Thanks for watching, y'all! Also check out our FULL breakdowns * SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE: ruclips.net/video/BPJqJpDwyGk/видео.html * SUPERMAN II and the Donner Cut: ruclips.net/video/kpf3hCUpZKc/видео.html * SUPERMAN III ruclips.net/video/EBP1jZH08Qg/видео.html * SUPERMAN IV: ruclips.net/video/To1R2QiIXaY/видео.html
Saw Superman II in the theatre with my father when I was 5. I never assumed he murdered 3 people. He murdered 1 person. Lois murdered 1 person. And NON committed suicide. 🤟
No, it was the result of Richard Lester taking over from Richard Donner after Donner had been fired from the production that was 70% complete. Superman II has a very schizophrenic look as a result.
Of course he had powers as a kid. He lifted the car that found him to save Johnathan. He totally used projections of himself to cheat at games as a kid
Yeah, I misspoke in the video. What I was trying to say (and failed) was that lot of people in the comments seem to think he was referring to a Kryptonian schoolyard game, but not only did he did not grow up on Krypton, Kryptonian kids didn’t have powers.
Honestly, the strange powers never really bothered me. I just always thought it had something to do with being in the Fortress of Solitude or something.
The strange powers at the end were the result of Richard Lester needing to add scenes to the climax so he could get a directing credit after Donner had been fired from the production with 70% of the filming already completed.
@@humaneIP That would have added to the film's running length. Lester needed to cut several of Donner's original scenes (now available in the Donner Cut of Superman II) in order to get the film completed on time, under budget, and under an acceptable running length.
About Lex not being cold, it’s mentioned by Lois and I think Eve that they should be cold at the Fortress, but aren’t. So maybe this heating system the Fortress has extends a bit to the immediate outside.
I knew that characters got "destroyed" in the 1950s comics, but nothing was consistent in those. So when Superman killed Zod-- as far as I could tell-- not because there was a death trap, but because nobody human could survive that high a fall, I was surprised. I figured all the villains died. Only when I watched it on network TV with the extra footage did I reconsider it.
If he turned time back, why did he save Jimmy at Niagara Falls because it wouldn’t have happened and Lewis Lane was mentioning Garage being blown up and poles dropping down in front of her which wouldn’t have happened
He didn't go back that far. He apparently only goes back far enough to do something to prevent Lois's death. Everything else still happens the same. Missile still hits, earthquake still happens, dam still bursts. Also just FYI, he saves Jimmy from Hoover Dam, not Niagra Falls, which is in the next movie... although it would be hilarious if in Superman II instead of the little kid it's Jimmy Olsen playing around on the railings by the Falls.
I'd really like to see you two tackle the 3-hour cut of Superman: The Movie. There is so much to unpack in there... some good scenes, some whimsical, some awful. Fascinating piece of pop culture history, as is the entire concept of padding a movie out with offcuts just to claw in extra ad revenue! A topic worthy of discussion on your channel, IMO. Also looking forward to Supergirl. An awful movie really albeit with some very memorable scenes!
Cool, yeah the 3-hour dissection is definitely under consideration. It occurred to me today I haven’t actually watched that all the way through probably since it was on TV, and even then I’m sure I missed bits of it.
I feel like Agatha All Along was a great four- or five-episode show trapped in the body of a patchy nine-episode show. It started really well, to the point where I actually wanted more of the fake detective stuff, and it ended strongly, with Agatha's secret origin and all that. But too often in the middle it just seemed like just puzzles and snark for the sake of it, and that got old really quickly for me. But I could watch Kathryn Hahn or Aubrey Plaza just washing their hands for two hours, so between them they dragged the whole thing over the finishing line.
