Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut (2006) (1 Viewer)

[Michael:M]

Doing some thread resurrection here...I was able to borrow the Donner cut from the library last weekend. After hearing about this for years, I was pretty stoked to see it and how it differed from the theatrical release.

However, I have to admit I didn't even make it all the way through the film. I found the campiness and tonal shifts far too abrupt. Gene Hackman seemed to be in an entirely different film than Valerie Perrine and Ned Beatty. Humor was always part of the Reeve-era franchise, but IMNSHO, this cut abuses it. A flushing toilet joke in the Fortress of Solitude? Really?

I also think time has not been kind to Kidder's portrayal of Lois Lane. I'll admit to never being a fan, though I can grudgingly conceed she conveys the grit a woman reporter of the era would need. That said, she exudes zero charisma and Clark/Supe's attraction to her in this film is even more baffling than in the first one.

The writing and dialogue alternated between flat and outright terrible; again the precendent for humor was abused and flogged.

I think the villains were relatively unscathed in this cut, from what I saw; meaner, yes, but still pretty silly. Like Hackman, Terence Stamp was able to move through some really awful dialogue and stilted seens with some scraps of dignity.

Additionally, it was interesting to see how far comic-based movies have come. S:TMP was a milestone in the genre, as was Burton's Batman. I think S:TMP has fared better over time, holding up far more than that 1989 film, despite being very dated WRT clothing and sets. But I found Donner's cut of Superman II pretty disappointing and, dare I say it, boring.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

It's a frustrating experience. While it's as close as you can reasonably get to the Donner Cut, the fact is that no Richard Donner cut of the film really exists. The ending of his cut was filmed when Superman: The Movie had a different ending planned. Now it just feels redundant, and almost certainly would have been changed to something original if Donner had been allowed to finish filming Superman II.

This thing was put together on a shoestring budget, and as a result the new effect to patch the holes are really painfully amateur looking. It would have taken millions to do them right, which nobody was going to put up for such a niche product.

And finally, there's the fact that Donner didn't get to finish shooting the picture. While a considerably higher percentage of the footage is Donner's than the original cut, they still had to use a good deal of Lester footage to create a logical whole. The attempts to restrict the villains only to real Kryptonian powers is awkward, since they have to use footage shot for very different powers.

I would love to see Richard Donner direct a modern a Superman film with a modern budget. He's a lot more modern of a director today than he was when he was shooting S:TM and Superman II simulaneously in the 70's.

 

[Norm]

Its Superman The Movie not, Superman The Motion Picture.

 

[Michael:M]

Based on how good the first film is, I'd also like to see this.

 

[Bob_S.]

I finally rented this from Netflix since blockbuster never carried it, and I didn't care much for it either. It just didn't flow very well, the scene transitions seemed too abrupt, Brando's scene's were way too long and the ending was rediculous. I know the Amnesia Kiss was silly too but turning time back is an easy way out. Whenever things get bad, just fly around the world and turn back time. It was bad enough that he did it in the first film. I like Lester's version much better.

For the record, I think Burton's Batman holds up very well for a comic book movie.

 

[Michael:M]

The qualifier helps me agree a bit, but I just don't think it holds up well, period. Like Superman The Movie, it should be recognized for its impact - but IMNSHO, the film is fatally flawed and frankly, pretty boring at times.

 

[kukuruza]

Film very good!

 

[WinstonCely]

SPOILER ALERT!!!!


I find it interesting that no one ever mentions the enormous plot holes that are created when Superman turns back time. The way it's portrayed in the movie, it's like only certain things get turned back. If he did turn back time he'd have a lot of things to do over again, and we never see that. Not to mention, if he was turning back time, we would have something much more akin to Back To The Future where Superman could run into himself and have the same things to do all over again. Which, could be a story in itself where Superman is finally able to stop crime because he essentially created two of himself to patrol the world.


If you where to look at it logically, turning back time does not mean Superman can do two things at once, just do the same things again and run the risk of screwing up the "time/space continuum" as Doc Brown would say.


Man, I hate that time travel element!


