Superman II — a quarter-century later

Last updated on: May 29, 2006 at 11:49 pm by Peter T. Chattaway

Superman II — a quarter-century later 2006-05-29T23:49:00-07:00 Peter T. Chattaway

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Blimey, I had forgotten just how stupid Superman II (1980) is.

In anticipation of Superman Returns, which comes out next month, I have been watching the Christopher Reeve films. A couple weeks ago, I watched the original Superman (1978) and was struck by how much potential it had — though the potential was already being squandered, even then. The stuff on Krypton with Marlon Brando was a little too serious, and the stuff with Gene Hackman and Ned Beatty yukking it up as goofball criminals was too campy for my tastes, and all the disaster-movie footage at the beginning and end felt too 1970s, but the film got a lot of things right — not least of which is John Williams’ score, which I listen to quite often, actually.

Seeing the film again for the first time in years, I was also rather intrigued by the almost abstract, experimental visuals that accompany Jor-El’s training of his son, right up to that weird crystal mask which spins around and let us see through its eyes as the adult Superman is revealed in his costume for the first time. I am reminded of the CGI whales and faces that illustrated the trip through time in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986); I like it when a movie takes a break from the plot and just basks in a trippy concept like that. (Though I cannot help but wonder why Kal-El is wearing that costume at that time. “My father took me around the universe and all I got was this lousy cape”?) I also noted one scene I don’t think I had ever seen in any other version of this film before, in which Jor-El asks Superman how it felt to be rescuing people, and he expresses a desire to live within a physical body again so that he can hold his son. Very interesting stuff.

In one of the DVD’s making-of documentaries, one of the writers says the religious allusions (a father sending his only son, etc.) were pretty much intentional — which makes the way the film emphasizes Superman’s rebellion against his father in the film’s climactic moments all the more interesting. Note the way Marlon Brando’s stern phrase “It is forbidden!” is echoed across the sky; there is no “Father … yet not my will but yours be done” here.

I remember my father and my cousin debating the significance of this scene, 27 years ago or more. (Is Superman really “interfering with human history” if he turns the clock back just a few hours, to revise events that he was already intervening in anyway?) But never mind the particulars of that debate. What’s interesting is how the film itself does not debate this. It simply presents the stern father who has made Superman everything that he is, and then Superman’s angry defiance — a defiance for which there is no negative outcome, only a happy ending for all. And that stern, forbidding father in the clouds is simply never seen again.

I gather Brando was supposed to be in Superman II, most of which was filmed at the same time as Superman — but then director Richard Donner was replaced with Richard Lester, Brando demanded more money, and all the Jor-El scenes from the sequel were thrown into the vault. This screenplay offers some tantalizing clues as to how the second film would have picked up some of these threads — and because the Brando footage will turn up in Superman Returns, it also offers some tantalizing clues as to what sort of plot developments we might see in Bryan Singer’s film.

But never mind the Superman II that might have been — let’s just focus on the Superman II that is. It’s awful. I know some people think it’s one of those sequels that improves on the original, but really. The special effects are often quite tacky, even for a 1980 film, and the cinematography is uninspired, and the editing is clumsy, and the music sounds like a rough temp track ripped from the first movie’s soundtrack album; it doesn’t sound like one original note was composed for this film, even though some guy named Ken Thorne is credited with adapting Williams’ themes.

The mythic qualities that dominated the first half of the first movie are nowhere to be seen — except perhaps in Kal-El’s willingness to give up his powers for the life of a mere mortal, but that, too, is one of the film’s weaknesses, since this part of the story is developed very hastily, without any sense that Superman is even remotely aware that the world might notice his sudden absence. (In the old screenplay, Jor-El does challenge him on this.)

And beyond that, the script is filled with inexplicabilities, like why Lex Luthor’s girlfriend — who betrayed him in the first film, and was almost killed by him in revenge — would suddenly go out of her way to break him out of prison. Or why the Kryptonian villains would suddenly have powers that Superman does not have, like the ability to send tractor beams out of their eyes and hands. Or why Superman would suddenly be able to yank the logo off his chest and throw it at someone like it was some sort of sticky, expanding trap. Or why Superman would be able to erase Lois’s memory of their affair simply by kissing her. And so on.

I’m also not particularly happy with the “revenge” theme at the end, when Clark Kent returns to the diner and beats up the trucker who beat him up during his powerless phase. It is interesting to consider the ways in which Kal-El might “enjoy” being more powerful than other people, and being able to express this power at the expense of those people that happen to incur his wrath; I am all in favour of exploring the darker side of Superman, as it were. But if this film is supposed to end on a triumphant note, I’d prefer that Superman do something a little more virtuous.

More thoughts later, perhaps. FWIW, I do plan to see the third and fourth films in this series, even though I know they suck. I am particularly interested in Superman III because, if memory serves, Lana Lang is a single parent there, just as Lois Lane will be in Superman Returns, and I am curious to see how the two films might or might not resemble each other, in this department.

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