Catashelf

Superman (1978). THE Movie.

a.k.a.: Superman – The Movie
a.k.a.:* Superman – Some might call it a Movie
a.k.a.: Superman – The Franchise even we couldn’t sink

Directed by: Richard “Dick” Donner
Actual Tagline: You’ll Believe a Man Can Fly!
More Realistic Tagline: You’ll Believe a Man Can Fly – If You’re Stoned.

Main cast:
Christopher Reeve (Superman/Clark Kent)
Jeff East (Young Clark Kent)
Margot Kidder (Lois Lane)
Marlon Brando (Jor-El)
Gene Hackman (Lex Luthor)
Maria Schell (Vond-Ah)
Terence Stamp (General Zod)
Susannah York (Lara)

Plot in one sentence:

An Alien, disguised as a human baby, invades Earth, where he grows up to develop multiple personality disorder, believing himself to be a shortsighted and uptight newspaper reporter or a flyboy in undies at times, and he suffers because his scruffy bride-to-be chooses brawn over brains, and he saves the world at least three times in two and a half hours.

Plot in pictures. Some sentences:

Krypton. In a galaxy far, far, far away, Don Corleone got a little baby boy. Lucky Luciano! Congratulazione! But the planet is doomed and will burst into a million itty bitty pieces within ten minutes from the opening creds. Lucky Us! Basta to Godfather sequels!

So Don Corleone and his wife, the late Barbarella, dress the baby in a gaudy supersuit and shoot him blindly into space in a little baby-spaceship, shaped exactly like a chestnut. Good parents do things like that for their little supertoddlers!

Luckily enough young Superbaby is found by the Waltons (almost, minus the 9 kids). Though Roseanne Barr and John Goodman read for the parts, ‘Dick’ Donner decided to give the roles to a more average couple.

Interesting factoid: Some civilizations apparently develop interstellar spacecraft before they invent diapers. Well, too late, anyway…

The little powerhouse quickly proves to be usable as a car-jack, can-opener, x-ray camera or high-frequency welder, making the Waltons realize his tremendous potential for being exploited as cheap labor.

But as young Superteen hits puberty, he runs away from his little home in Little Rock in Little Arkansas, building himself a fortress from ice-cubes (talk about square). There he creates a device that seems to be a cross between a cellphone and a Quija-board, allowing him to call his daddy, Don Corleone, who had been blown to bits earlier. Don’t think about it!

He attempts to commit suicide by freezing to death, but that fails on account of his immortality, so instead he decides to grow up and be a pulitzer -winning journalist. Since the Daily Planet isn’t one of those magazines that’d hire a hunk in skintight undies, he dresses exactly like Clark Kent. You can convince yourself of the super-perfectness of this super-camouflage to the left.

Lois is happily unaware of this little side plot, and not ever going to spot the true colours of her love. (Well, not until The Adventures of Lois and Clark twenty years later.) For some reason, Clark/Kal-El/Supie seems bothered by the fact that L.L. (all his girlfriends have those initials) prefers zooming around above New York to discussing his stamp collection. But let’s not forget he is an alien and not used to earthling rituals of reproduction.

Oops, I nearly forgot this side plot: He defeats Lex Luthor and saves Earth. Major achievement, given he is a super-powered, invincible alien, and Lex’ only superpower is male-pattern baldness.
The li’l Supie-Quiz: Below are all the actors that impersonated Lex Luthor over the years. Guess which one ‘Dick’ Donner picked for playing the big, bald evil crimelord who terrorizes the whole world?

In the end, he manages to land his dream job as replacement piece of track, decides to be celibate, and finds artistic fulfillment in drawing a funny webcomic about Aliens and Superheroes over at Comicgenesis. Happy End!

