They were pretty good better than any Superman now. Though I did love Returns.

I honestly hated them. Richard Donner was the Joel Schumacher of his time.

How can you hate them!?!?! They might be pretty bad in modern standards, but they are classic, and it introduced the world to comic book films. The only comic films before that were serials and the 1966 batman movie.

They're good, but not great.

Superman 1 is a fantastic film for it's time

I can't remember the first one, but the second was terrible. I like to insult and make fun of it while I watch it, does that count?

@ultrastarkiller: I would rate Superman: The Movie as the best Superman movie, with Man of Steel in a close second. Superman II and Superman Returns I also liked though.

@darehulk: Superman 2 was my favorite.

this, I loved the movies, im young but i grew up on the movies. 2 was always my favorite cause he actually fought people. I find 3 to be a bore fest to this day.

They're good movies, but are aimed at a very young demographic, which makes them hard for me to enjoy now.

The comic relief villains are obviously there to make pre-teen children laugh, and not be too frightened, but I find them to be distracting, unfunny, and just generally annoying. Lex Luthor is just not remotely intimidating in these films.

If it wasn't for the weak villains I really wouldn't have any problems with them at all, the plots are well written, and Clark and everyone else are likeable and well characterised, music is also great, and memorable. The fights are obviously quite basic, but they were limited in what they could do at the time, and they do a good job with what they had available.

I really need to watch the Director's Cut of Superman II one day though, its supposed to be virtually a new movie with all the differences (much of the original footage was chucked after the Director was replaced), and is apparently much more serious.

I heard that as well, was it ever released, or is it only talked about?

Great movies, the first two. MOS has dethroned them verily.

Just to clear things up, Superman 3 and 4 had no connection to Donner whatsoever. It was only 1 and half of 2 (consequently 2's Donner's cut as well) that had Donner working on them.

Ok, now to my take on it. They were great for their time.It made an icon image of Superman far beyond what previous media did. George Reeves defined the Superman of his era. Christopher Reeve defined the Superman that would span multiple eras. Superman, for decades, was the definitive superhero film. For decades, superhero films were measured with respect to the first 2 Superman films. It had a massive cultural impact, not only in comicbook films but in the film industry itself. Unfortunately, reality check, it is quite outdated.

As much as it was great, I find it to be responsible for a lot of people not letting go of the "Silver Age" Superman image and not allowing the character to evolve. A lot (not all) whining with respect to Man of Steel, I attribute to the nostalgia of Donner's Superman and the inability to break out from it.

Never saw them, dont plan on it. As much as a Superman fan as I am I will not watch those or that horrible Animated Series.

The argument "it's a classic so it's good is flawed". For example, Star Wars changed the face of science fiction, and even if it was a good story, it wasn't scripted that well. So yeah, it's a classic, but it wasn't as good as other contemporary movies.

Superman: The Movie was kinda very bad... the plot never kicked in, the threat was believable for 10 minutes, Reeve wasn't believable as Superman. And also, that thing about turning back time by spinning the Earth? Come on: that invalidates a whole movies.

So yes, we are all passionate about arguably the first famous comic book movie. But it wasn't good. If it wasn't about superman people would have trashed it.

This is the problem debating older movies with a new generation, the inability to be able to see a movie through the eyes of a previous generation. Ever see "Citizen Kane"? it is so boring. "The Birds"? Not scary in the slightest. It's inevitable to avoid "For it's time" in any argument once your past a generation or two. There can be no equal debate due to cultual diffrrces of the present time, that being said Donner rocked & MoS sucks balls.

@muhabba: actually Citizane Kane stands the test of time. I only saw it three years ago and didn't even notice the time passing. What is considered scary can change, but great storytelling is the same since the Illiad.

Like first movie, dislike the second. Last year seen Donner’s Cut – disliked it even more. So can’t decide how I should vote.

@ssejllenrad:

As much as it was great, I find it to be responsible for a lot of people not letting go of the "Silver Age" Superman image and not allowing the character to evolve. A lot (not all) whining with respect to Man of Steel, I attribute to the nostalgia of Donner's Superman and the inability to break out from it.

