Which version of Superman II do you prefer...

The 1981 theatrical cut, Directed By Richard Lester

or

The 2006 revised cut, Directed By Richard Donner?

The former, because the latter just recycles the end of Superman 1. I didn't really mind the "comedy" scenes Lester added so the original cut works fine for me.

I believe the Richard Donner version would have been better, as well as the ending of the first movie, had they let him finish what he started. As it stands, there just wasn't enough material to complete the movie as originally intended. It's a shame, but the second movie, mostly done by Lester, is better by default.

I voted for the Lester cut without even seeing the Donner cut. My reasoning is that if Lester's Superman II is much better than Donner's original Superman, how can Donner's version of II be better?

Lester finished what Donner started. He only filmed or re-filmed enough scenes so that he could take the director credit. The Donner cut restores scenes that weren't in Lester's version. How you can vote without seeing both is beyond me, but at least you were honest about it.

Well, Donner's original move would have been different (especially the ending) if the studio hadn't rushed it. Both movies were being filmed at the same time. Only when the studio put the rush on for the first movie was production on the sequel halted temporarily (and the ending of the first movie compromised). Before they started production back up on the sequel, Donner was fired due to fallout with the head of the studio. The studio also opted to not pay Brando for the sequel and replaced his parts with the mother. That’s one of the cool things about the Donner cut is the Brando footage is restored.

In a perfect world Donner would have been allowed to finish both the first and second movies in the vision originally intended. When Lester took over the sequel, he had to direct 51% of the footage so his name could appear as Director. One of those was when Lois jumps into Niagara Falls when she’s convinced that Clark is Superman. That replaced the scene that was never filmed (the screen test was used in the Donner cut) where Lois shoots Clark in the hotel suite to prove he’s Superman.

Gene Hackman refused to come back and work for Lester, so all of his scenes are Donner ones. Lester did use a body double (for over the shoulder shots, etc) and had another actor re-dub some of Hackman's dialogue in some scenes, which Hackman allowed.

There's a part in the sequel, that's never made sense to me. When the three villains from Krypton attack the astronauts on the moon, you see them flying away. One of them tosses the American flag, and it just falls quickly to the ground. Being in zero gravity, shouldn't it have slowly fallen to the surface? Was this a mistake in filming, or did they not have the means to do a special effect like that back then?...

Trivial, I know, but it's always bugged me...

Being in reduced gravity, it should have slowly fallen to the surface, yes.


I don't really know, but I suspect it was too much trouble to do "realistic" slow-falling effects for stuff like that. You don't want it to look like it's obviously being lowered by a wire, either. Some effects, if they can't do them just right, they're better off skipping.

I'm still wondering what happened to Miss Teschmacher. At the beginning, she's in the Fortress Of Solitude with Lex, but when Luthor returns with the Phantom Zone villains, she doesn't return. No explanation is given for what happened to her, either.

The scenes on the moon look terribly cheesy at this point. The lunar scenes in 2001, filmed more than a decade earlier, are much more convincing.

Yeah, but to be fair, the effects in 2001 remain pretty convincing by today's standards. They're really phenomenal - not flashy, but very very real. But they did take a bit of work on the part of the production crew. I don't argue that other filmmakers couldn't have made similar effects, but it wouldn't surprise me if they chose not to. That is, I think it's not so much a mistake, as something that they consciously chose not to bother with. They were more after action sequences than convincing space effects.

If you want to put something in a movie but you can't manage the effect to do it convincingly, don't do it. Rather than have the flag fall on the moon as if it weren't in 1/6 Earth's gravity, don't have the flag fall at all. Just do something that works.

I read a book about the making of Star Wars and they talked about a lot of things they wanted to do in the original 1978 movie (now Episode 4) but couldn't afford so they just left out. Many of these things were trotted out for the next two movies when they supposedly had the budget for it and in some cases they didn't work all that well. Also, it forced them to tighten the plot considerably, leaving them with a nice concise little movie rather than the bloated confusion the earlier screenplays probably would have left us with had they been able to afford filming them. Passing on an effect that just didn't work made the first one a whole lot better.

If he had laid off on all the CGI effects in the prequels, maybe he could've come up with better films. It's as if he thought "Wow! look what i can do now with all these effects, to hell with the storyline!" It's scary to think what he would've done to the originals if he had CGI back then...

I agree completely. The effects begin to drive the plot. It's not exactly new to CGI: effects guys would challenge each other to come up with the best blood splatter and then the director would see it and he just had to use it, so a mildly violent movie moved up to an R. Just because you CAN do something...

...doesn't mean you should.

I just watched the Donner version and preferred it 1000% to the theatrical release. Most of the "it would've been a better movie if not for" moments were taken out and replaced with better versions. Superman revealing his identity by tripping into a fireplace always bugged the crap outta' me. The alternative scene from the screen test wasn't perfect, but much better than the fireplace garbage. Even with the abrupt cuts and repeated ending in this movie, it was way better than the original cut.

Taking the Brando scenes out of that movie was just criminal. Reeve's best scenes in the series and they cut them to save money.

My Dad went to high school with the lead goon-he said he was on the football and not very bright but strong as shit. Said he was a good guy though. Pretty cool!
I'd go with no versions by the way as these movies have not dated well in the least. I liked the first 2 when I was a kid and 3 and 4 are horrendous.

I wouldn't say SMIII was horrendous, just misguided.

The recent "Superman Returns" was very good...has everyone seen it?

I did. I liked it.

But apparently, a lot of internet geeks didn't and neither did Warner Bros, because the "franchise" is going in for a "reboot" at some point.

I like it a lot as well, and I think the airplane/space shuttle rescue is as perfect a scene as there's ever been in a superhero movie.

But I also think that most, if not all, criticisms of the film are legit, and while I honestly do believe that Singer loves the character and his heart was in the right place (no matter what the CW is over at the JBF), there are too many creative decisions he made that just make you go WTF and somebody should have said "no" to him.

That said, I would genuinely like to know what ideas he had regarding Superson for any follow-up films he might have made.