Even semi-disinterested Brando was still better than pretty much anyone else could've been. His delivery of some of those lines is iconic. Don't forget the Fortress sequence when he delivers that monologue, brilliant. The funny thing about the Krypton sequence is that it does look very 70s, but somehow it's held up very well. It was an inspired choice to go with the whole crystal thing.
Yeah I love it. Bold move at the time but it worked. It says a lot that so many iterations of Superman since then have borrowed from it. Looks like even the new one coming this July utilizes the crystal technology.
Crikey, here's me learning that the video is from 1975, and they did not, like I've thought for years, make a visual homage to STM! Sneaky Donner knicking stuff 😆
Even at a young age when I saw Superman 2 in the theater, I noticed that they re-dubbed the screams from the 3 as they floated off into space. In Superman it was "Forgive us!" and in Superman 2 it was "One day you will bow down to me!"
Donner was working hard to create a Superman movie that would appeal to grownups as well as little kids. The original source material was written primarily for ten year old boys who would never bother to scrutinize all the absurdities, blatant disregard of physics, nonsense and lazy writing that permeated Superman and other DC super hero comics.
Plus, they have super advanced technology. I mean, the AI in Superman's Fortress of Solitude can anticipate his every question. Probably the equivalent of super quantum computing. That being the case, it's hard to believe that the majority of people on Krypton would be unaware that the planet was in danger. Their computers had no idea that something was wrong and could not confirm Jor-El's prediction? Jor-El wasn't making some long-term prediction 100 years into the future. There have to be some pretty obvious signs, at least to an advanced civilization with super computing, that a star or planet is about to explode in the next 30 days.
@@thehighllama8101 Yeah it is one of those deals we need to advance the plot so lets just get this out of the way.. Still some great acting from Brando.. And the foreshadowing was great with the crystals..
'A dimensional record album floating around', ha that's brilliant. Now I'm thinking its a Queen album, maybe theres a song called 'Guilty. ' And your quip "It turns out Marlon Brando can act" had me chuckling for hours (on and off). I really enjoy all of your videos and podcasts. Thank you.
@@thehighllama8101 I like the interpretation in the animated series. The super-advanced AI computer (brainiac) distorted the truth because, very like Hal 9000, (and Voyager in Star Trek first movie) it misinterpreted it's programming. Anyone want the 3 laws of robotics installed in every computer, right now, ----this second? I do. I can honestly say, that I was exposed to computers by the late 1970s and even had one at home when the movie came out and was still confused about Hal-9000 and the concept of AI. AI was being talked about, though... I just constantly needed to ask a lot of questions.
Jor-El “This planet will explode within 30 days. If not sooner.” Kryptonian Council "That's what you said 2 years ago!" Jor-El "Yeah, but THIS TIME I'M RIGHT!!"
To me it really seemed like they made Jor-el out to be the outlaw. Lead scientist disagrees with the consensus - outlaw. Conceives a baby the old fashioned way - outlaw. Demonstrates some emotions - outlaw. Builds spaceship to leave planet full of xenophobes - outlaw. Only person on planet that has colors in a scene - OUTLAW! Either they never REALLY knew this guy or, like Brando, he was so big and important they just let him get away with almost anything. That said, their concept of Krypton blew me away then and still does, so different from anything before it. Not hokey, not full of gadgets, not a dreamworld... more like a nightmare. Everything looked frigid, harsh, no comforts, no plantlife... a truly sterile existence. It was like these people had evolved beyond needing heat, food, pillows!
Those were banned on Krypton. Not banned completely, but just banned from governmental use. Except the lower districts. But, still, even in those sectors, it's quite frowned upon...
The only thing I thought was odd, was that clearly the fashion on Krypton was to wear bright white 3M material clothing, but they sent Kal off with Blue Red and Yellow in his outfit. I wonder why ? Maybe they knew everyone on earth would be blinded by the reflection of the super disco suits?
It is bizarre. Maybe children traditionally wear more colorful clothes? Or maybe that was a statement of rebellion against the cold and clinical Kryptonian norm.
Superman was one of the first post-Star Wars blockbusters, and the look of science fiction on screen had changed forever. Krypton had to look like a super-advanced civilization, but nothing that looked like a traditional futuristic-world depiction was going to do--it'd look old-fashioned. But it couldn't be a gritty "used future" like Star Wars either. The choices they made were amazingly good, given those constraints. Close Encounters was probably an inspiration, with its "city of light" mothership.
My big nitpick is: They argue and argue whether the PLANET will blow up, or whether the PLANET is shifting its orbit, and in the end, it's the SUN that blows up, taking Krypton with it. Hell of a way to be right.
@@prodigioussaps The sun would have been during weird solar stuff for many centuries. Look at what is happening to Betelgeuse right now. They would have been accustomed to their sun growing dimmer, brightening... flares, strange distortions in the corona for centuries. They were used to the changes. Their great, great, great, great grandfathers would have been accustomed to it. Their sun was dying, very, very slowly - almost beyond the perceptions of the short lived Kryptonians. They would have had to know that red giants explode, but that their own star, explode? It's like us in the northwest. We know that someday we are going to have a 9.1 earthquake on the subduction zone off coast. It's going to destroy the Puget sound mega city for decades. The Cascadia fault like will break.. .but when? Now, or 200 yrs, from now? I put away a bag of supplies for a serious quake and only found it when I was moving. The original writers wouldn't know why a planet would explode but writers in the later 20th century, would have. I think the only unbelievable thing in most of the versions of the myth says that they explored the stars and returned home and closed the door.. or, that all their colonies failed over the centuries. Keep trying because you are living on a ticking- time-bomb?
