Holy Thread Resurrection, Batman! 
So has anyone here seen the rerelease of Superman II with Christopher Reeve, et al.? It's called "Superman II - the Donner Cut."
Apparently most of Superman II was filmed simultaneously with Superman I, but the producers thought Superman I was too serious and midway through the filming of II, pushed out the original director (Donner) and brought in a different director (Richard Lester) and new writers to rewrite the script and basically redo the movie.
So the movie we all saw was Lester's, and used only some small percentage of the stuff filmed by Donner, and the Lester brought the cast back and had to film all the rewritten stuff.
A major reason for all this was apparently the producers were cheap and didn't want to pay for Brando.
Anyway, all that unused footage that Richard Donner filmed was apparently sitting around in a basement somewhere, and after Christopher Reeve passed away, Donner was apparently talked into taking all that footage and putting it together into the movie he originally had wanted to make before being kicked off.
There's one scene that Donner didn't get to film before he was kicked off originally, the scene where Lois figures out Clark's being Superman ... but that was the scene they apparently used as a screen test to cast Lois Lane, so they pieced together footage from the screen tests for this (which explains why he looks very different in a few close-ups during that scene) ... all entertaining stuff.
So annnyyyyywaaaayyyy, the point of this is I just saw the Donner flick. Repeatedly. And it's great. Better than great. A very different movie than the one released 25 years ago ...
Yes, Brando's in it. And in this one, just as one example of the changes, Superman and Lois get together while he's still got his ... um ... superpowers....
(Man, this midlife crisis business just won't quit, will it.)
But seriously, it's also kind of a treat to see all the new footage, never before seen and all that, of Christopher Reeve when he was young and healthy and strong and ... ohnevermindI'llstopnow.
So has anyone here seen the rerelease of Superman II with Christopher Reeve, et al.? It's called "Superman II - the Donner Cut."
Apparently most of Superman II was filmed simultaneously with Superman I, but the producers thought Superman I was too serious and midway through the filming of II, pushed out the original director (Donner) and brought in a different director (Richard Lester) and new writers to rewrite the script and basically redo the movie.
So the movie we all saw was Lester's, and used only some small percentage of the stuff filmed by Donner, and the Lester brought the cast back and had to film all the rewritten stuff.
A major reason for all this was apparently the producers were cheap and didn't want to pay for Brando.
Anyway, all that unused footage that Richard Donner filmed was apparently sitting around in a basement somewhere, and after Christopher Reeve passed away, Donner was apparently talked into taking all that footage and putting it together into the movie he originally had wanted to make before being kicked off.
There's one scene that Donner didn't get to film before he was kicked off originally, the scene where Lois figures out Clark's being Superman ... but that was the scene they apparently used as a screen test to cast Lois Lane, so they pieced together footage from the screen tests for this (which explains why he looks very different in a few close-ups during that scene
) ... all entertaining stuff.So annnyyyyywaaaayyyy, the point of this is I just saw the Donner flick. Repeatedly. And it's great. Better than great. A very different movie than the one released 25 years ago ...
Yes, Brando's in it. And in this one, just as one example of the changes, Superman and Lois get together while he's still got his ... um ... superpowers....
(Man, this midlife crisis business just won't quit, will it.
)But seriously, it's also kind of a treat to see all the new footage, never before seen and all that, of Christopher Reeve when he was young and healthy and strong and ... ohnevermindI'llstopnow.
Wow!
