SUPERMAN II

[thomasallencummins]

Well crap. I watched part of Superman II last night and I have to confess to being a little shocked. Sure it's been a few years since I viewed the film last but I've always held the belief that S2 was somewhat more exciting than the original film and therefore possibly superior. BBBBBZZZZZZZZ!!! WRONG! Superman I has its flaws to be sure. I CAN'T STAND THE FLYING SCENE WITH LOIS, THE HORRIBLE POETRY! AAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHH! Where's the remote! Which button is the fast forward! AAHHHHH! There it is! <press> <press> <press> Whew! But as I watched S2 right from the beginning I noticed something that I had never really noticed before....this film sucks! The direction is clumsy, the story is simply idiotic, the special effect are nauseatingly poor, real world physics are ignored, common sense is ignored...its just really really bad. The love story between Supes and Lois is just painful to watch from beginning to end. Only Anakin and Padme are harder to accept on screen. The terrorist plot in Paris, the hydrogen bomb blast in space that frees the trapped prisoners, the illogic that a hydrogen blast (which is thousands of times weaker than the output of even a small star) is the catalyst for the breakout, is all nonsense. The scenes on the moon are just difficult to watch. There are continuity issues everywhere. I just can't get into it all. What I'm on about here isn't so much that S2 is a horrible film but that I never really noticed it before last night. Must have been something really wrong with me or back in 1981 there wasn't very much to compare S2 with like we are able to do today. Especially with Iron man in the theaters. ;D

[ram]

atomic, I agree with every single unrelenting word you said. ;D

Superman I: yeah, the whole "poetry" sequence with Kidder doing her voiceover while flying with Reeve is something I skip as well. I guess it fit in with the era in which the film was made - it's got that sort of euphoric Seventies vibe, if I can call it that. But that doesn't make it any less embarrassing to watch.

Superman II: yeah, some years after the nostalgia wore off, I also came to realize that this sequel wasn't all that golden. Like you, I at first felt it was more exciting than the original...but then, the more I thought about it, the more the flaws distracted me. There are definitely things in this sequel that defy rhyme and reason. And the flying effects: yeah, it's hard to believe we were wowed by that back then. But I agree that, back in '81, we didn't exactly have a host of other superhero films to measure Superman II against.

Superman: The Movie is a proud part of my DVD collection, but I can't bring myself to buy the sequels.

My Spidey sense tells me there will be a sequel to this thread: Superman III - It Sucks Too! (Come on, you know you want to.)

[thomasallencummins]

Heh. In order to create a sequel I'd have to WATCH superman III. Come to think of it I have seen much of it in the past year or so. Funny thing is that I actually like the "Good Superman / Bad Superman" fight. Reeve does a really good job of portraying both roles convincingly.

Back to SII, my wife pointed out last night that when the villains are flying though space toward the Moon their costumes are fluttering in the breeze....what? WHAT BREEZE? Solar wind? Yeeeeeeeesh! :-)

[ram]

May 16, 2008 12:21:55 GMT -5 thomasallencummins said:

Funny thing is that I actually like the "Good Superman / Bad Superman" fight. Reeve does a really good job of portraying both roles convincingly.

True, that was a highlight of the movie.

Back to SII, my wife pointed out last night that when the villains are flying though space toward the Moon their costumes are fluttering in the breeze....what? WHAT BREEZE? Solar wind? Yeeeeeeeesh! :-)

Hee hee. For that matter, how could those three TALK on the Moon where there is no air? But then again, well, we hear explosions in space all the time in sci-fi movies (unless you're watching 2001) and I don't complain about it. Still, I guess it's the obviousness of these gaffes in Superman II that draw attention to themselves.

One thing I can't get over is the scene where the trio of supervillains lands on Earth and Zod happens to find himself waist deep in a pond. So our brilliant General feels the water and says in puzzlement: "what a strange surface this planet has" or something like that. Okay, even when I was a kid, that bugged me. I could not believe this supposedly superior race of beings in the galaxy had never heard of WATER.

