Kneel Before Pod: Superman I-IV

"You'll believe a man can fly" wasn't just clever marketing for 1978's Superman—it was the promise of a cinematic revolution that forever changed how we experience superheroes on screen. In this nostalgia-filled exploration, we chart the remarkable journey of Superman's leap from comic pages to blockbuster phenomenon and examine why this franchise remains the blueprint for all superhero films that followed.

Richard Donner's original Superman masterpiece emerged from production chaos to deliver something transcendent: a film that took its fantastic elements seriously while embracing the character's inherent optimism. We dive deep into how Christopher Reeve crafted the definitive dual performance as both Superman and Clark Kent, creating a template that actors still struggle to match decades later. Margot Kidder's feisty Lois Lane, Gene Hackman's scene-stealing Lex Luthor, and the pitch-perfect supporting cast elevated the material beyond typical genre fare.

The conversation takes unexpected turns through the troubled production of Superman II and the notorious firing of Richard Donner, leading to Richard Lester's comedic reinterpretation that would fully blossom in the critically panned Superman III. We don't hold back when dissecting how a franchise that started with such promise could deteriorate so dramatically, culminating in the budget-slashed Superman IV and the aesthetically beautiful but narratively misguided Superman Returns.

Along the way, we uncover fascinating trivia about creative decisions, casting choices, and the cultural impact these films had on generations of viewers. Superman's journey through Hollywood mirrors America's own shifting relationship with heroism and idealism, making these films as much cultural artifacts as entertainment.

Whether you're a longtime fan or discovering these films for the first time, join George & Ryan for this heartfelt appreciation of a character who continues to represent the best of what we can aspire to be.

Transcript

Introduction to Superman and Williams' Score

Speaker 1 0:10

if we were a less sophisticated show, I would start out by like humming the superman song, but all I'll say instead of that is that it's one of the greatest motion picture theme songs in cinema history. Am I wrong?

Speaker 2 0:25

You're not wrong at all. It's definitely one of the most memorable and inspirational themes. I mean, I remember going to like Fourth of July firework shows and they'll play it in the background. That's how symbolic it kind of is of Americana at a certain point too, which is pretty great.

Speaker 1 0:44

Don't even try to do another Superman film without using it. It's too iconic.

Speaker 2 0:48

Right, but they have, unfortunately, man of Steel. They totally got rid of it.

Speaker 1 0:53

And it didn't work.

Speaker 2 0:55

And then they tried to backpedal in Justice League and they had just a little bit of the John Williams cue in there, teased it a bit.

Speaker 1 1:02

Danny Elfman teased it a bit A guy who has done a lot of great work in his own right. His, his soundtrack for the Hulk, I think, is underrated, but no John Williams score. I remember vividly downloading it from LimeWire in like 2008 and riding my bike to work and just pumping to that Superman soundtrack and especially the planet Krypton that opens the movie. When you zoom in on krypton, which they also used for the excellent teaser trailer for superman returns, where they had that marlon brando voiceover that made it seem like it was going to be the greatest movie ever.

Speaker 2 1:40

But uh, I guess don't, don't get ahead of ourselves here no, we won't get ahead of ourselves today, guys.

Speaker 1 1:47

Thanks so much for tuning in. We're going to be talking about primarily superman one through four from 1978 to 1987. We are also going to throw in, uh, some conversation about supergirl and superman returns, maybe some other movies in there as well. But, um, ryan, why do you think we decided to do Superman?

Speaker 2 2:09

Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Speaker 1 2:12

Yeah, it did, it, sure did.

Speaker 2 2:15

I think it nicely fits in with. You. Know, we're approaching 4th of July and, like I mentioned, superman is one of the most American superheroes. Right, they've tried to distance himself from that in later years, but when you think about things that are uniquely American, people often will use the cliches of what? Apple pie, baseball and Superman, right, so there's one. That's one thing.

Speaker 2 2:38

It's also a very, very important and unique superhero franchise in motion picture history and unique superhero franchise in motion picture history. I don't think that we would necessarily be at the same place in terms of superhero movies as we are today without Richard Donner's Superman from 1978, and how much of a near disaster the film could have been and could have derailed the future of all superhero movies and really Superman itself, had it gone horribly wrong, which all indicators were going in that direction. And we'll get to that a little bit. And it's also sad how strong this series started and how much it declined by the end, where it needed to be put out of its misery. And it's also just a cautionary trajectory or a example of history where we've seen other franchises go in the same direction.

Speaker 2 3:35

Everything. It's like they follow the same pattern, right? How many other superhero franchises have we seen over the years that start with these incredibly strong and impactful first movies and then by the third and fourth movie? They're like embarrassments to themselves at that point. I mean, Batman went through the same thing and Marvel through their own many different franchises that they've got going on. You could certainly say Thor fell into that pitfall as well, but it's kind of an interesting saga. How about from your, your end?

Speaker 1 4:05

I would agree with you and I think you probably know a little bit more than me about the uh behind the scenes drama with the salkines who are the producers of the film, and richard donner and richard lester and all the characters they're in. But I think that superman the movie would make a great double feature with star wars because I think that it follows a similar ethos to where they said we, we're going to make a special effects movie, that you know that that'll be the primary draw of the wow factor of like hey, we made a Superman movie where you'll believe it you know that was the tagline for the posters. You'll believe a man can fly. The special effects are going to blow your mind. And in the meantime they also made a very modern fun, you know, with sort of Margot kidder, as in the han solo role of being someone who is uh of the real world, who smokes, who's sort of jaded and who is confronted with this, this boy scout, superman, right, and all those scenes were spectacular gold. And I I'm going to say something that gets overused a lot people talk about superhero films or other sort of properties is that they took it seriously and and I think that has been sort of bastardized into, like this idea of what we're dealing with now with Deadpool and Wolverine.

The Troubled Production of Superman (1978)

Speaker 1 5:12

Taking it seriously does not mean that it has to be made for adults or have violence or they say fuck in it. So it's hardcore. And I'm an adult because I'm watching it. Right, it's a movie for the whole family, but it's something that's not going to make you feel stupid for watching, right? It's a broad-based, full-on, full-court press, great, spectacular, fun movie with laughs, romance, action, comedy. It's the full gamut and I think we'll talk more about as we go through this how there's a lot of light comedy elements in the first Superman, maybe more than I think work, but they absolutely just doubled down on absolute camp and absurdity as the film went on, as the film series went on, to its detriment, and I can't exactly figure out why they thought that would be the wise move and quality candor had. A great point on here the difference between taking it seriously and playing it straight. Great point on here the difference between taking it seriously and playing it straight.

Speaker 2 6:09

I don't know if they exactly play it straight here, but they don't treat you like a moron for wanting to watch this movie, right, absolutely, there's a reverence for the source material that was put in, specifically by Richard Donner and Tom Mankiewicz, who were brought on well after the production had started. I mean, so you talk about the production history and it's pretty wild, I mean, right. So these independent producers, alexander Salkind and his son, ilya, and they had another business partner, pierre Spengler, and you're going to see these names if you watch anything about the behind the scenes of Superman. These are the three characters that are the bundlers for the money right At the, at the beginning of the movie, and they, they would go around to independent wealthy people and just and and pitch, pitch these things and say, here, you want to invest in our movie, we're doing Superman.

Speaker 2 6:58

And I think, to his credit, ilya Salkind, the son, was someone who was at least somewhat earnest in making a decent superman movie. I don't think the father alexander had any clue or cared other than making up, making money off of it. Um, but they had. They had the money, they had the rights, and then they ended up getting, of all people, mario puzo, the author of the god, to write the script for this movie and he created this ungodly monstrosity of a script. What was it like? Was it 600 or 6,000 pages or something? Something like outrageous For like for two, for a two-movie epic, and it was like unfilmable.

Speaker 1 7:39

And also it had nothing to do with anything.

Speaker 2 7:41

There's great stories about him visiting the dc offices in the in the mid to late 70s and going through the archives and and current like superman or contemporary superman writers at the time.

Speaker 1 7:51

Spending some time with him and just being like this guy is totally bonkers um I don't know if we talked about this, but I know, for I know that when you read sean howe's book on the history of marvel comics, uh, puso used to be a magazine writer for a men's magazine that was up the up the floor from marvel, and he would come down and give them shit and make fun of them for writing comics. He worked at, you know, gq or you know, fill in the blank, right in the in the mid 60s. So the idea that you would pick him is basically just like a prestige grab. Well, he wrote the godfather precisely marlon brando, uh, gene hack.

Speaker 2 8:25

You know, I mean it's, but somehow it worked, you know well, it worked because so they, they had this, they had this script, that was, that was basically not used at all. The puso script is credited as the script in the movie and then rewritten by these other two people, um, david and leslie newman, husband and wife team. Their names are on the script and I think there's another person, a fourth writer, but the one who actually was the real script doctor and the one who who rewrote the entire movie at the behest of Richard Donner when he was brought on as director, because he read the script and he's like this is garbage, like this is terrible, is this?

Speaker 1 9:00

guy Tom.

Speaker 2 9:00

Mankiewicz, who was involved heavily in the in the Roger Moore James Bond series era as the script doctor and writer for those movies. So he came on, he knew, he knew the Superman mythology, he had an affection for it, just as Donner did, and he made that script what it is that we see on screen and it's you can tell, because you see the quality of Superman 1 in terms of writing Superman 2. It holds over, mostly because most of it was pre-done at the same time and then they tampered with it later.

Speaker 2 9:32

But when you get to Superman 3, and I know we're not there yet, but that was written by the Newmans alone it's terrible. That's what Superman 1 would have been. That's what Superman 1 would have been is Superman 3. That level of goofball corny uh antics like oh, we're making a superhero comic book movie for the kids, you know isn't, isn't that cute, isn't superman? Funny, he flies around in his underwear this is a joke.

Speaker 1 9:57

We have to let people know that we're in on the joke so they don't think less of us right. Um now, would it shock you to know that the newmans uh wrote bonnie and clyde? It is kind of shocking when you think about it I know that robert benton gets most of the credit for that, so I would imagine it was some sort of camp you know americana send up before he came in to fix it I don't think they're necessarily incompetent writers in any sense of the way and also has a credit on Superman.

Speaker 1 10:27

I didn't realize that. Okay, nevermind.

Speaker 2 10:28

Who was that?

Speaker 1 10:29

Robert Benton has a credit on Superman. But go ahead. Sorry, I didn't mean to.

Speaker 2 10:33

I don't. I don't think that not to not to discredit the Newman's as like total hacks or anything like that, I mean but they clearly had no clue about Superman or what made what would make a good Superman movie. They, for all we know that they thought that something like Superman three was a great Superman movie. That was. That was. That's fun, good fun for the kids, you know.

Speaker 1 10:54

But like you have. I mean, who wrote the moment when Superman in the first film looks through Lois Lane's dress and says he likes pink underwear Was that them? So it through Lois Lane's dress and says he likes pink underwear Was that them? It's not the same person that wrote Superman 3. I have to imagine that Robert Benton was probably the writer of this movie and that the Newmans are sort of like the Hikes.

Speaker 2 11:15

Tom Mankiewicz mostly rewrote the script. He's not listed as a screenwriter in the movie. They could not get a screenwriting credit for him, so Richard Donner was able to get him that fake credit of creative consultant which comes after the writers. But if you watch the documentaries about the movie. He's very, very prominent in the story.

Speaker 1 11:36

It's this guy Well it seems to me like Newman's were kind of like the hikes. They did punch up work on Star Wars. They wrote Temple of Doom but then left to their own devices. They wanted to make Howardard the duck right, yes, um, and I think also salkinds kind of remind me of like, uh, halloween, uh you're, you're been lebrons or whatever. All that guys do. You know? I'm talking about erwin leblon's, like or or no, no, no, no, oh, mustafa akkad mustafa Akkad.

Speaker 2 12:03

Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, mustafa Akkad presents Halloween. Yeah who?

Speaker 1 12:07

by the way, died in Israel in a terrorist attack in like the 90s. But um, they're kind of like these wannabe De Laurentiis style, like family business people of let's just like buy up stuff and do stuff, because before they did Superman they did the two part Three Musketeers and Four Musketeers movie. Which have you seen?

Speaker 2 12:25

I've not.

Speaker 1 12:26

I haven't either. I don't even know if they're worth watching you know they're richard lester production.

Speaker 2 12:30

So I'm I'm really not chomping at the bit to watch those I'm going to unload on richard lester here as we get there but it's crazy. It's crazy to think in 1978, or probably a few years before, that you could just go and buy the rights to superman to make a movie.

Speaker 1 12:49

But it's crazy for a world in which we live in now for that and people would think you were nuts if you did it like, let's just go buy superman and make a movie, why not? And everyone probably thought you were stupid for doing it of course, of course you know, but it paid off, man. I mean, what a great movie. I love this. I love superman. The motion picture, the, the, it's, it's terrific.

Speaker 2 13:11

Before we get into the actual movie, the. The kind of the analogy that I was thinking about about the production of this movie is like you can think of it like a circus, the entire production of superman, the movie, and it's like here come the salkinds and we're gonna put on a circus show, right, and it's um, it's just a bunch of clowns dancing and prancing around like very low budget, and you have the salkinds, pierce spengler, the newmans, mario puzo, and they're just juggling and throwing pies at each other. And then they hire richard donner and he's like no, no, no, I'm gonna, I'm the ringmaster. Now we're doing du Soleil and that's it. Go back in the clown car, give me the money. Give me the money, I'll make your movie for you, thank you.

Speaker 1 13:51

So they paid him a million.

Speaker 2 13:53

Well-deserved.

Speaker 1 13:55

Yeah, at the time he did a wonderful job and it's not like you know. It's bizarre and we'll get into Superman 2 and the firing of Donner, but I mean this was obviously an incredibly boneheaded move on these goofballs parts, because Donner went on to make like two of the most successful films of the 80s Lethal Weapon and Goonies, so it wasn't like the guy had. I mean, you know what I mean? They're like get this guy out of here, whatever he sucks. It's like yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 14:25

It was just a much bad blood and I don't want to jump ahead of ourselves to Superman too, but that there's a burning question that I have about financial aspects, about how that even makes any sense, that wiring your director and reshooting half your movie and how that's supposed to save you money.

Speaker 1 14:34

But it makes sense when you're a type of Dino De Laurentiis guy on a small scale. Like Dino is this kind of dude who would like we filmed Dune in Mexico and like you end up paying out the ass like doing other things, like paying off corrupt people to like corrupt. You know, uh guys, like I remember at dune they had a huge problem with the customs officials in mexico, just absolutely like taking hostage all the shit they mailed down there. So they had to mail like four of everything or they had to pay off the customs agents and everyone got sick so he had to ship in food from italy and it's just like a, it's just a mess. You know what I mean. There's something winsome and fun and folksy and down home and really americana about that in my opinion.

Speaker 2 15:15

But richard donovan was clearly like an actual filmmaker and he yeah, he was in a clown car and, interestingly enough, he had only really made the omen, which is a fantastic film, but not something that you would then say oh look, the director of the omen, let's have him make the superman movie.

Speaker 1 15:31

It's kind of no, it was actually a good move because, I mean, the omen was popular, but I don't particularly think it's a great movie really okay.

Speaker 2 15:40

Oh, I love you, yeah, no, I think it's fantastic as a staple of that late late 70s horror yeah, no, I. I think it's fantastic. It's a staple of that late 70s horror. Yeah.

Speaker 1 15:47

No, I mean sure Like it's fine. It's a fine movie, I mean, I like it, but I don't think it's better than say the Exorcist, which is clearly a one-shot movie?

Speaker 2 15:55

No, no, I mean, that's in a league on its own.

Speaker 1 16:00

I mean I like Omen, 2. I like Omen. 3. I get it.

Speaker 2 16:03

I'm surprised to hear you say that, because I thought you'd be like oh, Omen 2 is terrible.

Speaker 1 16:08

No, I like William Holden's Omen 2.

Speaker 2 16:09

I actually kind of like Damien Omen 2 a little bit more.

Speaker 1 16:13

I do too. I agree with you. Yeah, I guess for the next stream.

Speaker 2 16:18

Let's talk about the cast. It's just so wild in this movie too, yeah that's true, absolutely.

Speaker 1 16:25

Want to start with Christopher Reeve.

Speaker 2 16:27

Oh, you mean the person who does not get, the person who is third build in the movie?

Speaker 1 16:32

Yeah, I know yeah.

