Re: General Reeve/Donner franchise thread (was 'Superman II- The Richard Donner Cut')

[Apologist Puncher]

I was watching 'Superman III' on Cinemax earlier, and I realized something I never had before:

Christopher Reeve did his BEST version of Clark Kent ever in this scene with Annette O'Toole. Who was absolutely beautiful by the way.



Humble. Shy, but slightly self-assure. No squeaky voice. No "bumbling". He WAS Clark Kent.

And it sucks that it had to happen in III. That film had MOMENTS of a great Superman film, but on the whole it just wasn't consistently good.

[thecolorsblend]

I was watching 'Superman III' on Cinemax earlier, and I realized something I never had before:

Christopher Reeve did his BEST version of Clark Kent ever in this scene with Annette O'Toole. Who was absolutely beautiful by the way.



Humble. Shy, but slightly self-assure. No squeaky voice. No "bumbling". He WAS Clark Kent.

And it sucks that it had to happen in III. That film had MOMENTS of a great Superman film, but on the whole it just wasn't consistently good.

My argument is that Reeve evolved Clark over each film (A) so that you're not getting the same thing every time and (B) I suspect because he reasoned that the character would grow and change over time. Nothing Clark does in S3 really seems out of bounds. Mind you, I'm a Superman III fanboy from way back so...

EDIT- Oh, and something else? That scene there plays out in its entirety. No cuts that I could see. Reeve came from and went back to the theatrical world but it's easy to forget that sometimes.

[non_amos]

The thing is, Reeve owned anyway. I'd even argue that he did well in SUPERMAN IV even though the film itself was a disaster. And I think that THE MAN OF STEEL should be dedicated to him. I know that SINGERMAN PEEPS was but, well, that doesn't count.

[James Stocks]

I just finished something I've been aching to do ever since the Donner Cut of II came out: I finally made my own fan edit. Never actually finished one for myself before, so it was interesting to see the film play out the way I edited it. I basically made a hybrid of the two versions. I keep a lot of the Donner stuff in, but reinsert key scenes from the Lester film that focus on Lois and Superman. Basically a lot of the Niagara Falls and fortress footage. I even kept some of the Lester versions of the Donner footage, notably the moon sequence because I preferred the effective use of Ken Thorne's arrangement over Michael Thau's awful choice of "tracked" music from Williams that didn't fit the tone. Kept the opening with Lois jumping out the window, thus not reinserting her Niagara falls jump. I also kept many of the footage in that midwestern town, because as goofy as they are they built up to the army attack. In the Donner Cut, we just immediately jump to the news crew covering the villains, despite the fact that we didn't see the villains do anything by that point. The biggest change I've made was the ending. Over the choice of either going with the memory kiss or spinning the world around, I decided to do neither version. Lois gets to keep her memory of the events and the last we see of her is when she watches Superman leave her penthouse, in tears "there he goes Kiddo, up up and away." Kind of bittersweet but in my own perfect SUPERMAN III Lois would know Clark's secret, and that could have had a lot of potential with them trying to move on despite the elephant in the room. But just to keep things on an upbeat mood, I kept the diner scene at the end and of course Superman delivering the new roof with the American flag to the President.

Still, I don't think I'm quite finished. It's a nice rough cut for me, but I feel with a few more tweaking I might be totally satisfied. I just need the right software that I can use to add dinosaurs and turn guns into walkie-talkies.

[thecolorsblend]

Awesome. Maybe you can post it up on Google video once you're finished. It'd be cool to check it out.

I did something similar with the Star Wars prequels. For a time, I was probably their most ardent defender but the Episode I rerelease changed that. I'm now of the opinion that if prequels (by anyone) can be made to work, it's only in the context of ideas, characters and plot points; not so much a continuous narrative. On that basis, I made instrumental cuts that reduce each film down to about 20-30 minutes. It's just music and visuals; no dialogue and not even much of a story. The idea came when I heard the zillionth person say for the zillionth time that the second Episode I trailer (Trailer B) is a lot better than the movie itself. I thought "what if you remove any attempt at a plot and just hit the stuff most people knew about the prequels before hand with just the music to tell the story?"

I think the instrumental cuts turned out fairly well. They're a little crude as I had to use MS Live Moviemaker. The rule I made was that I would abide by the original score CD's of each film, partly to reduce the length of the films and partly to find out just what John Williams may have intended when he scored the films... before George Lucas and Ben Burtt went back into the editing suite and cannibalized the films and fucked up the music's timing. The results are impressive, even breathtaking in some cases (and not because of me but because of Lucas and Williams being cinema's Lennon and McCartney; all I did was partially restore their original partnership).

Not that the above has jackshit to do with Superman but since we're talking fan edits...

[James Stocks]

The edit I have isn't too complex. It was just a matter of reinserting key scenes. What I disliked about the Donner Cut was that it trimmed down or eliminated Lester footage just for the crime of being Lester footage. Simple stuff like Superman going out to get a flower and food for Lois. Stuff like that shows you how detached he has become from the rest of the world when he's only thinking of himself. That stuff was crucial to really hammer in the idea that he messed up big time and adds to that moment of pain in his face when watching the TV with Zod taking over the world.

Oh, and I forgot to add that I also inserted the deleted scenes found in the Donner Cut DVD. One is the snow patrol taking in Lex and the super villains. I felt it was needed just so it was clear that when Superman destroyed the fortress of solitude that Lex Luthor wasn't left behind in there (which the Donner Cut strangely did, but I suppose that was all mute since he turned back time... which makes the whole destruction of the fortress rather pointless). Another deleted scene I incorporated was Lex's second jail break, with Miss Tessmacher providing the getaway vehicle (and once again leaving poor Otis left behind). I thought it would be fun to add that in just to show that Lex was at it again, and that we'd see him up to something again in the next film, my dream version of SUPERMAN III. Ultimately it's because I always enjoy watching Hackman.

[Apologist Puncher]

BitTorrent it.

[non_amos]

How do you make fan edits of films anyway? I haven't a clue. Do you just pop a DVD into your computer & use some software that you downloaded somewhere? And if you wanted to do something similar, like take scenes from Star Trek TOS & fit them to a pop or rock song as your own 'video', how would you do that? Just point in the right direction....................

[James Stocks]

I use Pinnacle Studio Ultimate. Because the computer I used was lended by a neighbor, he was generous enough to leave that program installed for me to use. I don't use it all that often, but it's a pretty good editing program. Years ago I tried making a longer cut of THE QUEST FOR PEACE, using the deleted footage and having the complete soundtrack by Alexander Courage to insert cues that were meant for the scenes. Sadly, even though the DVD had thirty minutes worth of deleted scenes, there was still 15 minutes not included, so it didn't work out.

I'll get around to putting out my cut of II later, as I still have some tweaks I want to work on such as inserting the "would you care to step outside" bit into the Donner's cut. The original "Freedom of the press" from Mankiewicz is amusing and plays well into Superman's smartass quips in the first film "something wrong with the elevator?", but "would you care to step outside" by Lester is just more badass. One of the few things Lester improved on Donner.

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