Just watched the Christopher Reeve documentary today. Dealt alot more with his struggles dealing with being handicapped than his stage or film career. Has alot of good home video footage and you can tell he was well liked in the acting community. The funniest part was He, Jeff Daniels and William Hurt were all starring in a play together when Reeve was asked to go to London for a screen test for Superman. William Hurt was like "Don't be a sellout man." I can so see William Hurt saying that😂
That's one of the reasons why I tend to admire him. You can tell what a person's character is by how they respond to extraordinary good luck and extraordinary bad luck, and when he was in his 20s/30s, he had a ton of opportunity to be a right pr**k. Hitting fame and fortune young and walking around looking like that, he could easily have sailed to the top of the Epstein list or been me-too'd from here to the moon, and yet he was well thought of by his colleagues, including the women. And if he'd been a creep, they'd have suffered for it well before anyone else. But he seems to have been a decent dude even with every excuse not to be. And when he got hurt, he and his wife apparently decided that the only way to retain any sanity when you're forced to carry an intolerable burden that you can't put down is to focus as much as you can on the welfare of others. Again, he had every excuse to be totally self-absorbed, and while I'm sure they weren't little balls of sunshine all the time, they managed to focus outward. He and his wife displayed a lot of character.
I always thought they died, few reasons. 1) They weren’t human, in my mind it was okay to kill an alien. 2) They had killed hundreds of people already, so why not kill them. 3) You don’t hear them again, you assume they fell into a never ending abyss.
Don't forget, those people who add comments saying 'it's just a movie, why do you care so much' obviously care enough about the same thing to comment on it in the first place. In fact, they care so much they're not even commenting on the movie - they're commenting on YOU commenting on it.
It is a big deal. The big daddy of all superhero’s kicking off the birth of superhero cinema and hitting a big home run. It is fun to analyze this movie due to the nostalgia it invokes in addition to the sheer mythos of Superman. Super video as always (pun intended).
I agree they likely didn't die in canon, but I guess since it wasn't confirmed either way in the theatrical release people can use whatever head canon they want. But Superman would have only killed Zod. Nom would have accidentally killed himself and Lois would have killed Ursa. What's interesting is that even if you don't think they died, did Lois know that sending Ursa down that chute wouldn't kill her?
Even as a 9-year old (when I first saw Superman II) - I never thought Superman 'killed' General Zod et al, just 'defeated them' so they could be arrested and they would then face human justice. I didn't need the Richard Donner cut to think this. As an adult - for a while I thought that was because I was in England and perhaps that was just a cultural difference between the US and the UK where a US citizen would not fathom anything other than Superman exacting the death penalty on these criminals. But thanks to your video - I feel far more certain that the vast majority of people (US & rest of the world) would ever have assumed Superman would have killed them. Just not in his nature unless he absolutely has to - and in this case, he didn't need to as he had stripped them of their powers. To me this is the point of Superman - he is above petty vengeance and vigilante justice. He supports the human justice system, supports the police, supports the law-abiding and decent people - and even gives the horrors of society a chance for a fair hearing.
The only thing about Superman that I nitpick is the Salkinds being morons by firing Richard Donner when he was more than halfway finished filming Superman II just because he refused to cut Marlon Brando's scenes from the sequel so the Salkinds could save money by not paying him. The Salkinds deserved to be exiled from Hollywood for that.
Yeah it was a phenomenally short-sighted decision. If they had just let Donner continue to do his thing through to III, IV and beyond they would have continued to make loads of money off the Superman franchise possibly for decades.
Here's an observation I'm going to make about the whole fortress of solitude.thing.when it comes to the Superman movies versus the comic book the easy access the pretty much anybody can just go to the fortress of solitude and just walk right in pretty having free rain of the fortress of solitude and I n the comic book access two to the porches fortress of solitude was a little bit difficult to get in or gain axis to the fortress of solitude Because in the comics it was this huge key that only Superman could lift disguised as a big arrow pointing the way North for Airplanes
100% agree no second series of the Penguin please. The show was perfect and doesn’t need a sequel, learn from the mistakes of Joker 2. Build on the success by focusing on a different character, there are plenty of Batmans rogues to choose from
When you say this is just a movie I agree. There's no intention to give science lecture here, just entertain, and they achieved they goal, and why the need to "dissection" the movie to find mistakes and errors to it? Just seat, watch it, and enjoy!
