This movie would be pretty cool if they didn’t make Superman a lib and Stalin a villain. He should have destroyed Wall Street when he had the chance.
In the movie the US tries to draw in Superman by dropping a deadly object from space and almost kills a bunch of people if it weren’t for Superman stopping it. And the US also starts a war with the USSR. But somehow the US is the good guy
Also, the faults of some egomaniacal dictator is representative of communism entirely, but the faults of capitalism are portrayed as the fault of bad apples lol
The potential of the premise dries up so quickly that it was hard for me to stay invested.
I’ve been very hesitant to look up the original comic or watch the cartoon as I figure it’ll start off sensible and descend into capitalist propaganda…my psychic damage resilience is pretty low nowadays
If anyone is wondering:
The Animated movie and the Comic share designs and a few plot points but are actually radically different executions of the concept. Actually I should really reread the comic because I was a huge lib when I did the first time, but I remember it being far FAR more sympathetic to the USSR and more cynical towards Luthor and America.
One key change for example is that in the movie, Superman goes to see a Gulag and then, horrified at what he’s seen, comes back and heat visions Stalin in cold blood to do a Coup. In the comic: Stalin and Superman actually have an extremely ammicable relationship with Stalin seeing him as something of a Son, prompting his son Pytor to poison him with cyanide out of jealousy. Superman actually declines to lead the party initially until he is strongly encouraged by his childhood friend Lana. Don’t even get me started on the ending.
It is definitely Liberal ultimately in that the moral of the story is about how Superman shouldn’t interfere with human affairs and how the ends never justify the means and blah blah blah…but its at least a much more nuanced and thought out story then “WHAT IF SUPERMAN, BUT BAD!!!”
Edit: Like one detail I really enjoyed is that even though the USA and President Luthor are kind of the “heroes” in a sense, the Comic is VERY explicit that even in THAT universe, Luthor is still a selfish egotistical narcissist whose primary concern is beating Superman just to prove that he’s better. Any “good” that he accomplishes is practically incidental.
The Animated movie and the Comic share designs and a few plot points but are actually radically different executions of the concept.
I feel like I say this one all the time. It’s such a bummer too cause the animation goes so hard, whoever is running the show at DC/WB animation knows how to make a good cartoon.
Not to mention Luthor fixes the United States by enforcing a planned economy
For all intents and purposes, Luthor does a Socialism but calls it Luthornomics and everyone is fine with it
