Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Surely You Can't
Be Serious Podcast.
Speaker 2: It is twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: That means it's been forty five years since the original
Superman with Christopher Reeve was released, and it also means
it's been ten years since Man of Steel with Henry
Cavill was released. We are bringing you today a special
episode on Superman one and two versus Man of Steel.
We are joined by our friend mister John Reid from
the thirty something Movie podcast. We have also another podcast
with John that deals with Superman called Podcast Full of Kryptonite,
where we talk about the series Superman and Lois and
we also jumped into the Josh Wheedton Justice League versus
the Zach Snyder Justice League, so be sure and go
and check that podcast out as well. And now here
is Superman one and two versus Man of Steel.
Speaker 2: All right, everybody, welcome back. This is the Superman one
and two the Man of Steels.
Speaker 3: We've got our guest John Read with us from thirty
s of the podcast.
Speaker 2: John, How you doing Man? Good have you?
Speaker 4: Oh? I'm doing great. I'm just I'm excited to be
here with you guys, and just I'm agonizing I'm agonizing
over the decisions that we have to make here. It's
going to change the course of mighty rivers. It may
reverse the rotation of the Earth. It may cause people
to forget that they ever spent the night with Superman.
I mean whatever, it's I'm just I'm ready. Let's go,
let's make some decisions.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's it. We got to have John as a
guest on every singles from now. That's right.
Speaker 4: It's been a day at work, so the fact that
I knew that we were going to be able to
get on and talk some Superman and all day while
I'm supposed to be doing work stuff, I'm just walking
around now. But I'm so glad to be with you guys.
I'm having so much fun listening to your show. I
cannot wait. Every single time your podcast comes up in
my feed, I'm like, oh, nope, skip all the other ones.
You gotta find out is it Van Halen or Van Hagar?
We got to find out.
Speaker 2: Well, thanks for being with us, Man.
Speaker 3: Why don't you tell us a little bit about thirty something?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Yeah, So we started about close to five years ago.
Now we are a bunch of teachers, so we're sitting
around talking about movies. I think it was twenty fourteen.
We were talking about we're talking about nineteen eighty four,
and we're like, Wow, there's so many movies that just
you know, thirty years ago, so many great movies from
this year, and we just started rattling them off. We're
just like, oh, and we're like, just think about from
eighty four. You had Ghostbusters, you had The Nightmare on
Elm Street, you had all these gremlins, all these different movies,
and then we started jumping into eighty five and we're like, oh, man,
then you got back to the future, you guys. So
as we were doing all this, I had kind of
wanting to do a podcast for a long time, back
before like even a lot of people knew what podcasts were.
I had listened to some different podcasts and I thought,
you know what, it sounds like those guys have a
lot of fun, and I would love to find a
way to do this someday and do it completely for
free and somehow eventually get paid for it. So you know,
one out of three ain't bad. So you know, we
decided at that point we kind of said, hey, you
know what, let's let's get together and let's talk about movies.
That'll be our theme is we're going to talk about
movies that are thirty years old. And then that way
we don't have an ending point where like, we can
keep this going as long as we want to, we'll
be able to keep going, you know, forever and ever
and ever. And so we started it up. We made
some mistakes with our first episode. I know there was
another podcast at the time where the guys used to
get together and sit in a restaurant or a diner
and they would record while they were having their dinner.
And I thought, it's a cool concept. Let's do that.
So I hauled all of my equipment to our local
Mexican restaurant completely not not thinking about the fact that, well,
wait a minute, they're going to have mariachi music going
the entire time. We're all going to be munching on chips.
So that's our infamous lost episode. The one we're willing
to start with is episode number two. Like I said,
the premise of our show is whatever year we're in,
we're going back thirty years. One of the benefits and
I think you guys see this too, one of benefits.
I mean, we're we're friends in real life, you know,
we're not just we're not just podcasting with each other
because somehow we went we met online somewhere and here
you go go.
Speaker 2: Jason was the one that turned me under you guys.
He's probably been listening to you for two or three
years now. Yeah, that's right, and I've been listening for
the last year. So the first episode that I listened
to though, was your two hundredth episode where you just
you guys were It sounded like you're all in somebody's
kitchen together and just having a great time, and I
was like, this sounds I mean, it sounds awesome. It
totally hooked me in just all the movies that you
guys were going through now thirty something Movie podcast.
Speaker 4: Yeahah, we're on Twitter or Facebook, Instagram, all those different places.
If you just look for three zero podcast you're probably
gonna find us on most of those different spots. But yeah,
that's the easiest way to find us. And thirty Podcasts
dot Com is our website. You can get to all
the episodes from there.
Speaker 2: And I just want to say something about your co
host real quick. It's almost always Pat and Bow that
I hear. I know you have other guys who come
in from time to time. But and I can't remember
what the movie was that you guys were talking talking about,
but at some point in the podcast, Pat and Bo
started talking about Deli sandwiches. Maybe it was when the
Harry met Sally is what I'm doing? I think it was, Yeah,
and I was I was salivating. I was just like, oh, pot,
Pat and Bo need to just do their own let's
talk about food podcasts, and I will. I'll guest host
every time. All right, well you're here to join us.
We're doing today.
Speaker 3: We're going to compare Superman the movie and Superman two
kind of as one big conglomerate versus men of steel.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and John did an episode it was just you
on actually two episodes, and if you want to go
to thirty Somethings podcast, it's episode one, one and two
where he talks it was the it was the eightieth
anniversary of the first Superman. He talks about in detail
the whole origin story of Superman. And so when we
first started talking about doing this podcast together, I was like,
oh crap, I so much research that I've got to
do because Superman is just this I mean it's volumes
of history. And then I listened to those two podcasts,
I was like, well, okay, I don't research anymore. I'm
just gonna tell people's done. Go back to John's one
eighty one and one eighty two of the thirty something
podcast and you can get all of the backstory on Superman.
And today we're just gonna we're going to focus on
these three movies.
Speaker 4: You guys have caused me such turmoil since since you
sent me a message and you were like, hey, would
you like to be on an episode of the podcast
in which we pit these movies against each other? You know,
Superman one and two versus Man of Steel. And my
initial reaction, I mean, well, I mean it would have
been my reaction right now too, but my reaction was
are you kidding? Yes, I would love to. And then
when that wore off, I actually started thinking about it.
I was like, okay, all right, let's do this Superman
one and two versus Man of Steel. I totally know.
Oh but wait, there's this, okay, but now there's that
this one better that? Oh, you guys. So there have
been several times where over the course of the last
couple of weeks since we've been messaging back and forth.
My wife will see me like furiously script ling something
on a piece of paper, iPad or whatever, and she'd
be like, all right, so which one is it today?
And I said, Nope, I'm not sharing. I'm going to
have to listen to the episode. I'm not sharing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all of our listeners, you can have to hold
out till the end for final judgment on these once
we've done our comparison. Hello to John's wife though, Yes,
thank you, Ford, thank you for letting him hang out
with us today. It's double duty for the podcasting today.
Superman the movie came out in nineteen seventy eight and
December fifteenth, nineteen seventy eight. Yeah, there's a big origin
story behind it.
Speaker 3: Let's get in that because that really is interesting.
Speaker 4: I think.
