Tamarah and I stopped in Target tonight to pick up Superman Returns and some diapers (husbands secret plot: buy a Wii) when I stumbled across something entirely unexpected and that I’d not previously been aware of: Superman II – The Richard Donner Cut.
Tam and I just finished watching it and… wow. Un-frickin’-believable! Absolutely worth every single penny. This flick demands to be in any geeks library. Let me explain…
If you have ever watched Superman II and thought any of the following, you must watch this film:
- Whats with all the A-Team stunts and action sequences? Jeeps flipping for no reason? And what about that flamethrower scene when they use Puff: The Magic Dragon like cartoon rotoscoping?
- Did someone forget the plot?
- WTF is wrong with Superman? He gives up his powers without a second thought?
- Louis clearly doesn’t love Kal’El. She loves the power, there is absolutely no love or meaning between them.
- Louis is nothing but a whiny, shallow bitch.
- WTF was with that magical memory erasing kiss at the end?
- Why was Ms. Teschmacher even in the film? And why is she still with Lex? Just to fill a plot gap?
- “The son of our jailor”…. thats it? The only survivors of Krypton and thats as deep as it goes?
- How in the hell did Superman get his powers back? Scream. Find green crystal. Powers back. Um… WTF? And the ice face sculpture of Jar’EL… whats that about? Just a nifty wipe?
- WTF was with all that crap in Niagara Falls? Falling in a fireplace? The horrible dialog? Louis jumps over the edge? Weak!!!
- … on and on and on.
My friends, I’m happy to report that if you’ve thought any of the things above you are, a) not alone, and b) Richard Donner totally agrees with you and never intended any of that crap in the first place.
Without giving any spoilers I’ll say that Louis is an surprisingly complex character, not the shallow whiny bitch she was drawn out to be. Superman isn’t as stupid, shallow, and nieve as he was made out to be when giving up his powers. Kal’EL hits you with a bomb that is extremely powerful, something you don’t see coming in the plot that explains a lot and gives any parent a really thought provoking lesson and insight…. Tam and I had to stop the film after that scene to talk about it. Also interesting is that the Superman Returns line “The father becomes the son, and the son becomes the father” is drawn directly from this film, and if it was in the “original” (ie: non-Donner cut) it was so weakly delivered that I don’t remember it.
I was entirely impressed with this cut. I’ll be honest and say that there were 2 things that didn’t make much sense, and I’m hoping that when I have time to listen to the full commentary they’ll be explained, but I’ll leave it to you to watch the film and figure out what those are. (Or likely wait for someone to put them in the comments of this entry.)
Speaking of films, while at Target I also picked up Superman Returns: Special Edition which looks awesome since I didn’t get to see it in the theaters and one that I’m really excited about, the new King Kong: Three-Disc Deluxe Extended Edition. I know a lot of people disliked King Kong, but honestly I found it exciting, deeply moving, and brilliantly created. Now I just need a 52″ Plasma… feel free to donate one to cuddletech for Christmas. 
Hey, speaking of Superman 2 I think you’ll like yesterday’s PVP comic
http://www.pvponline.com/article/3005/wed-nov-29
is it actually really that much more to watch?
Cailin: NIce.
Kashif: Yes. Its not the same movie at all. Small spoilers might included: A) Louis figures out that Clark is superman in the first 5 minutes and then jumps out of the Daily Planet (not Niagara falls) window. B) She shoots Superman to force him to admit, after Clark gets tired of being compared to Superman and stands up for himself (for once). On ya, and Superman melts down the Fortress of Solitude.
So YES there is a lot to watch. This is not some small edit, this is an entirely different movie that happens to share a lot of scenes. Lots of scenes are brand new and never scene, many only tapes for screen tests.
I will concur with this: this is an entirely different movie, not just a few scenes added in. It is just unbelievable how seamless the plot is in this one, and how mature a film it is. I was just blown away. We’re watching it again tonight
I read this whole entry twice and the comments before I realised who the heloo “louis” (loo ee??) is. LOIS lol.
The “Donner CUT” while 95% superior to the original Superman II, is in no way without its share of undeniable flaws. Everything is great up until the end; Superman destroys the Fortress of Solitude with his Heat Vision; but the Fortress is visited by Lex Luthor in Superman Returns, Oops. Secondly, when Superman reversed time… “The Second Time” the first would be in “Superman the Movie” (He really ought to talk to Doc Brown in “Back to the Future” because the space time continuum was definteley disrupted) anyhow.. Secondly when Superman reverses time: He completely eradicates the entire movie. Once he sends the Super villians back into the Phantom Zone, nothing in the entire movie ever happend. So what becomes of the love child of Superman and Lois, who is a prinicple character in Superman Returns. And the whole stunt at the end with the Bully in the Cafe is pointless…(also never happened). I am a huge fan of the Superman Movies but as much as we may disagree with some of the unexplained phenomenon in the Original Superman II, it conflicts much less with the aforementioned Superman Returns.
SUPERMAN the MOVIE was not originally intended to end with Superman flying around the earth and reversing time. Because both movies were being shot at the same time SUPERMAN the MOVIE missed it’s first deadline for a summer realease. In order not to miss the second deadline for a Christmas Holiday season release, filming of SUPERMAN II ceased and a quick decision was made to use the ending of SUPERMAN II(reversing time) as the ending for SUPERMAN the MOVIE. Richard Donner was fired before he could shoot a new ending to SUPERMAN II. That was unfortunate because the reasons for his firing were all wrong and it is now obvious to everyone that his version is the superior by far!
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I disagree. The Lester version is actually 95% better than the Donner cut. Fact!
Very interesting article: “Superman II – The Richard Donner Cut”
I must say the Donner cut made Clark’s motivation for giving up his powers much more compelling. Given that, I found it even more frustrating that Lois would not speak up, take Jor-El’s side, and remind Clark how much Superman inspires people, and admit to herself that it is Superman who she initially fell in love with. So maybe Lester was trying to minimize a plot hole there by eliminating those scenes. It’s too bad, Reeve’s acting is the strongest and most passionate of the entire series in this scene, but for me it was so excruciating to see Lois far in the background, being completely silent, offering no input to the biggest decision the love of her life will ever make. In the long run, this scene accentuated the plot hole for me. If Lois had been asleep in the afterglow of Superfornication while all this went on, well now, that would have made better sense character-wise.
I am glad that the new scenes with Lois portray her as a much more clever person than the old cut did. I do have a problem with her pulling a gun on Clark and betting his life on her suspicions. Also, I don’t buy how quickly Clark confessed to being Superman. Even though a bullet wouldn’t harm him, wouldn’t he still be able to tell whether or not he was hit by a bullet? Suppose he couldn’t tell the difference between being shot and um…not being shot, wouldn’t he at least have to consider the case that Lois might have missed? I could accept that he was overly eager to spill his secret to Lois, but that is not how it is conveyed in the Donner scene (it is portrayed exactly that way in Lester’s stumbling into the fire scene)
Also, I found the recap/missile scene in the beginning pointless and boring (why did the scene where he kisses Lex’s girlfriend make the cut?), not to mention the fact it creates problems (where were the Kryptonians when Superman was reversing time the first time?) The Eiffel tower version is much more exciting.
I did always hate the “magic kiss”, I’m glad that is gone. Donner’s cut is an improvement in many areas, though I’m not convinced its a better movie. I think if both sides would have been a bit more amicable way back in the day we would have ended up with better movies.
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Also, I found the recap/missile scene in the beginning pointless and boring (why did the scene where he kisses Lex’s girlfriend make the cut?)sdf
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