Reviews and blogs are a space where people can rant about films and they have become even more popular with Hollywood’s adoption of its new perfect child ‘Superhero Movies’. The fans of comic books and superhero movies feel they have an ownership over these super people and so often take to the internet in their droves to complain about inaccuracies or elements they did not like. And nothing pleases them more than to tear apart the latest look of their beloved superhero.
At one level you would think designers for superhero movies had it easy as they have a comic book to work from and all they need to do is copy it. But as we have seen from previous blogs that may not be in service of the story. Superman’s brightly coloured costume in the comics along with the comical pants over his trousers doesn’t really suit the gritty serious superhero films that audience now demand after the Dark Knight. So Michael Wilkinson (the costume designer for Man of Steel) change the costume quite drastically as you can see.
 |
| The Evolution of the Superman Costume |
Man of Steel's main priority was introducing a new Superman, but People were not entirely happy with this ‘New’ costume. So for the new upcoming Batman Vs Superman film. “It seems Superman’s design changes are primarily to get the suit a little closer to the comics and to address a few minor nit-picks some folks had about the suit in Man of Steel”. And this changes that claims to have pacified audience: the slight thickening on the gold waist band to make it look like the traditional belt as you can see below.
 |
| The differences between the Man of Steel costumes and the Batman V Superman costumes |
This is not the first time superman’s costume has changed, previously in Smallville they had tried to replace the suit with a floor-length trench coat but after pressures from fans they brought back the traditional suit:
 |
| Smallville's 1st attempt at the superman suit |
 |
| After complaints they returned to the classic suit |
“Proving once and for all that there really is no substitute for the real thing.” Even in the new film while they have pushed their boundaries with his suit removing the red pants they daren’t alter Clark Kent’s outfit, so he looks somewhat out of date today, not much of a disguise if you ask me. “He wasn’t wearing his glasses, but its close enough that most fans were happy to see him on set and in most of his Clark Kent disguise…”
 |
| Henry Cavil in his Clark Kent disguise |
This shows the power audiences have over costume decisions. Batman V Superman costume designer, Michael Wilkinson said “so what I do is look at the history of the character has been presented on the big-screen, small-screen, comic books, and graphic novels; we process it all. Then we kind of put that aside and work out what it right for our film, for the cinematic universe that our director Zack Snyder is putting together.” So he has to be aware of what has gone before what the audience expect and simultaneously he has to honour the director’s vision for the world. It is a tricky path to tread.
The costumes from Batman V Superman have been teasing the audiences for over a year now and so far there seems to be very little outrage. Perhaps this is because audiences have become more expecting, but really I think it is because designers have become less adventurous. They are so terrified of angering the militant fans they daren’t stray too far from the holly images that have been carved into the stone pages of the comic. In fact people where so appalled by nipples on the batman suits in Batman and Robin it killed the whole superhero genre for a while.
There is a lot of pressure on designer’s to get it right. When looking at screen-rant’s best and worst superhero costumes (http://screenrant.com/best-worst-superhero-movie-costumes-pauly-54822/) you can see how for the writer the best costumes are ones that most accurately recreate the costumes from the comic books. While the Bad ones are the ones that tried to do something new, try to modernise the costumes or just do something fun with them.
 |
| The very unpopular Green Lantern suit |
When talking about the Green Lantern, he says “While a lack of cohesive story telling was this movie's ultimate downfall, the suit certainly didn't help.” This implies that a bad superhero suit can be just as bad for a movie as a bad story. He then goes onto say “Any director wanting to make a movie based on the legendary hero absolutely must keep to the original concept of the suit. Any deviation, like making the cape green and the tights purple, or dropping the cape altogether, would make the character, well, NOT Superman”. Why?
The desire from the fans to have their favourite costume recreated in minute detail on scene means that designers have very little space to add in their own creative flare. As Hollywood moves evermore towards sequel, prequels and spin offs audience’s demand for the same costumes over and over will only get worse and soon there will be no need for designer’s at all. The problem is as we saw with green lantern if the costumes are not right it can be a death sentence for a film particularly a superhero film. So designers have to get it right this means there is a lot more pressure on the designers and the audience have more power over there decisions than ever before.
No comments:
Post a Comment