This is a prime example of how little regard Marketing Execs have for the audience of their product.
Instead of hiring Bruce Timm, or even one of the many excellent producers who worked under him on Batman, Superman, Batman Beyond, Justice League, or Teen Titans, (just like they did with the horrible Batman Mystery of the Batwoman) Warner Home Video hired new people unfamiliar with the show to make a direct to video movie.
Bruce Timm and his team are just brilliant. Every time Warners (in one division or another) asked them to do something, they looked at it not as just a paycheck, but as an opportunity to make something great. They created the best versions of every character they touched in any audio/visual medium. They weaved complex characters with developing character arches over multiple episodes, seasons, series.
But Instead, Warner Home Video decided to hire a couple of also-rans who had no love for the series they were creating an OVA for. First, they recast all of the villains. Lex Luthor, his body guard Mercy, and the Unstoppable, Self Replicating Brainiac. Then they discarded all previous character development. Lex still owns a large portion of Metropolis, but suddenly his evil schemes are paper thin, he's wall to wall jokes and wisecracks, and he has lost his composure. Lois Lane has traded in her might and equality to return to her vapid damsel roots of the very earliest Superman incarnations. Brainiac has stopped being Superman's most dangerous enemy, and instead is just a Giant Robot. Mercy was out of character. Perry White was out of Character. And Superman was not any Superman I could recognize. Causing Damage in Metropolis, instead of trying to take the fight out of the city. Whiney and Lovelorn.
Here's the thing, if you are going to make such horribly drastic changes to the characters, they should have redesigned the characters based on the Superman Returns character looks , and got the cast of the movie to do the voices. Then you have the movie tie in, and the cast as a selling point, instead of a detraction. The same horrible script would have been just fine that way. By using the Bruce Timm character designs, and half the cast, they created an expectation this OVA could not achieve.
I love DC Comics and buy every DVD that has characters from their comics, but now having been burned twice by Mystery of the Batwoman and Brainiac Attacks, I might have to start reading reviews first.
