Favorite Scene Friday! Superman: Turning Back Time

For our final Superman scene, I wanted to bring you something big from the original Richard Donner flick. And you can’t get much bigger than the ending.

Wikipedia

Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) has launched two missiles as part of a scheme. Superman (Christopher Reeve) is able to stop one but the other hits its target, creating an earthquake. Supes is able to prevent a lot of death and destruction, but he's too late to save Lois Lane (Margot Kidder). There are quite a few scenes in Man of Steel of Superman screaming in anguish. And I can't help but think they were trying to recreate Christopher Reeve’s powerful howl of anger in this scene.

What comes next is the classic “Superman Turns Back Time” scene. A lot of people think this part is cheesy. Of course, if you reversed the Earth’s rotation you wouldn't travel back in time, you’d just fuck up the planet. But I don’t really see it as Superman reversing the Earth. I just look at it as him flying so fast that he personally ends up traveling back in time.

This is 1978 here so of course the special effects in the scene don't look as good today. But when you consider that the filmmakers were able to accomplish these effects with only the methods available 35 years ago,  it's pretty impressive. From IMDb:

"The development of the best method to show Superman flying was a long period of experimentation. The methods attempted included simply catapulting a dummy into the air, a remote control model airplane painted as the character and simply animating the flying sequences. The producers settled for a combination of forward projection and specially designed zoom lenses that could create the illusion of movement by zooming in on Christopher Reeve while making the forward projection appear to recede. For scenes where Superman has to interact with other people or objects while in flight, Reeve and fellow actors were put in a variety of rigging equipment with careful lighting and photography to hide the equipment."

I'm glad they didn't go with the dummy or the remote control airplane. Enjoy today's scene and have a great weekend!



P.S. Check out the rest of our favorite Superman scenes below.

Favorite Scene Friday! Superman Returns: The Safest Way to Travel

Favorite Scene Friday! Superman III: Clark Kent Vs. Superman - Special thanks to CT from Nerd Lunch!

Favorite Scene Friday! The Best of Lex Luthor - Special thanks to Pax from Cavalcade of Awesome!

Favorite Scene Friday! The Best of Lex Luthor

Our month of Superman scenes continues! Today we've got Pax from the Cavalcade of Awesome at the helm and he doesn't disappoint. If you think Michael Shannon's General Zod is a great Superman villain, you need to revisit the Christopher Reeve Superman films. Pax will explain...

IMDb

I am a big fan of the entire Christopher Reeve Superman series.  Even III and IV, especially IV.  Except for CT’s Clark-Superman fight, and some of evil Superman’s antics (drunken bar peanut missiles anyone?), the rest of Part III can spontaneously combust in a blaze of tar-Kryptonite flames never to be seen again.

And other than Christoper Reeve’s Superman/Clark Kent, I think my favorite character is Gene Hackman’s Lex Luthor.  Before Byrne changed Lex into a genius businessman, Lex was a genius mad scientist.  But right in between, Hackman made Lex a genius, megalomaniacal schemer.  Hackman’s Lex wasn’t pigeon-holed into one profession, even though he did have a healthy obsession with real estate.  And the brilliance of Hackman’s performance is that he plays Lex as if he always felt like he was in control.  Lex always felt there was a way out of every situation.  Lex believed he could go toe-to-toe in a room with ANYONE, including Superman.  His brains would win over Superman’s brawn.  EVERY TIME.  Lex is the smartest man in the room.  He knows it and he wants everyone else in the room to know it.  You can see that supreme confidence in every scene and that's why Hackman’s Luthor is my favorite Superman villain.

When I set out to do this Superman themed Favorite Scene Friday the scene I REALLY wanted to do was the first meeting between Lex Luthor and Superman in the original Superman the Movie.  Some of the dialogue between Lex and Supes is pretty amazing.  However, there is next to zero footage of that up online for me to show you.  So, what I’m going to do is put up some of my favorite stuff of Hackman’s Lex from all three movies.  Not only is the Lex-Superman stuff GREAT, I think there’s a lot of really good back-and-forth with Lex and General Zod in Superman II.

So here are a bunch of my favorite Gene Hackman Lex Luthor scenes from the entire Reeve Superman movie franchise.

