Superman: The Movie 4K UHD (1978)

[MovinRightAlong]

Originally Posted by IguanaSlip

No one who was working on Superman IV considered it "awful", Christopher Reeve in December 1986 said that he thinks they are close to making the best Superman movie.

Christopher Reeve also stated on several occasions that he was from Krypton, as if he was a man who made a living telling stories. It's literally straight from the Publicists Handbook that every sequel is the "best one yet!". And it was common knowledge if you want to keep getting work, don't slag off your current project before it has a chance to earn money. So of COURSE Reeve is going to tell the media that everything is Sunshine and Roses and this film is going to be the Best One Yet!!!

(Speaking of slagging off your own film, I just saw a Variety report that the upcoming Snow White "Red Carpet" Premiere WON'T have traditional Media access, it'll be held inside the theater with a studio-run interviewer so they can strictly control any public remarks by a certain star.)

While there's always multiple sides to a lot of Hollywood stories, you should never take as gospel anything said to help promote ticket sales.

[dubhousing]

In defense of Christopher Reeve, the anti-Cold War nuclear theme was his idea, I believe. I can imagine he had more personally invested in this one than III.

[Verisimilitude1984]

Originally Posted by dubhousing

I like that scene, to be honest. It's a bit of fun humor, with Clark's identity at risk.

And Superman flew off, taking most of the photo strip and not giving the kid any money!

Originally Posted by MovinRightAlong

While there's always multiple sides to a lot of Hollywood stories, you should never take as gospel anything said to help promote ticket sales.

I learnt that the hard way with James Cameron and the Terminator franchise.

[MovinRightAlong]

Originally Posted by NYorker

Superman IV is bad....what else is there to say? Christopher Reeve was burned enough from the experience making it that he nixed a possible Superman V because of it.

Did he? Did he really? Or is this a case of "you can't fire me because I quit"? Reeve was the one who "brought" (insisted?) on the whole anti-nuke concept in, so they could "say something", he wanted the film to have a "message", which, maybe the media reported it too much to the point it came off as preachy regardless of how the actual film handled the subject, YMMV.

At the end of the day, Cannon's financial woes aside, Reeve could have BEGGED to do a 5th and it likely wouldn't have been greenlit before Cannon went under. I was always given the impression that Cannon was very much over Christopher Reeve.

[MovinRightAlong]

Originally Posted by Verisimilitude1984

And Superman flew off, taking most of the photo strip and not giving the kid any money!

In the comic version, after depriving the kid of the photo's he'd spent his hard earned money on, Superman looked back at the kid and used his super-breath to waft a fart at him. But maybe I misremember that part.

[Verisimilitude1984]

Originally Posted by MovinRightAlong

In the comic version, after depriving the kid of the photo's he'd spent his hard earned money on, Superman looked back at the kid and used his super-breath to waft a fart at him. But maybe I misremember that part.

Lol, it wouldn’t surprise me. I mean, perhaps it’s the next power after staring at a wall and being a bricklayer through telekinesis?

[MovinRightAlong]

Well, since we're talking 3 & 4, I'll add in my 2 cents.

I like 3. It's not perfect, it has a lot of flaws, but seeing it as a kid, it was fun for parts of it. Richard Pryor is sorely out of place here, but that damage is long done, and as a kid, Robert Vaughn's scenes mostly bored me until the end, he just wasn't the same caliber as Hackman. The Superman vs himself fight is always great. I liked the Lana scenes, and I loved the scenes of "Lana" even more when I saw her in "Cat People", if you know what I mean. But the end battle with the big computer is pretty enjoyable, I always loved the set they built, and the sister getting turned into a cyborg was the kind of fun I wanted out of a Superman film.

4 was just terrible. I was still a kid when I saw it, and even then it was just awful. Jon Cryer was a terrible substitute for Otis, and even today I still make fun of his terrible way of saying "Oh No", it was so memorably bad. As others have said, the story feels rather juvenile, and honestly, it was literally a child who set off the plot with his letter to Superman, so... The anti-nuke preaching was just terrible, like the film makers were just shaking their fist at the clouds for all the good it did. Nobody wanted to get blown up by a nuke, we sure didn't need Superman to tell us nukes were bad after he gets told by a child. It was good to see Hackman again, and of course Reeve delivers, but it's just not a good film, and it's entertainment value is way too sparse. That said, I'll watch it once every five years or so.

Now, with the upcoming Gunn Superman, hopefully we can get the 1978 version with it's upgraded master on UHD.

[HeavyHitter]

Funny as I was eleven when I saw Superman 3 at the theater. I was very disappointed even from the opening of the movie regarding the "spoofiness" about it. I had been expecting something on the level and tone of the first two movies. I felt this way for years, but finally came to accept it and look at it in a different light as something more comic book-like and can now dig it revisiting it periodically. 4 never worked for me in any way.

