9 Oddly Specific Things Zack Snyder Stole From The Original Superman Movies

3. Evil Superman Is Just New Superman

In Superman III, Richard Pryor plays an inexplicable computer genius who gets in way over his head and becomes the stooge of part-Luthor replacement, part-Bond villain Robert Vaughn, who is, of course, obsessed with bringing down Superman. Their first attempt involves replicating Kryptonite, which doesn't go quite as planned; instead of incapacitating Superman, it just turns him into a bit of dick. Various plot synopses describe this as "Evil Superman", but there's not much evil going on. He chooses to stick about with hottie Lana Lang instead of saving an unmanned truck, rights the Leaning Tower of Pisa, then gets really drunk. I mean, none of that's good, but he's just got a general disregard for others and is really conflicted about that. He also gets a noticeably darker version of the classic costume. Wait a second... isn't that just Henry Cavil's version of the character? Superman has always been regarded as a very uptight, PC superhero, and Superman III's darker version was an attempt to highlight how the all-American good boy is actually preferable to something more complex (well, that and be a messy adaptation of Bizarro). In an ironic twist, the oddly similar changes were made for Man Of Steel with an opposite goal - that the boy scout was more nuanced. Didn't quite work, did it? OK, so this one's a little facetious, but the parallels are too blatant to not bring up.