Speaker 2 16:35

Which is also like something that would never be done today, and I love watching stuff like that, where they had the balls to be like you're the star of the movie, but you're going third. Nowadays it seems like they put everybody the big stars like that. They'll put at the end and say featuring so-and-so with marlon brando as jor-el and like and gene hackman as lex luther, you know I.

Speaker 1 16:59

I think that's that it would have been better as a with marlon brando, because he's is he top build he's top build.

Speaker 2 17:06

Before the credits, it's alexander salkind presents a richard donnerfield marlon brando, gene hackman. Superman christopher reeve wow, after the credits, after that's how they sold it.

Christopher Reeve and Cast Analysis

Speaker 1 17:19

If you look at the original poster they shopped around at can, it was like superman, with gene hackman and marlon brando. Now, if you saw that, wouldn't you be like who the fuck are they gonna be in this movie? If you were a fan at the time, you'd be like is gene hackman superman? Yeah, you'd be like what the hell's going on here, right um?

Speaker 2 17:39

but interestingly enough even in, even in the 1989 batman film, if you notice on the posters whose name comes first oh sure, jack, yeah. Yeah, I mean, he was the man of course, but it's just, it's kind of cool and even in supergirl faye dunaway gets top billing right.

Speaker 1 17:56

I think even jack mcclure or whatever gets top higher billing than uh mark mcclure. Yeah, he gets higher building as uh, but anyway, um, go ahead.

Speaker 2 18:08

Christopher reeve, I mean he's, he's terrific, he's amazing oh, yeah, no, um, I think so much we've talked about how much the movie owes a debt of gratitude to the director, but christopher reeve is the ultimate, like um, seals the deal on selling this movie to a general audience and making Superman a believable character, and not just Superman but Clark Kent as well. And the fact that I agree with them. You know, it's sometimes in retrospect you wonder like, oh, would it have been better to have a, which is to have an unknown person who became a big movie star play Superman was such a better idea to give some anonymity to him, to make him feel like a real character. But just everything his physical appearance, his mannerisms, his acting ability, everything just makes you feel that kind of Kurt Swan, silver into the Bronze Age Superman to me, and I think it's just wonderful I'm going to be asking you some comic book centered questions about superman as we go through, because you're a bigger dc guy than I am.

Speaker 1 19:13

But yeah, uh, christopher reeve is the only guy to ever have gotten clark kent right, am I right?

Speaker 2 19:19

I, I will, um, I will agree with that, yeah, um, I certainly don't think um henry cavill, nor did they try, nor did they give him anything to work with that. Yeah, I certainly don't think Henry Cavill, nor did they try.

Speaker 1 19:26

Nor did they give him anything to work with that's part.

Speaker 2 19:29

To be fair to him, they didn't try On TV. Yeah, Dean Cain, you know.

Speaker 1 19:38

Yeah, did you ever watch Smallville or Dean Cain Superman?

Speaker 2 19:41

You know, smallville is a great show but it's so far removed from the actual, real Superman mythology as a Superboy. Show them extrapolating and doing their own thing, it's perfectly fine, but I don't really consider that to be a great Superman adaptation in that right. You know what I mean, sure.

Speaker 1 20:03

Yep, got it. Yeah, christopher Reeve, I think think is a revelation as the character. It was the role he was probably born to play. He's terrific. I I love christopher reeve because I always feel like I'm pulling for him. Um, I want to talk a little bit about somewhere in time as maybe a little bit later which I watched last night. He's terrific in it.

Speaker 1 20:23

He's such a great actor and I think he did get pigeonholed a bit as as superman, which is really quite a shame because you listen to interviews about him and I think that he had this sort of really loving and loving take on and respect for the idea of superman as an american icon and it's like a force for positivity and love and goodness in the world. An icon and is like a force for positivity and love and goodness in the world, even if that was sometimes goofy sort of, like you know, causes like superman 4. But like I, I just feel, like you know, in a movie like superman 3 or as the series went on, it feels like such a betrayal of christopher reeve and all the heart and soul he pumped into that character. In this movie he understands exactly what film he's in like in a scene with lois lane with marco kidder where she does the interview with him. He couldn't have played it better. I mean, he plays it so well. It's like a perfect little comedy moment and also romantic.

Speaker 1 21:18

So I think he's just absolutely a complete star and amazing as superman. And you know what? I can't help but get a little little little tear in my eye and just excitement at that scene. I almost got in a fight with my brother because he goes what's your next show? And I go superman. He goes those movies suck, oh, they all suck, and I'm like whoa, whoa, whoa I was like dude, come on.

Speaker 1 21:42

And I sent him the scene, a clip, when lois lane is falling out of the helicopter in superman the movie and he goes and rips his shirt off and gets in the telephone booth and the crowd is reacting, oh my god. And that superman music comes in and he grabs her. You've got me, who's got you? I'm like, if you think this is a bad movie, fuck you. Yeah, I mean, this is like this is spectacular stuff, so that's that's.

Speaker 2 22:08

That's probably one of my favorite scenes in the entire movie. Um, I think the the practical helicopter crash, the scene they, they pulled off in that movie. It looks great, that looks great. That looks so much more real, real to me than anything you're going to see in a modern movie. Cgi created um, if you know, it feels very, very tense, like she could potentially die in this situation, like that's how, that's how real intense that feels. Okay, um and yes. And of course there's the nice nod to him trying to find a phone booth and of course it's 1978, so there's just phone stalls now. So he changes in the revolving door and it works. It works, but just, unfortunately it doesn't detract from the movie. But the probably one of the most dated moments comes right after that, when he first, that's a bad outfit.

Speaker 2 23:03

Yes, after that, when he first, that's a bad outfit. Yes, unfortunately that is probably the most dated popular culture, you know, kind of moment in the film, but I don't think it really necessarily takes away all too much no, I don't either.

Speaker 1 23:16

I think actually I kind of like it. I mean I like the people are excited about superman, like oh my god, who's that? Whenever they cut to the crowd. I mean it's just, it's, it's terrific.

Speaker 2 23:24

What I also really love about the movie is the Superman supporting cast is such an integral part of the mythology to me. I don't think modern audiences or modern readers maybe necessarily understand how important these characters are and because they've been jettisoned so often in later adaptations. We've talked about this with spider-man as well, how the daily google people are so important. Well, the daily planet people are like even more important to superman in his world because they ground him in a reality. It puts him in the heart of you know, a big city newsroom, which today is not as relevant, but I think you can still make it work. And you know what I'm surprised? They did not go for the contemporary thing at the time, which was that superman was a on on the air tv news anchor tv news anchor, which would have been an interesting way to show it in the in the film.

Speaker 2 24:20

but um, lois lane obviously is always going to be in the movie in any superman movie, because movie because she's the love interest. But Jimmy and Perry are also very important because of their historical significance of the character and they find enough for them to do in the movie, which is fine. They don't need to be like Perry White, the focus of the movie, you know by any means. But Jackie Cooper especially, you know for for any by any means, but um, jackie Cooper especially, it just really, um, I'm very enthralled by his, by his take on Perry White. He's just very, very colorful, um cantankerous editor and the lines that he delivers in the movie are just so like perfect, like, um, when they're talking about Superman, the inner getting an interview with Superman. This is the most important interview since, since God talked to Moses.

Speaker 1 25:08

Yeah.

Speaker 2 25:08

It's like this is perfect and you don't see lines like that in two and three. Like you don't see lines like that, it'd be like oh, go get the story.

Speaker 1 25:16

Right, there's no, yeah, I I'm. I think there's a little bit of that that sneaks into two, just by nature of it being basically filmed at the same time as one. But, um, yeah, the movie has a, has a profound sense of excitement and also just like the way the movie builds momentum, where it withholds superman for like what? 40 minutes, 30 minutes before superman arrives and you get this sweeping americana epic. Somebody asked me recently what, um, a defining midwestern superhero movie would be, and I always got the impression and tell me if I'm wrong but that maybe metropolis was in the midwest, like it was a type of chicago it's, you know, saying yes, it's okay, dark city here, but yeah, and when.

Speaker 1 26:03

Glenn ford also another great choice yes hollywood actor, as pa can't right um that is.

Speaker 2 26:09

That is a genuine tear-jerking moment when he dies. Okay, absolutely, done so effectively, having a massive heart attack and just dropping dead like it's. It's, unlike the freaking lame. I'm gonna basically let myself be swept up by a tornado to prove a point to you, by kevin costner in man of steel. Stupid, okay, cool, good job yeah, overly dramatic.

Speaker 1 26:35

Because this is about superman growing up as a real person and being a midwestern person moving to the big city, which is just as alienating and different as being an alien on earth. You know what I'm saying. It's just, it's just, it's the same kind of story. So someone like that, someone from the Midwest, can relate to this Right. And also just when he's with Ma Kent and they're looking over the field and there's like that crane shot that shows you the vast expanse of the American Midwest, and he's thinking like what's my next move? Like where do I go? Like it's a big world out there. You know, I have to make a choice about who I'm going to be to the world and when I, when I arrive, it'll be a huge deal and I just I.

Speaker 1 27:14

I think that's just an incredible insight to be able to think that way about a movie like this, to say we're going to hold off on superman. Let's tell the story of how this boy matures in America. He lives the full experience the big city, the farm country, the wide, open plains. It feels so American. You know, it's terrific.

Speaker 2 27:36

Oh, it is for sure. And epic definitely came to the word. Epic definitely came to mind not just as a descriptor but also as a genre for this movie.

Speaker 2 27:47

Um, talk about the grand epic films of the 50s, and this has a lot of the same vibes that I would feel from a biblical epic like you look at something like especially the 10 commandments, for instance, and not just because the stories of superman and moses do share a lot of parallels.

Speaker 2 28:05

I mean, a lot of times people talk about the overlap between superman and jesus christ, which there there are overlaps as well. The moses story is probably a little bit more relevant in the, as a, as a child, as a baby, you know, um, yeah, uh, sent down the, sent down the Nile River by his mother to to save off execution, adopted by kindly parents and raised as one of their own, you know. So that to that extent, but starting at Krypton or, as Marlon Brando likes to say, the planet Krypton, and then we move into the sprawling, you know John Ford-esque American Midwest for those scenes, and then into the big city. It's just a sweeping epic of a scale that we had not seen probably in many 70s movies or 60s movies since, you know, since the time of the 50s, when those biblical epics were in vogue.

Speaker 1 29:03

You could have put an O overture act break in between. You know what I'm saying. It's such a I wouldn't say it reminds me of like Dr Zhivago or something right, where, like, the landscape and the idea of space in the world is very important, right, but that we're focused on these two characters. We started this conversation by talking about actors. We haven't talked about Margot Kidder, who I think is just gorgeous. I think she's incredibly beautiful and spunky and fun and perfect casting. I mean, she's great.

Speaker 2 29:36

Yeah, she's got an edge to her Because Lois Lane has gone through so many different transitions and types and descriptions over the years. You know, as times change and our viewpoints on feminism and femininity and all these things have changed over the course of characters. What 80, 90 year existence at this point. So we're in this interesting period of the late 70s. So she's a fiercely independent reporter, clearly the best at her job, a quality, competent person. But she's also got, you know, a soft spot, a naivete. She's got a clear affection for Clark, even though she kind of was looking down on him a little bit. You know, here's this country bumpkin who's coming into the big big city newsroom and and he's the, the editor's gonna put him on my beat. You know that's, that's like, what are you doing, what are you talking about?

Speaker 2 30:29

but, um, she clearly learns to respect him as a person, I think throughout the movie, but then obviously she's in love with superman, and it's hard, though to take low and this has always been the thing with lois lane too is that she's clearly one of the smartest people in town in the DC universe, but she could never figure out that Clark was Superman, you know.

Speaker 1 30:49

Okay, well, okay, we get an answer to that part too.

Speaker 2 30:52

We get an answer to that in part two, which give them credit for.

Speaker 1 30:56

What I will say in your comment to start off is that you said Lois Lane has always been sort of an epitome of like evolving femininity, and what I think maybe you mean by that is like she sort of is a stand-in for like various feminism stages throughout the history of the country, especially in the 20th century, because even from the get-go she was always very much a um, very, she was on the vanguard of like feminism, right?

Speaker 1 31:21

Yes, in my opinion, you know, she kind of reminds me of like a katherine hepburn style character, even in the comics, like you know what I mean someone who's right, yeah, exactly right. And I think that there's also something incredibly appealing and a little bit conservative in this movie about her occupying that role as a type that you could, as an archetype, but then falling for the ultimate manly man. Do you know what I'm saying? Where she's got this like hard veneer of like, yeah, I'm second wave gloria steinem style feminist, but then I fall for the ultimate masculine manly man, which I think is like incredibly appealing, you know. As for an audience, you would kind of want to see that, you know well it shows that she's a multi-faceted character.

Speaker 2 32:02

She's not defined by one thing or the other. The romance aspect does not define her life, but it's an important part, and her career also is an integral, important part of her life that she's willing to risk her life for to get the story. She has a lot of different interests in and things that drive her, which makes her a complex character, and that's what it should be. It shouldn't be just, oh, I'm a career, dedicated woman and that's all I care about. Or, you know, I only care about, you know, marrying the man of my dreams. There's a lot of stuff going on.

Speaker 1 32:34

Absolutely. People are complicated, you know can we talk about the opening crypt on prologue and in that we? Also discuss Marlon Brando. What are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 2 32:44

I think it ends a little long.

Speaker 2 32:46

Oh, I don't agree with that. I think it's wonderful. It's so radically different from anything that we'd ever seen before in Superman world and I never thought about it or pieced it together until I was watching it again this time and I'm like I'm wondering why did they make Krypton an ice world? And then it's like do you think it has anything to do with the fact that the fortress of solitude is also in the arctic? I don't know if this is supposed to be so plainly obvious that I just never saw it, or it's just like no, I I think it's just a good idea.

Superman II and the Richard Donner Saga

Speaker 1 33:18

I mean it's a great design idea and obviously the comic books like aped it after the movie came out. Right, I mean because it's it's a good design idea Cause it looks like an alien world. It looks cool. It was also like practical to build. You can make Krypton seem alien and different without it being like whatever it was in the comics, which is it looked like a big, you know, legion of superheroes cartoon where everyone just wore, like you know space age stuff.

Speaker 2 33:48

It's always been very alex raymond flash gordon style, uh, futuristic stuff.

Speaker 1 33:50

That's what krypton always looked like. Flash gordon, yeah, yeah, well, legion of supergirls, apes off of that.

Speaker 2 33:54

But by extension, yes, um, but talk about ballsy also. Uh, the fact that you start the movie like that, uh, superman's as a baby. At this point you have no idea what's going on. Who are all these people? He does have an s shield on his chest, so you know that there's a connection. But also, to set up the sequel set up the sequel film in the first five minutes of your original film that's what I thought.

Speaker 1 34:17

I was like. I was like wouldn't.

Speaker 2 34:19

I was like we're audiences confused I can't imagine even doing that nowadays without no uproar and to do that what?

Speaker 1 34:27

happened to the hey, what the people at the beginning of the movie? What happened? Where'd they go?

Speaker 2 34:33

you especially as obtuse as the phantom zone is as a concept, to to put that in the movie that was.

Speaker 1 34:39

That was really extraordinary I agree and it's like I wonder why? Because I listened to an interview like with richard prior where he was on carson talking about how much he liked superman the movie and how he was excited for superman 2 and he said I saw the trailer for superman 2. Oh really, that's interesting. He goes. Yeah, you know the people from the beginning of the first movie. They get out and they're coming back. It's gonna be great, you know, right, uh, you know uh. But yeah, that was struck me as very bizarre. When I first watched it I was like, oh, they don't. Okay, I'm to the second film. They're not gonna.

Speaker 2 35:11

They don't tease them at the end or anything either so it's interesting you mentioned that, because the original from listening to various commentaries and stuff like that uh, in the preparation for this, apparently the original intent intended ending of part one was not to turn back time, it was to have him stop the nuclear explosion and then the nuclear bomb that I think he sends into space, unleashes the phantom zone criminals, like it does in the donner cut of our beginning of donner cut of Part 2. And then to show them gliding towards Earth at the end of Part 1 as like a to-be-continued.

Speaker 1 35:49

Okay, that would have been cool. Yeah, it would have been very cool.

Speaker 2 35:52

And then the original ending for Part 2 would have been Turn Back the Time.