Speaker 2: Okay, the Salkans were the producers on this movie, and
they bought the rights for this movie back in nineteen
seventy four. Ilia Salkan the son went to Alexander Salkan,
the father and said, hey, I think this is going
to be a big hit now. Warner Brothers owned the
rights to the movie at the time, and they said,
I guess you can have it. But we're not going
to give you any money for it, right. So it
was a negative negative production negative pickup deal. Yeah, so
they had to fund the movie themselves and then get
reimbursed once it was finished.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 3: This is the part where we defend the Salcans for
just a second, for a brief moment, we're going to
defend the Salcans. They had to front all the money
for two epically expensive movies being filmed at the.
Speaker 2: Same time, right. Yeah, of course it was their decision
to film two movies at the same time, because, as
it turned out, they had had some success with that
in the past, except for the fact that they got
sued over Back in the mid seventies, they had produced
The Three Musketeers, which then, unbeknownst to anybody involved in
the movie except them, became the Three Musketeers and the
Four Musketeers. So all of the cast and crew got
paid for one movie, even though they ultimately ended up
doing two movies. And so the Salcons got sued by
all of those guys. And now there is a standard
provision in all acting contracts called the Salct clause that
says you've got to tell us how many movies we're
making right now.
Speaker 3: Do you know, I don't know, John, if you know
who the actors that were considered to be super Man originally,
this is a who's whose list in the seventies.
Speaker 4: I know that one of the weirder ones that every
time I hear that, I was like, how really, Dustin Hoffman,
wasn't he one of them? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Dustin Hoffman.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's that's always one of the stranger.
Speaker 3: Is Muhammad Ali. There was an actual consideration.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean he I mean, obviously he's physically fit
enough to be the guy. But has he been in
anything at all? No?
Speaker 3: No, But he could look like a butterfly and sting
like a.
Speaker 2: Bee, and he was he was. He was in a
Superman comic book. He was yeah, yeah, right, have you
seen that, John?
Speaker 4: I have you know what I've read? I have a
I don't have the actual comic book. I read a
reprint of it one time, and it was kind of
it was meant to be. This a gimmicky thing. Throughout
the seventies and some of the comics they had, like
you know, Superman would get matched up with like JFK
or Bob Hope or you know, all these I don't
know what Superman and Bob Hope were doing, but you
know they they had all these different issues where they'd
have like these special guest stars. Yeah, and I can't
remember the top of my head a whole bunch of
the story. But you know, on the front cover, it's
kind of an iconic cover with the comic books. Is
you know, Superman and Muhammad Ali in a boxing ring together,
you know, getting ready to throw down. And I remember
seeing that as a kid and thinking, I don't know
who that guy is, but he's about to die.
Speaker 2: You don't get a boxer in the world. He's about
to die.
Speaker 3: All right, Well, here's the list. Okay, I thought this
was interesting. Now, when when you say these people were considered,
there was an approved list for Superman. The director can
take this list and hire according to this list, right,
So you have al Pacino, You've got Dustin Huff, You've
got Bruce Jenner, You've got Steve McQueen and Paul Newman.
You've got Clint Eastwood, Muhammad Ali, James Kahan, Warren Batty,
Neil Diamond, Neil Diamond. And then finally he wasn't approved.
But so that's just alone, really, wanted this part.
Speaker 4: M h. I remember hearing about that.
Speaker 2: No, statistically speaking, it's still the safest form of trouble.
Speaker 5: Jo Lewis, Yoh, you know, lo there was like these
two missiles, you know.
Speaker 4: There was the one and I had to go get
the I did it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he fought hard.
Speaker 3: You know who kept him from doing it Marlon Brando
at the time. So that's just the Loan was considered
to be the next Marlon Brando, and Marlon Brando said,
we went to the producers like, no, this guy's not right.
Stallan is actually out there and you can find this
on YouTube and he is trashing Marlon Brando, like I
have no respect him for him.
Speaker 2: As an actor, as a man, really put him down. Well,
let's talk a little bit about that, since we're talking
about getting the movie together. That was the way that
they ultimately got them to buy in. So we got
we got Marlon Brando on board, they got Marlon Brando,
and then they got Gene Hackman.
Speaker 3: Well, once they got Marlon Brando on board and Gene Hackman,
then Donner had some freedom to Okay, let me we
got the stars in places.
Speaker 2: Let me get somebody who looks the part and I'll
back us up for just a second. Before Donner was
on board, they were, I mean, this is this is
kind of the infinitive sulkans. They were trying to find
the cheapest place to make a movie, and so they said, okay, let's.
Speaker 4: Go to Italy.
Speaker 2: Italy is cheap. But then Marlon Brando had a warrant
out for obscenity charges from the last Tango in Paris,
the rape scene, so they couldn't go there.
Speaker 3: Guy Hamilton was the director at that moment, right, who.
Speaker 2: Had done all a bunch of James Bond movies. Right.
But then their next option was, well, let's go to England.
But Guy Hamilton would be arrested after thirty days of
being in England because he was taxing. He was just.
Speaker 3: So they chose Marlon Brando over Guy Hamilton, right, So
then they had to find a director.
Speaker 2: The way Donner tells it is he was sitting in
his bathroom. Sitting in the bathroom, you can imagine what's
going on there, And he says, and I was really hungover,
and I had just woken up, and I get this
call and it's some guy with a foreign accent saying,
this is Alexander Salken you know who I am. And
he's like, no, what the heck do you want? I'm
a producer and interested in making Superman. Would you like
to direct? He's like, yeah, you know maybe, and he goes,
we will pay you a million dollars. He's like, all right,
You've got my attention. Where can I meet you? Donner
at that point had only done The Omen and some
other smaller movie that I can't recall.
Speaker 3: It, Gillingan's Island. He was a director on some of
the Gilligan's Island, some TP stuff.
Speaker 2: And then The Omen was his big one, and they
had Jerry Goldsmith was the composer and Omen. He was
at Donner's behest. Was supposed to be the composer for Superman,
but then he wasn't available, so they got John Williams in.
Then John Williams wasn't available, and Goldsmith was back in,
and then Goldsmith was back out and John Williams was
back in. The settled for John Williams.
Speaker 3: Yeah poor guys, okay, and Margot Kidder got the part.
So Donner was in charge of the auditions at this point. Yeah, he's,
you know, looking for loews Ling and she got the
I don't really have a list of people that would consider.
But when she came into the room to audition, she tripped.
She stumbled, and they thought it was charming. He instantly
said he fell in love with her.
Speaker 2: Right then I got to say, and rewatching it, she's
not as unattractive as I remember her being when I
was a kid, I just thought Superman could do so
much better than this lady. But upon the rewatch, especially
in Superman one, she's not a bad looking lady. No,
she's not.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 3: By the time nineteen eighty one rolled around, she had
had some breakdowns.
Speaker 2: Yeh, los teeth and yeah, it's really rough road hard.
I hung up.
Speaker 4: What I think about when and I'd heard that before
about how she tripped, and they're like, oh, that's so charming.
I have never been offered a movie part, and I
feel like I have done that so many times in
my life. I feel like, by now I should have
an Oscar.
Speaker 2: I do think it's interesting.
Speaker 3: When Chris Reeve was brought in to read for the part,
he was six foot five, one hundred and seventy pounds,
and he went to the guys and like, ah, he's
kind of skinny. You know, I don't know if he
really could pull off Superman and.
