Posted by Dave Williams (Member # 299) on 10-31-2005, 11:05 PM:
That would be fantastic. Superman and Superman 2 actually comprise one story, and had to be split into two movies because of the running time that would have been necessary to properly tell the story.
It would be nice to see mr. donners original cuts of the films.
Ciao
Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 11-01-2005, 12:57 AM:
Technically, there is no director's cut for "Superman II" since Donner was fired during the production. I do think it would be interesting to have the film reassembled using as much of Donner's footage as possible and then using Lester's footage to fill in the segments shot after Donner left.
Donner mentioned at a press event for the DVD release of the "Superman" movies I attended in 2001 that he believes any scene in "Superman II" featuring Gene Hackman was his footage. Other scenes were re-shot by Richard Lester, but apparently the Hackman stuff couldn't be reshot due to a commitment to another project by Hackman.
I'm all for this "reconstruction" or whatever one wishes to call it. Though I think it's more of a curiosity than a necessity.
As for a Director's Cut of "Superman I," well, for years, we all thought that was what had been shown on its initial network TV broadcast where nearly an hour of extra stuff was added. In recent years, however, Donner has claimed that most of that extra stuff had been cut for a reason and was simply added by the network to justify a big two-night event. What appears on the DVD is more or less a Director's Cut, although during a Q&A following a screening of the longer cut in Los Angeles a couple of years ago, Donner did not seem to fully endorse that version either.
Posted by Robert Harrison (Member # 3202) on 11-02-2005, 06:00 PM:
ANOTHER director's cut of "Superman?"
Maybe, since he's dead, now, they can restore the footage of Marlon Brando that was SUPPOSED to be in "Superman II" before the actor asked for more money for footage that he already shot knowing full well it was going to be used in 2 movies! If you ever wondered what happened to Jor-El in "II," that was the situation, more or less. The producers had to have Kal-El's mom, Lara (Susannah York), show up to fill in the bits where pappy was supposed to be. THAT might be worth the time and effort. Otherwise, I could do without the reinstatement of footage of the North Pole Police (I kid you not) showing up at the end of "II" to take Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) away from the Fortress of Solitude.
Posted by System Notices (Member # 2357) on 12-08-2008, 09:59 PM:
It has been 1132 days since the last post.
Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 12-08-2008, 09:59 PM:
So I watched "Superman: The Movie" on Blu-ray over the weekend. I don't know where it fits in all the reissues and director cuts, but it supposedly has 8 minutes of footage beyond what was in the original theatrical release. More scenes with Jor-El and Lex Luthor for example.
It's still a very good movie and has aged well. Some of the technology used for the special effects exceeds what we see today. If you saw the fairly recent version of "Peter Pan", the flying scenes all scream "WIRES!!". Not so in much of "Superman". Now some of the flying scenes are obviously very fake, but his takeoffs and landings are incredibly well done and nobody has gotten that part any better in subsequent movies. Usually worse. Christopher Reeve and the rest of the cast are great, especially Margot Kidder.
It all mostly still works.
The BD disc is hardly reference quality, but it looks pretty good most of the time. Lots of visible anamorphic clues. And they've done a good job with the audio too. My only complaint is some of the dialog sounds like it was recorded on a Realistic cassette recorder.
Me like.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 12-08-2008, 10:41 PM:
Superman: The Movie is one of 5 titles I received for free with the purchase of my 80GB Playstation 3.
This is one of my favorite superhero movies and pretty much what I use as the standards bar for judging other superhero movies. IMHO, very few have matched the quality of the first Superman movie.
OTOH, I'm glad I received this Blu-ray title for free. The video quality is decent, but not great. Not even for older movies like Close Encounters of the Third Kind or 2001: A Space Odyssey. The BD-25 single layer disc has to be a chief culprit. Topping it off further the audio is merely lossy Dolby Digital 5.1, not something better like lossless Dolby TrueHD or uncompressed Linear PCM 5.1.
There is a lot of rumor buzzing that Warner Bros. deliberately dumbs down the look of their Blu-ray discs to be "optimized" for 720p HDTV sets. That may just be rumor, but the studio tends to use cheaper single layer BD-25 discs far more often than any other major studio. They tend to turn up the "DNR knob" much more -in part to make movies fit on BD-25 discs. A lot of Blu-ray fans are very miffed about the studio's seemingly endless use of lossy surround audio despite promises of going all lossless.
Some criticism has been slung in the way of the video quality of The Dark Knight. Not everyone has bestowed the "reference quality" rave review for that disc. Dan Ramer at DVD File spoke of how the small object detail (fine hairs, fabric weave, etc.) wasn't nearly as defined as it should be. Warner Bros. chose to cram over 1 hour's worth of extras onto the movie disc. It's easy to figure the video compression level on the movie had to be increased a good bit to make room for those extra features. I like extra features to a certain extent, but not enough to allow them to harm the video quality of the main feature on the disc: the freaking movie. The Dark Knight was the biggest release of the year for Warner Bros. and it appears they may have compromised it at least a little instead of pulling out all the stops to make it a new reference standard disc. With what I've read, it appears Baraka will remain as the best looking movie on Blu-ray.
Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 12-09-2008, 09:04 AM:
Ironically, later today I'm getting from netflix both a copy of Superman II and Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut. Sometime between studying for various classes I'll compare the two.
And if you go to youtube and search for "Superman II: The Fan Cut" you'll find where someone posted a cut of the movie that combines footage from both Donner and Lester. I watched it and liked it quite a bit.
Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 12-09-2008, 12:24 PM:
Whats to restore... ? Haven't the negatives been stored in the salt mines??? I hope he doesn't cut a whole new version and ruin the originals, they were great films as they stood...
Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 12-09-2008, 02:54 PM:
What's to restore is the original cut of the movie. Donner had filmed both movies simultaneously. After the first movie got released they fired him. Since they'd have to actually pay him and put him on the billing if at least 50% of the movie was material directed by him, they scrapped lots of his material and reshot scenes. Plus, they didn't feel like paying Brando either so they scrapped his material.
The Richard Donner cut was meant to put the film as close to the way he had originally wanted it as possible.
edit: grammar
[ 12-09-2008, 07:38 PM: Message edited by: Chris Slycord ]
Posted by Brad Allen (Member # 470) on 12-09-2008, 07:58 PM:
I saw Superman: The Movie a few days ago on HDNet Movies, and it looked faded. The resolution was fair.
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 12-09-2008, 08:51 PM:
The "Richard Donner Cut" of Supe II has been out for quite a while. (Take note guys, this thread started years ago.)
It's interesting to watch it with the commentary on. Some scenes had to be put in from rehearsal or "outtake" footage and of course they had to use some of the Lester footage, but it's quite a different movie.
The only thing I really hated about it is he used the same climactic device as in the first Superman (the backward-spinning earth gag) because it was originally intended for use in Supe II. But it just makes the movie anti-climactic since it basically repeats the ending.
There's a whole nother thread about this somewhere around here.
Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 12-11-2008, 01:09 AM:
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