And to an last degree homelander isn't much evil superman. Sure they have the same powers. Their backstory is different which affects the story and the Narrative. Superman whould be as much as an broken mess if he experienced the same pain and grooming as homelander
I feel like Brightburn could have left a stronger impact by really delving into the nature vs nurture aspect. Like Brandon being someone who's similar to the Iron Giant where he was made for destruction but desperately wants to be more than that. While the Iron Giant learns to not become a weapon, Brandon doesn't get that luxury thanks to his parents and everyone around him fearing and pushing him closer to embracing the role he was born into.
i feel like this video is inversely a 'The Boys is Kinda Terrible...' - by PointlessHub... the video mentioning 'Normality & Morality' are all superficial abstractions, that's been indoctrinated by the Modernistic Ideological, & Dogmatic set of values & beliefs; the thematic process of 'nature vs nurture' is all supposed to be intertwined via the progression of meaning, through being a higher-form of sentient life; a pre-pubescelent Human is supposed to represent all the faculties of the Human Essence, to which Blightburn inversely corresponds this very essence into being an 'Alien' in a shape of a 'Human' who's been raised as a 'Human' & takes on the essence to being a 'Human' via any means possible, which is inversely corresponded to his actual pure self, which is his Alien-hood but the same archetype is still there via Superman's existence, who was meant to serve as an allegory, for & against the 'Human' essence of nature, as well as inversely corresponding to what Clark actually is in its purest form of being an Alien, in a shape of a Human being, which makes it paradoxical by nature because of its symbolic & personified allegory, as a figurehead for a means of expression, & the action of truths about the generalizations of the Human Existence/Consciousness & the Essence of 'Human Nature'... the parents are not supposed to be this... pedestal-incarnation of what a 'Human' - is to serve as a Modernistic-Commentary, that renders in its superficiality, that some Humans like Superman's parents have indoctrinated their own Modernistic, & superficial standpoints onto Superman because of their own transpired vignette's, that they themselves by to an Alien, that they project onto an Alien in a shape of a Human, that's derived from the Modernistic-Commentary post WWI, which a year later WWII would transpire onto the world by 'Humanity'.
And maybe have some goodness he learned seep into how he acts. He doesn't just turn people into jelly because, at some minute level, he still thinks people can do good, and that if given the choice they'll choose to do good over abandoning others to save themselves
Funny enough, Goku actually did kill his family. He killed Gohan the Elder when he transformed as a kid and he helped kill Raddits, his only brother. He then proceeded to NOT subjugate any planets or populations and surround himself with a whole new set of friends and family. Some of them even being former rivals and villains who wanted to kill him such as Krillin, Piccolo, Tien, and Vegeta. That is literally something Pa Kent would have told him to do: make your enemy a friend.
Omniman is the best of the evil Superman trope because he's not the main focus of the story. Mark gets the regular Superman/boy treatment and also sees how bad it can be when abusing your powers goes too far.
I also feel like Omniman has alot of General Zod in his character. His mission was to concure Earth after all, which isn't too dissimilar to Zod's goals in most stories he's in. The only real difference is Zod is more interested in rebuilding while Omniman is there to expand an already existing empire.
J Jonah Jameson becoming superman is the greatest idea comics have ever had And then having Spiderman vanish so he would go crazy and become evil is just the icing on one cake
Im sick of evil supermen. I want a superman that sits on clouds and looks down at the earth like a guardian angel and ponders about how amazing this blue little planet is and how grateful he is to grow up amongst such an adaptable and talented species… that’s what I want
This has honestly been why I’ve been enjoying My Adventures with Superman. Even if Clark is new to the role, that feeling of optimism underneath of everything has been so refreshing to see
@@ragnaricstudios5888the ending hinted to an evil Wonder Woman that seemed to be a witch instead of an amazon. And an evil Aquaman too, i wish we could had seen what they were planing on doing with them.
It definitely exists. I have a TTRPG that is What is Superman... but he was a massive asshole?" I will make you a hero by having Slayer T Dragonlord get cancer healed by your parent's blood so you have reason to go end him and become a hero. It's really fun. Often you just get monkey-pawed into saving your town destroyed because you had the desire to save it. So it's not really even your fault. Superman is just a jackass that knows all the villains are and so he makes them attack your hometown. It's fun
I tell myself they made it this way to make him a tragic sleeper agent who lost his will/personality upon first time being awakened. But that is obviously giving the directors too much credit. I think they just wanted to fall on sleeper agent to not have to organically make Brightburn descend but rather immediately forced out of laziness.
I feel like a more tragic take on the sleeper agent concept would be cooler. Watching him struggle with the learned desire to be good and kind with the mental programming to destroy, and maybe you frame it as some fucked-up metaphor for growing up and puberty. Slowly entering into adulthood and being given the choice, for the first time, what kind of person you want to be. In this case, the answer to that choice is, "the worst kind." It's a neat concept bogged down by lazy writing and poor storytelling
@@destructocat1960 true, but I think someone else brought up the idea of how the people around him respond. Being fearful and pushing him away once these powers and more dangerous tendencies start to show themselves.
yeah, and it raised the question of “why was he a sleeper agent designed to specifically be Evil Superman?” because that’s what it felt like. Like the kid or the ship or whatever knew about Superman, and was intentionally doing Superman things, only evil. Mask slaps tho. Cool mask, very spookums. Dumb movie.
The “sleeper agent” concept would’ve been cool if there was more depth to it. Imagine this, Brightburn is an alien from another planet like Superman, but here’s the twist, whatever Brandon/Brightburn is he’s not the dominant creature on his planet. Instead, the people of his planet were conquered by something worse. Say a race of conquerors reminiscent to Darkseid or maybe Doomsday, and what they do to Brandon’s race is enslave and breed them as weapons that they send to other planets to conquer. And like the Viltrumites, they only have to send one to do so. And the only way to make them go berserk is to reunite with their ships, hence activating the sleeper agent programming, making way for his alien masters. Boom! And what could’ve made things interesting is if Brandon tried fighting his programming until he ultimately defected, causing his masters to send in another “Kryptonian” like Brandon to finish the job that he couldn’t. This, putting his life, home, and family at risk
It’s funny how James Gunn went from producing a “Superman but evil” movie, to wanting to make a Superman film that returned to the core roots of the character and why people loved the character so much with the new upcoming Superman film.
I remember hearing that back in 2018, WB had approached him about writing and directing a new Superman film but turned it down in favor of The Suicide Squad because he didn’t have a clear vision of what that would look like and I’m half-convinced that he signed on to produce this movie as sort of a test of “what not to do with Superman” long before he eventually became the CEO of DC Studios
im so tired of this status quo, in a form of rhetoric of this superficial archetype, in regards to an 'eVeL' sUPerMan... you can't determine what's 'Good nor Evil, Right nor Wrong' in its absolute form of truth.
@@godzillazfriction okay but like killing people in their homes is generally considered morally wrong and thus evil. You can talk about if evil exists, but you know darn well exactly what people are really talking about.
It's overall funny to see where he started and where he is now. His early films were interesting, from what he wrote (Tromeo and Juliet as well as the Dawn of the Dead remake) or what he starred in (The Toxic Avenger Part 4) then what he directed (Slither).
Let it be clear to the people in the back, DON’T harass the actor that played Brendan. Make fun of the character not the person playing him… I wish we lived in an age where I could trust people to realize that.
@@vanndymaywho1910 Exactly. People who goes their way to harass the actors for playing a bad character doesn't know that the writer is responsible for the story and actors did their job to read the script. If people harass the kid who played Brendan without knowing the consequence of what happen to him in the future, then they learned absolutely nothing from what happened to Jake Lloyd and Ahmed Best. The audience aren't any better.
The most I heard about this movie is that it was basically if a child was an evil Superman and produced by James Gunn. While I don’t think the “evil Superman” trope is inherently bad, as Omni-Man and Homelander make use of it quite well due to the former subverting the trope while the latter is a parody of it, Brightburn’s main issue seems to be that it plays the trope completely straight and yet does it in a poorly executed and baffling way. Which’s why I’m not too surprised that it’s been forgotten since its inception
Not gonna lie even back then the fact Brightburn threatened a little girl in her own home to be his girlfriend after breaking her arm *never* sat right with me
@@Ryzard he was raised like a normal kid You'd expect creepy shit from Homelander because he doesn't have a moral compass and is raised like a lab rat without a mother nor father to teach Homelander like how Superman did but Brightburn had a nigh identical upbringing so it makes 0 sense for Brandon to be creepy like that
What annoys me about this movie is the premise is that it is a nature vs nurture plot that leans toward beliving nature matters more because he is inspired my species of parasitic wasps but his parents do literally everything wrong so that plot doesn't even work.
@@UsingGorillaLogic(you practically have the same comment post, regarding the 'nature vs nurture' comment that another guy posted... so here's my copied & pasted comment.) i feel like this video is inversely a 'The Boys is Kinda Terrible...' - by PointlessHub... the video mentioning 'Normality & Morality' are all superficial abstractions, that's been indoctrinated by the Modernistic Ideological, & Dogmatic set of values & beliefs; the thematic process of 'nature vs nurture' is all supposed to be intertwined via the progression of meaning, through being a higher-form of sentient life; a pre-pubescelent Human is supposed to represent all the faculties of the Human Essence, to which Blightburn inversely corresponds this very essence into being an 'Alien' in a shape of a 'Human' who's been raised as a 'Human' & takes on the essence to being a 'Human' via any means possible, which is inversely corresponded to his actual pure self, which is his Alien-hood but the same archetype is still there via Superman's existence, who was meant to serve as an allegory, for & against the 'Human' essence of nature, as well as inversely corresponding to what Clark actually is in its purest form of being an Alien, in a shape of a Human being, which makes it paradoxical by nature because of its symbolic & personified allegory, as a figurehead for a means of expression, & the action of truths about the generalizations of the Human Existence/Consciousness & the Essence of 'Human Nature'... the parents are not supposed to be this... pedestal-incarnation of what a 'Human' - is to serve as a Modernistic-Commentary, that renders in its superficiality, that some Humans like Superman's parents have indoctrinated their own Modernistic, & superficial standpoints onto Superman because of their own transpired vignette's, that they themselves by to an Alien, that they project onto an Alien in a shape of a Human, that's derived from the Modernistic-Commentary post WWI, which a year later WWII would transpire onto the world by 'Humanity'.
@@UsingGorillaLogic also, you can't determine what's 'Right nor Wrong' in its absolute form of truth... especially in context to what you're pointing out towards to in your conclusion, which is all superficial compared to that comment post, where it elaborated the 'nature vs nurture' argument much more coherently & the outlook of it... whereas yours just misconstrues a lot of things in simplifying your summarization of the thematic process; such as how believing nature can still be processed through 'nurture' from either ends of the main protagonist, which the thematic process of 'nature vs nurture' still inversely corresponds with each other throughout the movie. you're also minimizing a lot of the outlook onto the parents for doing 'literally everything wrong' as a blanket statement, which is just a Homunculus & a Ad Simplcitate fallacy outlook.
@@godzillazfriction using all the big words you find in a dictionary 50 times in a row doesn't make you sound smart. You don't even discuss the actions the parent's take in the movie (the dad attempts to kill his son which sets Brandon on a rampage, his mom excuses his bad behavior the whole movie and tries to stab him in the back at the end instead of pathos which was working.) You can pretty that up as "subjective actions cast as 'bad' by objective dogmatic moralization" all you want, but op was right: this movie presents the question of nature vs nurture and it sides with nature, when really the answer is nurture or even both if we take the parasite stuff at face value.
