It's a bird! It's a plane! It's ... people arguing on the internet. The new "Superman" trailer has fans freaking out — but not for the reasons you'd expect.
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00:00It's a bird. It's a plane. It's people arguing on the internet.
00:04The new Superman trailer has fans freaking out, but not for the reasons you'd expect.
00:09After weeks of online discourse concerning the color grading of Wicked, which director
00:13Jon M. Chu has defended as an attempt to portray a more realistic Oz, social media has moved
00:19on to a new bugbear, the colors in the Superman trailer.
00:23Following the dark and drab color palette in Zack Snyder's Man of Steel, people now
00:26apparently have a problem with James Gunn's Superman being too brightly contrasted. You
00:31can't please everyone, especially when it comes to Superman.
00:34You know what? Screw you guys. Just forget it.
00:38On X, one user criticized the aesthetic, writing,
00:41"'Superman' looks like a fancy TV show. The bright colors are matched with bad contrast,
00:45the limited character interaction looks shallow, and David Corrin's sweat shows 0% Superman
00:51aura."
00:52These types of posts first popped up after Wednesday's initial teaser, which showed off
00:56just a little bit of footage, including a shot of The Daily Planet reporters looking
00:59sorta drab to some. However, the discourse kicked into high gear when the actual trailer
01:04dropped, so expect many more long-winded debates about Superman in the weeks and months to
01:09come.
01:10One clearly embittered ex-user wrote,
01:11"'This color grade is actually horrendous and is washing out the whole cast, going from
01:15Man of Steel to this.'"
01:17Fans who liked the more muted colors of Snyder's films might be put off by the vibrant colors
01:21in this movie's trailer. Either way, there's no right or wrong answer to the palette debate
01:26— it's all about visual preference. Plus, we've literally seen less than three minutes
01:30of footage so far. Maybe the movie's themes and vibe will justify its saturated colors.
01:35We'll only know when Superman finally comes out on July 11th, 2025.
01:39The overly saturated colors have a lot of ex-users making one comment specifically.
01:44Just take this person's tweet,
01:46"'Superman' looks very odd visually, almost reminds me of one of those CW shows. This
01:51seems to be meant as a bad thing, as CW shows are often criticized for their TV budget production
01:56choices. There's also usually a tendency to ensure every shot looks overly polished, like
02:01it's meant to be a TV show rather than, you know, real life. Because as we all know, there's
02:06nothing more realistic than a man who flies around in a costume and shaves himself with
02:10eyeball lasers. It's not just the visuals giving people the ick, though. The CW criticism
02:14has been extended to the overall vibe of the whole movie, even though we've obviously seen
02:18less than three minutes of it.
02:20"'It's like a CW show, if the cast was less hot.'"
02:24Another critical ex-user wrote,
02:26"'Looks cheesy, like a CW show plus a dog with a cape saves Superman. Face palm emoji.'"
02:31Look, talking about color grading is one thing, but crypto is the goodest boy around. Let's
02:36not bring crypto into this. And remember, this is James Gunn, Silly James Gunn, the
02:40same Silly James Gunn who gave an emotional story arc to Polka Dot Man.
02:45I'm a super-a**hole! I'm—
02:53Also, it's worth noting that The CW actually had a Superman show the past few years with
02:57Superman & Lois, which ended on December 2nd, and actually managed to do something new with
03:02the character. Not only that, Superman & Lois had pretty good visuals considering its budget
03:06and network, so maybe CW shows deserve a little more respect from those criticizing it online.
03:12As with anything that happens on the internet, there's bound to be backlash to the backlash.
03:16As soon as people came in posting about the Superman trailer's color grading, others entered
03:20the chat to insist the shots looked fine. An optimistic ex-user offered this perspective,
03:25"...I like the colors in that Superman trailer. Even if it looks kind of goofy, it's a nice
03:29contrast from everything being so grim and gritty."
03:32To be honest, a brighter color palette really shouldn't be surprising to anyone, considering
03:36James Gunn's previous superhero efforts. His Guardians of the Galaxy movies are far more
03:41colorful than a lot of other films in the genre, and if there's any character who deserves
03:45to have bright colors pop on the big screen, it's the Man of Steel.