YMMV / Superman: The Movie

• Adorkable: Christopher Reeve's Clark Kent is an adorable bumbling dork (although it's just an 'act' and only involves adult Clark).
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • While presented as unambiguously benevolent, Marlon Brando's Jor-El can come off as Good Is Not Nice at best and a Manipulative Bastard at worst. From beyond the grave he programs his son as a baby until he's a toddler, then again when he's 18 until he's 30, towards a career he'd predestined him to take. This sowed the seeds for the Jerkass Jor-El artificial intelligence from Smallville (voiced by General Zod), though later the actual Jor-El himself (played by others) was depicted more sympathetically. Viewers who feel that the extent of Jor-El's mentor role shortchanged Clark of much-needed agency and also downplayed the importance of the Kents in shaping Superman tend to praise Smallville for balancing the different factors in Clark's development better, and also criticize Man of Steel for carrying over the issues with Clark's agency which are ultimately traceable to this film while shortchanging the Kents even further.
  • In this universe, Clark never became Superboy, as in the comics of the time, and needed his father to die when he was 18 years old to figure out he could do more with his powers than to become a star athlete. Did no one teach him "With Great Power, Comes Great Responsibility" before that happened? Even after that, he doesn't think of using his powers for good himself, Jor-El has to program him to do that for 12 whole years.
  • When Superman agreed to stop the nuclear missile heading for Hackensack, was that really Honor Before Reason, or at least a personal recognition of The Needs of the Many? After all, while the completion of Luthor's scheme would mean millions potentially dying in California falling into the sea, at least the missile would apparently strike a relatively isolated area to begin with. By contrast, the other missile is heading to strike a heavily populated city, which thousands are guaranteed to die instantly unless Superman can stop it. In that regard, Superman would likely have decided to make that the priority after all, even as he prayed he could turn around and stop the other one in time. As it happens, he failed to stop the second missile, but at least he was able to stop the resulting earthquake and save California as well as dealing with the aftershocks' destruction.
• Anti-Climax Boss: Depending on whether you think Luthor in himself counts as a "boss", independent of the nukes and earthquake; after Lois has been saved, a Smash Cut shows Superman dropping him (and Otis) in jail like an afterthought. No buildup, no escape attempt, not even a Villainous Breakdown rant.
• Anvilicious: The Space Jesus/God the Son symbolism intoned by Space God the Father. Wasn't ever in the comics.
• Ass Pull: Superman saving Lois Lane by flying so hard that it reverses time. While it's the most memorable thing in the film, a lot of people still see it as a copout playing fast and loose with Superman's abilities and the laws of physics.
• Audience-Coloring Adaptation:
  • For many people Christopher Reeve's portrayal is, and always will be, the definitive take on Superman. Regardless of the quality of this film and its sequels, especially in comparison to modern superhero films, fans agree that his portrayal of the character is the standard that all others are compared to which has left filmmakers struggling with either copying his portrayal or trying to be as different as possible. To a lesser degree the same is true for Margot Kidder's Lois Lane, though Erica Durance's version and some others challenge this.
  • Variations of Jor-El being clad in white with white or silver hair and/or an almost omniscient God-like Virtual Ghost mentor to Clark (especially in later versions) have since showed up in various other adaptations like The Adventures of Superboy (which had the same producers), Lois & Clark, Smallville and Man of Steel and eventually in the comics, in a storyline co-written by Geoff Johns with Richard Donner himself (before he entered comics, Johns used to be Donner's production assistant). Originally, Jor-El wore green (which he has gone back to in the current status quo), he looked as old as Superman (with black hair), Clark only found out about Krypton long after becoming Superman, and he could only talk to his parents through time travel. The Virtual Ghost mentor aspect has even carried over to Supergirl with Jor-El's sister-in-law Alura serving as one for her daughter Kara/Supergirl, and to Krypton with Jor-El's great-grandfather Val-El serving as one for his grandson (Jor-El's father) Seg-El. The earliest variations in the Superboy series also included an older Superman himself as clad in white, complete with the white hair.
