Posts Tagged ‘superman’
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Superman III Clark & Lana Reunion | Heavily-edited video that I uploaded to YouTube
November 13th, 2009 |Posted In: 3
Here are my comments for the video that I posted on YouTube yesterday, with some more details:
Basically, here’s my heavily-edited remix of Clark meeting Lana again in Superman III, an absolutely dreadful movie, and quite possibly the worst of the Superman series (although still better than ‘Superman Returns’). There were two defining moments in Superman III for me: the “Evil Superman vs. Clark” sequence, which was just the greatest, and the sub-plot of Clark meeting Lana again. The rest of the film, featuring Robert Vaughn and Richard Pryor, was just terrible. In this clip, I’ve removed all of the extraneous characters such as Brad and Ricky, and instead presented this reunion the way I would have liked to have seen it, but no matter how I rework this, the ending was still horrible and nothing could really be done about it.
The Clark/Lana meeting could have been done so much better, as this was such a genuine reunion of two characters with a wonderful chemistry together (more so than Clark and Lois). I can only go so far with the material because the picnic sequence had a terrible ending in the film, so I just crop the video with some comments and music at that point. Ken Thorne did a great job with the music for these scenes, particularly the picnic.
I really could not stand characters like Brad, the unlikable drunk, who occupied far too much of this film, so I completely wiped him out of this clip. The fact that he was in Smallville, entrusted to guard some insanely powerful computer system, is totally beyond reason, and how/why does he show up again at the end of the film? (in Metropolis?)
Likewise, I felt that the Ricky character was just another unlikable character basically added to the script for young viewers to “identify” with, but ultimately he served no real purpose other than to be irritating.
Superman III suffered from a LOT of problems above and beyond just the writing. There was far too much profanity, adult content, and lack of it’s consistency. But at the core of it, here was a genuine reunion of two characters, Clark and Lana, that really had a lot of potential, but was never really developed as well as it could have been. After the picnic, and the downhill slope of the film, Clark gives Lana a new ring, but any any all romantic element seems to have vanished between the two. The ring is little more than a nice gesture from an old friend.
Interesting too was how Lois was completely diminished in this film. I did NOT care for her character in the first place, so this wasn’t much of a negative, but I find it curious how quick Clark was to dismiss Lois during the Reunion cleanup sequence with Lana. I did not like the “romantic” sub-plot of Superman I or II (it made me uncomfortable more than anything. Margot Kidder sounds like she’s smoked a pack of cigarettes prior to any dialog she delivers… what is the attraction here?) Likewise the woman from Superman IV – I can’t even remember her name, but there was no real chemistry there between her and Clark, and again, it’s curious that Lois was just a background character in that film as well. Superman III was the only film in which the romantic sub-plot seemed at all genuine, and it figures, it was ruined in the film.
Wow, I’ve wasted too much time on this. I need to get back to drawing. I had an idea for a longer remix, featuring sequences taken from all 4 films. The story would be that General Zod and crew defeat Superman (I would have used the scenes of Zod and friends blowing away the helicopters, etc, but cut in Superman) and, once defeated, Superman would shake his head tearfully doing the “no…no…” thing. They’d all travel to the Fortress, and Superman would have his powers removed and bow to Zod. The story would then pick up with Clark re-meeting Lana (similar to how it happens in this clip) and then a news article would describe a kryptonite meteorite landing on Zod and friends, wiping them all out ironically. Yeah, now that I write out the idea, that sounds really lame and I’m glad I never bothered with it.
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Superman IV is so awful for so many reasons, but it does have it’s charm. Here’s my favorite line from the film, spoken back in Smallville at the Kent farm, as good ol’ Mr. Hornsby has just finished talking with Clark about his stubborn refusal to sell the farmland.
Mr. Hornsby: “You be careful when you get back to metropolis, Clark. It’s a long, long way from where you were born.”
Clark Kent: “Yes Sir. I never forget that Sir.”
So when I’m at the supermarket (generally Super Walmart, an empire that has banked countless thousands from me over the years) and I’ve unloaded my bags into the trunk, I return the cart to the cart collector thing (whatever it’s called) and, when I’m nearing the cart collector, I generally give the cart a push and pretend that I’m Superman, yes, Superman, saving the French folks of Paris, but instead of being a bomb in an elevator, it’s a horrendously-heavy and deadly shopping cart that needs to be pushed into space… Yeah!
