After watching Superman: The Movie, watching Superman 2 right after really showed the defects in the sequel. Starting with the opening titles, the music just doesn’t grab you like John Williams’ score from the first movie. The credits show it wasn’t written by Williams, just based on his music. Clearly not the London Symphony Orchestra either, judging by the lackluster performance.
Then there is an endless sequence of flashbacks to the first movie, the whole movie in fact. It is cut together like a film trailer with all the best bits regardless of importance to the plot. The sequel’s plot is pretty good with a strong bad guy trio. But the special effects just suck compared to the first film. The delicate wirework, lighting and in camera flying effects–the key to a convincing Superman–are gone. Replaced with ugly matte work and horrible animation, e.i. the nuclear explosion in space that frees General Zod.
I used to like Superman 2 more than the original, but it looks so shoddy in comparison. It is a shame the producers couldn’t work with Donner again.
It’s funny, I’ve just recently been thinking about this very thing because I bought two movies at Half-Price Books that I loved as a kid only to find out that both of them were actually pretty bad.
The first is Flight of the Navigator. I remember being so enthralled with this movie as a kid, and I was pretty much on board with it again this time until I realized that the movie was basically completely pointless. It has a great set up with the kid going into the future and seeing how everything has aged but him, and it has some awesome (well, 80s awesome) music but the movie completely falls apart a little while after he gets into the spaceship. The AI turns into a babbling moron, and then after a goofy montage they just go back in time and that’s the end of the movie. There was no danger, no threat, no real antagonist, nothing. I was pretty bummed.
This actually led me to picking up the second movie that I remember really loving as a kid, Explorers. Once again we’ve got a pretty rad setting and beginning to the story, and a really thrilling theme that really gets going as the kids start putting together the spaceship. And once again, it builds up to a whole bunch of nothing. They put together the ship, take it into outer space, and then meet up with these dorky, unfunny alien kids who have nothing interesting to say and then they just fly back to Earth and that’s it.
It’s just weird how these two films had almost the same exact problem for me. I guess consequence-free storytelling makes it easier on our poor childhood brains or something.
That’s funny because they were actually shot at the same time, sort of. The original plan was for Superman I to end with a cliffhanger that showed the release of the villains from Superman II. The filming took way longer and cost way more then expected, though, so Donner was eventually told to just finish the first film. About 75% of Donner’s Superman II was filmed at that point. After the success of Superman I the producers decided to have another director finish Superman II as their relationship with Donner wasn’t good. That director ended up redoing a lot, but about a quarter of Superman II was original Donner stuff. They released a mostly Donner version a few years ago.
The 1990 Dick Tracy Film , must have watched it over 20 times , recently when I viewed it again, I’ve realized its quite bad and my tastes have changed :(
Man, when I was a young teen, I thought Stargate was the best movie ever, until Independence Day came along… Basically, until Godzilla, I thought Devlin and Emmerich could do no wrong.
Nowadays, I fully recognize the aforementioned films as hackneyed, soulless, cookie-cutter 'splosion-fests, with little dramatic or artistic merit. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But I certainly don’t enjoy them quite as much.
When I was in grade school, I thought John Candy was the best comic actor around, and my favorite film of his was Who’s Harry Crumb? … It certainly hasn’t held up as the comedic gem I once thought it to be.
The first two Batman films with Michael Keaton. I think at the time people were so giddy to see an interpretation of the character that wasn’t Adam West’s camp portrayal, that they made the mistake of thinking it was good.
I think that movie got a lot of mileage out of its premise. Classic pulp fare. A teenaged imagination can overlook a lot of crappy plot when faced with a cool idea.
Cloak & Dagger - Haven’t watched in a long time but it can’t still be good.
Black Hole - I still like it for nostalgic sci-fi but the ending is terrible.
Heartbeeps - Wow! Andy Kaufman as a robot. I thought I dreamt this movie till I saw it again and then I wish I had.
Enemy Mine - A really cool concept for a movie and it has Dennis Quaid a quintessential part of 80’s movies.
Innerspace - see above
Last Starfighter - I still love this movie and the music is awesome.
When I was a kid, Bakshi’s “Wizards” was by far my favorite movie. Keep in mind at this time there were no good fantasy or science fiction films to speak of. Perhaps only 2001 was good SF from that era (late 60s/early 70s), and I can’t think of any good fantasy films at all.
I liked the rotoscoping combination of newsreel and animation, the characters and the story. (Also, boobies, see below.) At this time there was very little good animation to compare to; Disney was good technically but bland and boring and aimed at little kids, there was no anime at all, and there’s a limit to the number of times you can watch a given Bugs Bunny reel before it gets old.
I got Wizards on DVD when it came out some years ago. Meh. The design is still ok, and I still don’t mind the rotoscoping at all (though it was done badly in Bakshi’s godawful attempt at Lord of the Rings), but the story is lame, the nasal whining opening narration is almost impossible to take, and the animation has a laughably low frame rate. It’s really a budget film. In the interim between seeing it again, I also discovered Mark Bode and realized that Bakshi had ripped him off completely (Cobalt 60) without even giving any credit.
I’ve been meaning to watch that one again. What I think might help it now is my adult knowledge that BH was a utterly bat-shit attempt by Disney to make “their own Star Wars.”
And Slim Pickens as a lovable, leg-less robot? It might still work…