  • To a lesser extent, this also locked in the idea of Superman as an Ideal Hero, compared to the rough-and-tumble socialist Siegel-and-Schuster Superman, the tricksy and scientifically-oriented Weisinger Superman, or the self-conscious and worldly Maggin Superman.
• Award Snub:
  • Richard Donner was disgusted that production designer John Barry and cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth received no recognition from the Academy Awards for their work on this film. He was particularly aggrieved that one of the nominees for Best Art Direction was California Suite, which merely duplicated an existing hotel, while Barry created a fictional city and a fortress in the Arctic. It didn't much help that Unsworth died before the film's release, and Barry also died while working on The Empire Strikes Back six months later.
  • Christopher Reeve not being nominated for Best Actor.
  • John Williams losing Original Score to the Midnight Express soundtrack.
  • Probably the most egregious, Gene Hackman not being nominated for Best Supporting Actor, though he at least got a BAFTA nom.
• Awesome Music: That opening fanfare. You can almost hear the words — "Look, up in the sky, there he is! Look, up in the sky, Superman!", or alternatively, "Look, up in the sky! Way up high! Who flies so high? SUPERMAN!" Or, in the first "verse," "S-S-S-Superman, he's a friend! S-S-S-Superman, he's here to help! Look at him going, look at him flying, look up in the sky, it's Superman!" Really, throughout the theme, John Williams incorporated triplet beats that sound like the music itself is cheering "Su-Per-Man!" If you're not hearing the music now, you should be.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The opening credits are rightly awesome with the reveal of John Williams' Superman theme and the cast and crew's names whooshing around in space, but the actual opening of the film shows... an old-fashioned movie theater, which plays a black and white film within the film(?) with the marquee "June 1938", where a kid reads Action Comics(!), and the Daily Planet building transitions from a comic panel to a cheap movie serial-style set - then it dissolves into space. Since it's set in the present, what was the point of all that? Presumably it was an attempt at a Storybook Opening that would pay homage all the previous media in which Superman has featured.
• Broken Base: The film is unashamedly earnest and cheesy, but it's up to the viewer to decide whether this is part of the appeal or if it's a massive flaw in the film.
• Can't Un-Hear It: Christopher Reeve is the definitive live-action Superman. Also, Margot Kidder as Lois Lane, Marlon Brando as Jor-El and Terence Stamp as General Zod.
• Common Knowledge: Despite how it may look, the climax isn't actually Superman making the Earth spin backwards. What he's actually doing is flying fast enough to go back in time.
• Creator Worship: Christopher Reeve, John Williams and to a slightly lesser degree, Richard Donner have reigned uncontested for nearly four decades as the preferred actor, composer and director for Superman, especially after the extremely divisive 21st century versions of Superman and other DC characters.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: Lois has trouble spelling certain words, despite being a reporter. It's very possible she has dyslexia.
• First Installment Wins: In addition to being a landmark achievement in practically launching the genre of comic book movies, and being an iconic film in its own right, this is considered to be the only Superman film with any sort of consistent direction and good characterization. Every subsequent film adaptation of the character both from this franchise and later ones (with the arguable exception of the theatrical cut of Superman II, and the definite exception of the Richard Donner cut of that film), have received mediocre to negative reception, leading to the belief that he's a near-impossible character to film and that this one simply got lucky.
• Franchise Original Sin: This film was in a lot of ways both the best and worst thing that happened to Superman:
  • This film started the heavy-handed God/Jesus symbolism followed by later Superman films. What's worse is since Jor-El acts like God giving his son a divine mission, it downplays the role the Kents played in molding Superman and Clark's own agency, and more contentiously, turns a Jewish analogue of Moses into a Christian allegory (when both its creators were Jewish). Man of Steel took all this symbolism and subtext and just made it so blatant that it didn't allow for more middle takes, i.e. one that saw Superman simply as a character rather than some icon.