As far as the first meeting, here’s a chunk from the very end of it.  Superman is searching for a bomb, I think.  He instead finds Kryptonite.



Great line: “It stands to reason that when it came time to cash in your chips, this ‘old, diseased maniac’ would be your banker.”

Here’s another great scene with Lex talking about his real estate dealings with Otis and Miss Teschmacher.



Here’s the scene in Superman II in which Lex and Zod arrive at the Daily Planet right before the big fight with Superman.  Superman arrives and says, “Would you like to step outside?”  Lex hilariously says, “Thank God, Superman....I mean, GET HIM!”  It’s hilarious to me that Lex is actually relieved to see Superman and that Lex actually thinks he’s in a position to tell Zod to “get him”.  I also love all of Lex’s *wink, wink, nudge, nudge* innuendo about Lois and Superman.



Remember when I was telling you that Hackman’s Lex was fearless?  That he was the smartest in the room?  Check out Lex telling off General Zod right after the battle with Superman.



I only wish I could find video of Lex’s first meeting with Zod and crew at the White House.  That contained some classic Lex moments.

Lex wasn’t in Superman III, but he was in Superman IV, but there really aren’t any clips of that movie online.  You can find the trailer and that’s about it.  Most of Lex’s best stuff in Superman IV are his insults towards his nephew played by Jon Cryer.

So these are some of my absolute favorite moments and scenes in the entire Reeve Superman franchise.

Hopefully, the next Lex Luthor will carry Gene Hackman’s torch.

Escape the Phantom Zone: Man of Steel Review

spoilers ahead!

I won’t go so far as to say that director Zack Snyder's Man of Steel was a complete failure. There’s a good movie in here somewhere. There really is. But it’s a deeply flawed film, mostly due to David Goyer’s script. The flow, structure - whatever you wanna call it - of the story. It just. Didn’t. Work. The many, many (many) flashbacks constantly pulled me out of the narrative. It got to the point where it was like, still? We’re still doing flashbacks? So the film just couldn’t seem to get going. I found myself waiting for a decent action sequence. And not mindless action, either. Just something super, something worthy of the Man of Steel.

IMDb

The movie begins on Krypton, Superman’s birthplace. They literally show him being born. Which is kind of an awkward way to start the movie if you ask me. We get a good look at Krypton, more so than I was expecting. Actually, was anyone expecting Krypton like this? It was pretty crazy (I literally wrote “Krypton = zany” in my notes).

After the birth of Kal-El (as he’s known to his parents), the first natural birth on Krypton in some time, his father Jor-El (Russell Crowe) tries to talk sense into the planet’s leaders. Yes, Krypton is dying, and at the hands of its own people. General Zod (Michael Shannon) and his forces bust up into Jor-El’s meeting and take control. Jor-El manages to escape, however, and is able to rescue his son by jettisoning him into space on a course towards Earth. Zod manages to kill Jor-El, but he and his forces are captured and banished to the “Phantom Zone” via a black hole device. We then flash forward to meet Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) on modern day Earth.

I actually had no idea what was happening on Krypton. I know that the planet was essentially self destructing and that General Zod was trying to take over. But it looked like all-out war on the planet. I’m assuming it was General Zod’s followers fighting with the Kryptonian authorities but I just wasn’t sure (and it wouldn’t be the last time I was confused about what was happening in the story and how). Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the Krypton sequence and I appreciate that the filmmakers went that in depth. I just wasn’t expecting it.

Other than the general flow of the film, I have to criticize the dialogue. The first school sequence - where Clark winds up hiding in a broom closet - was just kind of awkward. The “The world’s too big, mom,” dialogue worked in the trailer but here it’s just awkward. Who talks like that? There’s a lot of crummy dialogue in the film. In fact, let me just get all my dialogue qualms out of the way here. Lois Lane (Amy Adams), when shown a small room she has to stay in at one point in the film says: “What if I have to tinkle?” Later on she refers to the fact that she's a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. We get it. She’s a good reporter. At one point late in the film, Superman confronts Zod with the line (I’m paraphrasing) “You’re a monster and I'm going to stop you.” It seems like somebody put that line in the script as filler and forgot to rewrite it. Another line, perhaps the worst in the film, spoken by General Zod (again, paraphrasing): “There's only one way this is going to end...either you die or I do.” Isn’t that two ways?

