I agree with you: Spock's Brain is barely better than The Alternative Factor, because at least Spock's Brain has that psychedelic, trippy late 60s plot and dialogue whereas Alternative Factor is not very good on any scale except for a few choice, melodramatic, over the top moments with Lazarus. But would you say Spock's Brain is better than City on the Edge or Space Seed or Naked Time or Taste of Armageddon? I'm guessing not. 1) What Christopher & That Old Mixer Said 2) Like it or not, Zod made a positive impression on superhero fans. Otherwise, Zod would not have been brought back in Man of Steel or Smallville. Zod has never been a particularly huge factor in the comics as far as I know, with little appearances here and there. Yet, he still seems to creep back into pop culture. Why? Terence Stamp and Superman II. PERIOD.
You know what really bugs me about Quest for Peace? The earlier films had established Luthor was a bald man in a wig. Fair enough. But by the time of the fourth film Hackman has a massive bald spot on the back of his head they haven't bothered to cover up. So the character is still vain enough to wear a wig, but is wearing one with a receding hairline? Huh? I do have to say Hackman never really did it for me, there's a couple of nice moments where some real steel shows, but for the most part I thought he only really worked in the second film where he was the secondary antagonist to a much more serious and genuine threat to Superman so him being a wacky comedy villain didn't seem so underwhelming. John Shea is still my preferred Luthor, much like Delancie as Q he seemed to know exactly how much ham to bring to the table to make the character memorable but still had a dark serious edge to his performance that really worked.
John Shea was probably the best Luthor in live action form that we've gotten. I love Hackman's eccentricities, and his natural charm made it work. But he wasn't very menacing. I've always thought that about his wig. He chose one with a receding hairline. But what do you expect from Superman IV? It had so many more problems going for it that Luthor's hair is a minor problem by comparison.
Shea was okay as the romantic-rival Luthor of Lois & Clark, but that was kind of a revisionist take on the character. The best live-action Luthor is Michael Rosenbaum, hands down. Although Sherman Howard did a terrific job in the Superboy series.
And I don't care if it was Wareen Beatty who played Zod in S2. His arc ended fine in S1 and did not need to be revisited in S2 as the A-plot, since it was really uninteresting. Really it was to see what Luthor did next that was the continuing thread. As for Luthor, in the live-action TV series, I think Scott Wells did a pretty good job of interpreting Hackman's Luthor in a younger version. It's to bad that when the alternate universe episodes were made, he wasn't brought back as Luthor.
But it didn't end in S1, because the two films were scripted as a single 2-part story. The only reason Zod, Non, and Ursa were in the first film at all was to set up their appearance in the second. I mean, really, taken on its own it's a weird and irrelevant addition to the story; why would Jor-El, whose traditional role in the mythos is as a scientist and inventor, suddenly be a prosecutor? Why would a lawyer be the one who figures out that Krypton is doomed and builds a rocket to save his son? It doesn't make sense, except that the movie duology needed to give Zod a reason to have a personal vendetta against Superman, so they made Superman's dad the one who condemned him. (Okay, traditionally Jor-El was the one who sentenced Zod and the other criminals to the Phantom Zone because he invented the projector, but I don't think other versions made him the actual prosecutor at their trial. I could be wrong, though, given that in the Silver Age comics, Jor-El seemed to be in the middle of every significant event that happened on Krypton during his lifetime.)
Really, S2 would've been better without Zod in it. As you said, he was an irrelevant addition to the story. I never really found that Zod was any sort of match for Superman. It was pointless for him to be in S2, and there really wasn't much of a build-up as to why Zod hated Zor-El. Yeah he was the prosecutor of the trial---but really is that the main reason why Zod, "apparently" hated the House of El so much that he wanted all the House destroyed? If there had been some backstory besides the trial in S1, then maybe, but without any other backstory, I found 2 was just running on fumes. Donners cut added a few drops of gas to the engine, but it really didn't build-up just why Zod wanted Clark dead.
That's not even remotely what I meant. What I meant was that making Jor-El the prosecutor in the beginning of the film would be a pointless addition to Superman's origin story except for the fact that it served to set up Zod as the villain for part two of the story. You're saying that the first part worked while the second part was unnecessary, but that's backward, because the only reason the first part was there in the first place was to set up the second part. If Zod hadn't been in part 2, he wouldn't have been in part 1 either.
No it's not backwards, because the scene didn't setup anything for 2. It was a nice scene to start 1 off with, but it didn't setup 2. The prisoner escape plot for 2 was nothing more than an overblown C-plot. When I saw 2 I was more interested in seeing what Lex Luthor and his crew were going to do. I found the Luthor plot in 2 was setup better in 1 than the Zod plot. The Zod plot was more like the opening to the courtroom scene in the Adam-12 Season 2 episode "Court" where everyone's in calendar court, and the calendar judge is asking whether the case of Mr. Brook (or whatever the name was) vs. The People was ready to proceed, and the lawyer for that case stood up and said "No" and asked that it be pushed back which the judge agreed to. End of that C-plot, time to get on with the main plot of Mr. Smith vs. The People, and never hear of the Brook case again. With the Zod plot, it was over in 1 and there was no need to drag it out in 2. Period.
