtext of his tension with Lex. Lex doesn’t care that Clark grew up human. That Clark looks human, acts human, talks human, and behaves like a human. Because Clark wasn’t born on Earth, Lex hates him.
I’d argue the whole “Kal’s parents actually wanted him to enslave Earth” is part of this fear people have about immigrants. They question someone’s motives based on the country they’re from, how they arrived, etc. What we see in the movie is that Clark is nothing like his Kryptonian parents. And whatever reason they had for sending him to Earth doesn’t matter. He’s his own person, a good person.
The irony is that Lex causes more harm to humanity than Superman.
It reminds me of the controversy around scholarships for children of undocumented parents. There was actually a Supreme Court case in 1982, Plyler v Doe, that extended the “equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to undocumented children, and that public schools could not request citizenship documentation of students nor deprive children of an education.”
In the last decade, conservatives have made a huge push against systems that support children of undocumented parents. They cite increased education costs and the burden on taxpayer dollars. But they’re just doing what Lex was doing. They want to make the children pay for what the parents did. Doesn’t matter if the kids are great students, if they go on to get good jobs, lead good lives, be positive influences on their communities. Even if the kids were born here and are thus American citizens, this movement still deems them unworthy of the support of this country.
In trying to protect America from illegal immigration, these politicians are disenfranchising children. Denying them an education limits their future prospects. Having limited prospects often turns people to drugs, crime, etc. That’s true for citizens and noncitizens alike. It’s especially galling when you think about how many Americans are the descendants of immigrants, both legal and illegal. Donald Trump’s own grandfather just hopped on a boat and immigrated to America back when that’s all immigration entailed. Trump’s father was the first of the family born in the United States. His family benefited from easy immigration, but now he, and other politicians and political grifters like him, want to deny others the same opportunity.
Anyway, all that is to say that Superman’s backstory in this film is a reminder that you shouldn’t judge immigrants based on where they’re from or the sins of their parents. You should judge them based on who they are.
Superman And Israel And Palestine
A lot of people have interpreted the Boravia and Jarhanpur subplot as direct commentary on the Israel/Palestine conflict. Gunn has denied that. Quote: “When I wrote this the Middle Eastern conflict wasn’t happening. So I tried to do little things to move it away from that, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the Middle East. It’s an invasion by a much more powerful country run by a despot into a country that’s problematic in terms of its political history, but has totally no defense against the other country. It really is fictional.”
Maybe you’ll interpret that as something he had to say to keep people from being angry at him? Like he said it with a wink and nudge. And that could be true. He could come out 5 years from now and say the subplot really was about Israel and Palestine but he had to code it or risk getting blacklisted. But, as of right now, he’s denied the connection.
I’m not saying people can’t see parallels between what happens in the movie and what’s happening in Palestine. I’m just saying it doesn’t seem there was intentional commentary about that conflict. Instead, it seemed Gunn wanted to make a more general statement about geopolitics and bad leaders. Much of Superman is about leadership, and how those with power wield that power. Boravia’s leader, Vasil Ghurkos, abuses his power. Lex abuses his power. Even Green Lantern takes being powerful for granted. Superman could be like them and abuse his power. And since he’s the most powerful metahuman, he could, like his parents wanted, enslave us all. Instead, he wants to be good, be kind, and inspire others to do the same. The Boravia subplot is a means of demonstrating that abuse of power in a real-world way.
So it’s less about one specific conflict and more about the general idea of power being used on people or used for people, and a reminder of how ugly the former is and how wonderful the latter is.
James Gunn Kind Of Manipulated Everyone, And That’s Okay
I know some people will be annoyed at this section, but I find it interesting. Reintroducing an iconic character like Superman is a difficult venture. People have their preferred versions and preconceived concepts. Those are landmines for any director. When Zack Snyder had Superman snap Zod’s neck, people were IRATE. “How dare Zack turn the symbol of hope into a murderer.” When Disney did the new Star Wars trilogy, legions of fans were excited to see what had happened to Luke, Leia, and Han. The results? Horrific. Leia and Han broke up and their kid caused Luke to become a hermit. Han’s life is depressing and then he dies. Leia’s life is a little better but then she dies. And Luke’s life is kind of pathetic and anticlimactic for the chosen one who was supposed to balance the Force. Then he dies. Very few people were happy with the new Star Wars trilogy. Me included.