I think that to it can be attributed only half of whining. For interest I read reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. Nearly half of them begin with something like “With Zack Snyder as director this film can’t not s…ck”. Feels like reviewers formed negative opinion even before watching the film itself.

Yeah it was released on DVD.

I just watched the Donner Cut, IMO its significantly better, though still has one or two issues.

Humour is definitely cut down by quite a bit. Non now plays it fairly straight (no trouble using heat ray, humourous grunting, or giving Zod the police Car siren). There are no unnecessary shots of toupee's flying off, Ice cream's hitting people, Clarke knocking into people etc, and the Shag-Pad style Honeymoon Suite is gone, replaced with a normal room, soldiers no longer do that "whoa, waaaaaah" noise when thrown, Clarke isn't hit by the car and moaned at for not crossing the street properly.

Unfortunately though the worst "humour" offence, the Balloon jail break is still here.

What I was surprised about though, was the Clarke/Lois scenes, they are all far, far better here, and are virtually all completely different scenes. Lois looks soooo much healthier in the Donner Cut, god knows what happened to her in the years between re-filming, but I wouldn't be surprised if hefty amounts of drugs were involved. The scenes themselves are all better, instead of her jumping into the river, she jumps out of the Daily Planet offices. The Donner version of the scene is a far faster and more to the point scene, its funnier, doesn't drag half as much, and doesn't show Superman putting Lois in quite as much danger (he's more in control). When Lois discovers his identity there is no "hand in fire" accident in the Donner version, she tricks him into telling her by shooting him with blanks. The scene, again is much more interesting, and a good character moment for Lois. Thankfully in the Donner Cut Lois also no longer goes on and on about the healing properties of orange juice.

The second biggest difference is with the crystal scenes, Marlon Brando is in the Donner Cut quite a bit, he was completely removed from the theatrical release due to his pay being too high. All scenes here are generally better, most noticeably the "taking away of powers" scene, and the end of the "getting powers back" scene. These two scenes just have a lot more gravity than before.

Action wise, the first town scene is cut-down a little (mostly due to some of those scenes being jokey), but the attack on the White House scene is actually noticeably longer, and IMO a lot better than in the theatrical release, the end battle is also a little better, instead of being punched into a building, Superman is punched into the Statue of Liberty, the Super Breath scene is far better, and Superman coming back from being crushed by the bus is also better directed.

On the downside the Donner cut actually has an ending that is arguably worse than the theatrical release, Superman just flies around the earth and reverses time again like he did in the original movie. I really don't get why Donner did this, there's no reason at all to be honest. I guess they felt that audiences of the time couldn't deal with Lois knowing his identity or some crap, or they were worried about the Donner Cut not syncing with the later Superman films (does anyone care about Superman 3 anyway?).

I would say the Donner Cut is much better, it still has downsides, such as still having an unnecessarily long intro (we don't need the ending of the first film re-shown), retaining the embarrassing jail scenes, and having a cop-out ending, but everything else is better, its pacier, Lois doesn't look haggard and ill, most of the least funny scenes are gone, and there are more character moments.

Love 'em to bits (see my recent thread on here!)

Loved the first one to death, second was ok.

1 and 2 were great!

if i have to sum it up in one word it would be Otisburg... just a little more you say? small bit?

1) Brando is great except for his pronouncation of krypton

2) Gene Hackman and his crew are a joy

3) Christopher Reeves defines the role like Heath Ledger defined the joker

4) John Williams soundtrack very moving stuff

its a swell movie if you can get over the 30 year old special effects, but i mean really is the best thing about Iron Man the fight with The Dude in his bigger Iron Man suit?

WATCH THEM! its where superhero movies start it goes from Donner's Superman to Burtons Batman to Nolan's Batman

People trash it because they compare it to todays standards forgetting it was made in another time and climate. For the time the movies were great especially for its target audience.

First Half was alright for its time, now it's barely watchable for me, 3 and 4 are abysmal.