I always assumed that since Jor-El was (probably) a member of the council of floating heads, he was the one voted by the council to act as prosecutor while the rest acted as judge and jury. If it was otherwise, I guess I missed it. But the way it plays in my head works for me. As for Luthors, in terms of mustache-twirling, I'll stick with Lionel. Too bad they had to soften him up to make room for Lex's brand of evil, which I didn't think played nearly as well.
Okay, but the point is that the only reason the first movie opens with a trial scene at all is to set up the second movie. The standard version of the narrative is, Jor-El warns the Science Council of Krypton's imminent destruction and asks for funds to build a fleet of ships (or other means of escape), the Council laughs and dismisses his warning, he goes home and commiserates with Lara while he finishes the prototype ship, the destruction begins sooner than expected, and they just have time to send Kal-El on course for Earth before the planet explodes. Jor-El's role in the story is to be a scientist, not a jurist. In the comics, he discovered the Phantom Zone and created the projector used to imprison criminals there, but the guy who designed the prison isn't generally the same person as the prosecutor. And in the movie, if the first movie had been designed to stand on its own, then there would've been no trial scene cluttering things up in the first act. Its only purpose is to set up the sequel.
I thought the trial scene was Super-cool. I've never considered it clutter at all, even before the sequel appeared. It stands on its own as a slice of life on Krypton and what it means to defy the council. The council threatens Jor-El with being charged with a high crime, if he persists in warning people that the planet will explode, and the trial and phantom zone sequence gives context to that threat, both as to why the council might go that far and as to what it might mean for Jor-El.
I know all that, but how else would it be explained that Jor-El was the prosecutor? More screen time for Brando? It's been a while since I've seen the movie, but I remember that when the planet started to self-destruct the "incubator" ship was already built and ready to go. I took that to mean that the council confrontation had played out offscreen, and Jor-El was just doing his duty while secretly planning his son's escape. I don't know, really. That's just what makes sense to me. Some dots aren't hard for me to connect. The others tend to get put on 'ignore'.
I don't expect much logic from someone who ranks Superman IV over Superman II, but seriously... You thought Zod's thread ended with finality in Superman: The Movie. Really? Hmmm. So I guess you thought it wasn't open ended, huh? You thought the filmmakers would leave Zod and co floating around in space for all eternity, eh? I wonder then what the point of even having the scene to begin with is? If Zod wasn't coming back later, why introduce him at all?
Yes That's right. The scene was self contained. Why do other films, books and TV shows introduce us to characters that are bit parts? Such as the main character walking into a coffee shop and having a scene with the server by saying: Sue: Hey Jim! Two double-double's. Jim: Sure Sue. How are things at your job? Sue: Oh, I'm on a difficult assignment now. (Jim places coffees on counter). Thanks for the coffees.(picks up coffees and leaves) You know, Sue leaves and we see her in the next scene with no further mention of Jim. So the Zod scene was nothing more than a "coffee shop" scene.
So mass genocide on Krypton and only Superman, Zod and his two underlings still alive. The ONLY four living beings from the ENTIRE planet. And you seriously thought we never should see Zod again? I'm calling bullshit on that. Doesn't make sense. I mean, ok, fine, IDIC, and all that good stuff. But to me, you might as well be telling me that 2+2=5.
Why are you not getting this? It set up the existence of Zod, Non, and Ursa, because the filmmakers intended them to be the villains in part 2. The reason Zod was given that big speech declaring a vendetta against Jor-El and his entire family was to give him a motivation for going against Superman in the next movie. The whole thing was nothing but setup. One more time: Superman: The Movie and Superman 2 were written together as a single 2-part script, and were filmed back-to-back as a single continuous production (at least until Richard Donner was fired 70 percent of the way through filming on S2). Therefore, when S:TM was made, they already knew that the story for part 2 would be about the Phantom Zone villains, and that is the only reason they included those characters in the first movie at all. As I believe someone already mentioned, S:TM was originally going to end with the deflected nuclear missile releasing the trio from the Phantom Zone, as a cliffhanger to lead into S2. Since the opening scene had already established who they were, it would've set up that cliffhanger ending, and then it would've been easier to see its intended purpose.
I didn't even know there was a film Lois before Kidder, since I didn't think serials count as films Basically, I was comparing Margot Kidder, Kate Bosworth and Amy Adams. Of those three, Kidder is the only decent one, although she isn't as good as, say, the Superman Animaited series version, or the Smallville version, she's just the best film version. I don't know if either of the George Reeves era ones count, but I doubt I'd like them better than Kidder regardless.