# I just rewatched Superman... and it sucked **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 26, 2003, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-rewatched-superman-and-it-sucked/177616 "2003-05-26T19:28:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Major\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Major\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Major_Kong)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2003, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-rewatched-superman-and-it-sucked/177616/21 "2003-05-27T08:07:16Z")
> [@](#): > > “Raindrops Keep Fallin on My Head” I like that scene in BC & tSK. ---
**Author:** ![spectrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc29f/32.png) [@spectrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spectrum)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2003, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-rewatched-superman-and-it-sucked/177616/22 "2003-05-27T08:13:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Priceguy \* > \*\*I just finished watching _Superman_ for the first time in ten years or so. Maybe more. While watching, I slowly realised something horrible. > > It sucks.\*\* I disagree. I’d say its the best comic book movie ever (and a recent poll at a comic book site agreed), and any plot holes are overlookable in this fun, true-to-the-source-material romp. It also makes more sense when you view it and the lesser sequel, Superman II, as one film, as they were meant to be. > [@](#): > > **1. It has no plot.** It’s not about anything at all. There is no encompassing storyline. We find out what Lex Luthor’s plan is when he tells Superman about it, minutes before Superman prevents it. The movie isn’t about Lex Luthor’s plot, or Superman vs. Luthor. It’s about Superman’s emergence. It’s his first act. Acts II and III are in Superman II. Luthor is a sideplot, not the main villain of the story. > [@](#): > > **2. The villain is not a character.** Lex Luthor has no motivation. He’s evil for the sake of it. Sure, he wants those billions of dollars, but why summon Superman and tell him about his project? Why revel in his own evil the way he does? Because he’s the comic relief. The real villain doesn’t show up until the second film. Plus, the third-act (for Part I) supervillain thing is not the driving force of the film. This is just an origin story, readying the stage for Zod. > [@](#): > > **3. The villain is illogical.** He is the most sought-after man by the Metropolis Police Department (mentioned by name by some cops pursuing him), and yet his only henchmen seem to be a ridiculously dumb oaf and a wimpy woman. He also owns Lex Luthor Inc, which should tip the police off to how to find him. He doesn’t appear to have any resources, yet he manages to fire two 500-megaton missiles. He has Otis and Miss Tessbacher, which appear to be enough to reprogram (not FIRE, the government fired the missiles) the two test missiles. And there is no LexCorp in the Pre-Crisis Universe. > [@](#): > > **4. The villain is stupid.** He keeps insulting Otis, but expects him to follow him blindly. He tells Eve Teschmacher outright that he’s going to kill her mother and doesn’t care, and then leaves her alone with the dying Superman, with the opportunity to save him. What, he didn’t realise Eve might want to save her mother’s life? He’s single minded, and sorta insane. Typical pre-Crisis Luthor. He judged Otis right, misjudged Miss Tesmacher, to his own detriment. > [@](#): > > **5. The physics don’t make sense.** Jor-El knew about relativity; he mentions it in his speech to Kal-El while the latter is in the pod. He also says that when Kal-El is 18, he’s been dead for thousands of years, which, depending on how you look at it, can be considered true. But according to Lex Luthor, Krypton exploded in 1948 and it took the pod three years to reach Earth. Three years according to what time? Also, the kryptonite has travelled to Earth in 33 years, _from another galaxy_! Yeah, that never made any sense, either in the Pre-Crisis comics or in the movies. There’s no way for krytponite to have reached Earth. The Post-Crisis comics addressed this, sort of. That’s a flaw of the source material, but let’s face it, you can’t have a big Superman movie, particularly pre-Crisis, without kryptonite. > [@](#): > > **6. Nothing makes any sense, period.** Lex Luthor reads about a meteorite and suddenly knows that kryptonite kills Kryptonians while leaving Earthlings unharmed. Yeah, that doesn’t make any sense. Maybe it was just a very informative National Geographic article. 😉 > [@](#): > > And I’m not even going to get into the “flying around the world and making time go backwards”. Good, because that’s not what happened. Superman flew back in time. He didn’t turn time backwards. This was a well-established pre-Crisis power, used as effectively as a power like that can be. Yeah, this movie has flaws, but they’re fewer when you watch it and Superman II back to back, as they were meant to be viewed. And the ones that are still there don’t strip the first movie of the emotional power of the first act (Kansas), the humor of the second act (Clark in Metropolis) or the fun of seeing most-super-power-of-them-all in the big finish (travelling back in time to save Lois) ---
**Author:** ![spectrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc29f/32.png) [@spectrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spectrum)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2003, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-rewatched-superman-and-it-sucked/177616/23 "2003-05-27T08:15:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Priceguy \* > \*\*Provided **Major Kong** is wrong, and I’m pretty sure he’s right, this doesn’t make sense anyway. At this point, Superman doesn’t _know_ his top speed, as he tells Lois. How could he know he can reach the speed of light, let alone what would happen once he got there? \*\* Superman’s ability to travel through time had nothing to do with the speed he travelled. It was simply one of his pre-Crisis powers. Despite what might be said in the commentary by a director who may not be totally informed