Yes, but Gerald Christopher, Dean Cain and Tom Welling are all fine. And Kirk Alyn died of natural causes.

I loved the original Superman and the first sequel. I still think its great and will remain great even if they make a new one. The only thing I really worry about now, is can they create a movie/actor relationship that will last? We don't need another Batman blunder where they change the lead every movie. If people are like me they hate to see an actor change and like the connection created with a stable core of actors. The "new" Superman should really be a no-name that is willing to go the long haul for the sake of the fans. I'm glad it's taking them awhile. Could you imagine if they would have picked Nick Cage? He would have been around for one movie, then left us all hanging. Sort of like how Ben Afleck is holding out on doing a second Daredevil. He stated that he fufilled his goal of wanting to play the Daredevil. Well, now we want more, and he's too big to care what the fans want. He got what he wanted from the movie. Another thought is about Tobey Maguire and how many people thought someone else should play Peter, like Jake Gyllenhaal. I actually believe Jake could have done better, but not now. Think of the box office failure for Spiderman 2 if they would've had a different actor playing Spiderman. For the rest of the life of Spiderman they better use Tobey and Kirsten. Like changing Harry Potter. It was tough enough seeing Dumbledore replace(unavoidable).

Anyway, I guess my feeling is that Superman was a great movie and if they plan to do it again they better find actors that will sign a contract binding them to the potential of sequels.

Superman - Great film and despite what some say, I think the cast was perfect. Hackman was a pretty damn good Luthor for the time it was filmed (tho', I think Smallville's Michael Rosebaum is now the perfect Luthor). Reeve and Kidder had on screen chemistry that cannot be matched ... And you can say it fell apart at the end, but I don't think it did. Why?

(1) It demostrated just how powerful Kal-El can be. He has always been extremely powerful, even in the comics.

(2) It demostrated the fact that he would disobey orders just to save mankind. He knew he wasn't suppose to change history, but he did.

All you people saying Spider-Man 2 is the single best comic film are just bandwagon fans (sorry!). It was good, I don't disagree, but it won't age near as well. It wasn't epic and Tobey was not near as convincing as Reeve .. I actually believed Reeve as Clark Kent in the original Superman, he had the facial emotions down, the physical acting down and when it came time to do something heroic, he had that down also..Tobey on the other hand, as the Peter Parker down, but not the Spiderman... Maybe it is because they have not gave him anything to work with, I mean, for the most part he is behind a mask, not saying a word and the rest of the time it's CGI. I just don't buy him as a clumbersome dork and a superhero at the same time.. I never will.

Superman 2 - You know, I love this film and always will, but it does have problems.. One is the fact that the Phantom Zone villians such as Zod have different powers than Kal-El. The TV series Smallville has addressed this in Season 2 and the general idea is that everyone from the planet Krypton have different powers when under a yellow sun.. I can actually buy that, but still, some of them (namely the finger pointing power) are far-fetched.. Another problem is the big giant 'S' shield , which I have never understood.. Oh and the "super-kiss", though as another poster pointed out, in Superman IV Lois tells Clark she remembers everything....-shrugs- My point? It is still an excellent sequel and is the obvious basis of what Spider-Man 2 tried to accomplish, but couldn't.


I disagree. I think at any point you could recast Jake as Peter Parker / Spiderman and there would not be a problem . I really don't feel that Tobey has that role down, infact most the time I felt like he was just goin' thru the motions. Take that along with the fact Jake is Kirstin's real life play thing and you would have some amazing screen chemistry..

I do see your point though, changing actors hurt the 'Batman' franchise quite abit, but I don't think it was the biggest problem. The biggest problem for that series was the fact by the third WB wanted to take it in a more campy direction and hired Joel. It was a downward spiral from there on out.

I guess in the end I am just a DC whore as I think the two best Superhero films are easily Donner's 'Superman' and Burton's 'Batman'. I have never truly bought into the Marvel movie's. I midly enjoy X2 and I thought Spider-Man 2 was a lot better than the first (which I truly hate!).

Yeah, but he DIED! -eek-

How weird that was reading LivingINClip's post with all the "Kal-El"s on there. :D

Great thread.

I agree with DonnachaOne & Shannon Nutt on their points and is why I like Spider-Man 2 better. However, Kirsten Dunst's acting still bothers me at times. I hate how she squints her eyes, which causes her to look high, when she is trying to show a lot of emotion; that along with looking like an unskilled actress when Dr. Octopus comes for Peter at the Diner.

