Man of Steel.

[Deberg_1990]

Originally Posted by KCWolfman

Being a Superman fanatic, I can say this is the first time I have truly been anticipating something wonderful. I have seen all the films back to Christopher Reeves first and they all were atrocious. The stories have never caught the concept from the comics. I bet this is the one, though. Casting, directing, and producing are all the right people thus far.

The first Donner Superman was great for its time. Pretty dated now. I liked Superman II when i was a kid, but its pretty terrible now. The other two Reeves Supermans are hardly even worth talking about.

Reeves was pretty fantastic as Kent and Superman though. He will be hard to top.

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by Deberg_1990

The first Donner Superman was great for its time. Pretty dated now. I liked Superman II when i was a kid, but its pretty terrible now. The other two Reeves Supermans are hardly even worth talking about.

Reeves was pretty fantastic as Kent and Superman though. He will be hard to top.

The first Donner film was crap. The Brando scenes were forced and unbelievable and Margot Kidder was extremely unattractive, too harsh and it was ridiculous to believe that Superman would stop and reverse time, just for her. I was like 11 or so when I first saw it in theaters and thought she was ****ing gross.

Contrast that to Gene Hackman's cartoonish portrayal of Lex and you've got a really bad movie. The sequels were exponentially worse and Superman Returns was crap as well.

Finally, it looks like Warner's got it right. I guess we'll see...

[Frazod]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

The first Donner film was crap. The Brando scenes were forced and unbelievable and Margot Kidder was extremely unattractive, too harsh and it was ridiculous to believe that Superman would stop and reverse time, just for her. I was like 11 or so when I first saw it in theaters and thought she was ****ing gross.

Contrast that to Gene Hackman's cartoonish portrayal of Lex and you've got a really bad movie. The sequels were exponentially worse and Superman Returns was crap as well.

Finally, it looks like Warner's got it right. I guess we'll see...

Damn, that's harsh. I agree that the first one is now dated, but it was awesome for its time.

And I enjoyed the Donner cut of II.

The other two are complete shit, however.

[Bowser]

Originally Posted by frazod

Damn, that's harsh. I agree that the first one is now dated, but it was awesome for its time.

And I enjoyed the Donner cut of II.

The other two are complete shit, however.

I don't even remember what III was about, and I remember IV jsut for the fact that Luthor tried to grow a blonde headed Supermna clone that could only operate in direct sunlight.

[Deberg_1990]

Originally Posted by Bowser

I don't even remember what III was about, and I remember IV jsut for the fact that Luthor tried to grow a blonde headed Supermna clone that could only operate in direct sunlight.

III was about Richard Pryor as a Computer genious who builds a Super Computer. Extremely hokey in idea and execution.

[Bowser]

Originally Posted by Deberg_1990

III was about Richard Pryor as a Computer genious who builds a Super Computer. Extremely hokey in idea and execution.

Thank you. It's all flooding back now. Didn't Clark split into a Good Supes/Bad Supes kind of thing, too?



Gaaah, awful.

[Deberg_1990]

Originally Posted by Bowser

Didn't Clark split into a Good Supes/Bad Supes kind of thing, too?

yes....probably the best part of the film.

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by frazod

Damn, that's harsh. I agree that the first one is now dated, but it was awesome for its time.

And I enjoyed the Donner cut of II.

The other two are complete shit, however.

I loved Christopher Reeve as Superman and it's a damn shame that the script and casting (outside of the Kansas sequence and Perry White) was so poor.

The Lex portion of the story dumbed down his criminal mastermind to the point of buffoonery and the aforementioned Margot Kidder was the anti-Lois Lane.

Out of all the beautiful and amazing 70's actresses, the producers chose her??? I just never bought it, even as a kid.

John Williams score is legendary and its emotion is probably why people still love the film today. Ottman quoted it several times in Superman Returns.

[KCWolfman]

Originally Posted by Deberg_1990

The first Donner Superman was great for its time. Pretty dated now. I liked Superman II when i was a kid, but its pretty terrible now. The other two Reeves Supermans are hardly even worth talking about.

Reeves was pretty fantastic as Kent and Superman though. He will be hard to top.

I saw the first film the night of release. I hated it. It was a miserable rendition. Margot Kidder was not Lois Lane, she was a trashy version of Fran Drescher (if a trashier version could be), Luthor was a caricature instead of an evil icon, his henchman was not of the Luthor style whatsoever, his moll was ridiculous, the plot full of holes (who the hell would buy irradiated real estate?).

Don't get me wrong, Hackman and Brando were good in their performance, the story simply was not Superman. But Kidder, Beatty, Valerie Perrine, and Reeves were so over the top that it defined campy acting for me for years. What was the worst for me was that the best acting in the film was by Jackie Cooper and Marc McClure, minor secondaries at best.

[Lex Luthor]

I was extremely disappointed when I saw the first movie back in 1978. Then, after reducing my expectations, I was able to enjoy it when I watched it again, although I have to agree that Gene Hackman's comedic portrayal of Lex Luthor was terrible, and it sure would have been nice if they had chosen a hot actress to play Lois Lane.

I expected nothing when I went to see movie #2 a couple of years later, so I was pleasantly surprised. I actually liked the movie the first time I saw it. It still wasn't a completely serious movie, but it came a lot closer.

Movies III and IV were just plain boring, and subsequent viewings didn't make them any better.

I hate to even think about the abomination that was Superman Returns. Even though I wasn't really expecting much, I was pretty pissed off at how horrible that movie was. I tried to watch it a second time a few years later, but I just couldn't get through it.

Having said all of that, now I can say this: the trailer for Man of Steel looks like it might actually be a good movie. If it opens at midnight, I'll be there. As you might guess from my name on this site, I'm about as big a Superman geek as you will ever find. I was a big fan of reruns of the original television show with George Reeves, and I read the comic books when I was a kid in the 1960s and 1970s. The Smallville television show just about got everything right in that there were no elements of farce in it and all of the women were extremely hot, but Tom Welling's absolute refusal to ever put on the Superman costume or use the Superman name was a little disappointing. But at least they used the name and the costume at the very end of the finale.

I'm ready for the Man of Steel movie.