  • The film's take on Lex Luthor has endured all reboots. Whether played by Gene Hackman, Kevin Spacey, or Jesse Eisenberg, all cinematic versions of Luthor are insane cackling masterminds without comic Luthors' serious personality, his facility to invent new gadgets and robots, or any of his Evil Virtues. The overall take on Rogues Gallery, with Superman III being the only film to not have Luthor and/or Zod as the villain,^note Batman v Superman looked like it was going to buck the trend with Doomsday, but the DCEU continuity's version of him was just a mutated Zod who had been resurrected by Luthor, much to the dismay of many fans who felt like they'd been baited and switched. The villain of Superman's next cinematic outing (Justice League) was Steppenwolf, a minor character who is not normally considered a part of his rogues to begin with... so again, no dice. has more or less kept the live-action Superman Lost in Imitation of the legacy of the Donner films, preventing more diverse takes (as for instance in the case of Batman who has had the richness of his comics world reflected in multiple movies, featuring three cinematic Jokers but also other rogues such as Catwoman, Penguin, Scarecrow, Ra's Al Ghul, Two-Face, Harley Quinn, and Bane).
  • The film's take on Superman while wonderfully played by Christopher Reeve has likewise, unintentionally, made Superman redolent of old-fashioned America (kind of Eagleland type one), since as Bob Chipman noted the nature of the film's style, presentation, and setting was to make Superman appear as a Genre Throwback from a "simpler America" to a jaded '70s America (reflected by Lois Lane), kind of Eagleland Mixed Flavor. His take on Superman as unambiguously purely good, with Clark Kent as a bumbling human front, and someone who cannot settle down with Lois because of his powers, has been so iconic that it more or less froze his character into extremes of decency (Good Superman), milquetoast timidity (Clark) and, well, Superdickery (the evil Superman in III), which coupled with Adaptation Decay and Lost in Imitation prevents Superman from being portrayed as a rounded character. Bryan Singer's Superman Returns which was intended to be a soft reboot, was a sequel to the first two films, and the film was more or less about how Superman is out of place in the 21st Century.
• Genre Turning Point: While not the first superhero film, the original Superman opened a whole new era for this genre as big time Hollywood fare which carries on to this day. Christopher Nolan said that Richard Donner's work on this film inspired him to create The Dark Knight Trilogy. Beyond that, it's also pointed to being one of the four big films of the late 70s that brought Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Adventure films into the mainstream (with the other three being Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind from the previous year, and Alien the year after), thus paving the way for 80s films like the Indiana Jones trilogy, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, TRON, Blade Runner, Conan the Barbarian, The Terminator, Back to the Future, The Goonies, Predator, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and Batman.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Reeve playing the role as Superman was seen in a whole new light after Reeve was paralyzed from the shoulders down in 1995 after an equestrian accident. In light of Reeve's social activism on behalf of the disabled after that, many parallels were drawn between his activism and his role as Superman.
  • Superman's Skyward Scream over Lois's death. Many comic readers might hear it while reading Crisis on Infinite Earths #7.
  • Regarding the later, for Mexican viewers, the whole scene is quite harsher if you take into account Superman's voice actor, the late Manuel de la Llata, is the voice of the Mexican seimic alert used in Mexico since the 1980s. In fact, his voice was chosen because of this film and that scene in mind.
  • This is the first time Lex's father is portrayed as an Abusive Parent, at least in dialogue if to be taken seriously.
  • This version of Lois actually was canonically killed off permanently 40 years later in Crisis on Infinite Earths (2019). However, it's implied her death was undone when Oliver restored the Multiverse.
  • You know the pilot of the helicopter that almost killed Lois Lane? Listen to his voice on the radio before it lands on the Daily Planet heliport. It belongs to the man who rescued her. This also means he landed on the heliport twice: once at the helm, then with the helicopter and Lois in tow.
    • On May 16 1977, shortly after the movie went into production, there was a crash involving a Sikorsky S-61L helicopter that had just landed atop the Pan-Am (now MetLife) building. The right landing gear collapsed and the rotor detached, killing four passengers waiting to board, and one passerby at street level hit by debris. The heliport closed shortly afterwards. After that, there were no more heliports atop skyscrapers in NYC. All three heliports presently operating in the city are near the water, two on the East River and one on the Hudson.