On a different note, my favorite part to Donner's film was the way Lois finds out about Superman/Clark Kent. Brilliant!

 

[Greg_S_H]

I didn't like it. Bullets can't hurt him, but he would still know if he was hit by one or not.

 

[WinstonCely]

I see what you mean, and agree to an extent, but I was actually meaning more to the scene in the Daily Planet not the honeymoon suite. Although, I do agree with Donner that Reeve was amazing in his facial expression going from Clark to Superman.

 

[Kevin EK]

This version of the film was an interesting experience for me, when I finally sat down to watch it 4 1/2 years ago.

I was initially very happy to see the Donner footage, particularly the Marlon Brando material. I do wish that back in the day, everyone could have found a way to play nicely with each other so that Donner could have actually finished his movie properly at the time.


Looking at the footage today, it's clear to me that Donner himself would have reshot a portion of it, and that the Brando scenes needed the post-production ADR work he regularly did for all of his performances. It's also clear that the Salkinds made some clear dramatic choices with Richard Lester once they had reviewed what they had.

The theatrical version has a stronger dramatic opening - putting Lois in danger in a serious situation works better than simply jumping out the window. The theatrical version also has a more satisfying final battle in the Fortress of Solitude - silly routines with duplicates and fake "S" wraps aside. In the Donner version, they all simply land and have a verbal confrontation. In the theatrical version, there's more action, culminating with the Donner footage to cap it off. And, most importantly, the ending of the film clearly needed to be reconceived once they transplanted the "turning back the world" notion to the first movie.

Had Donner actually been able to finish the film in 1979, and had Brando not gotten into legal issues with the Salkinds then, we could have seen a true Donner cut. I believe Donner would have spent another few months with Mankiewicz rewriting the opening and closing of the film, and then another few months filming the new material and the rest of the original script that still applied. This may or may not have involved more filming with Brando, but it would have been possible to have new scenes with Gene Hackman and a stronger arc of the villains taking over the world before Superman stops them. I'm not sure how Donner would have ended things, but I think the theatrical ending is pretty close - in that you can't turn the world back again, but you also can't have Lois Lane actively knowing that Clark is Kal-El.

Donner has said that if he had been able to finish the second film properly, he and Mankiewicz were hoping to make a whole series of Superman movies, with different adventures in each one. I would have liked to have seen what they would have created. It certainly couldn't have been worse than Superman III or Superman IV.

 

[Ethan Riley]

Originally Posted by DellaStMedia

SPOILER ALERT!!!!


I find it interesting that no one ever mentions the enormous plot holes that are created when Superman turns back time. The way it's portrayed in the movie, it's like only certain things get turned back. If he did turn back time he'd have a lot of things to do over again, and we never see that. Not to mention, if he was turning back time, we would have something much more akin to Back To The Future where Superman could run into himself and have the same things to do all over again. Which, could be a story in itself where Superman is finally able to stop crime because he essentially created two of himself to patrol the world.


If you where to look at it logically, turning back time does not mean Superman can do two things at once, just do the same things again and run the risk of screwing up the "time/space continuum" as Doc Brown would say.


Man, I hate that time travel element!


On a different note, my favorite part to Donner's film was the way Lois finds out about Superman/Clark Kent. Brilliant!

Ugh; don't even get me started! If you really read into it, it seems like he only went back in time and changed one thing...he somehow stopped the crack in the ground from swallowing Lois' car. That's it. Because clearly the earthquake still happened--Lois mentions it, and in the second movie, Otis says something like "California almost fell into the sea." So I figure it thusly--he went back in time, and intentionally avoided running into his former self. His former self was out saving the bus on the bridge, and damming the flood, but "Future" Superman was stopping the crack. That's it. HOWEVER--this runs into a total paradox! Because if he stopped the car, Lois wouldn't have been yelling for help. And therefore, the "other" Superman wouldn't have heard her and would have gone about his business, wouldn't have tried to save Lois and would never have gone back in time at all! And thus, it almost implies that there are then TWO Supermans flying around--one the time traveler and the other who never saved Lois and never went back in time. When Austin Powers did the same thing, he went back in time 10 minutes and ran into his former self, and therefore the Austin Universe actually has two Austins running around. But the movie implies that for some reason when Superman went back in time he poofed his other self out of existence! Which is also kinda weird, though very convenient from a writers' standpoint alone.