Speaker 2: He sweat refusels. Like at the end of Superman two,
you know, he lifts up Zod and in that moment
you see a little pit stain on the Superman. Yeah, okay,
And so when I heard, you know, he's okay. So
he has a pit stain. You know, that's that's something
that happens to guys. You can't help that. But then
I saw his actual audition tape before they had given
him the padding and the industrial strength deodorant, and I
mean it's literally down to his elbows on both both
arms and down down to his waist. Yeah.
Speaker 3: But when they brought him in, he was skinny, tall
and skinny. And he went to him and said, listen,
I was a jock in high school. I can put
on the muscle. Trust me, I can do it. And
when Donner said, okay, listen, kid, you got the park
and you got to make make sure you can do this,
you know, So he trained with David Prowse, Darth Vader himself.
Speaker 2: We know you're a big star Wars fan.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, I And and that the first time
as a kid when I had heard that somewhere. I
know if I was reading. I was reading a book
or a magazine article or something as a kid, and
I found that out, I'm like, whoa Superman was Darth
Vader's apprentice? That outstanding? Outstanding.
Speaker 2: So then as they're putting things together, they had initially
the Salcans had gotten Marrio Puzo to write the script
in this thing. Incredible. And Mario Puzo, if the listeners
don't know, was the one who had written Godfather one
and two, which, of course just I mean, were the
record setting in their box office success. I'm not really
sure how you decide to put him in charge of
a Superman movie script, but that's what they did. He
wrote a five hundred and fifty page script that has
never seen the light of day. Once Donner got his
hands on it, he was like, this destroys the biblical
canon of Superman. So he got Tom Makowitz to come
in and do the serious rewrites on the script. And
once again, I'm going to defend the Sulkins for a second.
So they fronted the money to get this done.
Speaker 3: They had the insight to realize number one, that comic
book movies were going to be successful in the box office.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's important to realize that in nineteen
seventy eight, the idea of a comic book movie being
successful was ridiculous to me.
Speaker 4: That's what's amazing about this Superman movie. Yes, it was
a hit when it came out, you know, people loved it,
but even still, there were a lot of comic book
fans that did not love this movie at all. It
didn't fit with the Superman at the time. In the comics.
In terms of general audiences, you had Batman sixty six,
you had Wonder Woman, she had the Incredible Hulk TV show.
That's pretty much what you had in terms of superheroes
on TV. Other than cartoons, and other than those you
know three, there's probably other TV series that were out
there at the time. Anything that was superhero, anything that
was comic book related, was automatically also campy. Like for
some reason, they always felt like, oh, well, comic books
are for kids, so we got to make this show
kind of for kids. We got to make it campy,
we got to make it silly. And then the fact
that you bring out a Superman movie and you're like,
you know what, we're actually going to try to do
a semi serious take on what if Superman was real?
And some of the things I think in the early
drafts of the script that I had read was they
had all these crazy cameos for like these other actors
and you know comedians of the time, that we're going
to just like walk in for a scene and say
something silly and then walk off. Yep. And that would
have totally made it, you know, just like the sixties
Batman movie. It would have just made it silly. It
would have made it cartoonish. And that's why I love that.
The tagline I think on the poster for this movie
and maybe in the trailer too, was you know, you'll
believe a man can fly?
Speaker 2: And from what I understand the the salcans Co producer
Preduer sper Spindler, that's it. Yeah. He spent he spent
two solid weeks with the DC executives developing an integrity
of the character clause for the contract. Before they were
willing to let wait them, let's often have it. They
they didn't want it. They didn't want the Batman thing
to happen to Superman because it's too valuable a character.
I mean, it's it's one of the American fables.
Speaker 3: Now, can you imagine the pressure that the Salcans were
actually under, not only fronting this financially, but as soon
as you get the permission to shoot this thing and
let's go do this, you got to figure out how
can I make a guy fly?
Speaker 2: That was a huge part of things. We can talk
about that the flight thing later on, but that was
that was definitely like the most critical issue of the
filming was we cannot make this look can't We can't
make it look fake. It's got to look real.
Speaker 3: They tyd with lighters and cartoons until they finally got
that complex cable thing, and I still am amazed.
Speaker 2: So that's that's that's our origin story for Superman one
and then for well, yeah, I mean sort of. There's
obviously a story there with Superman two. So as the
filming went on, the Salcans would constantly tell Donner that
he was over budget and over time, and he mainstains
to this day that he was never told what the
budget was and never told how much time he had
to shoot. But it got to the point that he
couldn't handle being in the same room with Eric Spinkler
whatever his name is, and so they had Richard Lester
come in as kind of a go between. Now, Richard
Lester was among those guys from the Three Musketeers and
the Four Musketeers that was in the process of suing
the Salkans at the time, so that you kind of
get this idea that there was a wink, wink, nudge
nudge of you'll get your money, but we're going to
get it to you through Superman instead of through this lawsuit.
I think there's no doubt.
Speaker 3: I mean, Richard Lessard may a deal with the devil.
Speaker 2: You guys have been screwing over for all these years.
I'll tell you what.
Speaker 3: We'll get you your money, but you've got to help
us out with Donner.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so even though you know that we talked
about them filming both Superman one and Superman two at
the same time, at some point they said, hey, this
is getting so much publicity. We've got a chance to
release it on the fortieth anniversary of Superman. Stop working
on part two and finish up part one. And well,
if that's not obvious, what's about to happen to Richard Donner?
I don't know what is. So they they take the
ending from Superman two and put it at the end
of Superman one. The whole spending the Earth backwards to
reverse time was originally supposed to be the end of
Superman two. The ending of Superman one was supposed to
be as he pushes the one of the two missiles
that les Luthers and off out into space, and that
missile is what destroys the Phantom Zone and releases the
three criminals.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the Phantom Zone that looks like Queen two, the
album they're all trapped in the Queen album.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, Well, and in the Mario Pousa script there
was actually four guys. They would have really had the
album cover they had.
Speaker 4: So yeah.
Speaker 2: So then they fire after after Superman one is a
huge success, they fire Richard Donner and they make Richard
Lester the director of Superman two, and they have to
let enough time go by that Marlon Brando's contract expires
so that they don't have to pay him anymore. Susanna
York comes in in that spot and kind of gives
you know, I'm going to start teaching you, which if
you've seen the Richard have you seen the Richard Donner cut?
Speaker 4: John, I have, Yeah, only once a few years ago.
I have the DVD, but I've only watched it once.
I enjoyed it.
Speaker 2: I liked it, but yeah, I enjoyed it as well.
I mean it's a little rough because they're using scenes
from the test footage that they did and auditions that
they did. But the thing that is compelling about it
is the Marlon Brando part. Richard Donner set out to
make this analogous to the Christ story, and there's really
when he has that moment where he's gone back after
giving up his powers, and he's gone back to try
to get his powers back even though he's been told
it's not possible. It's ultimately Joerell's sacrifice giving him his
power that causes Superman to become super again.
Speaker 3: That whole scene is pretty heavy handed in you cannot
ever give your powers.
Speaker 2: Back, never ever ever see you better think hard about this.
Speaker 3: Okay, yet you left the crystal no problem then, Okay.