Needless to say, I was ecstatic when I heard she wasn't going to be in The Village. :)

Hey, I can't help it, his name is not 'Superman' it's Kal-El , damnit!

As far as Kirsten Dunst's acting being questionable, I think she does a great job as Mary Jane. It's Tobey that I think lets the franchise fall apart. I would love to see Jake in the role of Spiderman and see what he can do with it. It's not that Tobey is a bad actor, I just think he is not comfortable with the role.. Much like Val Kilmer was not comfortable with the role of Batman, but was with the role of Bruce Wayne.

I know and understand the Jake/Kirsten bit and agree, like I said before, Jake would have been better. But, now they need to work with what they have and being two movies deep into the Spiderman world, changing the lead actor would be the dumbest thing they could do. Most people are very comfortable seeing Tobey Maguire. Enthusiasts, like us, would say that Jake would've been way better. Change that for the 3rd movie and the general public would ask "What the hell were they thinking?" and I would have to agree.
Of course Batman had way more flaws then just changing lead actors, but that wasn't going to help anything. They wanted to keep cramming Batman down our throat. For me, I couldn't even give Kilmer or Clooney a chance due to being so pissed off at how WB ruined everything. Burton was great for Batman with his style, but I was very scared for a rekindling of a Burton directed Superman. With that said, I am definitely happy that they are taking their time with this. Given the right line up, I think a new Superman could be done and would make for a thriving franchise. It just hard for Hollywood to trust the story, so instead they throw in a big name actor thinking that's what viewers want. Well I want a great story and an actor that seems to fit the part. I don't need Nick Cage, or Ashton to make the movie.
I guess we can just hope that they make the right decisions.

I wouldn't say WB is taking their time with this franchise ... They are just having massive problems getting it off the ground. No one can agree on anything and that always spells problems.

The ending was a classic pre-crisis Superman moment.

I think a lot of people who are knocking Luthor really need to read some Supes comic from the period...cause the movie is a pretty damn perfect representation of him...

Still the best Comic Book movie ever!

WHOA!

****Super comic book geek alert****

Still the best comic book movie. First half is great, the second is still good but not as great. People that bash the ending of the movie for its implausibility - how about Spiderman holding up an entire building? I mean the last part of SpiderMan 2 I felt that Spidey had stolen Superman;s powers.

About the "new powers" in the Chris Reeve Superman films, keep in mind that the radio show introduced flying. In the comics and in the original cartoons, he could only leap a 1/4 mile. The radio show had the sound effect of him flying and the comic adopted it. Kryptonite and Jimmy Olsen came from the radio show, too.

Big difference between being able to change time and strength (which Spider-Man has)

Spider-Man didn't hold up a whole building, it was one wall. I could do that with one hand behind my back.

Willing to test that claim? ;)

I wonder how different Spiderman 1 and 2 would have been if the first 2 Superman movies hadn't existed. I'm not saying they ripped off plot ideas, but there are a lot of similarities.

I'm actually glad Superman and the sequels were made in the pre-digital age. I can't really explain why, but I just have more respect for the effort it took to make fantasy films come to life back then (and before). It's the same with the original Star Wars trilogy. If I want CGI overload I'll play a videogame. I'm not against digital effects at all, because Terminator 2 is one of my favorite films of all time, and I really enjoyed the way they were done in Spiderman 2 (much more than in 1). But films these days often rely too much on it (*cough*phantom menace & aotc *cough*) and it often looks fake as hell. It's like, let's just get a bunch of actors in front of a green screen to say crappy dialogue, then we'll create the rest later with a computer. Sorry but that does not make a film great to me.

I'm really interested in seeing the Gwyneth/Jude "Skycaptain.." film, but I hope I can actually invest some emotion into the story and enjoy it instead of just marveling at the effects. Solid writing and acting are so important, even in fantasy films, or the visually cool effects get old real quick. Superman 1 and 2 had excellent writing. As far as Lois' "Can You Read My Mind?" inner thoughts thing, being a female it didn't bother me at all. It was just showing that even though she seemed like a tough, take-no-bs reporter on the outside, she also had a softer side that she was embarrassed to bring out. But with Superman she almost could.

