Don't go THAT far dude, Michael Rosenbaum IS great I'll Grant you that. BUT Gene Hackman made Lex Legendary. There's BE no Smallville with out the epic Cristopher Reeves AND Gene hackman to push it into the 90's. Even Dean Cain's Superman wasn't good enough to keep Superman alive through the 90's. The race would be close I'll admit because most people NOW are too young to even know the NAME Gene Hackman.
@@patrickcromwell7554 Hackman was Luthor, but while devious, he and Ned Beatty were comical. Rosenbaum IS Lex Luthor. No ifs, ands, or whatevers. Fuck Hackman, fuck Spacey, it's Rosenbaum.
@@harrybishop3404 While I will agree that Otis was just for comedy Jene Hackman did three other movies without Otis. Even when he had John Cryer as his nephew (who played Lex in Supergirl by the way) there was still a measure of menace to him. Rosenbaum was great I'll never deny that to anyone. But without the foundation that Hackman left behind, He would NOT have been so epic. Your blatant disrespect of the person who MADE Luthor a living person people want to see is just sad. Try to stop fanboying and appreciate that Rosenbaum is only one part in a larger machine.
i feel sorry for lex, in the beggining he really wanted to be a good person, and he wanted to let people know that he can be trusted, but nobody wanted to take the time to get to know him, and that really got to him, people misjudged him, and thats why he slowly became who he is through out the seasons .
Lex wanted to be good but he also gave ample reason why he couldn’t be trusted due to his obsessive nature for finding answers especially regarding Clark (to the point where he would willingly put innocent people in danger) and his growing desire for power and control especially after Season 5. Lex was destined to be evil given his upbringing courtesy of Lionel; his friendship with Clark only delayed the inevitable.
Yeah, but what gave Lex that last push was finding out his best friend didn't trust him with his secret. I truly believe if Clark had been honest with lex from the beginning, he would've been a good person.
I remember when he told Ryan in the hospital how the journey to the dark side was a destination, not a light switch. Yes, Lex did start with good intentions, but as Jonathan Kent noted, that's what the road to hell is paved with. The stigma of his fathers shrewd business practices and reputation followed him and he could not escape it. Then there was also his abusive upbringing, how they're always seemed to be a pause in Lionel's delivery before he called him son, as if he was an embarrassment to him. And to make matters worse, his father was revealed to have murdered his parents to acquire the insurance policy to start his company, and he went so far as to induce temporary insanity in his own son and order shock treatment to erase his memory of his guilt. Clarks altruism and selflessness that drove him to save Lex after the crash on the bridge that day inspired lax for a time. He did try to become a better person than his father, but yes his obsession with discovering the truth about that day led to his own legacy of lies, compromises, and suffering. He had already been traumatized by losing his hair in the meteor shower, but made to feel like an embarrassment, as well as the tragedy of both his mother and his brother left their mark on him. He felt vulnerable and afraid, and as George Lucas has demonstrated through the Star Wars films, fear is the path to the Darkside. As Milton fine noted in season five, he went from feeding people to killing them. He saw kryptonite mutations as a possible avenue to exploit and profit from, hence the 33.1 facilities that housed and tortured meteor-infected denizens of Smallville. As much as he defended his actions as noble and altruistic, in truth they were a power grab plain and simple. Throughout the seasons, people that he once protected from his father's wrath like Chloe and Pete he eventually turned on as a means to an end which always was the truth about Clark. Jonathan was right in what kind of a man Lionel was, but he did have a role in pushing Lex to the Darkside by distrusting him right away for fear of losing his son. While Clark did have the choice of defining his parents and telling Lex his secret and chose instead to heed their warnings, in the end it was Lex himself that caused the collapse of a once strong friendship by his inability to let go. To respect his friends boundaries and let him make the decision to confide in him if things ever got that far. Admiration turned to envy, and soon he coveted what Clark had. First endangering his parents to uncover Clark's secret, and then going after Lana when her relationship with Clark got rocky over the secrets he had to keep from her. Murdering his father, who hadfound redemption and new purpose as an ally to Clark, in his quest for power regarding project veritas, was the final nail in the coffin. That sequence where he takes his younger self and throws him into the fire, as Michael himself noted, was him burning away the last vestige of goodness in him. It was his own choices that led to him being buried in the Arctic and hiding for three years while he rebuild his body with cloned organs from his Cadmus project. So now we have the final evolution of Lex Luthor, the culmination of ten years of scars, betrayal, and obsession. He had reached his destination.
