SuperGirl:The Movie Series that Failed

[Shinzon2004]

Do you remember 1984 s SuperGirl ? The movie starring Helen Slater and Faye Dunaway? Well,what I dont understand,
what went wrong with this movie....I kind of like it,it seemed that the producers wanted to do a very good movie...However I must say that although the story was confusing at first....

When we meet Supergirl she is not a baby but rather a teenager who inmidiatly becomes a woman after her journey to Earth...
Also other confusing aspects was the fact that she was never raised by human parents,like Clark Kent did....Clark was raised by Jonathan and Martha Kent,while SuperGirl arrived with full knowledge of Earth and her powers developed already...

Add the fact that she already was wearing the S shield,sure that she was Superman s cousin,but why was she wearing the costume?The special FX werent that bad,I must say that
SuperGirl is far superior than Superman IV ....

Sure,many people hated Selena the witch but at least she wasnt boring like Nuclear Man and Ross Webster....I think that Selena had an interesting idea of world domination.Also we saw
the Phantom Zone in this movie....I think that it wasnt that bad as much people say,it was a noble effort of adapting a
comic book character.Also Jerry Goldsmith s score was great,
the fliying sequences are even more believable than in
Superman IV,and we even got to see Jimmy Olsen,
a direct connection to the Superman Movie Series.

Selena was annoying,no doubt,but she was smarter than
Nuclear Man....Helen Slater was gorgeous,I think that
she might had been inspired by the late Christopher Reeve
because she acted really well.Too bad that after the end of the movie a sequel,SuperGirl 2 never made it....

However it is my understanding that the late Chris Reeve was going to have a cameo a Superman in this movie.
I believe that if he didnt wanted to appear as Superman,
they could had at least had him appear as Clark Kent!

So,any ideas as to why a sequel was never made??
I heard that a new SuperGirl film is in the works,but I would love to see a direct sequel....

Did you liked SuperGirl??

All best stuff is made in Japan....

[Kal-L, The Original]

By the time of Supergirl the Salkinds were just trying to milk the Supes franchise for every penny they could get. It's why Superman III and IV sucked, also.

[Smallvillefanrajiv]

OMG with the bttf lines man

[axisoftime]

I agree Supergirl was better then Superman IV-id say it was just as good as III,Which still is not saying that much.Helen Slater was very good,and cute,too bad she didnt have more to work with.Right from the start,when theyre in Argo City and that butterfly thing penetrates the dome?geez,wouldnt they have some sort of shield b4 the main shield,just in case of accidents?And while i can see the dimensional ship materalizing in a lake-why and how could she be in a Super costume when she flies out of the lake?And how can she know Superman is Clark Kent?Or have instant knowledge of English and her powers?Too many questions unanswered.I heard Chris Reeve was supposed to be in it-as Superman at the end-but backed out at the last minute.

[Shinzon2004]

I have wild theories that could explain a lot.First,Kara speaking English is because TV sets have included a universal translator...
(Hey they should be speaking Kryptonian,but for us the audience a universal translator is necessary!)

Second it appears that the people of Argo City has been studyng Earth culture for some time,hence that Kara knows who Clark Kent really is.What it is not clear why did she got the costume...

Maybe she meet with Jor El off screen and that s how she got it...

You desintegrated Einsten!

[axisoftime]

Even if they were somehow 'viewing' Earth-how can they have the technology to view and not be able to contact them?I mean,any race that can build a space/time dimensional ship should have no trouble sending an sos or sumthin.I havent seen this film in a long time-maybe theyll show it again sumtime soon.I think there were a few good scenes-like when she fought that invisible monster and when she first discovers her powers.

[deusexmachina]

superman made visits to argo city supposedly afterhis sojourn with Jorel through space/time in the first movie . It is there that kara meets him or learns of him and his costume and presumably makes her own for one such occasion of visiting earth. They lived in "innerspace" so where she materialized into our dimension of space depended entirely where she entered the warp in her universe. I enjoyed the movie immensely and was disappointed that the character in smallville named kara was only a replication of his cousin. I should like that actress to portray supergirl in a new movie or superman sequel.