Yes, for most people that’s what movies are, but I mean, come on… clearly that’s not our brand. The whole purpose of this channel is to dig deep into nerdy details.
@@prodigioussaps Yes, if for movies like Nosferatu (and I mean the mute one), or The Exorcist, there's a research on the matter before filming, so the result will be memorable, why can't they pay attention to details when making a superhero movie?
Quite Honestly with a movie this epic all you really can have is nitpicks. I can nitpick this movie to death. How did Luthor get 20 to life without a trial, why are he and Otis cell mates? Did Superman put a good word in for Miss Tesmacher so she didn't go to prison? How did Clark and Lois get back from thr fortress. How did a beat up depowered Clark make it back there? Depending on whether its the Donner cut or Lester there are plenty of continuity issues and plot holes. In the end its just a fun movie and Chris Reeve made Superman the hero he was meant to be.
I think what Zack Snyder does with Superman vs what Richard Donner does with Superman is important. And I think you men do, too. But I don't know if, for you, it's only because of how it affects your enjoyment of the characters, or also another reason. For me, it's a societal reason, regarding how it reflects what is in the world, and also how it affects what will be in the world.
Well, I agree it's important, otherwise it wouldn't keep coming up in conversation. But what exacty is important about it though, societally or otherwise, in your opinion?
@@prodigioussaps 1) when Zack Snyder did his MOS he was asked before the release if his version of Superman was going to stand for Truth, Justice, and the American Way? And he said something like, "yes, it's baked into the character (which I appreciated) and now that Obama is POTUS, it's okay." And so he was saying that you can't get away from Superman being American and standing for America, and, that, something was different about it being okay to portray Superman as American because Obama was in the White House. He was saying that something important was being observed or reflected at that time. IDK if he was saying that he was proud of America, or if he was saying he thought that the world or America would accept Superman more with Obama in the White House, or if he was saying that there had been a problem for the studio, perhaps, but that the studio would approve. To me, that's not a good endorsement of Superman at all. And if the impression is that this hero can only be acceptable if our POTUS is acceptable, that's not the right thinking and it's a bad way to promote him. Superman is American and he carries whatever American values I (the viewer/reader) think he's got -- specific or vague. Those are the values of Superman, regardless of POTUS.
@@prodigioussaps 2) after his Superman movies, he was asked about the behavior of Superman and Batman, and he said he didn't agree with people who think that the heroes would be more noble, and he wouldn't portray that, because it's not realistic. I can look at his movies and enjoy them if I look at them as Elseworlds because they are entertaining and they ask questions -- what if this were how the characters and situations developed? And that's how I'm okay with them. And particularly I liked the philosophical explorations, though I don't think the conclusions were satisfactory.
@@prodigioussaps 3) But I know that children watch these movies and I think they shouldn't. I think these heroes developed into aspirational examples, and the recent portrayals of them as simply very flawed god-like beings makes them horrible examples for children and for what we bring into our minds if we consume that regularly. Children need good examples of heroic behavior before they explore flawed behavior. Adults need stories like A New Hope when we're too often shown Revenge of the Sith. Lucas saw that. Donner saw that.
No you aren't nitpicking too much. Please keep doing it. I never believed that Superman killed the three kryptonians, but , and even after watching the Richard Donner cut of 2, I did believe Supes turned time backwards. I had no idea it was meant to be understood any other way. Its difficult now to undo those decades of thinking that way.