about the source material, the fact is that a Superman-literate audience member who knows the catalogue of Supes’ pre-Crisis powers easily recognizes that Superman is the one going backwards, not the world. ---
**Author:** ![Major\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Major\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Major_Kong)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2003, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-rewatched-superman-and-it-sucked/177616/24 "2003-05-27T08:17:48Z")
> [@](#): > > Despite what might be said in the commentary by a director who may not be totally informed about the source material, the fact is that a Superman-literate audience member who knows the catalogue of Supes’ pre-Crisis powers easily recognizes that Superman is the one going backwards, not the world. I have no doubt the director could have gotten it wrong or jsut didn’t care. But if you watch the movie it is clear Superman is spinning the world backwards. ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2003, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-rewatched-superman-and-it-sucked/177616/25 "2003-05-27T08:19:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by spectrum \* > \*\*Superman’s ability to travel through time had nothing to do with the speed he travelled. It was simply one of his pre-Crisis powers. > > Despite what might be said in the commentary by a director who may not be totally informed about the source material, the fact is that a Superman-literate audience member who knows the catalogue of Supes’ pre-Crisis powers easily recognizes that Superman is the one going backwards, not the world. \*\* Well, if the director says Superman is spinning the Earth backwards in the movie, then that’s what Superman does in the movie. It’s his movie. It’s also the best explanation for the visuals; he does turn to make the Earth spin forwards again. ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2003, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-rewatched-superman-and-it-sucked/177616/26 "2003-05-27T10:36:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by spectrum \* > **And there is no LexCorp in the Pre-Crisis Universe.** And I never said there was. I said there was a Lex Luthor Inc in the movie, which there is. When Superman is in Lex’s underground lair, either Otis or Lex mentions that the land that will become the post-earthquake west coast is owned by Lex Luthor Inc. ---
**Author:** ![spectrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc29f/32.png) [@spectrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spectrum)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2003, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-rewatched-superman-and-it-sucked/177616/27 "2003-05-27T14:56:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Priceguy \* > \*\*Well, if the director says Superman is spinning the Earth backwards in the movie, then that’s what Superman does in the movie. It’s his movie. It’s also the best explanation for the visuals; he does turn to make the Earth spin forwards again. \*\* Wrong again. I’m assuming that you haven’t either made films, nor have you written several research papers and essays about this particular film, as I have. Richard Donner was brought into the film fairly late. The script was already written, and had just been broken into two. He would bring in Tom Manciwietz to do a once-over rewrite and polish on the screenplay, but he made no substantial changes to the plot structure aside from taking the big finale of Part II – time travel – and moving it to Part I, which had repurcussions for the second film. Screenplays do not explain themselves. They simply state what is happening visually on the screen. Mario Puzo, who had been told by the Salkinds to use Time Travel, Superman’s ultimate power, in the climax, had to come up with a visual way to describe what happened. I don’t have the screenplay in front of me right now, but basically, he just wrote the scene visually, from Supes’ point of view: "EXT. SPACE - EARTH Superman flies around the world faster and faster, against the motion of its spin, and the earth appears to stop spinning, and then spin backwards, as Superman flies back to the planet." Loose paraphrase there. He did his job, and didn’t put exposition in the screenplay, because that’s not supposed to be there. Screenplays don’t explain, they tell us what’s on screen. A screenplay wouldn’t say “Superman flies around the world to travel through time,” it would say “Superman flies around the world.” Donner apparently didn’t know enough about Superman to understand exactly what happened there. But he didn’t need to. And despite the holes in his knowledge of the character, he still did a damn fine job with the movie. Much better than the hack the Salkinds brought in to “direct” the second one. Directors, when dealing with material that is adapted from elsewhere or that they don’t fully understand, are not gods. Their word is not the law. Also, there was no “Lex Luthor Inc.” in the movie. That was the name Luthor used to refer to the dummy companies that bought up all the land. If the land had been purchased by Lex Luthor Inc, then the buyer of the land would not have been the mystery that Lois was investigating. ---
**Author:** ![spectrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc29f/32.png) [@spectrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spectrum)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2003, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-rewatched-superman-and-it-sucked/177616/28 "2003-05-27T14:58:26Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Major Kong \* > \*\*I have no doubt the director could have gotten it wrong or jsut didn’t care. But if you watch the movie it is clear Superman is spinning the world backwards. \*\* Yeah, and if you watch the movie it is clear that in the Matrix Neo is slowing down the world so as to dodge bullets. Except that he’s not. We have no idea what someone travelling back in time would look like from their perspective, just like the makers of the Matrix have no idea what someone moving so fast that the world appears to slow down would look like from that perspective, so FX folks and screenwriters have to come up with workable metaphors to make clear what was happening. The metaphor that Puzo came up with to “show” Superman going back in time was obviously confusing, but I would challenge you to do better, given the state of technology in 1978. ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2003, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-rewatched-superman-and-it-sucked/177616/29 "2003-05-27T15:04:02Z")
If screenplays don’t explain, how do you know which one of us is right? We’re basically dealing with semantics here. The way I see it, no matter when Donner was brought in, what he says goes. If he portrayed Superman getting the Earth to spin backwards, then that’s what happened. The _Matrix_ analogy is flawed; we’re told several times in that movie that Neo is fast, and that’s why he can dodge bullets. No such explanation is given in _Superman_, so we can only believe what we see. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by spectrum \* > **Also, there was no “Lex Luthor Inc.” in the movie. That was the name Luthor used to refer to the dummy companies that bought up all the land.** I can’t remember anything in the movie pointing this out, and tend not to care about external sources. > [@](#): > > \*\*If the land had been purchased by Lex Luthor Inc, then the buyer of the land would not have been the mystery that Lois was investigating. \*\* The buyer was _secret_. Nobody knew the name. That was the big mystery. ---
**Author:** ![spectrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc29f/32.png) [@spectrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spectrum)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2003, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-rewatched-superman-and-it-sucked/177616/30 "2003-05-27T15:20:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Priceguy \* > **If screenplays don’t explain, how do you know which one of us is right?** The Salkinds told Puzo to have Superman travel back in time at the end of the picture, they wanted a big ending. Puzo had to come up with a way to visually show that. His way was unclear, but that’s what we have here, what Mario Puzo thinks time travel would look like. > [@](#): > > We’re basically dealing with semantics here. No, we’re dealing with the fact that I have written close to 100 pages of research papers and essays on this film, and read damn near every piece of journalism about the film from the 1970s, and you haven’t. > [@](#): > > The way I see it, no matter when Donner was brought in, what he says goes. If he portrayed Superman getting the Earth to spin backwards, then that’s what happened. He only did what the screenplay told him to. > [@](#): > > No such explanation is given in _Superman_, so we can only believe what we see. Not needed. An informed Superman viewer understands what’s going on because they know what Superman can do. At least, back then. Superman is different nowadays, which is part of the reason for confusiong – his powers have changed, so people don’t connect Supes with time travel. > [@](#): > > I can’t remember anything in the movie pointing this out, and tend not to care about external sources. Then your opinion here is like your opinion on DVD: uninformed and worthless. > [@](#): > > \*\*The buyer was _secret_. Nobody knew the name. That was the big mystery. \*\* And if the purchasing forms said “Lex Luthor Inc.” people wouldn’t know… how? ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2003, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-rewatched-superman-and-it-sucked/177616/31 "2003-05-27T15:59:46Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by spectrum \* > **No, we’re dealing with the fact that I have written close to 100 pages of research papers and essays on this film, and read damn near every piece of journalism about the film from the 1970s, and you haven’t.** Let’s just say I’m not impressed. > [@](#): > > **Not needed. An informed Superman viewer understands what’s going on because they know what Superman can do.** Then, the movie sucks. It must be self-contained. Sure, in-jokes are great, but if the movie sucks for anyone without prior knowledge of the source material, then it sucks. > [@](#): > > **Then your opinion here is like your opinion on DVD: uninformed and worthless.** Re-read the DVD thread. I explained to you why that statement of yours was entirely wrong. > [@](#): > > \*\*And if the purchasing forms said “Lex Luthor Inc.” people wouldn’t know… how? \*\* Another thing that doesn’t make sense and another reason the movie sucks. **spectrum** , I’m utterly uninterested in starting a pointless fight with you, since you’ve demonstrated anger management problems, problems with distinguishing between fact and opinion, problems with realising what’s worth getting angry about and problems with seeing that there are alternative points of view. Therefore, unless you have something interesting to say (verbal abuse, proclamations of alleged expertise and overreacting are all disqualified), I’ll now exit this thread. Feel free to shout at me, call me a coward, insult me and so on. It is, after all, your style. ---
**Author:** ![spectrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc29f/32.png) [@spectrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spectrum)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2003, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-rewatched-superman-and-it-sucked/177616/32 "2003-05-27T16:31:41Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Priceguy \* > **Let’s just say I’m not impressed.** Oh, darn. I still know more about this film than you, no matter how much you think your opinion is gospel. > [@](#): > > Then, the movie sucks. No, that sequence sucks. And the entire third act is weak, in part because it’s unimportant, and in part because it is actually a bisected second act of the two-film arc. > [@](#): > > Re-read the DVD thread. I explained to you why that statement of yours was entirely wrong. Your anti-DVD comments were hateful and judgemental towards those of us who care about the quality of our home video experience. Your attempts to backtrack were unimpressive and unconvincing. > [@](#): > > Another thing that doesn’t make sense and another reason the movie sucks. It makes perfect sense: the land wasn’t bought under Lex Luthor’s name. That is perfectly clear from the film. ---
**Author:** ![teemingONE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b4bc9f/32.png) [@teemingONE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teemingONE)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2003, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-rewatched-superman-and-it-sucked/177616/33 "2003-05-27T16:48:16Z")
I thought is was a pretty good movie. ---