[MovinRightAlong]

Also, for 4, the repairing brick walls with eyes trick doesn't ruin the film any more than throwing plastic "S"'s, it the culmination of bad that ruins it. I can accept schlock like that if the rest of the film were better, like 2.

[MovinRightAlong]

Was it Donner or Lester that let us know Superman had visited the Fortress of Pound-Town by having Lois run around in Superman's shirt on the Morning After? Even as a kid I knew what that meant.

[Dr. T]

Originally Posted by MovinRightAlong

Was it Donner or Lester that let us know Superman had visited the Fortress of Pound-Town by having Lois run around in Superman's shirt on the Morning After? Even as a kid I knew what that meant.

Were you a kid in 2006 since that's only in "The Richard Donner Cut" because in that version Superman gives up his powers after bedding Lois. Donner filmed her in the shirt, but it was cut from the theatrical version for Lester's version which has him giving up his powers prior to them hooking up.

[Verisimilitude1984]

Originally Posted by Dr. T

Were you a kid in 2006 since that's only in "The Richard Donner Cut" because in that version Superman gives up his powers after bedding Lois. Donner filmed her in the shirt, but it was cut from the theatrical version for Lester's version which has him giving up his powers prior to them hooking up.

I remember reading that Margot Kidder felt that Lois and Superman shouldn’t have slept with one another.

I’ve nothing against it (although Superman Returns took it in a direction that wasn’t generally liked), although by the end of the film (particularly Lester’s version) it’s a definitive full stop on their romantic relationship. I remember watching Superman III with the Lana romantic subplot and thinking - don’t we already know this won’t work out?

[dubhousing]

Originally Posted by Verisimilitude1984

And Superman flew off, taking most of the photo strip and not giving the kid any money!

The kid gets a photo of Superman from the man himself. That's priceless.

[TylerDurden389]

Not defending S4 per se, but if anyone loves 80's new-wave, there's a lot of songs that were in the original cut of the film (45 minutes longer) that were never heard until they released a big box set of every soundtrack to all 4 Reeve-era Superman films back in like 2008 or something. Pretty good stuff if you like that kinda music from that time. One of the artists was a member of a new-wave band called "Reflex".

[MovinRightAlong]

Originally Posted by Dr. T

Were you a kid in 2006 since that's only in "The Richard Donner Cut" because in that version Superman gives up his powers after bedding Lois. Donner filmed her in the shirt, but it was cut from the theatrical version for Lester's version which has him giving up his powers prior to them hooking up.

If you read past "Fortress of Pound Town" without managing to clue in that I was cracking a joke, I really don't know what else to tell you.

[IguanaSlip]

Originally Posted by TylerDurden389

Not defending S4 per se

Come on, dude. Give the middle finger to the status quo once in a while and be a cool kid.
Anyways, I really do stand on the hill that Superman IV has the best soundtrack out of the 4 films. After having the first 3 movies mostly sounding the same due to constantly recreating the first movie's score, I appreciate how IV's music is the most serious-sounding and has a lot of variety, there was a big effort to make every track spine-chilling.
I really like the music for the Nuclear Man 1 fight (Nuke 1 Fight / Ashes), it's very epic, a cool blend of goofy and serious (and in it Superman's theme is the most triumphant it's ever been).

[Martoto]

My abiding memory of IV is that it was promoted to hell on TV. Every programme seemingly had a special look at it and loads of clips were shown, including the great wall, statue of liberty and moon battle. Then when I saw it I realised they had basically shown all the best bits. That was my first experience of that kind of thing and realised soon after that if they only give you a peak at one scene, the movie was probably going to be good. They showed the Venice boat scene on TV a ton before Last Crusade came out. But most of the rest of the movie was a complete surprise when I got to see it.

[dubhousing]

Originally Posted by TylerDurden389

Not defending S4 per se, but if anyone loves 80's new-wave, there's a lot of songs that were in the original cut of the film (45 minutes longer) that were never heard until they released a big box set of every soundtrack to all 4 Reeve-era Superman films back in like 2008 or something. Pretty good stuff if you like that kinda music from that time. One of the artists was a member of a new-wave band called "Reflex".

Since we are on the subject, Giorgio Moroder's soundtrack for Superman III has some great pop cuts, from Marshall Crenshaw, Chaka Kahn and (of all people) country star Roger Miller (basically playing new wave, and it's great!). The movie also uses classics by The Beatles and The Penguins (in the class reunion scene), which aren't on the soundtrack LP.

Crenshaw's track has never turned up on any of his own anthologies. You have to buy (or stream) the soundtrack to get it.

[Verisimilitude1984]

Originally Posted by dubhousing

Crenshaw's track has never turned up on any of his own anthologies. You have to buy (or stream) the soundtrack to get it.

It has - on a CD release in Japan from 1990. I own the cd

[dubhousing]

Originally Posted by Verisimilitude1984

It has - on a CD release in Japan from 1990. I own the cd

Nice!