Sunday, October 12, 2025

1979's top-grossing movie Superman sets the hero bar sky high

 

I've often described this movie in this way, as it relates to Laserdisc sides:

Perfect side 1.
Super fun side 2. 
Ruinous side 3.

Here come some spoilers for a nearly 50-year-old movie....

That ending, man. It just kills me. I don't mean that I fail to feel Superman's anguish over Lois' death, as Luthor finds the perfect way to guarantee his nemesis' failure by dividing and conquering. It's a horrific death scene, really, but there's got to be another way to do this. I am not advocating killing Lane for good (not even Zack Snyder would consider going so dark), but if you remove her death then you have an amazing opportunity for an ending with consequence: Superman saves as many as he can but he will have to live with his limitations, and Luthor will score a moral victory even as he goes to jail because he hurt the Man of Steel's heart.

Or at the very least, provide some consequence for turning back time - because if Superman can do that without suffering anything then he should always do it. If, however, it costs him something like a reduction or loss of a particular power, or years off his life, or something ... then it becomes another terrible choice for him to struggle with.

Anyway - no need to dwell further on the story choices of an otherwise great movie. 

The helicopter rescue is phenomenal. The rooftop patio scene where movie magic shows both Clark and Superman talking to Lois seconds apart from each other in the same, one-shot scene is, well, magic. 

The wildest part is always that off-screen mom's slapping of her kid for lying about a flying man saving her cat because ... surely Superman heard that as he had only just flown off, but saving the cat was more important than stepping in to stop child abuse. 

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