Speaker 1 35:57

Which. I gotta be honest. I mean we'll get to this when we get to Part 2. I watched the Donner Cut. I don't think that him turning back time at the end of part two is a great move. I think it works better in this one where they had lois lane die right I think it would have worked.

Speaker 2 36:13

Yeah, if I don't know if they intended her to die at in, obviously that they probably would not have had her die in part one they probably would have had it happen in part two. Maybe zod kills her or something. You know that that. Yeah, that's a much more impactful thing to do but unfortunately, due to all the behind the scenes shenanigans that that they had to change things around. Um, but um, what else?

Speaker 2 36:37

um also gene hackman actors in in on krypton you have trevor Trevor Howard there as a random Kryptonian person. So you have all these really cool old-typey veteran actors of a certain sophistication level. Everyone talks in this very Shakespearean grand dialect on Krypton and then as we move to a new setting, the entire vernacular changes. As we get to smallville and then again as we switch to metropolis things are just totally different. So it's I love that aspect of the movie just constantly changing, like worlds as we move on um, what do you think?

Speaker 1 37:17

okay, so I know that what christopher reeve thinks about marlon brando. They interviewed him on a show and they're like, how was it working with marlon brando?

Speaker 2 37:22

And he's like he's an asshole, like right, I mean he did they even work together at all, because they're not on screen together.

Speaker 1 37:30

They're not, but I think that he had met him and was upset with his noncommittal performance. Even though it's not, he's still good, he's great.

Speaker 2 37:40

Did he read off cue cards or something?

Speaker 1 37:42

like that Shock me better than if I read off cue cards. The guy can do it. Have you heard the?

Speaker 2 37:48

story. Have you heard the story about the bagel with him?

Speaker 1 37:51

No, go ahead.

Speaker 2 37:53

So apparently, when Richard Donner and the producers went to go meet with him to discuss the role of Jor-El, they warned the, the Salkinds or whoever warned Richard Donner, that he's going to be totally weird, like just FYI. And so he was prepared and he goes in. Apparently, they talk for like an hour about nothing. You know nothing related to the movie. And then he's like okay, so tell me about this movie. And then he's like you know what? I want to play Jor-El as a bagel, and they're like what?

Speaker 1 38:24

Okay as a bagel, and they're like what?

Speaker 2 38:25

okay, yeah imagine they're all bagels on krypton. It's like how do people know it's a foreign, alien planet? You know, no one knows what they be. They could be bagels and uh, richard donner was crafty enough to uh be like marlon. That's a really interesting idea. But since 1939 or 38 or whatever, all the kids in america know what jor-el looks like because it's in the comic book and you know what he's gonna look like marlon brando now and he's like oh, that sounds like a great idea.

Speaker 1 38:55

Let's talk more that's brilliant, dude donner, just because he did that with gene hackman too, where he's like oh, because hackman I mean, you couldn't imagine this nowadays like, but it made people balked at like changing their bodies and and everyone does it now. Right, oh, I gained 300 pounds to play this role. You know, I shaved my head. I look like a freak, um, but um. Back then, gene hackman's like I'm not shaving my mustache for this shit, right, and donna's like I'll shave mine if you shave yours. And then I got a fake mustache, or you know, they heard that whole story, but but, wow, but what a great pitch is that? All the kids know who Jor-El looks like and now he's going to look like you. I think he looks great in the movie. It looks dope and he does a great job.

Speaker 2 39:41

I, I agree, it's just one of those fascinating roles that I mean. I don't know if it necessarily would be needed to have someone like that, someone of that caliber, in a movie like that today, because IP rules more than actors at this point in our ecosystem.

Speaker 1 40:07

But back then it's such a coup's, such a um like a coup, you know, to have marlon brando in superman. Well, I think that's how they got a lot of funding, for it was that they got marlon and then said we've got two big stars in this. How about you put up some money?

Speaker 2 40:16

yeah um, let's see anything else you had mentioned to me before that you didn't think the love story was particularly effective. Is that? Is that a correct assessment or no?

Speaker 1 40:28

no, in the first superman.

Speaker 2 40:30

No, no, no oh, I thought you had mentioned that to me at some point.

Speaker 1 40:33

No, no, no, I think, I think it's terrific yeah I think it's terrific. I think we're talking about supergirl, right so, supergirl, the love story is trash no, no, I'm just kidding. Um no, I think it's terrific. I also really like I. I love gene hackman as lex luther. I think there's an amazing job now.

Speaker 1 40:53

It would have been nice to have him bald, at least for more than five seconds, but yeah, well, when they have him bald, it doesn't look like, uh, it looks like he actually shaved his head, like it looks really weird. I don't know.

Speaker 2 41:06

No let's talk about Lex Luthor, because this is something that's also very bizarre in terms of the movie's interpretation of the character, which is very, very loose and free with any interpretation of Lex Luthor that's ever been in the comics before or since, and I'm just curious, I'll. I'll go after, but what? Tell me what you think about this version of luther?

Speaker 1 41:29

um, in my opinion, gene hackman is really fun in the movie and cool, and you're not going to like this because I'm not a superman devotee but like lex luther to me has always just been a bald guy who is just scheming around. So this doesn't feel like a betrayal of a great character that I know and love. Um, it seems, uh, I like it. I like when that clip when he goes who would have ever thought that this diseased maniac, when you cashed in your chips, would you be your banker? And he opens up that krypton box with a little chain and throws it over him, throws him in the pool. It's great, I mean, I, I don't know, I think he's fun. I love Gene Hackman.

Speaker 2 42:06

It seems like he's having a good time playing the part. I agree. I really like his performance as this character. It's just such a weird. They got everything else pretty much right, but the version I mean it's hard to say the version of Luther that existed at that time we hadn. It's hard to say the version of Luther that existed at that time, we hadn't quite gotten to the green and purple power suit, that's like he was just a mad scientist guy.

Speaker 2 42:32

Yeah, he was still a mad scientist at this point. So this is a more interesting version. We haven't. We also haven't gotten to the Donald Trump ask billionaire version of Luther. That would come much later. So we're kind of in this weird period where I think this is a valid interpretation, if you want to extrapolate and change it in a certain way. He's kind of this. I guess in Superman Returns they really played him up more as a con artist type of character. He's sort of like that. Here he's sort of like a con artist, sort of like a mad schemer.

Speaker 1 43:06

The greatest criminal mind of our time.

Speaker 2 43:08

Yes, and his dialogue, like you said, is absolutely spectacular. I love the part where he talks about real estate. You know, it's like stocks may rise and fall, utilities and municipalities may crumble, but people will always need land and they'll pay through the nose to get it.

Speaker 1 43:27

Yeah, it's terrific, it's fun, it's a great little villain plot Like. It's different, it's cool, it's over the top, it's you know.

Speaker 2 43:36

It's like Magneto's plan in X-Men. Right, it's comic book-y enough, but it's also like stupid.

Speaker 1 43:44

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 43:46

You know what I mean.

Speaker 1 43:46

It's also like well, that's an interesting idea, kind of like turning the world back, like this was the 70s, like everyone's. Like that's stupid, wouldn't superman just solve all his problems by turning? But back in the 70s everybody was just like that's superman. He turned the world back and it turned time back. That was cool, you know what? Know what I mean? It was a different time. Remember I heard my parents, my uncles and aunts talk about that and they were like, oh and Superman spins the world back and it changes time, which doesn't make any sense. No, right, no. But like it worked. It was like a cool idea, right, yes, it's taken like we said.

Speaker 2 44:26

It's taken it like we said. It's taken seriously enough that it makes sense for the rules that we've established for this world. But it's not. It's not silly enough like we obviously understand. It's silly and preposterous. But in the world where we have a guy who can fly, who has super strength, who's doing all these things, where the the villain's plan was to to, you know, use nuclear weapons to break off the coast of california, we're buying all this, so why can't we buy that he can turn back time by flying?

Speaker 1 44:48

around. That's a fun idea and I think people are more open to like yeah, quality. Candor says this movie is a shot of optimism near the end of a very bleak decade. Sure, yes, just like star wars, you know it fit right in and christopher reeve in interviews has mentioned about that.

Speaker 2 45:05

How, what, what was the what? What is the point of making a superman movie? A candidate exists in a post watergate america. You know where.

Speaker 1 45:14

Cynicism, I know, I know, but in the context the worst thing that ever happened in american history and watergate he was a lefty Okay, so just you know, I understand what he was saying I know I love him anyway yeah.

Speaker 2 45:28

But it makes sense for what he's saying. We're living in a very cynical and bleak time in American history for people at that time. So to have this kind of very optimistic, colorful, fun adventure, you know, are people going to take it seriously, are people going to buy into it or not? And they did, thankfully they did. As this pure escapism.

Speaker 1 45:53

And I think it's interesting that Superman too, then, even though it was made simultaneously, very much does feel like a product of the early eighties. Right, it feels like a movie that was made when we were in the full swing of this sort of post-star wars era, where people were more receptive to sci-fi and fantasy. Yes, and I have, I have less.

Speaker 1 46:12

I think it would work best if we discuss superman 2 in conjunction with our viewing of the donner cut yes because the thing about the donner cut is that, um, yeah, it strips out a lot of the goofy stuff, kind of like a fan edit of like the ph Phantom Menace, where they just cut out like every Jar Jar thing. But you know there's an addition of some great scenes. Ultimately I liked it, but I missed certain things about the Lester cut too. You know, when I feel like there's the Eiffel Tower, you're kidding you like the Eiffel Tower.

Speaker 2 46:44

You're kidding.

Speaker 1 46:46

You like the.

Speaker 2 46:46

Eiffel Tower scene.

Speaker 1 46:48

Yeah, I felt like that was a good way to kick the movie off.

Speaker 2 46:50

Oh, I thought it was so boring.

Speaker 1 46:52

It was a fun little Superman quest we got. The terrorists are going to blow up the Eiffel Tower or something and he stops it. I don't know.

Speaker 2 46:59

I don't know. I thought it lacked a lot of dramatic tension.

Speaker 1 47:03

Lois Lane was there. She was crawling around. I didn't hate it. I feel like there's a good synthesis of both movies, because I hate the way that Donner ends his with turning back time.

Speaker 2 47:15

But you have to understand that that was not the original intended ending. That was the original intended ending but they had to slap it on. They're working with what they can, you know, 30 plus years later. Okay, so I'll buy into the fact that, yes, it is lame that they have the same ending for this movie. Like not going to argue with that. I do think the Eiffel Tower scene lacks any kind of actual tension or, you know, a threat or menace, and it's just a mere plot device to then have a nuclear weapon sent up into outer space to free the Phantom Zone criminals, which they conveniently say on TV something about, or no, lara says it in the Fortress of Solitude. Oh, by the way, the Phantom Zone can be opened by a random nuclear explosion. It's like oh, that's an interesting tidbit, that just happens.

Speaker 1 48:03

Wow, that's really convenient. Well, that was another thing that I didn't like about both cuts is that you know lex luther, who I think is great in this movie, maybe even better because he has less screen time. Like in that, though, gene hackman has so much fun just kind of like peeping around like messing things up. Now he goes to the fortress of solitude and learns that a nuclear explosion can free the phantom zone criminals, but then he's just like oh, it's interesting. I would have thought it would have been a better script move for lex luthor to learn that information and try to orchestrate some kind of scenario by which superman would cause a nuclear explosion in space so he could free the phantom zone criminals, right, possibly. Just like they just show up and he's like oh, that's convenient, I'm going to be their friend, right, well, he learns that info and can do nothing about it well, you know he uses that to bargain with them as as provide as a purveyor of information I mean, he knows who they are.

Speaker 1 48:59

Ahead of time is about the only thing he gets out of those scenes, right?

Speaker 2 49:03

well, he uses that as a bargaining chip to insert himself into the situation, right to say I'm gonna hand you the son of jor-el. Um, you know, I can show you where he lives, I can do all these things, or I can show, lead you to the woman he loves, all these things like that to kind of further. Um, you know, twist the knife in superman's side here. I would have liked it better. And again, this is not the version of Luther that existed at that time. He's become a more complicated, multifaceted character in the comics as years have gone by, where he can be someone who works on the side of good if he needs to Like. He's not a purely evil, malicious character just for the sake of being evil. He's not like the joker or somebody like that. Um, I think it would have been interesting if he actually had worked with superman against the phantom zone criminals, because like they're clearly like you know, I thought he was going to at the end I thought they're.

Speaker 2 49:56

You know they're clearly psychopathic and maniacal and they're gonna they're gonna kill him and sleeve the earth. You know, let's uh give me a break what?

Speaker 1 50:03

why wouldn't he work with superman to get rid of them? And then superman could say well, luther, I guess I'll let you go this time, you know?

Speaker 2 50:08

or something like that right, so that would have been more interesting.

Speaker 1 50:12

Let me ask you this um is general zod almost wholly an invention of the films? Why? Why did they choose general? He's not much of a character pre the movie, no, in the comics right.

Speaker 2 50:23

The phantom film criminals existed back since the 50s or 60s. They're in the silver age, yeah, for sure were they a popular villain?

Speaker 1 50:31

were they around? No, they weren't like super.

Speaker 2 50:34

They weren't like a huge part of the rogues gallery, but they did. They did exist for sure. I mean that's part of the reason why post they, they eliminated most of these things because there were too many survivors of Krypton left left over at that point. Right, I mean, there was super girl, there was the phantom zone criminals, there's the bottle city of Kandor.

Speaker 1 50:54

There was the space ape yeah.

Speaker 2 50:57

Yeah, the super monkey comet, the super horse, you know. So yeah, there there, you know, um. So yeah, there were phantoms. There were definitely phantoms and criminals going back to the silver age. I don't remember exactly what your zod uh came out, but I feel like that I can, we can, we can google it right now, but I looked it up and he kind of just looked like a general, like he just wore like a fucking like douglas mcarthur outfit. Yeah yeah, for sure they created those those um space, those you know the spacesuits for them for the movie.

Speaker 1 51:22

Yeah, oh yeah, he came out in 1961, yeah okay, but he, it's not like he was like the green goblin or like a recognizable by no means no, I mean certainly other superman villains like briniac.

Speaker 2 51:36

briniac, um mixable bizarro, would have been much more, uh, well known as members of the rogues gallery, in my opinion, yeah.

Speaker 1 51:45

But it was a good choice for a villain and I think their most effective scene, I think the most effective thing that Donner cut does too, is it brings a modern action editing eye to all of their sequences, like the scene where they break into the white house. In the original cut, you know, there's just a lot of lingering in lester's version where, especially with the town destruction and the first encounter with the police, where the krypton criminals just sort of shoot something with a laser, somebody reacts and there's like a two second pause. Then something else blows up. You know, whereas with the re-edit they did for donner in 2006, when they come into the white house or into the paper the daily planet, it's great, I mean they're throwing people through walls, they're they're just cutting earlier, you know, whereas in the original lester cut like someone would be thrown through a wall maybe like two seconds before anything else happened, right also, the action is sped up to an appropriate speed in the donner cut.

Speaker 2 52:45

I don't know if you know there's no more slow motion, yeah like when, when, for instance, the scene I really noticed it was the fight in metropolis, when ursa throws the manhole at superman like a discus and he's flying through the air, like in the lester cut he's like, and in the dunner cut he's like bam into the car and it's like, feels very modern, which is good.

Speaker 1 53:09

It doesn't feel dated and tired, like you know or when he kicks the big guy through the building and he flies through the the stories of the office. But I mean, it's like no, it kicks him through the building and he goes up adjacent through the like three office buildings and out the other side. Terrific stuff, um, what do you think overall of the?

Speaker 2 53:28

I was gonna say don't you think that re-adding brando to the uh sequel makes it a little bit more emphatic? Um, does a lot as opposed to lara, especially because the whole point of the movie is the phantom zone. Criminals are back for revenge against the son of Jor-El, so to have Jor-El in the movie is much more important.

Speaker 1 53:52

Now, how the hell did they get this guy to do a two-picture deal and then whiff on being able to have him in the second movie?

Speaker 2 54:00

I think it was. He had some kind of residual contract, like he was owed money for like the gross or profits or something like that, as far as I'm aware, and so he wanted more money from part one than he got, which he was paid a ton, and so they were like well, let's just not put them in part two, so we don't have to pay him at all anymore.

Speaker 1 54:26

Oh well, that was a bad mistake because, like that sequence which I think you in the Donner cut, they wish they would have had, a closeup of Lois Lane that they never shot Because she goes and hovers over the action while he's talking to his dad and says I want to be a human now, which you know what. Honestly, I never understood why he felt like he had to become a human to be with Lois Lane.

