Soaring back to Superman III

This past week I found myself with a good amount of free time. $14.75, two sacks of popcorn, and a full bottle of Visine later I am still shaking my head about the poor decisions I made. There are very few times in life where you start to compare poor decisions made against poor decisions escaped and frankly during Jackass 3D, The Wolfman & The Lovely Bones I started to wonder if I should have considered my alternative options (streaking a tiger’s cage, finally mailing my whole stack of Casper Van Dien fan letters, joining Facebook). Luckily, a forgotten gem by the name of Superman III was patiently awaiting my attention on the DVR and like the hero that it was in 1983, it flew in to save the day. If you have not seen this movie in the twenty-seven years since it came out you owe it to yourself to take a walk down memory lane to a time when computers required keys, non-descript henchmen quickly built overly complicated machines, and Superman got infected with Bad-Superman only to have the ghost of Clark Kent eventually leave the body of Bad-Superman and then kill Bad-Superman somehow leaving just the ghost of Clark Kent.

Plenty of actors have played Superman and, with Hollywood’s current lack of new ideas, plenty more will don the cape and boots in the future (cape and boots would have been my costume for my aforementioned “streak a tiger’s cage” option). I can’t see anyone having the combination of look, sound and charisma that Christopher Reeve brought to the character. I hate to use the same analogy in two consecutive reviews so I won’t say that Reeve was born to play the Superman character. How about if I say he was conceived to play the character. From that point it is all just a crap shoot anyway, isn’t it? I have not looked at my birth certificate in some time (I do recall inspecting it for typographical errors upon birth) but is there a “Reason for Birth” section? If not, there should be. If Matthew and I can ride this blog wave of popularity all the way to Pennsylvania Avenue I think that will be the first thing I review. It may not solve any problems or cure any diseases but think of the fun new born babies will have at cocktail parties in fifty years! And isn’t that the reason we all want to be The President (remember, the children are our future, teach them well and let them lead the way).

But enough about the future, let’s talk about the past. For those of you following this blog, if you are roughly my age then you are part of the last generation to remember a time without computers and cellular telephones. I am not talking about all computers (digital computing dates back to the 1930’s) but about the modern personal computer. Superman III is a hilarious glimpse back at the limitations of early modern computers. Richard Pryor is the comic relief in this film, portraying a computer genius named Gus Gorman. Unhappy with his weekly “donation” to Uncle Sam, Gus hatches a plan to steal the change-remainder (the left over half cents on everyone’s paycheck) from all of his co-workers. Editorial Comment: Now you know where Mike Judge came up with the idea for Office Space.

Being a “computer genius,” Gus pulls off the scheme to perfection and get’s himself about ninety thousand dollars. Unlike Office Space though, the error is quickly noticed by business owner Ross Webster (played by former A-Team regular Robert Vaughn) who instead of punishing Gus asks him to program a government satellite to ruin the Colombian coffee crop. Like all government satellites, there is a terminal in an office in Smallville which is secured by two Fisher-Price keys both of which are unsecured but they have to be turned simultaneously in locks which are outside of arm’s length. This is a great security measure and probably more effective than passwords and encryption (or simply just hiding the keys). Right after I am done with this review I am going to rig up an ignition switch on my Hewlett-Packard, I can’t have some “computer genius” using my laptop to cover his position in Orange Juice futures.

I was kind of hoping when the computer came up that its first line of text would be “would you like to play a game? And then “how about a nice game of chess?” To which Gus would type in “right now let’s play global thermal nuclear war.” Surprisingly, that didn’t happen. Instead the computer just asked Gus what longitude and latitude he would like the satellite to destroy. Of course Gus was not able to destroy the crop as Superman came to the rescue. I can’t imagine that Superman has enough time on his hands to save one country’s seasonal coffee harvest so I will just assume that he owed a favor to Juan Valdez.

Skipping ahead to the middle, after seeing the power of his computer “genius,” Gus decides he wants a little taste of the riches he is helping to produce. Like all good entrepreneurs, Gus has sketched out the world’s first super-computer on a napkin and wants Ross to build this computer using the napkin as a schematic to guide four non-descript henchmen. No problem! The super-computer is easily built by the henchmen and it is also equipped with rockets, a missile and the 8-bit graphics capability of the original Nintendo system.

My favorite part of the computer (beyond the fact that it was powered exclusively by an unprotected Phillips screw) is that it shot out a giant hamster ball to combat its enemies. Now, I don’t know if this feature was part of the original napkin drawing or if it was just a nice henchmen upgrade, but having a fall back plan is always a super-computer must. I am sure our own Army Generals have a manual somewhere that says after you ask questions first and then shoot, if that does not work encase the combatant in a hamster ball. As you may have guessed, the computer shoots the ball at Superman and he becomes encased in it. Normally, I would think that the Man of Steel would not be fazed by such an apparatus. I would have guessed that he would have smiled politely, maybe done a few cool bouncing stunts and then excused himself from the ball using one of his many powers. In this case, Superman seemed to struggle mightily with the ball and even appeared to be having problems breathing.

As we have all seen Superman and Superman II, it seems common knowledge that Superman came from another planet and that he often flew around in space for both leisure and business purposes. So, if he is comfortable traveling and flying in space why would he have any problems breathing in a hamster ball? Does he need oxygen on earth but not in space? Maybe he was just laughing so hard that he couldn’t catch his breath.

Soon after the failed hamster ball defense tactic, the computer became self-aware (I-Robot, Eagle Eye, Terminator, etc.), turned Ross’s sister into a robot using excess network cable, gently threw Ross’s girlfriend against the wall, and fired all of its remaining defenses against Superman including Chia grass, the Snuggie and a glob of Calgon (ancient Chinese secret). If only Gus had been at a restaurant with bigger napkins he could have drawn up additional defense mechanisms including a better disguised “Off” switch!

In the end, Superman defeated the world’s first super-computer whereby setting Microsoft back six months in their production of the world’s second super-computer. And, in an unexpected turn of events, Superman gave Gus a jive handshake and flew him off to a job interview at a coal plant. I have to admit, I did not see that one coming!

So, to wrap this one up, computers have come a long way in the past twenty seven years. Unfortunately, the “home” key is still the most misleading button on the keyboard!

Warren