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Old November 27th, 2006, 04:43 PM   #5
Eric Paddon
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I ended up seeing the Donner cut much earlier than most people thanks to a generous advance copy of the DVD. It was so close to being what it should have been, but not quite.

On the plus side, and a big plus it is, is the restoration of the Brando scenes which are so vital to completing the storyline of the first film. Also a plus is removing some of the more goofy moments.

BUT, and I hesitate to go at greater length about the negatives, but these are the things that knock the quality from a four star effort to a three star effort, there were other problems that could have and should have been avoided when making this.

First mistake was the sloppy music editing that relied almost exclusively on tracked music from the first film. This was especially true in the Main and End Title sequences, where the Superman march is chopped up rather haphazardly, and in the End Credits they should have just dispensed with a chopped up Love Theme following the chopped up March and just let the March play out in full. Also a thumbs down for weakening the impact of the power restoration scene, the most important scene restored to the film, with the "Destruction of Krypton" music. This moment of Jor-El reaching out to his son to restore his powers, required a more soaring, uplifing cue, perhaps the "Leaving Home" music or something similar because the cue just worked against the point of the scene overall, and its a testament to how the scene was directed that it still worked in spite of a bad cue being used.

Then we come to my biggest complaint, and on this one, Donner's egotism is solely to blame, and that was using the "turn back the world" ending rather than just use Lester's ending. I don't care how much Donner hates Lester, the fact is that recycling the I ending ruins the ability of this film to stand alone as a true alternate cut of II to enjoy, and instead makes it take on the characteristic of a feature length deleted scene. I could live with using the test footage for the identity revelation scene, but in this case, once the turn back time ending was used for I, there was no way Donner or Mankiewicz was going to stay with that if they had finished the film. Because you're left with the fact that (1) if Superman turns back time, the scene of him returning to the diner now makes no sense (2) nor does Superman's destruction of the Fortress of Solitude and (3) if he turns back time does this mean Jor-El *hasn't* sacrificed his spirit after all? The Lester ending would have made the film as a whole work. Without it, the film falls frustratignly short of what it could have stood alone as, and I think that's a real pity.
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