Speaker 4: I've conditioned my entire family understand that if we're watching
a comic book movie, nobody ever dies, nobody ever, that
nothing's permanent. It's not going to happen. But no one
of the things, like I said, I don't remember much.
You know in terms of some of the differences. It
details the differences between the Richard Lester versus the Richard
Donner cut. But one of the things that really stuck
out to me, and I think it was one of
the scenes with Jerrelle. There's a part where he's kind
of explaining some of this stuff to Superman to kal
El and but it's almost like he shoots a look
over at Lois and it's almost like, you know, this
is all your fault.
Speaker 2: Like there's a.
Speaker 4: Moment where he like looks at her and be like,
you know what, if you weren't here, I wouldn't have
to be having this talk with my kid. And I
vividly remember that. Maybe I'm thinking of the wrong scene,
but I vividly remember something like that and thinking, while
this movie is a lot darker than it used to be,
you know.
Speaker 3: In Defensive Love, she never asked him to give up her.
Speaker 2: Powers power, And I mean, come on, she fell in
love with Superman. She treated Clark like crust. Why would
you decide to be the guy that she doesn't like?
Speaker 4: Man, if you're ever going to make a large life
changing decision, let me speak with the woman that you
love before you do that, don't buy her a car.
It's talking about my dad's situation. One time he got
a really good deal on a car, but it was
a Grandma car and he got a great deal on it.
And we were all visiting family in Missouri and he
was coming from Chicago and he drove up in that car,
got out and looked at my mom and said, check
out your new car. You know, I'm not going to
say that. I remember my parents fighting a whole lot,
but I felt like swords were going to be drawn
at that moment. So you know those type of things.
If you're going to buy a Buick Park Avenue that's
awfully ugly for your wife, or if you're going to
give up your Kryptonian heritage and superpowers, please at least
have some kind of conversation with the woman before you
do anything.
Speaker 3: Hopefully your dad found his lost green crystal and regained
his powers after that.
Speaker 2: Man, Yeah, like he was driving a new Viewer.
Speaker 4: Hey, you know what, Actually, the next time around, when
it was somebody else's turn to get a new car,
that got passed down to the kids, and she got
a very nice new car after that. He did make
up later on.
Speaker 2: So then there was some you know, they've got other
people that they're talking about bringing in whenever. Richard Lester
is now directing Superman Too, even though they've filmed seventy
five percent of it with Donner right, and one of
those guys is John Williams.
Speaker 3: So the Ilia saw Kind, John Williams and Richard Lester
are in a room and they're watching kind of the
early cut of Superman two to discuss the score. Ilia
saw Kind has to leave the room to go to
the bathroom, and when he comes back, John Williams and
Richard Lester had gotten in such a fight that John
Williams said, I cannot get along with this man.
Speaker 2: I'm out of here. I'm done. You lose the greatest composer.
How do you do that? It's crazy. Gene Hackman refused
to come back, Valley peren ned Baty. None of those
guys came back. So everything that you see in Superman two,
that's got them, and it was filmed by Richard Donner.
They brought Richard Donner in too to see if you know, hey,
you know, you can have a co directing credit on
this or whatever. And apparently they got just at the
beginning of the Eiffel Tower scene before he got up
and said, please do not put my name on this movie.
Speaker 3: Richard Donner is not the Richard Donner we know of today.
At that time, when he was shooting Superman, he was
just the guy who directed The Omen and Gilligan's Island.
Now he's the guy who directed Goonies and the Lethal
Weapon movies. And Richard Lester had done Harday's Night.
Speaker 2: And Three Musketeers and Four Musketeers.
Speaker 4: But right it seems like there was just a lot
of I mean, there's even some other stuff about how
even like Margot Kidder and several of the other people
just did not get along with him at all. So
it just kind of sounds like he is not the
guy to work with, which is probably why most of
them didn't seem to come back for Superman three either.
Speaker 3: In order for him to be called the director, he
had to shoot over fifty percent of the movie well,
with seventy five percent of it in the can.
Speaker 2: He had to reshoot scenes to get the credit.
Speaker 4: So and his and his style it was very different
than Richard Donner's. There were there were a couple of
things that I've read and just in watching the two movies,
Richard Donners, they treated it very cinematically, for lack of
a better word, I mean, it was very much you
have all of these kind of very long shots, I
mean of some of it looks like it could be
a painting. Then you've got Richard Lester, and he was
very much like, I wanted to look like a comic book.
I'm going to cram a bunch of characters in this frame.
We're gonna move quickly, We're going to have this kind
of shot. We're going to do it this way. The
camera is going to pan this direction and this fast.
And so it sounds like he kind of wanted to
make his own mark on it. But also he didn't
agree with the very artistic way that Richard Donner had
wanted to shoot this. That it was much more of
a all right, well this is an action movie and
it's a comic book, so let's make it look like
a comic book.
Speaker 2: Well, and I'm gonna blaspheme here because I mean, let
me just say, I grew up obsessed with Superman two.
I literally memorized every line, watched it over and over again.
Then as you grow older, you realize, okay, there's a
difference between these two movies. Stagram one was a movie
made for adults and Superman two was a movie made
for kids. I mean, really, that's kind of the distinction
because as a slightly older person, not completely mature, I
watched Superman one again, I was like, this is kind
of long, this is kind of dull insponse, and that's
that kind of epic stuff that you're talking about. So
here's the blasphemy. Richard Donner was still campy. His his
epic noess and his beautiful scenery was all in Smallville.
I mean, it was the great planes and then you
had a little bit up in the Arctic. But when
when Superman comes to Metropolis, the comedy starts and it's
it's that same style of goofy dialogue, puns and stuff
that continues throughout the Superman movie.
Speaker 4: This friends of mine, we've when we've had discussions about
the Star Trek movies, so you got Star Trek fans
at all.
Speaker 2: I really like the new iteration Chris Pine a whole
lot better than I do the old ones. I like
the old ones to watch the movies, and I watched
the series a little bit, but I'm far from what
you were like Van Hagler over Ben Helen. Oh my gosh,
he brought her audience ahead John.
Speaker 4: But yeah, no, And that's that's kind of a comparison
that that I've made in the past two is, you know,
as a kid growing up, I used to really like
the Star Trek movies. And I think some of, you know,
some of the stuff with these movies is that the
age that I was when I watched these movies, I
was always watching them with my dad, and so I
always have just these memories of watching him with him
ingrained in my head, and I think a lot of
my reaction came from his reaction, and I always think
of you know, and I love both of these movies too,
but I will fully admit that one is very long
and very boring. Is the first the first two Star
Trek movies. Is I always feel like the Superman movies
are kind of similar to the Star Trek movies in
that Star Trek one even I mean, if you're if
you're a Trek fan listening to this, if you got
to admit, that's a long movie and it's not always
very exciting. Star Trek two that was, you know, my
dad would watch that with us, and and and just
to me, and some people think that one's kind of
boring too. It's like it's like watching a submarine battle
in space. But you know, it's to me, that movie
is exciting. And to me, that's kind of like this
NonStop action movie. That's that's a Star Trek movie. And
that's kind of how I think about some of the
these two Superman movies too. Is the first one, it's
very heavy on the story. It's the origin story, so
you've got to get that stuff in there. You gotta
pack as much history and mythology and information into this one.
