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Here's a link to a great article about the recent special edition DVD, a personal favorite of mine. With all due respect to Spiderman (an excellent film) I think Superman: The Movie remains the best film sourced from a comic book.
... sucked pond water from the get-go! Everything about the first Superman movie was a disappointment, with all due respect to the acting efforts of the now wheelchair bound Christopher Reeves who essayed the role in each of the major films. In short, it's a sad day when the best thing you can say about a film is that it has a decent cameo appearance by Marlon Brando! If you want to see the Superman role done right (as well as the careful building of Lex Luthor as a villain in an inventive re-envisioning of the concept) watch Smallville on the WB; it's superb!Unfortunately, DC hasn't fared too well in it's characters depictions on the silver screen. The first two Batman movies were a little better than the Superman series of films due to inspired direction, but here again, by focusing on the "STAR" aspect of those actors portraying the villains the Batman concept was irreparably weakened. Any time the costumed hero takes a back seat to the scenery crunching of high-dollar actors broadly portraying villains it lessens the interest in the featured character and the story itself IMO.
Spider-Man got it right, as did the X-Men earlier. Sorry padrekan, but it looks like we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one.
AuPh
Christopher REEVES is Christopher REEVE; George REEVES was the second
non-animated
TV/Movie Superman(in the 1950s); Kirk Alyn was the 1st(late 1940s).
Ironically, each met a tragic fate that mocked his TV/Movie persona's
invincibility: Alyn stricken by Alzheimers at a relatively early
age; Reeves either committed suicide or was murdered and Reeve was
paralyzed from the neck down in a horse-riding accident. Makes
one wonder if Dean Cain has to be a little nervous at times! - AH
P.S. - If memory serves correct, George Reeves first movie as the
Man of Steel was "Superman and the Mole Men" released in 1950. Saw
that one many years ago, so don't recall much detail.
"Brilliant" minds think alike, huh! ;^)I think I may have beat you by a couple of hours with the background of George Reeves and Kirk Alyn, but you've provided even more information for film buffs. Now, do you know the "voice" of the first Superman (radio, and if I'm not mistaken, the early 40's Fleisher cartoons)?
AuPh :o)
nt
(nt)
creator,and questioned him about a particular 1950s episode,(forget
the title just now, but have it written somewhere)where The Man
of Steel performed a marvelous feat of telepathic(?) hypnotic levitation
(subject was Lois Lane) to get out of a tight spot. This feat
appeared unprecedented to AH, but the site creator said that Superman
was imbued with various powers over the years with whatever suited
the writers at the time. AH knows that Supermanīs primary weakness
was kryptonite, and that although seemingly of ordinary intelligence
by Earthian standards, he had a superduperdeveloped, one might say,
heroic, moral sense -
lucky for good Earthians, but not the bad ones, woe be unto them!
- AH
The only thing "new" about Spidey is the CGI Efx and the orange hair of the...ahem...heroine.Though cut from the same, fad film cloth, for a film of it's time, the original Superman still rules !
Spidey's casting just doesn't make it, unless you're a fan of "Friends". One can't seriously compare the small-tube, dime store Lex Luthor, to Gene Hackman's well rounded, camp performance. It just isn't a convincing argument! Good try if you've never seen the original Superman movie, though.
Orange hair and new CGI just can't give it the edge it needs to become a genuine classic of the Superman stature.
There has to be "more"! That special something.
Let's see if it holds up when the sequel comes out! That will be the REAL test! Soon to be an eBay collector's item, the Spidey craze is already ending...Star Wars is beating it to death in the box office !
I know some folks have a h*rd-*n for the earlier campy approaches, but I for one am grateful for the satisfying depiction of Marvel's characters. As a fan of comics from waaaay back I like Superman, Batman, Flash, etc., but rarely have they translated as believeable live action characters. About the best envisioned Superman before the recent Smallville series goes back to the first Reeve's essaying of Superman on TV, George Reeves that is, back in 1951. For about a year the character had a serious interpretation with almost pulp-like plots and heroics. After that, the sponsors and DC's publishers requested the character be toned down and the plots made less violent, effectively turning into a campy kiddie-level show for the rest of it's 7 year run. Of course, if you think the the "original Superman still rules" you must mean the Columbia serials with Kirk Allen essaying the role back in '48 & '50, right? ;^)Your critique of the heroine's orange hair (Mary Jane Watson portrayed by Kursten Dunst) is just plain silly; besides, it was red toned or are you just encountering the early stages of color blindness? FTR, I'm not a huge fan of CGI (i.e., esp. after Star Woes Epistle II, Attack of the Moans), but I thought it was used effectively and judiciously in Spider-Man. Obviously, having Sam Raimi helm the film was a brilliant choice for the studio.
BTW, don't worry about the "Spidey craze" ending soon. There has been a Spidey craze of sorts for forty years and it hasn't subsided yet. Maybe the producers of fantasy heroic films based on comics are finally beginning to get a clue and trust their "Spider-sense" where audiences are concerned (i.e., if the film is good the audience will be there).
AuPh
The Batman movie I would like to see would have to be the best comic I ever read,Frank Millers "Return of the dark knight".In this comic he finally defeats and kills the Joker(quite a brutal fight)and defeats Superman in battle.Would be great and dark if done right.
As it seems that it's longevity you're measuring it by, Superman wins!Anyway...if there was a fight between Superman and Spiderman, Spiderman would be a pile of spider goo ! There !!!!!
