http://www.warnervideo.com/supermandoomsdaydvd/

Who be getting this? It just came out yesterday. If I can find the Target around my school I'm gonna try to grab it later today

im looking forward to it...i like dcau and such, i prolly won't buy it; i prolly wait for it to be on tv or borrow...

too bad no justice league or batman...oh well, not that big of a deal, it's prolly better without them, because it's focused on superman and on the comic book ;)

brainiac attack was lame in my opinion, so hopefully it won't be as bad...

The retail price is no more than 15 bucks anywhere I've seen it so far, I think that's worth a buy personally

Bruce Timm was closely involved in this one so I think it should probably be pretty good

It looks pretty crap to me. Maybe I'm biased from reading the comics all those years ago, but I just can't accept the whole Reign of the Supermen thing being condensed into a fight against a single clone. If it doesn't have Steel, the Eradicator, Superboy, and Hank fucking Henshaw, I want no part of it.

I don't mind, just because there are differences doesn't mean it's automatically shit. They're compressing a huge story into under 2 hours, some things had to go. I'll miss the whole Green Lantern aspect of it, and yeah, Henshaw would be cool to see, but I'm ok with them going astray from the original story. They shouldn't have to follow it to the letter if you ask me.

And more power to you for that. As I said, I'm probably biased. If you check it out, be sure to let me know how you like it.

I sauntered down to the nearest wal-mart I could find in Altanta (and it was an adventure, driving in this city is fucking horrifying) and they didn't even have it in stock.

Seeing as it's a nightmare to drive up here, I probably won't be checking this out till I'm back home again, probably next weekend. Yeah, it's that bad.

Oh well. I'm probably going to cave in and rent it anyway. If I do, I'll post my thoughts on it.

I miiiiight try to find a Target or something, but not today. I've had my share of people running out in front me and trucks pushing me off the road and one million one way streets that lead you way the fuck out of your way for today.

-edit- I remember now there's a Borders really close by that sells DVDs and is easy to get to. I might check there.

I'd rather see more material set within the DCAU continuity.

I be getting this, soon as I get some money.

Just like I figured, I caved. I haven't checked out any of the extras yet, but I watched the film itself last night. As promised, here's my thoughts on it. Slight spoilers ahead:







The animation is fairly high-quality. Certainly not up to the quality of a big budget theatrical production, but far above TV standard. Character designs are mostly pretty solid, but there are annoying aspects to some of them, particularly a couple of annoying useless lines on Superman's face.

The sound doesn't hold up as well. Some of the voice acting is okay, but none of it is first-rate and quite a bit of it is nothing short of awful. Anne Heche's first few lines as Lois were almost enough to make me turn the DVD player off. The main theme is decent enough at first, but the constant repetition of it throughout the movie was enough to make me wish for a way to turn the music off completely. It reminded me of watching Voltron.

The setting seems to be a mish-mash of various concepts presented throughout the comics, movies, and animated series. The exterior of the Fortress of Solitude, for example, is taken from classic comics, while the interior's design is an amalgam of elements from the modern comics and animated series. Crystals like those seen in the movies play a role in the operations of the fortress. Aside from things like that, the relationship between Clark/Superman and Lois has been tweaked to bring Superman and Lois together as lovers, while still retaining the secret identity.

As for the plot, it starts off about like you'd expect. Doomsday is released from his subterranean prison and goes on a killing spree. The body count piles up quickly, but all of the gruesome stuff like bodies being smashed into red smears, necks being snapped, etc., all take place just off screen or under cover of clouds of dust or smoke. I don't think many people are going to complain about that, and any who do are likely to be people I wouldn't want to be associated with in the first place.

Doomsday's rampage soon brings him to Metropolis, where he meets Superman and the two slug it out until they're both dead. The fight itself is one of the better animated battles I've seen, although the end of it is fairly contrived and is further marred by Heche's incompetent attempt to portray grief.

From there, it mostly goes into new territory. We get glimpses of how the characters cope, we see how Metropolis changes as a result, and we're introduced to the new plot that replaces the Reign of the Supermen arc from the comics, which centers around Luthor creating a clone of the deceased man of steel, and said clone's failure to emulate the behavior of the original.

Basically, it's a tale we've seen countless times before. Misguided Superman wannabe does all the stuff the original would never allow himself to do and slowly makes his way across the line to pure villainy, then the real thing comes back to set things right.