@@howardyates4848 so you start of with a Tu Quoque fallacy, in the name of Personal Incredulity because you can't dissect any point of my argument, & just baselessly summarize my lexigraphy's as 'big words so u can seem smarrrrttt' - off to a great start... im responding to a guy making a blanket statement of what 'everything wrong' the parents supposedly did, im waiting for him to elaborate on that & that was never the focal point of my argument, so you're just strawmanning my argument to fit yours because it's easier for a 'one-upped' response against me... i wonder when you'll ask me to elaborate on how there's no such thing as 'right nor wrong' - because there's reasons that can't be determined as 'right nor wrong' in its absolute form of truth within existence, especially Humanity... which with the point given, there's 'reasons' as to why the parents do the things that you're vaguely, but broadly mentioning against the parents for... i gotta love how you strawmanned my statement to fit your own rebuttal of what it apparently was, it's like when you remake something but strip all it's essence away because you thought you could do it better. your case of the OP being 'right' is not even the focal conclusion of what you concluded as his point of how it's actually 'nurture' or both; i was the one that made that point to which you misconstrued the OP, & made a blanket statement regarding what the movie sets out to with its thematic process... even though I was the one that argued for it in an analytical manner, in response to OP... quit the internet.
Homelander is petty, Brandon Bryer is a crazy child and Omni-Man’s actually scary but also a decent & consistent character. The closest we ever got to an EVIL Superman in the literal sense is Injustice.
You can also mention that Tighten from _Megamind_ fits the the evil Superman category. He used his heroism for his own personal gain and took advantage of Metro City under new management, and all because he wanted to give impression for Roxanne, which the rejection from her leads to his villain arc.
The irony is how there's General Zod Another purebred Kryptonian, with all the same powers as Superman, but evil, and actually knows how to fight And Bizarro See? DC's Earth 1 actually had two canonically evil Supermen before Reign of the Supermen, and everyone keeps forgetting about them
granted ZOd is like not actually superman and his own distinct character and is more "superman COULD be like this guy if he was a fascist dictator" and Bizarro is a twisted clone and is rarely portrayed as 'evil' and more 'stupid and working on a literal twisted morality due to being superman's weird clone"
People forgetting General Zod is especially bizarre because most of evil Superman stories talk about authoritarianism and explore fascistic thinking ..... everything that General Zod already does by just existing.
James Gunn being promoted as heavily involved in Brightburn isn't really even Nepotism. His own brother and cousin felt like their movie wouldn't be a success (because it sucks) so they did everything they could to make James out to be the creative brains behind it.
It’s not him being promoted that’s the nepotism, it’s the producing. James Gunn produced this movie and funded it so much (and presumably got others to help fund it to this level) because his brother and cousin were the writers. If they weren’t related to him this script wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near the budget it did.
@@connor4435I’d go as far as to say it probably wouldn’t have gotten greenlit or picked up by a studio. I mean yeah, superhero movies were really big when this came out but it’s painfully obvious this movie got to where it was because of one guy who was already involved with the genre
The funniest thing about brightburn is that when the movie came out, they tried to deny the Superman influence by acting like they didn’t know about the character. You know, the character that has existed for over 100 years, influencing the entire genre of superheroes, the character that has the EXACT SAME ORIGIN AS BRIGHTBURN 🤦🤦
The marketing for the film made as many allusions to Superman as possible. I don't know who said that but I had no idea that they denied that (I don't even know if that's true or not). The trailers were very on the nose.
_Brightburn_ is the result of what happened when Henry Evans from _The Good Son_ obtained Superman's powers with the sprinkle of _Insidious_ atmosphere. The idea of superhero horror sounds like a neat and fun concept on paper, and there are characters like Ghost Rider, Constantine, Blade, or even Batman himself fits the bill to the genre than this film would ever be.
I just hate the reason he became evil. He is evil cause he was told too by some aliens signals or something very weak reason ngl. Just a dumb switchup from a good well raised kid to a murderer
I think everything wrong with edgy , evil superheroes can be countered with a quote from Superman himself: “Dreams save us. Dreams lift us up and transform us into something better. And in my soul, I swear that until my dream of a world where dignity, honor, and justice are the reality we all share, I’ll never stop fighting.”
13:48 "It's not our parents & homes that prove who we are, it's what we do when they can't guide us" That genuinely is actually a really fuckin good quote to go by in life.
@@johnlawful2272 You are going to be influenced by it, and you definitely may continue some patterns, but it's also undeniable that you will deviate at least to some extent. No human has ever been identical to their parent. Everyone is also influenced by the outside, and even if you are cut off, you still lack the context of the experiences that made your parents who they are. You merely interact with the result. All this to say, you are still a different person and will act differently when you are left to make decisions on your own.
Ah… Brightburn. A terrible example of superhero horror. I want to mention that James Gunn previously wrote and directed the film, Super which is a dark comedy and I’d genuinely recommend to give it a watch. Cause I can’t help but imagine that if he really made this film, it’d be a spiritual successor to that film instead of a horror movie. Honestly I’d be more interested in a *supervillain* horror movie. Like a version of Lex Luthor whose hatred of Superman drives him to do things that horrify even his fellow supervillains.
If you want some examples of good superhorror, I recommend you check out The Absolute Nixonverse, Grant Morrison's Animal Man comics (though that one is more of a meta, fourth wall breaking horror story. I haven't read it yet, but it sounds awesome and my kind of thing), the short film "The Flying Man," and Split (though I assume you've already seen it).
@@troin3925 I would also like to add Chronicle to that list. Hell, if we’re going by the “must have superpowers” definition of superhorror, it should be required by international law to have Carrie be the first mention in that conversation.
@@RubyCarrots3232 Never seen the movie, but from I can tell. The ending doesn't lie, Brandon is a bitch. He seems to on occasion struggle with normal humans, let alone another super or even a Lex Luthor that figures out what his weakness is. Homelander plays jump rope with his intestines is what I'm saying.
Dragon Ball Z was inspired by Superman in that sense, Toriyama was clearly already thinking about Superman by the time he gave Goku his Superman-esque origin story as he had a parody character Suppaman ("Pickled Plum Man", think how Superman is called "Soup" in parody circles) in his other comics.
Why is the bright burn symbol the same brand as the one from berserk. There’s a chance they had no idea but that symbol has to pretty well known. Which means not even the symbol of the movie is original.
Brightburn follows the idea that being realistic is "things go wrong, i got powers so i gotta rule over the weak", wich no, being realistic is being evil but realizing you are. Omniman comes from a conqueror race but after having a family and seeing how humans are social beings through mark he realizes that what he is doing is extremely fucked up. even HOMELANDER, raised and tortured in a lab, in some scenes you can see that while being an asshole killer, he still has at least a very tiny bit of a human side (that he is trying to get rid of). Brightburn is just "mhm after years of being raised in a loving family im suddenly evil because alien puberty i guess"
Plus trauma can increase psychopothy in children, and he could've had sleeper dna, just like kryptonians personally choosing traits of their future offspring through advanced science.
@@locustking6433 That's the problem, we don't know whether he have any trauma at all and the scene that they show us pointed towards he is having a perfect childhood.
@@irvanray1898 and maybe he was pretending to be a happy child until he found out he was abnormally superior to everyone else, plus the purpose his original species burned into his brain.maybe he would’ve been a benevolent ruler if he didn’t find out his perfect childhood was based on some lies.
You forgot to mention the end credit scene where they try to set up a horror Justice League with an evil Wonder Woman and evil Aquaman, and also involved the Crimson Bolt from James Gunns first superhero movie Super.
same i legit thought it was just "ghostface BUT HE'S A MIDDLE SCHOOLER OOOOH AHHHH" so this is my first exposure to the actual plot (physically couldnt give less of a shit to actually watch it)
I mean with the “bring a wasp” thing, it could’ve worked at least somewhat by having a lot more of the movie focus on his childhood. Do actual foreshadowing, show him acting like a sociopath like Homelander despite his good parents, where even without powers he found ways to hurt people and things, instead of having him be good until The Voices. Basically build up a sociopath, then give that sociopath super powers to add that horror factor. Is it good? No. Could it work better? I’d say it could.
Hell, not even that. Show the side of Brandon that desperately doesn't want to be doing all of this and wants to go back to having a good and loving family trying to fight back from the programming or whatever, make it exceedingly clear that the actual child doesn't want this, and you have a great plot for an existential horror. Imagine watching yourself killing everyone you love from a first person perspective and not being able to stop it.
TV Tropes insists that what makes Brendan scary is that he's evil by nature, triggered by programming from his pod that makes whatever upbringing he had irrelevant. Doesn't matter if you give your alien stepchild love and affection, he could become evil because nebulous star people activated his evil side Manchurian Candidate style. Sigh, I'll let you decide if this is Lovecraftian "unknowable evil" writing or just plain hack writing.
Brightburn is basically how people think Goku or “Kakarot” would be if he didn’t hit his head. Everyone thinks Goku would automatically be a villain because he didn’t loose his memories when Vegeta proves no Saiyans aren’t evil by nature they just choose to be and their personalities are independent lol
This movie wasn’t scary. It was just disgusting. That seems to be a trend with current horror movies is that their idea of “scary” is just extreme gore. You’re right about Homelander. Because what makes him scary isn’t what he can do. It’s that you never know if you’re going to get “charismatic public eye” homelander or if he’s going to just do everything he did to the scientist homelander. It’s the idea that you don’t know. With brightburn you already know he’s going to do it because it’s like a slasher movie. Some person acts like a jerk and then they die. I was surprised that the uncle who seemed nice suddenly turned into a drunk a-hole just so he could die.
@@danielramsey6141Brandon is like 12. He appeared. Was an asshole. And then that was it. I mean do all american uncles turn into a jerk on the dime? It feels like he literally just appeared to be aggressive.
She is also more sympathetic and understanding than Brightburn because she was abused and bullied as a teen by a fanatical mother and psychopathic classmates.
@@benito9830 you guys are still too subjected by Modernistic Ideological, & Dogmatic set of values & beliefs... & if following by that standpoint that I've just mentioned above... yes you can be an 'Evil Superhero' - take the Etymology of what a 'Hero' is in essence, that derived from Ancient Greece; take Kratos for example, he'd be a 'Hero' for Sparta, despite what he does in the name of Ares... but if you want to counter-argue that with me utilizing a definist-fallacy, then you can take a look onto Iron Man from the comics, & i dont have to explain how Iron Man is from the comics... or you can take inversed Lexigraphy's of the dichotomy of 'Hero & Villain' - such as Anti-Hero & Anti-Villain. you guys really need to step-fourth & not be bounded by what I've just mentioned from the former paragraph of this comment... there's no such thing as the abstraction of certain concepts/dichotomy's, such as 'Good & Evil, Right & Wrong, Hero & Villain' - ( & Morality, Normality etc. but this is just a subset to Modernism...) also, from the latter of this comment - 'perspective' matters a lot within the superficiality of 'Hero & Villain'.
That's why the terms anti-hero and anti- villain exist for said grey areas Because doing something "evil" doesn't inherently make one a villain, it depends on the ends and the means.
@@benito9830The proof that you didn't read is that you completely proved their point. They never said it wasnt about modern ideologies, but that your view points on said ideologies are too subjective, or to simplify too narrow when you make them into a category of black or white.
One film I think did the concept of "young human learning what to do with their inhuman abilities" was Chronicle. Young teens first messing around with the super human level powers and seeing how a rough childhood can turn someone into a villain- makes for a really interesting film! Plus the found footage style makes for some really interesting shots displaying their powers.
especially because you see that the ther characters try to help him, they truly care for him, but he lashes out, takes things too far and reachesa point where he can't go back. He wasn't a bad person, he just put himself in a corner and only saw one way out.
Superman deserves more respect because it sucks that the only way Superman is supposedly likable in the modern era is to overuse the evil Superman trope and downplay him to prop up Batman or making him come off as like he's not smart, no wonder Smallville is considered one of the best Superman stories because in that show Superman is shown at his best and his worst while still being likable and relatable while being power scaled to be the strongest live action Superman without the outdated excuse that he's overpowered and boring from ignorant DC fans, we can get several live action Superman actors but not *ONE* good Superman game
I feel like a difference between Omni Man and brightburn is that though both were sent to Earth to conquer and possibly destroy, Omni Man is shown to have been put through the trials, hell most of his population was wiped out and all that remained were the ones strong enough to be chosen, meanwhile Brightburn was bred as a weapon, his origins are never explained beyond "He was sent as a weapon by a powerful force" so it's like we're following the story of a gun, of course by the end he wasn't going to change, it's literally in his DNA to be evil. Omni Man however was just taught to be evil. Which is why it makes sense he only considers the consequences of his actions when Mark stops him, because his non-Viltrumite love he built over the years finally shows, whilst Brightburn does all of this because he's a pre-pubescent kid, he turns evil cause he's pissed off, he doesn't care about his family, and realistically just saw them as future obstacles.
