YMMV / Supergirl (1984)

• Awesome Music: The score by Jerry Goldsmith is excellent and matches John Williams' heroic compositions for Superman: The Movie quite well while being its own thing. The majestic opening theme especially.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The film received a lot more positive buzz in the UK.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Some people just watch the movie to see Helen Slater in the very flattering Supergirl suit.
• Les Yay:
  • While Selena and Nigel are lovers and she takes an interest in Ethan, she and Bianca are very close, living together, and generally being on good terms even when they bicker.
  • An early draft is dripping in accidental subtext between Supergirl and Selena after the latter's Heel–Face Turn, as since there's no place for her on Earth Kara invites her to live with her in Argo City. The draft ends with Supergirl comforting her over stealing the Omegahedron and assuring her that Argo City is home.
• Narm:
  • Ethan can't pronounce the name 'Selena'. It's not as if it's an obscure name.
  • Zaltar decides to forgo a Rousing Speech with Kara. When she says "I can't", he just replies "you can" and that works. It gets a Meaningful Echo too.
  • The fact that Kara's home is so easily damaged by a little toy butterfly popping the wall. Is a sheet of plastic all that's protecting it from the forces of space?
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • A pre-Max Headroom Matt Frewer is one of the would-be rapists.
  • Ethan is better known to DC fans as Arthur Reeves, and to everyone else as Harry Ellis.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • Selena tries to choke Supergirl to death by having the demon pull on her, which due to the aspect ratio being changed looks like it's stretching the film as well as her.
  • Kara uses Super-Speed to type up a letter to get herself enrolled in the school. Except while she's speeding around the room, the leaves outside can be seen moving fast - to show that the film was just sped up.
  • Probably the worst special effect in the movie is Supergirl's tornado to deal with Selena, Bianca, and the demon, which looks like a still image being moved around, especially when it heads toward the mirror.
  • Zigzagged with the flying effects. Some look like very obvious blue screen, others still hold up reasonably well.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: Jerry Goldsmith's Supergirl theme intentionally matches the style of John Williams' Superman main theme.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Selena as a witch could have been quite a unique villain. Superman and Supergirl are actually vulnerable to magic - so Selena could have given Supergirl a run for her money. Instead she mostly uses her magic to cast a love spell on a man, and fights with Supergirl for his affections using more mundane tools, with her magic only being used offensively in the climax.
  • Not much effort is made to give Kara an arc. She jeopardises the safety of her home and goes to Earth to make amends, but spends most of her time at school and falling in love instead of actively looking for the Omegahedron, only finding it after Selena misuses its powers.
• Took the Bad Film Seriously: As incoherent as the film ended up being, Helen Slater really worked on her role, earning herself a Saturn Award nomination. Even the reviewers who hated the film tended not to criticize her performance. She also takes special care to give subtle differences between Supergirl and Linda Lee, making it very believable that they could be different people.
• Trapped by Mountain Lions: Kara enrolling in school under the alias Linda Lee. She completely forgets that she went to Earth to find the Omegahedron. She spends a good half hour just hanging around campus using her superpowers to humble some bullies.
• Values Dissonance: Jimmy Olsen is a professional news photographer, and therefore presumably a young man in his twenties, yet he's dating Lucy Lane, a high school student. While this might not have been seen as a big deal in the 1980s, in modern times this looks a lot more improper, bordering on sexual predator behavior.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The outside shots and wider inside shots of Argo City (which is housed in an enormous crystalline structure with multiple levels and almost no walls) can feel pretty impressive and aren’t cheaply designed.

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