Friday, May 13, 2011

Smallville's Series Finale - The CW's Finger to the Fans

I just finished watching the Smallville series finale. If you haven't seen it and don't want spoilers, stop reading right now.

For the rest of you...

Ten years. We watched this show for 10 years for one reason: to see the suit. How many times did it suffer horrible words flung at it from critics everywhere, while we fans fought and defended it because we hoped for a happy ending? Through every stupid Lana episode, we held on even though she would never die. With every moronic "I didn't ask for this destiny!" speech we heard from Clark, we kept on tuning in. Even when Lex himself left, we still stuck around through horrible storylines and cheap villains just because we wanted to see the suit.

Yep, I got a million bucks for those ten minutes.
And here we ended up, 10 years later, and we only wanted two things: Michael Rosenbaum to return to the role he made his own: Lex Luthor (check, we got that one), and we wanted to see Welling in the suit. After teasing for weeks on end about it, showing clips of it and even an outline of the cape for a few promos, the night came to deliver.

What did we get? A half dozen long-range shots of a tiny figure in the suit that actually looked less convincing than 98% of the Photoshop fan pictures I've seen on the internet! And when it finally swung around to give us a glimpse, it cuts to a comic book? Are you kidding me??? Do they honestly think we don't know what Superman looks like in the comic books???

Suck it, viewers! You'll never see this! Hahahaa!
Rosenbaum did great, and the "memory loss powder" was a very nice touch that allowed the mythos to step in there for no memory of Smallville. But 10 minutes? And all we got was a speech to Clark and a speech to Tess (right before he killed her...nice touch and points for you there, writers). They should have skipped the whole Darkseid angle and just given us two hours of Clark versus Lex.

Or--and I know this is a crazy thought but hear me out here--they could have given us Welling in the suit! One shot! Just one! If that's all we were worth to you producers and writers, you should have given us one lousy shot.

Now we get to add Smallville's finale to the list of great series bombouts like Battlestar Galactica and Lost.

Hey guys, please let me know when you're starting another series so I can be sure to save my time and money.
Yeah, how you like me now, eh?

On the other hand, I'm sure Brandon Routh is sleeping happily tonight knowing that someone did manage to put together a Superman piece of junk worse that Superman Returns. For that, I'm sure he thanks the writers and producers profusely.

Smallville's season finale...if this is what WB can do with heroes, it's time to stop reading comic books.

The only way they will ever redeem this mess is if they let Welling come into the JLA movie as Superman. Chances of that happening are just slightly less than Spider-Man 3 winning an award as the best comic book film ever made.

Am I wrong? Did you like it? Did you feel those CGI pinpoint versions of Welling in costume were enough? Let your voice be heard in the comments!

14 comments:

Chester said...

I couldnt agree with u more Brian. Excellent post! It was a true finger to the fans especially after all those promos teasing him in the suit.

Anonymous said...

You are so right, after seeing this I feel Tom is pretty much a jerk. I mean Rosenbaum didn't want to come back but he suck it up and acted like a man and gave the fans what they wanted. Now he could have gives us more than 2 dumb scenes, but at least we got that. 10 years ago Tom didn't want to be superman because of the suit and only took the role when he found out he didn't have to wear it, but you would think by now he would be man enough to just do it, but I think he proved his ego is to big, I bet he refused to wear it. After all that talk about he felt it only right for Rosenbaum to return for the fans he wasn't willing to do the same and give the fans what they wanted from him. I don't know about you, but I'm never seeing a shot with Tom ever again. Great post man, just what I was thinking!

Bubbashelby said...

I've been with Smallville since day one. While I haven't loved every episode I loved the series finale and I have loved the series as a whole. It did what no other 'live action' comic book based property has ever done in any way in the history of the superhero medium.

For starters, I will argue that seeing Clark in the suit is not why I or many fans tuned in for ten years. I always knew Smallville would end with Clark flying in costume. The suit was the end of Smallville, and I knew I would see it...at the end. If the end was after season four or as it turns out, season ten, who cared? The fact is Clark becomes Superman, and we all knew that.

I and most fans who actually watched regularly were along for the journey, not the destination.

Has CW always been a trite, teeny-bopper network with more concern for selling me zit cream or the latest single on iTunes than Superman comics? Yes.

Was Smallville full of ten years of longing glances, silly lines, poor dialogue, cheesy acting and bad CGI? Yes.

But did I care about Clark, Lois, Johnathan, Martha, even Lex? Yes. Did I love the never before seen Lionel Luthor being added to the Superman mythos? Every minute of that vile bastard, I did indeed. Did I get nerdboy tingles every time some other DC character or concept popped up, however little or lame or non-canonical? Yes. Even when Mr. Mxyptlk showed up? Yes, even then. Oh, and those tingles took on a whole other dimension when Zatanna debuted, but that's another story...