And I don't think his "sudden turn to evil" is all that unexplainable, either Let's extrapolate and say that he was begin bullied for being a nerd his entire life and not just in that one scene, so he's probably more prone to being resentful towards his peers His parents are good to him, but they also don't really do anything to alleviate the issue of his bullying and ostracization It's less "Superman but evil" and more "Superman but school shooter", but instead of a gun and internet radicalization, it's laser eyes and a space artifact telling you you're meant to conquer the planet I imagine if his social life was normal, he would've just become Superman, if the ship didn't rewrite his psychology on top of him already being resentful
@@Hegataroyeah , but he wasn't mind controlled or anything But are you telling me that a 12 yr old kid that was raised well decided to kill innocent people cause he was bullied Very weak ngl
@@pbsuite Why do school shootings happen? In a situation where people will go up against a kid and they're left powerless, it's terrifying for a child, kids have tried to keep guns on them because they feel threatened, Brightburn presumably was bullied a lot, and as seen through the movie was ostracized by his peers, he's accused of being a perv by a girl and when he breaks her arm, her parents call him a monster, he's quite literally doing this because he just wants to kill, just like a kid would want to kill it's classmates, it's psychologically heart breaking in a way, and when your have such powerful abilities, along with the obvious sign that you're above anything on Earth, there's only one real answer.
They should've made him like Seymour from little shop. Apprehensive at first, but slowly over the course of the movie growing more and more desensitized to it. Just make him kill one person in self defense, and then another, *and another.*
What about a superman who becomes incredibly overworked due to a misplaced sense of dedication and gradually becomes more cruel and unforgiving. He doesnt have time for friends, family, gives up on his secret identity and becomes an enemy of other heroes later down the line.
That's kind of the setup for Irredeemable The Plutonian, the comic's Superman, is an extremely successful superhero, who, after one mistake, reaches a breaking point as a result of the public's reaction to it
And that game came out 4 years before the movie release! So the movie is uncreative I can even try to make an interesting creepy hero episode better than that!
Replying at 12:03 just to add on, um, Wasps are also pollinators, yeah, they can be aggressive, but so can some species of bees. So fuck you movie, bad analogy.
I feel like metroman will always be a top superman parody, because instead of completely redefining the character, they just go "what if instead of hard working blue collar country folk, superman was raised by a rich couple and never got those lessons about hard work and putting others first".
He also stands out cause he's one of if not the only instance, of a Superman satire that isn't inherently evil. He's egotistical & selfish, but he isn't a bad guy. He's just jaded & apathetic of his situation, stuck in the status quo merry go round of fighting Megamind & saving the girl. Metro Man, like some versions of Clark, never wanted the job but stood to the occassion. It was only the attention & adoration he kept coming back for. When his mid-life crisis happened, that's when he finally broke, deciding to find his actual passion in life.
My favorite Evil Superman is injustice. It doesn’t just come out of nowhere, he gets his entire life uprooted due to being fooled, he accidentally caused the murder of innocent people and people he deeply cared about. I completely understand why he snapped, plus he’s got Wonder Woman as the devil on his shoulder telling him to do worse and worse things to keep power and thus peace. He wasn’t just sad or grieving he felt guilt and thought he had to do something. He went about it in a terrible way, but he’s still somewhat sympathetic. I still root for his downfall but he is very human in how he falls from grace
Anyone else find it odd to have Wonder Woman being that devil on his shoulder? Yeah, her culture is removed from modern ones, but it doesn't make sense how it was done.
I truly do wish there was more investment put into BrightBurn. The ending seemed to be leading up to a live action version of the Injustice League, and I would've been all for it.
Including the guy from Super for no reason other than to maybe get a James Gunn connection. Might as well have made a movie with those characters fighting the long one out of their own self interest, then another film in Tromaville. Big studios would never make something so peak though.
More investment, and the courage of their conviction. A Superman-as-slasher story should've put Invincible-versus-Omniman to shame with advanced levels of gore.
This could've been a good movie. If it wasn't a direct copy of the Superman origin story. It could've been a story where Brandon sees the horrible side of humans. Which leads him towards world domination. They could've shown his own adopted parents getting killed, which led him to his path of destruction.
Direct copy? It's SUPPOSED to parallel Superman's origin story. His name is an alliteration, he wears blue and red, etc and then the plane scene at the end is supposed to mirror his own crash landing except this time it's to show the care he received will not be reciprocated.
To this day, my dad and I insist that this was the worst movie we've ever seen in theaters, and I think that's a testament to how let down we were. There was so much potential for something good here, but it just turned into a generic "the bad guy wins" horror movie with very little redeemable about it.
Here's how i would have done brightburn Have him weep and cry and say sorry like he does in the film. Have shots where we see him break down after a successful hunt. Maybe during the final scene where he drops his Mom, he hugs her like he's saying goodbye, not a hug to crush, but a hug to love, then drop.
I'm indifferent to Brightburn, but overall I've grown really tired if the "Evil Superman Trope." Its been used so many times in media, especially recently, that its so overplayed.
Even if his race were inherently violent and evil, you could have him turn out like Goku since the Saiyans are a species with fighting in their blood. Sure a thunk on the head to calm him down a bit wasn't the greatest thing, but then raised with morals, he still likes to fight but cares for his friends and allies. Even the inverse could've been more interesting.
Red Son Superman wasn’t evil, just more militaristic He was still innately good natured and well meaning The moment he realized he was taking away free will he realized he was in the wrong
it is always so funny to me how we keep pushing for characters like batman, superman, captain america, venom, etc. to be like pure evil destructive monsters for the sake of "le subversion" when these guys have always had villains in their base universes that literally serve the exact purpose to illustrate mirrored evil versions of them. General Zod, Lex Luthor, Knull and Carnage, Bane, two-face, John Walker's Captain America, etc. but people never try using them and always just make these good guys (even if Venom started out a bad guy) into mindless destructive gods for the sake of making shallow pretentious jabs at the superhero genre that really serve no purpose or to just add cheap marketability to your story.
"that one unstable violent captain america that succeeded Rogers" John Walker? Also is Lex supposed to be mirror of Superman? And Bane and Two-Face for Batman?
Hell, even their attempt to try and use John Walker recently was a huge screw up since they made him less 'violent and unstable' and more 'PTSD victim struggling to live up to his predecessor', from what I heard. Even when they DO use them, they can't do it right, apparently.
I would love to see that! Similar to that episode of teen titans where Robin is “haunted” by slade Where you can see the visions of slade but you can’t fight him!
@@ogfortify7674 blood n guts won't save a plot where jokes remove tension, still loved that episode, but fuck the out of place humor. I get it for peter, but the rest? Christ
@@smugjug3 yeah I wasn't a fan of that either. It had its moments but it felt kinda neutered by the humor and overall tone as well as it only being one 30 minute episode. Hopefully with the higher rating and full series they can tell a more mature and interesting story.
Omni man and homelander are the best examples for evil superman One is the alien aspect of conqueror that people will be afraid of beings like superman The other is a human with the abilities of a god, but was never treated like a human. Both of them are not just carbon copy of superman with the same backstory of superman, but individuals whose backstory shows why they are the way they are
This film in retrospect seems SUPER similar to Antlers. The difference is that Antlers has a theme while this film has what would be considered cheap novelty 10 years ago.
I really think there's a way to do superhorror well, but this movie didn't do anything with it. It doesn't even need to be an "evil superman" story either, it can be any number of ideas. Like Grant Morrison's Animal Man comics which devolve into 4th wall breaking meta horror, the short film "The Flying Man" which portrays an anti-hero as a mysterious figure from an outsider's perspective who murders criminals with no backstory (though that short is more of a thriller than a horror), or The Nixonverse which does a number of things, including its own take on an evil Superman where that universe' version of Superman wasn't evil, he was a genuinely good person who saved lives during the Korean War alongside an anti-hero who was essentially Batman but with Superman's powers, to the point of even preventing him from going too far with hurting people, but was eventually used for nefarious purposes against his will (like the gov't mind controlling him to use him as a weapon in the Vietnam Way, and later, after escaping, becoming a false prophesized, eldritch king by a Lunarian Queen who takes over the Earth in bizarre and terrifying ways that don't involve blowing things up. Even after the alien invasion was stopped by the Batman expy, he was weeping and wanted to die but couldn't).
@gamergod98l86 evil in the sense he’s causing destruction and being a menace. Though I guess he isn’t truly evil and does somewhat believe he’s doing good
The only scene that was kinda fear inducing was the one, were the father tried shooting him, cus you realize how screwed he is and that this unstoppable force of nature is going to absolutely kill him.
"Superpowered Boy is evil because alien genes" is the most pointless, tedious storyline I've ever heard of. I'm bored just thinking about it. Thank God I never made the mistake of trying to watch it.
They tried so hard to make a Superman deconstruction movie, that the Gunn bros. somehow made Brightburn into a shitty Saiyan! Seriously, this is what Goku originally was supposed to be; he was sent to Earth as a child in order to subjugate, and eventually destroy, the inhabitants of Earth. THAT'S how uninspired they were.
I meaaaaaan I'm kind of open to that idea of an "evil superman" whose villainy comes not from poor upbringing, but from some sort of dark influence connected to his alien origin. The notion of a mysterious race of planet-conquering "wasp" aliens who sort of "activate" their drones at a certain point is honestly pretty unsettling for me, and could have been used much better in the film. Like if we got to see his struggle between his good nature and love for his family vs the control of the ship and his alien origin, and how it's his alien half that ultimately wins. I don't think that's inherently lazy or uninteresting, personally. And the fact that it *isn't* his choice and *outside* of his control makes it more unsettling to me, too. Sort of a cosmic horror type beat, almost Basically, I feel like you're trying to fit "evil supermen" characters into too specific of a hole when I think there's plenty of room for creative exploration and changes. If all evil supermen could be were just "ppl who were raised wrong/the dark side of humanity," then that would be incredibly boring and repetitive (more than it already is). Brightburn didn't execute these ideas as well as it could have, but I don't think the ideas themselves were inherently bad, at least for some of them
Man, it gets pretty bad when you reach for Nature vs Nurture. Like, this is steps beyond even the Megamind one where he's evil because Nice Guy Syndrome, and that was still a GOOD example of this done right.
People gravitate towards "Superman but evil" because Superman is such an archetypical representation of good, so it's easy to just go "what if same powers but BAD" It would be just as easy to make an evil Spider-Man, considering how many people are afraid of spiders, but Spider-Man's powerset isn't anywhere as world ending as Superman's, so it isn't as easy You could do evil Batman, but then you're kind of just turning him into one of his villains- you could however do "Batman but evil" and have it be just a regular batman comic from the perspective of the criminals where nothing is actually different
One thing that came with the evil Superman trend that I really don't like is the mindset that a good Superman can't exist in a more "realistic setting", but I'm sure if that's directly from the trend or just cynical interpretations from the Internet
Maybe it's my own beliefs and bias talking but I do think in a realistic setting, a good Superman can't exist. However, when I say that I don't mean in a lazy "Superman but evil" way. I mean it in a "Power corrupts way.". In my opinion a realistic "evil superman" would be someone who genuinely wants to do good and genuinely wants to make the world a better place, maybe even start out as being like the actual Superman. However over time they can relate less and less to the struggles of everyday people to the point where they become misguided and delusional, doing awful things for the "Better world". Kind of like Light Yagami in a way.
@@Zulk_RS if you’ve heard the saying about testing someone's character by giving them power, that’s what I’m referring to. It’s not that it turns good people bad, it’s that it enables people who were already bad to enforce their will on others.