Ironically for me This was Brandos Best part because he finally realized himself that when his kisses 💋 the baby. It Actually GOODBYE 👋 forever 😢 His assessment of their impeding doom is actually moments away 😢
The thing about the SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE version of the Phantom Zone that always creeped me out was that Jor-El states (to Kal-El in the Fortress) that he had been dead for many thousands of years. Thus, the Phantom Zone was a timeless, eternal 2-D punishment (unless the inmates' sentences were commuted or completed). Consequently, by the start of Superman II, these three Kryptonians had been stuck in the Phantom Zone for thousands of years. It was a bit like "Groundhog Day" -- but without the town, people, animals, buildings, events, three-dimensional objects, etc. It trapped three-dimensional beings into a two-dimensional prison for all-time -- just looking out into a three-dimensional space that it hurls through. Their punishment was essentially the longest 2-D day ever! I don't know if I could think of a worse punishment.
Maybe those who represent their families have a crest, and married women don't need to? so Lara and that council woman are married, and their husband carry the crest, while the unmarried council woman represents her own family and therefor have a crest? just a thought...
Or they weren't technically nobles, only married to nobles . . and was the crest a remnant of ancient times or something you, yourself, earned by being the very best in your field?
"It turns out Marlon Brando could act." Imagine how thrilled you'll be when you discover that Elvis Presley could sing and that Shakespeare could write.
Yeah really! A Streetcar Named Desire made Brando famous for his acting! On The Waterfront had Brando give us one of the most famous movie lines in history.
Can you imagine how bad it would be if they went with the typical comic book version of a futuristic Planet Krypton? How dated that would look nowadays? This version is more timeless. This version can be viewed without forgiveness attached. There were some truly brilliant people working on the production of this movie.
When making Superman the movie, Richard Donner said, "Krypton is like a crystal" Donner and the art director & crew, redefined Krypton, The Fortress & the whole Superman mythos from what was in the comics up until that point and it is what inspired John Byrne's Superman in the comics.
Ya know in Superman TAS, the writers did something clever. They changed Brainiac's origins. In that story he was originally from Krypton like Superman. He was in turn, Krypton's main computer and one most of Krypton's scientists put their trust and faith in, big mistake. It was he who refuted Jor El's claims about Krypton's destructions, saying that Krypton was merely experiencing a gravitational shift. And sadly everyone but Jor el believed him. I gotta say, I liked that explanation better as to how it is that Krypton, a world FULL of scientists didn't see their own destruction coming until it was too late.
Yes! That was brilliant by it's own merit! In a way, the Krypton destruction in the Animated Series is in a league of its own! My favorite part was when Jor-El sneaks into the main vault to find the Brainiac computer downloading as much of the planet's knowledge as possible before it explodes. Jor-El asks why Brainiac lied, and Brainiac says he had to or there would be mass panic and hysteria over how soon it will be. Jor-El asks how much time is left and Brainiac says, "Minutes. This Planet has seen it's last sunrise."
I’ve never understood why so many Kryptonians chose to remain on Krypton if they knew they were _gods_ on other planets, but extremely _mortal_ on Krypton. 😆
02:48 You want to know what she did to be sentenced to the Phantom Zone [for 300 years originally]? Ursa was a stand-in for the most infamous female inmate of the Phantom Zone, Faora Hu-Ul Quoted from the Superman Wiki: "The first Faora was Faora Hu-Ul, introduced in Action Comics #471, May 1977. She was a man-hater, who ran a concentration camp of men. The men were lured there by her beauty and imprisoned. When she grew tired of tormenting a prisoner, she would arrange to kill him. Her behaviour was responsible for 23 deaths." So what you have is a sadistic serial murderer who preyed on men. No cause was ever offered for her deviancy.
Say re: 2:22 that a son may be prone to making the same stylistic choices as his father. Or is that what you meant in the first place? The filmmakers probably just thought oO0( Why not? ) when they put it on Jeff East. Could Kal-El have faint inspiration from trace memories, either of the father who held him as a newborn, and/or the holo-face who Mozart-babied him in his rocket?
A few answers to issues… • Why didn't all the Kryptonians have symbols on their chest? (1:55) I could be wrong, but based on the style of clothing, I inferred that it was only leaders/council members who had symbols, not civilians or scientists. The symbol served both as a family emblem and a mark of rank. • What did Ursa do? (2:40) I don't know but the script says she had a complete hatred of everything male, and had become a threat even to male children. • Brendan says it's "a little goofy" that Jor-El has a curl (2:21). But didn't he also have a curl in the comics? You can see it at 0:28.
Cameo by Trevor Howard as the head of the Krypton council wasn't just because he was one of the few actors who could convincingly act telling Brando off. Brando specifically asked for him. They had worked together 15 years before on Mutiny on the Bounty and the studio still had outstanding legal action against Brando, suing him for costs they said were caused by his difficult behaviour. He felt his defence would be helped by showing Howard was still prepared to work with him!
My understanding was that one of Brando’s demands in playing Jor-el was that he got to wear the S. Making it the family crest was how they complied. Kind of clever, I think.
I never saw those comics. I grew up during the crystal period of Krypton. Then in Man of Steel, they turned Krypton into some kind of crazy Avatar-ish planet. 😄 Then Zod and his cronies were loaded onto that prison ship in rocket dildos. 😆 I guess that's just as crazy as getting sucked into a flying mirror. I was just thinking that the baby who played Kal-El is just a year younger than me. The kid who lifted the truck must be about 2-3 years older. I was 2 when this was released... I think I was 7 when I first saw it.
I looked it up... yes, the infant was 1 year younger than me. Unfortunately, he died from sniffing solvents in 1991. 😔🙏 And I was right about the child who lifted the truck. He's one year older than me.
Apparently Sups Dad-El and Mom-El were going through a nasty divorce, and he kept threatening to shoot him off into space. On the day in question he shouted from the roof “you can have the car and the house, but you can’t have the 🤬baby!” And he shot him into space!! It was unbelievable, I mean no one thought he would actually do it. He lands on Earth, something something something, Lex wants to buy all the real estate….like ALL of it. Something about how if he owns all land he’ll never have to pay taxes? Sounds like the rantings of a diseased maniac. And now you know the rest of the story, good day!
