It looks like there won't be much in the way of gaming until September sort of time so I'll do my best to fill in Thursday with something on my blog. May not necessarily be gaming related, but it will be something. That said, I can now finally give you my thoughts on the original Superman films as I've finally been able to see them after so long of waiting and I have to admit, I can see why so many people enjoy these films over Man of Steel. So let's take a look:
I
So by now, you all know the drill. Krypton is at the brink of its destruction and the Ruling Council has found General Zod (played by Terrance Stamp) and his accomplices Ursa (played by Sarah Douglas) and Non (played by Jack O'Halloran) guilty of presumably random acts of violence and are sentenced to eternal living death in The Phantom Zone. Jor-El (played by Marlon Brando) is unable to convince the council about Krypton's destruction and as such, he sends his only son Kal-El (who would later become our titular hero Superman, played by Christopher Reeve) to Earth as Krypton's last surviving Kryptonian and as such, the planet is then destroyed thereafter. On Earth, Kal-El is taken in and raised by Jonathan and Martha Kent (played by Glenn Ford and Phyllis Thaxtor respectively), farmers who live in the town of Smallville and decide to call him Clark. At the age of 18, following the death of his adopted father and upon discovering a green crystal, Clark then heads to the arctic where he finds the Fortress of Solitude. There, he comes across a vision of Jor-El who tells him who he is, what he can do and what he must do and as such, Clark leaves with a colourful costume and takes up a job at The Daily Planet in Metropolis where he falls in love with his co-worker Lois Lane (played by Margot Kidder) and manages to publicly use his powers for the first time to stop several distastes from happening, eventually leading him to become the costumed superhero know as Superman. But when a mad man by the name of Lex Luthor (played by Gene Hackman) decides to do some evil things, its up to Superman to stop him, unbeknowest to him that Lex knows his weakness. As the first film in a series of films, it manages to do everything right. It establishes the characters well, has people love Superman for what he is and is generally a very good film and a good start to the series in my opinion and I can see why this film was able to make future superhero films from Hollywood so darn popular. 9/10
II
So here's an interesting story. The original director of this film was able to do 75% of this film before being taken off the project, forcing the new director to pretty much do an entire reshoot of the film which was tireless work. In turn, this then lead to the release of The Richard Donner Cut of the film which was effectively the same film, but with all of the original director's scenes put in and the ones done by the new director were put in to fill up the gaps. All this led to the production of the film to be very controversial. But enough about that, let's now get into the film (and just to be clear, I'm only going to talk about the one that everyone saw and not the Donner Cut). Zod along with Ursa and Non are forced to flee from the Phantom Zone after a missile sent by Superman (due to something that Supes was up to) destroys it. Upon this happening, Zod and team are given superhuman powers much like Kal-El from the sun. They decide after attacking a few astronauts, to take over Earth by forcing everyone to kneel before Zod. Its up to Superman to save the world from these mad people. Now just to clarify, this film does have Superman possibly killing Zod so if you thought the braking neck thing from Man of Steel was wrong, then you clearly need to see this because absolutely no one had a heart attack when Zod was killed off here. Just wanted to make that clear. Anyway, so this is another good film that wraps up the storyline of Zod from the first film and also gives us a lot of character development for Lois, Superman and even Lex as well. But I wouldn't say its better than the first, but it is good regardless.
