Worst SFX No.19: Superman (1978)

Published on Jan 6, 2009

Richard Donner's epic and untouchable superhero movie rightly won an academy award for its special effects, helmed by optical FX master Derek Meddings. Unfortunately Meddings had moved on to Moonraker by the time these inserts were needed, and had little input. That said, large-scale natural disasters continue to be the most challenging of all SFX shots, together with the creation of human faces, and the scaling problems of water will only yield so much to slow-motion, special mixtures and large-scale models. This is a 'Hornby' moment we're glad to overlook in the context of a geek classic…