Superman 3 - Super Hearing

[cypher85]

So with Man of Steel opening up, and my wife having never seen SII-SIV, we are actually re-watching all of the films (including SII theatrical and Donner so she could compare). Well last night SIII was up, and I noticed something I have never noticed before. And I can't believe I've never noticed it.

During the picnic scene, when is using his super hearing listening for Ricky and hearing buster's cries...there are visual sound waves to imply that he is using his super hearing. And I gotta say it's pretty surprising that I have never noticed that before. But, it's also really really dumb. Ever since I was a little kid I always knew that he was using his super hearing. The audio and editing make this obvious. But, obviously Lester didn't think so and added the sound wave lines next to Clark's head.

[ye5man]

I always thought that was pretty cool

[crazy_asian_man]

During the picnic scene, when is using his super hearing listening for Ricky and hearing buster's cries...there are visual sound waves to imply that he is using his super hearing. And I gotta say it's pretty surprising that I have never noticed that before. But, it's also really really dumb. Ever since I was a little kid I always knew that he was using his super hearing. The audio and editing make this obvious. But, obviously Lester didn't think so and added the sound wave lines next to Clark's head.

To be fair, Smallville did add some visual cues for superhearing now and then, too.
At least it's something visual---something that never seemed to be much on Lester's agenda for the Superman films. if Lester had come up with more spectacular visuals for SIII, (after all, it's amazing that one great shirt rip sequence on film can be talked about decades later- imagine if all the stuff he added was as good as that? )- I probably would have given Lester a lot more slack than I do.

[Deleted]

It honesty never bothered me. Mainly because I never once noticed it until now

[cypher85]

Yeah, it's crazy to me that I hadn't noticed it before watching it last night.

And what else was very interesting to me, is that while Heidi clearly recognizes that SIII isn't as good as STM or SII, she was laughing at a good amount of the pryor stuff that's "supposed" to be funny. Though, Her big comment was that the opening right off the bat, with the slapstick, made the film feel less epic and theatrical. Regal was the word she used to describe how a Superman movie should be, and the opening of SIII doesn't have give that impression at all.

[EnriqueH]

I actually noticed them way back when the Reeve films first came out on DVD.

I'm indifferent to the effect, I guess, though part of me leans towards liking it. Particularly because it means I "discovered" something new about the Reeve films. No matter how trivial it is.

[Jack Tripper]

Now that I watched that clip again, I noticed his glasses are crooked the entire time during the scene.

[Deleted]

I noticed that on the Blu-ray version, I guess because of the better picture quality. Pretty cheesy. Guess it's no worse than the CGI effect on Smallville, which gave a close up of Clark's ear drum vibrating.

Hardly a big deal when what this movie really accomplishes is showing what an uptight stick-in-the-mud Superman can be.

[Tristan D]

Yeah it took me a few viewings on DVD before I noticed this one.

They used a similar effect in Supergirl, though IMO it was a little less comical:


In the context they're used in they're fine; Superman III and Supergirl both have their tongue-in-check. But I think it's a completely unnecessary effect. The change in the sound pitches was enough to signify that they were using superhearing.