Superman IV: The Quest for Peace

"Madam secretary. Honorable delegates. Ladies and gentlemen. For many years now, I've lived among you as a visitor. I've seen the beauty of your many cultures. I've felt great joy in your magnificent accomplishments. And I have also seen the folly of your wars. As of today, I'm not a visitor anymore, because the Earth is my home too. We can't live in fear, and I can't stand by and watch as we stumble into madness of possible nuclear destruction. And so I've come to a decision. I'm going to do what our governments have been unwilling or unable to do. Effective immediately, I'm going to rid our planet of all nuclear weapons."

"Once more, we have survived the threat of war and found a fragile peace. I thought I could give you all the gift of the freedom from war, but I was wrong. It's not mine to give. We're still a young planet. There are galaxies out there. Other civilizations for us to meet and to learn from. What a brilliant future we could have. And there will be peace – there will be peace when the people of this world want it so badly that their governments will have no choice but to give it to them. I just wish you could all see the Earth the way that I see it. Because when you really look at it, it's just one world."

"[to Clark Kent, about Superman] Well, if he can't manage and if he really is in trouble, then there's, uh, there's a few things I'd like to tell him. I'd tell him that I will always cherish the time we spent together. And I never expected anything in return and no matter how few minutes I saw him for, it always made me happy. And I would tell him, that I love him. And that I'll always love him. And that whatever happens to the world, I, I know that he's doing his best to make sure it'll be all right for the rest of us."

"Lenny, I've always considered you the Dutch Elm disease in my family tree."

"Lenny, let's try and keep your IQ a family secret."

"[to Lenny] He gets his energy from the sun. Without it, he's like you at night - useless."

"[to Superman] This is my nephew Lenny. He worships me."

"[to Superman] You know, you're a work-o-holic. Don't you ever stop, smell the roses, huh?"

"[to Superman] A toast. To a nice guy who's about to finish last."

"[repeated line] Destroy Superman."

"Prison Inmates: (Luthor has an annoying habit of whistling Mozart on the rock pile, to prove his intellectual superiority) Hey, everybody, Mozart's back!! (Chain gang inmates line up and whistle Mozart in unison)"

"FLYING THROUGH NEW DANGER THIS SUMMER"

"Nuclear Power. In the best hands, it is dangerous. In the hands of Lex Luthor, it is pure evil. This is Superman's greatest battle. And it is for all of us."

"The movie does not do justice to the script at all. The script was actually pretty clever. The script was basically that a kid asks Superman to get rid of all the nuclear weapons in the world, saying, 'You're Superman! Why can't you do it?' That was a much bigger part of it than a lot of the really dumb Nuclear Man stuff that ended up being used. It ended up with Superman basically deciding that's something Earthlings are going to have to do for themselves, which I thought was an important message at the time. When I finally did see the movie, every frame of it hurt me physically. [Laughs.] I'd had such high hopes for it that… To feel like you're a part of the downfall of something that you had hoped to resurrect, that's a tough thing to take."

"Gene showed up to set and I told him what to do, where to look and all that. He had to do this whole speech about the "primeval swamp" or something like that. So, he asked me where the primeval swamp was, and I told him that we'd have to shoot it later, but for now, he would just look offscreen. So he erupted, "You call yourself a director? How am I supposed to play this scene without seeing the primeval swamp?" And I just said, "Well, Gene, you're an actor. Isn't that what actors do? This is not Shakespeare. If anyone can fake it well, you can". And it wasn't quite the same after that, to be honest."

"This film's social conscience, which fortunately is presented with a minimum of self-righteousness, also leads Superman to the United Nations, where he makes a speech and promises to rid the world of nuclear weapons. He is then seen gathering missiles into a gigantic mesh shopping bag, spinning it around and flinging it into the sun, where it explodes. The Superman series gets more and more whimsically outrageous as it goes along. The cast wears costumes that are swanky but very strange, and the dialogue is also unexpectedly funny at times, as when Luthor pronounces Superman a workaholic and advises him to stop and smell the roses. There's also a new character, a solar-powered blond titan (Mark Pillow) created by Luthor as a rival for Superman, to keep the action moving. Threadbare as it's beginning to look, the Superman series hasn't lost its raison d'etre. There's life in the old boy yet."

"We were also hampered by budget constraints and cutbacks in all departments. Cannon Films had nearly thirty projects in the works at the time, and Superman IV received no special consideration. For example, Konner and Rosenthal wrote a scene in which Superman lands on 42nd Street and walks down the double yellow lines to the United Nations, where he gives a speech. If that had been a scene in Superman I, we would actually have shot it on 42nd Street. Richard Donner would have choreographed hundreds of pedestrians and vehicles and cut to people gawking out of office windows at the sight of Superman walking down the street like the Pied Piper. Instead, we had to shoot at an industrial park in England in the rain with about a hundred extras, not a car in sight, and a dozen pigeons thrown in for atmosphere. Even if the story had been brilliant, I don't think that we could ever have lived up to the audience's expectations with this approach."

"The story, which Christopher Reeve dreamed up in an attempt to make "Superman" more socially relevant, finds the man of steel persuading the leaders of the world to surrender their nuclear missiles and detonate them in deep space. But there is something our hero does not realise: Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) and his gormless nephew Lenny (Jon Cryer) have planted a fiendish device inside the weapons that, when detonated, creates an indestructible android programmed to wreak havoc on Earth. The ensuing battle between Reeve and Nuclear Man (Mark Pillow) is desperate stuff, involving the destruction of the Great Wall of China, and Superman coming to the rescue of a runaway subway train (unconvincingly shot on the London Underground). The rest is scarcely better and makes no sense, probably because over half an hour of material ended up on the cutting room floor. A sorry finale for a much-loved series."

"Christopher Reeve - Superman / Clark Kent"

"Margot Kidder - Lois Lane"

"Gene Hackman - Lex Luthor / Nuclear Man (voice)"

"Jackie Cooper - Perry White"

"Jon Cryer - Lenny Luthor"

"Mark Pillow - Nuclear Man"

"Mariel Hemingway - Lacy Warfield"