**Author:** ![Major\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Major\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Major_Kong)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2003, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-rewatched-superman-and-it-sucked/177616/34 "2003-05-27T18:54:22Z")
So if Superman is just flying really fast to go back in time, which is unnecessary for him to do, why does he have to stop and turn around and start the Earth spinning the other way? ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2003, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-rewatched-superman-and-it-sucked/177616/35 "2003-05-27T18:56:45Z")
Sure, it was “pretty good”, in a goofy/campy/silly way. But the second one is the one worth the scheckels. ---
**Author:** ![Kaspar\_Hauser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b3f665/32.png) [@Kaspar\_Hauser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaspar_Hauser)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2003, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-rewatched-superman-and-it-sucked/177616/36 "2003-05-27T19:10:22Z")
I loved the first one. Hiring Christopher Reeve had to have been one of the best casting decisions of the 20th century. But I have major problems with the second one. I absolutely despise it. ---
**Author:** ![kingpengvin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9dc877/32.png) [@kingpengvin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kingpengvin)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2003, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-rewatched-superman-and-it-sucked/177616/37 "2003-05-27T20:08:52Z")
OK I’m composed now. Superman has a very special place in my childhood. It was the first film I was allowed to go see without parents. I was blown away as a child. I watch it now and still it holds up for various reasons. 1. Not intentionally Campy I’ve heard people saying this film was campy. It was not. Batman the TV series was Campy intentionally. You can see the difference. Originally the Salkins wanted to create a campy movie with Kojak Saying “who loves ya baby” As Superman streaks by and other references. The first two acts of this movie are taken very seriously. he Krypton scenes are played straight, the Kansas Scenes are also played as true life… if you lived in a Norman Rockwell painting, but there were never any bits of overt silliness. Superman’s first appearance is also done straight forward. Act 3 is a little on the light side with goofy villains but that works to the films favour. 1. Verisimilitude This movie was true to its origins. Too many people either forget or simply don’t know that the comics were not all dark and brooding. Superman was light, he is a boy scout and that is how he was played here. He wore tights! Not leather not rubber. Hell he wore his Red and blue tights and a cape… That is Superman. or at least that was Superman. Unlike later adaptation ideas and other hero films. The creators took the chance of making their hero look and act as he does in the comics. Now you have to have every hero take on a the Burton Effect. They must be Dark, Brooding, in surrealistic settings but not colourful clothing. Leather and cumbersome rubber must replace the costumes accepted in the comic world. Superman did not try to make the hero marketable. They knew that he had been working for decades just show him as he was. 1. FUN This movie was also fun. You didn’t have to take the action all that seriously. How could you its an alien in tights that flies around and is invincible. You want to take that seriously?! Every time I see the double Jeopardy scene when he first reveals himself to the world it takes me back to that long ago day in a dark theatre where a crowd of kids all cheered as Clark Kent ripped open his shirt to reveal that big Red S. My Kids now watch it with me and get that same thrill. This was a comic world where bad guys did outrageous evil things because they were bad guys and the heroes stopped them simply because they were good. You want a serious deep story go watch a crime drama and stop watching super hero movies fer crying out loud! ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2003, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-rewatched-superman-and-it-sucked/177616/38 "2003-05-27T21:20:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by MGibson \* > \*\*“Man, that outfit is BAD!” > > Any movie with that line can’t be all bad. > > Marc \*\* No, no, it’s “Say, Jim, _woooo_! That is one bad out-FIT!” ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2003, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-rewatched-superman-and-it-sucked/177616/39 "2003-05-28T18:29:21Z")
> [@](#): > > Not needed. An informed Superman viewer understands what’s going on because they know what Superman can do. When I watched this movie, I was **not** an informed viewer. I was a kid, and knew no more about Superman than any other American. But it was perfectly clear to me that Superman was going back in time, and that the Earth turning backwards was just his point of view. I never even considered the possibility that he was literally moving the Earth until I saw other folks complaining about it. So it’s not something that only comic book nerds would understand. Of course, on the other hand, even as a kid I was obsessed with time travel, and that may have helped me catch on. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-rewatched-superman-and-it-sucked/177616.md?page=1)