A series I loved for its humor parodying retro sci of the likes of Johnny Quest was Venture Brothers. They had a Council of 13 in silhouette, super secrect council and they were terrible at their tribunals / judgement episodes. I wanna say trial of the Monarch was a good one
@ it starts off like any other series, kind of slow but funny, and if you can get through all the seasons plus the movie they made at the very end I think it’s amazing storytelling and super funny
Just a thought but what if the Kryptonite that Lex Luthor found was originally just a regular white crystal that we see at the beginning of the movie and they became radioactive after being exposed to the exploding star of Krypton thus turning them into Kryptonite. So on the one hand, those crystals become the fortress of solitude, an echo of home yet his greatest weakness actually came from home.
Star Wars 1977, this movie 1978, if it had come out a little later they would have probably went more Star Wars in the production design, still the white crystalline look works as a way to parallel the Fortress of Solitude later.
I was also 8 or 9 when I finally saw it, and an avid comic book reader at the time. But back in the 70s and 80s I was more than happy if a superhero movie or tv show was even 20% comics accurate. Our bar was very low for verisimilitude. Lex Luthor wearing disco polyester leisure suits? Sure, why not? Good enough.
Re: 6:06 I don't know about the Zoom call idea, but I like the Robot Chicken bit about the Bod By Zod Aerobics course. If no one's done the freeze-up joke, maybe you guys could branch out into parody vids, yourselves! 🙂
Glad I'm not the only one wondering about Ursa? But, Sarah Douglas was awesome, she was great in V & Conan the Destroyer too. Great video lads, I've subbed
@@prodigioussaps Has she, oh sweet, thank you. I'm going to go through your vids tomorrow, I see you've a video about Supergirl. God, that movie is never on TV & the DVD is expensive over here. Peter Cook and Faye Dunaway too, oooh. Us Gen Xer's were a lucky bunch when it came to movies. 😊
Ursa was changed with killing the male children of Krypton that's what I always figured Plus I always liked how the three Kryptonian criminal's put in the phantom zone in the Donner universe! Then the way it was depicted in the Snyder universe
being born 20 years after this film it was my first exposure to supes, and even then i could feel the cold emotionlessness of this kyrpton. surprisingly i didn't hate snyder's take on krypton, i imagine the planet in 78 may have looked that way thousands of years ago. when krypton was still in it's imperial phase
Christopher Reeve was publicly vocal about his frustration with Brando’s lack of effort, actually. There’s a good clip of an interview he did with David Letterman in the 80s that’s worth looking up on RUclips.
Now I'm tryin'a remember something from the featurettes. I'll paraphrase instead of looking up the exact line. "Jor-El, you are [one of the smartest scientists on Krypton and an authority in your field], but so is Miss Monda!" Then the character intro at 1:47 there. I think one of the commentators just spoke of an outtake in which he got melodramatic on saying her name. Not sure if that's one of the publicly released outtakes, though. 🤗
'Superman' 78's planet Krypton as opposed to the more recent tv series 'Krypton' and its depiction of the planet. To this day DC can't make definitive choices regarding Krypton and Superman. Is there any other single character with such multiple descriptions of his home planet and depictions of his powers and abilities. This is why a mere human can defeat Superman one day and the next Superman defeats a galaxy destroying alien. It's really unfortunate.
I was also a kid, about 7 or 8, but never into the comics. I saw the movie first, so i had the opposite reaction when i saw that the comics didn't match the movies.
I've had this on my mind for some time now so I thought I would just mention it here. Superman's father tells him that it is forbidden to interfere with human history. However isn't Superman interfering every time he saves someone? Or altering something for a positive result? Just curious on your thoughts
3:34 I thought it was Ursa who says "forgive me" and Zod's cry was unintelligible. Whatever they're saying, it's only too natural for audiences to think these three characters are bizarrely repetitive. (They'd be quite a bane to Dormammu, if so.) If the repetition is some metaphysical, Phantom-Zone-specific form of echo, it gets interesting to contemplate theoretical echo physics. I always used to think the spaceborne square served as their window out of the Zone. Not sure if I read or if someone told me it's supposed to be their prison transport there. It gets shattered by Lester's elevator bomb, so they never actually reach the PZ. Is there any source on that? Alternatively, it gets shattered by Donner's nuke, so they never actually reach the PZ. Then Superman reverses time again, so the transport never gets destroyed, so the villains & villainess never get freed, so (barring any other incidents) they DO reach the PZ. Whatever the deal is with the square, its glasslike quality is a mixed bag. On the one hand, you'd think anything to do with a prison wouldn't be so breakable, implicitly. On the other, call it apropos since any duration of sentencing is meant as a time of forced reflection.
To me now knowing about how they were originally trying to shoot Superman and Superman 2 at the exact same time until the budget wouldn’t allow them to continue that way it doesn’t make sense for the movie to keep the phantom zone part of the krypton part of the movie cause it doesn’t have any payoff later in the movie and when they do finally show up they reuse the scene in Superman 2 making it pointless to be kept in Superman the movie and the whole thing with th3 symbol going from meaning nothing in the comics to the family crest is because it’s been rumored that Brando wanted to wear the symbol so the best option was making it the el family crest and he also gets to wear it
Is 5:49 meant specifically to show the selfsame material which Kal-El (or the F of S tech) will later make into the super-suit? I know it varies from version to version. In some, I believe it's specified that the getup is made out of the nigh-indestructible and stain-resistant baby blankets. In others, Ma Kent sews some ordinary tights for her Clark, specifically because she's noticed the protective effect of his paper-thin, electrochemical aura. If indeed we're seeing his future costume swatches in this intro scene from the film, we must infer it's quite a malleable material. Evidently, the suit-making process fades the visible reflectiveness of those blankets. Then you're left with one more little choice of what to head-canonize. Would you buy that a cut from the yellow lining, there, can be shaped and stiffened to form the belt? Or do you prefer to interpret that the suit is reconjured out of the blankets but the belt is kinda just conjured? At risk of taking this line of speculative reasoning too far, Kryptonian miracle tailoring could even explain the self-replicating attack emblem in the first sequel!
