I think MoS does a lot better than the original. First off Superman is a fantasy, MoS is more science fiction.
MoS has more interesting themes and ideas, Krypton and its culture is more fleshed out and thoughtful. The juxtaposition between his two father's philosophies of what Superman should be.
How a person like Superman would actually feel being the only one of his kind on Earth, and likewise how humans would react to news of an all powerful alien living amongst them (Batman v Superman looks like it's delving more into that, but MoS set it up).
This gave us great scenes like Superman surrendering to the army. This is an element completely overlooked in Superman.
Zod was also a much better villain than Lex Luthor.
Soundtrack, overall I give to MoS, though the original has the better theme.
Visually, Superman was groundbreaking, but again, MoS is just more interesting, those Kryptonain costumes and masks are awesome, and I could watch a whole movie set on MoS's Kyrpton.
I also think the plot was smarter, the turning back time at the end of Superman was very weak and lazy imo. But the way Superman discovers the scout ship, which calls Zod to Earth, and how Kal's pod could use the phantom drive technology to create a singularity to send them back to the phantom zone all neatly connected together - Kryptonian technology was the glue for the plot.
In Superman/II, Zod being freed and coming to Earth was entirely coincidental.
So I think MoS is a much more interesting, original and thought provoking film, obviously we can't even compare the action because that's just not fair, the Smallville fight in MoS is one of the best comic book action scenes ever.
Having said that I'm still a big fan of Superman and I'll always love Reeve's performance Superman.
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CapitanJusticia
8 years ago
Good post. But I think Superman: The Movie did a much better job than MoS explaining Superman's origin. We never got to see any of Superman's childhood except in dour flashbacks, which I found mostly disappointing and uninspiring. The story of Superman's origin, from the Krypton scenes to his childhood in a 'Norman Rockwell' Smallville, is beautifully told in epic fashion with great writing and direction. The scene of Superman's rocket descending into Earth's atmosphere and crashing into the Kansas farmland was to me much more epic and memorable than what was shown in MoS.
Also, we never got to see any scenes of Clark Kent transforming into Superman in MoS. Seeing Clark running off somewhere to open his shirt and reveal the 'S' while that classic music soars is one of the most exciting things about Superman. We have been robbed of this in the new movies.
Another thing I missed was seeing Superman taking on common criminals before facing super villains. I don't really count the oil platform scene because he was not yet Superman at that point. The scenes in STM after he rescues Lois were great, MoS completely ignored this and just had Superman facing other Krytonians off the bat.
The action and FX are obviously better in MoS, but it has nowhere near the heart or soul of the original.
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