I don't know--I think the ending was a major cop-out in a way. And to see him pull it again in the Donner cut was another cop-out.

 

[cafink]

I couldn't get past the idea of going back in time by rotating the earth backwards in the first place. The movie obviously asks the viewer to accept a lot of fantastical ideas, but that one was really on a different level than anything else.

 

[Ethan Riley]

Originally Posted by cafink

I couldn't get past the idea of going back in time by rotating the earth backwards in the first place. The movie obviously asks the viewer to accept a lot of fantastical ideas, but that one was really on a different level than anything else.

That's what it looked like he was doing, but I think actually he was supposed to be traveling back through time by flying faster than the speed of light, or counter-clockwise or whatever (as seen in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home). Supposedly, that makes you go back in time (why? I dunno). Anyway, we were supposed to be viewing the earth through Superman's eyes--in that the world looks like it's rotating backwards because he's seeing time travel backwards. But yeah--it looks like he's just turning back the world....

 

[cafink]

Interesting; I haven't heard that interpretation before. How does everyone else read that scene?

 

[Chris Will]

He's rotating the earth backwards because in each scene he stops flying backwards and flys forward; which stops the Earth from rotating backwards and it begins to rotate forwards again. If he was just flying through time then he wouldn't have to worry about correcting the Earth's rotation, he could just land.

 

[JonZ]

IMHO Shannon is much more suitable for Luthor than Zod.


Viggo as Zod would have been really great.

 

[TonyD]

Ugh; don't even get me started! If you really read into it, it seems like he only went back in time and changed one thing...he somehow stopped the crack in the ground from swallowing Lois' car. That's it. Because clearly the earthquake still happened--Lois mentions it, and in the second movie, Otis says something like "California almost fell into the sea." So I figure it thusly--he went back in time, and intentionally avoided running into his former self. His former self was out saving the bus on the bridge, and damming the flood, but "Future" Superman was stopping the crack. That's it. HOWEVER--this runs into a total paradox! Because if he stopped the car, Lois wouldn't have been yelling for help. And therefore, the "other" Superman wouldn't have heard her and would have gone about his business, wouldn't have tried to save Lois and would never have gone back in time at all! And thus, it almost implies that there are then TWO Supermans flying around--one the time traveler and the other who never saved Lois and never went back in time. When Austin Powers did the same thing, he went back in time 10 minutes and ran into his former self, and therefore the Austin Universe actually has two Austins running around. But the movie implies that for some reason when Superman went back in time he poofed his other self out of existence! Which is also kinda weird, though very convenient from a writers' standpoint alone.

 

I don't know--I think the ending was a major cop-out in a way. And to see him pull it again in the Donner cut was another cop-out.

 

About the end of the Donner Superman 2 I'm pretty sure that before he was fired or whatever happened he was filming both movies together and the original ending for 2 was the turn back time thing. After he left or maybe why he was fired was partly about him being forced to tack on to 1 the ending of 2. I think it's on one of the docs somewhere, and I don't know what the real ending of 1 was going to be.

 

[JoeStemme]

An interesting alternate version of the Superhero sequel. By its very nature, it's an incomplete film, but it certainly restores a good part of what Donner was trying to do before he got axed by the producers. The biggest plus here is that Marlon Brando is included instead of Supermom Susannah York (she does her best), in the North Pole scenes. Of course, the fact remains that Brando would have been edited out of even Donner's cut over contract demands.
Richard Lester has been the target of ire for many fans over the decades, and Donner himself has been less than kind - even claiming he can't “remember the man's name” - but Lester's version is the zippier, more polished effort. Still, it's quite clear the SUPERMAN II is more Donner than Lester, so it's good to see that this has been preserved, even if incomplete.