Speaker 2 54:47

Weakest, weakest part of the movie. It's totally unnecessary. Yeah, he's like I'm going to be a human now, okay, and that comes out of nowhere, because that's never been a facet of any superman story, or established in the first movie that like he couldn't have sex, or you know, I don't know what it was and he did have sex with her while he was superpowered. Correct in in the movie, it's not afterwards.

Speaker 1 55:14

Yes, yes, after they have sex, because she's wearing his Superman shirt.

Speaker 2 55:19

Yeah, so it's not that he can't. You know, he's worried, he's going to kill her or something you know.

Speaker 1 55:23

Right, so why?

Speaker 2 55:25

do that. It doesn't work.

Speaker 1 55:29

In retrospect.

Speaker 2 55:31

The only thing that makes me think about why they did that is that it sets it up as a plot device to depower the Phantom Zone people at the end of the movie. That's the only thing I can think of.

Speaker 1 55:41

Well, you can think of. In all these movies. There's always some reason why Superman has to lose his powers at the middle of the second act so that he can come back triumphantly at the end.

Speaker 2 55:51

Did they not want and this was a perfect opportunity for them to use kryptonite that he superman knows about kryptonite now, or why did not? Why did luther not have kryptonite to control the phantom zone? People like, how did he not have that up his sleeve to say, oh, you're gonna kill me, you're gonna, you're gonna take over, you're not gonna give me what I want. Let me give you a little kryptonite now.

Speaker 2 56:14

You kneel before luther, you know that would have been dope and like I'm gonna control you now, and then of course they get it away from them and superman has to save them or whatever you know, but like because the phantom zone villains.

Speaker 1 56:27

They're iconic, they look great, the aesthetic is cool. Kneel before zod is very iconic, but they're very. One note yes, you know, they just kind of walk around and they're like you will kneel before me and like there's a scene where they're in the white house and they're like I'm bored with running the world. I'm like no, no, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 2 56:46

Cut this scene this should be the sun, with general zod what I think they cut that in the donner cut right I don't know if they did or not.

Speaker 1 56:53

I think they kept it in because if you're, if you're general zod, wouldn't you just be walking around going, being like, okay, uh, all the new military, you're gonna wear black outfits. Now, uh, we're doing this like. Wouldn't it be a montage of him like being hitler? You would think basically, instead of him being like I'm bored, we took over the world like what now?

Speaker 2 57:13

what do you think of the midwestern um city attack by the, by the phantom zone people? Do you like it or not?

Speaker 1 57:20

I don't think it worked, particularly the only scene I wish they had included of that in the donor cut.

Speaker 2 57:25

When they cut out all that is I do like this rehearsal.

Speaker 1 57:28

Rehearsal um arm throws the guy through the roof and then it's just. That's funny like that.

Speaker 2 57:33

That actually is funny like that. That part, yes, but the rest of it no I miss that.

Speaker 1 57:38

I miss that. But you know, it's just kind of like they just like they've seen what the cops is so stupid, like they're just standing in the middle of the street what the hell y'all doing here on my street?

Speaker 2 57:49

and then they have the convenient freaking, obliterate that car like with their heat yeah, they lift it up they drop it down, they grab the siren.

Speaker 1 58:01

it's like, okay, that's what the fuck are we doing. You know, get, get on with it right. And uh, lester I mean lester is not as egregious in this film because he filmed a better ending for the movie than I think the Donner did. Yes, with the superpower kiss and the conversation between him and Lois where she says I don't even know what to call you anymore, like you know, that's fine. I mean, if I would, I would take the Donner cut and append that to it, like I like the Donner ending where he destroys the fortress of solitude but then if he's going to come back now, why destroy it?

Speaker 2 58:41

if we're going to turn back time, I don't, I don't, and and also the turn back the world ruins the getting revenge on the jock truck driver who beat him up, because if he turned back time he was never beat up. So now clark is just going and like pummeling this random truck driver for no reason who doesn't even know who he is there's nothing for him to turn back time on, other than Lois knows his secret identity.

Speaker 2 58:57

Exactly, and you know, I guess back then times were very different about how we thought about secret identities and superhero stuff. But you know it's much more. I think Superman stories are much more interesting when Lois actually knows who he is and they're married and she's in on the action in that regard, like it gives a new angle to it. I think they could have just let that go.

Speaker 1 59:17

Honestly, Would have been a good third movie.

Speaker 2 59:20

Yeah.

Superman III: The Richard Pryor Problem

Speaker 1 59:21

And all you have to do for a third movie, if you get your two people together, is introduce some kind of male or female disparate characters that like work to break up their union. Like there's some evil girl that wants to, you know, then lois is jealous, or vice versa.

Speaker 2 59:37

That's all you gotta do to keep it fresh and and this is the biggest sin of superman 3 is that they introduce lana lang but they do not do the love triangle between superman lana and lois. It's like that's the whole point. It's. It's that archie, betty, veronica thing, you know.

Speaker 1 59:54

It's like you want to have that tension about who you know, I know you're a nerd and you would, you would. You would dream of like a superman 3 with like brainiac as the villain. But like, honestly, superman 3 would have been better if, like faye dunaway from supergirl was the villain oh yeah, for sure you know. And she was like, oh, I'm gonna ensnare superman into my I'm gonna she's, he's gonna fall in love with me. And then lois is like his wife, right.

Speaker 2 1:00:20

And then lois is like I don't think so, you know, right, I mean that would be the best that would be perfect, honestly great yeah, it'd been great um anything great is like oh, can we just talk about the metropolis fight and how, how much lester ruins it with the goofball cornball, three stooges antics. Well, one guy getting blown away, an attack.

Speaker 1 1:00:41

Okay, okay. One guy getting blown away while talking on the phone is fine. Two, it's a little bit, that's a little much. You know what I mean. Like that's much, but I will say that's a great fight. I mean it's really spectacular, it's cool. I mean even in Lester's version. It's improved in Donner's version just through modern editing techniques. But when they're pulling those cars around and they're smashing into the set with the super breath, I was like whoa.

Speaker 2 1:01:07

Did you realize that that was? All filmed indoors.

Speaker 1 1:01:10

Yeah, it's a set. I mean, it's obviously a studio set of some kind. It looks, it looks great, I mean I never noticed.

Speaker 2 1:01:15

I never I guess I'm a little naive. I never noticed that until I watched it again this time and I'm like are they in the studio like yo? But it looks great indoor, like mature?

Speaker 1 1:01:24

there's no, there's no outdoor it looks so good, though, and when and I love the scene one of my favorite scenes in the movie is when the is when the krypton villains come into the daily planet and they throw perry white through the ceiling. And then I even like that little goofy bit where lois lifts up perry, then drops him again and says I'm sorry, and, um, you know, I love it.

Speaker 2 1:01:42

I love it should be the heart of where. Yeah, it happens. It's the, it's the focal point of the city, and so that's why he's there to begin with. That's why he's a reporter, so that's perfect. It's there to begin with, that's why he's a reporter, so that's perfect. It's beautiful that the Phantom Zone criminals go and attack the Daily Planet.

Speaker 1 1:01:57

Yes, it keeps them in the story and that works. That's the hub, right.

Speaker 2 1:02:02

And it's like it puts them in jeopardy that they could die. These are his friends.

Speaker 1 1:02:05

They could die. I also love Luthor in those scenes too, so much when he he's like hey, I've got Superman's address or you go to her. He's just being a great little shit poster back in the corner sits on the file cabinets. I didn't think this thing was going to go the distance. It's like he's so good.

Speaker 2 1:02:23

He's great. The only other thing I think is lame in the fortress fight at the end is the giant cellophane S.

Speaker 1 1:02:33

Which is cut out in Donner's case, because donna cuts out all but everyone's dude. People are using superpowers left and right. Superman has, he's okay, the, the phantom zone criminals have laser eyes. But then using your laser eyes can also like bring things to you like the gun. It's like what the fuck? And then doesn't superman like doesn't he rebuild shit at one point with his fucking laser eyes? Or these movies are getting blurred together a little bit for me, but like he just points. He like looks at something and like it's fixed.

Speaker 2 1:03:01

It's like no, that's in four. I think that's in four Okay.

Speaker 1 1:03:04

It's like what superpower is that? Yeah?

Speaker 2 1:03:07

But the cellophane S Travel region yes yeah, I don't.

Speaker 1 1:03:11

I don't know what the cellophane s was all about, but you know, donner wisely just cuts that whole fight out.

Speaker 2 1:03:15

They just show up with the phantom zone and he takes away their powers because, honestly, that fight in the in the street isn't enough I think they might have filmed most of the the the most of the scenes in the fortress already, because think about how much um gene happens in those scenes. So they probably filmed almost all of it. And then lester came in and refilmed his part and you notice that hackman is nowhere to be seen for most of that part, until he's needed to speak. We should say we didn't really talk about the behind the scenes stuff, but like they filmed 75 of superman 2 and then, because everything was running over budget and over time and they needed to meet the release date for Superman one, they were like, okay, we can't, we have to finish number one first. Okay, so they, they did that.

Speaker 2 1:04:04

And then there was the huge falling out between the Saul Hines and Donner. He was fired and Lester came over, but Lester was because he wanted that Dga credit on the movie. He's like well, I'm gonna refilm all the entire movie, which is ridiculous ridiculous like, the 75 of a movie's done, you're gonna refilm it.

Speaker 2 1:04:26

Just because you want your name, I get it. You want your name on the credit. But like, if you're such a, if you're such a dutiful like um worker that the the salt kinds love you like this is our mr fix-it director, he'll do that the salt kinds love you, like this is our Mr Fix it director, he'll do things on the cheap Then. Then you take the. You know, you take the loss and take the money.

Speaker 1 1:04:40

And then you film 25% of it.

Speaker 1 1:04:42

Jack guys, you shut the fuck up Film the movie and you you have their eternal gratitude that you believe that he would go to them and say, hey, yeah, well, I want the dga credits. So I need to reshoot all of these scenes that were perfectly fine. And, by the way, it's it's it's absolutely criminal that donner wasn't allowed to film his original version of the revelation of superman's secret identity to lois, which we get in the movie a test screening, because it was such a great scene. They used it to test the actors for the movie in the. In the donner cut in the movie a test screening, because it was such a great scene. They used it to test the actors for the movie In the Donner cut in the original script.

Speaker 1 1:05:20

I only remember how it happens in the Lester cut, literally just kind of meandering and muddled. But in the original version Lois Lane pulls a gun on Clark and says I'm going to shoot Clark Kent because I'm so confident you're superman, and she shoots him and then clark reveals okay, fine, you're right, you got me, and she goes. Well, there's blanks in the gun, right, it's great, it's a great scene. Even when they were raw and new. It played so well because it's very well written and what lester comes up with is what, oh, they're going to be in a goofy hotel that has the circle love bad and like the newlywed hotel, thanks a lot. Fuck face. You know like he sucks and he falls.

Speaker 2 1:06:02

He trips, which there's no reason for him to trip. He's superman, he only trips because he's clark kent doing it on purpose, so there's no reason for that to happen. And he falls into the fire pit and his hand gets burned, but it doesn't, and Lois notices that it's not burned and that's like super lame. So, interestingly enough, because because they eliminated the gun scene from the Lester cut, they also eliminated the great scene that precedes it at the beginning of the movie, which is when they're all hanging out at the daily planet, and this is. That was like a nice intro, nice great intro.

Speaker 2 1:06:40

And then Lois is like I'm pretty sure Clark is Superman, so I'm going to throw myself out the window and he's right here, he's not going to let me die. He'll catch me and I'll and I'll oust him. But he'll catch me and I'll and I'll oust him. But he's clever enough to save her without revealing who he is and making her look like a fool. But the great part is then she's like well, I risked my life. That was a mistake. I need to risk your life.

Speaker 1 1:07:04

It's a. It's the opening sequence I thought was so sharp because it starts with a dolly shot of someone whipping open the newspaper and it says Lexx luther thrown in jail. So it gives you like a little bit of a recap from the last movie and it dollies over to some daily planet business and clark and then, right off the jump, lois is like yeah, clark is superman and that scene where she jumps out the window, I'm like lester is is like um, a hack. Like I realized that he directed a hard day's night. Which boomers, really, because they have a religious devotion to the Beatles. I'm not a Beatles hater but like you know come on Right, but like this is a guy who will see it evidenced in part three hate Superman. And what I mean by hate Superman is like he hates Superman in the way that misogynists hate women. You know what I'm saying when misogynists hate women. You know I'm saying where it's like. You know I'm saying like he has contempt for him like, okay, this is maybe okay.

Speaker 2 1:07:59

I just, I just think he feels that it's it's, it's silly, it's stupid, it's for kids, it's a paycheck. Um, this is not. This is not art, this is not meant to be taken seriously. This is not meant for anything other than a cheap thrill for the kids. Hey look, it's Superman, isn't that cool? Okay, next movie.

Speaker 1 1:08:19

Yeah, but no, I don't believe that because I think that if he had that mentality, he would have made a better Superman movie. I think that Richard Lester was a frustrated artist who took advantage of the Salkinds to make a movie called Superman 3, which smuggles in a different movie into it. Short changes Superman and it's just like a music video of all the goofy ideas that Richard Lester had for hijinks.

Speaker 2 1:08:43

Yes, as evidenced in the opening montage of the film, which is totally worthless and ridiculous, which just is basically a Three Stooges skit thrown into the Superman movie to be like. Here's the credits. Kids, isn't that cool that the phone booths are falling over like dominoes and there's little toy penguins dancing around? And, oh, blind man lost his dog Roller skater's out of control, pink bucket fell on head. It's like the lowest brow humor you could ever imagine. It's like 50 years out of date at this point, and it's exactly you know, it's not even fun.

Speaker 2 1:09:20

Maybe if it was a silent film it would be funny like of that era. But this is like 1983. At this point it feels really, really corny and outdated and you're like what movie am I watching?

Speaker 1 1:09:30

and they skipped the epic opening intro of space and the letters flying at the screen and instead opt for this kind of weird backwards Star Wars crawl. It was kind of Kiss Me Deadly, you know what I mean. You feel uneasy and weird and you're like what is happening here? Why is there no epic intro? What's going on?

Speaker 2 1:09:50

This is the notes that I wrote down. I was like nothing says Superman, like a trip to the unemployment office by some random character in the opening scene of your movie what the fuck?

Speaker 1 1:10:01

like yeah, it's like. It's like, uh, I'm watching this and I'm like is this some kind of like forgotten 80s comedy, like like head office or like the secret of my success or some kind of like forgotten, like you know like what is this and you know it's not funny it's not funny, it's not, it's not funny, it's not funny that's the problem, the really shameful part, is that I brought up I brought up, um, uh, richard pryor before, but he, he wanted to be in superman and he wanted to have a serious part because he liked the movie so much that would have been I love when comedians do dramatic roles.

Speaker 2 1:10:32

They're great at it. That would have been fantastic to see him in this movie doing playing. He could have either been a new secondary side character supporting character who's integral to the plot to help Superman, or he could be a villain Either way.

Speaker 1 1:10:47

And actually the whole idea of him being like the whole plot idea of him being really good with computers and being taken advantage of by an evil villain and then having a change of heart where he asserts himself and helps superman, that's not a bad idea on paper but, like the movie is such a fucking absurd clown car goofball mess where they make they lean on richard pryor so much to provide laughs that it undermines what could have been a nice little role as a regular person interacting with superman, which is not a bad idea and on that.

Speaker 2 1:11:19

On that note, it seems like he's as a character right he is taking advantage of, but like he knows what he's doing and and they don't they don't um play it up that he's being blackmailed or threatened enough to work for these people. He's kind of doing it willingly for the money, and they show that he's being blackmailed or threatened enough to work for these people. He's kind of doing it willingly for the money, and they show that he's kind of like a shady character at the beginning anyway, with loose morals, that he's stealing from the company. So it would have been nice to either portray him as a like truly malevolent character who is in with the villains and maybe he has a change of heart and realizes in over his head, or to show that he is a true, truly good character who gets um, you know, abducted and brainwashed or or um, blackmailed by these people to work for him and he's and he's trying to be on the side of good.

Speaker 2 1:12:01

It's like they kind of do this thing where he's like, oh, he's sort of in on it to begin with, and then he realizes at the end oh, they're actually going to kill superman.