If you are measuring longevity strictly by how long both characters have been around, well of course Superman would win, but I was factoring in both character's contemporary appeal and gauging by how consistently popular Spidey has been for over 40 years. Under that criteria Spider-Man has aged somewhat better as indicated by current box-office revenues. Now, compare that with the first Superman movie's box-office take.> > > "Anyway...if there was a fight between Superman and Spiderman, Spiderman would be a pile of Spider goo!" < < <
Not so, amigo! See the image above! That fight occured quite awhile back and came out a draw my friend. ;^)
Cheers,
AuPh
For me, the film brings the essence of the original DC comics character to magnificent big screen life-to this day, I still get a thrill when John Williams magnificent "The Planet Krypton" fanfare rings out (still his best overall score, IMO). I love Reeves' performance, although he does overplay Clark a tad, IMO. He has a kind of wry amusement when delivering lines as Superman that I find very appealing, and the rapport w/Kidder's Lane is obvious. I like the supporting players, too-particularly Glenn Ford. S2 is good, but not as good as the original (it would be interesting to see what the finished product would have been like had Donner been allowed to finish the film)-and as far as 3 and 4 go, the less said, the better!I'll have to check out Smallville-you mean there's actually a program on WB worth watching? :)
Hi,
give it a couple of episodes. This series has it's share of stinkers, but succeeds admirably. For me, I liked Lex Luthor, I think that was the one character that was brought to life. Of course,
some of my favorites are villians. I enjoyed Garak the 'tailor' immensely on DS9 (yeah, I know, he's not a classic villian, but he's still the most interesting character on that show). What would Star Wars have been without a convincing Darth Vader? Anyway, if you like Superman, you should find Smallville appealing. Could use a better villian :)
O.K. I admit I didn't give it a fair shake. I watched only one episode (about a girl who was made a queen bee by being stung alot) and I was very disappointed. My wife said, "What did you expect? It's a TEEN show." Boy, did she peg that one!Not anywhere near the standard set by "Buffy".
And Lex Luthor was too much of a nebbish. The girls were kind of cute, though. I expected more.
Ted
The "Queen Bee" episode you referenced was perhaps the weakest of the entire series to date (sorry Ted, your bad luck). Generally, the writing and acting on Smallville is first rate and the characters portrayed with an unusual level of depth for a TV series; that should appeal to adults every bit as much as the teen demographic.If you decide to give the series another chance, be sure to watch the Lex Luthor character; far from being nebbish in most episodes, the character is actually quite complex and believeable. Note: If young Anakin Skywalker (i.e., the future Darth Vader) had been written with this level of complexity the Star Wars films would be much richer and more involving.
As written for Smallville, the Lex Luthor character is a young man trying to prove to himself and to his father that he can be a better man (i.e., more compassionate and successful) than his father, who is a totally amoral and ruthless businessman. As viewers and comic fans know Lex will eventually become one of Superman's greatest foes, but what the series does is demonstrate how he becomes that way. The ironic twist is that Lex is the most interesting and likeable character in the cast, far more complex than any other character in the show, including Clark Kent/Superboy.
I urge you to watch two or three more episodes of Smallville before writing it off as a silly teen oriented series. If you like the wit and complexity of "Buffy", as my wife and I do, then the dramatic complexity of "Smallville" should grow on you over several episodes. Believe me, there are plenty of mediocre angst-driven teen oriented TV series and so-called reality programs that I wouldn't waste my time on, but Smallville is cut from different cloth!
AuPh
The way you describe it is what I had heard before. That's why I turned it on, and also why I was disappointed. Nice to know it was an aberration.Thanks,
Ted
I thought Voyager was just awful, and Enterprise nearly as bad. There is a new film with the Next Generation cast to look forward to this fall, though.
The cable network "TNN" (formerly "The Nashville Network" now re-positioned as "The National Network") is stripping TNG except Saturdays, I believe. The usual time is 10:00 or 11:00 p.m. Eastern.I had a hard time connecting with DS9 -- it seemed like each actor was trying to outdo the other in the intensity of his/her display of "attitude" starting with Avery Brooks. As for "Voyager," it reminded me of nothing so much as "Ding Dong School" (an educational TV program I remember from the mid 1950s) in a spaceship. First we had spaceship captain as swashbuckler (Capt. Kirk); then we had spaceship captain as Renaissance man (Capt. Picard) and with Voyager we had spaceship captain as Elementary School Principal (Capt. Janeway). Yech!
I stumbled into "Enterprise" the other night. It was ok and, if I surfed into it again, I would watch it. I kind of like Scott Bakula. (I'm well past the time when I am willing, or, in most cases able, to schedule my time for any television program. One of these days, I'll pop for a Replay TV or a Tivo machine so I always have something decent to watch when the mood strikes me.)
The videophile in me is very dissapointed in TNG on TNN-it could be my local cable feed, but the picture is very grainy. The cropped picture to fit in the TNN logo & crawl at the bottom of the screen bugs me, too.I agree with your comments about Avery Brooks-I almost gave up on DS9 about halfway through the 1st season. I think the series found its legs by the 3rd season, with the addition of TNG characters like Worf and Ensign O'Brien.
I'll have to give Enterprise another go. Love the Janeway/school principal comparison!
I'm still watching through 27" NEC set that is, I think about 13 or 14 years old (I forget). Great set though. One of these days it will die (the picture tube gradually is producing less output). Having looked at replacements, my wife and I have decided that plasma screen is the only way to go for a large format set. The other are either too bulky, don't look good, except at precise angles (RPTVs) or both. Of course, the plasmas come in at about $7K, so you can see why we're postponing.Not ready to weigh in in favor of Enterprise; but, unlike Voyager, the first viewing was not an immediate turn-off.
Hi,
they have been showing DS9, in order (thankfully), on UPN. Been a real pleasure to have something to look forward to watching after work. Especially so, since all my HT stuff came after that show. So it's a *little* like seeing it for the first time.
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