Episode 120 - Superman IV: The Quest for Peace with DJ Nik

"What a brilliant future we could have. And there will be peace – there will be peace when the people of this world want it so badly that their governments will have no choice but to give it to them. I just wish you could all see the Earth the way that I see it. Because when you really look at it, it's just one world."

DJ Nik from the Happiness in Darkness podcast (and way more!) joins Case and Jmike to talk about the final movie in the Christopher Reeve series.

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Transcript

(Subject to Error)

00:00
Case Aiken
The other thing is just that I had been holding out hope that someone out there would find the mysterious full cut of the movie, the one that was rumored to exist and was shown at the premiere and then has never been seen again, that people have been like, oh, it's supposed to be actually not that bad. Maybe even pretty good. The canon thought that they could chop out 45 minutes to get more screenings and make more money on this movie.

00:23
Jmike Folson
I don't believe it.

00:24
DJ Nik
Me either.

00:25
Case Aiken
Supposedly, it could also just be none of that. Hey, everyone, and welcome back to the Men of Steel podcast. I'm case Aiken, and as always, I'm joined by my co host, J. Mike Falson.

00:51
Jmike Folson
Hey, everybody. We're finally doing this movie. It's finally happening.

00:57
Case Aiken
Yes. If you actually saw the title of the episode on your podcast player, you know that a thing that we have been dreading for 100 and some episodes has finally come to pass. Today we are talking about Superman four, the quest for peace. And to do that conversation, we are joined by DJ Nick from the Happiness and Darkness podcast.

01:22
DJ Nik
Hey, guys, thank you so much for having me on. I hope I will be able to somewhat soften the blow, if you will, or I just. I guess I'm a glutton for punishment, too. So happy to be here with you both. And really, thank you so much for having me on.

01:35
Case Aiken
Soften the blow is a good phrase here. So I think I've mentioned this on the pod before. I've never actually watched this movie fully before.

01:44
DJ Nik
Yeah, I would admit I've only watched it twice. Once for my own podcast and secondly for this podcast. So there you go.

01:51
Case Aiken
Okay.

01:51
Jmike Folson
Always caught it in like, it has.

01:55
Case Aiken
Such a reputation as being the bad one. And I've seen know I exist as a Superman fan on the Internet. So I'm aware of a lot of the movie. I was familiar with the lot, but it came out kind of at the perfect time of like, I can skip that one, right? Because I was a child of the. Came out in 87. Everyone was like, this is the bad one. Okay, cool. I'm just going to avoid it. And it's weird because I own it multiple times. I have the dvd set, I have the Blu ray set. I have it on Amazon for this. I ended up just watching it on, you know, it's. It's been readily available. And the only reason I haven't watched it before, fear, I think, is the best way to describe it. Fear.

02:34
DJ Nik
And I've got a lot of mixed.

02:36
Case Aiken
Feelings about this one. It was a long time coming. It's kind of insane that we didn't talk about at least the first four Superman movies in our first hundred episodes of being a Superman podcast, but we did three of them and now we're finally doing this one. I completely understand what everyone's talking about when I watch this, I'm just going to say that much. There are things that I liked about it and I don't want to be super negative about the whole thing, but I do definitely understand when people say they don't like this movie. I will never question why they don't like this movie. I will fully understand that. But I am curious what your thoughts were, just generally about it beforehand and then what your thoughts rewatching it for this episode were. J Mike, had you seen this before?

03:18
Case Aiken
You're the one who always teases me about it.

03:19
Jmike Folson
Yeah, because I'm like, we're never, ever going to talk about this, right? You're like, no, eventually we're going to get to it. And I was like, please don't. Then we did, and I had never fully seen this all the way through. The tv is on and you're doing something in the background, and then you come in like, oh, that's on. I'll come in like, no, I'm not watching this. And I'll walk back out because every time walk in, something random will be happening on the screen. Like, say, for instance, the whole Statue of Liberty Chase thing. And I'm like, what is going on? Never again. But for you, case, I did this for you. And yeah, this was a movie. It's not quite like the Wonder Woman spy movie that we saw, right?

04:02
Case Aiken
Yeah, the failed pilot from the wasn't like that.

04:05
Jmike Folson
But this was definitely a movie. There are a lot of good intentions in this movie.

04:10
Case Aiken
Lots of good intentions. Probably too many good intentions, frankly.

04:14
Jmike Folson
I should have known something was off when the title scene first happened and some of the instruments in the orchestra were kind of like, off. And I was like.

04:25
Case Aiken
Yeah, something's like.

04:26
Jmike Folson
They were hitting some really bad notes in that intro crawl.

04:30
Case Aiken
We'll go through my notes from actually watching it for the first time for this.

04:33
Jmike Folson
But yeah, this is not the A Team.

04:35
Case Aiken
I'll just say this one. My notes specifically for the opening credits was like a 1989 UPN tv show opening. If you had told me this was the 80s Superboy opening, I would have believed you. Also. It's way too long.

04:45
Jmike Folson
Yeah, this would have been better as like a miniseries.

04:48
Case Aiken
Well, we can't say that for every movie at this point, this one in particular. So it certainly has that element of cheap Sci-Fi shows where they're reusing the same special effect footage for everything. Obviously, when the episode art for this comes out, the central image is going to be that image of Superman flying towards the screen. It happens like 15 times in the movie. Like the first time, I was like, oh, yeah, that's that shot. I've heard about that shot. And then when the fifth time happens, and it was like maybe 20 minutes into the movie, I was like, oh, this is going to be a lot, isn't it? Aside from the issues of the movie, was there anything you took away on this watching of it that inspired you, changed your thoughts?

05:28
Case Aiken
Like any big pivots from what had been sort of your general impression of it?

05:32
Jmike Folson
No.

05:34
Case Aiken
Okay.

05:34
Jmike Folson
This needs to be put in one of those containers where they locked up the Ark of the covenant and Raiders of the Lost Ark, and it needs to be watched over by top men and never be seen again.

05:45
Case Aiken
Oh, come on now. But that said, I am now very curious. Is this worse than the shelved Batgirl movie?

05:52
Jmike Folson
We'll never know.

05:53
Case Aiken
Could this possibly be worse than some of those. All those things that, like Zaslav and all the execs right now, maybe I'm.

06:00
Jmike Folson
Being too harsh, but I really do feel this would have been better as, like, a tax write off, a week long miniseries show movie thing on, like, CBS or ABC in the very early.

06:12
Case Aiken
90S, we would be more forgiving, at least of it. But on that note, Nick, what was your experience with it beforehand? And then, actually, I listened to the episode back in the day, so I know it wasn't, like, super favorably received when you talked about it on your show.

06:28
DJ Nik
Not at all. I mean, to piggyback off what Jmike was saying, I think this movie does start with good intentions in the sense that there are some messages when it's trying to bring through, like, of course, the fear of nuclear war or even a criticism on certain kind of journalism and sensationalism and what have you. So those were actually cool concepts. Not to mention your director, Mr. Fury. He is actually considered one of the great directors of Canada, and he's actually considered one of the directors who put Canada on the map, directorially speaking, next to folks like Norman Jewison. So he has done some very inspirational stuff. He's actually won awards for some of his movies. So you're like, how could this possibly go wrong?

07:10
DJ Nik
It goes wrong spectacularly, because as soon as you see the words canon, you know you're going to get a mediocre product I'm sorry, but that's just how it is. And I have waded through some terrible movies when it comes to happiness and darkness. Is this worse than Green Lantern or spawn? Probably not. Supergirl is probably better than this, and that's still a horrible movie. But the thing with this is, it was great to see Christopher Reeve again. It was great to see Gene Hackman again. And I will say this. I am a doctor who fan, so I forgive really bad effects over really good story, because to me, Doctor who has never had great special effects, but it tells amazing stories because you're there for the story. You're not there for the special effects.

07:54
DJ Nik
So as I was watching this, I'm like, okay, the special effects are crap, but maybe it'll tell a great story. Not at all. There's just stuff that makes no sense whatsoever, starting with the whole sensationalist thing. Then you go into the whole nuclear disarmament thing, and they're just moments. I literally put down. I have eight bullet points of death, as I call them, where they're stuff that literally makes zero sense. You mentioned at the top of the movie, why the hell is Lois Lane speaking French in Metropolis to random strangers on the subway?

08:26
Case Aiken
Yeah, I was confused about that. It makes sense once you get to the next scene. But the scene where it's happening, I was like, wait, are they in France? Because it looks like the London, too, which I think actually it was, because a lot of it was filmed in London. So it was like, oh, are they in Europe?

08:39
DJ Nik
Right.

08:39
Case Aiken
Like, I guess could be. There's no reason that they couldn't be. They're journalists who know travel across the country. And apparently that's a big plot point for Lois, like, doing all these trips anyway. But, yeah, they just sort of set that one up and just sort of play it as if it's not weird just to randomly start speaking a different language to a stranger than what is expected to be spoken in the area you're at. It was a strange moment.

09:01
DJ Nik
I mean, like, if I'm on the subway over here in Italy and somebody starts speaking random German to me, I'm like, huh? I mean, the same reaction that this guy had, this random dude. I mean, this lady comes up to you, starts speaking some other language, you're like, what the hell are you doing? You're not even in Paris. I mean, I get she's practicing for her trip to Paris, but couldn't she have done that with somebody that she actually knew? Like Clark, for example, saying, clark, let's sit down and practice my French or something. Like, what is. How can you cut Superman's hair with just shears?

09:34
Case Aiken
Yeah, I have some weird thoughts about that because they make a whole point about how much it can hold. And then the only thing I can figure what they're supposed to be doing with the bolt cutters is whatever the strand of hair is attached to on the hook, like some metal piece that they're cutting there. But it's really weird to set up like, oh, yeah, this strand of hair is so durable, it can take a thousand pounds. There's no issue here whatsoever. Give me some bolt cutters.

10:01
DJ Nik
The other thing that I was like, what the hell is. Superman is quite the jerk in this one in the sense that he kisses Lois and makes her remember and stuff, and then he kisses her again and makes her forget, like, dude, oh, my God.

10:13
Case Aiken
Yes, we're going to put a pin in that one because I have such a huge conversation about that one because I didn't know that was going to be exactly. Blew my fucking mind. My wife and I were watching this and she dipped out after a certain point. It's Superman four. So she didn't really feel like she had to stay to the end. She's like, watching it while we're finishing dinner, and she's like, wait, did they just do the mind erase kiss again? And I was like, I think they did. So we're going to come back to that one because that. Oh, man, we have so much to talk about with that one because I did not see that coming. I have some real thoughts then.

10:47
DJ Nik
My other point was, Superman rebuilds the great wall with his eyes. How?