• He Really Can Act: With Christopher Reeve, you'll not only believe that a man can fly, but Clark Kenting can work if you're as masterful an actor as he was.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The relatively modern idea that Superman is something of an ersatz of Jesus is quite ironic when you know that not only were Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster Jewish, Superman himself was partially inspired by the concept of Judaism! Specifically, by the story of Moses.
  • Russell Crowe once had a song called "I want to be like Marlon Brando" and later took over Brando's role as Jor-El in Man of Steel.
  • When Lex is laying out his Evil Plan to Superman and Superman asks who owns the land, Otis states "Lex Luthor Incorporated". A couple of years later, John Byrne began the reimagination of Luthor as a Corrupt Corporate Executive whose company's name (LexCorp) is not that different from the film's name.
  • This wouldn't be the last superhero movie to end with the hero turning back time to save their love interest from an untimely death.
  • This version of Lex Luthor's personality (smart but rather silly and buffoonish) is rather similar to Dr. Eggman's. Fittingly, they are both mad scientists.
• Hollywood Homely: Only Christopher Reeve's acting ability makes it believable that a pair of glasses on a tall, dark, extremely well-built and broad-shouldered man could turn him into a simpering nebbish who women would ignore.
• Hype Backlash: While this and Superman II are often touted as still the best superhero films ever with Reeve as the epitome of superhero casting, modern DC and Superman fans can come away less than impressed with the film’s story, in spite of its technical achievements for the time. Fans of the DC Extended Universe in particular resent this film feeling that the Henry Cavill version of Superman was unfairly lambasted simply for taking a different direction than the Christopher Reeve films.
• It Was His Sled: Superman reverses time at the climax, appearing to spin the Earth backwards. It's the Signature Scene and often the subject of parody.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Lex Luthor definitely crosses it when actually executes his Evil Plan, which involves nuking California and causing a huge earthquake to make it sink into the ocean and kill millions, a well as sending other nuke to New Jersey just so Superman can't stop them both. While Superman obviously does stop them, and uses his Super-Strength to seal the fault, it still ends up causing a lot of damage, including destroying a dam and killing Lois Lane, although Superman uses Time Travel (of a sort) to bring her back.
  • There's a Deleted Scene where Luthor plans to feed Miss Teschmacher to jungle cats, as punishment for helping Superman escape. While Superman saves her in time, it's still vile enough that even Otis is noticeably appalled.
• My Real Daddy:
  • The whole concept of Superman and Clark Kent, and the latter's mannerisms and movement being so different and a testament, is entirely down to Christopher Reeve. This version and take has come into multiple comics and later versions as a result.
  • Marlon Brando's method innovations and alien portrayal of Jor-El also led to the introduction of the concept that Superman's logo is in fact the sigil of the House of El, which has also been made Ret-Canon into the comics and kept in place in the DC Extended Universe.
• Narm:
  • The entire flying sequence with Lois' spoken-word musical number. It was spoken-word because the filmmakers discovered too late that Margot Kidder couldn't sing. Since the film was already over budget, dubbing a professional singer wasn't an option. However, the music and the sheer sense of awe and wonder can make it work for sufficiently sentimental viewers.
  • Even before he spins the Earth backwards to turn back time, Superman's scream and flying right into the camera in typical Superman style with an angry look on his face can prompt laughter, especially as it comes in as a Mood Whiplash from the genuine Tear Jerker it's coming directly off of.
• Narm Charm: General Zod is made of this. He's a titanic ham with lots of dialogue that could have been very painful, but he tends to come of as genuinely deranged and dangerous rather than goofy considering that on Earth, he will cataclysmically make good on his threats with his bare hands, or simply by blowing. It also helps that he can bounce back and forth between Large Ham and dangerously understated almost at will, as his introductory scene shows when it turns from smugly defiant at Jor-El's decision against them, then desperate to woo Jor-El to join him, and then bellowing threats with pure hatred at him.
