MovieChat Forums > Superman (1978) Discussion > Superman 78 not such a nice guy...

Superman 78 not such a nice guy...

posted 8 years ago by morefshpls
26 replies | jump to latest

A few observations.

Gets his Earth father killed by racing him to the barn causing his heart attack
Girl gets slapped for 'telling lies' when he rescues a cat from a tree
Uses his x-ray vision to tell Lois what colour underwear she's wearing. Pervert.
Mocks humanity as a whole with his alter-ego parody of their failings.
Gives all men an inadequacy complex with his superhero abilities and peacock pimp outfit.
Drops Lois to her near death with his negligent hand-held flying - then pulls the same stunt again moments later.
He knows the combined science drawn from the knowledge of 28 galaxies yet imparts none of it to scientists on Earth.
Even in emergency costume changes, with human lives at stake, he still manages to vainly tweak his kiss-curl to perfection.
Crashes through Lex's ceiling without thought for the debris that could fall and kill Miss Teschmakker.
Calls Jimmy Olsen "kid" and "son". How patronising.
He's a big phoney anyway, pause when he's screaming, Superman's got fillings!

sig:

[–] keitho8622 8 years ago

Lol I love Superman but this is excellent

[–] michaelsmith30 8 years ago

Don't forget that he also carelessly releases the trio after throwing the elevator/missile into space, despite being aware that an explosion could crack the phantom zone.

[–] bond_98 8 years ago

Well thats the reason his name is not PerfectMan.

[–] wordsatplaytoday 8 years ago

Gets his Earth father killed by racing him to the barn causing his heart attack

He wasn't Superman by that point and you can't blame him for that anyway. He was being hard on himself enough anyway.
Geez. Kick him while he's already down, why don't ya. Jerk.

Girl gets slapped for 'telling lies' when he rescues a cat from a tree

Supes had no idea that would happen to her.
Can't blame him for that.

Crashes through Lex's ceiling without thought for the debris that could fall and kill Miss Teschmakker.

He did tell her to stand back and she was getting out of the way of it anyway.
In a deleted scene he does save her from being eaten alive by lions or tigers or bears (Oh my!) that Lex was having her dropped into a pit by Otis.

Calls Jimmy Olsen "kid" and "son". How patronising.

Nope. Not at all. With this one and the rest of the list, your really, really reaching for nothing.

[–] 8 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Dark_Sithlord 8 years ago

HahA! Always one in every crowd.

Hilarious list, by the way!

[–] roflwaffle357 8 years ago

eh. weak jokes. 2/10

Well Tony, nobody wants a war. If we can't do business why we'll just shake hands and that'll be it!

[–] Ace_Sax 8 years ago

Not to mention when he's changing from his Clark Kent disguise into Superman he takes the time to change the part in his hair from right to left to left to right. Because that's clearly a priority when your co-worker is dangled from a helicopter or when a madman is threatening to gas the entire city.

[–] OldFriendOfTheChristys 8 years ago

He knows the combined science drawn from the knowledge of 28 galaxies yet imparts none of it to scientists on Earth.

This is a rather interesting point - one I'd never thought about before. Perhaps because he was taught human beings were flawed, he thought it was in their best interest to keep them "in the dark" regarding certain matters.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

"He knows the combined science drawn from the knowledge of 28 galaxies yet imparts none of it to scientists on Earth."

The only ethical route to take. You don't give barbarians machine guns. You don't give barbaric planet advanced scientific info, they would only use it for more wars, oppression, etc.

"Gets his Earth father killed by racing him to the barn causing his heart attack"

He doesn't know that's going to happen, it's not like he does it deliberately. We all have to go at some point, you know.

He could've turned Earth back and 'saved' him, only prolonging his painful Earth life, so actually it's good that he doesn't, and lets him go.

Nothing unethical so far.

"Girl gets slapped for 'telling lies' when he rescues a cat from a tree"

How exactly is Superman responsible for this? He can't predict every outcome of every action, he's not psychic.

"Uses his x-ray vision to tell Lois what colour underwear she's wearing. Pervert."

He could've done a lot worse, and besides, it's only using his natural abilities. He does it in perfect innocence, there's nothing wrong with that. If that's your natural eyesight, why wouldn't you use it? It's like you calling people perverts for looking at each other normally and seeing someone's clothes. You're just as much as a pervert if you ever looked at anyone and saw their any clothes, because that's YOUR normal seeing ability. Nothing wrong with just using your normal abilities. 'Looking' doesn't make you a pervert anyway.

Definition of pervert: "a person whose sexual behaviour is regarded as abnormal and unacceptable."

Superman wasn't a 'person', and this wasn't 'sexual behaviour', it was just -looking-. Nothing 'abnormal' or 'unacceptable' about checking the color of some clothing item.

"Mocks humanity as a whole with his alter-ego parody of their failings."

Wrong. He doesn't do this mockingly, he does it innocently, trying to copy their 'normalcy' as he sees it, so as to blend in and not get caught.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

It's not for parody purposes, and he doesn't see it as 'failing', more like a 'disguise'. Also, he could've copied SO many other things, not all humans are like Clark Kent at all, so this point is like all your other points - very, very weak and unreasonable.

"Gives all men an inadequacy complex with his superhero abilities and peacock pimp outfit."

They're his natural abilities, and it's his family crest and he happens to love colors. It's not HIS fault if people of this planet hate colors for some unnatural, indoctrinated reason, or that "all men" (which I think is a SUPER exaggeration) can't fly or have such abilities.

