by Ryan Burton

Created on: September 02, 2008   Last Updated: March 02, 2011

When it comes to movie franchises, there are debates as to whether or not they should be rebooted or not. There is always fear that new versions won't play true to the original material. especially, new fans. So should they reboot the Superman franchise? The answer would be no.

In 1978, fans of the Superman character were treated to a spectacular version of the character with "Superman: The Movie." The film succeeds on many levels of reality. Especially, when it has an unknown actor named Christopher Reeve in the title role. With Reeve, you had a Superman people could look up to at any age. His version is full of strength, kindness, and determination that you would expected from reading the Superman comic books. Next you had a story which took itself seriously. It wasn't just in the way of "canon" with the origin story, nor was it cartoonish in anysense, but the settings and the depicition gave you a sense of reality that this might actually be happening. Also taking the special effects into consideration. During that period of the 70's, the film-makers were not sure if they could ever make Superman fly. These effects were reveolutionary, and they had texture.Not with today's CGI effcts were you can look closely, and tell how fake they look.

 What made the "totally" work its principle that the director, Richard Donner, had coined as verisimilitude. The word itself means truthfullness, and keeps to the reality of what you are telling. It allows the film its sense of honesty, and made many people believe that it was real. Or more simply put: it made you believe a man can fly

That principle was later passed on to many great directors. Including Christopher Nolan when he revamped the Batman series in 2005, and gave it a very realistic in bothits size and scope. Bryan Singer also made use of it when he brought the X-Men series to the big screen. He adopted the characters from the Marvel Comics, and blended them realistically into "our world". It was only by a matter of fate that Singer would go on to direct his next film: "Superman Returns".

Ever since the 20 year absence of Superman from the big screen (1987's "Superman IV: The Quest for Peace"), there were debates about doing a sequel (which even at the time before Christopher Reeve became paralyzed was uncertain), or should you just start over from scratch. The series clearly suffered with part 3 and 4 because they

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