UHD Review Superman IV: The Quest for Peace UHD Review (1 Viewer)

[Jonathan Perregaux]

The Donner Cut ending also restores a truly bizarre moment where Perry White is squeezing what seems like inches of toothpaste out of the tube onto his toothbrush—from an absurd height. WTF? I know, I get the "putting the toothpaste back in the tube" gag that follows but come on, who honestly does that?!

I mean, in the comics, Perry White never had anything strange affecting his teeth or dental hygiene. So the moment made absolutely no... oh wait.

 

[Neil S. Bulk]

The Donner Cut ending also restores a truly bizarre moment where Perry White is squeezing what seems like inches of toothpaste out of the tube onto his toothbrush—from an absurd height. WTF? I know, I get the "putting the toothpaste back in the tube" gag that follows but come on, who honestly does that?!

While smoking a cigar!

 

[WillG]

TBH if Reeve’s autobiography really only included one sentence about SIV, I’d want my money back

 

[Midnight Mike]

I got the impression (from the extras on the blu ray) that the Donner Cut should be watched as if the first film did NOT include the turning back the world sequence, and ended on a cliffhanger, with the Phantom Zone Villains being freed by the XK-101 rocket Supes hurled into space
(which was ridiculously misspelled as XK-10 in the Donner Cut recap scene).

I personally enjoy the Donner cut more than the Theatrical cut, but I was 17 when Supes II came out, and was hyper aware of the change in tone from Superman the Movie. So it’s easy for me to watch the Donner cut, and get into the headspace that this is the film (warts and all) I was waiting to see in 1979/80.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I got the impression (from the extras on the blu ray) that the Donner Cut should be watched as if the first film did NOT include the turning back the world sequence, and ended on a cliffhanger, with the Phantom Zone Villains being freed by the XK-101 rocket Supes hurled into space

Yes, exactly this!

 

[Malcolm R]

I got the impression (from the extras on the blu ray) that the Donner Cut should be watched as if the first film did NOT include the turning back the world sequence, and ended on a cliffhanger

Seems like that's what they should have done, if the sequel was shooting mostly at the same time as the original, rather than doing a cut-and-paste of the planned end for Part II onto Part I. It could have been a "...to be Continued" like Back to the Future II and III, or a "Superman will Return" like James Bond.

Or did they think audiences at the time would revolt without a proper ending to Part I ?

 

[Bryan Tuck]

Seems like that's what they should have done, if the sequel was shooting mostly at the same time as the original, rather than doing a cut-and-paste of the planned end for Part II onto Part I. It could have been a "...to be Continued" like Back to the Future II and III, or a "Superman will Return" like James Bond.

Or did they think audiences at the time would revolt without a proper ending to Part I ?

That's probably exactly what they thought. This was before even THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, which, although generally well-received, did get a little bit of criticism initially for leaving the story hanging the way it did.

Although in the case of SUPERMAN, I think it was just that they decided it needed a "bigger" climax. There still would have been a resolution of the Luthor land grab plot, just with an extra "tag" at the end showing the Kryptonians being freed (essentially what Marvel often does now with their mid- and post-credits scenes).

 

[Todd Erwin]

Seems like that's what they should have done, if the sequel was shooting mostly at the same time as the original, rather than doing a cut-and-paste of the planned end for Part II onto Part I. It could have been a "...to be Continued" like Back to the Future II and III, or a "Superman will Return" like James Bond.

Or did they think audiences at the time would revolt without a proper ending to Part I ?

In one of the commentaries on either The Donner Cut or theatrical (honestly, I couldn't listen to Pierre Spengler go on about how much better the two sequels were under his lead), the first film was originally supposed to end with the three villains escaping the Phantom Zone and flying toward Earth, then cutting to To Be Continued in Superman II Coming Next Year.

 

[Todd Erwin]

Hey, guys, can we discuss the movies in their proper thread from this point forward? This thread is specifically for Superman IV.

 

[Midnight Mike]

Or did they think audiences at the time would revolt without a proper ending to Part I ?

The way I’ve understood it, after they decided to stop shooting part II and just concentrate on finishing part I, they also realized that if Superman the movie was a flop, they would never finish part II, so perhaps it didn’t make sense to end on a cliffhanger anymore. So now they needed a new solid ending. So they took the big finish planned for part II, and stuck it on part I.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

That’s exactly it - that was the original intended ending, but the filmmakers felt they needed a bigger and more emotional ending that Superman simply saving the day without obstacle, and so, pressed for time and unable to come up with an ending that fit those parameters, they moved the planned ending from II to I, changing the motivation for the time turning from undoing the Kryptonian disaster spree to undoing Lois’ death.

 

[Todd Erwin]

From this point forward, any more discussion of any movie other than Superman IV will be reported to mods.

In my best fatherly voice: "Don't make me turn this car around!"

 

[Bryan Tuck]

In the spirit of keeping the thread on topic, watching SUPERMAN IV again, I was struck by just how choppy it really is.

On top of all the full scenes that were removed, the editing as a whole is just relentlessly pedestrian. Scenes just end and jump to the next one without any sense of rhythm or pacing. It's like they were dead set on hitting exactly 90 minutes, no matter what it made the movie feel like.

The deleted First Nuclear Man scenes are astonishingly bad, and dropping them was definitely the right decision. But there were a few other small scenes (like the last one between Clark and Lacy) that probably could have been kept without sacrificing too much momentum (or daily showtimes ).

 

[jayembee]

It's one of the things that reminds me that these movies were largely inspired by Silver Age comics, and that it's not really plot logistics that make them work.

