WW84, Superman 3 and Movies About Movies – Part 1: Visuals

[Please note – SPOILERS THROUGHOUT for WW84 and SUPERMAN 3]

With “Wonder Woman 1984”, director Patty Jenkins made a movie about movies, among many other themes, filming it in the distinct style of 1980s superhero (and action) films. And Jenkins expands on the source material, creating new roads branching off from old ones, a character driven spectacle filled with moral choices that both echo and address issues of the 1980s – along with the genre itself.

“Movies about movies” are nothing new. Many other directors have done “movies about movies” or in-genre tributes to a genre. Some of the most successful are Quentin Tarantino’s KILL BILL (and many others of his filmography) which was both a tribute to and filmed in the style of the wuxia genre (among many other genres) and Steven Spielberg’s RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK was both a tribute to and filmed in the style of serial filmmaking, Doc Savage, and the adventure films of John Huston and John Ford. I now think you can add Jenkins’ WW84 to that mix. Patty Jenkins’ WW84 is a tribute to 1980s superhero films AND done in the style of a 1980s superhero film. And like Tarantino and Spielberg, Jenkins creates a film that stands on its own. WW84 spins an original take on (1.) the visuals, (2.) characters and (3.) themes of the 80s superhero genre, creating something entirely new.

There’s a variety of ingredients. Of course there’s Richard Donner’s SUPERMAN films, but there are other films as well. There is also Donner’s 1985 film THE GOONIES and even the aforementioned RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1982). When WW84 was first released, a lot of people made that obvious connection to the Donner Superman sequel, SUPERMAN 2, including myself. But after multiple watches (5 and counting) there is one film that I could see in the fabric of WW84, even more than all the others: Richard Lester’s under-appreciated SUPERMAN 3 (1983). For me, SUPERMAN 3 became a lens to view Jenkins’ tribute to that very specific decade of the 80s as well as the films of that very specific superhero genre made during that decade.

A little personal history on me, Gus Gorman and Richard Lester’s Superman 3

Fair warning: in addition to being a big fan of Richard Donner and his SUPERMAN films – I am a bigger fan of Richard Lester and SUPERMAN 3. In fact, and hopefully you will not stop after reading this, SUPERMAN 3 might be my all-time favorite Superman film.

When I first saw the VHS box for Superman 3 in the late 80s, I was barely old enough to talk. My dad said I should go for SUPERMAN 1 or 2 or even the old George Reeves TV serials. But I also loved Richard Pryor – and knew him from seeing and listening to (*and not really understanding) his albums at my uncle’s house, watching “Silver Streak” and “The Toy” with my mom, and watching “Pryor’s Place” re-runs on Saturday morning TV.

I loved that vintage tape cover clamshell box. Even the summary on the back described Superman “vs. the king of computerized crime”. I loved Superman, I loved Pryor, and I loved computers. And I loved this movie. I even eventually convinced my dad to buy the tape for me as a birthday gift and watched it many times. But then I went to high school.

And as I grew older I understood that loving SUPERMAN 3 is not a “cool” thing to do. You need to like the first SUPERMAN, maybe the second, and definitely Tim Burton’s BATMAN. But SUPERMAN 3 was NOT cool. Its only saving grace is that for most people it was not as bad as SUPERMAN 4. But when I went to college and grad school, I learned about Richard Lester, SUPERMAN 3’s director, outside of the context of SUPERMAN 3. In fact, Lester is a highly acclaimed director with an entire career before he ever directed a frame of the Man of Steel. I watched A HARD DAYS NIGHT (his absolutely classic Beatles film). And then I watched his THE THREE MUSKETEERS. And then I remembered SUPERMAN 3. One could really appreciate the style of kinetic action, propulsive editing that are hallmarks of Lester’s style and on some level are still unmatched. This style had not really been utilized or referenced in big budget filmmaking – maybe here and there like some John Carpenter films and Michel Gondry’s GREEN HORNET reboot – until WW84.

