I thought this was the greatest film ever when it came out, but I have to say it does not hold up for me. That "astonishing" fight often looks cheap and goofy (and breaks its own, already nutty, laws of physics), the "I love Lois enough to give it all up" plotline was unconvincing and -- from my point of view -- nauseating, and the ending is the biggest cheat of all time ("There will be no way to get back your powers...no, wait, there is a way...but we'll never tell the audience what it was!").
Put me in the camp that will forever pine for a Donner-helmed Superman II. Who knows how great it might have been?
Interesting point about a Donner-helmed SUPERMAN II. I recall one extra scene on the DVD that shows Lois using her intelligence to discover who Superman is, by shooting at Clark Kent with a gun. Watching him stumble and fall down, Superman rises, and says, "You know, if you'd been wrong, Clark Kent would have been killed." Lois taps the gun lightly and grins wide. "With blanks?"
How absolutely genius this Donner idea was, and so true to Lois's cleverness and intelligence, compared to the bumbling way that was used in the finished SUPERMAN II, which was achieved despite Lois instead of because of her.
I'm with you that the movie could have been better. (Yeah, a minute ago I put it at #3 at superhero movies of all time. So freakin' what? Consistency is the hobgoblin of a small mind.)
Though I stand by my comment about the gigantic fight scene. Wherever else this movie may have done, at least that was impressive, if not necessarily in execution, than in sheer scope.
We superhero fans take it for granted that superhero fight scenes are going to be big. Whether it's the Thing vs. Dragon Man destroying an entire warehouse district, or the JLA vs. a 50 foot Despero rising from the water, these fights involve lots of good natured mayhem and lots of collateral damage. Who wins? Everybody, especially when you've got an artist like Kirby. Who loses? The city the fight is held in, for sure.
But compared to the fight scenes in the comics, those in movies are downright muted. The only one that even comes close to the destruction, energy, power, and mayhem is the fight in SUPERMAN II, at least in concept; in that scene, cars were flipped over by superbreath, manhole covers are used like frisbees and entire billboards are vaporized by heat vision. Maybe by today's standards it isn't as mindblowing, but they had the right idea.
Here's a question for the forum: what are the greatest superhero fight scenes? In comics or otherwise.
For me, at least, the three greatest fight scenes in comics are as follows:
3. IRON FIST (Chris Claremont, Iron Fist). I've said for many years that comics about Martial Arts are fairly pointless. For one thing, Kung Fu movies are all about motion and acrobatics, whereas on a comics page, they just lie there and there is no motion. Martial Arts fight scenes, I said, were a waste of time, just like a car chase in comics form is a waste of time: not thrlling in a medium without movement. That was, until a friend sat me down with dogeared 70s issues of the Byrne/Claremont run on IRON FIST, and said, "Look, just read these and shut up."
Am I glad he said that. There's a law somewhere that states that Byrne's art gets worse the more popular he became, and this is certainly true; here on IRON FIST, when he was a newcomer and a nobody, it was never better. The multiple image fight sequence was a pioneered invention by Byrne and never better than where used here. Bodies clashed and unusual positions were entered. Nunchaku were twirled. The only thing I regret about IRON FIST's fight scenes is that I did not read them when they first came out. So much of what was done there has entered into comics' lexicon now that while it is great, it doesn't feel as pioneering as it must have back in the Silver Age.
Reading Byrne do great work here is sort of like seeing a cute, potential-filled young Anakin Skywalker in Episode I, aware of the evil that he eventually would become.
2. DESTROY! (Scott McCloud). Yeah, it was meant as a joke, a semi-parody of Kirby's style. But what resulted were the most muscular, crane-chucking battle scenes yet seen. How I wish Scott McCloud would quit dicking around with his pretentious independent comics read by like, 2,000 people and do a decent superhero science fiction comic.
Only, y'know, as long as the fights are held away from MY city.
1. THING VS. SILVER SURFER (Stan Lee, Jack Kirby). FF #51 (or thereabouts, my memory is bad). Long live the King!
Of course it would be a Kirby battle at number one. Feet were never more than five feet apart with a single punch. People turn entire skyscrapers on one another like clubs. His Thing vs. Hulk fight in that same comic may be more famous, but between FF #40 and FF #70, Kirby was at the peak at his game in a career that is already a mountain range. This one, and a close second in that very FF run, the battle of the Fantastic Four against the ground-quaking Gorgon, showed Kirby at his best: the monstrous Thing bending and attacking the Silver Surfer; they wrestle with arms that can move mountains; the Silver Surfer morphs into a comet of pure energy to beam right on the Thing. and Benjy hurls our glaze coated spaceman out a mile with one titanic love tap.
Don't take my word for it, read it for yourself![/b]