Gilbert Gottfried as Mr Mxyzptlk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrxF6afT_YI

This same modern cynicism is why all later film-makers after Donner have had such trouble saying those simple words, “The American Way.” It just isn’t done among their ilk to celebrate America unabashedly, or give it credit when that credit is due.

And some people wonder why TOP GUN: MAVERICK did such massive box office.

Normies were starving for *that* message at the box office. Tom Cruise delivered.

sippin_bourbon wrote (about the 2013 Man of Steel): “It tends to paint Superman in the same vein as the Greek and Roman gods.”

I haven’t seen the film, but my response would be that, no matter how well this worked in the film, Superman is NOT a Greek or Roman god. Similarly, the grittiness that Richard M noted in this movie is also inappropriate for the Superman legend.

Superman is an American myth, which means he reflects unashamedly the exuberant and often naively idealistic and hopeful dreams of our nation. The U.S. might not be as innocent or as hopeful as it was when Superman first appeared in the mid-20th century, but the heart and soul remains the same. The poison comes from those who reject our culture, and are aggressively working to destroy it.

In that sense, the 2013 film is part of that destroying crowd, as it acts against the myth, in order to slam it. This does not mean it isn’t a good (or even great film), but this approach means it is a failure in telling the myth.

This same modern cynicism is why all later film-makers after Donner have had such trouble saying those simple words, “The American Way.” It just isn’t done among their ilk to celebrate America unabashedly, or give it credit when that credit is due.

Richard M;
I find you always have helpful shared cultural reference tidbits & factoids!

Both of those Serials are available at the Archive, stream or download individual chapters at your leisure. (The transfers are pretty good.)

https://archive.org/details/superman-1948_202205

They also have the Batman Serials from 1943 & 1949, both of which were very popular and re-released twice into the late 50’s. (The 1960’s TV version went totally off the rails.)

(Part of the cultural backdrop of both the evolution of Superman & Batman, in part; Comic books in-general were blamed for causing juvenile delinquency in kids in the mid 1950’s. Stories drastically changed, de facto
censorship prevailed; creators came and went, and DC became part of a conglomerate.)

However, you failed to mention that the 2006 version changed Superman’s values to “truth, justice, and all that stuff,” which turned me off, and I have abandoned DC for allowing that to happen.

No, you’re right, I really ought to have underlined that. That’s how forgettable the movie was for me, alas. But it’s another signpost on the road of Hollywood’s deconstruction of the Man of Steel.

I think Snyder is a libertarian, which might explain why he was thrown over.

I am sure it did not help. But I suspect it was as much the fact that Snyder’s DC films underperformed at the box office, and once Discovery bought Warner in 2022, their CEO wanted to bring in a new guy to run the franchise. Snyder was out, and Gunn was in.

Unfortunately, that also meant throwing overboard stars that fans actually liked in the roles of Superman (Cavill), Wonder Woman (Gadot), and Batman (Affleck), even if the films they played did not always work as well as they deserved. (We are pretending that Ezra Miller does not exist.)

Whatever his politics, I think Zack Snyder has some genuine talent and vision, but he was just the wrong guy to do a Superman movie. You can get away with making Batman grittier. But not Superman.

Richard M.;
Also add:
Kirk Alyn who played Superman in 2 popular Columbia Pictures 15-part Serials; the 1948 “Superman” & 1950 “Atom Man Vs. Superman.”

Clearly I did not dig deep enough!

I guess that makes EIGHT attempts to bring Superman to the screen.

Thanks for the catch.

Richard M: For those like me, who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s reading Superman in the DC comics drawn by Curt Swan, that 1978 movie was a masterpiece. Donner captured perfectly that artist’s vision, which of course made the movie all the more magical.

I agree, Bob! It holds up well even now. Maybe younger viewers (Gen Z) look at it differently. But I think you are right that this is the Superman against which all others must be measured. Great cast, great script, great direction, and really captures Golden Age Superman and what he stands for.

Lois and Clark really was dominated by the message…the 1990’s FLASH even moreso, but the actor and suit dead on.

I could easily overlook Clooney’s politics–he was perfect as an astronaut in GRAVITY.

I’ve heard so many mixed reviews about Gunn’s Superman that I just might check it. But it’ll have to wait until I’ve seen Mission Impossible 8 and 28 Years Later.

Please note that as of 10:34am Eastern, Apple happens to have a sale on the 4K download of “Superman the Movie”: $4.99 (plus tax)

However, you failed to mention that the 2006 version changed Superman’s values to “truth, justice, and all that stuff,” which turned me off, and I have abandoned DC for allowing that to happen. I didn’t see that movie or any Superman movie since (other than Reeves’s).

It tends to paint Superman in the same vein as the Greek and Roman gods. Powerful, gifted, but still burdened with human wants and needs, frailties and most importantly, human flaws. And I thought the general population’s reaction of fear first to be the most realistic. compared the instant love and adoration of the masses from earlier versions.

In Man of Steel, he struggles with acceptance, but at the right time still risks everything for others, not because he is Superman, or because he is driven by some other worldly sense of justice, instead he acts when necessary, because that is what any good man would do. Or any man, if he wants to call himself a man, hopes he would do if he were there, at that moment. As such, he is still inspires in the way the character was always meant to inspire.

it even bombs in China.

Superman: The Animated Series has the best Luthor (Clancy Brown) and has Michael Ironside (Revok from SCANNERS) voicing Darkseid.

The movie is apparently symbolically illustrating the Trump / Israel alignment and the oppression and evil and inequity that they both foster in the world.

He was not a fan.

Pure woke Hollywood Bull Crap by his telling.

“progressives” will die before they make any adjustment to their perspective.

So be it.

