UHD Review Superman IV: The Quest for Peace UHD Review (1 Viewer)

[Todd Erwin]

The Christopher Reeve era of Superman movies ends with a thud with Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, arriving on UHD as part of Warner’s Superman 5- Film Collection boxed set.



Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)



Released: 24 Jul 1987
Rated: PG
Runtime: 90 min




Director: Sidney J. Furie
Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi



Cast: Christopher Reeve, Gene Hackman, Margot Kidder
Writer(s): Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, Christopher Reeve



Plot: The Man of Steel crusades for nuclear disarmament and meets Lex Luthor's latest creation, Nuclear Man.



IMDB rating: 3.7
MetaScore: 24





Disc Information



Studio: Warner Brothers
Distributed By: N/A
Video Resolution: 2160p HEVC w/HDR



Aspect...

Continue reading...

 

[Lord Dalek]

The review doesn't mention this but the Atmos mix has taken some fire for featuring incorrect earlier takes of certain music cues such as the main title. Its unknown why that happened.

 

[Todd Erwin]

For a bit more insight on the production of Superman IV:

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I must’ve seen this and Masters of the Universe a thousand times on WPIX as a kid, and although neither are good, they were such huge staples of my childhood that I can’t help but watch them through those eyes and still enjoy watch I’m seeing. I can’t defend the film but I can defend my complete enjoyment of it.

 

[John Dirk]

Christopher Reeve made no secret of his feelings about this film. Other than the presence of the great Gene Hackman, I tend to agree.

How Superman IV's Christopher Reeve Threw Shade at the Film

Superman IV is not a good movie, and even Christopher Reeve himself found ways to throw shade at the film.

www.cbr.com

 

[Angelo Colombus]

The movie was talked about in the documentary Electric Boogaloo: The Wild Untold Story of Cannon Films. Never seen the movie but will check it out at my local library.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

The movie was talked about in the documentary Electric Boogaloo: The Wild Untold Story of Cannon Films. Never seen the movie but will check it out at my local library.

Grab a very large drink and/or a giant joint, turn off as many brain cells as you can, and just go with the utter ridiculousness of it all.

 

[Todd Erwin]

Grab a very large drink and/or a giant joint, turn off as many brain cells as you can, and just go with the utter ridiculousness of it all.

Saw that doc when it was on either Netflix or Prime Video. Very entertaining.

 

[Todd Erwin]

I must’ve seen this and Masters of the Universe a thousand times on WPIX as a kid, and although neither are good, they were such huge staples of my childhood that I can’t help but watch them through those eyes and still enjoy watch I’m seeing. I can’t defend the film but I can defend my complete enjoyment of it.

I am fairly certain that at least some of the $20 million cut from Superman IV’s budget was re-allocated to Masters of the Universe. Masters had Richard Edlund as VFX supervisor while Superman had poor Harrison Ellenshaw.

 

[Malcolm R]

The movie was talked about in the documentary Electric Boogaloo: The Wild Untold Story of Cannon Films. Never seen the movie but will check it out at my local library.

I'm not sure that I've ever seen it, either. I just picked up the older blu-ray anthology at Big Lots the other day, so I'll have to remedy that at some point.

With the big budget cut, I'm surprised the cast went along with filming. Seems like they all could have pulled out and made the case that it was no longer the film they signed up to make.

 

[Todd Erwin]

The movie was talked about in the documentary Electric Boogaloo: The Wild Untold Story of Cannon Films. Never seen the movie but will check it out at my local library.

Grab a very large drink and/or a giant joint, turn off as many brain cells as you can, and just go with the utter ridiculousness of it all.

Unfortunately that doc is out of print, both on physical media and digital. I just ordered a used DVD on eBay that wasn’t too expensive (under $10).

 

[Bryan Tuck]

The review doesn't mention this but the Atmos mix has taken some fire for featuring incorrect earlier takes of certain music cues such as the main title. Its unknown why that happened.

Such a bizarre error. It seems that someone went to a lot of extra effort to do it wrong.

At least the 2.0 stereo track appears to be authentic, though.

 

[Jonathan Perregaux]

It's a testament to how fantastic Superman: The Movie was that any of us are willing to sit through subsequent installments (in a 4K UHD box set, no less) of sharply diminishing returns.

Quality-wise, Superman II was pretty good I guess, but not great due to obvious Richard Lester issues. Superman III felt like a brick busting through a window and spoiling your living-room. Supergirl felt like a boulder smashing through a frozen lake and taking down a whole hockey team. And Superman IV felt like a marshmallow being dropped onto the surface of a neutron star.

 

[David_B_K]

It's a testament to how fantastic Superman: The Movie was that any of us are willing to sit through subsequent installments (in a 4K UHD box set, no less) of sharply diminishing returns.

Quality-wise, Superman II was pretty good I guess, but not great due to obvious Richard Lester issues. Superman III felt like a brick busting through a window and spoiling your living-room. Supergirl felt like a boulder smashing through a frozen lake and taking down a whole hockey team. And Superman IV felt like a marshmallow being dropped onto the surface of a neutron star.

