Wow. Looks like I missed some excitment here. Glad to see it's settling down. Apologies tendered, etc.
The thing to keep in mind in all this is that
it's just a movie.
Personally, I thought it was a pretty good one. Not perfect, by any means, but well worth seeing.
I do wish they'd cleared up continuity, though.
What was clear to me was that Lois and Superman had a relationship. That Lois remembered having a relationship with him.
The exact circumstances of their physical relationship, however, are beyond me. Was it pre-revelation? Is the Kiss-Off of Doom in continuity?
My thought on Lois's relationship was that she was (to some degree) using Richard as a cover. It goes something like this:
1. Superman leaves.
2. Lois throws herself into a rebound relationship.
3. Lois discovers that she's pregnant.
4. Lois realizes that Superman must be the father.
5. She realizes that there are all sorts of problems with having Superman's love child, especially if he's gone.
6. Finding herself in a tight situation, she allows the relationship to accellerate. Partly as a cover, and partly because she wants to convince herself(as the article says) that she can have a good life without Superman.
7. When the pregnancy starts to show, she convinces everyone that Richard is the father, perhaps fudging the due date by a month or so to make it more plausible.
Five years later:
She's with Richard. She's trying to make it work. She's convinced herself that their relationship is working and will work. But she can't force herself to take the final step.
I don't really like the idea of her using him like that, but I just got the feeling that she knew Superman was really the father, and if that's the case, I don't see how else things could have happened during his absence.
Of course, there's no clear indication that she did know. It's just how her attitude struck me.
Their relationship at the end of the movie... The way I saw it, Lois and Richard were still together. He is a good guy. Lois has some tough decisions ahead. I'm hoping/guessing that'll be the b-plot of the next movie. If not (if there somehow isn't a sequel or something), it's easy enough to imagine things for yourself.
As for the Kryptonite... I wondered about that, too. The only thing I could think of was that it wasn't really Kryptonite. It was Kryptonian crystal, some of which had grown to "take on the properties of" Kryptonite. A lot of it was still blue, and I'm not sure that what was green would affect him in exactly the same way as the real thing.
Addressing the questions about Superman II and their lovemaking...
It all started because of a somewhat tongue-in-cheek article by Larry Niven entitled "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex." I don't want to link to it directly, since it isn't exactly PG-13, but if you're interested, I'm sure you can find it easily enough.
The basic idea is that, for a variety of reasons, Superman's powers make it impossible for him to be intimate with a woman without killing her.
Many choose to ignore the problem, or to explain things away with Clark's aura of invulnerability.
In the movie, what happened was (as I vaguely recall):
1. Clark allows Lois to find out that he's Superman. It's not fully a conscious decision, but he's glad of it.
2. Clark takes Lois to the Fortress of Solitude, where they have a nice long talk followed by a romantic dinner.
3. Clark proposes.
4. Lois accepts.
5. Clark, using his amazing power of super-lunkheadedness, sneaks off (i.e. without consulting Lois) to a secret chamber in the fortress where he will be stripped of his powers. Lois sneaks up in time to see him do it, but not (if she was so inclined) to stop him.
6. L&C spend the night together in a giant feather bed which somehow materialized inside the fortress. They feel that they are married in their hearts, and promise to make it official ASAP.
7. L&C wake up to realize that they're stranded in the arctic with no means of transportation.
8. L&C begin walking (and, later, hitchhiking) across Canada.
9. General Zod takes over the U.S., forcing Clark to find a way to regain his powers.
10. Clark realizes that he can't afford to give up his powers. The world needs him too much. But with his powers, he cannot have a physical relationship with Lois. This is hard on both of them. Clark, once again activating his super-lunkheadedness (it's amazing the side effects invulnerability can have...) , makes the unilateral decision to wipe Lois's memory of the whole thing.
The thing in all this is that (in this universe) Superman is the real person and Clark is a bumbling disguise (with, as others have pointed out, no real logical reason for existing).
Lois (rightfully) doesn't think much of Clark (he's cute and silly). She loves Superman. And yet, Superman, by giving up his powers, has forced himself to become merely Clark. Somehow, Lois doesn't have a problem with this. She's awed and humbled by the sacrifice he made for her.
I'm not sure how much of that Brian Singer considered to be in continuity. It's possible that he'll choose to ignore the physical issues, for example. Or find another way around them. (I once started a fic in which he used red sun lamps to depower himself when needed, but was able to recharge in the yellow sun the following morning. It was part of a huge crazy thing combining a dozen different ideas/plots. But my coauthor left the fandom while we were still in the brainstorming stages and I'm not sure it would ever have come together anyway.)
Anyway, I had some more random thoughts on the movie, but don't feel like reposting them (and really, this is long and rambly enough as it is). If anyone is interested (for whatever unfathomable reason), you can find them
here .
Paul
