Superman II: Green Cut
The other sequence is an editing test. One thing that "Green Cut" would absolutely not have is the dreaded white "Finger Beams." A terrible device created in Lester's version of the film, they have no explanation for being there, and violate the basic rules already established in the original film, and in the comics for that matter. Superman can't levitate things by pointing at them, and neither should the Kryptonian villains. These strange powers show up three times in the film. First, when Zod uses his heat vision on a deputy's gun, the beam then turns white, and the gun magically levitates over to him. Second, when Zod wants to show some force during his visit to a small town, he shoots his 'finger beam' at one of the towns people making him levitate high in the air. And third, during the final confrontation in the fortress, the three villains "combine their energy" and shoot Superman with their 'finger beams.'
The plan was to replace the white beams with heat vision. In the editing test, you can see how one scene was recut to make this happen. When Zod heats up the gun, new effects were going to be added to make the shotgun actually go off, as if the heat set off the shells. The gun was going to have a small kick, and a muzzle flash was going to be added. The reverse shot shows Zod stepping back, almost off balance. This shot was going to have a large shotgun explosion hit his chest. Because he's off balance and stepping back, it appears to have taken him a little by surprise. Non looks on in surprise as well. The next shot shows Zod looking down. The gun barrel was to be removed, and he would now be looking at a very small wisp of residual smoke coming from his chest where the blast hit him. Non would then walk over to the police cruiser and rip off the red spinning light. Finally slight speed changes, and audio tinkering were probably going to be used to help smooth out the final piece to make it feel as natural as possible.
Editing like this was only used as a last resort. In the end, it's cheesy trickery, and fans of the film will easily see how it's done. But in this case, the final scene would actually make more sense. No more levitating gun, also as a bonus, no more incredible overacting coming from the Sheriff! When Non drops the car in the original version, the actor chose to keep on bouncing after the car came to rest.
The other two scenes, the man being lifted in the small town, and the three villains attacking Superman in the fortress, were simply going to substitute heat vision for the finger beams. Both of these scenes were going to be very difficult to pull off. The lifted man would now be simply burned instead. Up until that point the villains only showed real brute force on the moon, and it's no coincidence that scene happened to have been filmed by Richard Donner. The violence would be more implied than actually shown. Showing a man gratuitously frying to death wasn't the intention. Instead Zod would light his shirt on fire, and the rest would be heard off camera. In the theatrical version, there's a shot of the son looking on in horror, this would be inserted instead of the dreaded "please let my daddy down!" fans have been ridiculing for years.
The final 'finger beam' scene involving the villains ganging up on Superman by "combining their energy" was intended to be retouched to keep their arms down, and make heat vision come from their eyes instead. Superman actually glows red anyway, so it still made perfect sense. Possibly some steam may have been added to the burning Superman to really sell the heat vision concept.