• Never Live It Down: For some people, the ending with Superman spinning the Earth backwards to reverse time completely obliterates any other merits the film may have. In fairness, this wasn't the original plan — in earlier versions of the story, Superman managed to get to Lois in time and save her and all the other people, while the Army's XK-101 missile he flung up into space ends up shattering the Phantom Zone setting up Superman II where the spinning the Earth backwards to reverse time was originally supposed to be — but due to the production problems and friction between Donner and the Salkinds, it ended up being curtailed into the ending that we got. Plus, Warner Bros. apparently liked the effect and requested the script be rewritten so to incorporate an emotional and dramatic climax for the first movie. While the intention was that he's traveling through time and the Earth appears to spin backwards, the fact that he's never actually shown diverting the second missile ends up making it unclear exactly what's meant to be going on. (Answer: His past self is dealing with the other rocket, since one does not affect the other.)
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Superman's bloodcurdling scream of pure rage and grief after finding Lois' body is either this or Narm depending on the viewer.
  • The build-up to Superman's Skyward Scream is chilling. You see him weeping quietly, working himself up, getting more and more angry, and just before he lets loose, he gives out an anguished sob. And then the scream, and the look on his face as he takes off. For the first time in the film, Superman is utterly enraged... and he's terrifying.
  • Lois' being buried alive is also jarringly serious in contrast with most of the film, and unnerving for how prolonged the landslide sequence is. We not only have to watch Lois die, we have to watch her die slowly and in utter terror.
  • Superman nearly dying from the Kryptonite.
• Once Original, Now Common: Although this movie invented the modern superhero film, and manages to look impressive even after 40 years, it is sometimes dismissed as a museum piece with little appeal to modern audiences, mostly because tropes it popularized are so common nowadays.
• One-Scene Wonder: Marlon Brando as Jor-El is a legendary example. He's in the movie for about five minutes, for which he demanded an astronomical amount of money and that he have cue cards rather than memorizing the script,^note he explained that, ironically enough, he could make the words sound more realistically spontaneous using cards than if he memorized them and ended up redefining the character.
• Romantic Plot Tumor: Superman and Lois Lane long had an uneven dynamic in the comics and that uneven dynamic is on full display here.
• Sacred Cow: Criticize any part of the first two films and you're an ingrate who's slighting the late Christopher Reeve. Even better, criticize their depiction of Jor-El and you're an ingrate who's slighting the late Marlon Brando.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: We don't get to see the iconic superhero until nearly an hour in the film. Since it's mainly about Kal-El/Clark Kent's origins, childhood and adolescence.
• Tough Act to Follow: Christopher Reeve's portrayal of Superman is widely considered the definitive take on the character and to this day, many compare all of Superman's later actors to Reeve's performance to measure how well their portrayal is; when asked, all the actors who’ve subsequently played the role have unanimously cited Reeve as the best iteration. This has also been a source of considerable frustration for many fans of the character, who feel every other actor who takes on the role is unfairly expected to live up to Reeve's portrayal or recapture that same lightning in a bottle, rather than have the freedom to fully create their own version and one which reflects the ways in which the character has evolved since the Reeve era. This has been a particular point of contention for many fans of Henry Cavill's far more serious portrayal of Superman who have a very bitter rivalry with many vocal fans of Reeve's portrayal for this reason.
• Values Dissonance:
  • Originally, baby Clark was found stark naked, with his Clark Jr. in plain view. Today, there is usually some editing to that scene.^note Albeit mostly only done in American and some foreign releases.
  • After Superman gets a little girl's kitten down from a tree, she runs inside to tell her mother about the flying man who helped her, only to be audibly slapped for telling "lies." This scene would be considered comedic in the 1970s, but in modern times it would be seen as child abuse.
  • The only black person with a speaking role in this film is a pimp.
  • There is no way the whole gag with a bunch of guys racing to molest an unconscious woman would fly today.
  • A throwaway line indicates that Lois is writing a news story about a rapist. This would never happen in a PG movie in the 21st century.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: "You'll believe a man can fly." Even if not that...
  • One of the most striking visuals even today is the scene in where Superman rebuilds the San Andreas Fault.
  • R/Greenberg, which previously specialized in TV advertising, created the opening credits. They later branched out into a visual effects firm, their other claim to fame being the invisibility effects in Predator.

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