10:54
Case Aiken
Okay, so the movies have always been pretty bad in terms of representing Superman's powers. All of them have kind of introduced new things. To be fair, it is a tradition of Superman media to create new powers for him. Such as, like, well, I guess he's really flying now being from the radio show, but I know why that happened the way it did. If this were another pass, my other show, I have an immediate fix for it, which is just like, I know that the budget for this movie got slashed horrifically, that they could not afford a lot of this stuff. My solution, instead of just being a beam, was just the claymation that they're doing with the wall. That part is actually fine. It doesn't look great, but you can live with it.

11:35
Case Aiken
If instead of it being like a beam effect, they just did a blue and red streak. Just have it rush past, like two times. Don't have a figure, just do like a gradient wipe and then like, oh, hey, he put it together. He's Superman. It would be a cheap special effect, but it wouldn't be, like, an offensive special effect.

11:53
DJ Nik
Totally fair. And then the other one is during that double date sequence, can't the doorman at the hotel see Clark changing into Superman?

12:00
Case Aiken
Yes.

12:01
DJ Nik
When he runs in and out the.

12:02
Jmike Folson
Hotel or the car.

12:06
DJ Nik
It'S like, what the hell, dude? What happened to that. To that identity thing? But the worst one of all is, wouldn't Lacey die in?

12:14
Jmike Folson
Yes.

12:17
Case Aiken
That was a scene from Power Rangers right there where it's just like, oh, I guess you can breathe in space. It's fine.

12:22
DJ Nik
And of course, there's nuclear man's nails, right?

12:25
Case Aiken
Yes.

12:26
DJ Nik
Oh, my God.

12:27
Case Aiken
Or just the fact that he has to be indirect sunlight to function, period.

12:31
DJ Nik
I'm like, dude, what's with the nails? Seriously? I had to suffer through Sabertooth with the granny Nails. Now we have to have this.

12:38
Jmike Folson
It was definitely a choice that could have been doubt, but they decided to keep going with it.

12:45
Case Aiken
Lots of choices were made in this movie that are strange. As I alluded to, some of these things make sense. We know that a lot of the movie was cut out. 45 minutes were cut out, supposedly so they could get more screenings. So there's a lot of scenes that explain things that happen in this movie that we just don't know. We just don't know what was supposed to happen there. There should have been a thing to cover this one. Like when the nuclear man's, like, trying to chase down Lacey at the end and it's like, where's the woman's? Like, you'll never find her. Why?

13:13
DJ Nik
And how does Superman know that it's Lacey he's looking for?

13:16
Case Aiken
Right. Exactly. The scenes that were cut, there's a whole plot thread that actually kind of explains some of that. Those are moments where it's just like, okay, they chopped out way too much. And then there's the stuff, like the Great Wall stuff where the budget was $37 million initially and it was cut down to 17 right before they went into production. So all pre production was based around like, yeah, we've got this money to do all these things. And then as soon as they were about to start filming, canon, in their infinite wisdom being Canon, embezzled a shitload of money and diverted it to finish up all these other projects that they were working on trying to make some money, which is really egregious when you consider the fact that Warner Brothers put up specifically $40 million for this movie.

13:58
Case Aiken
So the budget wasn't even what Warner Bros. Contributed, and they weren't the sole producer on this movie, which is crazy. Yeah.

14:04
DJ Nik
And what blows my mind is three people wrote this story. Three people.

14:08
Case Aiken
Yep. Right after the credits, we get this shot of Superman saving a russian satellite, which is kind of a nice moment there in terms of Superman being this entity of peace. I like this detail that they have throughout that. Every time he saves someone in a different country, he speaks their language. I think that's, like, a really nice detail.

14:26
DJ Nik
I will say as an Italian. Christopher Reeves. Italian is not that bad.

14:30
Case Aiken
I'm okay with him having a terrible accent, but, like, him speaking it, period. It could be way worse.

14:34
DJ Nik
Oh, but believe you me, at least he's not pretending to be Italian. I've seen actors who play Italians and they can't speak it. I'm like, what the hell? You do? Get out of my. Seriously?

14:44
Case Aiken
Like, did you just say Bipida Bay and expect us to believe that those were real words?

14:50
DJ Nik
He did good. He did good. I will tip my hat to Christopher Reeve on those few words. He does speak in Italian, because. That is correct. That is correct. Italian.

14:58
Case Aiken
Excellent. It's good that he actually took the effort to nail those parts.

15:02
DJ Nik
Yeah.

15:02
Case Aiken
But I like this element of him being a figure that's greater than just America. I like that he tries to understand the languages of the people. He's out there to help everyone. So those are nice elements. So the model work in this movie is actually surprisingly okay. I don't want to say good, but it's surprisingly okay. It's mostly the compositing and the matte work and the special effect works that is really bad. But the model work is actually fairly okay. So, like, this russian satellite or ship or whatever that's happening right at the beginning to set up, like, oh, yeah, we're dealing with the Ruskies right now. Oh, there might be nuclear war stuff, like the end of the cold War. So it's like a good time to be like, oh, yeah, we can come together in peace.

15:42
Case Aiken
The model works actually not that bad. Like, the satellite, it looks fine. They even do some inserts in there to have what appears to be. Either they just light it really well and do something with a shadow to make it look like people are moving around inside, or they actually do, like, the Star Trek thing where they insert in the window shots of people.

15:59
DJ Nik
Maybe that's what they did.

16:01
Case Aiken
I'm not sure which, but it looks pretty good. There are several spots where I'm like, you know what it looks like a special effect, but it's one that I can live with. And maybe some of that is coming from the perspective of it's 2023 right now, and practical special effects are at a premium. We just don't see them as often. And so I have a soft spot for things like Godzilla movies with people.

16:21
DJ Nik
In suits, or the first Jurassic park movie where Spielberg was, or even jaws. A mixture of practical.

16:26
Case Aiken
And I mean, and those are like the high watermarks, but even cheap stuff, like I referenced power rangers before, like the model work in the early seasons of that looks pretty good to me. There's a realm of authenticity just by virtue of the fact that it is still a physical thing being filmed, even if it is being filmed at a scale. And they're trying to play with your perceptions of stuff that I appreciate. But like I said, I don't know if I would have appreciated it in 1987, where that was the norm. The fact that it is rarer to see those kind of things in a superhero movie. Sure, I may not have appreciated it as much then, but it holds up better than you would think, considering that it is still, like very cheap special effect.

17:03
Case Aiken
And then we get the first of the, that Superman flying shot, which happens somewhere in the ballpark of 15 to 20 times. I don't know the exact count, but he's got his cape flowing, so that's actually pretty good right there. But man, the blue screen, green screen, whatever they're doing for compositing is so bad in this movie. Every single shot that they insert a thing, you have this deep outline around everyone, and then the color correction is really bad. I could have lived with Star wars type black lines around everyone as they're moving around, especially in space, because most of these shots are either space or they're flying in a city kind of thing. But, man, everyone's skin tone looks terrible. Like their eyes are all this color of pink. Like, everyone looks like they are horrifically hungover.

17:50
Jmike Folson
It might have been filmed this movie.

17:53
Case Aiken
And to be fair, they might be. Exactly.

17:57
DJ Nik
Personally, I kind of forgave that stuff because I know it's huge, et cetera. But I suppose maybe, like I mentioned before, having been a doctor who fan for the longest time, even watching classic who from way back when, I've seen really bad stuff, as I'm sure a lot of listeners out there who are probably whovians themselves know what I'm talking about. So I'm like, yeah, it's horrible. But I was more bothered about, as I said, the major plot holes in the story rather than the effects. But I get your point there, case. The compositing and stuff was really bad.

18:25
Case Aiken
I'm not trying to say that the special effects took me out of the movie, but the special effects are notoriously bad. Honestly, trying to say I liked the model work. I'm not trying to shit on all of the special effects completely. I'm just acknowledging they look pretty bad. Here's why they look bad. But every time they have a physical item, those parts actually look pretty good. Even the Great Wall being rebuilt. Yeah, it looks like claymation, but it could be worse. It could be worse. It's more just like he has random energy powers to move it around. That looks particularly bad. As opposed to, again, if they put a streak in there, it would have been like, yeah, that's fairly cheap, but okay, it doesn't ruin the movie for me here.

19:00
Jmike Folson
I mean, there's another thing where it happened.

19:03
Case Aiken
Well, there's some spots where the nuclear man's rough. The nuclear man is very rough. And the special effects for the nuclear man are also bad. And so that combination of them is you're not getting the spectacle, and you're also not getting a story that makes sense. It's two bad tastes that taste even worse together. Those are the spots that bother me.

19:20
DJ Nik
I actually have to ask you guys, what did you make of the fact that Mr. Pillow wasn't allowed to use his own voice and we had Lex's voice instead of his own?

19:29
Case Aiken
I don't mind it that much. We should know Mark Pillow, who that name stood out.

19:37
DJ Nik
I love that name. I mean, who doesn't want to be called pillow as a last, like, let me be your pillow, baby.

19:42
Case Aiken
I said to my wife, because I hadn't looked up who mark Pillow was at the time, I was like, that's either got to be a person who's fluffy or a person who's super ripped. And it went with super ripped. But, yeah, he was a Chippendale's dancer. They found to take the part. So I have to assume that there was a lot of concern going into it in terms of, like, well, what is he going to sound like? Is he going to be able to deliver any kind of good lines? And I don't really mind getting some more Gene Hackman in there. Gene Hackman came back as a favor to Chris Reeve. So, like, all right, cool. It doesn't take me out too much.

20:12
Case Aiken
I get the idea that Gene Hackman would create a construct that would have his own voice that made enough sense to me.

20:19
DJ Nik
So I guess he put his own dna in it, maybe.

20:22
Case Aiken
Yeah.

20:23
Jmike Folson
That feels like something that every legs would do.

20:25
Case Aiken
Yeah. I mean, like, weirdly taking Superman's dna and then combining it with whatever Gene Hackman was doing was this kind of becomes a prototype for the Connell superboy.

20:33
DJ Nik
Exactly.

20:34
Case Aiken
Which is weird to say out loud, because I love that character, but, oh.

20:37
DJ Nik
No, they ruined him on titans, mind you.

20:41
Case Aiken
Not the main point, but it is fascinating. Like, the idea of Lex also has created multiple characters who are like, sure, he's created bizarro, or at least some of the bizarros that are out there, and he created the negative Superman. And I have a big thought about nuclear man being like, well, couldn't they have just done negative Superman? Like, you could have used that actor. You could have used Mark Pillow and just done a photo negative of him and made his costume look kind of more Superman like. Could even still be different. But then that's a really easy effect to do because they're shooting this on film. They could have easily just done the negative for that one character in there, and you could even have an aura negative energy.