The FX:

This movie’s main claim to fame are supposed to be the FX, but let’s face it: The FX are really cheesy and were it even in 1978. I gotta know, after allI worked at the FX department! We just spent much of the budget for …errr… research. On an international basis, you know. Yes, surfboards were needed for that, sure – Nassau is an international hotspot for…uh, FX stuffies.
Nevertheless here is a closer look at the revolutionary techniques used in this production:

First Christopher Reeve was shot from above, standing on a blue platform and looking like he wanted to punch the cameraman.

Then some aerial footage of New York – in it’s role as Metropolis – replaces everything blue. We like to call it ‘Chroma Key’.

The test audience was not convinced. “That’s not flying!” Well, no progress without experiments, and no experiments without failures.

‘Dicky’ Donner got a little upset: “You blind, motherf****ing morons! This is supposed to be an FX extravaganza! Make that son of a b**** look like he’s really flying! Or I’ll personally bury each of you bloody beginners alive in the f***ing fortress of Ineptitude” That, and spittle. So we came up with a new idea the next day: We’d just change the colour of Supie’s supersuit a bit. To wit:

Our first , and obvious choice was a fresh lime-green. We had to drop that because Lex Luthor’s tuxedo had a greenish tint, too.

Orange made Cristopher’s nose look huge! Bad contrast with the deep blue hair, too. Yuck!

Now this was a bit too mellifluos for a tough superhero and the strongest man on Earth.

Hand-dyed Peruvian Wool just was ahead of the times. PC wasn’t in vogue, yet. And it itched like hell.

My ears still ring with Donner’s remark: “This f+++ing POS is in Technicolor, you pig-brains!” Good times, good times.

Then somebody showed up with a trendy new toy called Apple II and something called Photoshop 0.9. We ‘Strg-C;Strg-V’ed every single frame, made screengrabs, and voilá:

The Links:

Despite of it all, the Web is full of Superman sites. All the discussions regarding the choice of Brandon Routh for the new Superman alone would suffice to fill the library of Alexandria – if you collected them from all the Superman forums, printed them out on papyrus, and rebuilt the damn library. Here my picks:

The Superman Gallery Is the Numero Uno source for Superman images. And the webmaster, Pat Fullerton, does the same for Batman, James Bond and Laurel and Hardy. Navigation is a little old-fashioned, though, using four frames.

The Superman Homepage Steve Younis rules over the Superman Homepage, the fastest and most reliable Superman news site on the web. He and his competent co-writers dedicate their work to Andrew J. Gould, on of the first to bring Supie to the Web.

Superman through the Ages Is a little bit chaotic, very Web 1.0, but full of features. I recommend Superman’s Incredible Growing S

Superman TV Net A very colorful website about Superman on TV and the silver screen. It’s commercial emphasis is quite useful if you’re searching for Superman devotionalia.

Superman at the MegoMuseum Welcome to the new and improved Mego Museum! Site creator Scott Adams (no, not the Dilbert one) returned from a long hiatus to give the Museum a complete makeover. Browse through dozens of Superman action figures. Oh, how I’d like to have all the bendies.

The Superman Ultimate Collectors Edition The name of this 14 DVD Mega-box says it all. It contains Superman: The Movie (Four-Disc Collector’s Edition), Superman II (Two-Disc Special Edition) and “The Richard Donner Cut”, Superman III, Superman IV and Superman Returns (Two-Disc Special Editions). You could spend all day just watching all the specials, extras and featurettes.

The Superman Super Site Neil A. Cole is 125% Superman afficionado and collects everything Superman. And he is one of the Superman fans who likes Smallville, obvisiously. I recommend The 4 Metropolis

Conclusion:

As you’ve probably realized by now, I’m a Superman fan, and will never be able to forget Christopher Reeve. I was thirteen when I watched this movie for the first time and was totally blown away. Brandon did a good job on ‘Superman Returns’, though, and I hope the franchise will be kept alive.
The material that went into the creation of this satirical article was lovingly stolen together from all over the web, but I think I asked everyone I stole from. If I forgot you, or you changed your mind, let me know and I’ll remove your intellectual property immediately.

If you want to leave a comment, please use the corresponding article at my blog: The In-Sect