Speaker 1 1:12:08

But didn't you know they're going to kill superman because you're making kryptonite, like that's also yeah, yeah, which is also stupid and like you know, but like he's a glorified ned baity character yes he's a bigger ned baity character. No, I'm not going to deny that there were some sequences in this movie where richard lat, where prior, had me fucking dying laughing. Really that scene where, oh yeah, oh my god.

Speaker 2 1:12:34

That scene where I know you like the scene with the booze right that was the funniest shit I've seen in a long time.

Speaker 1 1:12:41

I don't, I can't explain it, but I showed it to my brother and we both fucking absolutely died laughing. I thought it was so goddamn funny. I I thought it was unbelievably hilarious when he was like we gotta get in here tonight and the guy's like what? And he whips open that booze and just goes. I fucking died, dude. I thought it was so funny I was losing my mind. That made me have a better favorable impression of the movie. But let me explain this. I had often heard what Superman 3 was about, right, and it would seem confusing and weird to me. And I always heard that it's bad. Superman 3 is a bad movie, but there are good moments in it. Everything was Superman in Smallville, where he has to go back to do an article about his high school reunion and he sort of falls in love with Lana Lang. It's a great, it's good, it's good stuff, right, when they're in the gym talking about their lives.

Speaker 2 1:13:28

It's okay. I just think it would be so much more better, so much better if you had had that and Lois had accompanied him to Smallville and been kind of shell-shocked, just as Clark was, when he went to Metropolis for the first time. Now you have Lois coming with him to Smallville.

Speaker 1 1:13:56

Seeing what it's like there meeting Lana and then realizing that she actually does have some romantic interest in clark and she feels jealous. Now, yes, and I think too, the weird, the it's so bizarre to me that that that this richard lester was so much of a sort of svengali or like a rasputin to the fucking salkind family, that like I mean, I believe that marco kidder was like I'm not coming back for that shit with that richard lester asshole who made me refilm all those scenes I already shot and they were. They alienated gene hackman and her out of the cast and they're still stuck with this guy. Yeah, you know, come on.

Speaker 2 1:14:28

Yeah, it's just no no ilia salkine denies that margot kidder was written out of the film because of her loyalty to richard donner, but come on, I think it's painfully obvious.

Speaker 1 1:14:42

That's what happened, yeah what superman 3 is, guys, is. It's a richard prior rejected richard prior script where he comes up where he becomes a computer programmer that somebody read richard lester but couldn't get made, and so he's like, well, I'll just, you know, I'm doing the third Superman film. I'll just jam it into that movie and we'll give Superman some kind of side plot through by which, through shenanigans, he becomes evil, which goes nowhere. I mean, I guess it gives Christopher Reeve a little time to, like you know, be evil Superman, I guess somewhat interesting, but just kind of goes nowhere.

Speaker 2 1:15:12

But it's undercut. It's undercut because what does he do? He goes and pulls a bunch of pranks that are meant to be ha ha, that's so funny. Like I'm going to straighten out the leaning tower of Pisa.

Speaker 1 1:15:23

I'm going to blow out the Olympic torch. Oh God, I'm going to have sex with this like evil chick that Miss Tess Mocker stand in.

Speaker 2 1:15:39

What than miss test mocker stand-in what? Why did he do that? Nothing happens, but like this is. If you needed evidence to prove that the people who made superman one and, by extension, most of superman two, uh, what they are were richard donner, tom mankiewicz and, and the people they brought in it's superman three, because it's written by the Newmans, it's directed by Richard Lester and it's a total clown show, garbage dumpster, fire of a movie, in my opinion. And this is everything. This is everything that the Salkinds and these people dreamed that Superman 1 would be, this masterpiece of like camp cinema. Isn't this a great movie? Isn't this a great movie? Isn't this a great movie?

Speaker 2 1:16:16

and it's like this is what they wanted funny this is what superman they wanted superman one to be, and they would have been so proud of it and had it had it happen like this well, they make superman a joke because everyone is clowning around and christopher reeve comes in.

Speaker 1 1:16:27

It's like I'm superman and it's like, haha, you're an idiot. Because obviously you're trying to play it straight in this world where everyone's a fucking goofball right. So it's really sad. I mean it's, it's um, it's really too bad. I mean there are certain things I like about superman 3. It's the best flying we see christopher reeve do the best flying special effects. I feel bad for the special effects guys because they were working really hard to make the best superman movie they possibly make and it's wasted on this half-baked comedy bullshit.

Speaker 2 1:16:58

The oil plant. Fire is fantastic.

Speaker 1 1:17:01

There's a lot of great stuff.

Speaker 2 1:17:05

Much better than the Eiffel Tower scene, in my opinion.

Speaker 1 1:17:11

The sets are incredible. I mean, you have the guy, he's from the Wild Bunch, or not the bunch, but the magnificent seven um oh, the guy who's the bag. Robert vaughn, yeah, um, he's the bad guy. He's like a. He's like a lex luther copy and every that's.

Speaker 2 1:17:28

The most interesting thing is that he is the post-crisis lex luther in this movie, before it existed. Right, right, he's the. He's the evil business tycoon yeah, that's right, that's true.

Speaker 1 1:17:38

yeah, he's evil business tycoon. He's got like a sort of evil ava braun style sister or something right and um, his the set for his like office is incredible. It's like this kind of ken adams set with like the floor flips over and it's a giant map. There's a big map on the wall and I'm enjoying this, and also the final, the cavernous layer with the giant robot machine and I'm like man, these would be really great in a movie. That wasn't ridiculous, you know, but you just you spent all this money and all this energy and time and it looks great, but, like your story and what you have going on is such a joke.

Speaker 2 1:18:15

it's just, it's offensive and and and annoying and also his sister turns into a ai robot at the end, or something like that, she gets bonded with I don't even understand what was happening at a certain point and I forgot. How did superman reintegrate with his good and bad self, Like he just?

Speaker 1 1:18:35

he will. Yeah, he beats his bad stuff up a bunch and then they absorb into each other. Because a small child said Superman, you're good, he's at the bar and he's drinking booze with a five o'clock shadow.

Speaker 2 1:18:50

Yeah, I don't know Darker blue suit which kind of looks good?

Speaker 1 1:18:57

it looks like the superman return suit it does, it does, yeah, truly yeah, aneta tool.

Speaker 2 1:19:02

Aneta tool is lovely in this movie. I will say great everything in smallville is great and she famously went on to play martha kent in smallville well, there you go, a nice thing but yes, yeah, very disappointing it's just, it's just confounding to me that you had these two magnificent superman films.

Speaker 1 1:19:19

Superman 2 was very well thought of at the time. I think it's sort of a lackluster sequel, to be totally honest. But, like um, it's not as good as the first film by any measure. But, um, for them to be like yeah, fuck all that, those two really popular films that made a lot of money, to not understand why they did or what people this is a flop.

Speaker 2 1:19:37

And to be like let's, let's do our batman 66 tv show version of superman still made a lot of money still made uh 100 million dollars, I think did it, yeah, but yeah, it did make a lot of money, but not as not, as not they spend a lot of money. As Ilya Salkind will brag. Superman 3 made $100 million. Superman 4 killed the franchise.

Speaker 1 1:20:01

You killed it, bro. Well, you know what, honestly probably, supergirl killed the franchise. For being honest, I don't know.

Speaker 2 1:20:10

Do you think more than Superman 4, the fact that they didn't even make a solid base hit with Superman 4? It was so embarrassing.

Speaker 1 1:20:19

No, because the Sulkins had Supergirl teed up while they were doing Superman 3. And I think that what it was is that it was just diminishing returns on the grosses, and they saw the writing on the wall. I think Supergirl is a better movie than superman 3 oh for sure, for sure.

Speaker 2 1:20:37

I can watch supergirl. I can't watch superman 3, it's just painful for me. It's painful it's painful because yeah this is the first time that you saw it is that correct.

Speaker 1 1:20:45

First time I saw it. First time I saw it.

Speaker 2 1:20:47

Yeah I watched it probably when, when superman returns came out, that's when I got the, the box set, the tin, the metal silver tin that they came out with. Uh, at the time, and I was like I had been wanting to see it because I had I'd heard about it that there was a superman 3, and I watched them like, oh my god, what, what, how could they have made this? Like?

Speaker 1 1:21:06

no offense to richard prior, but like the idea of like you know what this, this, this series, needs a jolt. Let's bring in a big star comedian to make it funny. You don't do that after you had two blockbuster films and you have nothing but runway to do whatever you want.

Speaker 2 1:21:23

But to act like you can we're still doing that today. We're still doing that today with these superhero films where, like, let's make it funny, let's do Thor, love and Thunder, everything's a joke. We're still making the same mistakes nowadays. It's like it's.

Speaker 1 1:21:37

it's unbelievable they could have made the most epic, expensive, masterful superman 3 film ever. Instead, they were like let's treat this like it's like part six of like fred of the 13th. You know what I mean.

Speaker 2 1:21:48

Like let's just you know that, um, um, ilia salkind did write a potential screenplay or a a you know whatever a draft where brainiac and mixle flick were going to be in the movie. I'm not kidding, like he actually wrote this and it was. It was rejected as too far out, too outer, spacey, to not not going to connect with audiences. But that would have been an infinitely better movie than this even if they don't.

Speaker 1 1:22:15

Yeah, don rickles is mr mix-up politic I'll take that right, I mean wouldn't that have been cool? Yeah, but uh, yeah, man, I mean it's just. It's just a total missed opportunity and the idea that they felt like they needed a co-lead, like richard pryor, when christopher lee reeve had become a star as superman it's disrespectful it's totally disrespectful.

Speaker 2 1:22:34

Totally disrespectful to him that's again like we mentioned. He could have been in the movie, uh, major supporting role as a actual dramatic character. It would have been perfectly fine and he can like gene hackman was playful and had jokes and stuff like that. You're allowed to that, but it needs to be overall a serious movie for the most part, you know. Yeah. Respect yourself respect yourself for this movie what it is.

Speaker 1 1:23:05

And to have Lois there for 10 minutes and be like, oh, I'm off for a different thing, Bye.

Speaker 2 1:23:09

It's like and also the every scene in the daily planet. For as little as there are, they're all. It's all a joke, you know, because newsrooms, newsrooms are boring, exposition is boring. We need to have a. What do they do? A lottery wheel like a.

Speaker 1 1:23:26

What is that? What is that even about? I mean, it was just a distraction.

Speaker 2 1:23:30

It was just because we have to have scenes in the, we're obligated to have Jackie Cooper and Margot Kidder and Mark McClure in the movie for like X amount of screen time. So we have. I guess we have to be in the newsroom and that's boring, so let's have a busybody. Lady from you know public relations, come in to have a lottery thing where you have to pick the ball number out of the bucket and meet with some schluck who goes on a vacation at the daily planet's expense. Isn't that so funny?

Speaker 1 1:23:58

I had cataracts during that. Those scenes, my eyes, just. I was like like I don't know. Yeah, it's a mess, it's too bad, even though it is really. It's a really well produced and good looking movie. Um, it's just such a wasted opportunity. And didn't you like when when richard pryor couldn't get both keys into the computer at the same time so he had to use his foot and grab the guy and have him stick the thing in the? I'm just like hilarious about superman, you know. I'm like what the fuck is this?

Speaker 2 1:24:30

and also richard pryor is a very funny, hilarious guy and a great actor. Did he actually think that this was funny when he was making it? Could he have not contributed something ad-libbed here and there, maybe made it a little bit better?

Speaker 1 1:24:45

He loved Superman the first two and he wanted to be in it so bad. He loved the first two Superman movies. He loved them and he was like, yeah, I'll be in it. You bet I'll sign the dotted line. And they gave him the script where they just said be a buffoon. And he was like, oh, Yep, okay, so you want to do Supergirl next or Superman 4?

Speaker 1 1:25:06

I think it would be okay to talk about Supergirl Because, yeah, they were producing it at the same time and it was just sort of diminishing returns box office. Now the guy who wrote super girl is the same guy that wrote like the muppet movie and dark crystal and that masters of the universe. It truly does right. It's very much in the 80s sword and sorcery like zeitgeist. It was even like a big like zool type gozer ghostbusters character that shows up at the end.

Speaker 2 1:25:32

Yes, there is.

Speaker 1 1:25:34

I like Supergirl.

Speaker 2 1:25:35

Is this Ghostbusters now?

Speaker 1 1:25:38

I thought that Helen Slater gorgeous. She looks terrific, but she's so bland in the movie.

Speaker 2 1:25:49

There's no personality man.

Speaker 1 1:25:51

Not to me Don't say that.

Speaker 2 1:25:53

This movie is listless. Okay, this movie, this movie is like dead on arrival. Okay, it's so sad. I was so hoping to like this, because I don't even remember. I think I partially watched it in the past but, um, I was watching it again and I'm like, and unfortunately I had to watch the uh, I rented it from my comcast cable thing because I didn't have the blu-ray and it it showed me the Letterboxd version which is all squished In standard definition and I'm like, oh, great.

Speaker 1 1:26:22

I rented it on Prime, which is weird, it's not available on HBO Max. Like the rest of the Superman movies, I rather enjoyed it. I thought it's too long. It's like two hours. It should have been too long. It's like two hours. It should have been 90 minutes. There's like a whole bit in the middle where I'm like what the fuck is going on, or like a sequence where she fights a storm or something and I'm like cut, cut. But like the flying is the best in the series. In this movie the flying is the best Terrific flying.

Speaker 2 1:26:50

I love. I do really enjoy Faye Dunaway and all the villains.

Speaker 1 1:26:53

Me too.

Speaker 2 1:26:54

That's where the meat of the movie is. For me, she is just chewing the scenery having a ball. This is dumb, but it's so wonderful and I especially love the party scene where she throws that wonderful 80s party and they're listening to Howard Johnson music.

Speaker 1 1:27:15

Howard Jones music. Sorry, howard Jones music. Yeah, joe howard jones music.

Speaker 2 1:27:17

Sorry, howard jones music. Yeah, yeah, music like um what is love yes yeah, the british guy is like flirting with her and then he tries to find some other woman and then she plays her little magic tricks on him and she's like spinning around upside down it's just, I like stuff like that, the Supergirl stuff.

Speaker 1 1:27:36

That's super boring well, okay, I loved when Supergirl, so Supergirl when it started out. They're living in like. Argo City is this the bottle city of Kandor, or what the fuck is this like?

Speaker 2 1:27:49

Argo City. What is that? It's a city. Well, I don't know if they really explained it in this. They didn't explain it at all so it's, it's a city.

Speaker 1 1:27:54

Well, I don't know if they really explained it in. They didn't explain it at all so it's.

Speaker 2 1:27:57

It's traditionally, it's a city that was spared the destruction of krypton. Somehow it like shot off, or or sometimes they've explained it, I think also as they were like a um, a settlement that went else, that went off planet and survived after the destruction of the planet.

Speaker 1 1:28:14

Why didn't they say that in the movie? Because the whole time I'm thinking, well, who are these people? Didn't Krypton blow up?

Speaker 2 1:28:21

They're living in a cellophane tent that is very easily rippable apparently.

Speaker 1 1:28:25

It looked cool though.

Speaker 2 1:28:26

I mean it was a good design, but they know what's going on on Earth, which is also strange. Yet she knows it's totally oblivious to earth culture. When she gets there, well, she knows that clark, she knows that colella's on earth but there's some great wire work.

Speaker 1 1:28:42

When she arrived, yeah, I'm sitting there watching this shit and I'm like okay, like I'm appreciating the production design of the whole. You know, it's sort of like this, this it looks like the inside of when you zoom in on, like bone marrow or something Right, it's like where they're living. You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 1:28:57

Yes.

Speaker 1 1:28:57

But like it was cool, peter O'Toole was doing his thing. Mia Farrow I don't why was she in this movie. She plays her mom, yeah, and for a minute and a half, and Kara was, yeah, yeah, like this sort of doe-eyed, um goofy character. She's playing like a young girl even though she's probably 20 and like it's still too old to be doing. You know, I'm gonna sit down and like play with this magic wand that peter o'toole gave me. Um, there's this goofy mcguffin called like the what?

Speaker 2 1:29:29

you know, it's like the omega head drone.

Speaker 1 1:29:32

Yeah, yes, and it gets lost because Peter O'Toole stole it. So he could like um, I don't know, do something with it, do magic with it, and then it like flies out the window because of Kara, and then he goes uh well, now I have to go to the phantom zone, uh.

