Donner Party
Just in time for Gene Hackman's 76th birthday comes the news (from IGN, The Digital Bits, and The Superman Homepage, among others) that a "Richard Donner director's edition" of Superman II is finally in the works. I hope it gets rid of that obvious voice-double yelling "North, Ms. Teschmacher!"
The history of the first two Christopher Reeve Superman movies is riddled with what-ifs, including the original plan for them to be one immense epic. Before Lord of the Rings made four-hour movies cool again, a mega-Superman would have been compared to sagas like Gone with the Wind or Lawrence of Arabia -- but it would have begun with the destruction of Krypton and ended with a battle at the Fortress of Solitude, and it might well have run six hours.
Guides to the "Donner footage" can be found at the Superman Homepage and Superman Cinema, and probably elsewhere too. Many of the alterations are extended character moments, but some are noteworthy changes in the movie's plot.
A lot of people like Superman II, me among them, for amping up the excitement and dispensing with much of the Krypton and Smallville preliminaries. However, knowing its background, some of the "patches" seem rather obvious. Therefore, judging the quality of the restoration may well be an exercise in seeing how obvious any remaining patches turn out to be.
Still, at least Superman II will get a better DVD release. The first Superman got the special-edition treatment a few years ago, with little restorations like a young Lois Lane watching a teenaged Clark Kent outrace her train, and Superman enduring a gauntlet of weapons on his way into Luthor's lair. It was also given a new 5.1 sound mix, something its sequels didn't get. The new Superman II sounds even more comprehensive, like the alternate DVD versions of the last two Alien movies.
Comics fans may be unfairly maligned for perpetually nit-picking adaptations of their heroes, but these kinds of recovery projects help illuminate the creative process, and specifically how different directors approach the same material. The new Batman DVDs pleasantly surprised me with "animated" storyboards of the never-filmed Dick Grayson sequence, so you can imagine I'll have my eyes peeled for the new Superman II.
The history of the first two Christopher Reeve Superman movies is riddled with what-ifs, including the original plan for them to be one immense epic. Before Lord of the Rings made four-hour movies cool again, a mega-Superman would have been compared to sagas like Gone with the Wind or Lawrence of Arabia -- but it would have begun with the destruction of Krypton and ended with a battle at the Fortress of Solitude, and it might well have run six hours.
Guides to the "Donner footage" can be found at the Superman Homepage and Superman Cinema, and probably elsewhere too. Many of the alterations are extended character moments, but some are noteworthy changes in the movie's plot.
A lot of people like Superman II, me among them, for amping up the excitement and dispensing with much of the Krypton and Smallville preliminaries. However, knowing its background, some of the "patches" seem rather obvious. Therefore, judging the quality of the restoration may well be an exercise in seeing how obvious any remaining patches turn out to be.
Still, at least Superman II will get a better DVD release. The first Superman got the special-edition treatment a few years ago, with little restorations like a young Lois Lane watching a teenaged Clark Kent outrace her train, and Superman enduring a gauntlet of weapons on his way into Luthor's lair. It was also given a new 5.1 sound mix, something its sequels didn't get. The new Superman II sounds even more comprehensive, like the alternate DVD versions of the last two Alien movies.
Comics fans may be unfairly maligned for perpetually nit-picking adaptations of their heroes, but these kinds of recovery projects help illuminate the creative process, and specifically how different directors approach the same material. The new Batman DVDs pleasantly surprised me with "animated" storyboards of the never-filmed Dick Grayson sequence, so you can imagine I'll have my eyes peeled for the new Superman II.
posted by Tom Bondurant @ 11:01 PM
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