On Heroes

Brendan Routh looking every bit the hero in the upcoming Superman Returns movie.

I saw the two new trailers for Superman Returns this weekend (they’re available here and here if you haven’t seen them yet) and I’m really excited to see this movie. I love Smallville too and I think that one of the reasons that all the different incarnations of Superman connect with so many people around the world is because Superman is a great character and, when properly told, the Superman story is a great story.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re telling a story with actors, animation or puppetry; great characters – specifically great heroes like Superman – are what make people want to watch great stories.

Here’s a list of things you can do to make sure that your story has a great hero*:

• Introduce your hero quickly and get the audience to immeadately identify with them through sympathy, jeopardy, likeability, humor or power. Sure, Superman has amazing abilities, but it’s the human aspects of him like his relationship with Lois Lane and his struggle as an alien living among humans that makes us actually care about him.
• Give your hero a compelling desire, with a clear, visible goal for them to achieve. As a boy Clark Kent wanted to know why he was different and what he was doing on earth. As a man he answers that question by becoming earth’s greatest hero and fighting for “truth, justice and the American way.”
• Create seemingly insurmountable obstacles that the hero must overcome in order to achieve their goal. We love Superman because he can save the world from almost anything that enemies like Lex Luthor throw at him.
• Make your hero believable. Your hero must behave the way people with their background would logically behave in whatever situation you’ve created. Good fantasy writers know that you can only get away with one major logical conceit in your story. An audience will believe a man can fly, but if he suddenly starts learning Kung-Fu from leprechauns halfway through the movie you’ve officially jumped the shark.
• Use subtext. Avoid clichéd, “on-the-nose” dialogue. Show, don’t tell. In Superman: The Movie Superman never actually tells Lois Lane that he loves her, but you know how he feels from the agony in his face when he finds her dead.
• Make your hero grow by giving them an emotional fear to overcome. Superman might be almost physically indestructible, but he doesn’t know what to do emotionally when he returns to Earth after several years and finds out that the world has moved on without him.

*Adapted from Michael Hauge’s Script Checklist with notes from Alan Kistler’s fantastic article Why You Should Respect Christopher Reeve.

…and just to keep the Superhero theme going tonight, if you’re interested, take a peek at my thoughts on Batman Begins and the importance of making puppet stories mythic from last year.

23/05/06 Update: Neil Gaiman and Adam Rogers have a great editorial about the Superman myth in this month’s Wired Magazine that makes for a good read.