Superman II Vs. Superman II

[inflatable dalek]

Having picked up the Chris Reeve collection for a nicely cheap £15 on amazon I finally got to see the Richard Donner cut of the second film.

For anyone who doesn't know: The first two Superman movies started out filming at the same time with the intent that the first one would end with a cliffhanger where one of the exploding misiles would release the Phantom Zone dudes. But when they fell badly behind schedule they decided to concentrate entirely on the first one and came up with the "Turns back time" ending.
Come the time to finish the second film, director Richard Donner is sacked and Richard Lester is brought in. Despite most of the work being done he reshoots lots and lots of stuff, often being accused in latter years of doing it for no better reason than to have enough of his work in the film to get sole directing credit. Which is unfair really as even if Donner had returned he'd have had to do a lot of reshoots as well, including replacing Marlon Brando's (which if they had used would have required him to recieve the same insane fee as for the first film. It was cheaper to get his Mother back) material and changing the beginning and end of the film to tie in with the changes made to Superman I after they stopped work on the sequel.

So what was released on DVD last year was basically all the footage Donner shot but wasn't used combined with the bare minimum of Lester stuff for it to make sense. Effectively it's the version of Superman II that would have been released if no changes had been made to the first film- So it follows on from the planned cliffhanger ending.

Now for the record, I love the original II, it's flawed in places but it's the only one of the 5 films where Superman has anything aproaching a proper baddy. It's also the only place the comedy version of Luthor works because he gets to play off Terrance Stamp being very serious and scary.

So the stuff I liked about the Donner version:

Lots of slilly slapstick is either trimmed down or removed entirely- Mostly stuff involving Sheriff Pepper from Live and Let Die (who strangely seems to be playing Sheriff Pepper from Live and Let Die), but also to make the big dumb Kryptonian a lot more threatening.

No comedy Eiffle Tower terrorists (an aspect of the original that's dated hugely badly).

No bad doubles for Gene Hackman (who refused to return for the Lester shoot so for one new action sequence in the Fortress of Solitude he suddenly starts keeping his back to camera and sounds strangely dubbed).

The big improvement is in the stuff between Clark and his Father. In order to get his powers back he actually has to kill Jor-El all over again. It's the big emotional heart of the Movie and it's a damn shame the Salkinds were to cheap to pay Brando's fee because the Lester version is lacking for its absence.

What doesn't work so well:

Lois trying to get Clark to reveal himself by jumping out a window is a lot less fun than her jumping in Niagra Falls. Plus the new sequence requires all the people in the street to not notice Clark standing there using his breath to stop her falling.

There was also one new sequence that Donner was desperate to include but which they never filmed so here it's recreated using Reeve and Kidder's respective screen tests. So suddenly they're blatently standing in a cheap quickly thrown together set, with Clark having lost all his bulk and having different hair (in fact two different hair cuts as the scene is complied from two different screen tests shoot some time apart). It doesn't help that at one point they pretend there's a mirror in the room when there blatently isn't. All in all I also prefer the original Movie just having Clark accidently reveal himself on purpose, rather than Lois shooting him.

He gives up his powers after shagging Lois. Which to me is odd because I always took the original films intent to be that he has to give them up in order for her to be able to survive the sex.

Lots of things I wasn't so keen on in the original are still here: The rubbish Moon sequence, people walking to and from the North Pole, the "Hey, he killed Superman, lets get him!" moment, and the sort of product placement that would make those who thought the stuff in Transformers was bad explode. "Let me beat you with this Marlboro truck before throwing you into this Coke sign!". I've never been to keen on the Movie supporting cast either. Reeve is easily the best Superman but Margot Kidder is a bit rubbish and on the whole I prefer the Lois and Clark Perry/Lois/Jimmy (both of him)/Lex.

The big, big flaw though is the ending. I've always given the "Turn back time" thing a bit of slack because I assumed it was a desperate last minuet invention when they realised they needed a new ending. I had no idea that was actually the originally planed ending to the second one. But here it's done much, much worse. In the first film he does it to save the woman he loves. In the Donner cut of the second he does it soley to make her forget he's Superman. Though he doesn't seem to do anything to stop Zod getting released again so you have to wonder what stops it repeating itself.

And even worse, he still goes back to the dinner for revenge on the trucker even though that now never happened. yet they all still remember it. Bah. I wouldn't be surprised if both Dinner scenes were Lester material that was included to cover a gap in what Donner shot because that really makes no sense...

So, a very interesting Movie, that doesn't quiet work as a film in its own right (mainly because the screen test footage make it still feel like an unfinished film), but still more entertaining than the three sequels- Yes, I'm counting Returns in that.