Here’s what I don’t get about the green crystal: Supes is told by mom that if he enters the molecular reconstruction chamber that all his powers will be gone forever. There is NO way to get them back. Then later on he finds the green crystal (aka the talking, knowledge storing, fortress of solitude building piece of dyed lucite), hugs it, and wham bam thank you mame, all his powers are back! I mean, what the hell!? His own mother says there is NO possible way to get his powers back, yet he gets his powers back. ::rolls eyes::
On a related note, an interesting Superman IV film flub: the fourth movie is chock full of mistakes and bad writing.acting, but the one I always found the most humorous was when Lex was stealing the strand of hair. This single hair is supporting a half a ton weight, yet a simple pair of bolt cutters can snip it. ALSO, you can see the floor of the display case fall out before the weight hits it. Pretty funny.
I don’t know, what mom hasn’t backed down from an ultimatum after getting the sniffly bambi-eyes from her kid? I mean, she may be an dead, all-knowing oracle encased in a fortress of ice, but she’s still Mom.
I want to know how Lex Luthor figures out anything at all about Krypton, kryptonite, and Superman, just by being pushed around his library on a ladder.
I hate how Lex Luthor was portrayed as a smarmy, egotistical, two-bit hood with a very high opinion of himself, instead of a REAL supervillain, who WAS extremely intelligent, and who COULD have possibly taken over the world if it weren’t for Superman’s intervention.
I’ve never heard or thought of that explaination befor.
I mean all the shots of the various disasters going in reverse sure make it look like he was turning back time. Especially the earth turning backwards makes me think that time for everyone was going backwards.
Other then the fact that it makes sense do you have anything from the film to back that up?
The biggest mistake in that movie is the whole circling the Earth to spin it backards in the first place. Didn’t Lex just tell him “even with your great speed, you can’t get both missiles”
Let’s see, one to each coast, that’s ~3000 miles. How much time did he have? 20 minutes or something. Apparently, ol’ Supe can’t cover 3000 miles in 20 minutes, but he can circle the Earth (~25,000 miles) several times per second.
Still, I was 7 when this movie came out and went nuts when he caught the falling helicopter.
“You got me? Who’s got you??!!”
Enjoyable flick if you don’t overanalyze all the inconsistencies in it.
My memory of that movie isn’t the greatest (thankfully), so someone tell me if I’ve got this wrong:
After Superman lost his powers, didn’t he get them back by walking to the North Pole and finding that green crystal? No shelter, no provisions, and wearing something like a windbreaker.
In all fairness the original scene filmed but never shown (because marlon Brando was in a contract dispute with the Salkins,) Supe’s mom wasn’t there it was his father and his father is the one that gives him his powers back by sacrificing his life energy. So the cost to get Superman back was that he no longer had contact with Jor El and Jor El ceased to exist. oes back to the father being the son the son the father speech in the first film. Actually a touching idea marred by studio politics.
The Pit with the villians was supposed to end up with them being arrested by police (?!?!) outside the Fortress of solitude.
The police ending would have worked, IMO. Better than just sliding off into nowhere, anywhere. Plus, a very fitting punishment to be held by the “insects” they tried to dominate.
I realized something a few years back. It wasn’t Reeve’s performance as Superman that I liked. It was his performance as Clark.
Of all the actors who've played the roles, IMHO he's the best at making them seperate characters. Reeve's Clark isn't a wimp. He wants to charge to the rescue and fight the good fight. Other people prevent him, for his own good. 'We can't let them rob the bank Lois!' 'Clark, there are 10 of them and they've got guns. You'd never be able to stop them.' Clark becomes a reporter so that he can fight evil. Reeve makes it clear that the glasses aren't the disguise, the personality is.
Re- Movie 4 And The Hair
I always thought that Luthor cut the wires connecting the stand to the larger cables, not the hair itself.
Re-New Powers
Let’s see- rebuilding the Great Wall Vision, Hologram powers, Celophane S, Amnesia causing kiss.
Re-The Fortress
The Fortress(at least Pre-Crisis-I feel like a fossil) of the comics looked like another big heap of ice and snow. Superman left the 100 foot key by the door so that his friends could find the Fortress. Get rid of the key and cover the gates, and you could stand on the Fortress and never know it.
