Superman (casting, rumors, pix till release)

[CorporalClegg]

Flying Spaghetti Monster wrote:

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Of course, there's always this! LOL One of the best Superman scenes ever!

I forgot about that one.

I've always thought Delany would have made an excellent live action Lois.

Heck she still would. She's still freakin gorgeous and looks 10+ years younger than she is.

I think I would have even preferred her for EDLois's mom on Smallville over Hatcher.

In any case, I haven't seen STAS in at least a decade. I should try and find a DVD. Thanks for the reminder.

[JarodRussell]

The Lensman wrote:

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Except she wasn't "attempting to kill herself". She was in as much danger as a person jumping into a giant inflatable cushion, and she knew that.

She did not know anything. She jumps, and Clark turns out to be Clark, and she's dead.

She is insane.

[Christopher]

CorporalClegg wrote:

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I've always thought Delany would have made an excellent live action Lois.

Heck she still would. She's still freakin gorgeous and looks 10+ years younger than she is.

She seems to be playing 10+ years younger than she is on Body of Proof, considering that her mother on that series is played by Joanna Cassidy, who's only a decade her senior.

[Trekker4747]

So, didn't Clark manage to save Lois without revealing himself to be Superman and without even using the Superman persona? (I seem to recall him using super breath or something to manipulate an awning... or something.)

Wouldn't this pretty much traumatize Lois? I mean it should hit her like a giant 1000-Ton ACME anvil that she just nearly died on a hunch (even a hunch she was 100% correct on both in reality and in her mind) and only "saved" by dumb luck.

I agree SMIII has certain Silver Age charms to it but at times tries way too hard (again, slapstick opening credits crawl) and pretty much any scene involving Richard Pryor (an amazingly, fabulously funny guy but he just wasn't in this movie and used way too much.)

I really look forward to this new take on Superman in theaters... A year from now.

[Christopher]

Trekker4747 wrote:

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So, didn't Clark manage to save Lois without revealing himself to be Superman and without even using the Superman persona? (I seem to recall him using super breath or something to manipulate an awning... or something.)

Wouldn't this pretty much traumatize Lois? I mean it should hit her like a giant 1000-Ton ACME anvil that she just nearly died on a hunch (even a hunch she was 100% correct on both in reality and in her mind) and only "saved" by dumb luck.

Don't forget what happened afterward. Sure, in the Lester version, Lois was completely fooled when Clark didn't turn into Superman to save her at Niagara falls. But in the Donner version, the one we're talking about, the one where she jumped out the window, she wasn't fooled for long. She may have failed to prove Clark was Superman, but she still suspected that he was, and in the great scene that unfortunately was only ever filmed in the actors' auditions (footage of which was incorporated into the Donner Cut), she forced Clark to reveal himself by shooting him (with blanks, which he really should've noticed).

So she wouldn't have been traumatized, because she never really believed she'd been wrong. All the window incident proved to her was that she needed a better plan to smoke Superman out. Which is why Donner Cut Lois is immensely more awesome than the gullible, unperceptive Lois of the Lester version.

I agree SMIII has certain Silver Age charms to it but at times tries way too hard (again, slapstick opening credits crawl) and pretty much any scene involving Richard Pryor (an amazingly, fabulously funny guy but he just wasn't in this movie and used way too much.)

Well, the opening slapstick sequence is trying too hard, yes, but it's superbly executed. Lester was a master of intricate detail, keeping a whole bunch of balls in the air and keeping track of every one of them. You see that all through the movie, with all the subtle background details and the plot points that are set up in one scene and paid off many scenes later. In terms of sheer structural cohesiveness, it has all the other Reeve films beat.

And on the DVD I rented, most of the deleted scenes were Pryor footage. So he was actually used a lot less in the final cut than he could've been.

[CorporalCaptain]

Christopher wrote:

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All the window incident proved to her was that she needed a better plan to smoke Superman out. Which is why Donner Cut Lois is immensely more awesome than the gullible, unperceptive Lois of the Lester version.

Actually, all it proves is that we're watching a comic-book movie teetering on the edge of being populated entirely by one-dimensional caricatures.

As improbable as it is from the standpoint of Superman's powers, at least the scene where she shoots Clark with blanks has the virtue of not portraying her as an idiot in need of a vacation in a psyche ward.

[Trekker4747]

Don't forget what happened afterward. Sure, in the Lester version, Lois was completely fooled when Clark didn't turn into Superman to save her at Niagara falls. But in the Donner version, the one we're talking about, the one where she jumped out the window, she wasn't fooled for long. She may have failed to prove Clark was Superman, but she still suspected that he was, and in the great scene that unfortunately was only ever filmed in the actors' auditions (footage of which was incorporated into the Donner Cut), she forced Clark to reveal himself by shooting him (with blanks, which he really should've noticed).

Ah! Okay, I'm clearer on what we're talking about, I recall those events in the Donner version.

And, yeah, Clark should have noticed he was shot-at with blanks, given that nothing would have hit him. Though maybe even if the gun had been filled with bullets he wouldn't have felt them as the impact they'd cause are too well below his threshold of feeling them. It'd be like a human getting "shot" with a speck of dust. We're so much more powerful and stronger in comparison it's not enough to notice it.