The fight between the two Supermen is pretty much like the Doomsday battle, except with more flying. Superman's black costume from the comics returns, making it easy to tell them apart and keep track of things. The battle eventually comes to a very clich� ending, followed by a less than subtle hint that a sequel may be made soon.

Of course, with so much familiar territory being trod, they have to try something new, right? Well, the film's approach to that doesn't meet with much success. Jimmy Olsen's new job is just plain useless to the story, while the death of another character seems to have been thrown in just for shock merit.

Overall, it really doesn't bring anything new or particularly interesting to the Superman mythos. I'm not going to go so far as to say it's worthless, especially since I haven't checked out the extras yet, but it does leave a lot to be desired, especially for a project that's supposed to draw attention from long-time Superman fans as well as newer audiences.

I just picked it up at Borders, will probably watch it in just a bit.

can't say that I'm surprised with Prak's reaction (not impressed)
can't say that I'm surprised with his thoughts of the movie though...

it seems a little darker than Brainiac Attacks, but it seems like it's the same in which it doesn't really do anything or add anything to the table. Can't say that I'm surprised.

So that confirms it for me, borrowing it or waiting for it to be on boomerang or some way that won't cost me money, will be the way I watch it.

I'm also still kinda upset at how Brainiac Attacks went, so that might have swayed my decision.

Ok after watching it I'll say it isn't perfect but I can say I liked it more than Prak did. Some of his issues didn't bother me at all. I thought the voice acting was fine save a few stray lines, the main theme only seemed to pop in a few times as far as I could tell and that's expected, I loved Superman's updated design, blah blah.

My only real issue was the pacing, something I think could've been fixed if they'd simply made it a little longer, maybe up to 90-100 minutes rather than 75. It pretty much starts off with the Doomsday fight almost right away and then you have a very, very brief mourning period and it's right into the return angle. This story is a little too big to fit well into such a short frame. As such, the epic feel the comic had, due to the luxury of a nice build up, plenty of time to show the whole "world without Superman" arc, then equal time given separately to the arcs with the 'impostor' Superman and the real Superman's return, is mostly gone. There's some weight to the story still, it still gets the main feel across, but given the time constraint, which was probably budgetary, it isn't nearly as impactful as the comic version.

This however is really meant to be it's own version of Superman's death and return, only lightly inspired by the old 90s comic story, and I think judging it against that one is a little unfair, as they're such seperate entities, and as I said, the comic version had a huge advantage with the amount of time able to really amp up how huge the story could get. When just taking it in on it's own merit overall I think it was a fairly entertaining and well made film, again, only hampered by it's short length.

Despite that though, what did I miss from the comics the most? One, seeing Doomsday come out of his stasis or whatever you want to call it still mostly bound in his containment suit but still laying waste to everything in his way, the entire Justice League included, with one fucking hand, and gradually coming free from it. Like I said - build up, it's gone in the movie. Then, seeing all of the other superheroes mourn for him at and after his funeral was really missed, but I suppose that was taken out so as not to distract the focus on Superman much. Again, due to the pacing I think there could have been more civilian mourning too, seeing the whole city effected by the loss, maybe even more with Lois and Martha Kent, but it kind of got right into "HEY HE IS BACK(but not really)" right away.

Of the four imposter Supermen...well, it would have been cool to see those in here, but the different way they went doesn't bother me too much. I think it would have gotten way too involved trying to fit those four in there, not to mention the whole Cyborg destroying Coast City story and all that. Superman himself being shown as alive and recovering happened a little too soon for me in this film, and I sort of preferred the comic's way of him reappearing in the giant Kryptonian exo-suit given his weakened state, but I suppose that would have been rather superfluous so I can't say that I actually miss it.

So really, that's my overall thought on the movie itself. Given the time allowed on it, the comic version of this story is much grander and a little more satisfying in terms of depth and weight, but on it's own this animated version is still fairly well put together with great animation and what I feel is a more than acceptable update to the story. I did enjoy it quite a bit, and I'd certainly recommend at least one viewing, a rental if not a purchase, if you are a Superman fan or DC Animated fan of any sort. Perfect? Maybe not, but for what it is, I still feel it delivers.

The documentary on the process of writing the old comic story and all was great too btw, which is definitely a plus. It was quite cool to see insight from all the old writers and artists on just what went on and their thoughts now looking back on it.

In fairness I'd probably score the movie a 7, but in nerdy rose colored glasses world I'd probably bump that to an 8 or 9, especially when considering the cool look back on the comic story they included.