SUPERMAN III MOVIE MINUTE #27 - Metropolis Mail-Bag
Fire and Water Network All-Stars Chris Franklin and Rob Kelly are back with SUPERMAN III MOVIE MINUTE, where they analyze, scrutinize, and you'll-believe-a-man-can-fly-ize the Man of Steel's third big screen adventure starring Christopher Reeve, Richard Pryor, Annette O'Toole, and Robert Vaughn, five minutes at a time!
In this final episode, Rob and Chris cover the listener feedback from this season of the show!
Join the conversation and find more great content:
MOVIES BY MINUTES – http://moviesbyminutes.com
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Opening theme and closing theme by John Williams.
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Glad you will be covering the Supergirl movie in some format and I would definitely be on board to discuss. Thanks for thinking of me.
I would gladly join Siskoid in reviewing Blade Runner, a movie I think of ( and watch) often. I would probably do the minute review of the 91 Director’s cut and then single episodes on the theatrical cut from 82 and the ‘ultimate’ cut.
For myself, if I had the gumption, I’d do The Third Man in this 5 minute breakdown.
Amazed you guys got through this. I think you’ll love the comic. (I have been reviewing on my site and it is wonderful.)
The 91 cut is also MY cut.
(There is also a European cut that’s a touch gorier.)
Yes … eye thumbs with more juice!
Maybe it’s not worth a WHOLE episode.
Thanks for a great run of episodes on Superman 3! If you boys ever decide to do a special episode covering Superman Returns, let me know. I did a teeny tiny something for the movie by creating an informational packet on Martha Kent & Smallville for Eva Marie Saint. There were actually several more scenes with her that were filmed but didn’t make the final cut.
Thanks for another awesome show. I always look forward to new episodes. You guys make even this movie fun. I’m up for hearing your take on Supergirl. That is another one that I have not watched since the ’80s. But I will do it for you!
Your mentioning the passing of Richard Donner got me to thinking that even before Superman the 1st production of his I ever watched had to be the Danger Island sequences from The Banana Splits TV show. Someone needs to turn that into a big budget film franchise. “Uh-oh, Chongo!”
I’m long overdue for a comment, and I’ve missed the deadline, but please let me vent. I mean, share!
Quite often in the course of the podcast, this picture was compared to Superman stories of that era, i.e., the Schwartz-edited, Bates (and Pasko, and Maggin, and Rozackis) -written stories. My problem with that comparison is that the difference is in the execution. As you two found out to your regret, this movie is terribly unbalanced. The plot is unfocused, the comedy is forced, and the characters are barely more than caricatures. In the comics, working with strict page counts, Julius Schwartz could keep his writers focused on the important story beats, with the humor elements, viz. Steve Lombard et al., kept to one page or so. (The comics also had the great advantage of thought balloons, so we readers were privy to Superman’s ideas, feelings, and musings.) This film, like most comic book adaptations, doesn’t trust the source material. It does what Hollywood does most; what’s been done before. Chris did a podcast where he talked with Jim Beard, who has edited several books about the Batman TV show. Beard made the point more than once that the TV scripts reflected Batman stories of the early-to-mid 1960s. I don’t disagree, but again it’s the execution that bothers me. If there was a film of Hamlet directed by Ed Wood, starring Jerry Lewis, and featuring Joe E. Ross, Joey Bishop, and Mamie Van Doren, you could say, “Well, it’s Shakespeare’s script!” That doesn’t make it a good version of Hamlet. At least the comic book version was able to trim some of the fat from the film and add some needed explanations and resolutions.
My other problem with this film is Lana Lang. As beautiful and talented as Annette O’Toole is, the character she portrayed is just a woman named Lana Lang. This was not the smartest girl in Smallville. This was not the daughter of a wordly and well-traveled archeologist. This is not the girl who blazed her way through college and made herself into a first-rate television journalist (before that was a field available to women!). This is not the curious, brave, determined girl who earned an honorary Legion membership. This is just a woman who wears yellow very well. I didn’t need a Lana to be a romantic rival for Lois. I didn’t need a Lana to be a co-worker of Clark’s. I just wanted a Lana who bore some resemblance to the Lana in the comics, one of the boldest, smartest, most courageous characters at DC.
Nevertheless, I loved listening!