@@Artisan1979 To be clear: Lex going dark was on Lex. Period. However, Lex didn't just become obsessed with learning the truth about Clark. Clark wasn't just lying to Lex. He was constantly telling Lex to be honest while also telling Lex things he knew very well were lies and expecting him to parrot them back as if they were the truth. It was years of lies after lies and I actually admire Lex's restraint in lasting as long as he did before finally giving up on Clark. Secondly, Lex didn't go after Lana until after Clark officially ended things between them. And he actually waited quite a while afterwards to do so. Clarke and Lana's relationship was crumbling not from Clark's secrets but from the fact that he was constantly lying to her and not trusting her. Clark and Lana were never in a healthy stable relationship. Whether he was the guy looking for a way not to lose his way or the villain of the story we saw coming. He was great either way! I believe that they wrote a season 11 comic of Smallville that I may have to check just to see how it all ended up...
3:27 Michael makes that line of work so brilliantly in its ambiguity. He sounds supportive, like the friend that Lex used to be to Clark. And yet at the same time you cannot be sure if he's talking about himself. He just stated that he has embraced his role as the villain in the story and will play that part, and one of his gifts has always been subterfuge and deception. And Clark, who has danced this dance with Lex for too many years not to catch on, is quick to distrust him. The third possibility is you cannot be sure if Lex is actually encouraging him so that their rivalry can begin without any outside interference. I personally am putting my money on option three. After stating his intentions, Lex does not want anyone else overshadowing him, especially dark side. He wants to be the number one opponent to Clark because he knows that their battle will define them both and ensure the greatness he has always sought after. It's twisted and it's tragic that he could not rise above the past and was consumed by the darkness while Clark managed to purge it from himself.
3:38 There are so many layers to that statement. Clark tried to be his friend, pull him back from the darkness that was, as Lex had put it, creeping in around the corners. Darkness that was born from both his abusive relationship with his father and the scars that left deep insecurities that birthed a need to second guess people at one explanation and a need for control. But Lex made it impossible. Instead of taking his initial rescue by Clark as a miracle, he kept digging for the truth to the point of obsession. He even went so far as to allow dangerous Belle Reeve inmates to escape and target the Kents to test Clark and denied it when hours later he professed a desire to rebuild his friendship with Clark. But I believe that there will always be a part of Clark that blames himself for giving up on Lex too soon. How he should've tried harder. Regardless of this possible self blame, he is forced to accept that this is who Lex Luthor has become, this is where they are now, and all he can do is keep his former friend from harming anyone else going forward. He made his choice to embrace darkness, and in Clarks eyes it's tragic because he saw the kind of person Lex had been when they first met. He had the makings of a good man that could have been great if he did not make that his sole focus. But he did not want to put the work into it. He may have had Clark as an example, but his entitled attitude to life and his obsession with the past let him down a dark road that has now consumed him. The man who could've been his greatest ally has now become his greatest opponent. Maybe when he says this he's thinking of that moment when they're both in the loft looking out and Lex remarking that their friendship was going to be the stuff of legend. Perhaps in his mind he is lamenting the friends they once were when he regrets he could not save him.
Clearly, 1:53-2:25 is the best moment from this scene. I believe it's what sets up this historic rivalry between these two men after many years when the seeds were planted, waiting to bloom.
the last 30 seconds from the conversation is really good as well. seems like they lightly shifted from enemies to friends until clark pull lex away when lex touches him... i almost got the impression that lex was actually giving clark emotional support to fight darkseid
One implication of this show that was always interesting to me was that had Clark told Lex about his heritage early on in their relationship, Lex probably doesn't turn to the darkness, and instead uses his resources to support his best friend's heroism, the best friend who only saw the best and good in Lex. It's interesting how the show almost tells you that Clark's inability to trust Lex drove him to eventually become his enemy.
Bull. The show shows us over and over again that Lex is going to go bad no matter what Clark does. Its Lex's own lust for power that convinces Clark that Lex can't be trusted and he's right not to.
@fandomking8939 Not really it actually was shown in the early seasons. It was one of the things that the show writers dragged out along with Clark's relationship with Lana. If he should have trusted them or not.
The way lex said to clark about clark Kent isn’t enough to save the world and lex goes he isn’t but they both know who can lex was talking about superman he knew clark was about to become that hero and you could see the proud brother in the last minute
"I used to think it was our families who made us who we are. Then I hoped it was our friends. But if you look at history, the great men and women of the world have always been defined by their enemies" this hurts so much because you can see how in earlier seasons Lex tried to impress Lionel but Lionel failed him over and over and his friendship with Clark fell apart because they could not trust each other so he gave up on family and friendship and decided to make Clark his enemy
the last 30 seconds from the conversation is really good as well. seems like they lightly shifted from enemies to friends until clark pulls lex away when lex touches him... i almost got the impression that lex was actually giving clark emotional support to fight darkseid
This scene was rushed in terms of production - Rosenbaum only agreed to return at last minute after most of finale was compete. I’m sure they didn’t have time to prepare as they normally would
As great as this scene is, it's a shame that the lead up towards it is so lacking and disappointing. Seasons 1 - 7 had set up Lex so perfectly before it was abruptly stalled until this finale. I keep imagining what could have been.