A little light on some of the action, you know,
when they get to it, it's awesome, but a little
light on the action. Superman two, it's boom, We're we're
action right away. You know, we're drop kicking people on
the moon, we're walking on water, we're you know, all
that stuff.
Speaker 2: And don't forget the montage of everything that was important
that happened in Superman one. I think I think I'm
rewatching Superman one. I thought to myself at one point,
I was like, did I actually watch this movie, or
is everything I know about this movie from the beginning
of Superman two. I would say, since we're talking now
about Superman two, let's talk about nineteen eighty one and
what was going on, because you told me what was
what was being released in a theater at this time,
and I was just like, holy smokes, I would have
lived there.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 3: So Superman two was released in the United States June nineteenth,
nineteen eighty one. In my estimation, this might be the
greatest two weeks of eighties movies released during a week
two week period anytime in the eighties. All right, So
June twelfth, the weekend before Superman two was released, you
had History of the World by mel Brooks, Clash of
the Titans, Awesome, and Raiders of the Lost Arc all
in the same weekend. Yeah, okay, next week June nineteenth,
Superman two.
Speaker 2: As we said, yeh, Cannonball Run, Oh hilarious.
Speaker 6: Right the week afterwards June twenty sixth, Okay, we're bookending
this Dragon Slayer forty your Eyes Only, great Muppet Caper
and stripes.
Speaker 4: So basically, if you're a kid in nineteen eighty one,
you're broke. You're constantly asking mom and dad, Mammy, can
I have a couple of bucks? To go see a movie. Yes,
I would have had no money at all.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about the beginning of Man of Steel. Let's
talk about the Org story there. So this is an
entirely different time in history. Of course, this is two
thousand and eight. Warner Brothers starts to consider doing a
Superman movie again. Two thousand and six had seen Superman Returns,
which wasn't a big success. But in two thousand and eight,
you've got the Dark Knight has come out, iron Man
has come out, and so they're like, I think we
can do Superman again. And Iron Man and Dark Knight
proved that superhero movies can be mind blowing successes. So
why not go back to the original superhero a Warner Brothers,
with the success of Dark Knight and it being a
DC comic book movie, they were just waiting for Christopher Nolan.
And of course David Goyer is the one who'd written
the trilogy, the whole Dark Knight trilogy, and he comes
to Christopher Nolan at some point and says, I have
this idea for a Superman movie. And Christopher Nolan reads
his script and says, I want to make this movie.
Speaker 4: You know, in terms of comic book movie. There's two
kind of famous threads of the movies that never got made,
and it's either Superman or Spider Man. They always talk
about how Spider Man. They were trying to make a
Spider Man movie all through the eighties, and you would
hear that like every year for a decade. Never happened.
Same thing with Superman. It was always, you know, after
Superman four, but they had plans to make a Superman five.
The rights went back to the Sulcans because they had
lost the rights and Cannon Films they were the ones
that did Superman four, and so after Superman four they
went bankrupt and they always kind of blame you know,
dumping a bunch of money into that movie as the
reason for part of their bankruptcy. But then the rights
reverted back to the Sulcans, and the Sulcans were, you know,
we should we should do a story. You know in
the comic books they had like this bottle City of
Candor that had you know, somehow escaped Rypton's destruction and
it was full of Kryptonians. What if we make a
movie that brings that bottle city back, and it involves
bringing a whole bunch of Kryptonians, and so that was
kind of the the idea behind Superman five and then
it just never got made. Then after that they had
the idea behind you know, there's the Superman Reborn and
that was around about the time that they did the
Death of Superman comic in ninety three, I think it was.
And that was a huge hit at the time, and
I mean you had people that had never read a
comic book were like, whohalla, Superman's dead. I got to
go find out what this is. And so that I
think those guys, yeah, and I think that really kind
of started a comic book boom. I mean, it was
already starting to pick up in the nineties, but I
think that's what started a lot of the heavy collecting
of comics and where it where things as a collector,
things got ridiculous. But when that was huge, then they
had these other ideas. They're like, well, you know what,
let's do a Death of Superman movie, Like let's do this.
Let's let's kill him in the movie and let's bring
him back, and let's let's have this you know, amazing
movie where he's got the you know, this giant robotics
suit he can fight in because he doesn't have his
powers anymore. That was kind of at the time. They
kind of were going back and forth on the script,
and I think Kevin Smith actually ended up coming in
at some point looking at the script and being like,
you guys are out of minds, Like this is the
stupidest thing I've ever read. This does not fit with
the character of Superman at all, And so they brought
him in and then he started to develop.
Speaker 3: The death of Superman lives, the.
Speaker 4: Death of Superman lives and this just sounds like the
most insane And what's funny to me is, you know
that was the one where like Nicholas Cage was going
to be Superman, yeah, and Tim Burton was going to direct,
and I want to say, they were going to have
just crazy stories. And what's funny to me is that
John Peters was one of the producers even back then,
and like he had this whole idea of, well, we
got to have like these crazy creatures and we want
Superman fighting, yes, giant spiders. We want Superman fighting like
giant mechanical spiders, and and Brainiac and Christopher Walken is
going to be Brainiac and all this just crazy stuff well,
you know, and and a lot of that got shot down,
it never got made. But if you went to go
see Wild Wild West just a few years later, it
had giant spiders. So he clearly got his you know,
his spider fetish, you know, got worked out through Wild
weefeld West. But so it's funny to me to look
at Man of Steel success. I know, yeah, you know,
if you can go from Superman to Wild Wild West,
but it's funny to me to see Man of Steel
and see that list of all, right, who are the
producers from Man of Steel?
Speaker 2: John Peters, Okay, so I've got a kind of origin
story on Man of Steel. Now, John, you're from Illinois.
You're in the Illinois area, I mean you're in the
Chicago area, right, yeah, yeah, So did you know that
they were shooting Man of Steel in the various towns
around that they were doing that.
Speaker 4: I did, and actually was I was trying at one
point to make a trip down there because I knew
the town that they were filming it in, and it's
far enough way, it's a few hours away from where
I am, and there were times where I was like,
I just I want to get down there and I
want to see it because I actually had a chance
another teacher friend of mine and we were extras in
the dark night, and so we got to be in
downtown Chicago. We spent most of our day in kind
of like one of the upper floors of some building
that was down I think by LaSalle Street to Chicago,
where they were filming one of the scenes, and we
actually were extras. I think all of our scenes where
you could actually see us got cut, but we were extras.
You know, story of my life. They won't hire me
after I trip over stuff, They won't leave me in
the movie. But yeah, we got to be extras in
the kind of funeral procession scene where the Joker is
disguised as one of the police officers that's going to
you know, fire the salute shots, and so we were
there for that scene. We were extras on the sides.
We were supposed to be people that were panicking on
the sides as the Joker was running away, and as
he turned and ran away, he ran right in front
of us. So that was a lot of fun and
being able to see, as somebody who loves movies, being
able to be on the set and see how the
whole thing works. I was just as enthralled with that
in between time where they weren't shooting anything, like how
stuff was getting set up, how they were working with
the natural light of a cloud came by, you know,
Christopher Nolan started swearing because he knew that his timetable
was off, but you know, just being able to see
that in person. So when I found out that they
were going to be filming, I think it was in Princeton, Illinois.
