Supergirl (2026): A Missed Opportunity

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Speaker 1 (0:22): That brings us to Supergirl. We both watch Supergirl. Cara Zurel, aka Supergirl, joins forces with an unlikely companion on an interstellar journey of vengeance and justice when an unexpected adversary strikes too close to home. This is written by Anna Nguiria and directed by Claire Galepczy. This was written by a woman?

Unknown Speaker (0:51): It was her yeah. Yeah. It was her second Anna, it was only her second writing credit. She's got, yeah, she's got three coming now. She's got, she's doing she's apparently gonna be writing the new Wonder Woman movie, and also, Teen Titans.

Unknown Speaker (1:09): And she's got one other non DC related, credit, I believe, as far as in in development. But prior to this, she's had only written, I think, a short film, prior to this. So this was only her second outing as a screenwriter. Yeah. I I wonder

Speaker 1 (1:25): I wonder how much of her script actually made it to camera because we know the directors like to cut things and change things.

Unknown Speaker (1:33): Yeah. So Yeah. Yeah. Cliff Gillespie. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (1:36): He and he directed things like I, Tonya, and, know, he's he's not you know, he's had he's had some pretty, solid films in in the past, but yeah.

Speaker 1 (1:49): Well That's great. I just don't think he should have directed this movie.

Unknown Speaker (1:53): Yeah. Well, I'm thinking he was just trying to do a poor imitation of James Gunn.

Speaker 1 (1:58): Well and my my issue isn't even that. Like, I've seen poor imitation imitation of James Gunn. That's fine. My my issue is this should have been directed by a woman. I mean, you look at all of the superhero movies that have starred a female character, they are the ones that do well are directed by women.

Speaker 1 (2:24): I originally thought this was probably written by a man, But but to know that it was written by a female, it makes me question how much of her actual screenplay made it to there, how familiar she was with the source material, because I've heard people who have read the source material. And this could have gone very differently. And somebody, I don't know who, watered it the fuck down, and it pisses me off. It pisses me off to no end.

Speaker 2 (3:03): Yeah. I mean, I did read an article. I did read where she talked about adapting the source material, and she did some choices that she made as far as, you know, one of the big ones was, I think, you know, she she left a couple things out, of course, changing the motivations for Crem, you know, and, you know, that was that was one of them. But also, I think to your point, as far as the there were so many I really wanted to like this movie. And I know I went back and the more distance I get from it, what I remember of it, it's just that there's a sense of disappointment, like you said.

Unknown Speaker (3:49): Because I feel like and apparently, you know, I think they whenever it went into the editing bay, there were a lot of choices that were made that, for example, the way it just started to me was just out of the gate. I just and I haven't read the source material either. So I haven't read Woman of Mark. Even even though they did give us me this this nice comic book at the at the movie theater where where I where I went to go see it. But, but that being said, it just it just got me off on the wrong foot where I just I didn't feel engaged with this character.

Speaker 2 (4:33): And and and I wish they had started with the Argo stuff first, quite honestly. Because whenever that or or have more of that because whenever I got about you know, when we did get more about her backstory and learning about what happened, you know, happened on Argo and and all that and her and her relationship with her with Carl's parents and stuff. I I I you know, those scenes and the scenes that she had with with Clark, really, I felt like, okay. I'm connecting with this person in in a way that I under you know, I understand where they're coming from. And it would have, like, provided me better, I guess, context for, like, why she is sort of the quote, unquote hot mess that she is that we when we first meet her at the end of Superman, but also why she's doing the things, going off planet, finding trying to fly places, the red suns.

Speaker 2 (5:39): You know? And, again, maybe, you know, and maybe that's where if I had read the source material, I don't know if it would've helped me or even maybe even more mad or more disappointed in that the story that they could've told.

Speaker 1 (5:50): Yeah. Obviously, I watched Kinda Funny's review. Greg Miller has read the source material. Nick has also read the source material on Nick's or Pinot from there. They talk about the changes and the choices that were made and the things that were left off.

Speaker 1 (6:10): Yeah. Yeah. Wrong decision. Wrong decision. Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (6:16): You basically took all of the creativity and decided not to use it and just tell a very bland, generic, every other episode of a comic book based TV show would do this kind of thing. So even having not, but hearing people who have read the source material, it would have made you more mad. And it also just but I think it's important to recognize that when do things that are are adopted, do they have to be, like, word for word exactly? No. Everybody understands what an adaptation is.

Speaker 1 (7:01): But you don't take it's almost as though you took the soul of a story and just sucked it out. And it's dumbed down. And I could go, I have not thought about this movie since watching it on Thursday evening because and this is nothing. The the only performance I thought was good and just and I thought was decent was Ali. And that was mainly because, and and I think if people don't like her performance, it's like, well, she wasn't given a lot.