Speaker 2 1:29:51

I don't understand any of that. Why?

Speaker 1 1:29:57

phantom zone. Yeah, I don't understand any of that, why? Yeah, now then kara goes to earth and she's like totally cool with it, not scared at all, and she arrives and she has a supergirl costume on.

Speaker 2 1:30:02

Um, but I did like of the water in a supergirl costume that we've never seen.

Speaker 1 1:30:08

Completely bone dry well, it looked, it looks sweet. I mean like that moment when she lands on earth and figures out she can fly, and like they have the, the wires up and she's doing all this water dry superpowers I don't know I like the movie fine.

Speaker 1 1:30:26

it was just kind of slow and boring and like, yeah, where'd she get the outfit? I don't know it's like, but she looked good in it and like she looked kind of. I don't know it's like, but she looked good in it and like she looked kind of. She looked fun. You know she looked like a super girl comic, wouldn't you agree?

Speaker 2 1:30:38

Oh yeah, physically and costume design wise she's just, it's perfect. And I and I really liked the visual aspect of the movie. It's just. Even tonally the movie is not terrible. It takes itself moder, moderately seriously, but like, yes, it's too long, it's too overstuffed and we talked about the romance is completely ridiculous and useless in this movie. Why the romance is not between her and jimmy olsen is beyond me.

Speaker 2 1:31:04

That's what this is because mark mcclure is has no sex appeal I know, but that's this uh hart bochner guy with the who's, the who's, the uh who's the hunky landscaper guy who falls under a love spell by Selena. And it's like basically, they're fighting over the guy, which is stupid.

Speaker 1 1:31:24

We also have this thing with Selena, who is Faye Dunaway. I don't know what kind of shape her career was at the time. I imagine they probably picked her bad After Mommy.

Speaker 1 1:31:33

Dearestarest her career was in like free fall, yeah because I imagine they picked her and peter o'toole and gave them the pitch of like, hey look, what we did for hackman and brando, you'll be part of that kind of tradition of like we bring in a big actor to be in this movie, right, um didn't work really. But you know what the movie sort of presages a lot of like 1980s Like. This movie was obviously produced in 1983, released in 84. But we have this sort of like 1950s nostalgia that we would see more and more throughout the decade. We have this kind of sword and sorcery Jim Henson fantasy element. Right, I liked a lot of things about it. I thought there were clever ideas in it. There's also, um, this sort of really omnipresent sort of gay thing running through it, right, would you agree?

Speaker 1 1:32:24

explain well, first of all, I know that lois lane's, which, by the way, there's way too much convenience. In this film, our main villain, like the dodecahedron, lands on her, uh like right during yeah yeah, yeah. It lands like uh right in her picnic and then immediately she's like I'm gonna use this to rule the world. It's like what the fuck? You don't even know what it is. You know what?

Speaker 2 1:32:46

I'm saying right, it's like spider-man 3 with the symbiote.

Speaker 1 1:32:49

You know exactly exactly yes, and she's like now I can rule the world with this ball.

Speaker 2 1:32:54

I don't understand their baseline, their baseline powers. Are we in a world now where magic and sorcery exists, and to what?

Speaker 1 1:33:02

level. No, no, no, they, they want. They were weird witch people but they were using the mega hedron to do the augment her power.

Speaker 2 1:33:12

Certainly, but but she before that is described as a witch or a sorceress, and I just don't really understand. And so is he. He's a warlock um, british guy who happens to teach at the school where cara or another coincidence, yeah it's like oh, here's your roommate, lois lane sister yeah, I mean, come on who.

Speaker 1 1:33:33

By the way, immediately when she came on screen, I was like she's a lesbian, but then like she wasn't, because she's dating, you know, mark mccullough or whatever. Oh, yeah but then also like there's this kind of a fun idea in the script where they're like, hey, let's make this like a snow white kind of movie, where supergirl is the snow white.

Speaker 1 1:33:51

Yeah there's a magic mirror and faye dunaway is the evil witch. Um, which is fun. But I would have had faye dunaway to start out with be like some broke gypsy who is old and gross, and then, when she got the old makeup and then when she got the mega hedron, became young and beautiful. Faye Dunaway again, right.

Speaker 2 1:34:11

Yeah.

Speaker 1 1:34:11

Rather than just like, because when she starts out the movie I thought she was some kind of rich millionaire villain, Lex Luthor, you know, but I don't know, I don't know, I don't know like like you're describing.

Speaker 2 1:34:21

There are a million different ways you could make this into a fantastic, great movie, and they drop the ball let me defend my, my gay remark because, uh, she to me reminded me of sort of this ursula idea.

Speaker 1 1:34:34

I mean, there's been sort of this retroactive idea of ursula as like the drag queen, evil stepmother and like her whole coterie of all her friends, is very much like a sort of andy warhol style, like late 70s party in her apartment. And this guy, the british guy, is some kind of, you know, closeted gay man. You know I'm saying like there's there's a lot of, there's a lot going on, a lot going on yeah, I definitely got little mermaid vibes off off of the story too.

Speaker 2 1:34:58

You said snow white, which I think is applicable, definitely, but a little mermaid too. I wish they had kind of done something along the lines of that, where she wanted something to steal, something specifically from supergirl like her, you know, like like she's after the voice.

Speaker 1 1:35:12

Yeah, you know she could keep getting older again and be like oh no, I'm getting older, I need to supply my thing with power or whatever you know, right, I need.

Speaker 2 1:35:19

There's a lot of, there's a lot of really good ideas in this movie that are not fully materialized or explored, and then there's a lot of wasted time on on a bunch of junk well, yeah, I agree on a bunch of junk, like the whole middle section, I mean there's.

Superman IV: Quest for Box Office Failure

Speaker 1 1:35:35

The thing I liked about, though, is that there's a great production design to it. I liked the set of their evil witch, scooby-doo, abandoned amusement park base right, and the bumper cars and when the, when our boy takes the drug and gets all screwed up and he walks through the haunted house, you know, and I liked the idea that some of the set pieces of the she takes control of a big claw fucking crane and chases him down the street. I mean there's some fun ideas. You him down the street. I mean there's some fun ideas. You know, you have the big mountain that appears somewhere, like in Krull. I mean there's a lot of. But you know, jenna Swarsh, the director, also made the movie Somewhere in Time with Christopher Reeve, which I just watched last night and is a very elegant and beautiful little love story movie, a little overdramatic maybe, but I liked it, and I can't believe this guy couldn't convince his former actor to do a little cameo in Supergirl.

Speaker 2 1:36:28

I'm a big fan of Jonat Suarez. I've mentioned him before. He's a big television director at Universal.

Speaker 1 1:36:33

He did Jaws 2, one of your favorites.

Speaker 2 1:36:35

He did Jaws 2, which I really do enjoy, but he also directed many episodes of Night Gallery and other Universal tv shows. So he's like he's a he's a good dude, like he's a very talented director. I just I'm.

Speaker 1 1:36:47

That's why I'm kind of shocked and I'm really disappointed about this movie, how he couldn't he couldn't make it work yeah, he had an unfortunate filmography because after this he made santa claus, the movie for the salkinds, which I don't know. Have you seen that?

Speaker 2 1:36:59

that was the end of the salkinds, which I don't know if you've seen that that was the end of the Salkinds. I think after that right.

Speaker 1 1:37:03

That was it. That was the death of Santa. Santa, he brought them coal, but Jenna Sworch man, I mean like somewhere in time you could rip it up for being like melodramatic and a little self-important, but like, if there's anything that movie does, it captures a very sentimental place in time and is a gorgeous movie and, um, it sells the romance between reeve and, uh, jane seymour, which is the most important thing it could have done. And he pulled it off and I think that this movie, if it had a little more judicious cutting like there's too much cutting back to like faye dunaway in her house being like, oh, my evil plans, it's like you got this shit oh no, I'll take those scenes over boring um school shenanigans at boarding school with low at lucy and and linda I'll tell you you'll meet me at popeyes later yeah, boring what the amount of product placement in this movie is also egregious yes, and you, you posted that on twitter about the uh the a and w rapist.

Speaker 2 1:38:07

There's a sequence, yeah ridiculous, though there are no stakes to that, is it? Unless it's meant to be just explicitly for gags, that scene is totally worthless because there's no threat of of actual harm that that is going to imperil her well, it does something in which introduces her to the idea it's not all sunshine and rainbows and in the real life, you know yes right, okay, come on.

Speaker 1 1:38:32

But like the fact that the, the wardrobe department went completely rogue and was like oh, we're supposed to do a and w product placement. Well, I'll have the potential rapist wear an A&W t-shirt, that'll be a good consumer outreach, I mean, come on, what the fuck. And then also the Popeye shit. I mean that was almost Mac and Me level, mcdonald's style product placement of like, let's all meet at Popeye's. And then Jimmy Olsen is like I got the delicious chicken, here's your French fries.

Speaker 2 1:39:01

Or did you ever see the modern Power Rangers movie with Krispy Kreme?

Speaker 1 1:39:06

No, don't ask.

Speaker 2 1:39:09

The Power Rangers movie, Rita Repulsa attacks a Krispy Kreme or something and she just keeps saying. Krispy Kreme. Krispy Kreme.

Speaker 1 1:39:17

Really. Yes, I mean, was it as bad as the product placement in man of Steel? No, but it as bad as the product placement in man of steel, no, but it was bad, no this you mean this movie, that yeah supergirl no, not as bad as man of steel with the 7-eleven and the uh.

Speaker 1 1:39:30

I'll work out the other ones at this point, but I think it was ihop oh, ihop and 7-eleven right yeah, yeah, yeah, where you know superman 2 gets a pass for its Coca-Cola sign, cause it kind of is like blade runner, where it's just sort of a design element.

Speaker 2 1:39:46

And Coca-Cola is in a you know Americana aspect. To fly through the Coca-Cola sign and, you know, shatter it, it's like it's kind of nice yeah.

Speaker 1 1:39:55

It's, it's, it's like what?

Speaker 2 1:40:00

no, you know, no, doesn't work um, I just wish that helen slater also had maybe had a little bit more charisma to her. She's not in the same league as christopher reeve at all in terms of the way that she plays the characters yeah I'm not debating that.

Speaker 2 1:40:16

I'm just saying she's not very interesting as a character. She's very one-note, one-dimensional, and I think that takes away a huge part of making the movie better If she had had a little bit more flair to her as a character. The way she's written it's not necessarily her fault, it's the way the character's written is very bland and it's like hi, I'm Supergirl, I'm here to save the day and it's like okay, cool. You've supergirl I'm here to save the day. It's like, okay, cool, you've had your fun, selena, but the game is finished.

Speaker 1 1:40:48

Yeah, exactly thank you, I forgot about that part. Yes, love it great. Uh, superman 4 the quest for peace, quest for peace an issues movie a very important movie for nuclear it was not, as it was not as heavy on the issues as I thought it would be. What do you think about this movie?

Speaker 2 1:41:07

I'm going to go out on a limb and defend this movie and I I it's not good.

Speaker 2 1:41:12

It's not good but it's. It's earnest. It's true it has. It has a mission statement. They clearly wanted to make a good movie. Okay, everyone here wants to make a good movie. Okay, everyone here wants to make a good movie. They just have no money. They have no money to make a good movie, so they tried their best. It doesn't work a hundred percent, but like, it's watchable, it's fun, it's goofy, it takes itself seriously in the right moments and it feels very matinee.

Speaker 2 1:41:40

To me it feels very pulpypy like an episode of the superman show yes, if this was an 80s superman tv show, this would be a great episode superman versus the nuclear man. You know, I'll take it yeah I agree.

Speaker 1 1:41:54

I don't have much more to say other than I think it brings back or tries to a little bit of the energy of the first two movies and really makes three look like an aberration, right, yeah, um, because there's great lois lane moments with clark and her. Um, I like the attempt at doing a little uh oh, clark can't has to pretend to be clark and superman at the same time. They don't totally pull it off, but they're trying and it's a good idea, you know, and I I like the love triangle thing they had going on, that kind of, you know, it's fun. Um, there's a lot to like. I thought the opening was good.

Speaker 2 1:42:29

A nuclear man is obviously terrible, but yeah, I think gene hackman is part of the movie.

Speaker 1 1:42:35

Yeah, yeah, gene hackman is is good in it. I mean, you know, I kind of forget, I kind of forgot a lot about it since I watched it. But I watched it and I was like this is not bad, this is fine, this is earnest. It's hearts in the right place. It's not terrible. I like it yeah.

Speaker 2 1:42:51

To piggyback off what you just said. Yeah, I mean, they definitely harken back to the core principles of what makes a Superman movie right. So you have all the stuff that the heart of the story starts in the newsroom. It starts in Metropolis. We have some Daily Planet issues that are going on, that the paper's being taken over by a National Enquirer style paper that wants to emphasize exploitation and sensationalism. So you have that going on. Meanwhile you have these very, you know, important relevant nuclear nuclear war topics going on. Yes, some of it's a little hokey that a little child writes a letter to Superman to get him to do nuclear disarmament and he goes to the UN and all that. But otherwise, you know they tried they tried their best. But otherwise, you know they tried they tried their best if nuclear men had been a little bit more of a sophisticated character and not just destroy superman.

Speaker 2 1:43:49

Superman, yeah that would have been a little bit more interesting, but yes like you said, I I enjoyed gene hackman in this movie as luther, and he's always dressing up in different outfits to fit the situation, like when they go as Luther, and he's always dressing up in different outfits to fit the situation, like when they go the bit where he's a general.

Speaker 1 1:44:03

I thought was funny.

Speaker 2 1:44:04

Yes, I mean and also when he goes to the museum dressed as, like a, as a um like a tourist, you know.

Speaker 1 1:44:12

Well, and it's a good idea. It's like oh, we have a piece of Superman's hair to lift this thing. How yeah? No, I think he should have had some sort of kryptonite laser cutter to cut superman's hair, rather than just a fucking pair of tweezers, or something.

Speaker 2 1:44:25

Yeah, and did you like john? I like john crier as lenny didn't hate him, didn't hate him.

Speaker 1 1:44:30

Everything I'd heard about this. He was a fine little goofy sidekick. I mean like everything I heard about this film, which is why it was so bad. I was ready for nuclear man. Okay, yeah, he's bad, but, like you know, what am I gonna? What are you gonna do? You know, I, I get that, what they were trying to do, and you know this.

Speaker 1 1:44:46

This movie seems hokey in the reaganite 80s but, um, it kind of harkens back to a very old school liberal tradition, I would say like the fdr era in which superman was spawned. There's a movie I've talked about before on my channel called Gabriel Over the White House, which is a film where the president becomes like an absolute dictator and like does basically everything an FDR Democrat would want by force. This is a very popular film. He legalizes alcohol and then goes to war with the mob and uses all the money from alcohol, proceeds to give to the poor who are affected by the depression. He brings all the nav and uses all the money from alcohol, proceeds to give to the poor who are affected by the depression. He brings all the navies of all the world to united states and bombs and blows them up and goes okay, now there'll be no more war, right?

Speaker 2 1:45:29

this is a movie that jerry siegel and joe schuster would have signed off on, right yeah, oh, and I watched gabriel over the white house because you did, yeah, yeah, yeah, I enjoyed it very interesting, bizarre movie, though like just totally off the walls. But yes, I agree, superman in the golden age was a crusader for, you know, social justice as people like to say it nowadays.

Speaker 2 1:45:53

But um issues focused about tackling, you know, uh, greedy landlords or companies that were exploiting people and stuff like that. So you know, obviously christopher reeve wanted, needed an incentive to come back. He was a big lefty, he felt very strongly about nuclear disarmament and proliferation of nuclear weapons. It's it's not an unreasonable topic to discuss. It just feels a little out of place in a super superman movie where you can take care of everything with a snap of your fingers, um, and literally putting all nuclear warheads into a giant net and throwing them into the sun, although you might be worried that that might detonate the sun, I don't know.

Speaker 1 1:46:32

That's also a consideration you know what I think would have been better? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that would have been bad probably from nuclear weapons like detonating on the surface?

Superman Returns and the Franchise Legacy

Speaker 2 1:46:43

I don't know. I mean, I'm not a nuclear scientist, but I don't know that could happen too.

Speaker 1 1:46:47

If they had to save money, cut out nuclear man and have it be that Lex Luthor gets with two rogue evil generals from both America and Russia who are like oh no, I want war, like, and they get some together to frame Superman or make him look bad or you know something like that, right?