Another problem that I had with the film was the squandered opportunities. That oil rig sequence was very short and the scene where Clark saves the school bus could have been more epic (I mean, couldn't they show him pushing the bus out of the water a little bit?). The tornado scene later in the film - which could have been a cool action sequence if done right - simply kills Jonathan Kent (in the most thoughtless way possible).

There were a few outright strange elements in the film. One was that it didn’t seem to want to call Superman Superman. It seemed like the third act or so before someone actually said his name. And what was with the product placement throughout the film? Nikon, U-Haul, Sears, 7-Eleven. Superman fought a villain in an IHOP for Zod’s sake.

The fists finally start flying in the third act when General Zod and his crew (having escaped the Phantom Zone due to Krypton’s destruction) find Superman on Earth after years of searching. The fight scenes were cool but at the end of the day, it’s nothing we haven’t seen before. And it isn’t long before we’re on to the next sequence, which finds Superman and the military trying to banish General Zod and his forces back to the Phantom Zone before they can terraform Earth with a Kryptonian World Engine. The military’s plan? Create a black hole in the middle of Metropolis using the ship that brought Superman to Earth and hope for the best. I actually wondered if Metropolis was destroyed at the end of that segment. The film culminates with a big brawl between Superman and Zod after our hero and the military stop the villain's World Engine.

I didn’t like how the Superman/General Zod fight played out. I thought that it was two unstoppable supermen fighting each other, but Superman just ended up snapping Zod’s neck. Seriously? That’s it? And it raises a big question. Batman’s one rule is that he won’t kill. What does that say about Superman? Where does that leave us in the modern age where Batman - who has always been viewed as the darker of the two - is the more principled hero and the one who won’t kill? And we’re talking about the Batman featured in the films of David Goyer and Man of Steel producer Christopher Nolan here, so it’s not like there isn’t a basis for comparison.

One of the best things about the film was the talent from some of the leading actors. Russell Crowe was great throughout the film as Jor-El and Michael Shannon was just right as the menacing Zod. Henry Cavill really owned the role of Superman and I’m excited to see what he does with it in future installments (I know he’s a great actor because they showed not one, not two but THREE scenes of him screaming intensely into the camera). Kevin Costner really nailed the role of Jonathan Kent and I'm genuinely disappointed about how the film treated the character.

Zack Snyder really knows how to make a film look great. The imagery of Clark and Lois in the desert and Clark’s weird skulls/doomsday dream looked particularly great. The production design and the costumes were fantastic, as was Hans Zimmer’s score. Expect some Oscar nominations there.

A friend of mine made the observation that Batman Begins (the Man of Steel of The Dark Knight trilogy) was quite inferior to its sequels and I really hope that’s the case here. I really want to like this series.

2.5 out of 5 stars

Favorite Scene Friday! Superman III: Clark Kent Vs. Superman

If you stopped by for last week's Favorite Scene Friday, you'll know that we're doing nuthin' but Superman scenes this month in honor of the release of Man of Steel. That's right, yours truly and a few guests will be sharing their favorite moments from previous Superman films. Well, we've got the Man of CT-eel himself doing the honors today (I am NOT happy with that joke). That's right, CT from the Nerd Lunch blog and podcast stopped by to share one of his favorite Superman scenes. He's no stranger to these parts so I'll leave it at that. Enjoy today's scene and go see Man of Steel!

Clark Kent has always been one of my favorite comic book characters.

Yes. Clark Kent.

I mean, yeah, I love Superman and part of what makes Clark Kent awesome is that he is Superman, but between the two personas, I prefer Clark Kent. Always have. There's something incredibly interesting to me about a guy who is the most powerful being on the planet and he walks around as a plain ol' guy. Add to that the times he has to jump into action as Clark Kent and yet still keep the identity a secret and you've got a pretty awesome storytelling device.

I get that the disguise is hokey and no one buys into it anymore. Slap on a pair of glasses and change your hairstyle...that's not going to fool anyone in real life. But this isn't real life. And that's part of the charm.