21:15
Case Aiken
So you don't even need to worry about the line work being particularly good for it. So it could have just been like, oh, all light kind of like, gets absorbed by this character who is a solar battery or like a solar cell, I should say. It's like, okay, cool. That could have been kind of a fun way to handle this thing with film adaptations. I tried to hold back from saying, oh, but like, the comics. But it is always fun where you could be like, it could be more like this thing from the comics and do a better job at doing the storytelling. Being comic accurate isn't enough to save a piece like that is not the thing that is going to save any movie.

21:47
Case Aiken
If it's a bad movie to begin with, but if it could have done a cool effect, that would have tied it to the comic. So it is fan service in that regard and would have looked cool and have kind of solved an issue they had with the design of this character, then that would have been like, kind of a nice way to go about it. And in that scenario, him sounding like Lex Luthor would make perfect sense. It would have been great.

22:07
DJ Nik
Once again, explain movie. Explain.

22:10
Case Aiken
Yeah, before we get to them on the subway scene, we actually get a scene at the Kent farm that is being sold that never comes up again. There's one little piece of it that matters, which is that Superman goes to the Kent farm, he opens up the barn, and underneath, we get the whole there's the rocket is down there thing, and in it, we get the voice of Laura saying, like, all of our awesomeness here. If you use it, never again, which seems to be a theme of all the kryptonian stuff. I actually rather liked it in terms of it being a cheap way to do the Krypton stuff. I think it looked pretty good. It's just a glowing green kind of spaceship y kind of thing. And here's a crystal that looks like the crystal we saw in the previous movies.

22:49
Case Aiken
Like I said, I think it looked pretty good overall. Like, it's a cheap way of doing it. But fair assumed weren't going to get the fortress later. That was different. But at the time, I assumed, like, oh, yeah, okay, they don't want to show the fortress right now because that's expensive. That's fine. This is a good way to set it up a little bit. And then we get this whole we're selling the farm bit. And that's where it gets real weird.

23:09
DJ Nik
I just wanted to point out kudos to Susannah York, who did a great job as the voice of Lara. She's a fantastic actress who's sadly no longer with us, but she did a great job voicing Lara. I will say that was one of the few highlights, for me of this movie.

23:21
Case Aiken
Again, that whole scene, I thought the actual delivery of it all, that was the appropriate gravitas to it. And there is actually, like, the somberness to being at the Kent farm, and it's clearly for sale. There's all the stuff being moved out. That all looks really good. It answers the question that we had when we talked about Superman three of. Where is Ma kent? She's definitely dead by this point. It's like, okay, cool, we're handling that. But then the scene doesn't do anything, and there's no connecting things. Later on, the realtor comes by and they chat for a bit, and they talk about how we don't want to turn into strip malls. So there's this fight against modernity that I actually rather like.

23:57
Case Aiken
In that sequence, we see Clark's crib that he put his foot through as a baby, and that's like, all right, that's like, kind of a cute little bit, right? Don't we. Why don't we play a quick bit of catch? Or like, here's a baseball bat. I'll throw you a Ball. Oh, Clark, you're so clumsy, you can't even hit the ball. All right, well, that was fun. Good talk. I'll see you later. And that's it. Vin Clark does the Superman one thing where he throws the ball up in the air and hits it with a baseball bat as Superman and sends it flying into space, which could have been really funny if that tied into anything.

24:32
DJ Nik
And the guy didn't even keep the baseball glove, which he gave to him.

24:35
Case Aiken
Yeah, right. It's a nothing scene. It's so weird that they even bother.

24:41
DJ Nik
He's like, cheers to the know, I'll give it to my kid or something. No, he just leaves it there with him.

24:45
Case Aiken
Right. But I am assuming that some of the scenes that were cut involved this plot thread. But at that point, why even have this plot thread? I'm guessing because it sets up the crystal awkwardly. Because when the guy pulls up, Clark puts it in his pocket very obviously. And in my head, I was like, oh, is that going to be like the thing that they use to make the nuclear. Like, is that going to be important in some way? And. No, it just shows up later when he's, like, dying and he like, oh, he uses it to power himself back up again because. Right. Like, it felt like a Chekhov's gun situation. It was like a very clear shot of him pocketing it.

25:19
Case Aiken
It was just a lot of footage to be spending on this thing for it only to be a minor MacGuffin later on in the movie.

25:26
DJ Nik
Yeah, it was like, again with the crystals, right?

25:30
Case Aiken
Yeah. The scene itself would be cute if it went anywhere, but the fact that just nothing happens from it is so weird.

25:37
Jmike Folson
Most of this movie.

25:38
Case Aiken
But then Clark returns to Metropolis. Question mark. Like, there are signs for New York that are up in it, even though it's supposed. Whatever.

25:47
Jmike Folson
Wait a second.

25:50
Case Aiken
And again, they're filming it in the London tube, so none of it quite matches right. And I could live with everything having the wrong styles. I could live with an american city having a european style subway system if it was a fictional city. But what city are we in? I don't know.

26:08
DJ Nik
I mean, there wasn't even, like, a caption. Was there a caption saying Metropolis? There might have been nothing.

26:13
Case Aiken
I don't think there was one for Smallville, but I don't think there was one for when he pulled up to the city.

26:17
DJ Nik
They could have just put in the caption. That would help explain things.

26:21
Case Aiken
Yeah. And then we get just a straightforward Superman changes in a phone booth, steps out as Superman when the engineer on the subway has a heart attack. And so it starts going too fast, and everyone's like, oh, it's going really fast. That's weird. But Lois is like, this is dangerous and is the only person to scream for help. And so Clark races to save the day. She's the only one who notices that they're all going to die.

26:46
Jmike Folson
How did no one see him? This is one of those times I'm like, somebody should have seen Clark transform because he literally in, like, the middle of a busy subway area, surrounded by all these people, and no one thought of like, hey, that guy's taking his clothes off.

27:01
Case Aiken
Yeah. And this is a series that has always played the Superman costume changes for irony. They make a point in the first movie of like, oh, well, most of the phone booths aren't like, full phone booths anymore. The most that we've ever gotten it so far has been in Superman three, where it's like the photo booth. And that's a cute bit, especially because he tears off the other ones and gives it to the kid. That's like a fun moment right there. But then this is just like, oh, yeah, we're going to do the George Reeves version of the transformation without any of the sort of, like, tongue in cheek kind of elements that the movies so far have had.

27:34
Case Aiken
All of the Superman movies have been at least aware that Superman is just so well known in pop culture that you don't need to set up a lot of these details. Like, you can poke fun at so much of it. And this movie has completely moved away from any of that sense of irony to just being like, oh, yeah, we'll just play it straight. We'll just do it. Exactly. I think that's where this movie starts to get weird. It plays straight all the things that would have been at least understood to be weird, like Superman's weird. All the things about Superman are weird. It's a weird concept. Like, krypton's a weird concept. Let's play it up as, like, a weird place to be that looks like an out there kind of thing. It's all weird.

28:12
Case Aiken
And this movie kind of doesn't acknowledge that it's weird. And I kind of miss that part of it. I'm not saying it's a joke, but everyone's aware that these are the conceits that we have about the franchise because that's part of the franchise, I think so.

28:25
DJ Nik
I mean, I think the problem is it almost seemed like it just didn't care.

28:28
Case Aiken
That's the thing, right?

28:30
DJ Nik
Just like, as I mentioned before, the doorman being clearly able to see Clark hop into the car and then pop out the other side of Superman. It's like, okay, you clearly don't care at this point.

28:39
Jmike Folson
Wait a second. He left his car unlocked.

28:44
Case Aiken
Then after that, we get some Daily Planet stuff. Jimmy Olsen is looking very much like an adult in this movie at this point. The last time we saw him was in Supergirl, where he was dating a teenager, which was not cool. Unfortunately. No Popeyes appearances in this movie. I like the conceit, however, of the planet being bought out and then trying to turn it into kind of a sensationalist that I dug. Yeah, yeah. I like that idea. I thought that was fun. I like the idea that the planet was hemorrhaging money. I really love the idea that Lois Lane is responsible for a lot of the money being spent. There's a great line. I have questions about the delivery later, but there's a great line where she pulls up to, I think it's Superman, like, addressing the unlacey's. Like, they're going to ticket us.

29:30
Case Aiken
And she goes, it's only money.

29:32
Jmike Folson
I thought it was the other way around.

29:34
DJ Nik
Exactly. But you're not the heiress at this point. What is the deal here, Lois? Or just like, she's just so flippant about running up a tab, she doesn't care.

29:43
Case Aiken
It's very strange. I get it. They're supposed to be the ones who are trying to be very frugal. We are directly dealing with that. We've already referenced it on this call. Like that media people are being that way where they're trying to suck every penny out of it. Hell, this is a canon movie. That also kind of makes sense. Everyone could be kind of upset about all this. But I do appreciate it from the standpoint of it being very prescient. I think that the idea that Wall street is going to buy out all of these established institutions that are important for society, like newspapers, and turn them into money making machines and sell off all the pieces that aren't directly profitable. That's the story of the think that part was very prescient.

30:23
Case Aiken
I think that the type of media that they're talking about there is where we go towards, like, the 24 hours news cycle. And I think that's a really cool element to be addressing in a Superman piece, especially one at this time where it's so early in it all. I don't think they know what they're saying yet, but I think that it's cool that they're talking about it. So I like that detail. I rather like Lacey as a character in this movie. There's too much stuff going on, despite how short this movie is. It would have been nice to see Lana again. Oh, yeah. Let's have another character in here. Is Lacey's last name an l thing? Are they at least like keeping.

30:57
Jmike Folson
Yeah.

30:58
Case Aiken
Oh, yeah. So, no, it would have been great if it was like Larfield or something just so it could be another double l character.

31:04
DJ Nik
But I mean, the fact that she just kind of randomly has to throw herself at Clark I thought was a bit much to be. But to your point, case, that was one of the things I appreciate about this movie is the critiquing of sensationalism and how people these days almost no longer care about real news. They want know the hot girl on the page. It's kind of like those papers like the sun or the Mirror in England, for example where it's all this very sort of fluffy stuff which people just love. Or gossip, if you will. More gossipy papers than anything else. I will say was nice to see Mr. Wanamaker, who's always a great actor. And Sam wanna maker did. I think he did the best he could playing Mr. Warfield. But I'm like, sam, what are you doing here?

31:45
DJ Nik
You are better than this. You gave us Zoe wanna maker. So we're very happy that your daughter is also an accomplished actress. But dude, seriously, he could have been much more formidable, I found, when it came to him being this tycoon who wanted to make all this sensationalist stuff. But like you said, a lot of it got cut. So it's a shame that he didn't become more of a menace, if you will, than what we got.