Yeah, every now and then, when watching one or another superhero film, my wife will ask, "Waitaminute...how is that supposed to work?" The answer is always, "Comic Book Science."

The ultimate example of Comic Book Science was in an early issue of the Silver Age Green Lantern. GL's power ring can't affect anything yellow, so he's surprised when it doesn't work against a giant orange creature. He discovers that it's giving off an "infra-yellow color". There's an editor's note that explains that just like infra-red light is invisible red light, infra-yellow light is invisible yellow light.

It actually makes a weird sort of sense, if you consider that orange is (with respect to frequency) below yellow in the spectrum, therefore making it kinda sorta "infra-yellow".

 

[Bryan Tuck]

Yeah, every now and then, when watching one or another superhero film, my wife will ask, "Waitaminute...how is that supposed to work?" The answer is always, "Comic Book Science."

To me, it goes back to Richard Donner's continual reference to "verisimilitude." Whether or not it's "realistic" is beside the point; whether it's "believable" in the world you've set up is what matters.

And that's another way QUEST FOR PEACE falls apart. One of my favorite parts is where the Nuclear Man takes Lacy literally into space, far enough to where Earth looks like they're halfway to the moon! And she's just breathing normally, as if she's only about 20 feet in the air. . "Comic Book Science" can only go so far, especially when you've already established that people from Earth still can't survive in a vacuum in this movie's universe (opening scene where Superman saves the cosmonaut from drifting off into space).

 

[Josh Steinberg]

It’s definitely edited like the low budget “the kiddies won’t notice how bad this is” kind of way, same as Masters of the Universe, which is like this movie’s fraternal twin. If you saw it in the 80s as a kid you might still get some enjoyment out of it, but I doubt it’s making any new fans.

 

[Sam Favate]

It’s definitely edited like the low budget “the kiddies won’t notice how bad this is” kind of way, same as Masters of the Universe, which is like this movie’s fraternal twin.

Right. The problem is that after seeing the first film, and even the second or third, the fourth film feels like it came from left field, because the earlier films weren’t kiddie flicks (Ok, III was getting there). I remember being amazed in 1987 that they got Christopher Reeve to do this. Then I found out he had a hand in the story! So, mind blown!

 

[Bryan Tuck]

It’s definitely edited like the low budget “the kiddies won’t notice how bad this is” kind of way, same as Masters of the Universe, which is like this movie’s fraternal twin. If you saw it in the 80s as a kid you might still get some enjoyment out of it, but I doubt it’s making any new fans.

I did see it in the 80s as a kid, and even at the age of 9, I knew something was "off."

Right. The problem is that after seeing the first film, and even the second or third, the fourth film feels like it came from left field, because the earlier films weren’t kiddie flicks (Ok, III was getting there). I remember being amazed in 1987 that they got Christopher Reeve to do this. Then I found out he had a hand in the story! So, mind blown!

"Kiddie flick" is kind of a loaded term, but the first two films were very much seen as "family entertainment," in that all ages could find something to like, and there was nothing particularly inappropriate for anyone except maybe very young children.

I think what really got IV off on the wrong foot was that, of all the companies the Salkinds could have sold the franchise to, they picked Cannon. I'm not sure if there were other contenders or if they just wanted to unload it quick, but that was just a disaster waiting to happen right from the start.

 

[Malcolm R]

Wikipedia has a longer quote from the Reeve autobiography about the film:

In his autobiography, Still Me, Reeve described filming the movie:

We were also hampered by budget constraints and cutbacks in all departments. Cannon Films had nearly thirty projects in the works at the time, and Superman IV received no special consideration. For example, Konner and Rosenthal wrote a scene in which Superman lands on 42nd Street and walks down the double yellow lines to the United Nations, where he gives a speech. If that had been a scene in Superman I, we would actually have shot it on 42nd Street. Richard Donner would have choreographed hundreds of pedestrians and vehicles and cut to people gawking out of office windows at the sight of Superman walking down the street like the Pied Piper. Instead, we had to shoot at an industrial park in England in the rain with about a hundred extras, not a car in sight, and a dozen pigeons thrown in for atmosphere. Even if the story had been brilliant, I don't think that we could ever have lived up to the audience's expectations with this approach.

The Cannon business model seemed to be quantity over quality, as well as a P.T. Barnum approach to film promotion:

Golan and Cannon Films were famous for making huge announcements and over-promoting films that did not live up to expectations—or even exist. For instance, Lifeforce (1985) was to be "the cinematic sci-fi event of the '80s" and Masters of the Universe (1987) was dubbed "the Star Wars of the '80s."

 

[Todd Erwin]

It’s definitely edited like the low budget “the kiddies won’t notice how bad this is” kind of way, same as Masters of the Universe, which is like this movie’s fraternal twin. If you saw it in the 80s as a kid you might still get some enjoyment out of it, but I doubt it’s making any new fans.

I saw it as an adult in 1987, and actually saw it in a theater (!). Thankfully, I didn't have to pay to see it, as I was doing some consulting work for Edwards Cinemas at the time and had a season pass. However, I knew something was up when it was booked in many of the circuit's "B" complexes (in this case, Mission Viejo Mall, and in their smallest auditorium that also had a fixed 2:1 screen). I also admit that at the very least, I did enjoy seeing Gene Hackman reprise his role as Lex Luthor at the time, and (again, at the time) thought that Jon Cryer made a good sidekick - not as funny or delightful as Ned Beatty's Otis, but he did add some additional humor and chemistry.