So Lois fires the blanks and Superman says, "Oh shit! She's shooting me! I don't normally feel bullets... Uh... act shot!"

[Christopher]

^I was thinking more that Superman's vision and perceptual speed would allow him to see bullets in flight -- or in the case of blanks, the lack thereof. Or that he could tell the difference between blanks and real bullets by the sound, the smell, some cue that we would miss. Or that he would use x-ray vision on the gun the moment he saw it and determine whether it was loaded and with what.

The thing is, film and TV generally only show Superman using his super-senses at specific moments, as if he has to make a conscious effort to activate them, because it's hard in those media to do what you can do in comics and particularly in prose: to acknowledge that his super-senses are engaged at every moment and that he thinks and processes input at superhuman speed, so he can size up a situation in milliseconds.

[sojourner]

^Same issue with the Flash though. If Flash was portrayed as always processing his senses at superspeed it would be hard to write real threats for him. He technically is fast enough to respond to anything nearly instantaneously.

[Admiral Buzzkill]

CorporalCaptain wrote:

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Actually, all it proves is that we're watching a comic-book movie teetering on the edge of being populated entirely by one-dimensional caricatures.

Absolutely Right(TM).

The filmmakers were taking their cues from decades of one of the most immature, dysfunctional supposed "romances" in popular fiction - Superman and Lois Lane in the comic books.

If nothing else, Donner seems to have finally, permanently introduced the idea of some real mutual affection into the Lois-and-Clark relationship.

[Christopher]

sojourner wrote:

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^Same issue with the Flash though. If Flash was portrayed as always processing his senses at superspeed it would be hard to write real threats for him. He technically is fast enough to respond to anything nearly instantaneously.

But my point is, he more often is portrayed that way in comics than in film. I believe it's actually been used rather well as a plot/character point in the recent New 52 Flash series from Francis Manapul. You can portray something like that in comics because comics is a series of freeze-frames, so you can concentrate on a single moment and elaborate on its details. And you can portray it in prose because you can get into a character's viewpoint and describe in detail how they perceive an event, even if it takes a split second. Film/TV is different; although it is possible to go into super-slo-mo and show such a reaction, it has to be a special case, an exception to the normal flow of real-time storytelling -- and it generally takes a lot more money to shoot if it's in live action. So it isn't done as routinely, and instead of a character who's always perceiving things so keenly or swiftly, you get a Superman or Flash who's portrayed as having pretty much normal senses and reaction times unless he makes a specific effort to do otherwise.

Well, actually Smallville did a pretty good job using "bullet time" effects to show how Clark perceived events at superspeed. Earlier Superman adaptations, not so much.

[therealsb63]

DWF wrote:

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I had no problem with the hand in the fire scene in the second movie since Clark did love Lois and had to be truthful to her about who he was. Right after the interview in the first movie and he showed up as Clark, Lois went to go get ready to go, Clark straightened up lowered his and took off his glasses to tell Lois then and there who he was, I think that was just part of his upbringing that he be honest with his loved ones. I think Clark had falled for Lois right off the bat but it took Superman to geet to her.

Ever notice in that scene, after he flys away at the end of the interview, to when Clark knocks at the door, there is NO CUT...in the book on the making of the film, it tells how they did that intentionally, they got Reeve out of shot, out of the flying harness, into Clark's suit and recombed his hair without stopping the camera.

[DWF]

therealsb63 wrote:

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Ever notice in that scene, after he flys away at the end of the interview, to when Clark knocks at the door, there is NO CUT...in the book on the making of the film, it tells how they did that intentionally, they got Reeve out of shot, out of the flying harness, into Clark's suit and recombed his hair without stopping the camera.

That's strange because I thought in the commentary Donner said there were six months between Superman taking off the roof and Clark entering the door.

[DWF]

Christopher wrote:

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Don't forget what happened afterward. Sure, in the Lester version, Lois was completely fooled when Clark didn't turn into Superman to save her at Niagara falls. But in the Donner version, the one we're talking about, the one where she jumped out the window, she wasn't fooled for long. She may have failed to prove Clark was Superman, but she still suspected that he was, and in the great scene that unfortunately was only ever filmed in the actors' auditions (footage of which was incorporated into the Donner Cut), she forced Clark to reveal himself by shooting him (with blanks, which he really should've noticed).

In the end whether Clark thrusts his hand in the fire or allows himself to shot even by blanks he still subconsciously let Lois in on his secret. And by shooting him Lois didn't have to risk her own life, which she did in both versions. If the point of Lois learning his secret is meant to led them to bed and Clark losing his powers then it all feels rather pointless, since the movie ends with a reset button and in the Donner version everything is reset and the Kyrtonian criminals are put back to the Phantom Zone.

[Agenda]

I don't know why they went with the amnesia kiss in the original version. Even as a kid watching that, I was like "WTF?" Maybe they should have had a quick scene of him going to a lab in the Fortress of Solitude to make amnesia pills or something.