[thomasallencummins]

Preach it, Brother ram. Amen! :-)

Now what I didn't get into originally was that I've NEVER understood how or why Superman (or any male with any sense) would give up his powers for Margot Kidder? Of all the Lois Lanes we've seen I really am dumbfounded by that casting choice. If I'm not mistaken I believe the creative team must have noticed this too. Ursa makes a comment about this very thing within the context of the film! Were they just giving old Margot a nice ribbing? No wonder Lois was essentially written out of Superman III.

[ram]

May 16, 2008 13:15:50 GMT -5 thomasallencummins said:

Now what I didn't get into originally was that I've NEVER understood how or why Superman (or any male with any sense) would give up his powers for Margot Kidder? Of all the Lois Lanes we've seen I really am dumbfounded by that casting choice. If I'm not mistaken I believe the creative team must have noticed this too. Ursa makes a comment about this very thing within the context of the film! Were they just giving old Margot a nice ribbing? No wonder Lois was essentially written out of Superman III.

While the casting of Kidder didn't bother me quite as much as it bothered you, I do see where you're coming from. IMO, at least Kidder was memorable. Which is more than I can say for Kate Bosworth's Lois in Superman Returns. I mean, I literally cannot remember anything about Bosworth from that movie. For whatever reason, the character of Lois Lane seems to end up with less than ideal casting choices.

I don't remember what the story was behind Kidder being written out of Superman III, but I didn't particularly miss her. It was refreshing to have Lana Lang (Annette O'Toole) introduced to the story. Okay, so maybe Superman III didn't suck totally.


Back to Superman II: about the terrorist plot in Paris - it was pretty stupid that Lois managed to get into the Eiffel Tower by simply distracting an utter nitwit of a French policeman who was also apparently the ONLY officer guarding the entrance. It makes you wonder if he was the same dude who let in the terrorists in the first place: they could've just distracted him by telling him his shoelaces were untied. Sheesh. You also have to wonder how French moviegoers felt about seeing a member of their finest being portrayed as so grossly incompetent.

[thomasallencummins]

I have to say my reaction to Margo Kidder in the first film was mainly indifference. Superman II however seemed to emphasize her um...tomboy...personality. Or at least the direction produced that. Add to the fact that in some scenes she appears unusually weather worn, the whole idiotic notion of Superman giving up his powers takes on a level of sheer stupidity. Now I'm not judging Superman's super taste in women. Or his super eyesight. I only have my own, flawed, mortal perspective to form my opinions. :-)

As to Bosworth, well here we go with indifference again.

[ram]

May 19, 2008 5:42:56 GMT -5 thomasallencummins said:

I have to say my reaction to Margo Kidder in the first film was mainly indifference. Superman II however seemed to emphasize her um...tomboy...personality. Or at least the direction produced that. Add to the fact that in some scenes she appears unusually weather worn, the whole idiotic notion of Superman giving up his powers takes on a level of sheer stupidity.

I was also perplexed over why Superman should have to give up his powers at all in order to live with a mortal human. I just don't get that.

As for why he would do such a thing for Margot Kidder...love is blind, as they say. Really blind.

[ram]

Guess what, I finally watched the Richard Donner cut of Superman II. I didn't buy it, I downloaded it. Glad I didn't spend money on it, because I would've felt ripped off. It is, in its way, as big of a mess as the version we all know and love...er, hate.

The never-before-seen Donner footage is admittedly pretty interesting, and some of it is, I think, superior to what Richard Lester conceived. But many of these lost scenes are rough and awkward - not just in the effects but the acting. A disclaimer at the start of the film does warn that they sometimes had to use test footage because those were the only takes available, and it shows. The actors were nearly barking out their lines in some of these scenes; you may not believe it, but in some respects, the final Richard Lester version is actually more toned down.

In the end, even though I really wanted to like Donner's version, I honestly can't say it's any better than Lester's. I think what this alternate Superman II shows is that you can only do so much with editing and "new" scenes, no matter how clever, if you're still stuck with a film whose premise and everything about it still sucks.

Really, the first Superman film remains the only one that I can watch today without wincing at almost every turn.