What makes Superman work is that he doesn't live in reality. He lives in a world where everyone is either good or evil. As the ultimate symbol of good, Superman is what we should all strive to be, essentially a new version of a Greek God and modern day folklore. Turning him evil misses the point of his character and says more about the writers than anything about society.
The only place I see any mention of Brightburn is on tiktok for only comparing him to Homelander, This movie's existence is to be used for powerscalers
I don't think he is supposed to be Superman as a normal person sees him. I saw this movie as how Lex Luthor or Amanda Waller or Batfleck sees Superman. I thought the movie was enjoyable. Also everyone go watch Super by James Gunn
i barely count it as an evil superman movie. to me it's a product of it's time, banking on the period it came out in (superhero/cinematic universe obsession arc of humanity) that wanted to focus on the horrors of unchecked superpowers and that alone. i've never thought to put it in the same category as 'evil superman'.
Yeah, I think that's generally because batman's a smaller scale hero to be fair. In your average batman story he's pretty strong I guess but he can't even entiely keep Gotham clean, whereas if superman went evil then even in his weaker interpretations he could destroy half the world
i think the evil superman concept simply does not work for a horror movie, especially a slasher type one. For the evil superman concept to work, the ‘evil superman’ has to be nuanced and an actual character otherwise its just a one dimensional movie that heavily relies on subversion (despite the trope being done many times before and far better). I could see bright burn, if done well, being pitched as a TV series. id love to see an evil superman horror tv show. Like the boys but it goes full horror with a vibe similar to the chucky tv series & maybe yellowjackets which lowkey a bad example but yeah
I honestly thought the movie was gonna go the Evil Superman but as a result of his powers corrupting him gradually, like he chooses to be evil since he's a kid given insane power. Or they could've kept the Ship trying to influence him but Brandon initially resists because he was raised to be better, but gradually the voice and other problems in his day to day life cause him to use his powers more and more violently, until finally something happens that causes him to snap and give into the evil. Instead he starts out nice but some ship just makes him evil
I think evil Batman is a genuinely interesting concept worth exploring. A rich and mentally disturbed guy who uses his bottomless bank account to commit crimes motivated by his past trauma. Mark Millar's Nemesis kinda did this concept well, even though the story is incredibly edgy. I still thought it was pretty fun
Tek Knight in The Boys show Even though he's a shitty adaptation of the character from the comic, who wasn't evil and just a freak due to a tumor in his brain and is also more of a Iron man & Batman mix
@@piretiris8223 , I personally view Ariel as a naive teenager whereas Rubby Gillman is a wholesome teen that cares deeply about her friends and family.
The concept of an alien species that is like a wasp or a mockingbird where they just drop off their kids to let other people raise them is an intresting concept
If they wanted Brandon to be inherently evil but raised by loving parents, just have the kid CONSTANTLY at war with himself. First he kills one of his bullies completely by accident when he just snaps and loses his temper, and he's shocked and horrified at what he did, and it leads him down a dark rabbithole of being afraid of himself, trying to fight the voice in his head, accidentally hurting more and more people around him as he loses himself to the inner nature...
The worst part is you would have to change very little about the setup for Brightburn to work as an analogue for egocentric/problematic masculinity. There's a scene where the dad tells the son to just go for what he wants; he deserves to be happy, and that kind of stuff, and the parents are always enforcing his behavior because they aren't aware that he's going evil, so if you literally just, 1) Took out the alien spaceship mind control, and 2) gave more direct examples of how empty platitudes and thoughtless encouragement can send the wrong messages to a child, and bam, you've got a slightly better movie; by doing less ironically. It also feels sometimes like they were trying to dodge a hard R, maybe even trying to slide into a PG-13, but couldn't commit to either, so there's not even enough gore for a it to just be a good slasher flick with an alternative villain setup. More gore + make it about the perils of not paying attention to your kid + the subtle invocation of egocentric masculinity = An actually decent movie.
Even Injustice Superman is avenging the Joker's murder of his family and hometown. Brightburn kills his family and hometown because his spaceship brainwashed him from birth to conquer Earth.
I like Irredeemable for Plutonian's character arc of being scared and confused and desperate and ultimately just wanting to go back to how things used to be. But his whole life has been a cascade of mistakes and their far-reaching consequences with no real guiding figures to help him get a handle on things, and so he just keeps lashing out and making things worse even against people who genuinely only want to help. And then there's Incorruptible, the companion comic about Plutonian's archnemesis Max Damage. Max is so shocked by Plutonian's actions that he decides to step up and become a hero just so the world makes sense again. Unlike Tony, he's already used to people hating and fearing him, and although his rigid black-and-white view of morality causes problems more often than not, he's ultimately able to become a beacon of hope in the midst of all the chaos. It's a really fun and interesting dichotomy that explores two different sides of the "Evil Superman" concept in fairly unique ways, which I'm afraid an adaptation wouldn't really be able to do proper justice.
@@Somerandomguy75812 Hopefully not unfixable, but it did cause lasting damage. My Adventures With Superman is helping, but that is after quite a long time.
The found footage superhero movie Chronicle also does this really well. One of the boys who gets powers slowly becomes evil over the course of the film.
Hot take: Omni Man isn’t a Superman bad stand in, he’s a Zodd Good stand in
God I'm so happy im not the only one who thinks this
Ironically, Invincible is a better Superman than his own father ever was.
It took years to finally see someone who thinks the same way.
@@lonewanderer3219 they always be putting Omni man as evil superman if thats the case vegeta is just evil superman.
And to an last degree homelander isn't much evil superman. Sure they have the same powers. Their backstory is different which affects the story and the Narrative. Superman whould be as much as an broken mess if he experienced the same pain and grooming as homelander
I feel like Brightburn could have left a stronger impact by really delving into the nature vs nurture aspect. Like Brandon being someone who's similar to the Iron Giant where he was made for destruction but desperately wants to be more than that. While the Iron Giant learns to not become a weapon, Brandon doesn't get that luxury thanks to his parents and everyone around him fearing and pushing him closer to embracing the role he was born into.
That would have been a better interpretation
Hard agree
i feel like this video is inversely a 'The Boys is Kinda Terrible...' - by PointlessHub...
the video mentioning 'Normality & Morality' are all superficial abstractions, that's been indoctrinated by the Modernistic Ideological, & Dogmatic set of values & beliefs; the thematic process of 'nature vs nurture' is all supposed to be intertwined via the progression of meaning, through being a higher-form of sentient life; a pre-pubescelent Human is supposed to represent all the faculties of the Human Essence, to which Blightburn inversely corresponds this very essence into being an 'Alien' in a shape of a 'Human' who's been raised as a 'Human' & takes on the essence to being a 'Human' via any means possible, which is inversely corresponded to his actual pure self, which is his Alien-hood but the same archetype is still there via Superman's existence, who was meant to serve as an allegory, for & against the 'Human' essence of nature, as well as inversely corresponding to what Clark actually is in its purest form of being an Alien, in a shape of a Human being, which makes it paradoxical by nature because of its symbolic & personified allegory, as a figurehead for a means of expression, & the action of truths about the generalizations of the Human Existence/Consciousness & the Essence of 'Human Nature'...
the parents are not supposed to be this... pedestal-incarnation of what a 'Human' - is to serve as a Modernistic-Commentary, that renders in its superficiality, that some Humans like Superman's parents have indoctrinated their own Modernistic, & superficial standpoints onto Superman because of their own transpired vignette's, that they themselves by to an Alien, that they project onto an Alien in a shape of a Human, that's derived from the Modernistic-Commentary post WWI, which a year later WWII would transpire onto the world by 'Humanity'.
bruh... my comment got malfunctioned.
And maybe have some goodness he learned seep into how he acts. He doesn't just turn people into jelly because, at some minute level, he still thinks people can do good, and that if given the choice they'll choose to do good over abandoning others to save themselves
Brightburn: "Fighting is in your genetics. Kill your family."
Goku: "But I like my family."
the alien genes are strong, but getting dropped on accidnet against the fucking ground is stronger
Imagine that goku just slaps Brightburn/Brandon in the face out of discipline.
@@NickolasAEtzeljust sprays him with water like a naughty cat
Funny enough, Goku actually did kill his family.
He killed Gohan the Elder when he transformed as a kid and he helped kill Raddits, his only brother. He then proceeded to NOT subjugate any planets or populations and surround himself with a whole new set of friends and family. Some of them even being former rivals and villains who wanted to kill him such as Krillin, Piccolo, Tien, and Vegeta. That is literally something Pa Kent would have told him to do: make your enemy a friend.
Can he beat goku though?
i think a evil flash trope would be actually scary/unsettling, like just imagine if you had to deal with a serial killer who you cant even see.
Isn't that the plot of The flash show?
Catching evil flash
@@FrancisR420 only season 1. shit gets BONKERS after season 2 and i say the second nora allen gets introduced to stop watching and say the show ended
reverse flash:
Reverse flash,savatar take your pick
This would be awesomee plus you can't run from the killer either
Omniman is the best of the evil Superman trope because he's not the main focus of the story. Mark gets the regular Superman/boy treatment and also sees how bad it can be when abusing your powers goes too far.
Omniman and Mark seem to be both aspects of Superman, his omnipotence and his empathy, split into two characters. And it seems to work.
And also Mark is pretty much Spider-man by design, a flawed somewhat assholish teen who does fuck up due to ego.
I also feel like Omniman has alot of General Zod in his character. His mission was to concure Earth after all, which isn't too dissimilar to Zod's goals in most stories he's in. The only real difference is Zod is more interested in rebuilding while Omniman is there to expand an already existing empire.
@@jackdaone6469so like Black Kryptonite?
J Jonah Jameson becoming superman is the greatest idea comics have ever had
And then having Spiderman vanish so he would go crazy and become evil is just the icing on one cake
Im sick of evil supermen. I want a superman that sits on clouds and looks down at the earth like a guardian angel and ponders about how amazing this blue little planet is and how grateful he is to grow up amongst such an adaptable and talented species… that’s what I want
Exactly my favorite Superman panel is him floating in space staring at earth and saying I Love You
This has honestly been why I’ve been enjoying My Adventures with Superman. Even if Clark is new to the role, that feeling of optimism underneath of everything has been so refreshing to see
Thank God it seems like that's making a comeback with My Adventures with Superman and James Gunn's Superman film.
Normalize being good again
Then check out my adventures with Superman. It’s a return to form for the character.
Brightburn had potential but felt like there wasn't any substance in it
If it’d had gotten a sequel, maybe they could have made something interesting
and since then so many better 'evil superman' came out
@@ragnaricstudios5888the ending hinted to an evil Wonder Woman that seemed to be a witch instead of an amazon. And an evil Aquaman too, i wish we could had seen what they were planing on doing with them.
It definitely exists. I have a TTRPG that is What is Superman... but he was a massive asshole?" I will make you a hero by having Slayer T Dragonlord get cancer healed by your parent's blood so you have reason to go end him and become a hero.
It's really fun. Often you just get monkey-pawed into saving your town destroyed because you had the desire to save it. So it's not really even your fault. Superman is just a jackass that knows all the villains are and so he makes them attack your hometown. It's fun
@@despinasgarden.4100 wow i wouldve loved to see how they fucked them up
I tell myself they made it this way to make him a tragic sleeper agent who lost his will/personality upon first time being awakened. But that is obviously giving the directors too much credit. I think they just wanted to fall on sleeper agent to not have to organically make Brightburn descend but rather immediately forced out of laziness.
I feel like a more tragic take on the sleeper agent concept would be cooler. Watching him struggle with the learned desire to be good and kind with the mental programming to destroy, and maybe you frame it as some fucked-up metaphor for growing up and puberty. Slowly entering into adulthood and being given the choice, for the first time, what kind of person you want to be. In this case, the answer to that choice is, "the worst kind."
It's a neat concept bogged down by lazy writing and poor storytelling
@@ianbyrne465we already got that story done well. Iron giant.
@@destructocat1960 true, but I think someone else brought up the idea of how the people around him respond. Being fearful and pushing him away once these powers and more dangerous tendencies start to show themselves.
yeah, and it raised the question of “why was he a sleeper agent designed to specifically be Evil Superman?” because that’s what it felt like. Like the kid or the ship or whatever knew about Superman, and was intentionally doing Superman things, only evil.