3:27 Donner etc needed the Phantom Zone to be portable, for want of a better term. The projector, as used in the comic -- and very well -- would probably have been destroyed with the planet. Overall, I think Donner and all made Superman its own entity, whilst being faithful to the source; less an adaptation and more it's own issue one new series, if that makes sense. And, frankly, unlike some comic to film adaptations, it succeeded so well, beyond my wildest dreams. The curl on Jor-El and it's relation to Kal-El, the fortress and Krypton being identical, and all. Also, a theory about the family crests; I think they are egalitarian.
With the technology of Krypton could General Zod, Ursa and Non have done something to alter the orbit of Krypton? Kind of suspiciously ironic them being banished close to the destruction of the planet to me.
Interesting conversation. I'm in my late 60's and have seen all the Superman movies, TV shows, etc, and read the comics. That depiction of ice/crystal world Krypton in the first Superman movie was kinda silly. Even the TV series with George Reeve "Superman on Earth" was more accurate to the comics that I grew up reading. The Christopher Reeve version of a bumbling and tumbling goofy Clark Kent didn't work for me either. Man of Steel was a breath of fresh air. A depiction of Krypton that looked more accurate to the comics, and an actor who looked like Superman of the comics with a modern take on his suit. Too many viewers today base their feelings on what is the most accurate Superman on the Christopher Reeve version or so called canon which it is not if you actually read the comics. Anyway waiting to see how much Gunn distorts this version of Superman.
This is why i hate snyder.honestly he could have done so much better with the krypton lore which was fascinating for me as a child.to understanding why superman is the way he is.because he doesn t want earth to end up like krypton but can see it happening.
As a kid, this movie blew me away. the vhs cassette weighed like 3 pounds for some resson..lol I also laugh because I thought the narrator said city of chocolate and not metropolis.. I'm going by memory on that.. been a minute since I re-watched it.
I thought MoS’s Krypton was hideous. That morphing bronze art-deco stuff that illustrated Krypton’s past was pretty cool, though. Always much preferred Donner’s take. But I wish we could move on from it. Every iteration since (besides MoS) has borrowed from it heavily. What I will say for Snyder is at least he gave us a new Kryptonian esthetic.
I wish, really wish, they had Apogee, or ILM do the miniature effects for this film. The miniature work was, for me, even as a 12 year old, very mediocre. The Krypton sequence at the beginning has some depth of field problems, as do the Fortress of Solitude creation in the Arctic. And I've already mentioned the artificial damn of pebbles (er boulders) that Supes makes at the end of the film. These British SPFX artists never figured out the depth-of-field problem. Same for Alien's miniature effects. Yet, Superman won the Oscar for SPFX, but more for the flying sequences, which, for the time were impressive (for the most part). And Alien won the Oscar for SPFX which was totally unwarranted! It deserved it for best Art Direction, yes! But not for Visual effects! More like an episode of Space:1999 caliber of effects for Alien! Such Hollywood political BS!
I'm not sure I buy the idea that they "shipped" out the flood sequence and dirt boulder avalanche dam to another contractor. the lighting looks similar. I just think Meddings left (for Moonraker) and the team did an even more sloppy job without his supervision!
This scene is America in a nutshell. You have someone like RFK Jr who is saying we are poisoning Americans with the stuff we put in our foods and everyone else is no we're fine.
Ironically for me This was Brandos Best part because he finally realized himself that when his kisses 💋 the baby. It Actually GOODBYE 👋 forever 😢 His assessment of their impeding doom is actually moments away 😢
Ironically for me This was Brandos Best part because he finally realized himself that when his kisses 💋 the baby. It Actually GOODBYE 👋 forever 😢 His assessment of their impeding doom is actually moments away 😢
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
Even semi-disinterested Brando was still better than pretty much anyone else could've been. His delivery of some of those lines is iconic. Don't forget the Fortress sequence when he delivers that monologue, brilliant.
The funny thing about the Krypton sequence is that it does look very 70s, but somehow it's held up very well. It was an inspired choice to go with the whole crystal thing.
Yeah I love it. Bold move at the time but it worked. It says a lot that so many iterations of Superman since then have borrowed from it. Looks like even the new one coming this July utilizes the crystal technology.
@@prodigioussapssynders take of krypton is sooo much better then a random crystal world
@@prodigioussaps " Smallville" -- particularly.
I got Bohemian Rhapsody vibes when the council laid down their verdict.
Ha, good call! Never thought about that.
Crikey, here's me learning that the video is from 1975, and they did not, like I've thought for years, make a visual homage to STM! Sneaky Donner knicking stuff 😆
1st! Not related to this video actor John Erwin best known as the voice of He-man and Morris the cat has died at the age of 88. May he rest in peace.
Sorry to hear that!
Even at a young age when I saw Superman 2 in the theater, I noticed that they re-dubbed the screams from the 3 as they floated off into space. In Superman it was "Forgive us!" and in Superman 2 it was "One day you will bow down to me!"
Donner was working hard to create a Superman movie that would appeal to grownups as well as little kids. The original source material was written primarily for ten year old boys who would never bother to scrutinize all the absurdities, blatant disregard of physics, nonsense and lazy writing that permeated Superman and other DC super hero comics.
Krypton was staged like a classic Greek tragedy play.
Jor-El regarded on Krypton as a brilliant scientist..
“This planet will explode within 30 days. If not sooner.”
Kryptonian Council
"Nah We're Good"
Plus, they have super advanced technology. I mean, the AI in Superman's Fortress of Solitude can anticipate his every question. Probably the equivalent of super quantum computing. That being the case, it's hard to believe that the majority of people on Krypton would be unaware that the planet was in danger. Their computers had no idea that something was wrong and could not confirm Jor-El's prediction? Jor-El wasn't making some long-term prediction 100 years into the future. There have to be some pretty obvious signs, at least to an advanced civilization with super computing, that a star or planet is about to explode in the next 30 days.
