Ten years ago, the world was buzzing with excitement over the return of Star Wars. The Force Awakens poured its entire marketing budget into rebuilding trust with fans burned by the prequels. And after pulling in over $2 billion at the box office, I’d say it worked. Well, it worked for everyone but me.

The Day Star Wars Took Me By Surprise

I won’t pretend I wasn’t hopeful for The Force Awakens, but I definitely wasn’t excited either. Whether it was online or in my real life, everyone I knew was going to see the movie, and even though I probably would’ve waited to check it out, I didn’t want to be left out of the conversation, so I went. And I still remember it like it was yesterday. As I sat in my seat, the lights dimmed, and as the Star Wars logo appeared, John Williams’ score blasted throughout the theater. Suddenly, without warning, my body began sinking into my chair as I was blanketed by a warmth I hadn’t felt in years.

Gone was the bitterness I felt toward the prequels. In its place were memories of my great aunt and her VHS box set of the original trilogy. I remembered watching those tapes over and over again. Even after she passed away, I continued watching the films until the tapes were so worn out they barely worked. Until that moment, I had forgotten just how much I loved Star Wars. How much it meant to me.

Ever since, I’ve wondered: Could any movie do that again?

Enter: James Gunn’s Superman

When it comes to movies, I would say I’m someone who tries their best to have a good time. I don’t see the point in hate-watching everything that gets released. If I think something might be bad, I don’t go. That said, over the last ten years since that experience with The Force Awakens, it has become harder and harder to not be cynical towards certain big blockbuster productions. Whether it’s the vast valleys of ups and downs with Star Wars or almost all of the Snyder-Era of DC, it can be challenging to enjoy certain things as I used to when it feels like projects I should enjoy are made by people who either don’t know what they’re doing or, even worse, don’t care.

I say all of this to explain how I arrived at my feelings for James Gunn’s Superman. The cast looked great. The trailers were promising. But my expectations? Low. After so many underwhelming attempts at bringing Superman back to the big screen, I wasn’t getting my hopes up. Gunn has made so many movies that I’ve loved, and even still, it didn’t matter how excited he said he was for audiences to see Superman, I just couldn’t get there. And then, just like before, the lights went down… the music started… and something clicked. It took everything in me not to cry.

I was suddenly back at my grandma’s house, curled up on the couch watching Superman 1 and 2 during a random movie marathon on TMC or TBS. There I was watching a young Clark Kent run alongside a speeding train while my grandma had her nose buried in the latest crossword puzzle book she’d bought from the grocery store. Every once in a while, though, the magic of Christopher Reeve would get her to look up and enjoy the films with me…

When the new film opened with a musical cue straight out of 1978, it didn’t just nod to Donner’s film; it nodded to me and everyone else who grew up with these movies.

Nostalgia as a Superpower

Despite my urge to be cynical towards certain blockbuster movies, I’m looking at you, Jurassic World, every so often, a film comes along that reminds us what these characters and stories meant to us long before box office numbers and online discourse mattered. They remind us of who we were, where we were, and how we felt.

Yes, I can now admit that Superman 4 is a terrible movie. But watching Superman fight Nuclear Man on the moon? As a kid, I couldn’t turn away. Watching as Superman crawled out from underneath the rubble, straightening up the American flag, Neil Armstrong and the boys had put there years earlier, and then chasing after Nuclear Man. I mean, what’s not to love!? Without this moment, I might never have been drawn to things like Dragon Ball Z or Invincible. If anything, Nuclear Man has made me into the man I am today…

Final Thoughts

I don’t think Gunn’s Superman is perfect. But honestly? It doesn’t have to be. It did the most important thing: it reminded me what it feels like to have fun at the movies again.

And in a culture that can sometimes feel obsessed with nitpicking, maybe the most radical thing we can do is choose joy. As cheesy as it sounds, maybe Superman was right: seeing the beauty in the world is the most punk rock thing we can do these days.