When I found out out, I was like, you know what,
I want to see this And I don't remember why.
I remember having some plans to do that, and it
just never it never materialized.
Speaker 2: The story and by the time this episode comes out,
we will have done the Gladiator Versus Brave Heart episodes.
And so after Gladiator, Russell Crowe filmed a movie called
Proof of Life and it was also filmed over in
the UK, and he's got a son in the movie,
and part of the movie involves a rugby game. They
go to Stowe Boarding School to film this rugby scene
and they're really playing rugby and there's one player out
there that he sees that it's just lighting up the
field and he's really impressed with him. And then once
they're done with their filming and the game's over, Russell
Crowe is standing by himself and this young rugby player
comes over to him and starts talking to him and
doesn't say anything about rugby, but just says, hey, you know,
I'm considering being an actor and I just wanted to
ask you about that. And so once they finish filming
Proof of Life, Russell Crowe is making this kind of
care package for the kid who played his son in
the movie and includes an autographed gladiator poster. And as
he's doing it and he thinks, you know what, I'm
going to do one for that rugby player that came
over and talked to me and was a nice guy.
So he sends him something that says a journey of
a thousand miles begins with one step. And so this
rugby player gets this thing and for the next several
years will work in London, bartending in London and Jersey,
and then go to LA for a few months to
try to get into movies and not be successful, and
come back and bartend some more until he earns enough
money to go back to LA again. And that's his
life until twelve years later, and Russell Crowe is working
out next to this guy in Naperville, Illinois, and he
Russell keeps looking at him and says, do I know you?
And Henry Cavill says, do you remember going to the
Stowboarding School in the UK? And Russell says, yeah, I do,
And he goes, do you remember a kid coming to
ask you about acting? He goes, I do. He says,
what did I tell you? Henry says, well, you said
it pays really well, but they treat you like poop
and Russell Crow goes, how are you, Henry? It's good
to see.
Speaker 4: Well. I remember, like one of my one of my
favorite movies is the counter Bandy Cristo, but Henry Cavill
is the Sun in that movie, and I vividly remember
at the time two thousand and two looking at that
and going, you know, that kid could play Superboy. That
would be a really good you know, if they could
just get he's got the face like it's a very
similar to a Christopher Reeve kind of face. So they
should make a Superboy TV show movie whatever with that kid.
Speaker 2: Henry Cavill was in good shape, but wasn't in Superman shape,
and so he trained with the same guys from the
Jim Jones facility that had trained the guys from three hundred,
Zack Snyder's other movie. You know, all of the guys
in three hundred looked like bodybuilder shuff.
Speaker 4: He didn't want any kind of digital touch ups. He
didn't want anything like he was like, you know what
part of yeah, He's like, you know what if this
movie is about me as a character testing my limits
and figuring out, well, how powerful can I become? Like
what do I need to work at this? I thought
that was amazing that he just said, you know what,
I'm not going to do any of these other tricks
that some people might do to bulk up for these kinds.
This is going to be o naturelle.
Speaker 3: I heard about he got ripped up for this movie
obviously really really cut, and they shot all of the
shirtless stuff first so that, you know, out of consideration,
and then as soon as that was done, Zack Snyder
bought him a pizza and a gallon of ice.
Speaker 2: Great, Okay, so this is this is a good say
way I think into the actors, and I think first
actors that we got to talk about are Henry Cavill
and Christopher Reeve. So Henry Cavill I think did a
good job at being Superman. Christopher Reeve was Superman, Yes
he was and always will be in my heart, Superman.
I don't have anything bad to say about Henry Cavill's performance.
And I think this may largely have to do with
the nostalgia idea that we bring up from time to time,
but I think that it probably even goes beyond that,
because as they had looked at Christopher Reeve passed him
up and started looking at bigger actors and bigger stars,
and kept coming back to him because there's just something
about Christopher Reeve that makes you love him like, I
don't know what it is, and I can't. It's not
a definable thing. He just okay. So the actor himself
put it this way. He says, when Superman says I
fight for truth, justice and the American Way, a normal
person would snicker, but he means it right, And Christopher
Reeve played that perfectly. You were like, yeah, yeah, the
American Way, Yeah, that's right, which I mean you get
to think nineteen seventy eight that, I mean, there was
a there was a lot of upheaval in the in
the years preceding that that the idea of saying, you know,
Superman fights for the American way would have gone south
that but he pulled it off. I mean, he puts
the flag back on the White House in nineteen eighty one.
He made people proud to be American again.
Speaker 3: I think that Chris Reeve is kind of like the
Lgosi in Dracula. It's the first time you get to
taste the Superman character, or at least it was for me, right,
and so that just kind of cemented what my Superman is. Yeah,
you know, I don't know, John Ware, you with Chris
Reeve and Henry Cavick.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's I mean, there's a reason why I think
the Superman, the Christopher Reeve Superman has been, has shown
up in other places and has influenced so many other things.
Is it's just it's the iconic portrayal of Superman. He
kind of embodies the qualities that you would expect from
a Superman in all the performances I've ever seen him in.
He's always genuine, he's always charming. He is I mean,
he's a tall guy. So you've got someone who is
an imposing physical figure, even if he's not even if
he's not bulked up, he's an imposing physical figure and
he's kind of I don't want to call him a
gentle giant, but at the same time, he's kind of
he's he's got all those qualities about him. And I
think when you look at what makes a Superman, if
if you're going to be Superman, and if you're going
to be you know this this character that is supposed
to be kind of infallible when it comes to your
optimism and your you know, your your generosity and kindness
towards other people, I think you get somebody that embodies
all of those things. And I think that's what Christopher
Reef did. I think that's why you have a show
like Smallville. When small did everything that they were doing
for the Superman mythology, that's why they brought him in.
I think that's why they tied so much of their
mythology to those movies and to you know, to that Krypton.
And you know, you brought in Terrence Stamp as the
voice of Darrell, you brought you actually brought in Christopher Reeve,
you brought in Margot Kidder, you know, all those things
because for an entire generation, that was your Superman. I
can look at Henry Cavill and could be like, well, okay,
that was the guy that was in Count of Money, Cristo,
and he was in Superman and he was Man of
Steel and he did this, and he was in the
Tutor's TV show, and you know, I know a bunch
of things he's been in. But the moment I look
at Christopher Reeve that Superman, you know, in terms of
Henry Cavill, his Superman is good. I really like his
Clark Kent. In fact, I like his Clark Kent better
I think than I liked the Christopher Reeve Clark Kent.
Now that's that's right, and that's yeah. And that's me
looking at it from an adult perspective, because as a kid,
I was like, oh, Clark Kent's funny, that's hilarious. Of
the years, as I've read more comic books, as I've
read more stories, and I've seen the TV shows like
Smallville and some of the other iterations, is you've got
a Clark Kent that he doesn't have to put on
quite as much of a show. He doesn't have to
be nerdy, he doesn't have to be a bumbling oaf.
Speaker 2: Same guy like Clark Kent is Superman with Henry Cavill,
They're the same. It's it is the Clark Kent story
and Clark Kent's discovery of who he is without any
kind of idea that I need to have an alterna identity.
His whole life has had to keep his power as
a secret, and it just plays into that whole idea.