Mask slaps tho. Cool mask, very spookums. Dumb movie.
The “sleeper agent” concept would’ve been cool if there was more depth to it. Imagine this, Brightburn is an alien from another planet like Superman, but here’s the twist, whatever Brandon/Brightburn is he’s not the dominant creature on his planet. Instead, the people of his planet were conquered by something worse. Say a race of conquerors reminiscent to Darkseid or maybe Doomsday, and what they do to Brandon’s race is enslave and breed them as weapons that they send to other planets to conquer. And like the Viltrumites, they only have to send one to do so. And the only way to make them go berserk is to reunite with their ships, hence activating the sleeper agent programming, making way for his alien masters. Boom! And what could’ve made things interesting is if Brandon tried fighting his programming until he ultimately defected, causing his masters to send in another “Kryptonian” like Brandon to finish the job that he couldn’t. This, putting his life, home, and family at risk
It’s funny how James Gunn went from producing a “Superman but evil” movie, to wanting to make a Superman film that returned to the core roots of the character and why people loved the character so much with the new upcoming Superman film.
I remember hearing that back in 2018, WB had approached him about writing and directing a new Superman film but turned it down in favor of The Suicide Squad because he didn’t have a clear vision of what that would look like and I’m half-convinced that he signed on to produce this movie as sort of a test of “what not to do with Superman” long before he eventually became the CEO of DC Studios
im so tired of this status quo, in a form of rhetoric of this superficial archetype, in regards to an 'eVeL' sUPerMan...
you can't determine what's 'Good nor Evil, Right nor Wrong' in its absolute form of truth.
@@godzillazfriction okay but like killing people in their homes is generally considered morally wrong and thus evil. You can talk about if evil exists, but you know darn well exactly what people are really talking about.
@@Ryzard eww... those Modernistic Lexigraphy's... just ewww...
ask me to elaborate instead of making blanket statements in a form of comment.
It's overall funny to see where he started and where he is now. His early films were interesting, from what he wrote (Tromeo and Juliet as well as the Dawn of the Dead remake) or what he starred in (The Toxic Avenger Part 4) then what he directed (Slither).
Brightburn was a movie that banked only on its concept and nothing else.
Also, his Brightburn logo looks like a shittier version of the Berserk brand.
I am glad I'm not the only person that saw that
Having seen Brightburn first, every time I see the brand from Berserk I wonder WTF Brightburn has to do with it.
i don't think the logo was intentional, he got the name Brightburn it's quite obvious it had to be something with BB in it.
@@flair541perhaps griffith is going at it again
The Brightburn logo pretty much screams Slenderman: The Eight Pages at this point.
Let it be clear to the people in the back, DON’T harass the actor that played Brendan. Make fun of the character not the person playing him… I wish we lived in an age where I could trust people to realize that.
You deserve Superman status IRL and "Starman" song should be your own theme, man. That's what he would do
@@argeltal_thewordbearerThere's a starman waiting in the sky
He'd like to come and meet us
But he thinks he'd blow our minds
Online Star Wars "fans":I'll ignore that
Exactly. I honestly think Jackson A. Dunn did around-about the best job he could given the material.
@@vanndymaywho1910 Exactly. People who goes their way to harass the actors for playing a bad character doesn't know that the writer is responsible for the story and actors did their job to read the script.
If people harass the kid who played Brendan without knowing the consequence of what happen to him in the future, then they learned absolutely nothing from what happened to Jake Lloyd and Ahmed Best. The audience aren't any better.
The most I heard about this movie is that it was basically if a child was an evil Superman and produced by James Gunn. While I don’t think the “evil Superman” trope is inherently bad, as Omni-Man and Homelander make use of it quite well due to the former subverting the trope while the latter is a parody of it, Brightburn’s main issue seems to be that it plays the trope completely straight and yet does it in a poorly executed and baffling way. Which’s why I’m not too surprised that it’s been forgotten since its inception
I only heard about this film through this RUclipsr and My Adventures with Superman, but otherwise I would've never heard of this film.
Meanwhile, Captain Hero from Drawn Together is a complete psycho path and hella freaky (but everyone on that show is freaky)
@@Cubeytheawesome Drawn Together ages better than it should and it's worrying.
Not gonna lie even back then the fact Brightburn threatened a little girl in her own home to be his girlfriend after breaking her arm *never* sat right with me
so that equates to it being a problem in its writing... uh.
I thought him killing her mother was on the same level too. Just adds in how disturbing the writing was.
I mean...
Wasn't he supposed to be disturbing?
it's the kind of shit a deranged kid would do
@@Ryzard he was raised like a normal kid
You'd expect creepy shit from Homelander because he doesn't have a moral compass and is raised like a lab rat without a mother nor father to teach Homelander like how Superman did but Brightburn had a nigh identical upbringing so it makes 0 sense for Brandon to be creepy like that
3:04 sorry I can't get over the phrase "Kansas forest fires" we're a state notoriously devoid of forest and trees in general
That's just how evil Brann is. He planted an entire forest just to set it on fire.
@@fairystail1 truly despicable
What annoys me about this movie is the premise is that it is a nature vs nurture plot that leans toward beliving nature matters more because he is inspired my species of parasitic wasps but his parents do literally everything wrong so that plot doesn't even work.
@@UsingGorillaLogic(you practically have the same comment post, regarding the 'nature vs nurture' comment that another guy posted... so here's my copied & pasted comment.)
i feel like this video is inversely a 'The Boys is Kinda Terrible...' - by PointlessHub...
the video mentioning 'Normality & Morality' are all superficial abstractions, that's been indoctrinated by the Modernistic Ideological, & Dogmatic set of values & beliefs; the thematic process of 'nature vs nurture' is all supposed to be intertwined via the progression of meaning, through being a higher-form of sentient life; a pre-pubescelent Human is supposed to represent all the faculties of the Human Essence, to which Blightburn inversely corresponds this very essence into being an 'Alien' in a shape of a 'Human' who's been raised as a 'Human' & takes on the essence to being a 'Human' via any means possible, which is inversely corresponded to his actual pure self, which is his Alien-hood but the same archetype is still there via Superman's existence, who was meant to serve as an allegory, for & against the 'Human' essence of nature, as well as inversely corresponding to what Clark actually is in its purest form of being an Alien, in a shape of a Human being, which makes it paradoxical by nature because of its symbolic & personified allegory, as a figurehead for a means of expression, & the action of truths about the generalizations of the Human Existence/Consciousness & the Essence of 'Human Nature'...
the parents are not supposed to be this... pedestal-incarnation of what a 'Human' - is to serve as a Modernistic-Commentary, that renders in its superficiality, that some Humans like Superman's parents have indoctrinated their own Modernistic, & superficial standpoints onto Superman because of their own transpired vignette's, that they themselves by to an Alien, that they project onto an Alien in a shape of a Human, that's derived from the Modernistic-Commentary post WWI, which a year later WWII would transpire onto the world by 'Humanity'.
@@UsingGorillaLogic also, you can't determine what's 'Right nor Wrong' in its absolute form of truth... especially in context to what you're pointing out towards to in your conclusion, which is all superficial compared to that comment post, where it elaborated the 'nature vs nurture' argument much more coherently & the outlook of it... whereas yours just misconstrues a lot of things in simplifying your summarization of the thematic process; such as how believing nature can still be processed through 'nurture' from either ends of the main protagonist, which the thematic process of 'nature vs nurture' still inversely corresponds with each other throughout the movie.
you're also minimizing a lot of the outlook onto the parents for doing 'literally everything wrong' as a blanket statement, which is just a Homunculus & a Ad Simplcitate fallacy outlook.
@@godzillazfriction using all the big words you find in a dictionary 50 times in a row doesn't make you sound smart. You don't even discuss the actions the parent's take in the movie (the dad attempts to kill his son which sets Brandon on a rampage, his mom excuses his bad behavior the whole movie and tries to stab him in the back at the end instead of pathos which was working.)
You can pretty that up as "subjective actions cast as 'bad' by objective dogmatic moralization" all you want, but op was right: this movie presents the question of nature vs nurture and it sides with nature, when really the answer is nurture or even both if we take the parasite stuff at face value.
@@howardyates4848 so you start of with a Tu Quoque fallacy, in the name of Personal Incredulity because you can't dissect any point of my argument, & just baselessly summarize my lexigraphy's as 'big words so u can seem smarrrrttt' - off to a great start...
im responding to a guy making a blanket statement of what 'everything wrong' the parents supposedly did, im waiting for him to elaborate on that & that was never the focal point of my argument, so you're just strawmanning my argument to fit yours because it's easier for a 'one-upped' response against me...
i wonder when you'll ask me to elaborate on how there's no such thing as 'right nor wrong' - because there's reasons that can't be determined as 'right nor wrong' in its absolute form of truth within existence, especially Humanity... which with the point given, there's 'reasons' as to why the parents do the things that you're vaguely, but broadly mentioning against the parents for...
i gotta love how you strawmanned my statement to fit your own rebuttal of what it apparently was, it's like when you remake something but strip all it's essence away because you thought you could do it better. your case of the OP being 'right' is not even the focal conclusion of what you concluded as his point of how it's actually 'nurture' or both; i was the one that made that point to which you misconstrued the OP, & made a blanket statement regarding what the movie sets out to with its thematic process... even though I was the one that argued for it in an analytical manner, in response to OP... quit the internet.
@@howardyates4848 also, you can't determine what's 'good nor bad/evil' i cant wait until you'll ask me to elaborate (sarcasm)...
Homelander is petty, Brandon Bryer is a crazy child and Omni-Man’s actually scary but also a decent & consistent character. The closest we ever got to an EVIL Superman in the literal sense is Injustice.
Damn brodie you already getting ur opinions out based on the thumbnail alone
You can also mention that Tighten from _Megamind_ fits the the evil Superman category. He used his heroism for his own personal gain and took advantage of Metro City under new management, and all because he wanted to give impression for Roxanne, which the rejection from her leads to his villain arc.
In injustice Superman is still trying to do the right thing, so it’s more of a dictator Superman than an evil superman
@@mrmemes170 No no, it's very much evil. He murders Shazam. Might've been in the super body but he still very much murders him.
'eVeL' sUPerMan is such a superficial rhetoric archetype... so boring.
The irony is how there's General Zod
Another purebred Kryptonian, with all the same powers as Superman, but evil, and actually knows how to fight
And Bizarro
See?
DC's Earth 1 actually had two canonically evil Supermen before Reign of the Supermen, and everyone keeps forgetting about them
granted ZOd is like not actually superman and his own distinct character and is more "superman COULD be like this guy if he was a fascist dictator" and Bizarro is a twisted clone and is rarely portrayed as 'evil' and more 'stupid and working on a literal twisted morality due to being superman's weird clone"
People forgetting General Zod is especially bizarre because most of evil Superman stories talk about authoritarianism and explore fascistic thinking ..... everything that General Zod already does by just existing.
I genuinly want general Zod to fold this kid
In Bizarro's case, well he's intellectually disabled.
And in Zod's case, he is simply a case of Superman's powers being given to a criminal.
@@kidicarusplays8684he probably could given he’s way more experienced
James Gunn being promoted as heavily involved in Brightburn isn't really even Nepotism. His own brother and cousin felt like their movie wouldn't be a success (because it sucks) so they did everything they could to make James out to be the creative brains behind it.
It’s not him being promoted that’s the nepotism, it’s the producing. James Gunn produced this movie and funded it so much (and presumably got others to help fund it to this level) because his brother and cousin were the writers. If they weren’t related to him this script wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near the budget it did.
@@connor4435I’d go as far as to say it probably wouldn’t have gotten greenlit or picked up by a studio. I mean yeah, superhero movies were really big when this came out but it’s painfully obvious this movie got to where it was because of one guy who was already involved with the genre
The funniest thing about brightburn is that when the movie came out, they tried to deny the Superman influence by acting like they didn’t know about the character.
