10 Reasons Why Richard Donner's Superman Is Still Awesome

Krypton has been depicted in a variety of ways over Superman's history, but Donner's version is easily the most recognisable. Designed to be pristine and crystallic, it has an immediately alien feel but without going too surreally sci-fi. This aesthetic is then also used for the Fortress of Solitude, sprouting from the ground when Clark drops a crystal into the arctic water.

Production designer John Barry, another veteran of Star Wars, did a fantastic job with just a few models and a lot of imagination; it's incredibly impressive for the 1970s.

The designs are so perfect that many have dared not touch them. Whilst Krypton has since been reinvented several times, Barry's version of the Fortress is still being used to this day on Supergirl.

The DCEU has yet to establish its own version of Superman's hideout (not counting the crashed Kryptonian ship from Man of Steel), so it's yet to be seen if the franchise will figure out how to reinvent this design firmly embedded into the Superman mythos.

Interesting trivia fact here: it was actually Marlon Brando who came up with the idea of the Superman S being the crest of the El family, with the other Kryptonians wearing crests representing their own houses; a fantastic idea that adds an extra layer to meaning to the symbol and is still used to this day.

It's just a pity that no one corrected Brando on his pronunciation of the word Krypton.