Here,s somethinvulg that puzzeled me about the movie. When the trio land on Earth, Ursula picks up a snake and it bites her and it causes her pain. If she has the same powers as Superman why would a simple snake bite hurt her. It should hurt the snak because of her invulrability but not her.

I think we can all agree now that they are both shitty movies.

I don't know about shitty, but some folks are clinging to these two as masterpieces of modern cinema...I imagine it's just nostalgia.

Maybe it was more surprise than pain.

OR

Maybe it was one of the SNAKES ON A PLANE. They can hurt anybody except Samuel L.

I always assumed that the snake bite affected her because she hadn't fully "charged" up for the yellow sun.


For some reason I'm obsessed with these movies now. I read on IMDB that the spinning the earth bacwards bit was originaly the ending to Superman 2 to make Lois forget. If that's the case then that would have solved the problems with the ending to both movies.

You are so wrong and uninformed.

The Mary Jane scene comes directly from Amazing Spider-man #121: The Death of Gwen Stacy except Gwen Stacy is replaced with Mary Jane and she does not die.

The "giving up his role as Spider-man" plot came directly from Amazing Spider-man #50: Spider-man No More.

I could see the arguement that Superman: The Movie was the best comic book movie of all time due to its epic scope and feel. (In my opinion, I think a lot of the stature of that movie is due to John Williams score in much the same way that Titanic's score was responsible for a good part of its success.) I personally think Spider-man is a better movie but maybe not better based on when each was made. A comic book movie that good being made in the 1970s is remarkable.

Superman 2 on the other hand had much less production value and was not nearly as good a film. The plot was interesting but you can tell they cut the budget to make money due to it being a sequel.

And Geoffrey Unsworth's gorgeous, powerful cinematography. Oh, and I daresay you aren't giving TITANIC nearly its due, but I digress...

I have no doubt that there are elements of the SPIDER-MAN comic book stories which are bound to make its way in the film (and since the character has been around for over 40 years and appeared in thousands of published stories, how could there not be?) But I doubt that the issues you cite were the direct inspiration for what appears onscreen. All comic characters had some instance where they were giving up their roles as superheroes. It's just that this theme is so pronounced in SPIDER-MAN 2, that the parallel comparisons with the structure of SUPERMAN II are inevitable.

You might be better informed if you checked out Sam Raimi's comments about his own work than assuming the plot lines was directly taken from some obscure issues from the sixties. (Also, according to the comics, Mary Jane was killed falling off a bridge...but I was specifically referring to the way the two characters were introduced for the first time and not just the action scenes.)

Spider-Man No More and the Death of Gwen Stacy are 2 of the most well known Spider-Man stories ever printed. They are hardly "obscure issues from the sixties"

bah, I found Spiderman boring..bunch of people talking for a lot of the movie. Plus I found the Green Goblin scenes to be stupid - oh look William DaFoe can talk to himself!!!!!
BAAAH ! Stupid.
Plus Spiderman ripped of Clark Kent running and changing into his unifiorm - god that was a direct steal, or homaage, or whatever.

Oh God, I've heard it all now.

Spider-Man 2 > Superman?

WTF?? Spider-MAN 2 was terrible all around, just like the first one.

While Superman was cheesey in parts, the acting alone carries it miles ahead of Spider-man 2.

First two Superman movies pown the hell out of the first two spider-man movies.

Lets get real here. When you see Reeves as Superman, you really get the feeling that he is there, that he is real. With Spidey, you get this phony, overdone garbage thats good for 1 or 2 viewings.

So true.

Sure, unless you want to see movies with characters that you actually...you know...care about.

Everyone in Superman was irritating and one dimensional. Reeve was great as Superman, but his Clark was just silly...and I couldn't wait for Lois to die. Lex was hamming it up fairly nonstop, and need I remind anyone of Otis. Otis for chrissakes!

Certainly the approaches were different. Spider-man (both) is more intimate and character driven. Superman (first two) were more epic and...well...corny, which is a pretty weird combo in hindsight.

I've never cared about anyone in the Spider-Man movies (which I enjoy, especially the sequel) as much as I did in the moments where Jor-El sends his son forever away, where Pa Kent dies, where Clark says goodbye to Ma Kent, the moment where Superman finds Lois Lane's lifeless body, etc. I daresay you grossly underestimate the depth of characterization found in SUPERMAN.

I was initially confused with which scene Numanoid was referencing. I thought he was talking about Mary Jane being thrown off the bridge at the end. That scene is was pulled directly from Amazing Spider-man #121. And it was Gwen Stacy that died.

I agree somewhat with you about the Mary Jane falling off the building scene. I definetly see parallels with the Superman helicopter scene and I have seen Sam Raimi's comments on the scene. The way I understood his comments was he was inspired by the power and emotion of the scene and how well it introduced the comic character. He tried to duplicate that in Spider-man. But, how else would you want to introduce the character. Wouldn't you WANT your HERO to save the leading lady in the first scene. And remember, no villian was involved in the Superman scene where the Green Goblin was involved in the Spider-man scene.