So how do you manage expectations? Gunn did two very clever things. Think back to the opening scene. Superman is beaten up, he’s bloody, and alone. That wasn’t just for the plot. It’s meta. Gunn’s making a statement about the state of Superman in cinema and the criticism about this very movie. Social media warriors spent years attacking Gunn and his vision. Each time news came out, you’d see angry opinions and rage posts galore. Gunn’s a very heavy social media user, so you know he was very aware of the general chatter (which gets a meta nod with Clark’s own social media awareness).
So by starting off with Clark beaten up, it’s like Gunn’s saying, “Here, this is what you wanted, right? Superman to lose? To fail? Let’s get it out of the way.” Acknowledgment is disarming. It falls under something psychologists call “emotional validation”. Gunn knew his haters would still go see the movie, ready to hate it, ready to say it’s a failure. So he starts off with Superman failing, giving those critics a sense of emotional validation. When you validate someone like that, it actually creates reciprocity: they’re more willing to hear you out and validate you back.
The second thing Gunn did was have Lois Lane serve as an audience surrogate for how people feel about Superman. At first, she’s interested in him but not enough to date him. Even though she knows he’s Superman, she’s ready to break up with him—that’s how not impressed she is. Her skepticism reflects the audience’s own skepticism. We’re also not ready to love this version of Clark.
Over the course of the film, we watch as Lois converts from skeptic to fan. We watch her really come to appreciate Clark, and that causes us to, by proxy, start to appreciate Clark. Especially when she looks around his childhood room in Kansas. That’s the tipping point. It’s the most humanizing moment for the character, as it reminds every viewer of their own childhood room. Maybe yours wasn’t exactly the same, but it was close enough that Superman no longer feels alien. He feels like just another person. He feels like you.
Gunn saved Lois telling Clark she loved him for the end because it will trigger similar feelings in the audience; that’s just how our vicarious minds work. Thanks to our mirror neurons, we often feel what characters on-screen feel. Gunn knows this. So he used Lois as the backbone for the audience moving from skeptical to accepting. And so far it seems to have worked, as audiences the world over have been gushing about how much they love Gunn’s take on the character.
Gunn hasn’t asked the audience to abandon its baggage; he’s unpacked it on-screen, letting Clark bleed, letting Lois doubt, letting all of us feel seen in our cynicism before guiding us back to wonder. That’s why the closing “I love you” lands: it’s less a confession between characters than a hand extended to viewers.
A Distinction About Ultraman
I wanted to clarify that Ultraman isn’t actively countering Superman. Lex programmed 2,500 combat maneuvers into Ultraman. When Lex says a code, Ultraman responds with an action. He has obsessively studied Superman’s every fight, meaning that Lex knows the optimal move to make.
That’s why when Krypto destroys the cameras Ultraman loses pretty horribly to Clark. Ultraman had been 100% reliant on Lex’s orders. Without those orders, he’s lacking.
Cast
- Clark Kent/Superman – David Corenswet
- Lois Lane – Rachel Brosnahan
- Lex Luthor – Nicholas Hoult
- Michael Holt/Mister Terrific – Edi Gathegi
- Guy Gardner/Green Lantern – Nathan Fillion
- Kendra Saunders/Hawkgirl – Isabela Merced
- Rex Mason/Metamorpho – Anthony Carrigan
- Jimmy Olsen – Skyler Gisondo
- Eve Teschmacher – Sara Sampaio
- Perry White – Wendell Pierce
- Steve Lombard – Beck Bennett
- Cat Grant – Mikaela Hoover
- Martha Kent – Neva Howell
- Jonathan Kent – Pruitt Taylor Vince
- Angela Spica/The Engineer – Maria Gabriela de Faría
- Vasil Ghurkos – Zlatko Burić
- Rick Flag Sr – Frank Grillo
- Supergirl – Milly Alcock
- Jor-El – Bradley Cooper
- Lara Lor-Van – Angela Sarafyan
- Written by – James Gunn
- Directed by – James Gunn