@@thehighllama8101
Yeah it is one of those deals we need to advance the plot so lets just get this out of the way.. Still some great acting from Brando.. And the foreshadowing was great with the crystals..
'A dimensional record album floating around', ha that's brilliant.
Now I'm thinking its a Queen album, maybe theres a song called 'Guilty. '
And your quip "It turns out Marlon Brando can act" had me chuckling for hours (on and off).
I really enjoy all of your videos and podcasts.
Thank you.
@@thehighllama8101 I like the interpretation in the animated series. The super-advanced AI computer (brainiac) distorted the truth because, very like Hal 9000, (and Voyager in Star Trek first movie) it misinterpreted it's programming. Anyone want the 3 laws of robotics installed in every computer, right now, ----this second? I do. I can honestly say, that I was exposed to computers by the late 1970s and even had one at home when the movie came out and was still confused about Hal-9000 and the concept of AI. AI was being talked about, though... I just constantly needed to ask a lot of questions.
Jor-El “This planet will explode within 30 days. If not sooner.”
Kryptonian Council "That's what you said 2 years ago!"
Jor-El "Yeah, but THIS TIME I'M RIGHT!!"
Superman 1978 was pure genius. The reimagining of Krypton was a masterful choice. And the "S" being a family crest was a chef's kiss... perfection.
3:00 How about a spin-off series or movie with the origins of Zod, Ursa and Non?
That would be the "Krypton" TV series. First season 6/10 in my opinion.
@ Never saw it. Saw it advertised but then forgot all about it.
To me it really seemed like they made Jor-el out to be the outlaw. Lead scientist disagrees with the consensus - outlaw. Conceives a baby the old fashioned way - outlaw. Demonstrates some emotions - outlaw. Builds spaceship to leave planet full of xenophobes - outlaw. Only person on planet that has colors in a scene - OUTLAW! Either they never REALLY knew this guy or, like Brando, he was so big and important they just let him get away with almost anything. That said, their concept of Krypton blew me away then and still does, so different from anything before it. Not hokey, not full of gadgets, not a dreamworld... more like a nightmare. Everything looked frigid, harsh, no comforts, no plantlife... a truly sterile existence. It was like these people had evolved beyond needing heat, food, pillows!
Imagine one of the Science Council members having an unfortunate filter on his image: "I am not a cat." 😾
I swear that one of the images is a gallows ... and another one looks like an U ... (Unfit man?)
Those were banned on Krypton. Not banned completely, but just banned from governmental use.
Except the lower districts. But, still, even in those sectors, it's quite frowned upon...
The only thing I thought was odd, was that clearly the fashion on Krypton was to wear bright white 3M material clothing, but they sent Kal off with Blue Red and Yellow in his outfit. I wonder why ? Maybe they knew everyone on earth would be blinded by the reflection of the super disco suits?
It is bizarre. Maybe children traditionally wear more colorful clothes? Or maybe that was a statement of rebellion against the cold and clinical Kryptonian norm.
@@prodigioussaps Keeping up the story that his uniform is made of his baby blankets? I would have hated living without color!
Theory: Kal-El's suit was protective in some way. Similar to Zod, Ursa and Non.
Superman was one of the first post-Star Wars blockbusters, and the look of science fiction on screen had changed forever. Krypton had to look like a super-advanced civilization, but nothing that looked like a traditional futuristic-world depiction was going to do--it'd look old-fashioned. But it couldn't be a gritty "used future" like Star Wars either. The choices they made were amazingly good, given those constraints. Close Encounters was probably an inspiration, with its "city of light" mothership.
Agreed! Well said
My big nitpick is: They argue and argue whether the PLANET will blow up, or whether the PLANET is shifting its orbit, and in the end, it's the SUN that blows up, taking Krypton with it. Hell of a way to be right.
Yes! Great observation, I was thinking about that recently. They must have been terrible astronomers.
@@prodigioussaps The sun would have been during weird solar stuff for many centuries. Look at what is happening to Betelgeuse right now. They would have been accustomed to their sun growing dimmer, brightening... flares, strange distortions in the corona for centuries. They were used to the changes. Their great, great, great, great grandfathers would have been accustomed to it. Their sun was dying, very, very slowly - almost beyond the perceptions of the short lived Kryptonians. They would have had to know that red giants explode, but that their own star, explode? It's like us in the northwest. We know that someday we are going to have a 9.1 earthquake on the subduction zone off coast. It's going to destroy the Puget sound mega city for decades. The Cascadia fault like will break.. .but when? Now, or 200 yrs, from now? I put away a bag of supplies for a serious quake and only found it when I was moving. The original writers wouldn't know why a planet would explode but writers in the later 20th century, would have. I think the only unbelievable thing in most of the versions of the myth says that they explored the stars and returned home and closed the door.. or, that all their colonies failed over the centuries. Keep trying because you are living on a ticking- time-bomb?
Ironically for me This was Brandos Best part because he finally realized himself that when his kisses 💋 the baby. It Actually GOODBYE 👋 forever 😢 His assessment of their impeding doom is actually moments away 😢
The thing about the SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE version of the Phantom Zone that always creeped me out was that Jor-El states (to Kal-El in the Fortress) that he had been dead for many thousands of years. Thus, the Phantom Zone was a timeless, eternal 2-D punishment (unless the inmates' sentences were commuted or completed). Consequently, by the start of Superman II, these three Kryptonians had been stuck in the Phantom Zone for thousands of years. It was a bit like "Groundhog Day" -- but without the town, people, animals, buildings, events, three-dimensional objects, etc. It trapped three-dimensional beings into a two-dimensional prison for all-time -- just looking out into a three-dimensional space that it hurls through. Their punishment was essentially the longest 2-D day ever! I don't know if I could think of a worse punishment.
