Hollywood prognosticators and social media replies alike say that Superman and The Fantastic Four: First Steps are hobbled from the start. Superman is a boring goody-goody and the Fantastic Four are hokey. Earnest stories about doing the right thing and the thrill of discovery for their own sake? Yawn. Our times are dark, we have never been so divided, and these one-note characters are no longer relatable. We should have Superman snap a guy’s neck.
But these are not impossible stories to make hugely meaningful, even when the real world primes us to disbelieve them. And the return of Superman and the Fantastic Four to movie theaters later this year means a chance at two more installments of one of my favorite underrated sci-fi subgenres.
There’s actually no bad time for stories about the triumph of intellect and romance.
‘In 1963, the BBC premiered a show about an alien’
I owe the profound phrase “the triumph of intellect and romance over brute force and cynicism” to the silliest of places, which perhaps underscores my whole point about the appeal of sincere optimism in sci-fi.
It’s a quote from an energetic parody of the Doctor Who theme song, that gives the traditionally instrumental track clunky lyrics and gyrating dance moves in service of summing up the appeal of the long-running UK series. The whole ridiculous performance was filmed as a cold open of Craig Ferguson’s The Late Late Show but omitted from the official broadcast because of music licensing issues, then leaked online, then eventually aired.
According to this utterly campy little community-theater-style number, the reason Doctor Who is so beloved is that it’s “all about the triumph of intellect and romance over brute force and cynicism.”
“And if there is any hope for any of us in this giant explosion in which we inhabit,” Ferguson intones, making theatrically urgent eye contact, his voice dramatically low, “then surely that’s it: Intellect and romance’s triumph over brute force and cynicism.”
It’s a perfect codification of the thematic root of Doctor Who, so sublime that it makes me, someone who examines the appeal of nerdy shit for a living, furious. Because that’s it! That’s exactly what the Doctor is. The Doctor is not a grounded character — but rather an immortal being who possesses both a wand that can do essentially anything and an infinitely large house that can go literally anywhere. Despite that nigh-omnipotence, the Doctor’s foes are usually quite simple metaphors that are defeated by cleverness or the better ends of human nature.
Who is not alone in the category. Star Trek also lives in that space where humanity’s appetite for community, ambition for knowledge, capacity for problem solving, and love of fellowship leads crews to victory over veiled metaphors for nationalism, empire, or racism. And you’ll find many, many characters in the superhero genre here as well, most prominently the founders of the two great comic-book settings: Superman (the character who defined the genre) and the Fantastic Four (who established the Marvel Universe’s tone).
While there are some modern examples in this category — usually aimed at younger audiences — the stories of these venerable heroes tend to share a certain vibe of mid-century futurism that is difficult to bring into congruence with our daily life. The sheen has worn off so many of science fiction’s great hopes: glorious non-commercial space exploration for all, artificial intelligence as a great ethical leap forward, the internet as a cool and fashionable place to tear down oppressive structures. Even the idea that a global existential threat would cause humanity to set aside our differences and unite against it feels implausible at the moment.
But what I find most interesting about the assumption that wide audiences will turn up their noses at sincerity in dark times is that the most influential and successful Superman film of all time came out in 1978.
You’ll believe a man can fly
Richard Donner’s Superman came out in the almost farcically disillusioned year of 1978! Watergate and the Vietnam War were only three years in the rearview. Jimmy Carter was president at the time, but the country was about to slam right into the Reagan years. The Cold War wouldn’t end for more than a decade. Superhero comics themselves were in ludicrously dire straits. Donner’s production filmed on location in the economically blasted New York City of 1977, just in time for the infamous blackout.
And yet, Superman (1978) is considered the indelible, iconic interpretation of Superman, a huge blockbuster success, a massive influence on superhero cinema, and lauded in its time by the biggest awards bodies in film.
It’s not impossible to celebrate intellect and romance in uncertain times. It’s merely difficult. That might not seem like an enormous distinction, but I can only hear so many takes about how Superman is boring and the Fantastic Four don’t speak to current audiences before I want to chew drywall. If Superman and Fantastic Four: First Steps fail it’ll be because they were built wrong, not because their concepts were ill-suited to the moment.
A story in which Superman’s use of power is an unambiguous good for the world still has plenty of ways of raising the stakes through well-realized villains and giving him internal conflict with interpersonal connections. A Fantastic Four story can give us four good-hearted scientists on a voyage of discovery who are still flawed human beings wrestling with fame, changed circumstances, or adversity.
The intellect and romance genre is not just about the triumph at the end. Its heroes don’t embody kindness simply because it enables them to win. It’s taken as read, without need for justification within the narrative, that intellect and romance are ends in themselves, and that exploration, friendship, openness, and responsibility are not merely acknowledged as good, but form the backbone of why our heroes do all the things they do.
“Intellect and romance over brute force and cynicism” isn’t a tautological exercise in why those values always win and never lose. It’s an illustration of why they’re worth struggling for. And it’s when the struggle is hard that we need that reminder the most.
The post Two 2025 films could be a triumph for sci-fi’s best subgenre appeared first on Polygon.
