I’m not sure how I got into my 40s without watching the original Superman The Movie but here we are. It’s a chill Sunday afternoon, we ordered a gluten-free Chinese takeaway and are on relax mode. It’s not often that we watch ‘normal TV’ but we put it while we were waiting for our delivery.
Superman! I pointed at the TV (insert Leonardo DiCaprio pointing GIF here lol)
What’s it about: An alien child called Kal-El is sent to Earth from his home planet of Krypton.
The film had already started and I didn’t want to ruin the magic of watching TV in the old fashioned way by pressing the ‘watch from start’ button so we started at the part were the Kents find Clark in the meteor ditch.
As we watched I realised that I haven’t seen this film before and if, if, if, I have, it was a very long time ago. In the 90s I watched a lot of Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. Remember that one with Teri Hatcher and Dean Cain?
The only 80s / 90s Superman film I remember watching was Supergirl from 1984 which tells the story of Superman’s cousin Kara Danvers.
Anyway back to Superman The Movie…. I throughly enjoyed it despite it being 2hr 23 minutes long. The beginning had me hooked with the 1950s aesthetic of Clark’s early life growing up in Smallville.
I don’t want to spoil the film if you’ve never seen it but WATCH IT PLEASE.
Watch the Superman: The Movie 1978 trailer here:
Just like the Star Wars phenomena, most people who haven’t seen any of the movies are likely to still know some characters or the premise.
What I did love to see was the budding romance between Lois and Clark. Superman is such a flirt, I was blushing a little at the part just before the first Peter Pan style ‘flight date’ with Lois.
I also enjoyed seeing the importance of the colour red throughout the film. The significance of Superman’s cape now means something to me having seen the back story.
Christopher Reeve obviously iconic, plays both parts amazingly. Gene Hackman did a top job as Lex Luther and I can see how more recent Luther actors have embraced the villain.
The Daily Planet newspaper office, a character within itself made me laugh. Imagine an office now in 2025, we have mostly silent keyboards, headphones, air conditioning and basic rights that prevent us from staying at the office too late and even work from home options!
The Daily Planet has noisy typewriters, employees smoking up a storm and a chaotic vibe you would expect of a news outlet before the internet was invented.
The whole masterpiece is brought together with the music of John Williams. Star Wars and Harry Potter fans will hear signature notes throughout.
As I grabbed my laptop to write this up after watching, the second Superman film came on TV and I immediately recognised General Zod, so I’m thinking this is the Superman movie I watched as a kid, with it releasing a little later in 1980.
Anyway, these were just some thoughts I had while watching the film and scoffing Chinese food. I’m trying to watch more alien films this year and Clark Kent was a non-obvious alien to add to the list.
Do you have a favourite alien film? Let me know in the comments 👇