32:09
Case Aiken
Yeah, I think all the Daily Planet stuff would be the first choice to cut. Aside from, I guess, the Kent farm stuff we know we're missing scenes with Lacey. At least I'm assuming there's more daily Planet stuff that we're missing because that would be the arc. There's resolution at the end, but there isn't a lot of. They're not forced to do that much. They just talk about it like, oh, we're going to do stories about this because it's interesting and it will sell papers. They don't really cross any lines yet. I'm concerned about this movie not really knowing what it's saying yet. But I do appreciate that it is saying something, period.

32:41
DJ Nik
Agreed.

32:42
Case Aiken
I think that there's an adorable bit when they're auditing all of the reporters expenses where they ask Clark why he has no airfare charges. And I think that is so great. And that goes back to the oldest Superman stuff like the original Superman radio serials, when they're like, oh, we're going to go get your airfare stuff, and he just disappears on them and they're like, did he just jump out the window? So it goes back to old school Superman stuff. And I adore that detail. I think that is perfect. I want that all the time. Those kind of cheeky kind of. And, like, I think that's cool. I think the idea of them liking Clark as a reporter because he's cheap is, like a nice detail there, too.

33:20
Case Aiken
And then it's weird when they want to fire him at the end of the movie because he hasn't been around. It's just they cut so much that there's all these two step things in the movie, and we don't get the third step somewhere in there. Like, we don't get the middle step where the tension increases or where opinions change or the rule of three for jokes. It's all just like, oh, yeah, well, we got to set up and punchline. And that's like, there's nothing else going on with any of the narrative structure. It's all two beats instead of three, which is definitely the editor just being way too aggressive.

33:49
DJ Nik
And it also sacrifices character development as well. I mean, you look at Lacey's character, she starts off by being kind of the spoiled heiress, if you will, and it was like, oh, you know, daddy and all that and everything else, and then throwing herself a clock and then suddenly, oh, father, you can't do this. We have to make real news. That was a very quick turnaround.

34:08
Case Aiken
Yeah.

34:08
Jmike Folson
We have to do proper journalism, not sensationalism.

34:12
Case Aiken
Right. The journey these characters go on is omitted from this movie, which is a bummer because those are the spots that I really like. The human stuff I actually enjoy in this movie. Even if there's going to be some stuff we'll talk about in a minute.

34:24
DJ Nik
Oh, my.

34:25
Case Aiken
I do want to talk about the fucking kids classroom that decides to be like, man, they have this sensationalist news report about like, oh, yeah, peace summits are just going terribly. The talks are going really bad. Lots of nukes are being mounted now. Every nation wants nukes. Oh, God, there's so many nukes. We're all going to die. Cut to, like, a third grade classroom. And they have this teacher who, she doesn't show up again. No, they have so much direct coverage of her. And you know the thing where you cast a person who doesn't look like the type, if you want it to be like a standout character versus you cast like a very generic looking person.

35:04
Case Aiken
If you want it to not be really standout, like, if you want a librarian who's like, no one's going to really think twice about you put, like, an older woman in there and have them look a little bit frontier and kind of bookish. But if you put someone who has hot pink hair, it'll be like, oh, that's going to be a character who matters. That kind of dynamic there she is so fucking hot that it really threw me where like, oh, this is not going to be a main character. But she talks for a while. They do lots of close ups on her face. It's all this coverage where you're like, oh, that's a pretty person who's going to matter in this movie. And she doesn't at all.

35:35
Case Aiken
And then eventually we get to the kid who everyone teases in the back, who's just like, what if we wrote Superman and asked him to stop all the. And like, my note is fucking what? That's the inciting incident for this movie.

35:50
DJ Nik
Oh, man, it's terrible. And also, what's with the kid's accent? Because first he starts sounding like Lenny Luther and then he changes his accent completely.

36:00
Case Aiken
I think that just adds to this whole, like, wait, this was the decision that you used? And I get it that Chris Reeve has received fan mail as Superman at this point, some of which is like, can you stop the world's problems? And I get that might be part of the inspiration, but in a world where Superman is a thing and where they don't do something really creative in terms of getting a letter to him, they just send a letter to the Daily Planet, who, notoriously, everyone just kind of knows Superman. There a lot of people would be doing that for a lot of things.

36:31
Case Aiken
And especially if the world is at the state that the movie is presenting, people would be like, oh, hey, yeah, maybe we should ask the guy who can literally do anything to do something, possibly to save the planet, because then he takes it to heart. He's like, oh, man, these kids, they said I should stop the nukes. Is that me going too far? Is that me going too far? And that's the moral conundrum that Superman goes through in this movie because I.

36:55
DJ Nik
Was trying to understand that because he was like, I'm not supposed to interfere, but, dude, you're saving human lives, et cetera. So what exactly does that mean? What is that debate that you're setting yourself on? You're saving people's lives, but, oh, I can't interfere. Pick a lane. Superman pick a lane.

37:10
Case Aiken
Yeah. I had just caught up on Star Trek strange new worlds the night before. And so prime directive stuff was very much on my head because there's, like, a couple of episodes that really deal with that. And I get it. If Superman's like, oh, well, the big stuff I can kind of interfere with, but I don't want to really get into society stuff, dude, a nuke going off is going to be way bigger than just like a tidal wave, just in terms of the amount of devastation.

37:36
DJ Nik
Yeah, that's why I didn't. I mean, I was trying to understand this internal struggle that he was having when he was just, like, saving people left, right and center and foiling Lex Luthor's plans on a regular basis. Now nuclear war is a possible threat. I can't interfere, but I'll interfere anyway. I was like, what?

37:53
Case Aiken
Right. So he goes to the fortress of solitude and hawks with kryptonian elders about what he should do. And I couldn't tell what they were telling him was the right thing to do.

38:04
Jmike Folson
I thought they were telling him not.

38:05
Case Aiken
To do it, kind of. But then the scene cuts off, like, midline from one of them, and there's, like, all this shame. I was like, wait, are they saying he hasn't done enough? Are they saying humans are too primitive and that he shouldn't interfere with them? Is he saying that they need someone to guide the way? Because that's the whole Jor el thing.

38:21
Jmike Folson
One of them was like, yeah, you can just hop off to another planet. If something happens, nothing's going to bother you. And then another one was saying, yeah, we shouldn't interfere with their day to day stuff because they're apes. I was like, he can hop off to another planet. Would they actually say that to him?

38:37
Case Aiken
Yeah, it's just such a weird kind of scene right there. The idea of Superman really interfering with global politics, especially with weapons of mass destruction, is a heady concept that is a thing that has been very well explored sometimes and very poorly explored plenty of times. So I understand when you want to do a movie that's about that, you do want to spend some time with the character really thinking about it. Which is why I really wish we spent more time with Clark dealing with the Daily Planet and talking about the growing nuclear tensions of the world. What is motivating him to finally take that bigger step? Because it is a bigger step to actually get in the way. Because let's be honest here. If he's going to do that, he's going to have to go to war with the US.

39:17
DJ Nik
Exactly.

39:18
Case Aiken
That's a big moment there. If he is making the decision that he's not just like a concerned citizen, that he actually has to step outside of being truth, justice, and the american way to being truth, justice and the Taran way, or just a brighter tomorrow or whatever alternate thing you want to do, that's fine. It's a big change for him. That could have been a really cool arc for the character. I don't think he would be set on that path just because a kid wrote a letter and then some newspapers made fun of him for it.

39:43
DJ Nik
I mean, it would just be part of his moral code, right?

39:46
Case Aiken
Wrestling with it, that's fine. But it's just like he definitely understood that nukes were out there before that letter comes. It's not like, oh, hey, oh, look, have you heard this thing called nuclear weapons? So I just want to call out this one. So Warfield starts putting smear campaigns for Superman, not actually saving the world, which. Okay. But I did appreciate that. We have very clearly, them making fun of Gerald Ford when they're like, superman says, drop dead.

40:18
Jmike Folson
Oh, yeah.

40:19
Case Aiken
Which is definitely a reference to fortune, New York, drop dead. When they were, like, facing as a city, you know, nice little reference there. It's going to be fairly fresh on people's minds, like those kind of things. And again, I like all the media stuff. I like the newspaper stuff. And this is where it could be kind of going into that level of like, well, are they doing sensationalist things? Are they trying to influence politics? Are they moving past reporting on the news and trying to influence people? And I think that those are cool moments. The only thing they do in this movie for that is convince Superman to stop nuclear war, which I don't think is a bad thing. I mean, they go about it the wrong way, but it's not that bad.

40:59
DJ Nik
And to go back to what you were mentioning about the kryptonian elders, maybe they were trying to go about the whole concept of isolationism, possibly, or elitism even, for that matter, as in the old kryptonians are elitist. And like Jay Mike was saying, they're below them. So it's like, why should that be a problem? So it could play into isolationist politics, like, say, when wars broke out in Europe, for example, and before the states came into the war. It's like, we are isolationists. It's not our problem. Why should we be involved? So it might be playing into that concept of, if it doesn't sort of influence us directly, why should we even get involved? This is below us, if you will.

41:39
Case Aiken
Yeah, it does lead into one of the good elements of Superman renouncing himself as being an observer and a visitor to our world. And being part of our world, I think, is a good sequence there, or at least it's a good line in a speech to give. I just happened to screenshot it, or happened to pause when he had finished his address to the UN and it ended up being a pretty good pause moment. I shared it on Twitter. You guys commented on it. I was like, oh, yeah, that's like, kind of a cute little.

42:06
DJ Nik
Yeah, that was before the movie went to shit.

42:09
Case Aiken
Yeah, it kind of made me think of wizard of Oz in terms of its color correction.

42:14
DJ Nik
God.

42:15
Case Aiken
And he's like, looking up as. He's, like, walking out. And it felt very like 1940s technicolor. And I just adored that moment there that said, let's move on to the what the fuck. That is the what the fuck. That is the what the fuck of this movie, which is the memory kiss scene.

42:29
DJ Nik
Why?

42:32
Case Aiken
Oh, my God.

42:33
DJ Nik
I mean, they made Superman a creepo in Superman returns here. They make him a total bastard. Like Professor Xavier. Mind wiping.

42:41
Case Aiken
This is so much worse. So much worse.

42:44
Jmike Folson
I could have sworn were done with that whole thing. I never in a million years thought that was going to come back.

42:50
Case Aiken
Yeah, I thought we all just agreed we're going to move on. Shit was weird. Zod had shown up from the Phantom zone and had threatened to destroy the world. I get, like, stuff was really bad. Does he just go to Lois, like, every time he needs to have a heart to heart with her, gives her memories back and then takes them? Like, is that their relationship now?

43:09
DJ Nik
How bloody selfish is he? I mean, seriously, it's barbaric. I mean. Oh, yeah. Thank you for helping me. Boom. Mind wipe.

43:17
Case Aiken
We're good. Not to mention that he throws her off a building first.

43:20
DJ Nik
Yeah, I need your help. Boom. Down you go. That's what I'm saying is he's such a scumbag. This is not Superman.