So I’ve been rewatching the somewhat silly film ‘Superman II’ which, at age 10, seemed a lot more convincing than it did now. I see it now, and it’s just plain goofy. And not quite appropriate with children: what’s the deal with the ridiculously inappropriate Lois Lane-relationship thing occupying far too much of this film?
Anyhow, it’s no secret that I really did NOT like “Superman Returns”. I watched it once, hated the story and the music, then tried ONE MORE time to get through it and couldn’t. I just didn’t care so I stopped it. But one thing that stood out to me just now was a glaring inconsistency with Superman II and Superman Returns, both of which supposedly take place back to back (and I can’t fault Bryan Singer for wiping out Superman III and IV from the continuity, although I am partial to IV simply for cheesiness value.) Superman II ends with Superman’s final dialog to the President of, “Sorry I’ve been away so long… I won’t let you down again…” then he flies off and smiles for the camera.
In Superman Returns, however, Superman decided to ditch the earth and spend 5 years looking for the lost planet Krypton. So apparently the whole “sorry I was away” thing and the “I won’t let you down again” thing was just a bunch fo bologna for Singer’s story, even though Superman Returns supposedly follows RIGHT after this? So, what happened? Why did Superman tell such a ridiculous mistruth to the US President? And why am I over-analyzing this silly (II) and awful (Returns) pair of films?
I just found the “4 Film Favorites: Superman” at Target, for around $9. Not bad considering you get all 4 films bundled together, with a couple extras on each disk, too.
I’ve been rewatching some of these, with ‘Superman I’ being the best, ‘Superman II’ decent, ‘Superman III’ laughable, and ‘Superman IV’ being atrocious yet entertaining (and it’s worth noting that Superman III and IV, for all of their massive faults and silliness, still trump ‘Superman Returns’ any day of the week.) The constant of all of these, that keeps them so watchable, is Christopher Reeve. It’s like, no matter how ridiculous the story, the special effects, the other actor’s acting, etc, Christopher Reeve just makes the film good. Everything about him just looks like Superman.
I’ll probably write some reviews of these along the way. This collection is good for the price.
The library (my favorite source of ALL media) recently ordered a copy of ‘Superman: Doomsday’ for me to check out, and I wanted to write out a few thoughts about this.First and foremost about this, I was disappointed by the inclusion of language and violence in this film. Granted, it’s mild by Hollywood standards today, but all the same, seeing Doomsday actually KILL civilians just didn’t seem right in an animated Superman story. I was surprised that they chose to do this as a PG-13 film – I can only assume they were aiming at an older audience (or an audience that gets it’s jollys from watching iconic childhood heroes turn more violent.) As far as the story goes, it was passable, although we have virtually NO background on Doomsday. He just shows up, fights Superman to the death, and dies in the process. Just a little more background on him, and what made him so powerful, would have been appreciated.
The film sortof follows what you would expect, if you followed the ‘Death of Superman’ stuff in the comics: Superman fights Doomsday, dies, then returns. But here, he never really dies, but just got… really weak or something? Also, there isn’t any of the story involving Steel, Superboy, etc, and the Cyborg idea was sortof reworked as a Superman clone idea instead (a brainchild of Lex Luthor, of course.)
The animation is fine, although the excessive jaw-sizes and eyebrows that slope BELOW the eyelines… I dunno, I find that a little ridiculous. In fact, with so much of the battle sequences, they just seem to have that shallow fakeness of watching Star Wars CG clones battling. After awhile, it just gets sortof tiring. The music is forgettable: no mention of John Williams’ thematic material (not that it would have helped much.)
Superman is battling Doomsday and, at one point, soars into the sky above the earth, in order to return and slam Doomsday into the earth. Clearly aiming for a deathblow with this maneuver, I’m wondering: why wouldn’t Superman just hurl Doomsday into the sun? Or why not the void of space? Superman was aware of the casualties by this point, and clearly by this point in the fight, he knew he was equally matched, if not outmatched. Why not avoid any more risk of death and just end the fight by plunging Doomsday into the sun?
Ah well. Interesting fare, but I wish they had aimed at an all-audience viewership and removed the death and profanity.
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