SUPERMAN II - THE RICHARD DONNER CUT
How I learned to stop worrying and love the Donner Cut.

DHARMESH'S VERDICT PAGE 2

There are issues throughout the film and most of them are story related, Dick didn't shoot enough footage but the quality and the tone are so immense that it's hard not to be engulfed by Unsworth's potency and the dynamic camera angles.

There are a number of fan cut projects in motion, I have no interest in owning one or watching them because I'd rather support the version Dick signed off on the official cut. The same reason why I can't watch the the 3hr cut of Superman, it's not director approved, and truth be told, it's not that good with the exception of a few scenes. Who wants to watch Jeff East stomp on snow for a few minutes, didn't occur to you that he could get to X marks the spot by zipping along at a much faster pace? In the theatrical version, it works much better, presumably he got there much quicker than the assembly cut suggests. All this exercised material should be on the DVD though.

Back to the Donner cut:

Me and a friend were discussing Newmans and Mankiewicz writing. He felt that the Newman's were not good writers. So, over the last few weeks I spent some time analysing both contributions to various films.
I found Mankiewicz's writing much more cohesive than the Newman's, the former has a knack of writing fun, witty dialogue and keeping a sense of story depth. The Newmans have great concepts but they don't have the thread linking all aspects of their ideas. Look at Santa Claus (highly influenced by Superman), a great idea but ends up being terribly superficial and the great concepts initiated are barely impacting by the third act. Same with Superman III, concepts are good but never fulfilling their promise.
You got to hand it to the 1977 team, they were making two pictures simultaneously yet the characters have to grow as the plot and stories unravel. For instance, Gene Hackman's Luthor grows from this underground B movie villain into a smart dressed, matured, swarmy agent for the 3 villains yet it's same Luthor we love. There's character growth yet and for Donner and Mankiewicz to keep on top is quite amazing on a shoot like that.

Pre-credits
After four viewings, the pre-credits still feel long, ten minutes to establish the indictment and the prison, phantom zone trajectory, the XK101 rocket launch, Superman and Miss Teschmacher and the release of the villains. Then the 2 - 3 minutes credits. That's what? 11 - 12 minutes before we settle in? I love the alternate angles and new material but anyone who watches this cut will have seen the first film, why waste screen time duplicating ALL the story points from the first film? Does this work better:

Condensed Kyptonian Trial.
Inside the phantom zone.
Credits
Superman hurling the rocket into space.
SHOW the second rocket impact and mushroom cloud.
First rocket explosion and release of the villains.

As I've said, I do enjoy the alternate angles and it's not a bore for me to sit through this. I never fast forward a film; I'm very old school in that respect. I watch every film from beginning to the final credit even if I don't like it. I adore the new Oxford Scientific backgrounds, so glad they used it.

I'm willing to bet my life.
It's like we never left them. The wit and interaction has this palpable chemistry. Although the characters have matured in the Lester cut, I don't think the chemistry was dynamic and dynamite like it is in the Donner version. The dialogue reading is much zippier. Sure, Clark is too wet but I never felt it was out of character or overacting, it's not that different from the first film. Lois jumping out of the window is somewhat ridiculous but I'm so close to the films that I can't be completely objective about it but it does test the verisimilitude - do you believe Lois would do that?

Lex's escape.
"How could you do that to Otis?" In the Lester version, the question is asked hundreds and hundreds of miles away or days later. Thankfully we have all the balloon dialogue in its correct placement. I much prefer the composite background too.

Lex and Eve in the Fortress.
Why did they include that puerile toilet flush? Takes me out of the film. I like the projection of the three villains, even though it's duplicating a plot point, which we know but Lex doesn't. That's the way it was shot, it's not a biggie.

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