Donner Superman 2 SE (merged thread) - Page 10

This is very interesting:

http://thecinemaforums.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=129

Uh huh... and we're getting a director's cut of Batman Forever right? Oh wait...

I've got my fingers crossed for a much deserved SE treatment of Superman II.

Well, I guess the only good news is that the decision making process (now in it's fourth year?) is finally winding down. We'll probably know within the next six months if this is ever going to happen. I think that they would be foolish to just include the alternate scenes as deleted supplements, because out of context the impact would be diminished. If they have the money and the means, any excuse not to would be a poor one.

I just saw the so-called "restoration" of Superman II that's been floating around, and it only strengthened my belief that Donner's cut is not only possible, but a *very* different film.

Scene after scene by Lester is either competely unnecessary, was reshot or corrupted by mindless inserts of comedy (check out the hick during Zod's arrival on Earth). You have a film made of tension, violence, emotional vulnerability and personal responsibility that has been reduced to a cartoon sidetracked by the stereotyped Americans who supposedly inhabit Superman's world. This version not only restored some of Donner's more interesting moments, but far more embarrassing elements from Lester that were wisely left out of the theatrical print.

The most surprising revelation I found was that the Salkinds not only tore Brando out of the film, but reduced Hackman's presence as much as possible. They cut a lot of his best lines, some closeups and his goodbye. This was obviously some pathetic attempt to punish him for refusing to do reshoots. So it stands that we would have, if this true restoration goes through, a film showcasing extraordinary unseen performances from all 3 of its leads.

Lastly, some very subtle issues would be solved that already became much more apparent in this version. Once Luthor's scenes are completely restored, you have a structure far closer to that of the first film. The parallel narrative of following both Superman and Lex Luthor is far better represented here. Also, several tiny bits of both visual and expositional information from the first film (Lois & Superman's interview/flying sequence, Clark's discovery of the Fortress of Solitude, etc.) is brought full circle.

Most of this unfolds during a nearly uninterrupted Donner period, from the point of Superman tricking Luthor & Zod to a heartbreaking goodbye when he takes Lois back to her apartment after destroying the Fortress. When you see this entire sequence for the first time, you can't help but be upset that such a wonderful series of scenes were dropped by the producers and Lester. The quality and tone of these moments are the last you'll need to be convinced that the restoration of the remaining Donner footage is going to be everything you hoped for.

I remember seeing the longer version on TV in the 80's after seeing the shorter version at the cinema. I prefer this longer version as it did explore more hackman/reeve 'chemistry' and a better storyline. I loved lex's speech about being his manager and how his comission drops from 50/50 to 90/10 to 100/0...

MESSAGE TO WARNER BROTHER'S:
"I'd upgrade to this DVD in a second" JUST RELEASE IT!!!!!

Donner has to agree to it, and far as I know, he's not touching it. He might be persuaded...we shall see.

At this point, Ill take the Donner footage as supplimental material.

ITs better than nothing - I just want to see it.

I dont think I have heard any definitave answer from Donner about his stance on working on a SE of Superman II "Donner Cut" or otherwise. Some have reported that he has expressed interest in working on a SE in some capacity, if I recall correctly. Hopefully any SE of Superman II will live up to the highest potential that is possible.

Sounds quite promising.

I'd love for Donner to be involved, but why does he have to agree to anything? We've already had two versions of Superman 2(TV and regular), with his footage used and edited without him for 24 years, why not a third version?

Warner Bros said a few years ago that they wouldn't recut Superman II without Richard Donner's involvement, and possibly Richard Lester's involvement, as well.

Donner has said that he'd like to recut the film, but he wants Warner Bros to ask him to do it.

I'd say now would be a good time for them to start asking.

I agree, James. WB really needs to get Donner on board with this thing so we can get a proper release of Superman II. Nothing would make me happier than being able to take my current copy out in the driveway and light it on fire because it sucks so bad.

the good news is that richard lester wants nothing to do with it.. its really between donner, warner bros and the salkinds..

good luck.

JACOB

When they did the new version of Superman I for the dvd, how hands-on was Donner in that? I'm just curious what would constitute his involvement. Here's hoping...

Not as hands-on as he should have been, really. He did decide what footage to put back in, and approved the new sound mix. But a lot of people think it was more Michael Thau's project than Donner's.

Not to sound so lame....

but I really hope Warners' goes with at least deleted scenes on 3 and 4. I'd love the alternate opening to 3....

Moreso than anything else, I'd love to get a new Superman: The Movie DVD with the original cut and sound mix. I still haven't gotten used to the new sound effect used in the opening credits.

I'll gladly take the deleted Donner scenes from SII as extras. There's some really good stuff in there, like the farewell between Lois and Superman outside her penthouse. Only the last part of that made it into the film.

I really do hope Donner gets involved with SII. He probably wouldn't have wanted all the scenes from the TV version in there, just like not all of the scenes from the TV cut of the first film were included on the DVD.

However, I'm definitely interested in this box set. As much as I dislike #4 and a good portion of #3, I might buy it if the supplements are interesting enough.

#2 is hopefully their main priority, though.

Great post Drew. Watching the "Restored International Cut" has made me want to see a re-cut of Superman II more than ever. Even without the trivia track on, you can see the different directions Donner and Lester were taking the movie. Just watch the way the villains are treated (comic-relief vs. menacing). Maybe somoene should start one of those letter writing campaigns again.

As much as I hate Superman 4, I'd buy it just to see the cut scenes of Nuclear Man #1. Read about that for years and would like to finally see it.

