Real Reason For Backlash
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joeCamel81 — 13 years ago(October 09, 2012 09:21 PM)
If i remember correctly millar and gough left the show after the 7th or 8th season so im assuming the no flight no tights thing went with them, for the most part anyway. the show was never about the suit but about the man who would end up wearing it. from the 1st season to the last it was about the journey of clark becoming superman, 1c84 it was called Smallville for a reason. I think having him don the suit earlier wouldnt have made as much sense as it did because the suit represents him letting go of the past and being the hero he can really be, he wasnt there at the beginning of the 10th season.
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Tough_Love11 — 10 years ago(December 08, 2015 11:41 PM)
People are so fixated on wanting to see Superman in the suit. We all ready know the guy in the suit, Superman. I am a huge Superman fan and would have loved to have seen Tom Welling in such caliber.
Also there are a lot of legality behind Superman Suit. Not just anyone can wear the suit if the owners don't want it to happen. If you watch Supergirl, Superman is shown as a figure. You can't see his face or the "S" on the suit because of legal reasons. -
genna_ballenger — 13 years ago(January 06, 2013 11:10 PM)
Exactly and if you watch the commentary for 10x01 the suit they had was the one that Brandon Routh wore and they werent even allowed to take it out of the box. This isnt Tom's fault, it's not like they would actually let him say no, I'm not wearing the suit. He would understand that it dissapointed the fans I think it was more legal copyright crap than his descision.
And by the way the black jacket and shirt was way cooler than that stupid suit anyway. -
bverji — 13 years ago(November 13, 2012 12:57 AM)
Ok, so the OP is upset because they felt that the show was headed down a certain path and reneged. Seems understandable, but what I don't understand is why is this Welling's fault? Does he write the show as well?
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networkwiz — 13 years ago(December 02, 2012 07:57 PM)
I agree with you for the most part. I watched for 10 seasons, even during the not so good seasons to see Clark become Superman. Even after all this time I feel that as a fan we got cheated. However, I'm wondering if there might be some other reasons. This is purely my speculation, but notice that we hadn't seen Clark shirtless for a few seasons. It was mostly Justin's character Oliver that got all the shirtless roles after season 8. In the finale when we see Clark posing on the roof ( it looks so much like a modeling pose after he casts down his vest), doesn't he seem a bit, well how should I say it, not thin? I'm not saying he looked fat, but I've wondered all along whether or not he just did not look good in the suit anymore. To my mind if you look at that pose shot, Tom didn't look to be in the same figure as in earlier seasons.
Wouldn't be a bite if after all this time the real reason is that Tom was no longer fit enough to pull off the suit?
Take care all,
A 10 year teased fan, -
pna12 — 13 years ago(January 29, 2013 10:23 AM)
Did you hit your head? I read this post long ago and I just watched the finale and even though I wear glasses I'm pretty sure I saw some shots of Tom in the actual Superman suit.Let alone the close-up in the last scene. What else did you expect? Of course there weren't all that clear but the creators had made the no-tights-no-flights policy crystal clear from the earliest days of Smallville.
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steviebhoy719 — 13 years ago(January 31, 2013 04:33 AM)
"you should have simply been honest and confirmed 'no flights, no tights' upfront."
They were upfront about this. It was the whole premise of the show. We were lucky to see what we did, coz it was actually more than we were promised and we should be thankful for that! -
Grumftheld — 13 years ago(February 23, 2013 03:45 PM)
It was at the beginning, but the point of it was not to specifically say 'we'll never show the suit or flying' it was to explain to people not to expect those things to turn up regularly, to, in short, not expect it to be a Superman show, but a show about Clark Kent.