[jon-el87]

The first superhero movie with a female protagonist. Originally, Supergirl was going to be introduced in Superman III. In hindsight, they probably should've done that. Then Kara would've already have arrived on Earth and settled in, before going on her solo adventure, in her own movie. Instead we got a rushed origin. Kara is aware of her cousin being Superman, but we get no explaination to how she could know these things. She's also here on a mission, which she only have a few days to complete (otherwise everyone in Argo City will die), but she's wasting time by entering a private school.

Originally, Superman was going to be in the film, but Reeve pulled out. Aside from the fact that this forced them to adjust the script, last minute, I like the fact that the film had Superman be away from Earth. It places Kara in a situation, where only she can save the world. She can't run to Metropolis and get Superman to help her (or him doing it for her).

Ethan doesn't work as a love interest. Kara is like 15 and he's clearly an adult. I have no idea what they were thinking.

The appearance of Lucy Lane is a minor continuity error. In Superman The Movie, Lois mentions that her sister has three kids. Here she's 15 years old. However, I can overlook this error. In the other film, Lois never says the name of her sister. So, if DC ever does a Superman '78 series, they could easily explain it away, by saying that this version of Lois has two sisters.

I understand they wanted to include a character from the Christopher Reeve series. However, even McClure himself has acknowledged, that it got to a point that where he asked himself why he's even there. He wasn't going to mention Superman, nor introduce the two Kryptonians to each other. Also, I'm questioning the timeline. I assume he was in his late teens (18-19), when he first showed up in Superman The Movie, set in 1978. Assuming this takes place, the same year it was released, it's now 1984. Jimmy is then a 20-something year old guy, who begins a relationship with the 15 year old Lucy Lane. What were they thinking?

Kara's ability to morph her clothes makes no sense. I'm willing to overlook her ability to change hair color. We have technology to change hair color. Kryptonians are said to be thousands of years ahead of us, so it wouldn't be strange if they've advanced further with hair dye technology (allowing Kryptonians to change hair color, whenever they want to).

I'm surprised they didn't lift anything from the Supergirl comic, that DC was publishing at the time.

[Aurora Moon]

I agree that the movie's story wasn't well thought-out, and that's why it bombed.

I think there was a few ways that the movie could had been fixed:
1) Add some kind of intro at the start of the movie explaining how Superman found out about the bottled city of Argo, etc. They wouldn't need to show Christopher Reeve's face, just show him from the back and just show his chest to show the S-shield the entire time. This would fix the problem with Christopher Reeve pulling out of the movie to do other things... so we'd be using a stunt double here instead of Christopher Reeve. The bottled city of Argo city now resides in the fortress of solitude after Superman found it floating though space. That's easy to explain in 3 minutes or so.

2) The next scene would have Superman explaining to Argo city that he would be away for a while in outer space while on some kind of mission, and thus wouldn't be checking on the residents regularly like he typically did. Again his face would not be shown... just his chest. Imagine being a resident of the city and seeing this large S-shield covered chest hovering over your tiny city as Christopher Reeve's voice boomed though-out the city. (I imagine that Christopher Reeve would be okay with some voice acting even if he didn't personally appear in the movie).

3) This leads to Kara deciding that somebody needed to watch over the fortress while Kal-El was gone, and her parents agree. This leads to them making the outfit for her, and sending her though the dimensional plane that would allow her to return to "normal size" instead of being a shrunk down Kryptonian. During this process they also happen to explain that Clark/Kal-el had been very kind enough to give them access to Earth's television, so they knew what to expect out there.

4) However there would be still some culture shock for Kara, because seeing things on TV is very different to actually experiencing things in person. I imagine there would be a few comedic moments where Kara reacts comically to things like food, clothes, etc.

5) Lana Lang should be the one to befriend Kara in this movie. Lana would naturally be an adult by now, and tell others that Kara was her young cousin who were visiting America from a foreign city. This would provide Kara with a good cover, and also cover up for her peculiar reactions to things like food that was unfamiliar to her.

Of course this wouldn't fix ALL the problems with the movie but it could had helped smooth things out? Another thing to consider, with the story so dramatically changed in my version, the whole witch story-line wouldn't make much sense.
So instead, let's say that some villains learned that Superman wasn't around... so they decide that they could have fun wrecking stuff in Metropolis. Without Superman around to stop them, they feel that they can get away with doing that. But then Supergirl shows up.

I feel that this could lead up to a very excellent battle scene between Supergirl and a few villains who teamed up to stop her.