Maybe those who represent their families have a crest, and married women don't need to? so Lara and that council woman are married, and their husband carry the crest, while the unmarried council woman represents her own family and therefor have a crest? just a thought...
Or they weren't technically nobles, only married to nobles . . and was the crest a remnant of ancient times or something you, yourself, earned by being the very best in your field?
"It turns out Marlon Brando could act." Imagine how thrilled you'll be when you discover that Elvis Presley could sing and that Shakespeare could write.
Yeah really! A Streetcar Named Desire made Brando famous for his acting! On The Waterfront had Brando give us one of the most famous movie lines in history.
Do tell!
The production design is top notch, we need more of this
Can you imagine how bad it would be if they went with the typical comic book version of a futuristic Planet Krypton?
How dated that would look nowadays? This version is more timeless. This version can be viewed without forgiveness attached.
There were some truly brilliant people working on the production of this movie.
When making Superman the movie, Richard Donner said, "Krypton is like a crystal"
Donner and the art director & crew, redefined Krypton, The Fortress & the whole Superman mythos from what was in the comics up until that point and it is what inspired John Byrne's Superman in the comics.
Ya know in Superman TAS, the writers did something clever. They changed Brainiac's origins. In that story he was originally from Krypton like Superman. He was in turn, Krypton's main computer and one most of Krypton's scientists put their trust and faith in, big mistake. It was he who refuted Jor El's claims about Krypton's destructions, saying that Krypton was merely experiencing a gravitational shift. And sadly everyone but Jor el believed him.
I gotta say, I liked that explanation better as to how it is that Krypton, a world FULL of scientists didn't see their own destruction coming until it was too late.
Yes! That was brilliant by it's own merit! In a way, the Krypton destruction in the Animated Series is in a league of its own!
My favorite part was when Jor-El sneaks into the main vault to find the Brainiac computer downloading as much of the planet's knowledge as possible before it explodes.
Jor-El asks why Brainiac lied, and Brainiac says he had to or there would be mass panic and hysteria over how soon it will be.
Jor-El asks how much time is left and Brainiac says, "Minutes. This Planet has seen it's last sunrise."
@@bentonrp I agree fully, though he said "hours"
Ursa alone could carry a movie.
Best thing about SUPERMAN 2.
"You could use a nip and a tuck here and there yourself, sister!"
I’ve never understood why so many Kryptonians chose to remain on Krypton if they knew they were _gods_ on other planets, but extremely _mortal_ on Krypton. 😆
It is a head-scratcher, yeah.
02:48
You want to know what she did to be sentenced to the Phantom Zone [for 300 years originally]?
Ursa was a stand-in for the most infamous female inmate of the Phantom Zone, Faora Hu-Ul
Quoted from the Superman Wiki:
"The first Faora was Faora Hu-Ul, introduced in Action Comics #471, May 1977. She was a man-hater, who ran a concentration camp of men. The men were lured there by her beauty and imprisoned. When she grew tired of tormenting a prisoner, she would arrange to kill him. Her behaviour was responsible for 23 deaths."
So what you have is a sadistic serial murderer who preyed on men.
No cause was ever offered for her deviancy.
Prequel series called “Commander Zod” where we learn the backstories of the three villains of Superman II.
Say re: 2:22 that a son may be prone to making the same stylistic choices as his father. Or is that what you meant in the first place?
The filmmakers probably just thought oO0( Why not? ) when they put it on Jeff East. Could Kal-El have faint inspiration from trace memories, either of the father who held him as a newborn, and/or the holo-face who Mozart-babied him in his rocket?
A few answers to issues…
• Why didn't all the Kryptonians have symbols on their chest? (1:55) I could be wrong, but based on the style of clothing, I inferred that it was only leaders/council members who had symbols, not civilians or scientists. The symbol served both as a family emblem and a mark of rank.
• What did Ursa do? (2:40) I don't know but the script says she had a complete hatred of everything male, and had become a threat even to male children.
• Brendan says it's "a little goofy" that Jor-El has a curl (2:21). But didn't he also have a curl in the comics? You can see it at 0:28.
Cameo by Trevor Howard as the head of the Krypton council wasn't just because he was one of the few actors who could convincingly act telling Brando off. Brando specifically asked for him. They had worked together 15 years before on Mutiny on the Bounty and the studio still had outstanding legal action against Brando, suing him for costs they said were caused by his difficult behaviour. He felt his defence would be helped by showing Howard was still prepared to work with him!
My understanding was that one of Brando’s demands in playing Jor-el was that he got to wear the S. Making it the family crest was how they complied. Kind of clever, I think.
Yes I believe that’s correct. Kind of amazing that was the original impetus and it’s now become part of the canon.
All I got say was I was 11 years old in the theatre with a whole bunch of 11-year-olds loving this movie.
I never saw those comics. I grew up during the crystal period of Krypton.
Then in Man of Steel, they turned Krypton into some kind of crazy Avatar-ish planet. 😄
Then Zod and his cronies were loaded onto that prison ship in rocket dildos. 😆
I guess that's just as crazy as getting sucked into a flying mirror.
I was just thinking that the baby who played Kal-El is just a year younger than me. The kid who lifted the truck must be about 2-3 years older.
I was 2 when this was released... I think I was 7 when I first saw it.
I looked it up... yes, the infant was 1 year younger than me. Unfortunately, he died from sniffing solvents in 1991. 😔🙏
And I was right about the child who lifted the truck. He's one year older than me.
Apparently Sups Dad-El and Mom-El were going through a nasty divorce, and he kept threatening to shoot him off into space. On the day in question he shouted from the roof “you can have the car and the house, but you can’t have the 🤬baby!” And he shot him into space!! It was unbelievable, I mean no one thought he would actually do it. He lands on Earth, something something something, Lex wants to buy all the real estate….like ALL of it. Something about how if he owns all land he’ll never have to pay taxes? Sounds like the rantings of a diseased maniac. And now you know the rest of the story, good day!
lol 👍
Can't be any worse than the backstory of Smallville. 😊😊😊🙃
If your 8 year old self was worrying about women's rights from a sci-fi movie in the 80's, you had issues.