Superman doesn’t turn back time, he goes back in time to save Lois. Exactly what he does to do this is unclear–Jimmy says something about being caught in an earthquake and Lois makes mention of the exploding gas station, so he didn’t prevent the missle strike-dam collapse-earthquake. However, he must have prevented the fissure that killed Lois from opening and nothing else. This actually makes sense, as Lois seems to have been the only one killed in the quake. He dosen’t have to go back and save anyone else, because the other him is doing that already (at this point there are two Supermans–one saving Lois and the other saving everyone else). However, when a scene is this confusing, it does smack of a filmmaking mistake. Another scene should occur showing exactly what he does to save Lois so as not to create the confusion most people seem to have with this scene.
The powers that occur out of nowhere bugged me a little, too, but it’s such a fun movie, I just let it go. I’ve been reading the early Avengers comic books (Essential Avengers) and they do this all the time. In one, Thor uses his hammer as a magnet to raise a sunken submarine, ignoring that Iron Man does have magnetic armor and it would have made sense for him to do this, and that this power is never referred to again. And they do this all the time–invent a new power for one story, then ignore it for the rest. It’s still fun if you can ignore the continuity errors.
Superman doesn’t turn back time, he goes back in time to save Lois. Exactly what he does to do this is unclear–Jimmy says something about being caught in an earthquake and Lois makes mention of the exploding gas station, so he didn’t prevent the missle strike-dam collapse-earthquake. However, he must have prevented the fissure that killed Lois from opening and nothing else. This actually makes sense, as Lois seems to have been the only one killed in the quake. He dosen’t have to go back and save anyone else, because the other him is doing that already (at this point there are two Supermans–one saving Lois and the other saving everyone else). However, when a scene is this confusing, it does smack of a filmmaking mistake. Another scene should occur showing exactly what he does to save Lois so as not to create the confusion most people seem to have with this scene.
The powers that occur out of nowhere bugged me a little, too, but it’s such a fun movie, I just let it go. I’ve been reading the early Avengers comic books (Essential Avengers) and they do this all the time. In one, Thor uses his hammer as a magnet to raise a sunken submarine, ignoring that Iron Man does have magnetic armor and it would have made sense for him to do this, and that this power is never referred to again. And they do this all the time–invent a new power for one story, then ignore it for the rest. It’s still fun if you can ignore the continuity errors.
“When I was in school” might refer to the ten years he spent in the Fortress of Solitude learning from his father’s essence throught the teaching machine.
I think we should have seen the two Supes to make the point. Or something to indicate that only he was going back in time.
As far as the ‘played the game at school’ bit from SM II I always he ment he did this during his time at the fortress of solitude in the first film where he learned all his powers.
Ok Jimmy Olsen shows up bitching about how Superman left him alone amongst the snakes and such. This seems to indicate that the Original SM is out there doing all the stuff he did befor the time travel.
But the OSM did not prevent the quake that eats the car that Lois is driving. That quake never happens to the Time Traveling SM (TTSM). Why not? If the OSM is doing all the stuff like rebuilding the San Adreas fault and saving the school bus on the Golden Gate bridge and saving JO from Hover Damn why dosent’ the quake that kills Lois happen?
Cartooniverse, two minor nitpicks: Mario Puzo didn’t write the screenplay. Mario Puzo wrote the story. Four writers (Puzo among them, granted) are credited with having written the screenplay. However, the DVD commentary makes pretty clear that the bulk of the credit (or blame, if you must) for the screenplay that actually got filmed goes to Tom Mankiewicz, who got a creative consultant credit, IIRC.
Also, the movie came out at Christmastime, 1978, not 1979.
Oblong, since you appreciate the pimp’s remark on Superman’s costume, did you notice that the writers of Batman gave the Joker a very similar line when he first sees the Caped Crusader? IIRC, he says, “Nice outfit!” Not enough to definitely say it’s an allusion, but you never know.
Christopher Reeve referred to the green crystal on set as his “tube of Prell.” If you are old enough to get this joke, you are old enough to have seen Superman: The Movie at its premiere.