43:28
Case Aiken
It's atrocious. It was bad enough in Superman two. Yeah, I mean, it was a recut. Like the whole Donner cut versus Lester cut. It was a thing that was in there because ideas that they wanted to do with the time travel stuff wasn't going to happen because that was pushed to the first movie, la, the Death Star. Like, sure, okay. Yes, I understand that they were strapped for what they were going to figure out for, like, okay, a big plot point is that Superman reveals who he is to Lois. We want to get back to status quo at the end of the movie. We can't use time travel. We did that last time. Memory erasing kiss. Fuck it. Sure, it was the one time.

43:59
Case Aiken
And he also supposedly could never go back to being human again because he had destroyed the technology to do it in the fortress. Because all the fortress technology works once. And that's it.

44:10
DJ Nik
It's a one time offer, right?

44:12
Case Aiken
But he brings her memories back. They have this whole sequence. And then he kisses her and walks out. And she's kind of like, just pensive again. And I'm like, oh, they know each other. She reveals that either she always remembered it or this jogged her memory. Either way. Oh, cool. He goes back in, changes, and she's like, why am I outside? And I'm like, oh, no, he did it again. He can't keep getting away with this.

44:37
DJ Nik
She's like, I'm outside here freezing my ass off. Why am I outside freezing my ass off?

44:42
Case Aiken
Right, exactly. It's like, oh, because you wanted fresh air. And there was a moment, I'm like, is this a game they play? And then clearly she does not remember any of this stuff. And I'm like, oh, no. Oh, God, no.

44:53
DJ Nik
It's bad.

44:54
Case Aiken
It would be bad if a villain did this.

44:56
DJ Nik
It's worse as a Superman does it, right?

45:00
Case Aiken
It's so much worse. I will say it does kind of start to explain. Margot Kidder is not looking good in this movie. I think she's going through some hard times at this point in her life. Her deliveries are often a little awkward and probably the production is also not, like, super smooth. So she didn't have a ton of time to work with her lines. But it's a rough performance by her. She is not nearly as charming or compelling as she was in previous appearances. Even Superman three. She has more sass to her than she does in this movie. And most of the scenes, her blocking, again, some of this could just be like, in terms of the actual production itself, is not playing nice with her where she seems to not know where she wants to walk in any scene that she's in.

45:37
Case Aiken
And it could be explained that she's having brain damage by Superman, constantly wiping her memories.

45:41
Jmike Folson
I like that one better.

45:42
DJ Nik
I like that one too. It's like, at this point, she says, I feel like I have jet know. It's like he's seriously fucking with her brain at this point. It's like, dude, this is not healthy, right?

45:54
Case Aiken
It's kind of cheeky with, like, men in black or something like that. But dealing with it, being Superman, doing this repeatedly to a person, it's rough and their interactions are rough and it feels kind of selfish, especially because he's then going on dates simultaneously. And the double date scene is cute, but shouldn't get the we get the it's only money scene. We get the Superman delivery and we get world powers. Being very worried about it. And I like that detail too. I like that people who are invested in the military industrial complex are worried that Superman is going to destroy their cash cow. That I think is a great idea. I think that's fucking dope. I love that Lex Luthor appeals to them for it. I think that's great. John Crier, actually, I really liked this movie.

46:36
DJ Nik
Really? So you didn't find him annoying? Not that much.

46:39
Case Aiken
Hello. He's supposed to be the annoying nephew. I think he did okay in the task. Like, most of his deliveries weren't that bad.

46:47
DJ Nik
He actually didn't mind him. Yeah.

46:48
Jmike Folson
He wasn't the most egregious part of this film.

46:51
DJ Nik
No. Agreed. And I thought it was ironic that he would then play a very good Lex Luthor in the CW years later.

46:58
Case Aiken
Honestly, Gene Hackman's portrayal as Lex in this isn't even that bad either. He's just in a bad movie. I thought it was kind of fun when he drove in and confused the guards with the sound system. I thought that was kind of a funny sequence there. The fact that they go out of their way to be like, oh, they didn't die was.

47:13
DJ Nik
Yes. Why? I mean, the car exploded. They were like they came out of a Laurel and hardy movie. Major explosion. We just have soot on our faces.

47:24
Case Aiken
But, like, the Lenny character, that part could have been so much worse. Like, he looks like he's going to be a really annoying character and he's supposed to be annoying character. But I think he played the annoying character well. So that I loved to hate him as opposed to hated that I had to hate him.

47:43
DJ Nik
Right. I mean, it means that John cry did his job if he's annoying.

47:46
Case Aiken
Yeah, but annoying in a way that worked with the scenes, I guess, is what I'm getting. Like, he was never too bad. Most of his deliveries, of the jokes that they gave him actually were kind of funny. You know what that means. Uncle X, we're going to be parents was actually kind of funny.

48:02
DJ Nik
I think they had also decent chemistry between each other. John Crier and Gene Hackman, I think they worked well off each other.

48:08
Case Aiken
Yeah. And I think if your scene partner is Gene Hackman. You're in a pretty good space.

48:12
DJ Nik
Oh, yeah.

48:14
Case Aiken
It would have been fun if they were going to have the nuclear powered character that they're creating. They immediately jumped to being like, I'm going to make a nuclear man. A nuclear man. He's going to be a nuclear man. If they called him an Adam man, then it's a reference to the first big supervillain fight that Superman had in larger media, like the radio show Adam man, which we're getting to on this. The Adam and the Adam man had some love recently because he showed up on Superman and Lois, and he showed up in Superman smashes the clan so recently. So he's on my mind. But I've always loved that radio serial. And it's not like it's some unknown thing. It's, like, infamously this huge thing that would work very well here.

48:50
Case Aiken
And it would have been just, like, kind of fun from a name standpoint. Also, Atom man just flows a little better than nuclear man. I don't know. Maybe not.

48:58
DJ Nik
But wouldn't it have been hilarious if they'd called him radioactive man?

49:02
Case Aiken
Yes. Up and at them. But this is where I get into the whole, like, well, what in the ever loving fuck is the nuclear man's design? Why does he look the way he does when he first shows up and he's, like, glowing red coming out of the sun? I was like, if they just kept that effect going, I wouldn't really mind this character. Like, if he looked like he was an energy being, I could deal with it. Like, even the stupid costume, if it's under a particle effect, I wouldn't have a huge problem with. I don't understand why that costume exists. They put, like, a shred of clothing, and it forms into this thing, and it's like, why? He'll grow into, like, why any of that?

49:43
Case Aiken
And this is where I'm saying, if it had been a negative superman, that could have been a really easy to do visual effect, that would have looked pretty cool. You could have kept it being a construct. You could have kept the gene Hackman voice. You could have kept that actor and just had him be in, like, a Superman outfit. But because his color scheme is inverted, it wouldn't look like. It's weird that it's not Christopher Reeves face. Apparently, in the 45 minutes that we lost, they also have a failed attempt at creating a nuclear man that is like, a botched one with a different actor playing the part, which would have been a great spot for a bizarro if you wanted to do actual project.

50:16
DJ Nik
Could it maybe because we'd already had kind of Superman fighting himself in previous movies?

50:22
Case Aiken
Yes. So that is the counterpoint on that. All my counter to the counter is that the nuclear man is still a clone of Superman in this movie fair, just modified and has powers that are roughly comparable. So, yes, they didn't want to do just like, evil Superman. So I agree. Probably Bizarro would be not the way to go. I think negative Superman, especially if they don't even have an s shield on him. If it's just like an inverted thing, they could keep the name, but this way they could at least hint at it being kind of like some of these earlier constructs that Lex Luthor had made in the comics. It could still be nuclear man or Atom man, but he's my counter to Superman. He's the darkness to your light. He absorbs all the light around him.

51:02
Case Aiken
Kind of thing could have been cool. And again, a cheap special effect that wouldn't have been that hard to do even in 1987.

51:07
DJ Nik
I mean, maybe I'm giving this movie too much credit when I say this, but could it maybe be they're choosing a blonde haired, blue eyed guy and having the whole concept of the sun? They want to make him look like an aryan, if you will, or like a Nazi inverted commas, because the sun cross of the swastika, him having blonde hair and blue eyes, it's like, maybe we're going to make him into the Superman, I. E. More nietzschean, if you will, or more hitlerian, if you will. Kind of Superman.

51:37
Case Aiken
Entirely possible. There's a lot of jewish roots to the character of Superman, so it wouldn't be that hard to set up that distinct difference between them. If it's supposed to be part of the war machine. You could have kind of played with all that. I don't mind the casting for this guy.

51:50
DJ Nik
Oh, me either.

51:51
Case Aiken
I just think that the costume they put him in, and then for whatever fucking reason, they're like, let's give him big fucking names. They all think he can grow out. And then he cuts Superman at one point, and Superman's, like, super sick afterwards. Radiation. And it's like, wait, is that radiation sickness? But in that scenario, have him be a fucking kryptonite, man. Allude to the fact that he's kryptonite esque. If he's going to do that. Yeah, have the lightning going around his body be green instead of yellow.

52:16
DJ Nik
I mean, heck, you could have done Metallo at that point.

52:19
Case Aiken
Yeah. Or the kryptonite man, there's so many characters that this could have been, and I get it. They don't necessarily have the rights to everything from DC. I get all of these things, but you could have had just a more interesting thing than just what we got in this movie.

52:34
DJ Nik
Yeah.

52:35
Case Aiken
Particularly because, yeah, they don't want to have just like Superman fight Superman again because that happened in Superman three. But we still got a clone of Superman, effectively, that he's fighting again with comparable powers. So we've actually had three movies in a row where he's been dealing with characters who are like evil versions of himself. Because we had Zod in the criminals in two, we had being split in two in three. And in this, then we have the nuclear man, and the fight is very much like the super criminal fight in two. Or like stuff that we would see in man of mean.

53:04
DJ Nik
Or could it maybe have been concept, maybe coming out of Rocky IV where you have a Draco kind of character?

53:11
Case Aiken
Yes. And apparently a lot of people think Dolph Lundgren was the person who played the part of the nuclear man. And it gets funnier because simultaneously, Canon was also putting out masters of the universe, which did have Dolph Lundgren.

53:22
DJ Nik
There you go. So maybe they're like, oh, we'll have Superman's version of Draco in this.

53:27
Case Aiken
Yeah. That said, man, I actually really like masters of the like. It's clearly a low budget movie. It barely got finished. Part of the charm is the fact that it's so low budget. Yeah.

53:41
DJ Nik
The saving grace that I think it's. Who is it? Frank Langello who plays skeletor. Yes.

53:45
Case Aiken
He's so good in that.

53:46
DJ Nik
He is the saving grace of that movie as Frank Langella.