Speaker 4: What's interesting is in the last couple of months in
the Superman comics, Superman came out, had a press release
and said, Hey, I just want to let the entire
world know I'm Clark Kent and I'm married to Lois Lane,
and so in the comics he has revealed that to
the world because he spent the last couple months in
the comics being like, you know what, I always tell people,
I'm fighting for truth and justice in the American way,
but I'm lying to people all the time when I
have this you know these on and I'm pretending to
be somebody else. That's not very truthful. So he made
the decision. He's like, you know what I'm gonna I'm
gonna I'm gonna do this. We'll see how it goes.
But I want to embody that truth, and so he
did that. So that'll be kind of interesting to see
how that all plays out in the comics, but it
kind of goes along. You've seen the progression for years
where there's much less of a difference between that Clark
and that Superman persona. So yeah, I mean, I really
like Henry Cavill's Clark Kent. I do still like Christopher
reeve Clark Kent as well, but I think just comparing
the two, Christopher Reeve is much more of the Superman
that I think of when I think of Superman, and
Henry Cavill maybe did a little bit of a better
job at the Clark Kent that I want to see.
Speaker 2: All right, let's talk about Lewis. Okay, So in Superman
movies we had Margot Kidder and in Man of Steel
we had Amy Adams. I'm gonna go to bat for
Margot Kidder real quick.
Speaker 3: Okay, before okay, here's the thing with her people kind
of I know how I feel about her sex appeal.
Speaker 2: It's not great. I feel weird just saying those two
words in the same sentence. But you know what, if
you go back to Superman one she's kind of cute,
she's she's a pretty lady. She's she's attractive.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean she had done Playboy.
Speaker 2: I mean you know, I mean, they don't put ugly
people in Playboy. Really. Yeah, good search. But she did
such a good job with the character.
Speaker 3: Particularly for me, the scene at the end of Superman
two where she's sobbing. Yeah, and she's selling not only
is she crying, but she's been crying all night. You know,
it's it's the great sadness realization of I can't express
my feelings. I can't be in this relationship. It's not
going to work. That whole scene was wonderful.
Speaker 2: I thought, Right, it's a little weird that it happens
on like the morning after the first night, but yes, otherwise, yes, I.
Speaker 3: Can't wait to dive into the superkiss here in a
But for me, Margot Kinder did a did a great
job with what she had. Some personal circumstances caused her
to look less appealing as the series went.
Speaker 2: On, right, but you know that I liked her. Yeah,
she she was. She was great because right off the bat,
she's got this kind of Catherine Hepburn asque tough girl
reporter you know, her interactions with Perry White. She she
knows she's number one in the show. She knows she's
the bomb, and so yeah, I really dug that about her.
And then you juxtapose that with how she turns into
this kind of awkward high school girl whenever she meets
Superman on the balcony for the first time.
Speaker 3: I don't know I like her, I don't. Okay, I'm
just gonna say this. There are not many women in
this world that I would give up the ability to
fly to be with. Okay, Margot Kidder is definitely not
on that list. No, Lois Lane is not on that list.
Speaker 2: No, I don't. Yeah, that's that's tough.
Speaker 3: Yeah, every man I know would love to the ability
to fly.
Speaker 2: I say, I don't even still to day, I still
don't know why he gave it up. We still don't know.
He didn't have to and she didn't ask him to. Yeah, okay,
So Amy Adams. Amy Adams kind of has the same
type of thing as Christopher Reeve does, where she, to me,
is automatically likable like you just she she comes in
and she's tough, tough in a different kind of way.
But I mean, we're keeping this radio clean. So I
can't say my favorite first line. But if we're done
measuring these, then then we can move on. And I
loved her tough attitude and I loved how they played
off of that of she's got sub gumption, she's got
some toughness about her. And she has that same attitude
with Arry White, of hey I'm the number one around
here and don't mess with me. I like it. But again,
she can be vulnerable and she's just a very nice
looking waiting Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think for me, between the two lowess lanes, it
kind of comes to you. Guys have already kind of
mentioned a little bits. You know, as a kid, I
wasn't thinking about a whole lot of stuff. I just
you know, this Margot Killer she was the lowest lane
that was in the movie. I'm like, okay, that's lowest line.
But you know, having seen several iterations of lois now
in TV shows, comic books, cartoons, whatnot, you know, I
think it comes down to again when I see Margot
Kitterer for a generation, she was lowest lane Amy Adams. Though,
when I look at it in terms of a character,
Margot Kidder had that kind of that toughness. You know,
she had some of that tenacity that you would expect
from a female reporter. But when it really comes down
to it in terms of a character, like you know,
what if if somebody likes Superman, somebody who's supposed to
have an unflappable sense of character and kindness and all
these different things, I cannot realistically see him falling for
the personality of the Margot Kidder Lowis Lane. I could
see him falling for the personality of the Amy Adams
Lowest Lane. Absolutely no, She's not only is she fiery
and tenacious and all of those things that you would
have to be, but she's also kind. She's also she's
smart and generous. She's smart, yeah, and I just don't
and she doesn't treat him like crap.
Speaker 2: The Margot Kidder Lois Lane falls in love with Superman
and almost in lust with Superman and treats Clark Kent
like crap and disregards him throughout the movie like there's
no inkling whatsoever that she has any feelings beyond friendship
for Clark Kent. In Man of Steel, Lois Lane falls
in love with Clark Kent. She doesn't fall in love
with Superman. I mean, she's met him and has seen
his powers briefly, but it is his story as Clark
Kent about why he has to remain quiet about his
powers that moves her, and it is and it's his
sacrifice later on, and that one is Superman that I
think causes her to fall in love with him. Is
this understanding of where he is, And to me, that's
a much better romantic story then Oh, I'm enamored by
a superhero and kind of losing control myself.
Speaker 4: Well, and I almost don't want to take it to
this kind of extreme. And I'm going to say this,
but I'm not really calling her this. It's almost like
Margot Killer. Lewis Lane is a gold digger, you know,
she sees somebody with power and she's like, oh my god.
And then even when he says things like yeah, you know,
I never lie, and she's like, are you kidding? Really,
that's ridiculous. Everybody lies, Whereas Amy Adams one of my
favorite I think the indication of just how she feels
about this man is when she's sitting down across the
table from him and he's got the handcuffs on and
she's like, why did you let them handcuff you, and
he's like, well, you know, if it helps him feel better,
And just the little smile that she gives him at
that point, it's like she loves his humility, Like she
knows what he's capable of, she knows the power that
he's that he's got. But he's sitting there in handcuffs
and she I mean like that. You can see the
look on her face, and just that little hint of
a smile that she gives. It's like you can tell
she's falling in love with this guy because he's humble.
Speaker 3: All right, Well, let's talk about for me, one of
the most interesting characters is Zod. So Terrence Stamp is
General Zod in Superman one and two, and you compare
him to Michael Shannon, who is Zodd and Man of Steel.
Speaker 2: What do you guys think on that one? So Terrence
Stamp took some recruiting, just like many of the actors
whenever that first movie was coming out, because the idea
of being a superhero having a superhero movie was not
exciting to anybody. But as it turned out, Richard Donner
found out that Stamp had been studying transcendental meditation stamp
just so that if anybody doesn't know the history, he's
obviously an incredible actor. But he had he had gotten nominated,
maybe won the Oscar for Billy Bud went back in
the sixties and then what is kind of a I
don't know that they had People magazine back then, but
he was kind of the guy who was always out
on the town and doing disco and living the actor life.
