Sep
21
Last week saw the end of Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s 12-issue run on “All-Star Superman,” a series that was sort of a throwback to the Silver Age and an antidote to the godawful “All-Star Batman and Robin” book that intermittently pollutes comics racks.
This weekend, I got the urge to revisit two Super-sequels — “Superman II” and “Superman III,” films from an era when Roman numerals classed up a franchise. More recently, “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” tried them as well, but I imagine it suffered at the box office because too many tweens thought the film was the eleventh entry, not the second, in the series.
A Couple of Dicks
“Superman II” has a rather fascinating backstory. Long before the second and third “Matrix” and “Pirates of the Caribbean” films were shot back-to-back, the first two “Superman” films were made simultaneously. Richard Donner had originally been hired by the producers, the father-and-son team of Alexander and Ilya Salkind, to direct the film(s), but “creative differences” ultimately led to his firing before movie two was completed.
Enter Richard Lester, director of “A Hard Day’s Night.” Lester was brought on board by the Salkinds to finish “Superman II.” But Lester didn’t simply film whatever scenes Donner’s departure had left unfinished. No, he reworked the script, shot alternate sequences — most notably how Lois discovers Superman and Clark Kent are one and the same — and used as little of Donner’s footage as possible. He was over a barrel with Gene Hackman’s scenes, though. The actor refused to return to the set and shoot any new footage, feeling that the producers had shafted Donner, which they had.
A couple years ago, Warner Bros. released “The Donner Cut” of “Superman II.” The quintessential fanwank manages to incorporate as much of what Donner had originally shot for the film, including a badass scene where the Kryptonian supervillain General Zod mows down a bunch of soldiers with an assault rifle. Unfortunately, the producers of the Donner version had to use Chris Reeve’s audition footage for a very key moment in the film, the aforementioned scene when Lois “shoots” Clark Kent to prove that he’s really Superman. At any rate, “The Donner Cut” isn’t what I’d consider to be the definitive version of “Superman II.” No, Lester’s film has that honor.
Terence Stamp of Approval
Everyone knows that in “The Empire Strikes Back” Luke Skywalker finds out Darth Vader’s his father, and “Return of the Jedi” has the Ewoks. But, if I had a nickel for every time I had to explain which Superman sequel has the three Kryptonian supervillains and which has Richard Pryor, I’d have enough money to buy “Action Comics” #1; for all you non-fans, that would be the first issue Superman ever appeared in, published back in 1938.
I guess the first two Superman sequels sort of run together in the average’s person’s mind. After all, they were both directed by Richard Lester. Fans are almost unanimously dismissive of movie three, but the second film is generally better received, mostly because of the lengthy sequence when Superman battles General Zod, Ursa and Non — a trio of nogoodniks from Krypton who’d been banished to the Phantom Zone shortly before the planet went kablooey.
What’s more, “Superman II” explores the title character’s relationship with Lois Lane, and I think those moments are the strongest in the film. Once he reveals his dual identities to her and does a little soul searching with a holographic representation of his Kryptonian mother Lara in the Fortress of Solitude, Superman realizes he must forfeit his powers to be with the woman he loves. He steps into a chamber that bathes him in rays from a red sun, stripping him of his superhuman abilities and making him mortal. In essence, Lois kills Superman in the movie. Then he gets his ass kicked by a trucker in a roadside diner and finds out that General Zod has taken over the world. Oop!
Superman somehow manages to restore his powers and turn that red sun ray technology against the Kryptonian baddies by film’s end. But what’s great about the film is how it shows Superman’s weakness in this installment isn’t kryptonite; it’s his ego. He selfishly relinquishes his powers to be with a woman who loves him. He’s thinking only of himself, not of Lois, not of the world he’s sworn to protect. The paradox, however, is that Lois loves Superman because he’s powerful, not simply because he’s tall, dark and handsome. Clark Kent’s tall, dark and handsome, and she’s not the least bit interesting in him. Powerless, Superman is of no use to her, exemplified by the scene in which the trucker beats the hell out of him. I especially love how Superman — as Clark Kent — goes back to the diner and knocks the trucker for a loop in the film’s closing moments. He couldn’t let it go. That’s one bruised [super] ego.
A Pryor Engagement
“Superman III” doesn’t have the unevenness of its predecessor. It has a different sort of unevenness, I suppose. Where movie two was a comprimised vision, helmed by two very different directors, the third film is entirely Richard Lester’s. The original idea was to bring the villain Brainiac into the fold. I love Brainiac. His name alone screams awesomeness. But then comedian Richard Pryor went on “The Tonight Show” and told Johnny Carson how much he’d love to be in a Superman film.
The Salkinds saw great potential in casting Richard Pryor in movie three, not as Brainiac, alas, but Gus Gorman — a chronically unemployed goofball who discovers he has a hidden talent for computer hacking when he takes a job as a programmer at Webscoe. The film also stars Robert Vaughn as Webscoe CEO Ross Webster, a corrupt businessman (Is there any other kind?) that sees great potential in Gorman’s abilities. They build a supercomputer in a cave that shoots kryptonite lasers and turns Webster’s rather mannish sister into some kind of lumbering robot that freaked me out when I was 5. The movie’s strength isn’t so much the doomsday weapon, but the portion where Superman turns evil.
In the comics, and on that crappy show “Smallville” from what I understand, there’s more than one kind of kryptonite. I don’t pretend to know what all of them do. Of course, green kryptonite weakens Superman and can potentially kill him. The other colors of kryptonite each have their own quirks. There is some confusion among the laymen as to why a piece of Superman’s home planet causes him harm. It’s not nostalgia. It’s the radiation that permeates the rock which is what robs him of his powers or turns him into an ant or whatever.
That being said, in “Superman III,” Webster and Gorman conspire to kill Superman with kryptonite. The problem is they don’t have any. So they make some. But the synthetic kryptonite affects Superman differently than the stuff from outer space. It makes him a not very nice person. He beings to shirk his Superman duties then straightens the Leaning Tower of Pisa before blowing out the Olympic Torch. Later, he punches a giant hole in an oil tanker and hooks up with Webster’s squeeze. His costume goes from bright red and blue to more subdued tones. His hair is greasy and he needs a shave. This is probably the closest we’ll ever get to seeing Bizarro on-screen.
After pounding shots in a bar, Superman has a bit of an emotional breakdown in a junkyard, where he splits into two beings — Evil Superman and Good Clark Kent. They lay into each other until Kent’s left standing. He tears open his shirt and reveals the bright red “S”-shield underneath. Regardless of whether or not you think Richard Pryor was a worthy addition to the film franchise, you have to admit that the junkyard brawl in “Superman III” is one of the best sequences in the series and justifies the movie’s existence.
In sum, Richard Lester’s directorial efforts on “Superman II” and “III” were more successful than the rabid fanbase would have you think. Richard Donner would have gone a different route, granted, but it’s fairly pointless to romanticize all the possibilities. These two films have plenty of greatness in them. Who knows what Warner Bros. is going to do with the property next? But at the end of the day, they have a lot to live up to.
-Brad Lohan
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