Superhero movies are all the rage today, thanks in large part to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it wasn't all that long ago that Hollywood didn't think it could pull off the amazing adventures of flying men and women in tights. Thankfully, special effects technology reached the point where characters like Spider-Man, the X-Men, and Shazam can grace the silver screen, but twenty years before Wolverine helped kick off the superhero movie craze, 1978's Superman showed us all the light.
Superman, directed by Richard Donner, continues to stand out as one of the greatest superhero movies ever made. From the casting of Christopher Reeve to the structure of the story, Superman still shines bright while some newer superhero movies have already started to lose their luster. But not everything about Donner's Superman is perfect.
10 Super Great: The Perfect Three-Act Structure Of An Origin
While the script is credited to Mario Puzo, David Newman, Leslie Newman, and Robert Benton, Richard Donner's friend and collaborator Tom Mankiewicz wrote the final draft of the story and is often credited for taking a campy movie and making it into the classic that we all know and love.
The story follows a simple three-act structure, but breaks those acts up based on location, with the first act taking place on Krypton, then moving to Smallville for the second act, and finally reaching Metropolis for the final act. Each act fills in an important part of Superman's origin, giving new and old fans alike a real feel for the world they have entered.
9 Super Lame: Superman Doesn't Have Anything To Hit
As wonderful as Superman is, and while Gene Hackman makes for a wonderful Lex Luthor, one missing piece in the movie is that Superman never faces off against anything or anyone as powerful as himself, which means he never gets to hit anything.
The movie certainly shows off Superman's strength time and time again, from keeping Air Force One from crashing to pushing a missile out of its pre-set path, but the lack of a good fight is disappointing. Luckily, that problem was fixed when the evil Kryptonians Zod, Ursa, and Non showed up in Superman II.
8 Super Great: It Nailed The Costume
While there are decades of costume designs from the comics, sometimes Hollywood feels the need to change the look of a superhero, and the next thing you know, the X-Men are all wearing black leather or Flash is wearing a suit of armor that doesn't look comfortable or aerodynamic.
Luckily, Kal-El looks exactly like himself in Superman. And so does Clark Kent. In fact, every character pretty much looks like their comic book counterpart —although Krypton looks very different from what readers at the time were familiar with. But the most important piece, Superman's costume, looks like it came right off the page.
7 Super Lame: That Poem Is... Rough
The relationship between Superman and Lois Lane is perfectly handled in the movie. Played by Margot Kidder, anyone watching Superman won't question the reporter's bona fide as she interviews the Last Son of Krypton on her patio, or when she goes out looking for a story that could well cost her her life.
But there is one moment when Superman takes Lois flying for the first time. In that scene, Lois recites a poem to herself, and while the moment is dreamlike, the poem is pretty cheesy. It doesn't quite fit with the Lois Lane the movie has shown viewers up to that point.
6 Super Great: Donner's Demand For Verisimilitude Informs Every Choice
During the making of Superman, director Richard Donner had one word he would always go back to when making a decision: verisimilitude. The word, which means giving something the appearance of being true or real, was how Donner believed the whole movie had to work.
The world of Superman needed to be so real that the audience wouldn't have any trouble believing a man could fly. More to it, that meant that the movie itself had to believe everything that happens in it, which meant that there couldn't be any winks to the audience about any aspect of the story being cheesy or goofy. One sarcastic moment, and it could have all fallen apart.
5 Super Lame: Otis Is Too Goofy
There is one character that could have broken Donner's call for verisimilitude, but instead just rides that line: Otis, played by Ned Beatty. Otis is Lex Luthor's right-hand man, but he's also played for laughs in just about every scene. Otis is so incapable of doing anything right that it can be hard to understand why Lex keeps him around until viewers remember that Lex loves nothing more than praise, and Otis is constantly praising him.
Still, some of Otis' antics are almost too cartoony for the movie, and in the end, the character doesn't do anything to push the story forward, unlike Lex's other assistant, Eve Teschmacher, played by Valerie Perrine.
4 Super Great: It Makes Us Believe A Man Can Fly
These days, it's easy for a big-budget movie to make someone fly across a city, but in 1978 it still took a whole lot of work. Richard Donner knew that if they couldn't make Superman's flying look real, then there was no way the movie would work.
A special screen was created by 3M for flying scenes that depended on front projection work. Today that method is known as the Zoptic system. The hard work paid off. Not only did audiences believe a man could fly, but the Academy Awards also gave the film a Special Achievement Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.
3 Super Lame: Jimmy Olsen Gets Shoved In At The End
The original plan when filming Superman was to film Superman II at the same time, but budget problems, deadlines, and problems between Richard Donner and producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind forced the plan to be abandoned. With the decision to hold off on completing Superman II until after Superman was released, Donner and Tom Mankiewicz were forced to come up with a new ending in case the sequel ended up being scrapped.
The ending of Superman works for the most part, but there are problems with it. One big problem is the entire situation with Jimmy Olsen at the Hoover Dam, it feels forced in just to give Superman one more thing to deal with before he can get to Lois.
2 Super Great: Reeves Is Still The Gold Standard Of Casting
While other actors have done a great job of playing Superman, none of them have felt like they came right off the four-color page like Christopher Reeve does. Reeve is really playing two characters in all four of his Superman films, with his Clark Kent being so vastly different from his Superman that a viewer can really understand why Lois Lane doesn't realize they're both the same person.
Reeve plays his Clark Kent as eternally clumsy and always stammering. He hunches over slightly and walks with short unsure steps. He even raises the pitch of his voice. But as Superman he stands tall, a slightly cocky but also endearing smile always on his face, and every step he takes is balletic, confident, and swift.
1 Super Lame: Superman Doesn't Learn His Lesson
Another issue with the decision to change the ending of Superman at the last minute is that Superman seems to not have learned anything. Earlier in the movie, Superman is told by Jor-El that the one thing he can never do is change the course of human events, even the deaths of the people he loves.
Superman already knows the pain of losing a loved one because of the death of Pa Kent, but when Lois dies, the Man of Steel uses his powers to go back in time and save her without any consequences. Originally, Superman's actions were to lead to the evil Kryptonians escaping, but that was left out, meaning that Superman never learns that messing with world events is bad.