Richard Lester started off doing TV for the BBC before forging a relationship with the Beatles directing A HARD DAY’S NIGHT for them. He then directed THE KNACK… AND HOW TO GET IT, a film which won the Palme D’Or at Cannes. Off that, he went on to direct a number of political films (which I think resonates with a director like Jenkins now) including PETULIA and HOW I WON THE WAR. These performed lower than expected at the box-office and he was forced to turn to more commercial work for his next film: THE THREE MUSKETEERS. This was a huge hit, so much so that even before release the producers, the Salkind family, sensed that the film would do so well that they decided to split it into two films – making THE FOUR MUSKETEERS, a built-in sequel forged from footage from THE THREE MUSKETEERS. This idea gave Lester back-to-back hits. Although it also created its own legal problems as compensation for Lester, the crew, and cast became a huge issue – but that’s another story.

Again, both MUSKETEER films were produced by the Salkinds, who would produce Richard Donner’s SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE a few years later. When the Salkinds and Donner parted ways during the film’s sequel, SUPERMAN 2, they brought in Richard Lester to finish the job. And I personally think SUPERMAN 2 is still largely Donner’s film. But when SUPERMAN 3 was greenlit, the Salkinds invited Richard Lester back. And Lester made SUPERMAN 3 entirely his own.

That can be seen from the first few frames to its last, as Lester revisits some of the physical action set-pieces he developed in films like A HARD DAY’S NIGHT as well as THE THREE MUSKETEERS, transposing kinetic action from the balconies of the 1800s and the streets of the swinging 60s London to modern day Metropolis. Lester uses spatial, temporal and object based action comedy – some might even call it “Rube Goldbergian”. If you don’t know what that means, it is referring to, via Wikipedia:a machine intentionally designed to perform a simple task in an indirect and overly complicated way. Usually, these machines consist of a series of simple unrelated devices; the action of each triggers the initiation of the next, eventually resulting in achieving a stated goal. See below for an example. If you’ve ever played the game “Mousetrap”, you get the idea:

In the case of SUPERMAN 3 (and later as we will see in WW84), the machine, performing an otherwise simple task in an overly complicated way, is the action sequence itself (more on that in a second).

But Lester also included more internal political themes in SUPERMAN 3 that were taken from his less successful films like PETULIA. These themes include the morality of power and the difficulties of reaching into the past for truth – both themes which resonate mightily in WW84.

If I can hopefully help unlock some of the reasons I appreciate WW84 – mostly by looking at it through the lense of SUPERMAN 3 then my mission is accomplished. I’m going to start with the visual similarities and work into character and thematic similarities. But I’d like to make the point that with this post, while I am pointing out similarities, Jenkins is not “cut and pasting” SUPERMAN 3 – or any of Richard Donner’s SUPERMAN films, this is an homage with a very distinct and purposeful methodology in WW84 completed for visual and thematic effect.

There is a big difference between homage and outright plagiarism or theft. Homage is taking something and transposing it, in your own style, into a new world, your world. Oftentimes the closer that the transposition is completed, the more the transposing is done for the purpose of commentary on the original work. George Lucas took from FLASH GORDON and JOHN CARTER and DUNE to create STAR WARS. Speilberg took from THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL and WAR OF THE WORLDS to create CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND. But the best analog is the aforementioned Spielberg’s RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. Spielberg and George Lucas took films like TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, AFRICAN QUEEN, STAGECOACH, DOC SAVAGE, and serials of the 20s and 30s including THE PERILS OF PAULINE and put their own spin on an adventure film that was entirely out of sync with 80s norms, and yet fit right in. It’s a fine line, but where Spielberg puts a modern spin on the tropes and characters and plots into a film like RAIDERS, Jenkins takes the action stylings, again making a film that feels so unique in our times and yet also fits right in.  Take a look at the amazing Stagecoach sequence originally performed by Yakima Canutt and the sequence done in its style in RAIDERS…

Was this copying? No. Because Spielberg put his own spin on it and made this sequence iconic in its own right. The new work can be superior to the original in certain if not all ways. And as much as I love SUPERMAN 3, there are plenty of places where WW84 is superior – especially in the final act and the thematic resolution to the film’s central conflict.