53:49
Case Aiken
Yes, 100%. The whole time he is selling these scenes that no one else could have sold. And I only bring this up to point out that is a similar movie in a similar circumstance. They actually had a bigger budget, but they ran out at the end. But it's a scenario where it's seen as like a sister flop in this whole scheme of things. But I think that ended up being a better movie coming from the same studio at the same time and a.

54:11
DJ Nik
Very generic Williams like score as well.

54:14
Case Aiken
Also true.

54:15
Jmike Folson
Yeah.

54:18
Case Aiken
I don't want to just hate on the nuclear man as a whole, because as a concept, it could be, again, like, I keep pointing out ways that you could have done this and this, and it would all be a little bit more like a comic or a little bit more interesting, or it would explain the thing a little bit better. I think it's really close to being, like, a viable plot. We don't get any exposition for why he looks the way he does. And so we could have got that whole, like, we're going to create this perfect avatar of war that will be representative of all the fears that America has or that the world has. So it'll drive up nuclear weapons because they have to deal with a nuclear man or something like that.

54:53
Case Aiken
You could have made this whole story for him exist better. You could have had effects that would make him look really cool. You could have done something that would indicate the whole powered up versus not powered state. For the light stuff. He gets the lightning sometimes when he first wakes up. But you could have done something. It's a rough character. It's not the only thing that makes this movie not work, but it's a rough character that in a different movie, they could have made something work. It would have required a different design and some different thoughts. But back when man of Steel first came out.

55:33
DJ Nik
Oh, God, here we go.

55:36
Case Aiken
Actually, no, I'll take it even back further. So back when Superman Returns first came out, a lot of people were talking about how it was really weird that Superman Returns was very lacking in action sequences. It was compared a lot with X Men three, where Brian Singer had left and Brian Singer we found out a lot more since. But xmen one and two people really liked. And then xmen three. Bret Ratner, kind of fucked up, also.

56:01
DJ Nik
Problematic director in general. Superman, problematic director, problematic actors. And it kind of seeped into the movie.

56:10
Case Aiken
Yeah, but a lot of conversation was like, well, X Men three had good action, but just no heart to it because it just didn't have brain cells actually going into anything that was in the output. And then you look at Superman Returns and it was like, there's some good stuff. Like, Brandon Roth is a great Superman, and the plane sequence is really cool, and there's good things in there. Clearly, Brian Singer is a better director in terms of composing a sequence than Bret Ratner was. It's just the story didn't provide the high energy people were looking for in a Superman movie.

56:42
Case Aiken
And so there was a lot of conversation of like, well, if Singer had stayed on X Men three, would that have been more interesting if you had gotten sort of like this fusion of cooler action with a little bit more emotional story beats going on? And likewise, when man of Steel came out, there was that comparison between man of Steel and Superman Returns. As the only 220 1st century Superman movies at that .1 is like, it's a little navel gazey. It's a little creepy. It's got the whole, like, stalkers, I have a child with Lois, but they don't remember it kind of thing.

57:11
Jmike Folson
Did he kiss her before that, too?

57:12
Case Aiken
I don't think they do the kiss in that movie.

57:14
Jmike Folson
I'm just saying, just in general, like, did he kiss her?

57:16
Case Aiken
They just referenced back.

57:18
Jmike Folson
Basically, they kiss her and make her forget that she had a kid with him.

57:21
Case Aiken
I mean, apparently. But they imply that it was the kiss from Superman, too. But apparently this movie could have also just been like, well, it happened. And I'm like, you just did this all the time.

57:29
DJ Nik
So creepy.

57:30
Case Aiken
In that movie, Superman, they definitely have had sex. And then he's wiped her memory. Yeah.

57:34
Jmike Folson
As I was thinking, I don't even.

57:36
Case Aiken
Need to say they definitely, because that happens in Superman, too. It's happened since.

57:40
DJ Nik
And there is such a peeping Tom in Superman Returns. Yeah.

57:44
Case Aiken
So you've got all the creepiness of Superman Returns and then you've got kind of the overly action focused man of Steel where the more introspective elements are not deep enough. They tried to do the whole Jonathan Kent being like, oh, well, you should not reveal yourself to the world. We're not ready for it. You're proof of life out there in the universe. Kind of yada, yada. But, like, the things people really remember are the really big action sequences in that movie. There's some really cool moments. The Smallville fight is very cool. A little too product placement. You know, there's some good moments in there and there's good drama. The fight was Od. We talked about this recently. There's a lot of fine in that movie and there's a lot of good moments that aren't used appropriately.

58:28
Case Aiken
And so you end up in the scenario where Superman returns and man of Steel both are providing some things we like and some things we don't in their Superman movies. And this one, if you had any of these other directors working on it with any of these other budgets, this movie could have been so much better. That's what I'm trying to get at.

58:44
DJ Nik
I always regret the sadness that Nolan was supposed to direct man of Steel and then apparently started writing. So apparently some of the stuff that we get in man of Steel is partly written by Nolan. And I think that's the deep stuff. I mean, I'm not saying that Nolan always makes great movies looking at you tenants, but for the most part, he knows how to tell a story. And I kind of wish that Nolan had directed man of Steel, but we'll never get that. So it's point to Steven to say that, but whatever.

59:11
Case Aiken
Yeah. So let's move on because the negative man or nothing.

59:16
DJ Nik
The negative man would have been better.

59:18
Case Aiken
Yeah, negative man would have been better. The nuclear man doesn't work in this movie. Fundamentally just doesn't come together. And the fight itself, this is where it gets really frustrating because, you know, they cut so much of the story stuff and kept the fight with a nuclear man in there. But the nuclear man fight looks terrible because they have no money for their budget.

59:36
DJ Nik
It's like we ran out of money at this point.

59:37
Case Aiken
This is what you get kids through the Styrofoam guys.

59:41
DJ Nik
We don't care anymore. Go for it.

59:44
Case Aiken
There's one point after the Great Wall where someone is being telekinetically affected by the nuclear man. And Superman apparently uses telekinetics to stop it, but they do no special effect whatsoever. It's just he looks at it and just stops.

59:56
Jmike Folson
They do the sound effects for it, but that's it.

59:59
Case Aiken
Yeah.

01:00:00
DJ Nik
So he has telekinesis now. Okay.

01:00:03
Case Aiken
Right. And again, like, the movies have been kind of vague if he has that or not, but they didn't need to be. They could have just, again, done a blue and red wipe and. Fine.

01:00:13
DJ Nik
They like to play very fast and loose with his powers on this movie.

01:00:16
Case Aiken
Yeah. My notes are, like, all of the fights with nuclear man are extremely silly. The fact that he gets, like, splashed and that's the only wound he takes from the nuclear man, and that takes him out of action completely. I get it's radiation poisoning counterpoint. It's Superman. Thank you.

01:00:32
Jmike Folson
Exactly.

01:00:33
Case Aiken
Like, do something with it. Explain why it's an issue. And what is the nuclear man doing? Also, he would figure out the whole sun power pretty fast. He figures it out pretty quickly. Puts him in the elevator, flies him to the moon, and then just, like, leaves him, looks the flag.

01:00:48
Jmike Folson
He's like, hey, why not just fling him in the opposite direction?

01:00:52
Case Aiken
Why not put boulders over him?

01:00:54
Jmike Folson
Well, if you fling him in the opposite direction from the earth, like, the know diminishes his power going that way. So I'm like, fights over roll credits.

01:01:06
DJ Nik
Furthest rock from the sun, something.

01:01:09
Case Aiken
Or again, like, he puts him in the elevator, clearly realizes he's depowered, flies him to the moon, and then he just leaves him there, apparently with enough of a gap that when sunlight comes up on the moon, it reactivates his powers. Like, put some boulders on top, and then problem is solved.

01:01:24
DJ Nik
Bury him do what nuclear man did to you. Bury him, for crying out loud.

01:01:28
Case Aiken
Yeah. This exact plot, honestly, could have been made better and it wouldn't have been so rough. But even with the production values of this movie, even with the directorial skills, even with all the cast, I'm very curious about these missing scenes because I could very much imagine at least a more compelling plot from the material we have, which is a high watermark. I was very curious going into this because I've heard of this longer cut and I've heard that it's better. And I was like, is it actually possible, considering what we got and watching this movie, I will say, yeah, I think that it does interesting themes with the media. It has some very 80s love letters to all the aerobic gyms that are in vogue at the time.

01:02:09
DJ Nik
Gym culture. Yeah. Good.

01:02:10
Case Aiken
When they cut to that shot, I thought were watching Toxic Avenger for a moment.

01:02:13
DJ Nik
I was going to say the same thing. Yeah. And they critiqued gym culture really well in Toxic Avenger.

01:02:19
Case Aiken
Yeah. Now, Toxic Avenger was on the earlier side of that. So at this point, it had become, like, fully entrenched into society. But you know what? It was fine and it was fun. And I liked that. The one gym bro, no pain, no gain was, like, kind of messing with Clark. And then once Lacey was gone, he was just like, oh, here's your super.

01:02:34
DJ Nik
Heavyweight, no pain, no gain and off.

01:02:37
Case Aiken
He, like, not the nicest thing that he could do, but it was fine.

01:02:43
DJ Nik
He's done worse jerky things in this.

01:02:46
Case Aiken
Yes, yes, exactly. Man, Lacey's so thirsty for him. And I like that approach. Like, I like the cat grant concept of. Well, wait, Clark is like a six two really nice guy with perfect skin and awards for how good of a writer he is. Women are going to like him. People are just going to like this guy. He's very nice. He's going to help everyone. He's going to do all the right things and he's never going to be mean to you. And he's. Well, to do, like, his apartment's great.

01:03:19
Jmike Folson
He has a very nice apartment in Metropolis, New York, some city.

01:03:26
Case Aiken
Yeah. Wherever it is, it's a great apartment with a balcony, a wonderful terrace that he can throw Lois on. So I like the idea that Lacey would be kind of into like that, I think makes a lot of sense. I even like the idea of being like, well, the Daily Planet is such an important institution that Perry White would get behind it all. Now, it's funny thinking that, well, we know how print media goes in the next 20 years. But at the time. All right. Yeah, no, it's important. And he wants to make sure that it's not being chopped up for the purpose of making money. I think that's a good goal. I think that's actually a pretty good plot thread right there. I think that's something to do.

01:04:03
Case Aiken
I think the idea of Superman wrestling with his role in the world and should he interfere with the larger geopolitical scene, also a good thing to wrestle with. I think the fact that everyone just cheers and it's all fine. Sure. We get the military industrial guys who are upset about his new aggressive stance. It would have been nice to see the president really mad at Superman play up the world. Being kind of frustrated. Wasn't going to happen in this movie. This movie is very much, way more kid friendly than that kind of movie would be, like 1987. They weren't going to make a big budget movie. Big budget is very big quotes right now, but they weren't going to make a movie that was going to vilify America quite so much.

