The Richard Donner Cut
We watched the remixed version of Superman II last night. It was much more Superman as Christ-figure, and as such ties in much more closely with the recent Superman Returns.
However, the missing goofy scenes between Louis and Clark as she’s trying to out him as Superman makes their relationship feel very undeveloped. Also, the way that he is outed as Superman in this version of the film is very odd.
The turning back time to fix the earth repeat from Superman I also was odd, because he seems to rewind to before when General Zod and crew were freed from the Phantom Zone, but there’s no indication of him thwarting their freedom, and perhaps more glaring, that little rewind should have erased his fight with the trucker, so his return to that diner to re-enact the fight, now with his superpowers, following upon the trucker’s defeat with the declaration “I’ve been working out” just seemed really out of place in this film; in the original, which was a much more goofy film, it was one of my favorite scenes.
Between this and American Psycho and the Uncut 40-year Old Virgin, I think I’m done with uncut and re-edited versions of films. For the most part, that missing editing process and rethinking process was needed. The one notable exception is Bladerunner: The Director’s Cut, which I think is a stronger piece than the original. Apocalypse Now Redux is worth seeing, but I don’t think it is better than the original.
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February 17th, 2007 at 10:45 am
i second that for bladerunner, the uncut version rocks with more sub-miniature origami and weird unicorn dream sequences.
February 20th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
It’s true, the Donner cut is much more serious, leading us to quip “It’s a film versus a movie” (uh oh!)
I really enjoyed it tho, up until the ending. What was THAT?