I stumbled across the Superman movie which starred Christopher Reeve a couple of nights ago as I was flipping through the cable channels, and I was happily reminded of what a great movie (really a wonderful first half of a movie, and an OK second half) it was.  The early origin story with the Kent family on the farm just hits all the right notes for me. The later part with Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor slides into goofy comic villainy, but by then Christopher Reeve is in full Superman mode, so I was able to forgive a lot of the flaws in the story.
Watching this version of Superman from 1978 also reminded me how much I loathed the Man of Steel movie. I came out of the theater after that awful experience thinking that not only did the filmmakers not understand anything about Superman, but I didn’t even think they LIKED the character very much. I suppose the Man of Steel version of Superman was a “Dark Knight” twist on the character, but that just proved that the filmmakers didn’t GET it. Superman is a GOOD GUY. The Superman from Man of Steel was more like General Zod from Superman II than like Christoper Reeve’s Superman.
In my fantasy sequel to Man of Steel, the Real Superman (Christopher Reeve, digitally resurrected just to right this terrible wrong) returns, spit curl neatly in place, and handily banishes the new boneheaded Man of Steel into the Phantom Zone where he belongs.
Now THAT’s a happy ending!
I didn’t see Man of Steel until just recently, and I had seen multiple reviews like yours, so perhaps it was the lowered expectations, but really… what was so horrendous about it? He was still a good guy – what did I miss?
Yes, Zod made Superman kill him. Killing people like that is not a bad thing – in fact, all the ridiculous ways that the “good” guys manage to avoid killing the bad guys (so they can get out again later and KILL MORE INNOCENT PEOPLE) is just ridiculous.
In fact, I’d even say that’s what Zod wanted. He could easily have killed the people he was threatening at the end (laser vision – he could obviously look at them, so he could have killed them if he wanted), so he was clearly trying to get Kal to kill him. Very understandable for this version of Zod (who’s MUCH better than the SMII version of Zod – his last name was Twodimensional).
Or is there some other complaint that makes him not a “good guy”? What did I miss?
Well one thing is that generally, once Superman starts to think that maybe it’s alright to kill bad guys sometimes, he generally goes all Justice Lord and stuff.
Jeff,
I must agree with you. For me, the Richard Donner/Christopher Reeve dynamic is a tough act to follow. It amazes me how many people are now into the whole “tough guy, beat the villains up” Superman and regard saving a cat from a tree a whimpy Superman. No offense to Marvel characters, I love them too, but it seems like DC is treating their properties more and more like them. Major humanistic drama from characters with problems like ours and less about the traditional DC style.
The times the are changing.
Remind me, what happened to Zod and his henchmen at the end of the Christopher Reeve version? Oh yeah, THEY WERE KILLED BY THE PROTAGONISTS.
Seriously, go rewatch it.