Thanks Dan, appreciate that. Cheers 👊 Regarding the turning time backwards thing, I think really the only important thing is that people understand he's using his powers to manipulate time and undo Lois's death. The mechanics behind what he's doing aren't important to the story, only his motivation, intention and result... unless it breaks your immersion somehow. There's really no "wrong" or "right" way to interpret it, IMO. But we do have strong opinions. 👊
The only nitpicking (for me) in Superman the Movie was the horrible shots of the avalanche of rocks dam with the miniature houses and cars. Looks like a scene done by a Japanese SPFX team. That was inexcusable. Even Donner in the commentary lamented those scenes. Apparently, Meddings and Co. were contractually obliged to work on Moonraker and couldn't finish all the shots, so those scenes were shipped out to some random SPFX house in Los Angeles (so they say). I don't believe it personally. Meddings has done some pretty bad work in his career. I think they're just covering their asses. Even as 12 year old, that scene almost ruined the movie for me!!! Assuming they DID ship it to an LA-based SPFX house - it was a missed opportunity - because Denis Muren and Richard Edlund (from ILM) were available for freelance work. See their excellent miniature work in The China Syndrome!!! P.S. For Superman II (which IS the topic here) my only nitpick was that Lois appears to age in the Lester scenes. Clearly in the Donner scenes she's a bit younger, and the aging over two years and a half years from Superman (shot in 1977) and then Superman II (shot in 1979-1980) was due to heavy alcohol and drug abuse during that period. She's clearly wearing a wig in the sequel and is a little more gaunt in the face which reveals some premature wrinkles. In the first film her face has more "meat" in it, no wrinkles, less makeup and her natural brown hair was "dyed" a deep black. These are my copiously described nitpicks.
I agree about the miniatures in the first movie, it's really the only effect in the movie that doesn't hold up very well, and it was bad even back then. Yes, Donner's commentary cracked me up because I listened to that after we recorded that show and it was funny to hear him criticizing those effects for the same reason.
I totally am with you both about the "it's just a movie" criticism, and I am also not a sports fan. LOL! First, that these "it's just a movie" people are even commenting on your video means pretty much one thing (unless they are simply being trolls): They like the movie in question and are using that phrase to dismiss the criticism. I mean, if they aren't into the subject matter of Superman and the movies about him, why would they even be here? So, they are fans. If they are fans, we fans almost universally like to nitpick and discuss such media just like, as you both noted, sports fans nitpick and pick apart things about the teams they follow and such. That being noted, again I say, the only reason a fan would fuss at you for nitpicking is that they like the thing being nitpicked and want to blow off the nitpicking. And as far as comparisons to sports fans: The only real reason comics and Sci-fi fans, and the like, are knocked for our fandom is that A)sports fans on a whole are more extroverted, comics fans are more introverted on average, and there is admittedly more of them and majority rules in terms of public view on who's "nerdy." When one thinks about it, not only are there many sports fans who can tell you all sorts of minutia and trivia going back decades about their favorite sports and the teams (as you guys mentioned), but sports fans wear jerseys, hang sports posters, buy things like football phones, and other sports merchandise, they paint themselves up in team colors, and so on. But because its' more mainstream and so popular, their love of sports dictates what the rest of us watch on TV in that everyone else's shows take a backseat and are preempted for games, The Super Bowl is treated like it's another holiday, and it seems that sports fans get a pass on demolishing city streets, storefronts, and cars because they are excited over their team winning a game! "It's only a movie"? Sure, but "it's only a game" and yet people's property gets damaged by sports hooligans and the media treats it like, "oh, those excited fans." 😲Sorry for the lengthy post. LOL!
Very well put! I think you're most likely right about their motivations. I've never really succeeded in getting any of them to elaborate on their statements, though. NEVER apologize for long comments. Love it when y'all get verbose. Cheers 👊
Thanks for watching, y'all! Also check out our FULL breakdowns
* SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE:
ruclips.net/video/BPJqJpDwyGk/видео.html
* SUPERMAN II and the Donner Cut:
ruclips.net/video/kpf3hCUpZKc/видео.html
* SUPERMAN III
ruclips.net/video/EBP1jZH08Qg/видео.html
* SUPERMAN IV:
ruclips.net/video/To1R2QiIXaY/видео.html
Saw Superman II in the theatre with my father when I was 5. I never assumed he murdered 3 people. He murdered 1 person. Lois murdered 1 person. And NON committed suicide. 🤟
😅
02:00 I agree that maybe Superman just had a sense of humour and was just making a joke.
Yep. He's being sassy.
