I'm so very sorry that Jonathan Kent didn't have a lawyer present with him during this emotional exchange with his son to construct a perfectly foolproof statement that will take into account all the possible caveats. He really should have known better.

This isn't some off-the-cuff remark, it's a subject he must have thought about daily for over a decade. If it never occurred to him that just
maybe his adopted son's choices are more important than those of his biological parents, who, being aliens, could have sent him off for any reason imaginable, that's on
him, not the viewers.
Superman: The Movie's pacing is a reflection of the times.
One could say the same for the Bayformers movies - they reflect a hectic, attention-deficit-plagued age. Doesn't argue for their quality, does it? Meanwhile,
Animal House came out the same year as
Superman, with a much faster pace and leaner 109-minute runtime. Was
it not also a reflection of the times?
It was meant to have a David Lean like epic sweep to it.
Funny, I must have missed
Lawrence of Arabia's multiple scenes of slapstick comedy, with a tuba scoring an oaf's bumbling around, and its schmaltzy spoken-word pop song romantic interlude. The problem with
Superman: The Movie isn't necessarily that certain sequences aim for stateliness; it's that those that
do are surrounded by useless sequel setup, sequences straight out of wildly disparate genres, a cheat of a climax, and a total failure of a romantic heroine.
Some of the lyricism, especially the way it leans on long stretches of lush scoring where not much action is going on (like the Fortress of Solitude segment) are reminiscent of Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
Also a bad movie, but at least a tonally consistent one.
Then, there's the Pauline Kael reference--this the same woman who said of the original Star Wars.
I don't doubt that Kael and I would disagree on my most cherished movies; I don't even agree with all of her
Superman review. But I agree with the points I quoted. I can't help but notice that no one name-checked Kidder in this thread before I did, or has done so since; nor has the name "Otis" been mentioned at all. It's almost as if there's a selective blindness, dare I say,
nostalgia, in play...