Long response even longer, the fact is pound for pound, apples being apples, Smallville more than delivered for this fan in it's ten season run, and I for one will always look back with fondness on all of my time spent in Smallville.

Unknown said...

Smallville doesn't get to decide whether they show the suit or not so blame the morons at DC with their continuing mishandling of Smallville versus film reboot reboot reboot versus the low selling comics. The finale was classic Smallville in every sense, good and bad.

Anonymous said...

You hit the nail on the head. Personally, I am a huge fan of Smallville but the last episode was nothing less than terrible.

Jimmy Olson alive?
President Elect Lex Luther in 2018?
Fake Looking Cartoon Takes of Superman?
No Marrige for Clark and Lois?
Long Drawn Out Deep Conversations to Waste Time?

Bad is all I can say..... John with Christian Hotspot

Brian Reaves said...

Bubbashelby, I have to agree that there were a lot of great Smallville moments throughout the show's history. And like you, I absolutely loved seeing those guest star heroes that would come in and help out from time to time! Who would have ever thought we'd see a live action Doctor Fate or Booster Gold that were true to the characters and not horrible campy cartoons?

My beef is mainly for the last episode. To me it was like the writers just wanted to give as many speeches as possible to fill in space and just skimped on the action throughout. An entire season build up for a Darkseid fight that was literally two punches? Apokolypse is going to crush the Earth, but Clark flies in and just pushes it away with no apparent effort?

I just wish they'd given us a lot more action or at least a lot more Clark/Lex interaction than what we got. But I'm definitely thankful for what they gave us over the years. Those first 3 seasons, who would have ever thought you'd learn to love Lex Luthor as a good guy? Awesome treatment through the years!

Brian Reaves said...

And yes, I would have loved to have seen either the wedding or an after-wedding sequence where we knew they ended up together. But then I guess that would have possibly messed up the movie reboots they have coming out.

Hey, it's even possible we'll see some sort of reference to Smallville in the new movie. No characters will show up in there, I'm sure, but there could be some vague reference to something that happened in the show as a way of giving the fans a shout out.

Anonymous said...

Jimmy Olson alive?
He never died. That was his older brother (Henry James Olsen). This was good, as Jimmy was always supposed to be the kid in the office and old Jimmy (Henry, who dies) was just too old. And killing him when they did was a great move by writers.

But Lois even said "Your brother left big shoes for you to fill". I'm guessing you're trolling, so I'll leave it at that...

President Elect Lex Luther in 2018?
No problem here. Lex does become president in the comics, and lets not forget that this was even foreshadowed in an ep of Smallville once. If it's the timing you're disputing, considering Clark grows up from 80/90s to present day, there's nothing wrong with that either (unless an election can't happen in 2018, not familiar with US politics).

Fake Looking Cartoon Takes of Superman?
I'll agree that this was pretty bad overall. Had I known they weren't allowed to show him clearly in full costume, I wouldn't have been as annoyed by that.

No Marrige for Clark and Lois?
That's just typical SV style of drawing things out. After 10 years, you shouldn't be surprised anymore.

Long Drawn Out Deep Conversations to Waste Time?
See above.

andy faleni said...

true.they played us for fools....the suit is not that great also...it's such a shame because we love smallville...

Anonymous said...

The point of Smallville was to show us Superman's origins and it did. Yes we all would have loved to see more of Tom in the suit being Superman, but the reason the show was called Smallville and not Superman was because it was meant to show us Clark's life before he became Superman when he was growing up in Smallville and it really came through on that. I loved the show, now I only hope someone comes up with some really good Superman movies not like the old terrible movies

Smallville Jacket said...

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Danie said...

To Anon. May 14, 2011 10:04 PM:

Actually, 2018 in the US is the middle of a term. There's the election this year 2012, then 2016, then 2020... so, unless Lex took out the entire government (and with American succession of the presidency, you gotta take out a lotta people) and then we had to vote halfway through the term, then yeah, there's no way that in the real world Lex could get 'elected' in 2018....

But... this isn't the real world, and there's precedent for it... on The West Wing their 'elections' were off by two years also... (actually, if I do the math, they seem to be on the same election schedule as TWW...

Anonymous said...

Hi
I would like to say that I have watched Smallville not on a regular basis but on and off. It's because it does not feel like a comic book show. I would like to have seen 2 hours of Superman putting the smack down on evil. Whether it was Lex or Darkseid.

Some of the DC characters that have shown up have been cool. I recently just start reading DC books and have been trying to watch Smallville. So for me seening Darkseid was pretty cool. The episode reminded me of Final Crisis, sort of.

Dan

Unknown said...

Excellent post! It was more than a finger. it was a hope rape.

couldn't agree with u more.

from ass hole tom willing to the crappy writers.

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