PART 1 – VISUAL COMPARISONS

The first and maybe most obvious point of comparison between WW84 and SUPERMAN 3 comes in the form of visuals. Throughout the film, there are a number of visuals in WW84 that are reminiscent of SUPERMAN 3 (visual similarities related to character and theme will be discussed in Part 2 and 3 of this essay), however the major sequences are at the beginning and end of the film – the opening sequence adn the finale.

1A.) Opening Sequences and Rube Goldberg-ian Action

As a kid, beyond the clamshell case and Richard Pryor teaming with Superman, it was the opening sequence of SUPERMAN 3 that really endeared me to the film. I can’t tell you how good it is by properly describing it. But you can see a low-res version of it here:

But seek out a nice 1080p copy of SUPERMAN 3 on HBOMax or at your favorite streaming service or blu-ray dealer, if you can. You can also see Patty Jenkins’ opening of WW84 in theaters or on HBOMax. And if you watch it, you can definitely see the influences. Now these two openings have much in common. Both Lester and specifically Jenkins are trying to point out the danger in the everyday. This is not the trenches of World War I or an assault from Zod. This is the world that we know. This is a street in Metropolis in SUPERMAN 3 or the streets of Washington DC and Georgetown in WW84. 

And yes, we are seeing places we know. But these are the candy colored versions of these idealized places. And the interesting thing is, in both Lester and Jenkins’ versions, we see them slowly fall apart before our very eyes. And in each case we see our hero, Superman and Wonder Woman respectively, do their best to put them back together.

As previously mentioned these sequences are Rube-Goldbergian in nature. But what does that mean for the sequence, and why does it make it so unique? I think its because most action sequences are conceived from a big idea and then broken out into smaller ideas. Example: a writer or director wants to do a bank heist. From there they then break down all of the places and ways that action can intersect the heist. But in the case of the Rube-Goldbergian action, we are forced to write from smaller incidents first. In the case of SUPERMAN 3, a street worker leaves his painting machine unattended, wind-up dolls on the loose, an open traffic pit all combine to a car crashing into a fire hydrant and filling up with water potentially drowing the driver, an amazing visual unto itself. That visual in fact seared itself into my head. And while it is powerful, I sometimes wonder if it would have been as powerful if it had not been preceded by the wind-up dolls, the MIA traffic painter, etc… In the case of WW84, we see a petty shoplift turn into a wedding day mishap that leads a bride over a ledge potentially into a wash, only to be saved by Wonder Woman’s lasso. We see a robbery gone awry turn into a kidnapping, turn into a hostage situation at the mall. Here the sum truly is greater than the parts.

The kinetic action direction from Jenkins, much like Lester’s direction previously, has a certain musicality connected to it, perhaps first cultivated by Lester in A HARD DAY’S NIGHT. It’s (1) set-up, then (2) calamity and (3) resolution – much like the aforementioned Rube Goldberg device. And in a way it is Rube Goldbergian storytelling as well. In the world of WW84, a problem solved is only a problem created. In WW84, we see our Wonder Woman Diana, going from event to event rescuing this society that is so sure of itself, its aerobics, arcades and mass consumerism, from mass extinction. This is a theme throughout the film – something solved is only something complicated – both externally in the terms of the dreamstone but also internally in terms of Wonder Woman/Diana Prince’s own desires. And this theme is first seen here, almost subconsciously, and entirely visually, in the opening minutes.

Also very important to note is that Maxwell Lord’s wonderful voiceover (courtesy of the brilliant Pedro Pascal) permeates throughout the entire opening, even into the mall and finishing just before the jewelry heist that is the crown jewel (I know – too much, but it’s the 80s so I am leaning to excess) of the sequence.

Let me leave you with some stills from both films for comparison. First, SUPERMAN 3:

And now, WW84:

1B.) Finales at a Super-villain’s Lair

The villain’s lair trope is a classic film device begun in films like NORTH BY NORTHWEST and perfected in early James Bond films. It is a particular hallmark of 80s films – from COMMANDO to LETHAL WEAPON 2. The lair is usually both a headquarters for a villain as well as the location of whatever their ultimate weapon might be and of course the location of the final battle. And if the openings of SUPERMAN 3 and WONDER WOMAN 1984 were showing us the terror in the everyday, then the finales of both films are the reverse, using the trope of the Super-Villain Lair to showing us the terror – now winning – in broad daylight (or broad moonlight in the case of WW84).

