On 1/30/2020 7:11 AM, christopherl bennett wrote:
> Recently, I did a post in which I discussed re-watching Richard Donner’s
> Superman: The Movie followed by the reconstruction of his original version of
> Superman II, and concluded that both individually and together, they work
> better than I remembered. I also concluded that Superman II: The Richard
> Donner Cut works much better than what I could recall of the final,
> theatrical version of S2 which was largely reshot by Richard Lester after
> Donner was fired from the production. However, my memories of that film were
> rather vague.
>
> Well, lately, BBC America seems to be forgetting the “BBC” part somewhat and
> focusing more on the “America” part; it’s apparently running a series of
> mostly American movies whose only real British connection is that their
> villains are played by English actors.
They could always do a marathon of movies about iconic American comic
book heroes, played by British actors. ;-)
And one of those was Superman II
> (which, true, had a British director and was filmed largely in England, but
> still had nothing to do with the BBC as far as I know). I wasn’t too eager
> to revisit that film, but I was curious to compare it to the Donner version,
> and I figured that since I’d had the nerve to comment on the films online,
> fairness demanded that I watch the Lester version so I’d have valid
> information to base my judgments upon.
>
> And my judgments were correct. Lester’s S2 is one film I don’t need to
> change my opinion of — or rather, my opinion of it has actually fallen now,
> since I hadn’t known just how much it fell short compared to what the story
> should have been.
>
> Cutting out Marlon Brando was clearly a bad move. It’s fishy from the start,
> when the recap of the first film under the titles manages to exclude all
> images of Jor-El even during the destruction of Krypton, and when the trial
> of the three villains is retconned to having an anonymous voice pass sentence
> on them. (And the attempt to depict their “crimes” is baffling: Zod walks
> into a room, breaks one crystal, and then the room turns into their trial
> chamber? So they were sentenced to the Phantom Zone for petty vandalism?)
There is no version in any cut of Superman I or II where there sequence
makes a lick of sense.
> More importantly, it badly undermines the plotline of Superman giving up his
> powers for Lois and then trying to get them back. In the original Tom
> Mankiewicz version of the story, that’s a continuation of the Superman/Jor-El
> relationship, the son defying the father and asserting his independence.
> It’s a strong confrontation where the risks, motivations, and consequences
> are far more clearly spelled out. And later, when Jor-El sacrifices himself
> to restore Superman, it’s a meaningful climax with real consequences. It
> makes sense: there is a way to restore Superman’s powers, but at great cost,
> and it can only happen once.
>
> But in the Lester version, that whole arc becomes feeble. It’s not so much
> the replacement of Jor-El with Lara that ruins it; if anything, Lara was
> unforgivably marginalized in the original film and this could’ve been a good
> showcase if she’d been written more strongly, if a real relationship had been
> established with her son (although it still wouldn’t have been as strong and
> unified an arc across the two films). The problem is that the writing
> simplifies the tensions and difficulties spelled out in the original version
> and makes the whole thing so much more cursory. Things aren’t explained as
> clearly and the emotions are far more superficial. “Ma, I love her.”
"Mother, I love her." Growing up as a kid watching II, that line always
worked for me. Reeve acted the hell out of that scene and just as you
could believe a man could fly, you believed Superman was willing to give
up his powers for the one love of his life.
“Okay,
> but you have to give up your powers for her.” “‘Kay, fine.” “Cool, go into
> that chamber.” I don’t recall precisely, but I’m pretty sure the Jor-El
> version at least offered some explanation for why he had to give up his
> powers to be with Lois.
>
I think it was basically the same dialogue in both versions. In the
Lester version she said, "If you want to live with a mortal, you must
live as a mortal." Funny thing is, I most recently watched the Donner
Cut. The last few times have been the Donner Cut. But I grew up with
the Lester version, so that's the version I remember best.
> And then there’s how he gets his powers back — he goes to the Fortress, yells
> futilely, then sees the green crystal and picks it up… and then later he
> suddenly has his powers again! It’s too random, too easy, with no
> consequences, nothing sacrificed. And since Lara had clearly said that there
> was no going back once he gave up his powers, the ease with which he
> recovered them feels like a cheat and makes Lara come off as a liar.
>
Agreed. This is where the Donner surpasses the Lester version.
"Look at me!" Best scene in the movie, and Lester cut it out. :-/
I think I heard or read someone it was Rich Little.