Superman once again arrived from Kyrpton, and Man of Steel ruled the most recent box office. It should be no surprise that people lined up to see this latest superhero installment. However, I’m slightly surprised that I had no interest; or, at least, no pressing interest.
Perhaps this was because Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns was unsure whether it was a progression of 1978’s Superman: The Movie, or if it was its own entity. In regards to the former, the plot lines are similar: Lex Luther wants to capitalize on the fact that land is the one thing they’re not making any more of. In 1978, he attempted to use a megaton bomb to sink half of California into the ocean. In 2003, he attempted to generate more from the ocean. All in all, there’s a thin line here between creativity and plagiarism.
Regardless, I can’t say there’s ever been an urge to re-watch the movie. Nor have I tempted myself to rent Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman or Smallville from Netflix. For the most part, these two serials are love stories with some superhuman hijinks injected, not much more.
So, feeling nostalgic and curious and about why I’ve abandoned my interest in Superman, I recently re-watched the original. Parts of it are brilliant, particularly in the extended version. The first twenty minutes of the movie showcases Marlon Brando as Jor-El, who explains that Krypton will be decimated within thirty days. The political strife caused Jor-El causes amongst the Krypton council is right out of modern day politics, where power becomes a faulty synonym for omniscience.
Plus, Gene Hackman is redoubtable as Lex Luther. His stature on screen is the perfect contradiction for a villain. He’s not lanky, so much as huge, and his grins simultaneously bespeak intelligence and wickedness.
But then two things contribute to my disinterest in the blue-tighted hero.
The first is Superman’s remedy to the death of Lois Lane. This is not a cause for an argument about time travel so much as an argument against writers getting in their own way. Reversing the Earth’s rotation in an attempt to turn back time: pretty genius. But, I’m still not certain how turning back time allowed Superman to do anything differently. The missile still struck the San Andreas Fault. Lois Lane herself admits that she was almost caught in an earthquake and the gas station blew up (as a result of said earthquake). Jimmy Olsen still needed to be rescued from the crumbling damn, which means that Superman – more than likely – still manufactured a new damn out of avalanching rocks.
The only thing that, apparently changed, was that the earthquake did not proceed to chase Lois’ car. But how was this stopped?
Did Superman just not go to see Lex Luther in his underground Grand Central Station?
If so, why would the missiles hit at all? As we were reminded thrice throughout the film, the deceased Jor-El prohibits Superman from interfering the in the course of human history, but if he’s already turned back time to save Lane, what would prohibit him from stopping both missiles from detonating?
And, if the missiles have been launched, Hackensack saved, earthquake impelled, Jimmy Olsen saved, gas station exploded, then where was the time for Superman to stop the earthquake from progressing?
This moment is a case of the writers spawning a pretty solid idea, only to assume that the use of a superhero allows for a grave fallacy.
The bigger turnoff, though, is the one-dimensional nature of Superman. While he seeks “truth, justice, and the American way,” the character is both a contradiction and a condescension. It’s hard to believe that this heroic specimen seeks truth when he masquerades as a phony, bumbling doofus. What’s more his bumbling alter ego, Clark Kent, is a hyperbolic reflection of humanity. Much of this was covered in Kill Bill 2, so I don’t feel the need to paraphrase David Carradine, but there’s an even darker satire within the 1978 film than there is in the comic books.
In Donner’s film, mostly everyone is incompetent. Perry White is a blowhard, Jimmy Olsen is a tyro, Lois Lane, the journalist, can’t spell, and Lex Luther surrounds himself with a nitwit and a trollop. Sure, Miss Teschmacher helps release Superman from the ills of Kryptonite, but she only does it to, presumably, save her mother, and she steals a kiss when he’s at his weakest.
She, like everyone else in the film, is callow and quick to shed blame on to everyone else. And, Superman gets the brunt of this blame at the end. Lane accuses him of not being there to save her earlier. Olsen rattles off at the mouth about how Superman saves him and then leaves him to find Lane by himself.
Admittedly, there’s something I like about the edginess of the biting sarcasm in this late-seventies film, but upon closer inspection, I’m not sure how much Superman is trying to disguise himself, as much as is mocking us.