There is really so much potential for a new SE boxset of the Superman Films that I fear the final product will ultimately not live up to expectations. S:TM was well done as a SE and since it was issued as a DVD-18 it is essentially a 2-Disc SE. It would be nice to include the theatrical version as well as the "Director's Cut" (although, I don't believe that the D.C. really hurts the film at all) The original effects track might be difficult as, IIRC, the original stems were damaged beyond restoration and that is the reason that they had to go with a new effects track. I would like to see all the deleted footage and it would even be better if they could include the all footage (KCOP) version as a viewing option.

Superman II could still be a very interesting SE even if Donner was not involved. A new documentary about the history of the film (warts and all) is a no brainer as well as the deleted Donner footage (if it was not included in the film itself) I'm sure there is someone out there, if not Donner or Lester who could provide a decent commentary track on what was going on with the film. Of course the real treat would be the deleted Brando footage, which, if rumor has it, was cleared for use by W.B. for some use in Bryan Singer's Superman.

Superman III should provide an option to view the theatrical version or the extended TV cut. I don't know what else is available beyond that

Superman IV should have the much longer original cut of the film that was shown to test audiences, but the word is that the longer cut does not exist anymore.

Of course, somewhere, there would need to be a tribute to Chistopher Reeve, obviously.

If they do re-issue these films on DVD, I hope they will be offered separately as well as in the box set(just like they're doing with the upcoming Batman releases). I'm only interested in Superman and Superman II as I never really cared for III and absolutely hated IV. I REALLY hope they don't screw this up because well done releases of these films would be my most anticipated DVDs for next year.

What's really going to crack me up is if/when Warner starts boxing I, II and Returns. The possibility is really cool, anyway.



There's a lot of people still pissed off at Warner for the lack of a Batman Forever director's cut when they never even claimed they would do one (it was a Digital Bits "rumor"). I agree that setting expectations too high is inevitable in this case, but I personally don't assume what I want is automatically going to happen. My greatest hope, not expectation, is that we see a new cut of the film closer to Donner's vision.

Everyone knows that recent restorations such as The Big Red One and Major Dundee were made as close as possible to what could have been, but that production issues and lack of means keep us from ever seeing what was originally planned. We've seen rescoring done on Major Dundee and work started on yet another cut of Blade Runner (though it fell through), so it's not ridiculous to think of the possibilities (rights & footage permitting).

Obviously, it's not fair to assume Warner can do everything we want, but until we hear otherwise we can only continue to speculate. At this point, I don't think Warner is going to be able to produce a Superman II set that doesn't *at least* represent *some* of that Donner footage, by whatever means. They've made a lot of official promises to try to include more footage, so I think that's a reasonable expectation.



They're still going to have to alter that edition, as Reeve's death makes the ending of the current documentary somewhat innappropriate or dated. It would be easy to extend and update it without harming the great work done on that. I also hope that they do a similar feature for the Superman II documentary, as the story about that footage would pick up pretty close to the end of Mark McClure's stories when he talked about Donner's firing.



Well, Donner's relationship to the franchise has stood the test of time far better than Lester's, further evidenced by the direction of that new Superman I making-of as Lester is almost painted as the bad guy. Seeing as how there were so many lies propogated by both the Salkinds and Lester regarding the production and Donner's work, I don't they could get very far with Lester's involvement without causing him a lot of embarrassment and backpeddling.

As for the Brando footage, Singer stated several times that what he got was the right to do somewhat of a "cameo" or "likeness" of Brando using footage he was granted access to. Judging from one of the storyboards in the Superman Returns blogs, you can pretty much tell where it's going to happen and how small it's going to be. As I keep mentioning, the most important issue here is that Brando's estate is clearly open to the idea of licensing his persona to Warner, so we're in a far better position to see that footage than ever before.



Bryan Singer is doing this at the beginning of Returns, and I imagine that it would be incorporated into the new 2 disc of the first film in response to the ending of the documentary.



As others pointed out, I have also seen a more recent claim from Donner that he's waiting to be asked. The only statement I've seen where he turned down such an offer was back when he was involved on the director's cut in 2001, and then Warner was trying to distance themselves from his take on the franchise which he mentioned offended him.



For the love of Pete, Lester rehashed an entire unused sequence from Superman I and just dubbed people with French accents! Just thinking about the potential removal of all that French nonsense is exciting. That's right, I would take Lois jumping out of an office building over French terrorists any day!

Apparently Warners cited a Batman Forever Director's Cut DVD early in the format's life as an example of the great things they could do with the technology. That's why I'm pissed there's no director's cut.

When was this? I remember the state of affairs at that time was so bad that Warner was giving away free copies of Batman & Robin (with a player) just to move product.

Unfortunately, I've heard from people in the know that he's not interested in doing it. He can change his mind but sources stated that his answer was concrete.

You can forget a warts-and-all documentary. The bad blood has never disapated. Mention Superman 2 to people who worked on it and watch their eyes roll. Superman 2 was a f*cked up production and the public only got a taste of what really happened.

You know Donner had little involvment with the DVD because he didn't know that certain sounds were replaced. I understand that this had to happen but I feel it could have been done better especially the credits. Hearing the cog wheel when the dome opens??? If that sound was originally there then why put it in?
Sound mixers should've sat down in front of the mixing thinking they were in 1978.

Donner should've been more hands-on.

BTW, I'm not personally attacking Michael Thau, this is just a disagreement on the handling of the disc.

Yeah, but you know as well as I do that Donner blows with the wind on this issue. One day he says he'd like to recut the film, the next day he says he won't. Until Warner Bros actually asks him, I don't think we can really close the door on it.

If it doesn't happen now, though, it probably never will.

Where did you read this? I have always read that he was very hand's on for the new cut & sound effects.
If it was in this looong thread then I must have missed it...not hard to do when it is 8 pages long, but where did you hear this? Link?

http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/057/057536p2.html