While SUPERMAN 3 began on the streets of Metropolis, it ends in a villain’s lair in the Grand Canyon, where main antagonist Ross Webster (more on him in a bit) is set to unleash the ultimate super-computer and its kryptonite ray on Superman which will allow him to take over the world’s oil reserves unfettered.

In WW84, we see a finale that also occurs at a “villain’s lair” – this time the island upon which a huge satellite is located that will allow Maxwell Lord to communicate with billions of people at the same time as it can hijack any signal (public or private). Moreover, Maxwell Lord is about to use the satellite to procure basically unlimited power by granting everyone’s wishes throughout the world via this communication as the people watch TV, look into his eyes and wish. Presumably he will also take over the world’s oil reserves.

In both WW84 and SUPERMAN 3, the ultimate weapons are both created with intentions for which the devices are not ultimately used. In SUPERMAN 3 it is supposed to be the world’s greatest computer, created by Gus (Richard Pryor’s character and more on him in a moment) but when Superman arrives and Gus realizes that Ross Webster has created a semi-sentient device connected to a deadly (for Superman) kryptonite ray, he is quick to help dismantle it.

In WW84, the broadcast satellite was presumably originally intended to promote the US foreign policy agenda, a potentially nefarious endeavor, that is taken to its most nefarious ends when Maxwell Lord uses it to claim wishes from the globe’s population which will lead to ultimate power for Lord. It is an ingenious bit of inverted design and planning that here we see the soundstage of the villain’s lair meant to look like the White House – an ultimate symbol of trust and leadership, perverted for the will of one man. The evil is now housing the good – whereas in the opening the word of good (streets of DC, the mall) was secretly housing evil.

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1C.) Practical and In-Camera Effects, Stunt and Wirework

Both SUPERMAN 3 and WW84 feature extensive use of in-camera practical effects and specifically wirework. The former did so out of necessity while the latter did so as homage and for psychological effect. In the past, wirework was used as a method to make a character appear to jump farther, run faster, or fly higher – prior to the advent of CGI. Wires were attached to the actor or stunt performer and then used to accelerate them throughout the scene. In post-production these wires were then rotoscoped out or in later years removed using computers.

I am not going to go so in depth as to the effects and wirework for Superman 3 as it was done out of necessity and is a built-in part of the film and not a stylistic choice like it was for Patty. And while some of the effects in SUPERMAN 3 are hit and miss there is one absolutely amazing practical effects scene where a truck loaded with logs falls off a towering bridge – using a combination of real effects and miniatures. Although the camera placement is not what is would be in the more enhanced CGI version that we would get today, knowing that it is real and seeing this from afar, really makes an incredible effect.

Using practical effects and wirework today is largely eschewed in favor of CGI. Wirework is used in many of the WW84 shots to make it look like Diana is leaping and flying both early on in the mall and later when she takes flight over Pennsylvania Avenue. But why does Patty Jenkins use this kind of stuntwork when she could have easily used a style more similar to the first WONDER WOMAN (2017) or BATMAN V. SUPERMAN?

I think it is because Patty wants to put us in the mindset of the 1980s and also, for some people like me, wirework looks better than CGI for certain shots. I think a lot of her jumping and leaping around the mall, which used practical effects and wirework heavily looked fantastic – and not at all with how your eye is familiar with superheroes normally flying around. It looked, to me at least, more real – because it was more real. For some, this is off-putting and actually makes it look less real to them because it looks less like the effects work that we have been used to seeing for almost three decades.

But I think by Patty using wirework, our minds not only get a better stunt, but also get into the mindset of the 1980s and 1980s films. It is a visual choice that taps into the subconscious and the viewer’s personal history with cinema. That is to say, all of these visuals really just lay the groundwork for Character and Theme. And we will take a look at those as the week goes on.

More to come on WEDNESDAY, when I publish PART 2 – CHARACTER ANALOGS…

Part 2 can be read here: https://noscoopsclub.com/2021/01/06/ww84vsuperman3-p2/

Part 3 can be read here: https://noscoopsclub.com/2021/01/08/ww84vsuperman3-p3/