No, it was the result of Richard Lester taking over from Richard Donner after Donner had been fired from the production that was 70% complete. Superman II has a very schizophrenic look as a result.
I love these videos. You point out things and we discuss what we see, too.
Thanks Susan! Glad you found us. 👊
Of course he had powers as a kid. He lifted the car that found him to save Johnathan. He totally used projections of himself to cheat at games as a kid
Yeah, I misspoke in the video. What I was trying to say (and failed) was that lot of people in the comments seem to think he was referring to a Kryptonian schoolyard game, but not only did he did not grow up on Krypton, Kryptonian kids didn’t have powers.
@@prodigioussaps Too bad non of their parents had the foresight of Jor-El..
Yeah, I was waiting for Godzilla to pop out and violently scream😂
Honestly, the strange powers never really bothered me. I just always thought it had something to do with being in the Fortress of Solitude or something.
The strange powers at the end were the result of Richard Lester needing to add scenes to the climax so he could get a directing credit after Donner had been fired from the production with 70% of the filming already completed.
@@humaneIP That would have added to the film's running length. Lester needed to cut several of Donner's original scenes (now available in the Donner Cut of Superman II) in order to get the film completed on time, under budget, and under an acceptable running length.
About Lex not being cold, it’s mentioned by Lois and I think Eve that they should be cold at the Fortress, but aren’t. So maybe this heating system the Fortress has extends a bit to the immediate outside.
This is true!
Really enjoyed these responses and this video, it’s great to listen to real fans break down the movies I enjoy as a casual
Thanks Danny! We’re all real fans here as far as I’m concerned, and that includes you. Cheers 👊
I knew that characters got "destroyed" in the 1950s comics, but nothing was consistent in those. So when Superman killed Zod-- as far as I could tell-- not because there was a death trap, but because nobody human could survive that high a fall, I was surprised. I figured all the villains died.
Only when I watched it on network TV with the extra footage did I reconsider it.
If he turned time back, why did he save Jimmy at Niagara Falls because it wouldn’t have happened and Lewis Lane was mentioning Garage being blown up and poles dropping down in front of her which wouldn’t have happened
He didn't go back that far. He apparently only goes back far enough to do something to prevent Lois's death. Everything else still happens the same. Missile still hits, earthquake still happens, dam still bursts.
Also just FYI, he saves Jimmy from Hoover Dam, not Niagra Falls, which is in the next movie... although it would be hilarious if in Superman II instead of the little kid it's Jimmy Olsen playing around on the railings by the Falls.
I'd really like to see you two tackle the 3-hour cut of Superman: The Movie. There is so much to unpack in there... some good scenes, some whimsical, some awful. Fascinating piece of pop culture history, as is the entire concept of padding a movie out with offcuts just to claw in extra ad revenue! A topic worthy of discussion on your channel, IMO.
Also looking forward to Supergirl. An awful movie really albeit with some very memorable scenes!
Cool, yeah the 3-hour dissection is definitely under consideration. It occurred to me today I haven’t actually watched that all the way through probably since it was on TV, and even then I’m sure I missed bits of it.
1:18 This isn’t my take but I don’t have a better one.
If Lois didn’t know his identity, it’d make more sense. But she does.
🤷🏾♂️
I feel like Agatha All Along was a great four- or five-episode show trapped in the body of a patchy nine-episode show. It started really well, to the point where I actually wanted more of the fake detective stuff, and it ended strongly, with Agatha's secret origin and all that. But too often in the middle it just seemed like just puzzles and snark for the sake of it, and that got old really quickly for me. But I could watch Kathryn Hahn or Aubrey Plaza just washing their hands for two hours, so between them they dragged the whole thing over the finishing line.
Just watched the Christopher Reeve documentary today. Dealt alot more with his struggles dealing with being handicapped than his stage or film career. Has alot of good home video footage and you can tell he was well liked in the acting community.
