Produced to celebrate Superman’s 75th anniversary, DC Comics and Man Of Steel director Zack Snyder have collaborated with Bruce Timm (Superman: The Animated Series) and Warner Bros. Animation on a spectacular new short to chronicle the many incarnations of the Caped Wonder.
Originally intended as a special feature on the upcoming Man Of Steel DVD/Bluray release, (out Nov 12th) the 2:14 film highlights Superman’s evolution from the Siegel & Shuster days through comic, television video game and silver screen appearances to his current personification of Henry Cavill.
Shown above are screen captures from the Christopher Reeve segment (featuring the famous end title flyby) and bottom, a character study by artist Dusty Abell profiling all the character designs for how they would appear in the short.
For a project engendering considerable hype in advance of its premiere (EW.com ultimately getting the scoop), its a pity the final product ends up reminiscent of a commercial than genuine tribute. While its a delight to hear John Williams theme in any context, the transitions from era to era are rushed & clunky and the choice of incarnations to define them are highly questionable. While there is a reasonable explanation provided for this, (click on the EW link above) the omissions of Kirk Alyn, Brandon Routh and Dean Cain are nevertheless galling in light of their contribution to the mythos…
Hi, it was a great idea and is very well done…but agree that they shouldve included Routh/SR as if anything it was the culmination of roughly 10 years of failed attempts to bring S back to the big screen so couldve represented that…(maybe had one version of superman up there morph into Routh saving the plane for a couple of secs to the JW score, before the Zimmer score kicks in)
if they could include a video game and Turtle Jimmy im sure they couldve included SR! (+ Kirk, Cain, and the 1986 MOS Byrne mini series reboot – especially since that was quite abig deal in the superman mythos and when the MOS movie is heavily based on it)