01:04:44
Case Aiken
That sort of level of introspection just wasn't popular in the mainstream media in Reagan's America at that point. Fair, yeah, but it's a cool, you know, we would see much better works that sort of examine all that. And some of those works are happening right at that point in comics. Like, 1987 is right when we're getting watchmen, right when we're getting Dark Knight returns. Squadron supreme had wrapped up, like, two years before that. There's a lot of really big moments, like, well, what if a superpowered being really made a stand and really changed the world? And those are all cool ideas. I dig the idea of Superman trying to figure out how to thread that needle, and he's, like, going to go to the un and try to be like, look, guys, I've been here for a while.

01:05:25
Case Aiken
I have always felt like an outsider, but this is getting dangerous, and I need to make a move, and I'm the only one who can do it. It's just going to have to be that way. I get the idea that it's a difficult thing to sell, that you're going to step in and take over everything, to act extrajudicially from such a standpoint above, really make humanity as a whole feel small instead of, like, lifting them up because it's such a huge deal. I get that, and I see them trying to write that speech appropriately, and it's not that far from, like, a good version of that speech.

01:05:58
DJ Nik
It's not bad.

01:05:59
Case Aiken
There's some good moments there. And at the end of the movie when he's like, maybe I went too far, which I don't think anything happened that showed that he had learned a lesson about that. Well, maybe I went too far, but maybe all of humanity will come together and understand, to put war down, put down their weapons. No, you hadn't learned that lesson. That's not the moral that you should be picking up from all this right now. Guys, so many things that I like about this movie, but it's still just not a great movie.

01:06:23
DJ Nik
Well, you know what? I think it's almost serendipitous that you guys elected to review this movie now seeing what is happening in the real world today, with once again the possible threat of nuclear war being on the rise again between the war going on in the Ukraine, the mounting tensions between Russia and the United States. So it's kind of apt, if you will, for what is actually going on today, sadly, or even what's been discussed, even in the secret invasion, when it comes to all that. So sadly, it is very apt. Humanity is doomed to repeat itself when it comes to history.

01:06:57
Case Aiken
It's so interesting that this movie came out right at the tail end of the Cold War. There was this whole line of thinking of the end of history, like the end of conflict as we understood it previously, and so large geopolitical bodies weren't going to change the way. And clearly that was all wrong. The story of human history has been, like, different imperial powers sort of, like, amassing their abilities and then going to war, and then what's the fallout of that? And with this thought of, like, okay, well, if the Soviet Union is gone and we're just going to let markets go and everything's kind of just going to be chill, we get the 90s perspective of like, yeah, no. Now we've got to deal with the natural shit. We have to deal with. We're recycling more ecological concerns.

01:07:34
Case Aiken
Yeah, but it's no longer a story of human history. It's now humanity dealing with the threats of nature. And that's all bullshit. But then we get the restructuring, where for a while, post 911, we get the big focus of, like, well, there's terrorist cells and there's, like, dissidents through the world, and we really start to look at a lot of political interactions as policing efforts, which has already been the case during the containment period of the Cold War. And now in human history, we're getting back to the point where we're starting to see big nation states, like, butting heads with each other again in ways that could be like world endings. So this movie came out at the end of what was sort of like a big hurrah for that kind of political tension.

01:08:11
Case Aiken
And then it kind of was shuffled around for a little bit. Now we're kind of getting back to that point.

01:08:16
DJ Nik
It kind of makes me think of the movies that came out after World War I or even after World War II, where it's like the war to end wars. And now we'll bring you kind of the more happy go lucky, hopeful movies. This will never repeat each other again. Wrong. So there was that. But yeah, it is kind of reminiscent, I think, of what we'd seen in cinema previously as well.

01:08:38
Case Aiken
The movie is interesting. I'm glad I finally watched it. I guess this is what I'm getting at. I'm glad I finally watched this movie. There's a lot of things that I like in it. They do not outweigh the bad, but it's close enough that I'm very surprised, pleasantly.

01:08:53
DJ Nik
Do you think it's the worst of the four case?

01:08:56
Case Aiken
That's a good question. I have seen a line of thinking four had always been listed as the bad one. There's been a lot of people sort of going back and forth between three and four now in a way that they hadn't before. Three is a more complete movie, but three is not taking a big swing. Four is taking a bigger swing, and it fails worse. But it's more impressive in that it takes that big swing. So I think between the two of them, I don't know. I think three is like the one that you can have a person watch, and it's still a movie. This one barely finished just because of all the production issues. I think I would say this is worse than three from the perspective of, can anyone just watch it?

01:09:40
Case Aiken
It's hard not to be taken out by so much of the jankiness of this movie. Also, while there's nice hopeful moments in this, there's nothing that is going to stick in children's nightmares. The way the woman being turned into a robot in Superman three happened. All of us, and by all of us, I mean all millennials, are scarred in severe ways. I constantly hear on just random podcasts when they bring up Superman, they'll be like, yeah, I haven't fucked with Superman since I saw Superman three when I was way too young. And I'm like, yep. That goes for every goddamn person. I think our email exchange with Adam Lance Garcia when we brought him on for Superman three was like, yeah. Did you have this from nightmares? Oh, my God, I did too. Oh, my God, I did too.

01:10:19
Case Aiken
And it was just like, us all being like, oh, yeah. I was traumatized by that movie. And that is impressive in a way that this movie doesn't ever create anywhere near shock factor.

01:10:32
DJ Nik
I don't know.

01:10:33
Case Aiken
J Mike, how about you? Where do you rank? Let's just say. Well, you know what? Let's do it. Let's rank the six proper Superman movies, counting returns in man of Steel.

01:10:42
Jmike Folson
God, one and two.

01:10:45
Case Aiken
And I'll say that two, you can have both Lester and Donner cut together as, like, a complete.

01:10:51
Jmike Folson
So one and two returns.

01:10:54
DJ Nik
Three.

01:10:55
Jmike Folson
Man of steel, four.

01:10:57
Case Aiken
Really? Okay.

01:11:00
Jmike Folson
Mainly because I agree with you. When we watch Superman three, was it the restaurant scene where he's, like, half drunk and he's, like, drinking the coffee?

01:11:10
DJ Nik
Yeah.

01:11:10
Case Aiken
Where he's been poisoned by it all, and he's just, like, sitting at the bar doing shots?

01:11:13
Jmike Folson
Yeah, it makes me laugh every time I see it. Why would they have. Okay, cool. This is theme of the movie.

01:11:21
Case Aiken
We're just going to go with it here. Yeah. It's definitely the best gif that you can make from any Superman thing ever. Like him at the bar doing shots. I see that online every now and then, and I'm like, I'm happy that's from that movie.

01:11:34
Jmike Folson
Too old for this shit type thing.

01:11:38
Case Aiken
Nick, I'm curious for you.

01:11:40
DJ Nik
Okay, well, I'm actually going to say yes. Superman one, two. Man of Steel. Superman returns three and quest for peace.

01:11:50
Case Aiken
Yeah, that's actually the exact same for me. Well, I've said this plenty of times before. I think man of Steel has enough strengths going for it just by virtue of the fact that it's like, oh, look at the technology we have for showing some of these big fight sequences. That it's an impressive piece, that cavill is a really good Superman casting, that there's a lot of good stuff going for it. I think it's neck and neck between it and returns. But returns has all the creepy shit that is the problem with the Donner era Superman stuff. And, like, oh, my God, Superman four. Like, that scene with Lois fucked me up way worse than I expected.

01:12:24
DJ Nik
And also, man of Steel has a great soundtrack by Hans Zimmer, which doesn't hurt.

01:12:29
Case Aiken
Yeah. So again, I would have returns and man of Steel very close together and could easily flip between the two. It could be like a Pluto Neptune situation there. I put those two there. One and two are better. And then, like, three, for all its faults, it is memorable. It is very memorable. And then four also, for all its faults, is very memorable, but in different ways it's got a lot of heart. It also has a serial rapist in Superman. And I don't know if I can ever really forgive this movie for. Yeah, but man. Oh, God, it's so weird. It's so weird. Like I said, I'm glad I saw it, but I'd always heard it was the bad one and I never knew how bad some of the things were going to be.

01:13:12
Case Aiken
But I do like that I saw like, it's such weird feelings right now.

01:13:17
DJ Nik
I did want to kind of ask, speaking of which, you guys up to date with Superman and Lois, the tv show?

01:13:22
Case Aiken
Yes.

01:13:23
DJ Nik
I wonder whether the fight on the moon might. I thought about that homage to this movie. Between there it's Superman and doomsday, but still I wonder whether it might be homage to this movie.

01:13:33
Case Aiken
I was thinking about that when they got to that fight there. It very well might be Superman. And Lois has had a love of doing nods to other Superman stuff. Like the pilot is almost Superman three's plot, especially with the I'm going to freeze the lake and we're going to deal with this nuclear plant that's like melting down kind of stuff. All that stuff is really well done. And I'm surprised at how good they made it. So I could see them having intentional nods there to Superman. And Lois is so good.

01:14:01
DJ Nik
It's been so consistently good. Insane. Yeah. Loving Superman and Lois.

01:14:06
Case Aiken
We need to do a roundup talking about it because we talked a lot about season one and then we actually haven't talked about season two or three on the show, but I've been following it. I like the show a lot. I'm sad that they are coming back with such a reduced budget for season four. I'm really glad that they are getting a season four to wrap up all the big story parts.

01:14:23
DJ Nik
Agreed.

01:14:24
Case Aiken
They clearly love the material. And my adventures with Superman, also really good Superman stuff that is kind of playing with some of the ideas that we talk about here where Clark Kent would be charming and people would like him and that all kind of makes sense. It's the same thing I've been talking about with Star Trek stuff. Right now. We are at a moment where the media that is coming out is really good for the stuff that we're getting. So it is hard for me to be mad about works that kind of derailed it earlier on. This movie killed the Superman franchise for 20 years. This movie put a lot of bad feelings out there in the world about comic book movies in general, like the 90s, were not nice to comic book fans.

01:15:01
DJ Nik
Well, the same argument could be made for Batman and Robin with the Batman franchise.

01:15:05
Jmike Folson
Sure.

01:15:06
DJ Nik
Yes.

01:15:06
Jmike Folson
Bat nipples.

01:15:08
Case Aiken
Batman comes in 1989. This is 1987. So it's like pretty quick. We get good comic book movies coming out. But there were a lot of people who were very upset about this movie because of what it did to Superman in pop culture. But now looking back in 2023, and we've got two great Superman shows that are on the air right now, we've got James gun working on a new Superman thing. We had interesting and weird Snyder Superman stuff already. Same situation. Like, I could be more mad about it if that was the end, but it's a property that keeps going and keeps on having permutations and new swings. And some of them are strikeouts. Some of them are foul balls. I don't even know what to describe with this one. I don't know the best basement metaphor.