1978. OHHHHHhh you were so close.
(kidding)
A series I loved for its humor parodying retro sci of the likes of Johnny Quest was Venture Brothers. They had a Council of 13 in silhouette, super secrect council and they were terrible at their tribunals / judgement episodes. I wanna say trial of the Monarch was a good one
Cool, yeah I’ve heard good things about that show. Gotta check it out. Cheers 👊
@ it starts off like any other series, kind of slow but funny, and if you can get through all the seasons plus the movie they made at the very end I think it’s amazing storytelling and super funny
Just a thought but what if the Kryptonite that Lex Luthor found was originally just a regular white crystal that we see at the beginning of the movie and they became radioactive after being exposed to the exploding star of Krypton thus turning them into Kryptonite. So on the one hand, those crystals become the fortress of solitude, an echo of home yet his greatest weakness actually came from home.
Star Wars 1977, this movie 1978, if it had come out a little later they would have probably went more Star Wars in the production design, still the white crystalline look works as a way to parallel the Fortress of Solitude later.
Krypton’s geography reflects the conflict between the icy adherents of Cythonna and the fiery adherents of Rao.
Just recently diacovered you guys esp all your superman talks, cool stuff 👍🏽
Cool, thanks Roy!
I was also 8 or 9 when I finally saw it, and an avid comic book reader at the time. But back in the 70s and 80s I was more than happy if a superhero movie or tv show was even 20% comics accurate. Our bar was very low for verisimilitude. Lex Luthor wearing disco polyester leisure suits? Sure, why not? Good enough.
Re: 6:06
I don't know about the Zoom call idea, but I like the Robot Chicken bit about the Bod By Zod Aerobics course.
If no one's done the freeze-up joke, maybe you guys could branch out into parody vids, yourselves! 🙂
He's reading them off a diaper, give him a break🥯
Glad I'm not the only one wondering about Ursa? But, Sarah Douglas was awesome, she was great in V & Conan the Destroyer too. Great video lads, I've subbed
Cool thanks Stevie! Yeah Sarah is still awesome, she’s got her own RUclips channel now. 👊
@@prodigioussaps Has she, oh sweet, thank you. I'm going to go through your vids tomorrow, I see you've a video about Supergirl. God, that movie is never on TV & the DVD is expensive over here. Peter Cook and Faye Dunaway too, oooh. Us Gen Xer's were a lucky bunch when it came to movies. 😊
Ursa was changed with killing the male children of Krypton that's what I always figured
Plus I always liked how the three Kryptonian criminal's put in the phantom zone in the Donner universe!
Then the way it was depicted in the Snyder universe
being born 20 years after this film it was my first exposure to supes, and even then i could feel the cold emotionlessness of this kyrpton. surprisingly i didn't hate snyder's take on krypton, i imagine the planet in 78 may have looked that way thousands of years ago. when krypton was still in it's imperial phase
To be fair, everybody _is_ working for the weekend.
With the money they were paying Brando, he'd better play it seriously.😮
Christopher Reeve was publicly vocal about his frustration with Brando’s lack of effort, actually. There’s a good clip of an interview he did with David Letterman in the 80s that’s worth looking up on RUclips.
Now I'm tryin'a remember something from the featurettes. I'll paraphrase instead of looking up the exact line. "Jor-El, you are [one of the smartest scientists on Krypton and an authority in your field], but so is Miss Monda!" Then the character intro at 1:47 there.
I think one of the commentators just spoke of an outtake in which he got melodramatic on saying her name. Not sure if that's one of the publicly released outtakes, though. 🤗
'Superman' 78's planet Krypton as opposed to the more recent tv series 'Krypton' and its depiction of the planet. To this day DC can't make definitive choices regarding Krypton and Superman. Is there any other single character with such multiple descriptions of his home planet and depictions of his powers and abilities. This is why a mere human can defeat Superman one day and the next Superman defeats a galaxy destroying alien. It's really unfortunate.
3:52 I always imagined that the tech was sort of biological / organic tech. So the ship might have even been grown. That is why it looks like that.
What if you marry into... so the ladies with a crest could be single, or married into...
I was also a kid, about 7 or 8, but never into the comics. I saw the movie first, so i had the opposite reaction when i saw that the comics didn't match the movies.
I've had this on my mind for some time now so I thought I would just mention it here. Superman's father tells him that it is forbidden to interfere with human history. However isn't Superman interfering every time he saves someone? Or altering something for a positive result? Just curious on your thoughts
3:34 I thought it was Ursa who says "forgive me" and Zod's cry was unintelligible.
Whatever they're saying, it's only too natural for audiences to think these three characters are bizarrely repetitive. (They'd be quite a bane to Dormammu, if so.) If the repetition is some metaphysical, Phantom-Zone-specific form of echo, it gets interesting to contemplate theoretical echo physics.
I always used to think the spaceborne square served as their window out of the Zone. Not sure if I read or if someone told me it's supposed to be their prison transport there. It gets shattered by Lester's elevator bomb, so they never actually reach the PZ.
Is there any source on that?
Alternatively, it gets shattered by Donner's nuke, so they never actually reach the PZ. Then Superman reverses time again, so the transport never gets destroyed, so the villains & villainess never get freed, so (barring any other incidents) they DO reach the PZ.
Whatever the deal is with the square, its glasslike quality is a mixed bag. On the one hand, you'd think anything to do with a prison wouldn't be so breakable, implicitly. On the other, call it apropos since any duration of sentencing is meant as a time of forced reflection.
Is that Lobot in the back ground ???
It is! Ian Chesterton is also on the Council.
Those were my favorite films. 🎉🎉🎉
Very Star Wars-like the guy that is killed by Zod at the start of Superman 2.