The funniest part was He, Jeff Daniels and William Hurt were all starring in a play together when Reeve was asked to go to London for a screen test for Superman. William Hurt was like "Don't be a sellout man." I can so see William Hurt saying that😂
That's one of the reasons why I tend to admire him. You can tell what a person's character is by how they respond to extraordinary good luck and extraordinary bad luck, and when he was in his 20s/30s, he had a ton of opportunity to be a right pr**k. Hitting fame and fortune young and walking around looking like that, he could easily have sailed to the top of the Epstein list or been me-too'd from here to the moon, and yet he was well thought of by his colleagues, including the women. And if he'd been a creep, they'd have suffered for it well before anyone else. But he seems to have been a decent dude even with every excuse not to be.
And when he got hurt, he and his wife apparently decided that the only way to retain any sanity when you're forced to carry an intolerable burden that you can't put down is to focus as much as you can on the welfare of others. Again, he had every excuse to be totally self-absorbed, and while I'm sure they weren't little balls of sunshine all the time, they managed to focus outward. He and his wife displayed a lot of character.
I've waited 46 years for this nitpicking and I'm going to enjoy it!
YES! Welcome to the nerd machine. 👊
I always thought they died, few reasons. 1) They weren’t human, in my mind it was okay to kill an alien.
2) They had killed hundreds of people already, so why not kill them.
3) You don’t hear them again, you assume they fell into a never ending abyss.
I didn't think that, Veruca Salt died, when she went down the reject shute.....
Good point. Man, that movie is so weirrrrd and dark, but I love every second it.
Don't forget, those people who add comments saying 'it's just a movie, why do you care so much' obviously care enough about the same thing to comment on it in the first place. In fact, they care so much they're not even commenting on the movie - they're commenting on YOU commenting on it.
It is a big deal. The big daddy of all superhero’s kicking off the birth of superhero cinema and hitting a big home run. It is fun to analyze this movie due to the nostalgia it invokes in addition to the sheer mythos of Superman. Super video as always (pun intended).
Thanks KC!
I agree they likely didn't die in canon, but I guess since it wasn't confirmed either way in the theatrical release people can use whatever head canon they want. But Superman would have only killed Zod. Nom would have accidentally killed himself and Lois would have killed Ursa. What's interesting is that even if you don't think they died, did Lois know that sending Ursa down that chute wouldn't kill her?
Even as a 9-year old (when I first saw Superman II) - I never thought Superman 'killed' General Zod et al, just 'defeated them' so they could be arrested and they would then face human justice. I didn't need the Richard Donner cut to think this. As an adult - for a while I thought that was because I was in England and perhaps that was just a cultural difference between the US and the UK where a US citizen would not fathom anything other than Superman exacting the death penalty on these criminals. But thanks to your video - I feel far more certain that the vast majority of people (US & rest of the world) would ever have assumed Superman would have killed them. Just not in his nature unless he absolutely has to - and in this case, he didn't need to as he had stripped them of their powers. To me this is the point of Superman - he is above petty vengeance and vigilante justice. He supports the human justice system, supports the police, supports the law-abiding and decent people - and even gives the horrors of society a chance for a fair hearing.
The only thing about Superman that I nitpick is the Salkinds being morons by firing Richard Donner when he was more than halfway finished filming Superman II just because he refused to cut Marlon Brando's scenes from the sequel so the Salkinds could save money by not paying him. The Salkinds deserved to be exiled from Hollywood for that.
Yeah it was a phenomenally short-sighted decision. If they had just let Donner continue to do his thing through to III, IV and beyond they would have continued to make loads of money off the Superman franchise possibly for decades.
Here's an observation I'm going to make about the whole fortress of solitude.thing.when it comes to the Superman movies versus the comic book the easy access the pretty much anybody can just go to the fortress of solitude and just walk right in pretty having free rain of the fortress of solitude and I n the comic book access two to the porches fortress of solitude was a little bit difficult to get in or gain axis to the fortress of solitude Because in the comics it was this huge key that only Superman could lift disguised as a big arrow pointing the way North for Airplanes
100% agree no second series of the Penguin please. The show was perfect and doesn’t need a sequel, learn from the mistakes of Joker 2. Build on the success by focusing on a different character, there are plenty of Batmans rogues to choose from
When you say this is just a movie I agree. There's no intention to give science lecture here, just entertain, and they achieved they goal, and why the need to "dissection" the movie to find mistakes and errors to it? Just seat, watch it, and enjoy!