You know, the character that has existed for over 100 years, influencing the entire genre of superheroes, the character that has the EXACT SAME ORIGIN AS BRIGHTBURN 🤦🤦
The marketing for the film made as many allusions to Superman as possible. I don't know who said that but I had no idea that they denied that (I don't even know if that's true or not). The trailers were very on the nose.
Anything to avoid copyright I guess
_Brightburn_ is the result of what happened when Henry Evans from _The Good Son_ obtained Superman's powers with the sprinkle of _Insidious_ atmosphere. The idea of superhero horror sounds like a neat and fun concept on paper, and there are characters like Ghost Rider, Constantine, Blade, or even Batman himself fits the bill to the genre than this film would ever be.
I think the new Hellboy movie that got announced is going to be more horror focused
@@zeldagameryt4018 Thank God because the previous one was not it
@@zeldagameryt4018Hellboy works because man fights monsters
If the hero is the monster
Then he isn't a F Hero
HES A VILAIN
I just hate the reason he became evil. He is evil cause he was told too by some aliens signals or something
very weak reason ngl. Just a dumb switchup from a good well raised kid to a murderer
The Nixonverse is also an amazing and bizarre example of superhero horror (or "Analog Superhorror" as Mister Manticore calls it).
0:11 this animation was so smooth, I haven't seen anything this smooth since a baby covered in butter
I don't know how they were able to make them so smooth.
I think the style is called rotto scoping
FBI Open the fuck up.
Under what context did you saw a baby covered in butter lol?
I think everything wrong with edgy , evil superheroes can be countered with a quote from Superman himself: “Dreams save us. Dreams lift us up and transform us into something better. And in my soul, I swear that until my dream of a world where dignity, honor, and justice are the reality we all share, I’ll never stop fighting.”
really shows the unoriginality
One of the best Superman quotes. Love it!
Even a cynic like me appreciate that of supes.
Metro man is a good example of a morally good deconstruction that I rarely see people talking about in regards to this topic
And I love you random citizen! 👉
13:48 "It's not our parents & homes that prove who we are, it's what we do when they can't guide us"
That genuinely is actually a really fuckin good quote to go by in life.
There's a high chance you're going to do what you learned at home
@@johnlawful2272 You are going to be influenced by it, and you definitely may continue some patterns, but it's also undeniable that you will deviate at least to some extent. No human has ever been identical to their parent. Everyone is also influenced by the outside, and even if you are cut off, you still lack the context of the experiences that made your parents who they are. You merely interact with the result.
All this to say, you are still a different person and will act differently when you are left to make decisions on your own.
Dude I haven't heard about brightburn for 5 years, and I think that was for the better
Yeah I think so two
Same
I could never hear about this movie again and it would still be too soon.
I'm glad I never saw this very stupid movie the commercial had me not seeing it but saw a little on HBO and it sucks.
Nah it was good
Ah… Brightburn. A terrible example of superhero horror. I want to mention that James Gunn previously wrote and directed the film, Super which is a dark comedy and I’d genuinely recommend to give it a watch. Cause I can’t help but imagine that if he really made this film, it’d be a spiritual successor to that film instead of a horror movie.
Honestly I’d be more interested in a *supervillain* horror movie. Like a version of Lex Luthor whose hatred of Superman drives him to do things that horrify even his fellow supervillains.
You know what’s funny? They confirm Brightburn takes place in the same universe as Super
@@vastler Imagine if Dwight from The Office confronted Brendan in a fight.
If you want some examples of good superhorror, I recommend you check out The Absolute Nixonverse, Grant Morrison's Animal Man comics (though that one is more of a meta, fourth wall breaking horror story. I haven't read it yet, but it sounds awesome and my kind of thing), the short film "The Flying Man," and Split (though I assume you've already seen it).
@@troin3925 I would also like to add Chronicle to that list. Hell, if we’re going by the “must have superpowers” definition of superhorror, it should be required by international law to have Carrie be the first mention in that conversation.
@@levischorpioen Yeah. I also didn't mention Chronicle because it was more of a thriller (though it's still an awesome movie).
Imagine an interaction between him and Homelander.
Nevermind, I don’t want to.
Homelander is already thinking of killing his own son, Bright Burn ain't even his kid.
@@Topdoggie7 Bright Burn would body him tbh.
@@RubyCarrots3232 Never seen the movie, but from I can tell. The ending doesn't lie, Brandon is a bitch. He seems to on occasion struggle with normal humans, let alone another super or even a Lex Luthor that figures out what his weakness is. Homelander plays jump rope with his intestines is what I'm saying.
Hell, imagine an interaction between Homelander and Captain Hero from Drawn together
@@Cubeytheawesomecaptain hero victimizes them both
That's why Brightburn is less of a Superman parody and more of a Dragon Ball parody.
Dragon Ball Z was inspired by Superman in that sense, Toriyama was clearly already thinking about Superman by the time he gave Goku his Superman-esque origin story as he had a parody character Suppaman ("Pickled Plum Man", think how Superman is called "Soup" in parody circles) in his other comics.
More like a Dragon Ball evolution parody
Dragon Ball parody??? How tho? Not saying it bcoz of being a DB fan but genuinely curious.
@@ralphfi9591 Probably just comparing it to Dragon Ball Evolution
@@ralphfi9591he was sent to earth to nuke it
But lost his memory
I'm 100% positive this movie is what lead to my adventures with superman's creation to give us a heartwarming superman tale
That and the upcoming James Gunn Superman movie, which is like the opposite of Brightburn.
My Adventures with Superman is so much better and actually really good.
@@HawkknightXC88bright burn wasn’t a bad movie, I think you guys are not taking it for what it is, just a cool little horror movie.
@@boxlions2073 It was never supposed to be a superhero movie xd
@@Regigigas_YT never said it did pal, I said horror film pal
Why is the bright burn symbol the same brand as the one from berserk. There’s a chance they had no idea but that symbol has to pretty well known. Which means not even the symbol of the movie is original.
Thank goodness I'm not the only person who noticed
Guts called, he wants his Brand of Sacrifice back!
Brightburn follows the idea that being realistic is "things go wrong, i got powers so i gotta rule over the weak", wich no, being realistic is being evil but realizing you are. Omniman comes from a conqueror race but after having a family and seeing how humans are social beings through mark he realizes that what he is doing is extremely fucked up. even HOMELANDER, raised and tortured in a lab, in some scenes you can see that while being an asshole killer, he still has at least a very tiny bit of a human side (that he is trying to get rid of). Brightburn is just "mhm after years of being raised in a loving family im suddenly evil because alien puberty i guess"
I think there was a scene that showed anatomy before he realised hehad powers, that he would've been hiding,his facination with insects and wasps.
Plus trauma can increase psychopothy in children, and he could've had sleeper dna, just like kryptonians personally choosing traits of their future offspring through advanced science.
@@locustking6433 That's the problem, we don't know whether he have any trauma at all and the scene that they show us pointed towards he is having a perfect childhood.
@@irvanray1898 and maybe he was pretending to be a happy child until he found out he was abnormally superior to everyone else, plus the purpose his original species burned into his brain.maybe he would’ve been a benevolent ruler if he didn’t find out his perfect childhood was based on some lies.
You forgot to mention the end credit scene where they try to set up a horror Justice League with an evil Wonder Woman and evil Aquaman, and also involved the Crimson Bolt from James Gunns first superhero movie Super.
I’ll be honest, I didn’t even know Brightburn was a super”hero” movie until this point.
It lost a lot of money. Hopefully we don't get a sequel
same i legit thought it was just "ghostface BUT HE'S A MIDDLE SCHOOLER OOOOH AHHHH" so this is my first exposure to the actual plot (physically couldnt give less of a shit to actually watch it)
@@auliamate Brandon is more like Damien Thorne from The Omen if he had Superman's powers instead of being the Antichrist.
That kid would never survive a 2011-2012 COD lobby if thats how he reacts to a couple insults.
I mean with the “bring a wasp” thing, it could’ve worked at least somewhat by having a lot more of the movie focus on his childhood. Do actual foreshadowing, show him acting like a sociopath like Homelander despite his good parents, where even without powers he found ways to hurt people and things, instead of having him be good until The Voices. Basically build up a sociopath, then give that sociopath super powers to add that horror factor.
Is it good? No. Could it work better? I’d say it could.
Brightburn absolutely should've taken a page from Rob Zombie's version of Halloween.
Hell, not even that. Show the side of Brandon that desperately doesn't want to be doing all of this and wants to go back to having a good and loving family trying to fight back from the programming or whatever, make it exceedingly clear that the actual child doesn't want this, and you have a great plot for an existential horror. Imagine watching yourself killing everyone you love from a first person perspective and not being able to stop it.
TV Tropes insists that what makes Brendan scary is that he's evil by nature, triggered by programming from his pod that makes whatever upbringing he had irrelevant. Doesn't matter if you give your alien stepchild love and affection, he could become evil because nebulous star people activated his evil side Manchurian Candidate style. Sigh, I'll let you decide if this is Lovecraftian "unknowable evil" writing or just plain hack writing.
@@bluecoin3771 Eh, it's TV Tropes. It can be both, really
It is so hacky, Dr. Hax wouldn't even throw a computer at it. He wouldn't have enough, even if he wanted to acknowledge it.
Word of advice. Don't take TVT seriously.
Brightburn has the balls to ask
What if the saiyans, which are evil kryptonians, were kryptonians?
Brightburn is basically how people think Goku or “Kakarot” would be if he didn’t hit his head. Everyone thinks Goku would automatically be a villain because he didn’t loose his memories when Vegeta proves no Saiyans aren’t evil by nature they just choose to be and their personalities are independent lol
This movie wasn’t scary. It was just disgusting. That seems to be a trend with current horror movies is that their idea of “scary” is just extreme gore.
You’re right about Homelander. Because what makes him scary isn’t what he can do. It’s that you never know if you’re going to get “charismatic public eye” homelander or if he’s going to just do everything he did to the scientist homelander.
It’s the idea that you don’t know. With brightburn you already know he’s going to do it because it’s like a slasher movie. Some person acts like a jerk and then they die.
I was surprised that the uncle who seemed nice suddenly turned into a drunk a-hole just so he could die.
He Wasn’t drunk though, and had a perfectly good reason to be pissed at Brandon.
Nah it was pretty scary
@@danielramsey6141Brandon is like 12. He appeared. Was an asshole. And then that was it.
I mean do all american uncles turn into a jerk on the dime? It feels like he literally just appeared to be aggressive.
Carrie was a more a evil superman horror movie then brightburn.
She is also more sympathetic and understanding than Brightburn because she was abused and bullied as a teen by a fanatical mother and psychopathic classmates.
The OG superhorror.
@@darlalathan6143 The moment the bucket of pigs blood fell on her head, that's when Carrie finally snapped.
You can't be a evil superhero. Because you aren't a hero you are a villain.
Exactly, " evil superhero" is an oxymoron
@@benito9830 you guys are still too subjected by Modernistic Ideological, & Dogmatic set of values & beliefs...
& if following by that standpoint that I've just mentioned above... yes you can be an 'Evil Superhero' - take the Etymology of what a 'Hero' is in essence, that derived from Ancient Greece; take Kratos for example, he'd be a 'Hero' for Sparta, despite what he does in the name of Ares... but if you want to counter-argue that with me utilizing a definist-fallacy, then
you can take a look onto Iron Man from the comics, & i dont have to explain how Iron Man is from the comics...
or you can take inversed Lexigraphy's of the dichotomy of 'Hero & Villain' - such as Anti-Hero & Anti-Villain.
you guys really need to step-fourth & not be bounded by what I've just mentioned from the former paragraph of this comment...
there's no such thing as the abstraction of certain concepts/dichotomy's, such as 'Good & Evil, Right & Wrong, Hero & Villain' - ( & Morality, Normality etc. but this is just a subset to Modernism...)
also, from the latter of this comment - 'perspective' matters a lot within the superficiality of 'Hero & Villain'.
@@godzillazfriction This is about MODERN Superheroes of course its gonna be about MODERN Ideologies, Nice yapping, Too long didn't read 🥱
That's why the terms anti-hero and anti- villain exist for said grey areas Because doing something "evil" doesn't inherently make one a villain, it depends on the ends and the means.