Speaker 1 (7:44): Okay? At the end of the day, she was given play drunk. Okay. Do this. But she also wasn't given the best dialogue in the world either.

Speaker 1 (7:54): No. No. And just the character of Supergirl was also just not given a movie because No. This is really Ruthie's story. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (8:09): And I really don't like Ruthie. Ruthie just became so redundant. But they have to win with the stars. I don't wanna belabor this at all. But I think at the end of the day for me, I had no fun with this movie.

Speaker 1 (8:29): I just if I if people want to know my thoughts, it's it just that is the sum of it. I had no fun. I didn't laugh out loud at anything. Nothing was interesting to me. It was just blah.

Speaker 1 (8:45): Okay? Yeah. Now have I seen worse movies? Abso fucking lutely. But Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (8:52): Yeah. This is this is also, I think, people saying this is a good movie. I'm like, is it? Is it a good movie? I didn't even have fun.

Speaker 1 (9:02): I had more fun with Mando and Grogu. Okay? I don't know.

Speaker 2 (9:09): Yeah. Yeah. So I do have to ask you because we we've seen Lobo in another iteration live action, with the show Krypton, if you recall.

Speaker 1 (9:22): No. I I know what you're I know what you're setting up to ask me. I'm just waiting for you to ask me.

Unknown Speaker (9:28): Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean well, go ahead. Well clearly, I felt like I I I pre go folks, go if you wanna see a live action version of of of Lobo, what do you think?

Speaker 1 (9:42): Jason watch Triptown. And go and watch go if you wanna see a good Superman TV show, arguably a movie, go watch Krypton. Okay? Yeah. More people needed to watch that show.

Speaker 1 (9:58): We should have got a third and fourth season. My god. That story was just beginning. But, no, I I thought, again, it just fell flat. It it just looked like, oh my god.

Speaker 1 (10:11): There's Jason Momoa in makeup. Okay. Yeah. But but I also I don't necessarily know if that's because that was Jason Momoa or, again, what he was given to do and work with, it wasn't of any substance.

Unknown Speaker (10:30): Yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:31): So it's hard to, in a movie like this, to say like, oh, that didn't work or like the performance didn't work when when there's not a lot of substance across the board because they watered the fuck everything the fuck down. And they they like, everyone I've heard people say, well, the little stuff on Krypton actually worked. Then I'm like, did it? Because I thought it could have been even if if in present day, if we had more of a deeper connection to her, learning about Cara's past and that trauma she carries and that grief that she carries would have been so much more powerful. And yet the moments in the present day when she's trying to relate to Ruthie about grief and explain to her about her own trauma, it just was flat because And it there was a complete yeah.

Unknown Speaker (11:33): Go go ahead.

Unknown Speaker (11:34): No. I was gonna say, I mean, I don't know if for me, it fell flat because it just seemed contradictory at the end. I mean, with the the choice that they made. Which, you know, I wasn't you know, her with with Cara, Kelly, and Creme, fine. I I didn't have a problem with that.

Unknown Speaker (11:52): But

Speaker 1 (11:53): Can I spoil what happened in the actual comic book?

Unknown Speaker (11:57): Yeah. Go ahead.

Speaker 1 (11:59): Because k. This was, again, a decision they made, Will. So in the comic book, apparently, the panel ends exactly very similar to that moment in the movie where she takes the sword swings, right? Then they jump to future day because the whole book is written from a elderly Ruthie talking about this adventure she had with Supergirl. Okay.

Speaker 1 (12:30): And they're at the Fortress Of Solitude. Cara never killed him. They put him in this in the Fortress Of Solitude and were releasing him. So for them, it was probably, like, two decades had passed or three. Ruthie's an elderly woman now.

Speaker 1 (12:47): But for for him, it was eons. Right. Yeah. And he had he spent so much time in there that he got to self reflect and actually was a better but she never killed him. It was more about, like, him actually being reformed essentially in this prison that they put him in but that that was like arguably the biggest decision that they made not to go with the source material.

Unknown Speaker (13:20): Yeah. Yeah. I knew he was yeah. I did I did know that he was was placed in the Phantom Zone, and he, yeah, he did have that that that you know, rehabilitation. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:32): But, you know, but I yeah. And, you know, and guess that's the other thing too because I know they were you know, they added this human trafficking, sex trafficking element to the story, which is a very, you know, very you know, it's a very heavy, serious material. And I know they were trying to do it to add depth to the story. But again, just all the other things around surrounding it undercut what could have been a very groundbreaking suit, you know, movie in this genre. And to your point, whether, you know, you know, if they had stuck to that, I don't know, you know, and and really went deeper into that.