MORE GOOD NEWS FOR TRUMP AND THE REPUBLICANS

https://www.sigma3ioc.com/post/more-good-news-for-trump-and-the-republican-party

3 Doors Down
Kryptonite (2000)
https://youtu.be/xPU8OAjjS4k?list=RDxPU8OAjjS4k
3:54

All of the movies and tv shows (up till this one) have been great. Even the off shoots were pretty good.

But since i was a teen I have always had the idea that superman was pretty much too super. Too perfect and too powerful. He removed the need for any other super hero.

I also have a problem with the whole idea of superheros. They displace the need for “normal” hero’s in peoples minds. We would eventually come to rely on them totally.

But they are all great fun and fantasy in all forms.

My Theory on “Who Generally Likes Which Version,” that I apply to Batman, Superman, Dr. WHO, and Star Trek is; depends on which version you grew up with. Sorta’ sets an anchor by which one measures all other versions. (if ya’ live long enough, they wreck everything….)

The Kinks
(Wish I could Fly Like) Superman
https://youtu.be/TfZ4o9JYpOM?list=RDTfZ4o9JYpOM
(6:07)

Richard M: I should add that the 1950s George Reeves show was entirely focused on catering to kids, which partly explains the style. This was cheap and innocent TV at the time, with audience assumed generally to be under the age of 12.

Donner accepted enthusiastically much of that show’s essence, but then gave his movie some depth to appeal to adults (many of whom were like me, kids who liked the TV show but who wished now as adults for a comparable version upgraded for them).

Richard M: For those like me, who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s reading Superman in the DC comics drawn by Curt Swan, that 1978 movie was a masterpiece. Donner captured perfectly that artist’s vision, which of course made the movie all the more magical.

1) George Reeves’ Adventures of Superman (TV & film), 1951-58. Reeves’s Superman is everything you say in regards to the values and worldview he embodies, and laudable for all that. Speaking as a Gen Xer, however, I confess that I struggle to appreciate the George Reeves’ productions, because of the limitations of the writing and direction and very poorly aged production values. But that is not Reeves’ fault.

2) Christopher Reeve’s Superman (film), 1978-87. I recall so well seeing the first movie in the theaters as a wee tike, and for some reason the scene where Margot Kidder’s Lois has Supertramp’s “Give a little bit” playing on the car radio as she is wiped out, and then saved, from Luthor’s earthquake thanks to Superman reversing time burned into my brain for all time. Reeve’s Superman is a kind of secular Christ figure, and it somehow works beautifully thanks to Richard Donner’s direction, Gene Hackman’s hyper-charismatic Lex Luthor, and the fact that Christopher Reeve was just born to play this role. A 70’s film without any 70’s malaise, and I think that’s why it did so well at the box office: Americans were hungry for that by that point. Superman II was merely good, and the remaining two Reeve Superman movies were forgettable or worse, including the terrible aftertaste of the first attempt to inject progressive politics into Superman (Superman IV: The Quest for Peace), which fell rightly flat at the height of Reagan’s America.

3) Lois & Clark (TV), 1994-97. Superman IV aside, this is where the worm starts turning. Lois & Clark was a decent TV series, well cast, but it feels like more of a TV melodrama than a superhero production. It doesn’t subvert Superman values but it does move them to the background, in search of a more female audience demo, which it found.

4) Superman Returns (film), 2006. If you forgot about this movie, no one will blame you. Brandon Routh is cast as Superman almost purely due to his superficial resemblance to Christopher Reeve, and the whole thing is an attempt by Bryan Singer to do a straight up sequel to the Reeve films, only without much of a script, a hackneyed love triangle, a physics- and engineering-defying aircraft launched Space Shuttle, and a Kevin-Spacey Lex Luthor who is more cynical than Hackman and yet still manages to completely overshadow Routh because, well, he’s Kevin Spacey and Brandon Routh is Brandon Routh. SUPERMAN RETURNS does not subvert traditional American values outright, but it seems largely indifferent to them.

5) Man of Steel (film), 2013. Henry Caville takes a turn in the role in this and four subsequent DC Extended Universe movies in 2013-23, but only as a stand-alone in the first. I’d like to say that Caville is best (and best-looking) actor ever given the role, which, despite being an Englishman, he seemed born to play; the problem is, MAN OF STEEL is not actually a Superman movie, but a gritty genre subversion of the sort Zack Snyder lives to do. It actually sorta works as a genre subversion, just not as a Superman movie, Here, Superman is loathed and feared by Americans as an omnipotent alien menace who could kill us in droves at any moment, which he actually proceeds to do at the climax of the movie when he manages to destroy much of Metropolis fighting General Zod. In the immediate sequel BATMAN V SUPERMAN, Ben Affleck’s Batman decides he has to kill Superman for just this reason, and you find yourself rooting for Batman to do just that.

6) Superman & Lois (TV), 2021-24. It’s a CW channel superhero series, which says just about all that needs to be said. It’s a Gen Z update of LOIS & CLARK, complete with a Lois suffering breast cancer, offspring which do and do not inherit Superman’s powers and fight with each other as a result, and manages to never actually utter the phrase “truth, justice and the American way.” Or maybe it does and I could not stand to watch enough of it to verify that.

7) Superman (film), 2025. I have yet to see this, and I am sure that if I do, it will wait until it’s streaming. The YT streamer Critical Drinker actually concludes that if you can get past James Gunn’s idiotic press commentary, this Superman is a “flawed but good-hearted man” and has a “refreshing lack of political agenda.” He doesn’t give it a thumbs up, because it’s just too forgettable and by-the-numbers….but Gunn didn’t do the movie’s box office draw any favors by trying to politicize it on the stump. He certainly didn’t make *me* want to go see it.