@@benito9830The proof that you didn't read is that you completely proved their point. They never said it wasnt about modern ideologies, but that your view points on said ideologies are too subjective, or to simplify too narrow when you make them into a category of black or white.
One film I think did the concept of "young human learning what to do with their inhuman abilities" was Chronicle. Young teens first messing around with the super human level powers and seeing how a rough childhood can turn someone into a villain- makes for a really interesting film! Plus the found footage style makes for some really interesting shots displaying their powers.
It is a very underrated film. I really enjoyed it.
especially because you see that the ther characters try to help him, they truly care for him, but he lashes out, takes things too far and reachesa point where he can't go back. He wasn't a bad person, he just put himself in a corner and only saw one way out.
I can't believe a geriatric politician managed to actually be the cooler Dark Brandon.
Superman deserves more respect because it sucks that the only way Superman is supposedly likable in the modern era is to overuse the evil Superman trope and downplay him to prop up Batman or making him come off as like he's not smart, no wonder Smallville is considered one of the best Superman stories because in that show Superman is shown at his best and his worst while still being likable and relatable while being power scaled to be the strongest live action Superman without the outdated excuse that he's overpowered and boring from ignorant DC fans, we can get several live action Superman actors but not *ONE* good Superman game
That is a big "suposed", I don't know it's a bubble but I have seeing more people crapping on that trope than anything
I feel like a difference between Omni Man and brightburn is that though both were sent to Earth to conquer and possibly destroy, Omni Man is shown to have been put through the trials, hell most of his population was wiped out and all that remained were the ones strong enough to be chosen, meanwhile Brightburn was bred as a weapon, his origins are never explained beyond "He was sent as a weapon by a powerful force" so it's like we're following the story of a gun, of course by the end he wasn't going to change, it's literally in his DNA to be evil. Omni Man however was just taught to be evil. Which is why it makes sense he only considers the consequences of his actions when Mark stops him, because his non-Viltrumite love he built over the years finally shows, whilst Brightburn does all of this because he's a pre-pubescent kid, he turns evil cause he's pissed off, he doesn't care about his family, and realistically just saw them as future obstacles.
and also Omni man isn't completely unreasonable what he does isn't rly different from Humans he's just conquering land
And I don't think his "sudden turn to evil" is all that unexplainable, either
Let's extrapolate and say that he was begin bullied for being a nerd his entire life and not just in that one scene, so he's probably more prone to being resentful towards his peers
His parents are good to him, but they also don't really do anything to alleviate the issue of his bullying and ostracization
It's less "Superman but evil" and more "Superman but school shooter", but instead of a gun and internet radicalization, it's laser eyes and a space artifact telling you you're meant to conquer the planet
I imagine if his social life was normal, he would've just become Superman, if the ship didn't rewrite his psychology on top of him already being resentful
Was any of that explained?. He was raised in a really good family but became evil cause he was told to by some signals or something
@@Hegataroyeah , but he wasn't mind controlled or anything
But are you telling me that a 12 yr old kid that was raised well decided to kill innocent people cause he was bullied
Very weak ngl
@@pbsuite Why do school shootings happen? In a situation where people will go up against a kid and they're left powerless, it's terrifying for a child, kids have tried to keep guns on them because they feel threatened, Brightburn presumably was bullied a lot, and as seen through the movie was ostracized by his peers, he's accused of being a perv by a girl and when he breaks her arm, her parents call him a monster, he's quite literally doing this because he just wants to kill, just like a kid would want to kill it's classmates, it's psychologically heart breaking in a way, and when your have such powerful abilities, along with the obvious sign that you're above anything on Earth, there's only one real answer.
They should've made him like Seymour from little shop. Apprehensive at first, but slowly over the course of the movie growing more and more desensitized to it. Just make him kill one person in self defense, and then another, *and another.*
And by the time he realizes his actions, its too late
What about a superman who becomes incredibly overworked due to a misplaced sense of dedication and gradually becomes more cruel and unforgiving. He doesnt have time for friends, family, gives up on his secret identity and becomes an enemy of other heroes later down the line.
That's kind of the setup for Irredeemable
The Plutonian, the comic's Superman, is an extremely successful superhero, who, after one mistake, reaches a breaking point as a result of the public's reaction to it
Homlandr
...isn't that just Batman? Minus the enemy to other heroes part
Wasn’t this a plot line in drawn together?
@@jaxonkohle2174nope, he's like the opposite.
Rest in peace Nick-O-Teen
Who?
@@dylansharp8471 it's the name of the villain in the Superman PSA shown at the start of the video
This is why ı never say yes to a cigaratte.
Nick-O-Teen: Exists
Superman: How many times do I have to teach you this lesson old man?!
Is anyone gonna mention how the main symbol of the movie Is just the hunter’s mark from Bloodborn
And that game came out 4 years before the movie release!
So the movie is uncreative
I can even try to make an interesting creepy hero episode better than that!
Mmm idk, it also looks like one of Berserk's symbols. But yeah, didn't know that at all lmao
it also reminded me of the mark from Bloodborne (though Bloodborne is very inspired by Berserk so)
Replying at 12:03 just to add on, um, Wasps are also pollinators, yeah, they can be aggressive, but so can some species of bees. So fuck you movie, bad analogy.
I feel like metroman will always be a top superman parody, because instead of completely redefining the character, they just go "what if instead of hard working blue collar country folk, superman was raised by a rich couple and never got those lessons about hard work and putting others first".
He also stands out cause he's one of if not the only instance, of a Superman satire that isn't inherently evil. He's egotistical & selfish, but he isn't a bad guy. He's just jaded & apathetic of his situation, stuck in the status quo merry go round of fighting Megamind & saving the girl.
Metro Man, like some versions of Clark, never wanted the job but stood to the occassion. It was only the attention & adoration he kept coming back for. When his mid-life crisis happened, that's when he finally broke, deciding to find his actual passion in life.
My favorite Evil Superman is injustice. It doesn’t just come out of nowhere, he gets his entire life uprooted due to being fooled, he accidentally caused the murder of innocent people and people he deeply cared about. I completely understand why he snapped, plus he’s got Wonder Woman as the devil on his shoulder telling him to do worse and worse things to keep power and thus peace.
He wasn’t just sad or grieving he felt guilt and thought he had to do something. He went about it in a terrible way, but he’s still somewhat sympathetic. I still root for his downfall but he is very human in how he falls from grace
Mine’s Captain Hero from drawn together. That guys hella freaky
Anyone else find it odd to have Wonder Woman being that devil on his shoulder? Yeah, her culture is removed from modern ones, but it doesn't make sense how it was done.
I truly do wish there was more investment put into BrightBurn. The ending seemed to be leading up to a live action version of the Injustice League, and I would've been all for it.
Including the guy from Super for no reason other than to maybe get a James Gunn connection. Might as well have made a movie with those characters fighting the long one out of their own self interest, then another film in Tromaville. Big studios would never make something so peak though.
I wouldn't.
Yeah that'll never happen
More investment, and the courage of their conviction. A Superman-as-slasher story should've put Invincible-versus-Omniman to shame with advanced levels of gore.
Execution was definitely the weirdest thing ever like how is a kid doing all this
This could've been a good movie. If it wasn't a direct copy of the Superman origin story.
It could've been a story where Brandon sees the horrible side of humans. Which leads him towards world domination.
They could've shown his own adopted parents getting killed, which led him to his path of destruction.
And Megamind (the goat) already did that- Metroman gets raised in a mansion by rich parents, Megamind got raised in a literal prison
Direct copy? It's SUPPOSED to parallel Superman's origin story. His name is an alliteration, he wears blue and red, etc and then the plane scene at the end is supposed to mirror his own crash landing except this time it's to show the care he received will not be reciprocated.
To this day, my dad and I insist that this was the worst movie we've ever seen in theaters, and I think that's a testament to how let down we were. There was so much potential for something good here, but it just turned into a generic "the bad guy wins" horror movie with very little redeemable about it.
Here's how i would have done brightburn
Have him weep and cry and say sorry like he does in the film. Have shots where we see him break down after a successful hunt. Maybe during the final scene where he drops his Mom, he hugs her like he's saying goodbye, not a hug to crush, but a hug to love, then drop.
That almost reminds me of what happened to The Last Son of Alcatraz in The Nixonverse when he was used as a weapon against his will twice.
I'm indifferent to Brightburn, but overall I've grown really tired if the "Evil Superman Trope." Its been used so many times in media, especially recently, that its so overplayed.
It may not be the best evil superman/boy, but he's definitely got the creepiest costume.
Definitetly
I just kinda found it goofy myself. It looked like a backward luchador mask with eye holes cut in it
@@TheBrotherGrim still looks creepy
@@TheBrotherGrim Maybe that's the point, though. He's supposed to be a little kid.
red kkk
Even if his race were inherently violent and evil, you could have him turn out like Goku since the Saiyans are a species with fighting in their blood. Sure a thunk on the head to calm him down a bit wasn't the greatest thing, but then raised with morals, he still likes to fight but cares for his friends and allies. Even the inverse could've been more interesting.
I love the cigarette commercials.
They’re so well animated especially when they crush the cigarettes
Red Son Superman wasn’t evil, just more militaristic
He was still innately good natured and well meaning
The moment he realized he was taking away free will he realized he was in the wrong
it is always so funny to me how we keep pushing for characters like batman, superman, captain america, venom, etc. to be like pure evil destructive monsters for the sake of "le subversion" when these guys have always had villains in their base universes that literally serve the exact purpose to illustrate mirrored evil versions of them. General Zod, Lex Luthor, Knull and Carnage, Bane, two-face, John Walker's Captain America, etc. but people never try using them and always just make these good guys (even if Venom started out a bad guy) into mindless destructive gods for the sake of making shallow pretentious jabs at the superhero genre that really serve no purpose or to just add cheap marketability to your story.
"that one unstable violent captain america that succeeded Rogers"
John Walker?
Also is Lex supposed to be mirror of Superman? And Bane and Two-Face for Batman?
@@dylansharp8471 yup yup and yup!👍
Hell, even their attempt to try and use John Walker recently was a huge screw up since they made him less 'violent and unstable' and more 'PTSD victim struggling to live up to his predecessor', from what I heard.
Even when they DO use them, they can't do it right, apparently.
Superhero horror needs another chance, like maybe Marvel Zombies could bring some hype back for it
I would love to see that!
Similar to that episode of teen titans where Robin is “haunted” by slade
Where you can see the visions of slade but you can’t fight him!
The fact that it's Rated TVMA gives me hope.
I wanna see some Zombie Guts, no holding back
@@ogfortify7674 blood n guts won't save a plot where jokes remove tension, still loved that episode, but fuck the out of place humor. I get it for peter, but the rest? Christ
@@smugjug3 yeah I wasn't a fan of that either. It had its moments but it felt kinda neutered by the humor and overall tone as well as it only being one 30 minute episode. Hopefully with the higher rating and full series they can tell a more mature and interesting story.
@@ogfortify7674 I hope so.
Omni man and homelander are the best examples for evil superman
One is the alien aspect of conqueror that people will be afraid of beings like superman
The other is a human with the abilities of a god, but was never treated like a human.
Both of them are not just carbon copy of superman with the same backstory of superman, but individuals whose backstory shows why they are the way they are
And then there’s that guy from Drawn together. The freaky one with a cape (but nearly everyone on that show is freaky)
This film in retrospect seems SUPER similar to Antlers. The difference is that Antlers has a theme while this film has what would be considered cheap novelty 10 years ago.