III
So after 2 great films, we now come to the first of the not so great films in this series. So first off, we have a new set of characters which replaces Lex's gang, consisting of August "Gus" Gorman (who discovers that he has a knack for programming, played by Richard Pryor), businessman Ross Webster (played by Robert Vaughn), his sister and partner Vera Webster (played by Annie Ross) and his assistant and girlfriend Lorelei Ambrosia (played by Pamela Stephenson). Ross is obsessed with a computer's potential to aid him to take over the world financially, but in doing so, they need to get rid of the one thing in their way, Superman. As such, Clark is given time off work to go to his high school reunion to meet some old friends. Ross discovers that Kryptonite is Superman's one and only weakness and has Gus and Vera take it to Superman during a town celebration of Superman in Smallville after getting Gus to find some in some of the debris in space that came from Krypton. Unfortunately for them, it doesn't do much to Superman, but the side effects cause Superman to go dark. Will he be able to overcome the darkness inside him or will this make Superman evil? As I said, its not the best film in the series which is all down to its campy and comedic tone which if you remember from the film Batman & Robin, resulted in the downfall of that series. In this case, the series was able to get one more film out of Reeve after this, nut believe me, its far more worse than this one. That aside, I thought this one was just OK. The minute I saw the lazy titles coming in, I knew this film was going to suck and as such, it did. Its not the best in the series and I think if the filmmakers decided to either keep Lex or give us some other villains from Superman's rouge gallery, then it would've worked. But I guess what you see is what you get. 5/10
IV: The Quest For Peace
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the worst Superman film ever. So Superman goes into space to save a bunch of astronauts (and by the way, people who have seen Gravity will know that in space, no one can hear you so why the filmmakers thought it be a good idea to have sound happen in space, clearly hasn't been taught anything about space. Idiots). Superman then goes to Smallville to uncover the capsule that bought him to the planet, where he comes across an non-lethal piece of kryptonite which a recoding of his mother, tells him that its power can only be used once. Superman as Clark Kent, then returns to Metropolis where it looks like The Daily Planet has been bought by a tycoon (and a dick one at that) who fires Perry White (played in the films up to this one by Jackie Cooper). A few events occur and then Superman decides to meet with the United Nations and do pretty much the dumbest move I have ever seen, rid the planet of its nuclear weapons. Lex manages to invent a missile that when sent to the sun, can transform into a powerful being which Superman takes care and as such, gives us Nuclear Man (played by Mark Pillow) who is a solar powered being and will stop at nothing to take down Superman. From that, you can see why many would call this a bad film. The effects are bad, you can tell when things are green screened and those get over used a lot, there should be no sound in space and everything about this film looks lame, boring and its just terrible. Its not in anyway the worst film that I have ever seen, but it is up there with the worst films ever made. 4/10
Returns
Serving as a sort of homage sequel to the first two films (ignoring that of the latter 2 which I think is for the best), we get this film which serves as the finale of the series and with it being released in 2006, it has an all new cast. So after a five year absence, Superman (played by the then unknown Brendon Routh) returns to Earth after looking at the remains of Krypton which he believed astronomers found. During his absence, Lex (played by Kevin Spacey) has been released from prison and has taken the fortune of a widower which he married and saw the death of. Clark Kent resumes his role of reporter at Daily Planet. When Lex causes an airliner to loose power, Superman goes into action and saves it by landing it in a baseball stadium which as he emerges from the airliner, the world rejoices with his return. He finds it hard to fit in once again, having been away for so long, but when Lex sets a plan into motion to have revenge on Superman and be able to have complete control of Earth, its up to Superman to stop his arch nemesis once again. Now I know I said a while ago that I preferred Man of Steel over this and to be fair, that is still the case. But what I don't get is why a film that was successful both critically and commercially, still didn't satisfy Warner Bros. As such I actually found out recently that this was to be the start of a new series of films that would feature other villains as well as Lex, so why WB decided to opt for a reboot instead of a sequel, I can guess is something really stupid on WB's part. But that aside, I enjoyed this film for what it is. The acting is top notch all around as is the action, but I think the acting talent that plays Superman and Lois Lane here may be to young to play them, but other than that, this was a good film, but not the best one. 7/10
And there you go. Not all superhero films are great, but that's not to say that they are bad because they are not bad. You just need the right people for the job at hand and away you go. I like this series a lot and will always see this as one of the greatest superhero trilogies of all time, despite the latter 3 films being not so great as the first two. 8/10
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