Speaker 2 (14:18): I think where I was going earlier too as far as the, the choice in the story that they were telling here where Cara does murder or does kill him. One, were just, you know, showing a differentiation between, you know, her and Clark in in this in this place. But, also, I just felt like it it undercut, You know, I guess when they go to the end of the film and she just decides Earth is now her home, she's all, you know, more light and and and all those kind of things, it just, you know, it just kinda it didn't match what she just told Ruthie about taking someone else's life. So, you know, so again, it was just a lot of just logical and just poor store, poor story choices. And, and, you know, and like you said, adaptations don't have to be one to one.

Speaker 2 (15:13): But if you're going to do an adaptation, know we were just, you know, we were talking this evening about House of the House of the Dragon, and we've talked about other adaptations and we know there's no, it's not a one to one. In both cases, we haven't read the source material. If you are going to change from the source material to tell your own story, at least make sure that it's internally consistent and logically consistent with the story that you're telling. And I just felt like this movie wasn't that.

Speaker 1 (15:44): The whole sex trafficking end of it all, to me, I took it as cliche. Oh, we have a female superhero so we're gonna put her up against a man who's in charge of this sex trafficking ring.

Unknown Speaker (16:00): Yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:01): Like, has like, did I'm sorry, but was, at one point in time, was Cara a slave? At one point in time, was Cara like, did Cara's friend end up as part of the like, she had no connection to that and that is why that did not work because a villain needs to needs to reflect something in the hero and she didn't he didn't reflect anything in terms of her or Ruthie, arguably.

Unknown Speaker (16:32): Yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:32): And what would be more interesting is this whole thing that they kind of brought up with Lobo about the annihilation of your own race and that devastation and the choice to do that when with Cara, her whole race, like, she had no choice. And she she was born into this kind of Band Aid to cover a bullet hole and then it just so happened. So they and I think that was the big disconnect is that again, the villains are so important in terms of these stories and it's so clear when the villain does not work because they are not reflecting anything back on our hero, the story itself fails. It doesn't matter if it's a if it's a heroine or a hero, it will fail regardless. And and to me, it's especially critical when it's like this is the first chapter.

Speaker 1 (17:41): Well, I felt like you kinda started in the middle of the story. And and so and you tried to squeeze in some origins, but it it didn't make any sense to why what was happening in present day because we've had extensive, talks about other things when flashbacks in present day, they have to have connective tissue as well, and and it's just it's poorly made. And it's Yeah. And it's a big disappointment. And people can say all the time, like, James Gunn didn't write it.

Speaker 1 (18:14): James Gunn didn't, didn't direct it. He's the head producer, so he made the decisions that put people in this in places to produce this product. So Yep. Yeah. Just like with Feige, if a Marvel movie doesn't do well, it's his fault.

Speaker 1 (18:31): Yep. It's still gonna be James Gunn's fault at the end of the day.

Unknown Speaker (18:34): Yep. The buck stops with the balls.

Speaker 1 (18:36): Yeah. Yeah. I mean Yeah. Watching this was like watching one of the episodes of Peacemaker season two I did not like. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:47): If not, a little worse because, again, there I did not I I just to sum it up, I I can't even say this is like a popcorn movie. No. Because I did not have fun at all with this movie. Did I loathe it like I loathed Ant Man in the quantum zone? No.

Unknown Speaker (19:11): That that awful.

Unknown Speaker (19:12): Yeah. That was that that one broke me for the MCU for a while. That one in Thor: Love and Thunder.

Unknown Speaker (19:18): Yeah. Yeah. So so I I think

Unknown Speaker (19:21): This not this is not a gender thing because that those two movies broke me. I was done with Sarah will tell you. I was done with the MCU for a bit for for that.

Unknown Speaker (19:29): Yeah. Meanwhile, I I had fun with Love and Thunder. I did not have fun with Quantum Zone. I think Will even had a little bit more fun than I did. I did not.

Speaker 1 (19:38): I had so many issues with that. But, but, yeah, that those are my super bowl thoughts.

Unknown Speaker (19:45): Yeah. Yeah. That I mean, those yeah. Yeah. I I don't have much more to add.

Unknown Speaker (19:50): I mean, I think we've we you know, at the end of the day, I I I really did enjoy Millie Alcock. I mean, she her casting, they they did they did a disservice to Millie. They did a disservice to Millie with this film.

Speaker 1 (20:05): Yep. Arguably to all the actors.

Unknown Speaker (20:08): Yeah. All the all the cast, really. All of them, really. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:11): Yeah. But on that note, Will, why don't you tell our listeners where they can find you?

Unknown Speaker (20:17): Yes. You can find me on all the socials at will m p w I l l m p o l k.

Speaker 1 (20:23): And you can find me there too at s j bellmont, s j b l m o n t. Please follow our crew on x, formerly known as Twitter at seen and nerd, on blue sky. Friend us on Facebook. Follow us on Instagram and threads at seen underscore n underscore n, and visit our website www.seenandnerdpodcast.com. But most importantly, rate, follow, and comment on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get podcasts.

Speaker 1 (20:45): Good night, geek out. You're welcome.

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