I’m much neglecting this site, and also neglecting the very film I campaigned to see!
Anyway (as I’ve posted over in the HTF): having finally gotten around to watching the Donner cut (after I was begging for it so long!), though have to say I did hold out to get it in HD…
A huge massive big thank you to all involved in making this happen!
Wow.
Not sure how to feel about it really. I love it, but it’s certainly quite a different film. It’s going to take a little getting used to.
What stuns me is just how much footage there was, and how much had been reshot by “the other guy”. It’s quite weird in places as it’s a case of watching the film you know but something is just different, and of course it’s because the same scene but shot by someone else.
The test footage and bits of CGI don’t bother me at all. They work pretty well. Much of the new footage is fantastic. Some a little rough around the edges, where perhaps at the time would have been polished off had it made it into the theatrical release. Some perfect though. Everything with Brando is excellent.
A sense that things are missing of course because of knowing the other version so well, but nothing really major sticks out. The ending I’m not so sure, but then I never really bought it in Superman either. It looks great though regardless.
Anyway, once again, many thanks.
It’s been some time since my last article on the Donner cut of Superman II, and much has happened. Warner pulled the rabbit out of the hat, managed to get Donner more involved with the project and delivered to the fans what they wanted. Well almost, but what they really wanted is really an impossibility, so we have instead the next best thing which is some huge achievement anyway and a credit to Warner, Donner and the fans.
Richard Donner speaks in an interview on his new film 16 Blocks, and also on the new Bryan Singer Superman Returns film and the so called ‘Donner cut’ of Superman II, which it turns out he’s not doing himself. He says on helping out with the project, “I can’t because it’s so long ago and the little bit of footage that I looked at, I would never shoot like that now in a million years, I mean it was a different way, a different style, different interpretation.”