Yes, for most people that’s what movies are, but I mean, come on… clearly that’s not our brand. The whole purpose of this channel is to dig deep into nerdy details.
@@prodigioussaps Yes, if for movies like Nosferatu (and I mean the mute one), or The Exorcist, there's a research on the matter before filming, so the result will be memorable, why can't they pay attention to details when making a superhero movie?
Yeah you're nitpicking.
Quite Honestly with a movie this epic all you really can have is nitpicks. I can nitpick this movie to death. How did Luthor get 20 to life without a trial, why are he and Otis cell mates? Did Superman put a good word in for Miss Tesmacher so she didn't go to prison? How did Clark and Lois get back from thr fortress. How did a beat up depowered Clark make it back there? Depending on whether its the Donner cut or Lester there are plenty of continuity issues and plot holes. In the end its just a fun movie and Chris Reeve made Superman the hero he was meant to be.
I think what Zack Snyder does with Superman vs what Richard Donner does with Superman is important. And I think you men do, too.
But I don't know if, for you, it's only because of how it affects your enjoyment of the characters, or also another reason.
For me, it's a societal reason, regarding how it reflects what is in the world, and also how it affects what will be in the world.
Well, I agree it's important, otherwise it wouldn't keep coming up in conversation. But what exacty is important about it though, societally or otherwise, in your opinion?
@@prodigioussaps 1) when Zack Snyder did his MOS he was asked before the release if his version of Superman was going to stand for Truth, Justice, and the American Way? And he said something like, "yes, it's baked into the character (which I appreciated) and now that Obama is POTUS, it's okay." And so he was saying that you can't get away from Superman being American and standing for America, and, that, something was different about it being okay to portray Superman as American because Obama was in the White House. He was saying that something important was being observed or reflected at that time. IDK if he was saying that he was proud of America, or if he was saying he thought that the world or America would accept Superman more with Obama in the White House, or if he was saying that there had been a problem for the studio, perhaps, but that the studio would approve. To me, that's not a good endorsement of Superman at all. And if the impression is that this hero can only be acceptable if our POTUS is acceptable, that's not the right thinking and it's a bad way to promote him.
Superman is American and he carries whatever American values I (the viewer/reader) think he's got -- specific or vague. Those are the values of Superman, regardless of POTUS.
@@prodigioussaps 2) after his Superman movies, he was asked about the behavior of Superman and Batman, and he said he didn't agree with people who think that the heroes would be more noble, and he wouldn't portray that, because it's not realistic.
I can look at his movies and enjoy them if I look at them as Elseworlds because they are entertaining and they ask questions -- what if this were how the characters and situations developed? And that's how I'm okay with them.
And particularly I liked the philosophical explorations, though I don't think the conclusions were satisfactory.
@@prodigioussaps 3) But I know that children watch these movies and I think they shouldn't. I think these heroes developed into aspirational examples, and the recent portrayals of them as simply very flawed god-like beings makes them horrible examples for children and for what we bring into our minds if we consume that regularly.
Children need good examples of heroic behavior before they explore flawed behavior.
Adults need stories like A New Hope when we're too often shown Revenge of the Sith. Lucas saw that. Donner saw that.
No you aren't nitpicking too much.
Please keep doing it.
I never believed that Superman killed the three kryptonians, but , and even after watching the Richard Donner cut of 2, I did believe Supes turned time backwards.
I had no idea it was meant to be understood any other way. Its difficult now to undo those decades of thinking that way.
