I caught the sneak preview of Superman Returns last night. Very good movie, but you have to have a Bladder of Steel^TM to make it through the whole 2 ¹/₂+ hours.

My first impression is that Batman Begins was a better movie, but this one really conveys the sense of having both godlike power and human sensibilities. I need to see it a few more times and let it soak in. I thought that the flying special effects were AMAZING! I remember one of the taglines of the original movie was "You'll believe a man can fly" and that's never been more true.

Contrary to what some might expect, this is not a retelling or remake of the classic Christpher Reeve movies (the first couple anyway). This should be looked at as a sequel to those movies, and as an homage to Christopher Reeve himself. I highly recommend it if you are any kind of fan of truth, justice, and the American way.

Seeing this movie brought back to mind an extremely interesting forum posting entitled "Superman V: The Whole Sordid Saga" that made the rounds via e-mail a year or two ago. I'll let it speak for itself...

I found this online: the stange and evil tale of the production of Superman V. It spans decades, $50,000,000 is spent before they even have even settled on a writer or director. It's so horrible. It's out of date as it stops in the middle of 2004, but it's so horrible, you have to read it.

Disclaimer: I have no idea how much of the information in the forum posting is true. As the saying goes, "Disinformation wants to be free." And as far as I'm concerned, the Internet has become its natural habitat.

Since the original posting is so long, I've decided to be kind and summarize the highlights (and lowlights) in the extended body of this entry...