I really think there's a way to do superhorror well, but this movie didn't do anything with it. It doesn't even need to be an "evil superman" story either, it can be any number of ideas. Like Grant Morrison's Animal Man comics which devolve into 4th wall breaking meta horror, the short film "The Flying Man" which portrays an anti-hero as a mysterious figure from an outsider's perspective who murders criminals with no backstory (though that short is more of a thriller than a horror), or The Nixonverse which does a number of things, including its own take on an evil Superman where that universe' version of Superman wasn't evil, he was a genuinely good person who saved lives during the Korean War alongside an anti-hero who was essentially Batman but with Superman's powers, to the point of even preventing him from going too far with hurting people, but was eventually used for nefarious purposes against his will (like the gov't mind controlling him to use him as a weapon in the Vietnam Way, and later, after escaping, becoming a false prophesized, eldritch king by a Lunarian Queen who takes over the Earth in bizarre and terrifying ways that don't involve blowing things up. Even after the alien invasion was stopped by the Batman expy, he was weeping and wanted to die but couldn't).
2:32 "What if nuance didn't matter at all?" So... Homelander from the comics?
This is also the reason people think Tim Burton directed Nightmare Before Christmas
Well the thing about that is the it’s full name is, “Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas”. That one at least has a little excuse for it.
That is a good one.
They should of made a Bizarro film, now that would be a good “evil Superman” film
But wouldn’t it be super confusing since Bizzaro is backwards in every way
Bizarro ain't even evil though he's just stupid
He's not really evil it would be like venom.
Bizarro am good! *steals 40 cakes*
@gamergod98l86 evil in the sense he’s causing destruction and being a menace. Though I guess he isn’t truly evil and does somewhat believe he’s doing good
Brightburn needs to watch some hopecore edits bruh
His motive? WACK
His character? WACK
the way he goes about his supposed purpose? WACK
ME? I'm well written AS FUCK
The only scene that was kinda fear inducing was the one, were the father tried shooting him, cus you realize how screwed he is and that this unstoppable force of nature is going to absolutely kill him.
"Superpowered Boy is evil because alien genes" is the most pointless, tedious storyline I've ever heard of. I'm bored just thinking about it. Thank God I never made the mistake of trying to watch it.
They tried so hard to make a Superman deconstruction movie, that the Gunn bros. somehow made Brightburn into a shitty Saiyan! Seriously, this is what Goku originally was supposed to be; he was sent to Earth as a child in order to subjugate, and eventually destroy, the inhabitants of Earth. THAT'S how uninspired they were.
I meaaaaaan I'm kind of open to that idea of an "evil superman" whose villainy comes not from poor upbringing, but from some sort of dark influence connected to his alien origin. The notion of a mysterious race of planet-conquering "wasp" aliens who sort of "activate" their drones at a certain point is honestly pretty unsettling for me, and could have been used much better in the film. Like if we got to see his struggle between his good nature and love for his family vs the control of the ship and his alien origin, and how it's his alien half that ultimately wins. I don't think that's inherently lazy or uninteresting, personally. And the fact that it *isn't* his choice and *outside* of his control makes it more unsettling to me, too. Sort of a cosmic horror type beat, almost
Basically, I feel like you're trying to fit "evil supermen" characters into too specific of a hole when I think there's plenty of room for creative exploration and changes. If all evil supermen could be were just "ppl who were raised wrong/the dark side of humanity," then that would be incredibly boring and repetitive (more than it already is). Brightburn didn't execute these ideas as well as it could have, but I don't think the ideas themselves were inherently bad, at least for some of them
Man, it gets pretty bad when you reach for Nature vs Nurture. Like, this is steps beyond even the Megamind one where he's evil because Nice Guy Syndrome, and that was still a GOOD example of this done right.
Wasps are pollinators too.
They're not really that aggressive either.
I'm ok with superman slander but i cannot stand for bug slander.
We've had enough evil Superman stories for a while. Move on to making a different hero evil, or just come up with something original for a change.
People gravitate towards "Superman but evil" because Superman is such an archetypical representation of good, so it's easy to just go "what if same powers but BAD"
It would be just as easy to make an evil Spider-Man, considering how many people are afraid of spiders, but Spider-Man's powerset isn't anywhere as world ending as Superman's, so it isn't as easy
You could do evil Batman, but then you're kind of just turning him into one of his villains- you could however do "Batman but evil" and have it be just a regular batman comic from the perspective of the criminals where nothing is actually different
Vigilantism
Homelander, Omni man and Captain Hero already did the trope well enough.
Where’s our Starman waiting in the sky?
You know its bad when subverting expectations now is having a Superman expy be kind and good.
One thing that came with the evil Superman trend that I really don't like is the mindset that a good Superman can't exist in a more "realistic setting", but I'm sure if that's directly from the trend or just cynical interpretations from the Internet
Maybe it's my own beliefs and bias talking but I do think in a realistic setting, a good Superman can't exist. However, when I say that I don't mean in a lazy "Superman but evil" way. I mean it in a "Power corrupts way.". In my opinion a realistic "evil superman" would be someone who genuinely wants to do good and genuinely wants to make the world a better place, maybe even start out as being like the actual Superman. However over time they can relate less and less to the struggles of everyday people to the point where they become misguided and delusional, doing awful things for the "Better world". Kind of like Light Yagami in a way.
@@Zulk_RSbullcrap
@@Zulk_RSwell, power doesn’t really corrupt. It enables. It’s just that the sorts of people who’d misuse it are more likely to get into power IRL.
@@lyokianhitchhiker I'm... not sure if I fully agree with that. I think power really does corrupt but hey, we can agree to disagree.
@@Zulk_RS if you’ve heard the saying about testing someone's character by giving them power, that’s what I’m referring to. It’s not that it turns good people bad, it’s that it enables people who were already bad to enforce their will on others.
What makes Superman work is that he doesn't live in reality. He lives in a world where everyone is either good or evil. As the ultimate symbol of good, Superman is what we should all strive to be, essentially a new version of a Greek God and modern day folklore. Turning him evil misses the point of his character and says more about the writers than anything about society.
Aw shit plutonian mentioned
Kinda shocking more people haven’t talked about Brightburn since its release
The only place I see any mention of Brightburn is on tiktok for only comparing him to Homelander, This movie's existence is to be used for powerscalers
I haven't seen Brightburn yet, but from your description it's as if they tried Jerome Bixby's "It's a Good Life" but failed at every single level.
When kick ass was able to combine dark humor and violence with actual heart 14 years ago
I don't think he is supposed to be Superman as a normal person sees him. I saw this movie as how Lex Luthor or Amanda Waller or Batfleck sees Superman. I thought the movie was enjoyable. Also everyone go watch Super by James Gunn
i barely count it as an evil superman movie. to me it's a product of it's time, banking on the period it came out in (superhero/cinematic universe obsession arc of humanity) that wanted to focus on the horrors of unchecked superpowers and that alone. i've never thought to put it in the same category as 'evil superman'.
Batman has more Evil Counterparts than The Doctor and Reed Richard’s but Superman gets all the Mirror Universe’s.
Yeah, I think that's generally because batman's a smaller scale hero to be fair. In your average batman story he's pretty strong I guess but he can't even entiely keep Gotham clean, whereas if superman went evil then even in his weaker interpretations he could destroy half the world
@@bitedusterlol5304 I dunno Batman without a no-killing code and none of his fortune goes to charity. Scary thought.
@@bitedusterlol5304 Except in those poorly written stories where batman somehow soloes his entire universe.
i think the evil superman concept simply does not work for a horror movie, especially a slasher type one. For the evil superman concept to work, the ‘evil superman’ has to be nuanced and an actual character otherwise its just a one dimensional movie that heavily relies on subversion (despite the trope being done many times before and far better).
I could see bright burn, if done well, being pitched as a TV series. id love to see an evil superman horror tv show. Like the boys but it goes full horror with a vibe similar to the chucky tv series & maybe yellowjackets which lowkey a bad example but yeah
I honestly thought the movie was gonna go the Evil Superman but as a result of his powers corrupting him gradually, like he chooses to be evil since he's a kid given insane power. Or they could've kept the Ship trying to influence him but Brandon initially resists because he was raised to be better, but gradually the voice and other problems in his day to day life cause him to use his powers more and more violently, until finally something happens that causes him to snap and give into the evil.
Instead he starts out nice but some ship just makes him evil
Honestly Brandon feels like if the kid from Chronicle and Omni Man did the Fusion dance wrong.
I'm waiting for Evil Batman clones as capitalism crumbles, that's gonna be a new archetype, I just can feel it
I think evil Batman is a genuinely interesting concept worth exploring. A rich and mentally disturbed guy who uses his bottomless bank account to commit crimes motivated by his past trauma. Mark Millar's Nemesis kinda did this concept well, even though the story is incredibly edgy. I still thought it was pretty fun
Tek Knight in The Boys show
Even though he's a shitty adaptation of the character from the comic, who wasn't evil and just a freak due to a tumor in his brain and is also more of a Iron man & Batman mix
Owlman
Owlman?
Owlman my guy.
All star superman movie is what we need
True very true
This film is to Superman what Ruby Gillman is to The Little Mermaid.
I actually liked Rubby Gillman more than Ariel from The Little Mermaid though.
Elaborate
@@piretiris8223 , I personally view Ariel as a naive teenager whereas Rubby Gillman is a wholesome teen that cares deeply about her friends and family.
@@RoronoaZoro-ur6hr I wasn't really trying to talk to you, but I do like and respect your opinion as well. Keep up the good work! 👍
@@piretiris8223 It completely misses the point of the original story. Like, by miles.
The concept of an alien species that is like a wasp or a mockingbird where they just drop off their kids to let other people raise them is an intresting concept
If they wanted Brandon to be inherently evil but raised by loving parents, just have the kid CONSTANTLY at war with himself. First he kills one of his bullies completely by accident when he just snaps and loses his temper, and he's shocked and horrified at what he did, and it leads him down a dark rabbithole of being afraid of himself, trying to fight the voice in his head, accidentally hurting more and more people around him as he loses himself to the inner nature...
The worst part is you would have to change very little about the setup for Brightburn to work as an analogue for egocentric/problematic masculinity. There's a scene where the dad tells the son to just go for what he wants; he deserves to be happy, and that kind of stuff, and the parents are always enforcing his behavior because they aren't aware that he's going evil, so if you literally just, 1) Took out the alien spaceship mind control, and 2) gave more direct examples of how empty platitudes and thoughtless encouragement can send the wrong messages to a child, and bam, you've got a slightly better movie; by doing less ironically.
It also feels sometimes like they were trying to dodge a hard R, maybe even trying to slide into a PG-13, but couldn't commit to either, so there's not even enough gore for a it to just be a good slasher flick with an alternative villain setup.
More gore + make it about the perils of not paying attention to your kid + the subtle invocation of egocentric masculinity = An actually decent movie.
Wow I can't believe Brightburn is Injustice Superman
If only, Injustice is way better.
Injustice Superman at least has a goal with structure.
@@abewear2882
And the actual reason as to WHY he becomes evil.
Even Injustice Superman is avenging the Joker's murder of his family and hometown. Brightburn kills his family and hometown because his spaceship brainwashed him from birth to conquer Earth.
I like Irredeemable for Plutonian's character arc of being scared and confused and desperate and ultimately just wanting to go back to how things used to be. But his whole life has been a cascade of mistakes and their far-reaching consequences with no real guiding figures to help him get a handle on things, and so he just keeps lashing out and making things worse even against people who genuinely only want to help.
And then there's Incorruptible, the companion comic about Plutonian's archnemesis Max Damage. Max is so shocked by Plutonian's actions that he decides to step up and become a hero just so the world makes sense again. Unlike Tony, he's already used to people hating and fearing him, and although his rigid black-and-white view of morality causes problems more often than not, he's ultimately able to become a beacon of hope in the midst of all the chaos.
It's a really fun and interesting dichotomy that explores two different sides of the "Evil Superman" concept in fairly unique ways, which I'm afraid an adaptation wouldn't really be able to do proper justice.
I’m so tired of evil Superman and heroes. That’s why we have super villains
The Injustice comics did unfixable damage to Superman's reputation
@@Somerandomguy75812 Hopefully not unfixable, but it did cause lasting damage. My Adventures With Superman is helping, but that is after quite a long time.
Lucy from Elfen lied does this better then brightburn cause yes she’s full on psychopathic but there’s a clear reason for her
The found footage superhero movie Chronicle also does this really well. One of the boys who gets powers slowly becomes evil over the course of the film.