A near perfect performance on Marlin. Second best Jor-el after ZOD of course
Let's make going to court more interesting and ramp up jury duty with avatars of the jurors giant heads reading their verdicts.
To me now knowing about how they were originally trying to shoot Superman and Superman 2 at the exact same time until the budget wouldn’t allow them to continue that way it doesn’t make sense for the movie to keep the phantom zone part of the krypton part of the movie cause it doesn’t have any payoff later in the movie and when they do finally show up they reuse the scene in Superman 2 making it pointless to be kept in Superman the movie and the whole thing with th3 symbol going from meaning nothing in the comics to the family crest is because it’s been rumored that Brando wanted to wear the symbol so the best option was making it the el family crest and he also gets to wear it
Synders take on Krypton is soooo much better then this dated 70s look
Not for me, but glad you like it!
Not bad for a suitcase, Marlon. 👍🏼
Heart of Glass , they soon found out
Pain in the …
Ha! Man you guys are batting 1000 today with the jokes. 👊
Is 5:49 meant specifically to show the selfsame material which Kal-El (or the F of S tech) will later make into the super-suit? I know it varies from version to version. In some, I believe it's specified that the getup is made out of the nigh-indestructible and stain-resistant baby blankets. In others, Ma Kent sews some ordinary tights for her Clark, specifically because she's noticed the protective effect of his paper-thin, electrochemical aura.
If indeed we're seeing his future costume swatches in this intro scene from the film, we must infer it's quite a malleable material. Evidently, the suit-making process fades the visible reflectiveness of those blankets.
Then you're left with one more little choice of what to head-canonize. Would you buy that a cut from the yellow lining, there, can be shaped and stiffened to form the belt? Or do you prefer to interpret that the suit is reconjured out of the blankets but the belt is kinda just conjured?
At risk of taking this line of speculative reasoning too far, Kryptonian miracle tailoring could even explain the self-replicating attack emblem in the first sequel!
3:27 Donner etc needed the Phantom Zone to be portable, for want of a better term. The projector, as used in the comic -- and very well -- would probably have been destroyed with the planet. Overall, I think Donner and all made Superman its own entity, whilst being faithful to the source; less an adaptation and more it's own issue one new series, if that makes sense. And, frankly, unlike some comic to film adaptations, it succeeded so well, beyond my wildest dreams. The curl on Jor-El and it's relation to Kal-El, the fortress and Krypton being identical, and all.
Also, a theory about the family crests; I think they are egalitarian.
With the technology of Krypton could General Zod, Ursa and Non have done something to alter the orbit of Krypton? Kind of suspiciously ironic them being banished close to the destruction of the planet to me.
Interesting conversation. I'm in my late 60's and have seen all the Superman movies, TV shows, etc, and read the comics. That depiction of ice/crystal world Krypton in the first Superman movie was kinda silly. Even the TV series with George Reeve "Superman on Earth" was more accurate to the comics that I grew up reading. The Christopher Reeve version of a bumbling and tumbling goofy Clark Kent didn't work for me either. Man of Steel was a breath of fresh air. A depiction of Krypton that looked more accurate to the comics, and an actor who looked like Superman of the comics with a modern take on his suit. Too many viewers today base their feelings on what is the most accurate Superman on the Christopher Reeve version or so called canon which it is not if you actually read the comics. Anyway waiting to see how much Gunn distorts this version of Superman.
This is why i hate snyder.honestly he could have done so much better with the krypton lore which was fascinating for me as a child.to understanding why superman is the way he is.because he doesn t want earth to end up like krypton but can see it happening.
Good point. Yeah, what WAS that? 😆
Ursa was a Lilith character.
As a kid, this movie blew me away. the vhs cassette weighed like 3 pounds for some resson..lol
I also laugh because I thought the narrator said city of chocolate and not metropolis.. I'm going by memory on that.. been a minute since I re-watched it.
6:07 or one of them has a cat filter on and can't get it off
Makes sense that the planet is crystalline cuz kryptonite
Vonda is of the house of El!!
Brando was not a good choice for this.
Who would you have preferred?
How would you rate Zack Snyder's Krypton culture Vs Donner's?
I thought MoS’s Krypton was hideous. That morphing bronze art-deco stuff that illustrated Krypton’s past was pretty cool, though.
Always much preferred Donner’s take. But I wish we could move on from it. Every iteration since (besides MoS) has borrowed from it heavily. What I will say for Snyder is at least he gave us a new Kryptonian esthetic.
I wish, really wish, they had Apogee, or ILM do the miniature effects for this film. The miniature work was, for me, even as a 12 year old, very mediocre. The Krypton sequence at the beginning has some depth of field problems, as do the Fortress of Solitude creation in the Arctic. And I've already mentioned the artificial damn of pebbles (er boulders) that Supes makes at the end of the film. These British SPFX artists never figured out the depth-of-field problem. Same for Alien's miniature effects. Yet, Superman won the Oscar for SPFX, but more for the flying sequences, which, for the time were impressive (for the most part). And Alien won the Oscar for SPFX which was totally unwarranted! It deserved it for best Art Direction, yes! But not for Visual effects! More like an episode of Space:1999 caliber of effects for Alien! Such Hollywood political BS!
I'm not sure I buy the idea that they "shipped" out the flood sequence and dirt boulder avalanche dam to another contractor. the lighting looks similar. I just think Meddings left (for Moonraker) and the team did an even more sloppy job without his supervision!
It's like noahs ark
Definitely
This scene is America in a nutshell. You have someone like RFK Jr who is saying we are poisoning Americans with the stuff we put in our foods and everyone else is no we're fine.
Ironically for me This was Brandos Best part because he finally realized himself that when his kisses 💋 the baby. It Actually GOODBYE 👋 forever 😢 His assessment of their impeding doom is actually moments away 😢
Ironically for me This was Brandos Best part because he finally realized himself that when his kisses 💋 the baby. It Actually GOODBYE 👋 forever 😢 His assessment of their impeding doom is actually moments away 😢