As for the ending, well...it's a fantasy film people!! Impossible things happen all the time. It's like the scene in The Last Crusade where Indiana Jones walks across the invisible bridge. It's ridiculous, but I didn't stop and go "that's impossible....humans can't walk on thin air!!" It was a cool scene so I just went along with it. Same with any time travel movie. I know it's only a movie, but it's fun to go "what if..." you could do this or that. You especially shouldn't overanalyze superhero films. Believe me, I'm not saying that I wouldn't complain if the plot had huge holes and there was no logic at all in the things that happened. But it's not like Superman just magically touches Lois and all of a sudden she's alive again. Jor-El had told his son that he was forbidden from interfering with history, and being the honest person Superman was, he had stayed true to his father up to that point. Apparently he had kept his word to Miss Tessmacher (sp?) and saved her mother, so he couldn't get back to Lois in time to save her. But his love for her was so strong that there was no way he could let her die. So, he reversed time and brought her back. He knew it was wrong, but at that point he didn't give a shit :lol: I didn't want her to die either, so I was happy. Besides, the movie couldn't have ended with her dying! She's Lois Lane, a main character, and we wouldn't have had their great scenes in Superman 2. So stop whining ;)

My biggest gripe with the first Superman was I wished they hadn't dubbed Jeff East's voice with Christopher Reeve's in the Smallville part. Plus he was wearing way too much pancake makeup and I think even prosthetics on his nose to make it more like Reeve's. Some people don't even notice any of that, but I hate dubbing in films with a passion, and it's really distracting to me here. Was Jeff's voice that different from Chris's?

I wonder what the outcome would be if they (Raimi or whoever) had tried to make the Spiderman films using no computerized effects. It seems to me like it would be incredibly hard to make it look even halfway realistic without the CGI. I'm curious as to how a new Superman movie will turn out, b/c obviously every special effect available will probably be used (which is good and all, as long as it's not cheesy and overdone). I'm all for bringing the character back and "updating" things, but I will always have immense admiration for the people that worked so hard to make audiences believe a man could fly, using little more than wires and a movie screen. I think the fact that Chris Reeve had flown planes helped, b/c he really did a great job making the flying believable. The first two were made before I was born, and I couldn't love them more. So pishaw to anyone who says the younger generation has no appreciation for the past.

I think it would be wrong not to include Reeve in a new Superman film. He'll always be the definitive Superman to me, but it's hard to say what actor of today would be a good fit. Jake Gyllenhall is flat-out wrong for the role. I loved Donnie Darko, but the character is Super-MAN, and Jake still looks too boyish. I wouldn't mind an unknown, as long as he can act. A big part of my interest in a new Superman film is the cast, so I just hope it's not done in a "let's get the hot stars of right now" way.

Is this really true? I never noticed that.

As for the rest of your post, I completely agree. I'm not saying one ending's better than the other regarding Supes and Spidey 2. The fact of the matter is, I believe Superman err, Yours Truly did turn the world/go back in time to save Lois and at the same time I believe Pete was able to hold that wall for as long as he did while having that very poignant convo with Mary Jane. That's what SUPER HEROES do or have the rest of you forgotten?

Sorry to nitpick but isn't this a bit of an oxymoron? How can there be a bridge if you are walking on thin air & how can you be walking on thin air when there is a bridge?

There is an actual bridge but it is just invisible when looking straight upon it if I remember correctly. It just adds to the magic of the film in my opinion unlike the ending to Superman. The ending didn't bother me until I got older & now it does stick out as a sore spot.

Regardless, Superman is still a great film.

More on the ending... just because its a super hero film doesn't mean that anything and everything should be possible or believable. I grew up on comics and watching Superman, the movies, the cartoons, the Lois and Clark TV show... at the time i didn't care so much about the ending like DVD-ho78(DTS), but watching the film on DVD, it sticks out sorely for me as well. I don't associate the time travelling ability for Superman among the flying, strength, x-ray vision, etc... it felt like such a cop out on what should have been a climactic ending.

Re: Thoughts on the Original "Superman" (Reeves, 1978)
 

I've always loved these movies - I grew up with them and while I never really got into superhero movies, the Supermans were always a great watch. I love Hackman as well, just one of the greatest villians IMO.

I have established that many of you didn't read Pre-Crisis 'Superman' comics, if so, you would realize that Kal-El was actually that powerful and had plenty of crap powers. Where as, I have never seen Peter Parker pick up something that large in the comics...

//My two cents.

I recall him essentially lifting a buildings worth of rubble off himself in times of great need after being buried under it on more than one occasion. Unfortunatly I can't quote issue numbers right now or anything..