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What you should know ahead of time about Superman Returns

13 July 2006, 12:05 AM

The following is a spoiler, of a sort; kind of a meta-spoiler. But I nonetheless claim that almost everyone will enjoy Superman Returns more if they know this than if they don't know it; knowing this will help you set your expectations appropriately (and most of you probably know it already anyway). However, I know some people won't want to know it, in which case don't read the rest of this entry.

The key thing I think you should know ahead of time is that this movie is much more closely related to the 1978 Superman movie than to any of the comic-book versions of Superman.

I read somewhere that Bryan Singer is not a comics fan (which makes me even more amazed at the care he took with the first two X-Men movies), but is a big fan of the 1978 Superman movie. And I'm very glad I knew that going into this movie, because I think I would've been really disappointed if I hadn't known it.

I didn't see most of the sequels to the 1978 version, so I don't know how closely related this one is to any of them. But there are quite a few elements and approaches here that come directly from the 1978 movie, that I've never encountered in any Superman comic.

The following is a spoiler, of a sort; kind of a meta-spoiler. But I nonetheless claim that almost everyone will enjoy Superman Returns more if they know this than if they don't know it; knowing this will help you set your expectations appropriately (and most of you probably know it already anyway). However, I know some people won't want to know it, in which case don't read the rest of this entry.

Comments

Also, it's good to know that it's a new movie, not a rerelease of the 1978 film. The ads at the Imax theater had me convinced until a couple of weeks ago that it was the 1978 film, with 3D effects added. (We don't go to multiplexes any longer, so we hadn't seen any normal previews.) I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it's a whole new movie!

Posted by: Michael | July 13, 2006 8:13 AM

I was told it was mind-achingly slow and more a romance than an action movie. But I hadn't thought it was related at all to the 1978 movie except for the name of the main character :)... But I'm going to pass on seeing it, I think.

Posted by: jaipur [LiveJournal user info] | July 16, 2006 10:26 AM

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