Now then, if this whole show had only ever been Clark Kent, and they'd never touched on the transition into Superman, there wouldn't be a problem, but they DID go there and as the seasons rolled by and the end moved closer, the whole DC universe became more and more involved, we saw every aspect of a complete DC universe on TV that we could, except 1, Superman. That was OK because it was a "Clark Kent show"? Sorry, that doesn't hold water. If the show had ended after 6 or 7 seasons before it became a DC universe show, then yes, people could buy it as in those seasons, whilst there were some additional DC elements, it was still the story of Clark Kent, but the problem the OP referred to, which is still a legitimate complaint even now, is that the last 3 seasons set us up for a grand finale with Clark finally realising who he is, becoming Superman and facing off against a big bad in a big throw down (OK, that last bit was just wishful thinking really) and that is what we got, except rather than letting it all out as a final thank you to loyal fans, they deliberately filmed all the 'Superman' parts so as not to show Tom in the suit like people wanted. People have a legitimate reason to feel.betrayed.hurt.angry? Whatever emotion you want to ascribe them, they have a legitimate reason to feel that way.
As the OP says, if they hadn't have made a point of teasing that finale for so long, then not providing it, people wouldn't have minded so much. There were a lot of options they could have done instead, options that people would have accepted and carried on following the show because they were invested in it, but they deliberately decided to focus on a long reveal of Superman-suit et al, purely because they know it would keep fans talking and invested more than the storylines they were providing.
I'm not sure the OP is right to blame Tom Welling, we'll never really know how strict certain rules are and who made what decision, but the bottom line is that they deliberately made the fans believe they were going to see the final transition into Superman and a full suit reveal etc, and didn't provide it. People feel cheated and I can understand why. Today it still annoys me, and I find it hard to watch the last episode, but more now because it's actually just a plainly bad episode and a poor way to finish such a fantastic series than anything else. It also bothers me more that they chose to go the route they did than stand up and say 'this isn't happening' because I think they could have done some much much better episodes without having to continue that whole charade.
Also, just as a passing thought, people use the argument that 'it was the story of Clark Kent's journey', which is true, it was, but one point those people overlook- every journey has an end, it can't be a journey without a destination, for Clark Kent, that Journey ended at Superman, you couldn't have that journey without him. Following that analogy, I agree with ending on Superman, but Superman it has to be. -
silvertron — 13 years ago(February 25, 2013 03:10 PM)
Backlash? I guess I'm not reading IMDB and other such boards enoughI didn't know there was any kind of backlash against Welling.
I was only an occasional viewer of Smallville, but I did enjoy the series ending as the old Superman score welled up and the big red S was revealed. -
Grumftheld — 13 years ago(February 27, 2013 04:57 PM)
It's largely blown over now. It's been a good 18 months or so since the finale, all you get now is people occasionally like to crop up and chat about it and some like to still air their grievances over how it ended. That's the nature of the beast really, when you work hard to get people invested in something, then the investment doesn't pay off in the way they were promised, they get very upset about it and it lingers.
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WackyKacky — 13 years ago(April 02, 2013 10:47 AM)
I too was disappointed not to see Tom Welling in the full suit. At first I chalked it up to his being older and not quite as buff, although just as handsome. However, a few posters here I think were accurate. There were limits on what they were allowed to do. We often think it's the actors choices when in fact they have the least say. They don't write the scripts (usually), they don't decide what they can legally do with an icon that other people have the legal rights to, etc. I think Tom Welling delivered to the best of his ability. We didn't see it all, but the show ended with him arriving at being Superman. And don't forget, they did a great job with him flying in Season Four, albeit as Kal-El. As for me, I was always more interested in the Clark Kent than Superman aspect. I loved seeing that in Lois & Clark, The New Adventures of Superman, and was very pleased to see it dealt more with Clark Kent and his coming of age.
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clarksmommy — 12 years ago(April 28, 2013 09:53 PM)
Ok. I watched the show from day one. And from day one I knew that Tom Welling would never wear the suit. He had no say in it but it had every thing to do with WB and their ownership of Superman. Al and Miles had never intended for Smallville to go as long as it did and nor did they ever intend for him to put on the suit.
As a Smallville fan and a Superman fan I was satisfied with the way the series ended. So there is no backlash. Although I must agree that it is a crying shame Tom is hiding behind the camera instead of showing his handsome face in front of it.