01:15:53
DJ Nik
Here, but I will say also, even as bad as it was, one of the highlights of the Flash movie is actually the Superman stuff.

01:16:00
Case Aiken
Yeah.

01:16:00
DJ Nik
And that's a terrible movie. But the Superman stuff, I mean, once again, have guys, you guys have seen it?

01:16:08
Case Aiken
Yes, I have. It just came out for streaming, so I'm watching it this weekend.

01:16:12
DJ Nik
Okay. So all I'm going to say is the Superman stuff they put in, it has potential, it has legs, as they say.

01:16:18
Case Aiken
Yeah, I've heard enough that I'm not worried too much about being spoiled here, like the world. But, yeah, that's my point, that we are getting good Superman material in general. We've had great animated series since then. We've had so many solid works out there, and we're going to keep getting it. And clearly there is attention being paid on this franchise to do it right at some point. It hasn't stopped Superman. But I could understand if in 1993 you thought that six years earlier the Superman franchise had been killed because of this movie being really upset.

01:16:51
Jmike Folson
Yeah.

01:16:52
Case Aiken
And it doesn't feel that way now. And it's the same when I look at Star Trek stuff, talking about the JJ Abrams movies where like, yeah, into darkness really upset me when it came out. But now I've got strange new worlds. Now I've got lower. Like, there's really good stuff out there. Time has a way of healing a lot of wounds, and this movie has things to appreciate when you go back to look at it. So, like I said, I'm very glad to have seen it, Nick, thank you for coming on to talk about it. I know we've been talking about this for a while, and we had all of our 100th episode kind of stuff that interfered with that and then also doing all the coverage because of the anniversary of the Doomsday Superman fight that is this year.

01:17:29
Case Aiken
So we spent, what, like ten episodes talking about Death of Superman stuff?

01:17:33
DJ Nik
Maybe.

01:17:33
Case Aiken
So. It's been a while since we first discussed it, and I'm glad that we finally got to that point, and I'm glad I finally saw it. I do hope that somewhere, someone, please, for the love of God, if the 45 minutes longer cut exists out there in the world, please send me a link. The link can include a paypal. Little grease on that one.

01:17:56
DJ Nik
Hashtag, release the fury cut.

01:17:58
Case Aiken
Yes. There we go.

01:17:59
Jmike Folson
No more hashtags, please.

01:18:02
Case Aiken
Jay, Mike, do you have any closing thoughts about Superman four?

01:18:05
Jmike Folson
I'll never forgive you. No.

01:18:10
Case Aiken
This is not the worst thing I've ever done to you.

01:18:14
Jmike Folson
It had great ideas, fun moments, but.

01:18:19
Case Aiken
It was a movie.

01:18:19
Jmike Folson
It definitely was a movie that happened, and we learned some lessons from it, case. Lessons have been learned. Hopefully we never repeat those ever again. No more references to nuclear man. No more villains with sharp nails.

01:18:36
Case Aiken
Well, if they're going to be sharp nails, have them be like a cutter kind of character, right?

01:18:41
DJ Nik
I mean, we will get saber tooth later on. Those nails were horrible.

01:18:45
Case Aiken
Yeah, they look pretty bad. Nails are hard to make. Look good.

01:18:49
Jmike Folson
Honestly, we didn't need nails, man. We didn't need nails. He had energy powers already. Yeah, and telekinesis and a lot of other things. This was a movie. This was a movie that I learned from, and I'll never watch it again.

01:19:07
Case Aiken
Nick, how about you?

01:19:08
DJ Nik
I think I've kind of torn it to shreds enough. I think it's like kicking a puppy at this point. So I really kind of don't want to say anymore because I really already have done the damage. But, I mean, maybe I'll revisit it in the future if I'm either particularly high or particularly drunk and I have some mates over and we're like, what do you want? That's what.

01:19:30
Case Aiken
Actually, I think a drinking game to this movie could be a lot of fun.

01:19:33
Jmike Folson
You'll end up dead in the hospital.

01:19:34
Case Aiken
I may have watched this movie in an altered state, which might be why I'm like, there are plenty of things that I'm like, oh, yeah, that was fucking cool, man.

01:19:41
DJ Nik
I mean, I equate it to the crow wicked prayer, which, if you have had a few too many, it actually is a really good movie where. And this is kind of safe.

01:19:52
Case Aiken
Yeah.

01:19:52
DJ Nik
If I have some buddies over and we want to watch something, like really wacky, I'll stick it on. But personally, I don't know if I'm going to revisit it either. I mean, it's kind of like that bad chocolate you get in the box when you order your blu rays. Of course it has to be in there. It's like when I ordered my Jurassic park box set. Of course three is in there, so what can you do? But, yeah, it's that kind of deal.

01:20:17
Case Aiken
Yeah, I'm going to throw this out there as drinking game rules. Every time we get the stock shot of Superman flying, take a shot. I think that's a really good starting point for whatever rules you're going to put in there. Probably every time you get fingernails from the nuclear man, that's a good spot for it. Then every time Superman does what is a crime, that should be a drink. And I think you've got a pretty good set of rules right there.

01:20:38
DJ Nik
Nice.

01:20:39
Case Aiken
And the question is, does throwing Lois off the building count as one crime and then erasing her memory count as a second one? Or is that all part of one particular crime? And I think it depends on how likely you are to survive the remainder of the movie at that point.

01:20:52
DJ Nik
Likely.

01:20:53
Case Aiken
So I am very glad that we talked about this one. Nick, give your plugs, because the last time you and I talked, I was on your show talking about the League of Super Pets. And before that, were on talking about the Spider man pilot from the 70s series. But tell people about your show and where they can find you and what you've got going on.

01:21:10
DJ Nik
Well, first off, thank you both so much for being so gracious and so kind to have me on. I had a blast. And of course, I look forward to having you guys back on happiness and darkness sooner rather than later. That said, folks, so you can find me at my day job where I the host of the Whiskey and cigarettes radio show, where we play today's country, traditional country, and everything else in between. You can visit our website, which is whiskeyandcigarettesshow.com. Podcast wise, as mentioned, myself and Keith Bliss can be found hosting happiness in Darkness, the superhero movie podcast, where we discuss all superhero movies under the sun. Coming up, we'll be reviewing the Invincible Iron man, the animated movie. First time I've seen it and I have thoughts.

01:21:49
DJ Nik
And of course, myself, Rachel friend, and Zan Sprouse can be found on gold standard, the Oscars podcast we're reviewing all the best picture winners in chronological order. Recently reviewed Slum Dog Millionaire. In a couple of weeks we'll be reviewing the hurt locker, so looking forward to that. And last but certainly not least, if your fans know superhero tv shows, myself and Charles Skaggs can be found on the fandom Zone podcast where we're currently reviewing secret invasion.

01:22:15
Case Aiken
Nice. As with it seems most podcasters, you have found a way to just be busy, which I am proud that we all have this same pathological desire. Just like put out content, hashtag content, baby. But you have great content and I think people should check out all of those. I am so glad that we connected back in the day and I'm happy to have you on finally. So if listeners, after they go check out all of Nick's stuff, they should check out what we've got going on@certainpov.com. There are a ton of great shows. Fuck it. I'm going to give a shout out to jukebox Vertigo.

01:22:47
Case Aiken
They're currently on hiatus at the moment, but it is a great show where on each episode, Keith and Jose and a bunch of awesome people build out a playlist that they've been building out on Spotify since the show started. And they do listening parties after each episode where they play Mario Kart and talk about the music and just vibe on Twitch. So that's a really good time there. I love joining those chats when it happens. I hope they get back to it soon. But I know Jose's got some stuff going on, so totally understand. But they have a great back catalog, so definitely recommend checking that one out. We've got tons of great shows@certainpov.com. And if you enjoy interacting with any of us, you can check out our discord server. You can find a link on certainpov.com.

01:23:25
Case Aiken
It's going to be in the show notes for this episode. It's going to be all over. Come interact. It's a really fun server. We've got a lot of great people talking about comics and video games, TTRPG stuff, music. There's a song of the day channel that we started when Jukebox joined, which has been great for us, just being like, yeah, this song stuck in my head right now. Or this song's like, what I'm just kind of in the mood for. And then just like lots of people chiming in, being like, oh yeah, that is a really good track. Or like, oh man, that shit's my jam. Which is always just like kind of fun to do. Without it being so overwhelming, like some servers can be. So check out all of that.

01:23:55
Case Aiken
Check out our YouTube channel where you can find clips of this show as well as a bunch of our other shows, as well as our Superman analog series that I've been putting out. Now, as I've alluded to a couple of times in this episode, I recently had a baby, and so my production rate is bad right now. I used to be able to keep it up on a weekly basis, and that is not happening at the moment. But they are happening as I am getting them done. So check those out. The series is still going. We've had some really cool ones. I recently talked about stupendous man, which was Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes secret identity alter ego fantasy, which was a really fun video to do because it meant I was rereading a bunch of Calvin and Hobbes. So that's always fun.

01:24:34
Case Aiken
Check out that video. Also did irredeemable, the plutonian. That was a really good one. And coming up, we've got some stuff on, some prose pieces that are going to be interesting for me to figure out how the hell I am doing a video for those. So maybe by the time this episode drops, that video will come out and you'll be able to answer that question for me. But right now, it's a mystery. You can find me on Twitter at case aiken. On most other social media, you can find me at case Aiken. You can find me on Instagram at Ketzel coatle five because I'm holding on to that aim screen name for dear life. But I don't know. We don't know where the party is going to be.

01:25:07
Jmike Folson
Am I still on Twitter? I have no idea. I only responded because you tagged me in that case.

01:25:12
Case Aiken
Oh, yeah. I don't know. Whatever the hell site that we have all decided to go to, by the time this episode drops, you can find us. Just look us up. We're not hard to find, but we'll be back soon with another episode. But until then, stay super. Man.

01:25:36
Jmike Folson
Of Steel is a certain pov production. Our hosts are J. Mike Folson and case Aiken. The show is scored and edited by Jeff Moonin, and our logo and episode art is by case Aiken.

01:25:56
Case Aiken
Hey, nerf herders, you sure you want to go with that? Hey, everyone. There we go. More inviting. Have you ever had a movie that you really wanted to love, but something holds you back, or one that you did love in spite of a flaw? Well, I'm case Aiken, and I'm Sam Alisra. And on another past, we sit down with cool guests to look at movies that we find fascinating but flawed. And we try to imagine what could have been done when they were made to give them that little push. We're not experts. We just believe in criticism. Constructive criticism. Sure. So come take another pass at some movies with us. And every now and then we can celebrate movies that did it on their own, too. You can find us@certainpov.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Pass it on cpov certainpov.com. Close.