I was talking with the tech guy at one of my schools and he brought up how his son’s favorite superhero is Superman, and then we started to chat about the movies that have all come out since the original motion picture. We all know that Superman I and II were epic in their own rights, and we also know that both of those movies have an entirely different feel to them than either Superman III and IV. I recently watched footage of Christopher Reeve on the Johnny Carson show giving an interview just prior to Superman III’s release. What I found funny is that he specifically intimates in later interviews after the movie that he believed Superman was meant to be a high quality and special character, and once the quality of sequels starts to diminish then it’s time to hang up the towel and pursue another path.
Superman III:
In this movie, Superman takes some time away from Metropolis to go visit Smallville as his alter-ego Clark Kent because of a high school class reunion, where he meets up with Lana Lang again. While in Smallville, Richard Pryor enters into the picture as a computer genius that’s unemployed and looking for an easy way to get rich by working for (a poor-man’s Lex Luthor) Richard Vaughn’s character “Russ Webster”. What I find interesting about this movie is that there’s so much focus and emphasis on trying to make Pryor fit into a Superman movie, that it comes off so awkward like it’s a distorted and twisted comedy. My biggest beef with this movie is that it takes Superman into his evil side by having Richard Pryor expose him to “red kryptonite”(which I’ve never heard of since in any Superman related storyline). This is another awkward scene from the movie in which evil superman battles Clark Kent in a junkyard apprently on Liberty Island: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY3dxb5OpIw
One word – weird.
But in the end all is good:
Superman IV: 
According to Reeve’s interview with Carson, there was actually never supposed to be a Superman IV, as he said that he would hang up the cape after number III. My guess is that because of the epic box office let down of Superman III, the studio felt it would be such a horrible note to end on to leave the Superman movies off on the events of Superman III, so they decided to try it again with a fourth film in which the theme was based on “anti-nuclear warheads”. In this film, Superman takes it upon himself to end the world-wide nuclear threat by vowing to collect all nuclear weapons and flying them all out into space and hurling them at the sun. One thing I found very interesting is that I was always under the impression that there was only one “Nuclear Man” which is the pet villain of Lex Luthor in this film. In an early deleted scene, there is actually a “first nuclear man”:
The final nuclear man ends up being this guy:
All in all I can definitely understand why the Superman franchise is expected to get a total reboot in 2011 with “Superman: Man of Steel”, considering that the last film to feel like it does the franchise justice was Superman II…with all it’s “KNEEL BEFORE ZOD”-ness.
Oh how far Zod has come – 
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