I don't think Spider-man owes anything to Superman other than trying to recreate powerful cinema. Also, you and some of the other posters here were much younger when you watched Superman for the first time so you obviously were more moved by the one-dimensional characters at that time.

The Spider-man comic book storylines have many more dimensions, are more complex and more realistic than the Superman comics. Sometimes thats good and sometimes I want to see the Superman-like stories. But, let's not say that Superman had better acting and better characters when it doesn't.

I totally disagree with you. I believe the comic books I have mentioned and will mention below were the direct inspiration for what were in the films.

That was the overwhelming reason why I have loved the first two Spider-man movies. You can really see the love Sam Raimi has for the character and the homage he gives the comic books.

Nearly every important scene and many of the small ones were pulled DIRECTLY from some of the most popular comics. Raimi was able to make reference to disparate classic comics while at the same time pull all of them together into one engrossing story. One tool he used to do that was changing the charcters slightly in some of the scenes.

So.. Gwen Stacy in Amazing Spider-man #121 is replaced with Mary Jane. The Green Goblin in the unmasking scene of Amazing Spider-man #49 is replaced with Harry Osborn (the next Goblin).

Some other parallels...

Green Goblin pulling Spider-man behind his glider was pulled directly from the cover and story of Amazing Spider-man #48

The Death of the Green Goblin was pulled directly (glider speering and all) from Amazing Spider-man #122.

I've already mentioned the Spider-man No More from Amazing Spider-man #50 and don't forget the nearly perfect adaptation of his Spider-man's origin from Amazing Fantasy #15 and Amazing Spider-man #1: the death of Uncle Ben, fighting the wrestler for money, chasing the burglar through the city to the warehouse, everything was right on except for the web-shooters which I think was an improvement.

As you can see you are striking a cord here with me. I love these two movies because they gave respect to what I loved as a child

Yes, that is exactly the reason why we prefer SUPERMAN over SPIDER-MAN. Thank you for pointing out this oh-so-brilliant observation. I suppose you are not blinded by your fan-boy love for Spidey. Incidentally, there were many other reviewers who were struck by how similar the design and plot structures the first and second movie were to the SUPERMAN films. Check out the Rotten Tomatoes website and do some research.

Actually, there is not much more to say about these comparisons, and besides, we're off-topic. However, comics, which with few exceptions are mostly pulp escapist junk (and I say this even though I was a collector for many years), so it should not be too surprising that their cinematic counterparts rarely rise to the level of art. However, some films rise above their four-color inspiration and certainly, SUPERMAN is one of them.

If anything, I'm more of a fan boy for Superman...remember being 6 or so when it came out...saw it at the drive in...collected the bubblegum cards...watched George Reeves every day after school. I was all about Superman.

But Spider-man, and especially 2 are superior films in every regard except score.

Even as a Superman obsessed kid...and even after being amazed by the majority of the film...I had some serious misgivings about the stammering Clark, and Otis, and most of all that whole flying around the world to turn back time business (or as I would learn later travel through time). Whatever, it was silly.

Other than kind of digging the cartoons in the 90s, Spider-man was never my bag...though I now appreciate more the depth of the character and his struggles.

Just a take from a non-fanboy.

What i didn't like about spiderman 2 was when his identity was revealed in the subway scene. It ruined it for me from there on through the rest of the movie.

I believe the expression you are looking for is "touching a nerve". "Striking a chord" would pretty much mean he is in harmonious agreement with you, or sympathetic to your views.

Here's my best theory. Superman goes back in time and stops the missile headed for California while the "other" Superman stops the missile headed for New Jersey. Afterwards, New Jersey Superman fades away (kind of like Marty almost did in BTTF), and Lois somehow retains faint memories of what happened in the alternate timeline.

Woops. Just realized if Superman stopped the California missile, how did Jimmy Olsen end up a second time in the middle of the desert after having been rescued from the dam burst?

Just realized that there is a real fundamental problem with the whole time travel thing. Say we go along with the theory placed here that Superman Travels back in time to save Lois, and at that point there is now two Supermen (the one stopping the rocket) and the other saving Lois. So what happens when the Rocket Superman goes to save Lois.....does he encounter himself??? She has been saved by Time Travelling Superman so he has no need to now go backwards in time. Weird.....but never really thought about this until reading some of the comments in this thread.

Needless to say i think that Superman 1 and 2 are both excellent films (and i even have a little fondness for part 3). The are films that have stood the test of time and are the best comic book movies alongside the Spiderman movies, the X-men movies, Hellboy and Batman Begins.

By the way, i also think that the casting of Gene Hackman and Christopher Reeves was perfect.

Bring on Superman Returns.

I just figured it out. (The ending to part I that is.) All these years I've been obsessing over Superman going back in time to stop the California missile, and how come Lois still remembers the gas station blowing up. I now realize I've been looking at this all wrong.

Superman didn't go back in time to stop the California missile. The missile still hit the San Andreas Fault like before. Instead, he went back in time, got a gas can, then secretly put a little extra gasoline in Lois' car. That way, she was able to travel a little farther before her car ran out of gas, and she was not directly over the ground that opened up and swallowed her.

It's elementary!