I don't know if I can pinpoint when my love for CK started, but I did always like the George Reeves version and upon seeing it later, the CK of the '40s cartoon. He was so calm and cool and just seemed to be having fun with it. You could say he was mild-mannered about it all. Even in the comics, Clark was given a similar treatment. He had his own complicated backstory with Smallville and Lori Lemaris just as Superman did with Krypton and all that jazz.

But then came along Richard Donner and Christopher Reeve and they made a brilliant rendition of Superman in 1978. In this version, Clark Kent was changed to further disguise the persona. And Reeve portrayed it beautifully. But there was, and still is, a part of me that misses the Clark Kent that carried a bit more confidence. He doesn't get much screen time in the first movie and what he gets in II alters the story drastically.

So along comes III and it seems like we have a chance to give Clark Kent some character development. Except, Superman III is...well, it's Superman III. Robert Vaughn is the villain and Richard Pryor is this weird comedic foil/sidekick. And some pretty cool opportunities to do things with Clark visiting Smallville again are absolutely wasted.

Wikipedia

About halfway through the movie, Pryor's character creates a fake version of Kryptonite that alters Superman's mind and makes him into an apathetic jerk. And there is no one who can stop Superman. No one.

No one except Clark Kent.

For no real explicable reason, Superman lands in a junkyard, a glowy thing shines on his forehead and he splits into Clark Kent and Superman. It's vague what caused this to happen and whether it was a physical fight that proceeded between the two personas or a mental one. But I loved it because it was the kind of thing you'd see in the comic. Superman and Clark Kent fighting each other? Amazing.

The best moment in this might be right after the first punch Clark gives to Superman right into a vat of open acid (is that a thing junkyards have?!) and in that brief moment, he straightens his tie and seems to carry a bit of the confidence that I missed seeing in the Reeve incarnation of Clark. Best of all, the persona that wins this fight in the end is Clark Kent.

This lone scene is the third movie right here. The other hour and 45 minutes is a waste of Christopher Reeve's talent and completely misses a chance to tell a great story. After seeing that Superman is the dominant persona in Superman II and Clark doesn't get what he wants, it would have been nice to build a movie around the counter-argument that Clark is vital to the character as well. It helps keep him grounded and allows him to see his place in helping humanity rather than being above them.

The scene is really well done and one of the better fight scenes in the series. (Maybe Paxton Holley will talk about Nuclear Man when he gives his favorite Superman scene.) Add to it that this movie is really bad. Really, really bad. And yet somehow it exists anyway in spite of that. This really is one of my favorite scenes.

Favorite Scene Friday! Superman Returns: The Safest Way to Travel

While everyone else is trying to figure out how Superman shaves his beard (seriously?) let’s examine one of the best scenes from Superman Returns.

Supes is rushing to save Lois Lane and the rest of a group of reporters after the plane they’re on fails to detach from the space shuttle it was transporting (due to one of Lex Luthor's schemes). Superman successfully separates the shuttle from Lois’ plane (and takes a weird amount of time making sure that it gets away safely) but it’s here that the scene gets interesting.

A lot of people might not like Superman Returns as a film, but I don’t think anyone can argue that this isn't one of the best action scenes in any superhero flick. From the triumphant Superman theme at the beginning to the thunderous applause at the end, the scene really, really works. Director Bryan Singer and his team really know what makes Superman cool power-wise - he can fly and he’s super strong. Combine that with a crashing airplane and you’ve got movie magic. Few superheroes can pluck a plane out of the sky. (Side note - Singer must have a thing for superhero airplane action sequences, because there's another one in X2 featuring the teleporting mutant Nightcrawler. I’d like to talk about that scene at a later date because it absolutely blew me away when I first saw it.)

There’s a great sense of peril throughout this scene as Superman tries to stop the plane in time. Singer keeps things moving fast but it doesn't feel rushed or disoriented. The ending is a little silly (a baseball diamond packed with fans - what are the odds?!) but appropriate.



Man. This scene. It gives me all the goosebumps. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you have a great weekend. Tune in next week (and every Friday this month) for another Superman scene in celebration of the release of Man of Steel.