Hey, Anna, I find it refreshing that someone here is enthusiastic about the movie! And I think you are right about many of the points you make, about this being in many ways a Lois and Clark story. At the same time, I also think that, as Wendy says, the people behind the movie are definitely "retconning it back to the 70s". "Superman Returns" is basically a continuation of the Christopher Reeve movies, "Superman the Movie" and "Superman II". I'd say that Lois smokes in "Superman Returns" for the simple reason that she smoked in the Christopher Reeve movies. I'm passionately anti-smoking myself, so obviously I don't like her smoking. But to me, it's just as bad that Lois looks painfully young in SR, so young that she could hardly have been more than eighteen years old when she got pregnant. To me, that's just not how I can think of Lois. Also, the actress playing Lois (can't remember her name) doesn't look like Lois, if you ask me. Teri Hatcher, on the other hand, had the perfect Lois looks.
Still worse, however, is the new Superman. I'm not too fond of his looks, but the real problem is his character, his personality. The single best thing that ever happened to Superman - apart from his getting married to Lois - was when first the comics and then the Lois and Clark show said that Clark is the real person and Superman is the disguise. In the movie, I think they are going to undo that. Clark is going to be a stuttering, stumbling parody of a man, whereas Superman will be the real person. I'm very, very much against that idea. After all, if Lois and Clark are ever going to be married, she will have to marry Clark, not Superman. But how can she ever be married to a man who doesn't exist, who is only a skin-deep disguise without substance? And who is designed to be deliberately pathetic?
I'm going to see the movie anyway, unless I can find out so many things about it that I won't have to see it. Basically, though, I have to see what these movie people are going to do to my favorite couple.
Ann