Yep, unlike the first three Bond films, which generally increased in quality, the Superman films definitely declined in order. I loved the first one and saw it several times in the theater. I liked # 2 pretty well, and didn't dislike # 3 as much as I thought I would. I never got around to # 4. Besides the bad reviews, the plot sounded lame. I have the Blu-ray set with all the films, but I still haven't gotten around to # 4.

A question for people who have seen them all - I have also never watched the Richard Donner version of Superman II. I understand that the original Donner ending of it was basically the same as the ending we now have for #1; that in order to wrap up #1, they took the ending planned for #2 and stuck it on #1. One thing I have never seen mentioned is how would #1 have ended if they didn't use the ending they used from # 2? Did it not have an ending scripted? Was it never shot?

 

[Josh Steinberg]

One thing I have never seen mentioned is how would #1 have ended if they didn't use the ending they used from # 2? Did it not have an ending scripted? Was it never shot?

The original scripted ending had Superman stopping the missiles before they hit the Earth’s core, so that Lois never died and Superman never had to turn back time - he would have showed up in the nick of time to save the day. They felt that ending wasn’t big enough but were out of time to create a new idea, so the tool the big “turning back time” idea from the Superman II script and utilized it in the first film instead.

What the Donner Cut of II does to create some continuity and logical storytelling is to begin with a recap of the first film, but in that recap, it simulates the originally planned ending for the first film by showing Superman stop the missiles in time and then flinging them into space - and it’s that action that leads to the villains being freed from the Phantom Zone, thus setting the story in motion.

 

[David_B_K]

The original scripted ending had Superman stopping the missiles before they hit the Earth’s core, so that Lois never died and Superman never had to turn back time - he would have showed up in the nick of time to save the day. They felt that ending wasn’t big enough but were out of time to create a new idea, so the tool the big “turning back time” idea from the Superman II script and utilized it in the first film instead.

What the Donner Cut of II does to create some continuity and logical storytelling is to begin with a recap of the first film, but in that recap, it simulates the originally planned ending for the first film by showing Superman stop the missiles in time and then flinging them into space - and it’s that action that leads to the villains being freed from the Phantom Zone, thus setting the story in motion.

Awesome! Thanks for that info. I guess I need to revisit these films.

 

[Bryan Tuck]

The original scripted ending had Superman stopping the missiles before they hit the Earth’s core, so that Lois never died and Superman never had to turn back time - he would have showed up in the nick of time to save the day. They felt that ending wasn’t big enough but were out of time to create a new idea, so the tool the big “turning back time” idea from the Superman II script and utilized it in the first film instead.

What the Donner Cut of II does to create some continuity and logical storytelling is to begin with a recap of the first film, but in that recap, it simulates the originally planned ending for the first film by showing Superman stop the missiles in time and then flinging them into space - and it’s that action that leads to the villains being freed from the Phantom Zone, thus setting the story in motion.

Awesome! Thanks for that info. I guess I need to revisit these films.

To me, the way the "turning back time" sequence is edited in the Donner Cut suggests that it's acknowledging that Superman has done this before. But I could be reading that incorrectly. I guess it's a funny thing to suggest that if anything ever goes wrong again, Superman can just turn the world back and erase it.

I'm glad what we have as the "Donner Cut" was created, but it's still far from what we would have gotten if Donner and Co. had been able to finish their version way back when. It would have had better VFX, more polished editing, a proper score, and an actual ending. And I imagine it would have been better than any of the released versions. But unfortunately, that movie doesn't exist.

I think the SUPERMAN series is a really fascinating case study, as it was basically the first attempt at creating a big-budget superhero film franchise. The first movie is still an influence on "origin stories" to this day, and the sequels stand as a cautionary tale whose lessons are sometimes heeded, sometimes not.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

To me, the way the "turning back time" sequence is edited in the Donner Cut suggests that it's acknowledging that Superman has done this before. But I could be reading that incorrectly.

The way I take it is that from an in-universe perspective, it’s never happened before, but from a real world perspective the audience has seen that footage before, and Reeve is acting the loss of Lois in his closeups, not the situation with the Kryptonians, so they’re just kinda cutting around it and dropping it in there to convey the idea of the scene.

The turning back time thing to me is a big emotional swing that is very effective at conveying a feeling, but doesn’t really hold up to plot scrutiny. I’ll believe a man from another planet can fly, but i know turning the planet to rotate backwards wouldn’t reverse the flow of time. It’s funny the things our brains will and won’t accept.

 

[Bryan Tuck]

The turning back time thing to me is a big emotional swing that is very effective at conveying a feeling, but doesn’t really hold up to plot scrutiny. I’ll believe a man from another planet can fly, but i know turning the planet to rotate backwards wouldn’t reverse the flow of time. It’s funny the things our brains will and won’t accept.

It's one of the things that reminds me that these movies were largely inspired by Silver Age comics, and that it's not really plot logistics that make them work.

 

[Sam Favate]

The Superman series is like many other film series from the same period where only the first two films are worth your time: Alien, Terminator, (Tim Burton’s) Batman, Crocodile Dundee. Heck, the argument can be made to include the original Star Wars trilogy in that list. I’m sure there are others.