![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Superman II - The Real Version
Nov. 29th, 2006 09:57 amLast night, I watched the Richard Donner cut of Superman II. (For those who don't know - Donner filmed most of Superman I and II at the same time, until finally being told to concentrate on film one. He wasn't invited back to finish Superman II, and Richard Lester shot new footage and reshot some scenes. After a big internet movement, all existing Donner footage was tracked down and edited - with minimal Lester footage and such - into a new version of the film.)
Wow - what a big difference!
Some of the footage I've seen on TV before, like Lois jumping out of a window. And yes, it feels like it's missing bits that would be filled in if Donner had completed it in 1980. (Like an original ending, as the turning back the world stuff was originally supposed to end Superman II, and is reused here for lack of an alternate Donner-filmed ending.) But mostly, it holds together pretty well. Even the use of Reeve and Kidder's screen tests for a pivotal, otherwise unfilmed, scene worked pretty well. (Despite Reeve's shifting weight, hair and glasses between the two tests.)
The most incredible stuff was all the new Marlon Brando scenes. "Superman is the son of Jor-El?" It's easy to forget that Brando/Jor-El wasn't actually in the 1980 version of Superman II. All that footage was shot, but replaced with Superman's mom and random Kryptonians when the producers realized they wouldn't have to pay Brando if he wasn't used in the final cut.
And yet it's not Brando himself that's so remarkable in these newly added scenes, but Christopher Reeve. There are some of the most powerful, thematic mythic movements of the whole movie in the Jor-El scenes, and all that stuff was pared away in the Jor-El-free version. Some critics think it's easy to play a superhero. But it's not easy to play that kind of role well. And in these new scenes, Christopher Reeve posthumously proves yet again why he IS Superman in a way that Dean Cain was not.
Watching the film took away a lot of my work-related anger.
Allen
Wow - what a big difference!
Some of the footage I've seen on TV before, like Lois jumping out of a window. And yes, it feels like it's missing bits that would be filled in if Donner had completed it in 1980. (Like an original ending, as the turning back the world stuff was originally supposed to end Superman II, and is reused here for lack of an alternate Donner-filmed ending.) But mostly, it holds together pretty well. Even the use of Reeve and Kidder's screen tests for a pivotal, otherwise unfilmed, scene worked pretty well. (Despite Reeve's shifting weight, hair and glasses between the two tests.)
The most incredible stuff was all the new Marlon Brando scenes. "Superman is the son of Jor-El?" It's easy to forget that Brando/Jor-El wasn't actually in the 1980 version of Superman II. All that footage was shot, but replaced with Superman's mom and random Kryptonians when the producers realized they wouldn't have to pay Brando if he wasn't used in the final cut.
And yet it's not Brando himself that's so remarkable in these newly added scenes, but Christopher Reeve. There are some of the most powerful, thematic mythic movements of the whole movie in the Jor-El scenes, and all that stuff was pared away in the Jor-El-free version. Some critics think it's easy to play a superhero. But it's not easy to play that kind of role well. And in these new scenes, Christopher Reeve posthumously proves yet again why he IS Superman in a way that Dean Cain was not.
Watching the film took away a lot of my work-related anger.
Allen