He loved the nightlife.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he liked a boogey, so he must have. They
must not have needed their wardrobe department to bring his
Zod costume. Maybe he already had that for.
Speaker 2: He supplied all three of the criminals with their nightlife costume.
And so anyway they got him on. He said that
he did not want to give layers to this character,
like he just wanted him to be a straightforward evil,
you know, no complexity, nothing. This is just a bad guy.
Speaker 4: I thought.
Speaker 2: I loved Zod in one and two.
Speaker 3: He has some funny lines, like when the police siren
pulls up or the police car pulls up, and he's like,
the red light reminds me of the red crypton sun.
I love it, except for the irritating noise, you know.
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, I like him. I do think that Michael
Shannon does a good job.
Speaker 3: In fact, there's one line in Man of Steel when
they're carrying them away and they're on Krypton and he's
looking at Superman's mom and he's.
Speaker 2: Like, I will find him. I will find him.
Speaker 3: And he starts speaking with more and more conviction, and
that last that last thing where he says I will
find him, and I'm like, man, that one kind.
Speaker 2: Of shook me.
Speaker 3: That that dude looked intense. So I think they did
both both did a good job. I'm more partial to
Terrence Stamp just just because, but I thought Michael Shannon
was great.
Speaker 4: Where you were, well, actually the you mentioned that line
that I will find him. There was a podcast that
I used to listen to a lot and it was
kind of actually what what got me started and wanting
to do a podcast. It was called Geek out Loud
and the host his name Steve and he lives in
Georgia and east to have a radio show. He was
actually on like on the air radio and uh, he
would kind of have some of the people that would
listen to him would send in fake commercials sometimes kind
of like what you'd see on Saturday Night Live, where
they come up with a fake ad for something. And
so around about the time that man, Yeah I might run,
about the time that Man of Steel came out, I
put together a fake commercial for his radio show, and
it was oh god. It was called like General Zod's
Love Codex, and it was supposed to be like this,
It's supposed to be like this dating service. And you know,
I had you know, I had my sister like pretend
like she was one of the people calling into the
dating service and and all this other stuff. But the
final line of the dating service like if there's someone
out there for you, And then we had Zod screaming,
I will find him.
Speaker 2: That's great man.
Speaker 4: Now, I and some of this too. I I can't,
you know, say what I said before about having watched
these movies with my dad, you know Superman too. This
was this was something that just I cannot separate the
experience of watching this with my dad and how much
my dad loved Superman too. And I think this was
this became the vocabulary of our house. You know. If
I did something and it was it was something stupid
or something my dad had told me not to do.
His raise was not wrong again, zud You know it
was that was constant in our house or you know,
he would you know, he'd be playing around with us.
He'd be like, no, he's like, you got to listen
to me, Neil.
Speaker 3: At least he didn't say, why do you say this
to me when you know I will kill you for it.
Speaker 4: I think he might have the first time I asked
to borrow the car, you know, So, I mean it's again,
it's like it's like Christopher Reeves Superman. This zod Is
is larger than life, like he's he's very two dimensional.
So yes, it's not he's your he doesn't you know,
it's your mustache twirling villain. It's your you know, it's
you mentioned Dracula before. It's like your old school nineteen
thirties Dracula. Like, there's no complexity to this character. It's
just a bad guy. It's a classic bad guy for
the sake of being a bad guy. And I think
in a movie of this kind, that's what makes him great. Now.
Having said that, Michael Shannon, that brings, he brings the complexity.
Like I when I saw that and I saw his
take on zod I'm like, you know what I, oh,
they're doing Sod is the villain. Why they aren't did
it right the first time, But now watching watching this one,
actually I might have to take that back a little bit.
He is a phenomenal Sod. Yes, there's no way around this.
The fact that he brought to this movie a motivation
that had you almost I mean you were you were conflicted,
and I think that was what was great about it
was they wanted kal El to be conflicted, like, oh, well,
I've never known any of my people. Well now my
people are here and they don't seem to be such
great people, but you know, I Kryptonian. We got to
keep the Kryptonian thing going. So maybe I should be
Maybe I should be aligning with these people. Maybe I shouldn't.
And there's that, there's that kind of push and pull
in the movie. And I think that just that backstory
of Zod being like, look, I was raised to defend
my people and on Krypton. Whatever you're raised to be,
that's what you are, and you don't deviate. You know,
that's built into the fabric of our culture and our society.
You don't deviate from that, don't change from that. And
I think his Zod bringing that to such a desperation
when it gets to the point at the end of
the movie where you know a lot of his people
are now gone, and he even says that he's like,
I am here to defend my people, and now because
of you, I have no people. And then I remember
taking my soul, right, You've taken my reason for being.
And I remember watching that and just thinking as I'm
watching this in the theater, going, oh, dear Lord, you
have left this man desperate and without anything else to lose.
Now he's going to be like even worse than he
ever was before because you have pushed him to the
edge up until that point. You could almost watch it.
He's one of those villains where you're like, all right,
so he's a bad guy, but like, I get why
he's doing it. I wouldn't do it, but I get
why he's doing it. And I think that was just
that was an amazing take on the character of Zod,
And so I think part of that it's a little
bit tough because it is it's a little bit of
an apples and Oranges kind of thing. Is there's always
a place in time for a good two dimensional mustache
twirling cackling villain, but there's also a good time and
a place for wow, like this is a villain, like
this is the kind of villain you can sink your
teeth into.
Speaker 2: So the you know, the you look at the motivations
in both of the stories, the Superman one and two story,
Zod's motivation is tyranny. I mean, he wants to rain
on high from the beginning. That's what gets him in
trouble in the first place, is that he's he's trying
to take over control of Krypton. And then ultimately when
he gets to Earth and Scremint two, that's his whole
goal is to take it over. And then when he finds,
you know, when he finds out that the son of
Correaul lives, then he's he's bent on having his revenge.
But these are all very vice motives. I mean, there's
nothing redeeming about any of the motives that he has.
But with the way they wrote Zod and Man of Steel,
Krypton has got this kind of brave New World type
of system where people are no longer birthed naturally but
created in a big chamber, and each person is created
with a specific job in mind and Zod's specific job
is to protect Krypton in the Kryptonian people, and he's
he follows the leadership until such time as he realizes, Hey,
they're now bureaucrats and they're causing the death of the
people that it is my duty to defend. And to
see that kind of passion behind it, I had to
I had to go, well, you know, what if I
was in this situation, what if I had no familiarity
with this other race of people. My one job was
to protect my people. I mean, you got to think
of it like your family. You know. If I could
bring back my family from annihilation and what it took
was getting rid of a family that I didn't know,
could I see myself doing that? Yeah? Maybe?
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 3: I read a whole article about how General Zod is
actually the good guy in Man of Steel.
Speaker 2: All right, everybody that does it? For part one of
the podcast, please join us. Next week we will have
John back and we will be discussing the remainder of
Superman one and Superman two versus Man of Steel. Don't
forget to go check out the Thirty Somethings podcast, and
as always, thank you for joining us. All music, images
and movie clips are used for the purposes of commentary
and education.