Speaker 2 1:47:09

You've got to give them credit for having a physical threat for him to fight in the movie.

Speaker 2 1:47:13

You got to give them credit for that because they didn't have the money present in in one or three, and they did have it in two and it was a big draw to have him fight the phantom zone people. But it's, it's kind of cool to actually have a physical threat for superman to fight. So I will give them that for for nuclear man, as as badly executed as it is, and I think, like we said, the special effects are extremely cheap and primitive and I don't. I don't mind it so much because you know that this is cheapo movie.

Speaker 1 1:47:41

So and you know they're trying their best and that Christopher Reeve, who was leading the charge on this, had his heart in the right place and wanted to do a good Superman movie for the fans. And you know what, when it was all over with, I had not wanted to watch Superman 3 or 4 for the longest time because I thought it would be like a bummer and like a damper on the quality of the first one and, to a certain extent, the second film. But when I watched this movie and they use that bit where Christopher Reeve has his hands behind his back and he's sauntering past the earth flying and he kind of smiles at the camera, I'm like you know what? This is a solid, nice, happy quadrilogy of movies and I'm not unhappy that I watched it.

Speaker 2 1:48:19

Yeah. This movie is unfairly maligned. It's not. It's not a masterpiece, it's not a great movie, but it's a solid 80s uh, you know matinee adventure film that it's definitely skewed more lower age for for children, teenagers.

Speaker 1 1:48:36

But it's not something that I can't watch and not appreciate some things about it we were talking on the phone and you were saying it reminded you of like a captain planet episode yeah, oh yeah, no, it's not wrong.

Speaker 2 1:48:46

Yeah yeah, not wrong, but I think that I don't get annoyed by you know issues movies. Nowadays people complain oh, they're throwing their politics in here.

Speaker 1 1:48:55

I don't know. I think this is an appropriate level to.

Speaker 1 1:48:58

To insert it that there's a message, but it doesn't, it's not like, even at the end, even at the end, though, superman like renounces his idea and he's like you know what I tried, but I really shouldn't get involved in the affairs of governments and men. Yeah, I'm like. It's like okay, you know he didn't solve all the world's problems, but he defeats nuclear man and lex luther and and ducky from pretty in pink and john cryer, who eventually went on to play Lex Luthor in the Superman. Small right, he did right.

Speaker 2 1:49:26

In Supergirl. In the Supergirl.

Speaker 1 1:49:28

Supergirl.

Speaker 2 1:49:29

Yes, he did a. He's a great Luthor, by the way, in that show. With a goatee as Luthor yeah, great addition to the show that show. Unfortunately, by the time he entered into the show, the show was in free fall and terrible quality, but he's good in the crisis and infinite earths like crossover and some other stuff.

Speaker 1 1:49:52

But what I'll say about this?

Speaker 2 1:49:54

you should definitely watch the first season of super girl TV show. It's phenomenal, love it, love it, love it, love it.

Speaker 1 1:50:01

And then when they moved to cw, it's crap yeah, my wife asked me she goes what's your newest? Uh, what's your next podcast? And I said the superman movies lame what's? You're gonna have to watch that on your own. I was like, well, I was like, come on, but you know they're good. And then she walked in on me watching superman 3 at the moment when the sister is getting turned into a robot or something, and she's like what the fuck is this? And I'm like you know, but like uh, I'm afraid yeah, but you know what I think?

Speaker 1 1:50:33

the moment when when lois falls off the building in superman 4 and they fly around and are reunited again, it's a great conceit and a good moment, but it's undercut by bad special effects that are just distracting. But I don't hold that against the movie. I think everyone has said this movie sucks and is terrible only because of the special effects and that's a really myopic way. Yeah, no, I don't agree.

Speaker 2 1:51:00

Yeah, exactly, you kind of watch it and you're just like you know, I wish they had a little more money here, but now it's hearts in the right it is a fair criticism and because I don't want to sound like we're we're uh, contradictory or no, but like, um, hypocrites about certain things are like you can criticize movies for special effects as a detriment to the movie, but like it's when they spend hundreds of millions of dollars on these new movies and they look like garbage in the special effects department, like that's a valid criticism. This one, they didn't have a budget. There's like they're running on toilet paper and dental floss here. Okay, so the fact that they made a movie as good as it is, I think that should be applauded.

Speaker 2 1:51:36

Okay, they didn't spend $500 million making this movie and it looks like garbage. Okay. Right, yeah, okay, it's too bad, you know you mentioned the lowest lane scene and I totally forgot about this until just now. What the hell was that scene about, where he? She knows that he's Superman.

Speaker 1 1:51:54

And then she turns her back to I don't know what happened there.

Speaker 2 1:51:57

What was that about?

Speaker 1 1:51:59

I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, because it would have been more fun if, in the scene with Muriel Hemingway, that Lois was helping him cover for him being Superman. Why did he have to tell her he was Superman and then kiss her and make her forget again?

Speaker 1 1:52:16

That's why I said I enjoy when she's in on the secret, when they're together, I think it's just so much more, more there's so many more avenues and doors that open from that possibility when she's helping him out 100 and I thought she was going to be like that for the rest of the movie and then he super kissed it away and I was like why did you do that?

Speaker 2 1:52:34

but remember, we're still in an era where they had not revealed the identity in the comics. Even so, that didn't happen oh really early 90s, early mid 90s.

Speaker 2 1:52:44

So and this is very interesting that this is the only movie that came out um post crisis on infinite earths, when superman the superman um mythology had been revamped in comics. Okay, so all these other movies were pre-crisis. Right. We have that very silver and bronze age Superman that we think about from the old times. In 1985, after crisis, john Byrne came on and revamped the entire Superman mythology, and so we have a different status quo that they could have pulled from but, we have this very kind of old fashioned movie coming out in 1987.

Speaker 2 1:53:21

So it feels like there was an opportunity there that was missed to mine something new um that that was just totally missed.

Speaker 1 1:53:31

One of the things I like about these this movie, these movies so much, and especially this one too, it's present is when you have some kind of authority figure, like the fireman and Superman three, 3 or the president in superman 2, that treats superman as like a very serious, real person. Like when superman lands at the fire, he's like what can I do, chief? Well, superman boy, the fire is really raging. I love that. And when the president is like there's one man who won't kneel before you, who is this fool? And when he's on TV and he goes Superman, superman, help us, that gives me chills almost.

Speaker 2 1:54:09

I can't explain it.

Speaker 1 1:54:10

I've been grasping for an explanation, but I can't do it.

Speaker 2 1:54:13

But there's literally no other superhero that you could do that with. Maybe Captain America, maybe, but unlike me, you're not going to be like oh, spider-man, please come to the white house and save me. Uh, batman, you know, it's like no superman.

Speaker 1 1:54:29

yeah, greatest, the greatest of all time the greatest of all, the goat, the ultimate superhero.

Speaker 2 1:54:34

You're exactly correct I, I have no faith for this new superman movie, I'm sorry to say for this new Superman movie. I'm sorry to say.

Speaker 1 1:54:42

The James Gunn. I showed my wife. I go, they're making a new Superman. She goes, a new Superman. I'm like, yeah, here's the picture. I'm like what do you think of the costume? They all look the same. To me it's like it's very different.

Speaker 2 1:54:57

I think they really did themselves a disservice with that teaser poster that showed him putting on the boots like as if, like oh, I have to go save the world. Can't these people take care of themselves? Yeah, that it looked like very much a woe is me guy yeah, like well, the building is being blown up by a laser in back of them, you know that was some kind of marketing team decision that.

Speaker 1 1:55:20

I don't think that was it.

Speaker 2 1:55:21

That's like that's really we need to appeal to depressed Gen Z and Gen Alpha people.

Speaker 1 1:55:27

Like that'll appeal to them, people who hate themselves, and then also before we.

Speaker 2 1:55:31

I don't want to talk too much about that, but just what are they doing in that movie that they have 20 or at least I'm exaggerating six other D-list DC characters. D-list DC characters that I love, by the way, I don't I would love to see adapted, but like we do not need them in the first new Superman movie. We do not need Mr Terrific, metamorphosis and whoever the hell else they're putting in this movie. What?

Speaker 1 1:55:55

are you?

Speaker 2 1:55:56

thinking.

Speaker 1 1:55:58

He made me a surprise, yeah.

Speaker 2 1:55:59

All these people are to audiences.

Speaker 1 1:56:05

I mean he may be a surprise to all these people are, to audiences. I mean I always liked metamorpho. I thought he was a cool design of a character. The specter and metamorpho were always my two favorite dc characters yeah, no, they're.

Speaker 2 1:56:12

They're awesome but, like, these are characters that general audiences have zero, zero um information or knowledge about. Okay, so if you're going to reintroduce superman and his world, you have. You already have a tall task to do and a villain and whoever else is going on. Now you're going to introduce random ass dc characters who have no connection to the superman world in this movie. I think it's a big mistake. I it's a destined for failure.

Speaker 1 1:56:41

All I can say is I like the casting of Lois and Clark.

Speaker 2 1:56:45

Sure Sure.

Speaker 1 1:56:46

Especially Lois.

Speaker 2 1:56:47

Well, I'm Lois looks great. I'm not a hundred percent sold on this David corn sweating, or whatever his name is at this point.

Speaker 1 1:56:55

How about Brandon Ralph?

Speaker 2 1:56:57

Yes, I unfortunately I did not have time to rewatch Superman returns. It's been a while. I love superman returns. I think it is a wonderful, wonderful movie, so romantic, so loving, as a devote, a love letter to richard donner and the superman 1978 film. Yes, it's not perfect. Kate bosworth is a not a great lois lane.

Speaker 2 1:57:23

The plot is equally kevin spacey's a great lex luther oh, kevin spacey's a great lex luther but again it's a missed opportunity to do a different version of because we're doing the, the donner the gene hackman. You have to do a land grab, so we have to do that, so unfortunately we didn't get anything new there. Um, but like otherwise, I I enjoy the story and again, I like when we do new things with superman, like he gets married, uh, he has a child I those are interesting stories. How does, how does he play into, how does that play into his world?

Speaker 1 1:57:58

yeah, wrong, wrong. I love that scene. Yeah, no, no one more time when superman rolled it wrong. It's great. It's great. I remember that was in every trailer and it was a great moment and the movie has pacing issues and kevin spacey has been redeemed.

Speaker 1 1:58:13

You know redemption for total, uh, acquittal, right, yeah, complete exoneration of Kevin Spacey yeah, yeah, kevin Spacey's great in it. I don't know. The movie has pacing problems, in my opinion. Gets off to a really slow start, not in a boring way, but like, okay, what? I don't think every audience was clued into the idea that this was a sequel to Superman 2, right, they were expecting a new superman movie and like they were getting this sort of like fan film, right yeah, I think that that's what ultimately did the movie in and there's, there's yeah, I think there's enough action for my.

Speaker 2 1:58:53

For me I hadn't, I think it's enough but, like I think, for general audiences at the time, they needed to spice up the action. I think having it related to a film from the 70s significantly hurt it with younger audiences, unfortunately. I loved it.

Speaker 1 1:59:07

It would have been a great thing that you read about that someone was going to make and didn't, and you'd be like, oh, that'd be cool. You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 1:59:13

But it actually did get made right, I remember going to see this when it came out and I about lost my my shit when I saw the, heard the, the um, the john williams theme with the letters, but the same opening yeah, yes, I'm out on the screen and I nearly like pissed my pants.

Speaker 1 1:59:34

Okay, I was like, yeah, god they're because the real sad, the real sad part is that the the dilettante Lester, kicked that out of his comedy film and then they couldn't really reproduce it for the fourth one because they had to go cheap. Yeah Right, so you finally saw it again. But you know, honestly I don't think Brandon Routh was up to the task of Superman.

Speaker 2 1:59:58

I don't agree, Like the guy he seems like a good guy. I wish him well, but he was picked primarily because he looks like Christopher Reeve. That was really part of the but he doesn't uh, he does, but there's yeah. I don't think he's strong enough to carry the movie.

Speaker 1 2:00:16

And there's not enough.

Speaker 2 2:00:18

There's not enough strong supporting players to bounce off of, like in the first movie, how there's all these really really veteran actors who are pillars for the movie. Yes, and Christopher Reeve, although he's really good, but that was his first movie I don't know if it was the first movie exactly, but his breakout movie. He was not a star and so he has people to lean on. Brandon ralph really didn't have anyone to lean on other than kevin spacey, being like the one pillar of the movie, you know completely.

Speaker 2 2:00:48

Yeah, I'm 100 and I think kate bosworth bosworth is not in the league of margo kidder, you know no and she's kind of an I don't know a tv actress.

Speaker 1 2:00:59

Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know with and brandon routh. I remember at the time I was young, but yeah, he's from iowa, right, and they picked him because they wanted to and they had the premiere of the movie in iowa. Oh nice, um, yeah, and that was a very big to do. Back when I was a kid, I think they kind of saw it as a smallville style like tie in kind of thing, right, but um, and unfortunately introduce a lot of modern cynicism.

Speaker 2 2:01:26

Is is is in there too. Like Superman, he's back. Does he still stand for truth, justice, all that stuff? But what's the other stuff? What's the other stuff that they, they, didn't want to mention?

Speaker 1 2:01:37

Yeah, oh yeah yeah, oh yeah, you're right, well you know. And also the movie is just too dour and like, okay, superman is like constantly dying of kryptonite and like he's in the hospital and it's like 9 11 analogy and it's just like it's very mushy and I mean it works.

Speaker 2 2:01:53

It works for a lot of the problem.

Speaker 1 2:01:54

I mean that moment where kate bosworth kicks her heels off and steps on his feet to go flying is terrific, right, that's the romantic stuff is not my issue, but, like for me, it's like you set up this idea of a love triangle with a guy who's not a bad guy and a kid who, of course, is the typical hollywood mophead, fucking dumbass looking kid jack torrance, looking kid right and like um, or you know, danny torrance, by the way why is that like the default?

Speaker 1 2:02:19

little kid, I don't know but it's like where the fuck do you? I looked up like what would a superman 2 return to? Had been like and like they didn't really have a good idea. There's some, I hear, brainiac or whatever, but like we're gonna go with that plot and also is that you're gonna go with that I don't know.

Speaker 2 2:02:37

I mean, I think they missed an opportunity to do a new, fresh start, but like play off of some of the same things.

Speaker 1 2:02:44

And again.

Speaker 2 2:02:44

Why have we not done a movie where my ideal Superman movie is? You start with? You're on Krypton, You're at city of Kandor and all of a sudden, a dome comes over the city. It shrinks down and it's abducted by Brainiac.

Speaker 2 2:03:01

And then later on, the planet explodes. So you know that there's this city out there. Now brainiac comes to earth. There's a dome over metropolis. That's the plot of the movie is um, you know, brainiacs come to earth. Superman's gonna fight brainiac. He finds out that he also has the bottle study of candor on his ship. You have that connection to krypton. There's a lot of stuff going on. You can do all that. You can have the physical physicality fight with robot brainiac. You can have a cerebral fight with, like you know, green brainiac in his underpants. You know that one. But there's a. There's a lot of missed opportunities for these movies that unfortunately have never materialized, and man of Steel is a dumpster fire in a different regard.

Speaker 1 2:03:44

It's a terrible film. It's a horrible. I hate man of steel, an ugly, disgusting mess. I hate that film with every fiber of my being. Uh, a lot. I went to on a double date to that movie and the girls that we took thought we were fucking losers for dragging them to it because it was depressing and miserable.

Speaker 2 2:03:56

Superman returns, you know interesting idea 100, not executed 100. Well, I think, yes, I do agree. It falls apart by the end when they start building their ice continent with crystals and it's like what exactly are you gonna do with?

Speaker 1 2:04:15

who the fuck would want to live on that? Yeah, yeah and again.

Speaker 2 2:04:19

An opportunity to have a more sophisticated luther plot would have been welcome here. You know something that makes it not emma. I'm a maniacal um, homicidal maniac, like I'm bad, but my plan makes sense, you know sure, sure.

Speaker 1 2:04:35

Or to have another villain there, you know, some kind of big bad, whatever you want a physical villain for the fight too would have been, and to not tie it in so hard as a sequel because, like I was telling you before, oh, this is a sequel to superman 2.

Speaker 1 2:04:49

Oh really, because at the end of superman 2 a movie you supposedly love he drops the american flag off at the white house and says sorry I was gone, mr president, but I'll never leave again. And then we're meant to believe that superman left the earth for like seven fucking years to go look for krypton in a spaceship and then had a kid he didn't know about and then return.