You seem to want it both ways - when he DOESN'T do that, by being as nerdy as possible, you claim he's mocking humanity. When he DOES show his natural abilities, you say he's making men feel inadequate. Try to make up your mind, don't try to have it both ways. You are basically saying he can do no right.

Are you saying it's some kind of crime and automatically complex-inducing to have a goodlooking, colorful outfit that has your family crest embedded on it? Besides, ANYONE could wear such colorful clothes, if they wanted, it's not HIS fault that others don't choose to do it.

Many men do bodybuilding, Martial Arts, etc. Are you saying those men shouldn't use their abilities just because it might cause someone else (or ALL MEN) a 'complex'? Come on. Your'e being ridiculous. Besides, there are such alphas and other men that would never get any complex from just seeing Superman. Anyone with true sense of self-worth wouldn't get such a complex, no matter what they see - and even those that MIGHT get a complex, are actually LEARNING a valuable lesson about true confidence and value of their true self.

If it's built on an illusion - not real and can't last, instead of something real and true, then it's GOOD that there's Superman to force these men to face the truth and reality! And isn't that what Superman is all about? Truth and Justice!

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

(The 'american way' was surely some weird hollyweird-added patriotic nationalism that doesn't make sense)

"Drops Lois to her near death with his negligent hand-held flying - then pulls the same stunt again moments later."

No, he doesn't. Accidents happen, when you live your life - you can't always be perfect in everything you do. Have you NEVER dropped anything in your life? Superman is just a human, these things happen. You're being unbelievably harsh and unreasonable.

It's not a 'stunt' (except maybe literally), and he doesn't "pull it". He knows what he's doing, trust him.

"Even in emergency costume changes, with human lives at stake, he still manages to vainly tweak his kiss-curl to perfection."

What? I don't even see what you mean by this.

What the heck is a 'kiss-curl' anyway? Are you talking about his hair? What if it just naturally looks like that, especially after everything he's doing? It looks to me that CLARK is the one that requires more hairstyling and maintenance, and 'tweaking', if you will.

Couldn't the hair just automatically look like that after such a rushed clothes-change? I mean, by necessity, the hair goes through QUITE A LOT.

Also, it doesn't take him very long, so he can afford it. Also also, he absolutely NEEDS to have different hairstyle to perfect his disguise, or he couldn't live long on this planet, and then even MORE lives would be endangered and people injured, because he couldn't be here to save them.

So it's a non-sacrifice (what is lost because of it? What makes it 'evil' in your book?) to enable a long-term goodness.

"Crashes through Lex's ceiling without thought for the debris that could fall and kill Miss Teschmakker."

It's not Lex's ceiling, because that criminal doesn't legitimately own probably anything. Second of all, he is a CRIMINAL, who cares what happens to his roof?

Third of all, he NEVER puts her in danger, and you are insane to suggest otherwise (no offence).

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

Fourth of all, IF there was such a danger, he's fast enough to save her from that debris anyway (Superman is way faster than falling debris).

"Calls Jimmy Olsen "kid" and "son". How patronising."

So affectionate character trait-based nicknames are 'patronising'? What if patronising is sometimes good? It's also part of his disguise, to use that kind of 'Captain America'-style language (from the comics, Captain America seems to call people 'sons' a lot), probably because it's expected of him, so people would react more naturally in possibly dangerous or panicky situations, it roots them to reality and makes it easier for them to listen to what he has to say.

Besides, every man is a 'son' of someone, so it's not wrong.

"He's a big phoney anyway, pause when he's screaming, Superman's got fillings!"

You mean 'phony'?

Superman doesn't have fillings (just HOW weak are your 'arguments' going to get, if you already have to scrape this kind of bottom of a barrel?), even if Christopher Reeve had them.

Also, what?

Also, why would this matter? Can't a Kryptonian have fillings? Maybe he ate too much space candy on the way to Earth..

But how about the explanation that you don't know what KRYPTONIAN teeth are supposed to look like, so they may NATURALLY Look like that, but he doesn't ACTUALLY have fillings?

Or how about him just doing that as part of his Clark Kent disguise, but not bothering to change it for Superman appearance, because no one usually looks at, or sees them anyway, or pays attention to such trivial nonsense... except some douche in the internet, apparently.

Also also also also, how can you know they're 'fillings' anyway? They can be friggin' ANYTHING. He might just have some food stuck in the teeth, maybe it's a Kryptonian fashion, it could be part of his superpowers, some kind of teeth-kryptonite-prevention-layer so at least his teeth won't get corrupted..

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

You just want to insult Superman, and fail to do so at every step, these points are WEAK at best, and as I completely obliterated the little validity they might've had, perhaps you should just give up and stop trying to fight the obvious truth.

Superman IS a good human being, and there's ABSOLUTELY nothing wrong with him!

It would be wise for you to admit it, and that you were 100% wrong on all your points and your whole accusatory premise.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

I'd like to add about that Clark Kent-thing, that he is also deliberately trying to act completely opposite to his natural self, so it has nothing to do with 'mocking humanity', but more like trying to 'be opposite of what he really is', so that no one could think he can be Superman. If he just wanted to mock someone, he could've taken on some kind of more common imitation (this kind of timid nerds are not the most common human model).

You just assume motivations, instead of realizing what they really are. That's a weak basis for any insult.

[–] AnubisRaydeen (7897) 5 years ago

That troll will eat for a year off this.

[–] christomacin (4537) 2 years ago

"It's not Lex's ceiling, because that criminal doesn't legitimately own probably anything. Second of all, he is a CRIMINAL, who cares what happens to his roof?"

Lex is a squatter.

[–] 8 years ago

[deleted]