Thanks Dan, appreciate that. Cheers 👊
Regarding the turning time backwards thing, I think really the only important thing is that people understand he's using his powers to manipulate time and undo Lois's death. The mechanics behind what he's doing aren't important to the story, only his motivation, intention and result... unless it breaks your immersion somehow. There's really no "wrong" or "right" way to interpret it, IMO. But we do have strong opinions. 👊
Hey don't worry about it, these movies are old enough to have grandkids. At this point, the nitpicks are all that's left. 😀 Have fun.
The only nitpicking (for me) in Superman the Movie was the horrible shots of the avalanche of rocks dam with the miniature houses and cars. Looks like a scene done by a Japanese SPFX team. That was inexcusable. Even Donner in the commentary lamented those scenes. Apparently, Meddings and Co. were contractually obliged to work on Moonraker and couldn't finish all the shots, so those scenes were shipped out to some random SPFX house in Los Angeles (so they say). I don't believe it personally. Meddings has done some pretty bad work in his career. I think they're just covering their asses. Even as 12 year old, that scene almost ruined the movie for me!!! Assuming they DID ship it to an LA-based SPFX house - it was a missed opportunity - because Denis Muren and Richard Edlund (from ILM) were available for freelance work. See their excellent miniature work in The China Syndrome!!!
P.S. For Superman II (which IS the topic here) my only nitpick was that Lois appears to age in the Lester scenes. Clearly in the Donner scenes she's a bit younger, and the aging over two years and a half years from Superman (shot in 1977) and then Superman II (shot in 1979-1980) was due to heavy alcohol and drug abuse during that period. She's clearly wearing a wig in the sequel and is a little more gaunt in the face which reveals some premature wrinkles. In the first film her face has more "meat" in it, no wrinkles, less makeup and her natural brown hair was "dyed" a deep black. These are my copiously described nitpicks.
I agree about the miniatures in the first movie, it's really the only effect in the movie that doesn't hold up very well, and it was bad even back then. Yes, Donner's commentary cracked me up because I listened to that after we recorded that show and it was funny to hear him criticizing those effects for the same reason.
The crazy thing is that someone thought the avalanche was good enough to use again in an episode of Knight Rider!
Oh that's wild, I didn't know that! Thanks
I totally am with you both about the "it's just a movie" criticism, and I am also not a sports fan. LOL! First, that these "it's just a movie" people are even commenting on your video means pretty much one thing (unless they are simply being trolls): They like the movie in question and are using that phrase to dismiss the criticism. I mean, if they aren't into the subject matter of Superman and the movies about him, why would they even be here? So, they are fans. If they are fans, we fans almost universally like to nitpick and discuss such media just like, as you both noted, sports fans nitpick and pick apart things about the teams they follow and such. That being noted, again I say, the only reason a fan would fuss at you for nitpicking is that they like the thing being nitpicked and want to blow off the nitpicking. And as far as comparisons to sports fans: The only real reason comics and Sci-fi fans, and the like, are knocked for our fandom is that A)sports fans on a whole are more extroverted, comics fans are more introverted on average, and there is admittedly more of them and majority rules in terms of public view on who's "nerdy." When one thinks about it, not only are there many sports fans who can tell you all sorts of minutia and trivia going back decades about their favorite sports and the teams (as you guys mentioned), but sports fans wear jerseys, hang sports posters, buy things like football phones, and other sports merchandise, they paint themselves up in team colors, and so on. But because its' more mainstream and so popular, their love of sports dictates what the rest of us watch on TV in that everyone else's shows take a backseat and are preempted for games, The Super Bowl is treated like it's another holiday, and it seems that sports fans get a pass on demolishing city streets, storefronts, and cars because they are excited over their team winning a game! "It's only a movie"? Sure, but "it's only a game" and yet people's property gets damaged by sports hooligans and the media treats it like, "oh, those excited fans." 😲Sorry for the lengthy post. LOL!
Very well put! I think you're most likely right about their motivations. I've never really succeeded in getting any of them to elaborate on their statements, though.
NEVER apologize for long comments. Love it when y'all get verbose. Cheers 👊
Definitely nitpicking to much guys. Just enjoy the movies for what they are.
Oh okay, we’ll just shut the channel down then. Thanks!