Speaker 2 2:05:07

I mean, come on, let's stop and what are you looking for when you go to look for krypton? You know, do you not believe your uh, your father and your mother, when you spoke to them in the in the fortress, as ghosts or whatever holograms, that they told you the planet was destroyed? What do you think You're going to find it still intact? They lied to you, they got rid of you what are you going to find?

Speaker 1 2:05:26

I got to say Superman Returns is an excellent title. Right, it's a great title, but apparently somebody along the line thought that he had to return from somewhere, which he didn't really. It's like a thing to the audience.

Speaker 2 2:05:38

Yeah, it's like a thing to the audience. Yeah, that's silly, like Batman Returns. This just means he's back. Movie number two yeah, number two.

Speaker 1 2:05:49

Just start it with the same sort of status quo as the first two movies and the same kind of characters in place, but do a whole new thing.

Speaker 2 2:05:54

It also feels very old-fashioned in the way it looks. I like it.

Speaker 1 2:05:59

I like the way it looks. I like the art deco styling yeah, I like I don't know that that flies with a lot of modern audiences that they might think honestly you know, I don't know if it matched with the aesthetic of the first two movies, which was very much rooted in like hey, this is how things look in the 70s.

Speaker 2 2:06:16

Yeah, but superman is the throwback right, yeah, true, that's what doesn't make any sense of that, that incongruity as well. Yeah. Yeah, just a very interesting Brian Singer was was he really the right choice for this? You know, as someone who had done the X-Men films very well, I don't know. Ultimately, you know they never went anywhere with it. So it was a misfire phil bell for brandon ralph, though, and he eventually made a little comeback on tv and joined the the arrowverse as the atom, but he played superman again.

Speaker 1 2:06:55

On, on, on that, um, on those shows in a I watched that yeah and you know it had to be very difficult to be hyped up like you're going to be the biggest star. Now, okay, you're Superman, you signed a three-picture deal, it's going to be big, and then to be caught in that kind of between times before the Marvel Cinematic Universe when everyone decided they had to change their tune and then all of a sudden you're sort of this floating thing out there that I mean 2006, I mean two years later, iron man came out. They were still talking about when Superman yeah, the dark night, when Superman returns going to come out.

Speaker 2 2:07:29

It never did and we had to wait two, you know two years for another DC movie. In between that, you know, we had Batman return I mean Batman Begins in 2005, superman Returns in 2006, and then it's like nothing in 07, and 08, dark Night. And then we had to wait. What like? Oh no, we had Watchmen, but like not really. You know what was it like another four years until Dark Night Returns.

Speaker 1 2:07:54

Yeah, 2012.

Speaker 2 2:07:55

Or Dark Night Rises. I'm just making up titles now. I do agree. Agree about baby. The crime is that he abandoned x3 100. Yes, brian singer. Uh, would have. Would have at least made a great x3 at that point I agree, I think you would have.

Speaker 1 2:08:09

I think uh, yeah, well, dude, superman, do we do, we do it justice? Do we miss anything?

Speaker 2 2:08:17

no, I think. I think that's a pretty good um survey the franchise.

Speaker 1 2:08:21

It's just.

Speaker 2 2:08:22

I just it's such a criminal that it started out so wonderfully strong and then just died with a, with a whimper, not a bang, you know that they never.

Speaker 2 2:08:33

And unfortunately, because Christopher Reeve was was paralyzed in 95, you know, maybe he wanted a little break. He was still look good, he still looked great at that age, in 95. He could have made another superman movie in the wake of the batman films and said here's our comeback, let's do, let's give it another shot and make a good one to go out on. And it's just a shame because I mean, poor guy died so young truly tragic what his life turned into.

Speaker 1 2:09:00

And you know what, too, I think, in addition to Superman, after watching Somewhere in Time, that's a movie that is very sad. Have you ever seen it?

Speaker 2 2:09:12

No, I have not.

Speaker 1 2:09:13

Well, I would encourage you to watch it. I think it's good.

Speaker 1 2:09:16

It also makes you feel sad for Christopher Reeve losing his legs and prematurely dying. It's another quintessential movie of his. It kind of cements him as a great actor. That kind of got typecast as Superman, and the unfortunate thing is that he was typecast as Superman but then forced to be a fucking joke in part three and then was made a joke by the public for something that was completely out of his control, which was the budget being slashed out of the bottom of him on Superman 4, which is a shame.

Speaker 2 2:09:47

It is, it is.

Speaker 1 2:09:49

He'll always be my Superman.

Speaker 2 2:09:51

What a great guy, though, too, that he felt a sense of obligation to the character and the franchise that he even was willing to do, even in his poor health, to do those guest appearances on Smallville very shortly before he died.

Speaker 2 2:10:05

Yes, very shortly before his death he guest starred on multiple episodes of Smallville and he's in the wheelchair, he's got the tracheostomy and all that, yeah, and he's there. He played a character called Virgil Swan, who was like a professor who had information about Krypton that he shared with a young tom welling. Really, yeah, and I think he wanted to do more and then unfortunately he passed away. Um, and they had they mentioned it later in the show that the dr swan had died as well, you know oh it was a big deal.

Speaker 2 2:10:37

That was a huge deal at the time when Christopher Reeve was going to guest star on Smallville To really legitimize that show. At that point it was still pretty early on, I don't remember if it was year two or three.

Speaker 1 2:10:51

Oh really, I'll have to look that up after this. Oh, and Margot Kidder was in it too. I'm hearing from Boss Baby in the chat. Also, lee Howellell, thank you for the compliment.

Speaker 2 2:11:01

I appreciate that, and yes, gabe was in where, in somewhere in time or in or in, I don't remember that I don't remember.

Speaker 1 2:11:14

I didn't think she actually made it on margo kidder and in brian de palma's sisters, a complete babe.

Speaker 2 2:11:21

So hot, oh, she did. Okay, I totally forgot that she was also in there. Okay, my bad, really that's cool. I know they tried to get Gene Hackman, but he wanted too much money, which was ridiculous.

Speaker 1 2:11:32

I mean come on.

Speaker 2 2:11:34

He was a has-been at that time. What Gene Hackman was never a has-been In, like he was making Welcome to Mooseport man. Come on, he was definitely a has-been.

Speaker 1 2:11:45

Oh, Welcome to Mooseport.

Speaker 2 2:11:47

Did you ever see that with Ray Romano? I?

Speaker 1 2:11:50

saw the DVD of that I was just like what the fuck is this? I love Gene Hackman, though I love Gene Hackman. Oh, of course he was great, I'm a hack, a maniac.

Speaker 2 2:11:59

I feel like that Superman and Superman two, that's like kind of the end of his huge superstardom, though Like is that not the pinnacle? And then it was kind of oh no, dude, come on.

Speaker 1 2:12:11

I mean, he was an unforgiven, he was in the firm.

Speaker 2 2:12:15

That was. Oh, the firm was in the nineties man, Okay man, Okay so.

Speaker 1 2:12:17

Hoosiers, he was in Crimson Tide. Oh, he's getting absolutely power the Royal. Tenenbaums, the replacements, come on.

Speaker 2 2:12:26

There's not like the French connection level no way out.

Speaker 1 2:12:30

But he was very much an elder statesman.

Speaker 2 2:12:32

Yes, I really do like him in the firm. The firm is an excellent movie.

Speaker 1 2:12:37

No way out. It's a pretty good movie too.

Speaker 2 2:12:44

And no way out's. A pretty good movie too with uh and uh. Didn't he do the other um legal thriller like um?

Speaker 1 2:12:47

a runaway jury. Isn't he in that too, I?

Speaker 2 2:12:48

have not seen that in like 2004 or so dude.

Speaker 1 2:12:50

The guys, the guys rock and he he made a million great movies. Mississippi burning is good enemy of the state with will smith he's still alive too. Yeah, yeah, he just quit acting. He just quit okay. There was something about like uh, someone saw him at a gas station. The new york post was like unrecognizable, disgusting gene hackney. He's like. He's like 100 years old, yeah they've given him shit.

Speaker 2 2:13:15

Man, he's 94, yeah he just like he retired.

Speaker 1 2:13:17

He served in the marines.

Speaker 2 2:13:17

He did the sean connery thing where he just like quit, you know, I mean that was sad the Sean Connery thing where he just quit. That was sad about Sean Connery after League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Speaker 1 2:13:27

That's a bad one to go out on.

Speaker 2 2:13:29

It's not so bad. Come on, I loved that. When it came out, I thought it was a fantastic movie.

Speaker 1 2:13:35

Sure, you did.

Speaker 2 2:13:36

I was like 12. I enjoyed watching 1 and two again.

Speaker 1 2:13:46

You know I enjoyed watching three. Sorry, there were things I liked about it. There's three and four and Supergirl too. There was a lot to like in all of these movies. There's a lot to if you know, if you're a real lover of this kind of you know, pop, 80s cinema. There's something to like in all of these, you know and, like I said, I I don't think.

Speaker 2 2:14:05

Oh, the conversation is an excellent film.

Speaker 1 2:14:08

Yes, I agree the conversation is awesome, night moves.

Speaker 2 2:14:10

Night moves is awesome um like I said, I don't think we would have. Well, you know, batman is is also hugely responsible for our modern superhero sensibilities too. But I don't think we would have gotten Batman 1989 without Superman 1978. There was no way that that movie would have happened. So, even though we went through that downslope with ending on Superman IV, batman 89 brought it back up, raised the bar again, and even though we went down again with Batman and Robin you know we ebb and flow at the times- it's almost amazing that this came out two years before Tim Burton's Batman.

Speaker 2 2:14:50

I know that's crazy. It feels like a totally different universe.

Speaker 1 2:14:53

Yeah, yeah, I know.

Speaker 2 2:14:58

That's why I wish there had been a 90s Superman movie, not the one that, whatever.

Speaker 1 2:15:04

Not the Nicolas Cage.

Speaker 2 2:15:06

With Nicolas Cage and the giant spider robot.

Speaker 1 2:15:08

Not the giant spider.

Speaker 2 2:15:10

No, that's lame. We could have had a nice Christopher. Reeve Superman 5.

Speaker 1 2:15:17

You know, let's give it one more. What's one song?

Speaker 2 2:15:21

Richard Donner could have come back. He was still making legal weapon movies at that point. You know, absolutely, we can do a song, song movie of Superman and give, give everyone a nice movie to, to say this is our, this is our last one. Let's make a good one.

Speaker 1 2:15:36

That'd have been sweet.

Speaker 2 2:15:38

I know it would have been amazing. That'd have been sweet.

Speaker 1 2:15:39

I know it would have been amazing. It would have been amazing if you could have not had Richard Lester direct part three, and if the Golem and Globus hadn't cut out the budget by 15 million because they owed money to like fucking gambling sharks in, like, you know, mesopotamia or whatever, and you could have had a budget for four.

Speaker 2 2:15:57

Well, it's interesting, If you listen to Donner's commentary on either one or the Donner cut of two, he's like, yeah, we were all in on making. After we finished one and two, we were like let's make three and four back to back.

Speaker 1 2:16:10

No way.

Speaker 2 2:16:11

I would have kept doing it, for sure.

Speaker 1 2:16:15

What an amazing. This is like as big of a loss as we know what we're going to fire John Milius after Conan won. Yeah, just like as a big of a loss as, uh, we know we're gonna fire john millius after conan won yeah yeah, he had two and three lined up.

Speaker 2 2:16:24

That would have been one of the great trilogies of the yeah, but instead we had to go and donner and bankowitz were like yeah, we'll, we'll do three and four and we'll get. We'll get chris, we'll get chris and margo and everybody to like to come on, you know, keep going. He's like who knows how many we would have made that could have been you know allowed to do it, and I'm sure they would have been much more wildly successful than than three and four yeah, could have been yes and yes in the flash movie they do have a cgi, nick cage fighting a giant spider.

Speaker 1 2:16:57

It's like uh less said about that movie, the better well, hey guys, thanks for tuning into the show. That's cool. We had a lively chat tonight.

Speaker 2 2:17:07

That's always fun I'm glad, uh, hopefully we'll uh get some, get some buzz going at this one what's our next show, so I'm going to be busy for the rest of the month.

Speaker 1 2:17:16

Guys, I apologize, there's probably not going to be a lot of content coming out of my youtube channel. Here I'm making a motion picture and I have to film it, so you're one of those so you're one of those youtubers movie movie youtubers. That's a failed filmmaker, all right I'm a failed filmmaker, youtube critic, right well, if you just think it's so easy once you make a movie.

Speaker 2 2:17:38

So are you gonna go soft and not?

Speaker 1 2:17:40

um not criticize other movies like chris stuckman, I realize now how hard it is to make a movie and so I'm only gonna give positive notes. Here's the reason. My movie is gonna be a c plus movie. Now, it's gonna be good, you're gonna want to see it, but it is sort of like, uh, it'll be the ravings of kind of a madman and it'll be. You know, I'm okay if you guys criticize it and say, hey, this movie makes no sense or it's all over the place or it's self indulgent. Just don't give me shit. If people's hairdos don't match from scene to scene because it's taken me five fucking years to make this movie, that's not helpful criticism, but it'll be. The only reason this movie is bad is because of me and it's my fault. So like, yeah, I have no, I have no compunction about criticizing other people's movies, because I realize now, after having made one, that how you make a bad movie is by not being prepared for certain scenes or going off your first draft and rewriting it seven times.

Speaker 1 2:18:37

So criticize away but I'll be busy doing that for the rest of the month. Yeah, I think it's going to be good. I'm pretty proud of it. I'm happy. It's the kind of thing I wanted to make and see, and if you don't like it, then that's fine, not your thing.

Speaker 2 2:18:52

So, uh, as I, as I future live stream would be the psycho series yeah, I'm all in for that um one through four, plus the gust fancing the gust fanciant remake. Um that's so. That's a potential one right there. Um the omen. I don't want to only do horror, though. We need to find something else, but the horror.

Speaker 1 2:19:15

honestly, as far as, like, my channel goes, uh, it's, it's horror, it's. It's it's Halloween, september one, right, we might as well. And then I I was speaking to a special guest who, um, I haven't told you about this yet, but I talked to a guy who I wanted to get on our live stream. Okay, who wants to do? Uh, jalo.

Speaker 2 2:19:37

Oh that, oh, that would be great, he's picked four.

Speaker 1 2:19:43

Do you need some time to prepare for that, though? Because I, yeah same. He gave me a good recommendation for a book and he was like let me pick four of the greats by four of the great directors.

Speaker 2 2:19:49

Okay, you know, and uh he's a good limited experience with this.

Speaker 1 2:19:54

I've seen a lot of a few argento and fulci, but there's a lot there's a lot out there he messaged me and I'm like, well, I'd like to get you on the show. And he's like, I'm like, what would you want to do? And he was like, how about jala? I'm like, well, I've seen tenebrae and suspiria, inferno and blood and black lace and bava stuff and but, yeah, yeah, I'm kind of interested in like getting into it.

Speaker 2 2:20:18

So yeah for sure. Also, don't forget, we had talked with another guest about doing a live. He's in the chat.

Speaker 1 2:20:26

What's up?

Speaker 2 2:20:27

To talk about from beyond, gordon's From Beyond and possibly some Twilight Zone.

Speaker 1 2:20:36

After July it's going to be horror all the way down for a long time. That's fine, we're good with that. We always think of something else.

Speaker 2 2:20:42

We're good, we. You know, I always think of something else, but uh, you know, we did three shows on hammer, you know. Yeah, hitchcock's always a great topic, although we might sound like, uh, you know total. Uh, neophytes just listen to like the um you ever listen to the uh, william friedkin commentary on vertigo.

Speaker 1 2:21:06

Oh yeah yeah, that's great vertigo. It's very good. And then, like I heard him talking shit about it, like in another interview, I'm like you get a fucking audio commentary for it.

Speaker 2 2:21:12

You don't like it oh my god, I I just love his voice. It's just me too. Yeah, I believe vince Foster was murdered yeah, he was the best.

Speaker 1 2:21:22

He said that one time. Yeah, but he's the best RIP.

Speaker 2 2:21:28

RIP Chris for. Reeve alright happy 4th of July. Happy everyone. Have a nice time and we'll see you hopefully soon love it.

Speaker 1 2:21:40

Thanks, buddy goodnight.