Superman II

This film can be summed up in two words. Superman Trouble. That is the case. There are two versions of the film "Superman II." One is the vision of acclaimed director Richard Donner, full of color flourishes, and camera work by the late Geoffrey Unsworth. The second, is the vision put on director Richard Lester, by choice of the film's producers, Alexander and Ilya Salkind. Both the films contain the same story and characters, but each was shot with a different tone, different dialogue and footage, which clash with intention. So in the end, footage from each are woven into one movie which film buffs all over the world will notice is somewhat difficult to grasp. Due to the different directing styles of each director, the final cut of Superman II ends up being a cliche work of special effects, mismatched character analysis, and central themes. The film deals with Superman and Lois falling in love, and the three super villains from the prologue of the first film landing on earth and ultimately trying to take over. Very intense stuff. But this is where we as an audience need to know all the facts, and here they are: The first version of Superman II, known as "Superman II: The Adventure Continues" was directed by Richard Donner and supposed to be straight forward with serious tones and action packed sequences. This version was shot simultaneously with the original "Superman" in 1977-78. Originally to be released back to back with the original, "Superman II" was filmed with vigorous explosions, dangerous situations, and tense, irrefutable drama. In the opening, a female liberation symbol, Lois Lane, tries to prove that Clark Kent is Superman by throwing herself out a window, knowing that Clark(Superman) will fly out and save her. In another scene, Superman gives up his powers and nearly kills himself, only to get them back later on, nearly killing himself again. This nailbittingly tense script brought back old characters and was to bring the original "Superman" to a full closure. All actors are fully concentrated and the print is a paragon. 80& of this film was finished when the producers fired director Donner due to some arguments that are still unknown to this day, and replaced him with director Richard Lester, and thusly, "Superman II: The Adventure Continues" was culminated. This is where the Richard Lester vision of the film comes into place. Simply titles "Superman II", the Richard Lester version is full of clumsy comedy, amateur plotting, and is nowhere near as affective as the Donner version. Lester is a comic director, whom had worked on the previous Beatles films, "Help" and "Hard Days Night" and had no experience directing any international blockbusters. To give him more credit than Richard Donner, the producers rewrote most of the footage that Donner shot and went in with the actors for re-shoots...even though Donner had already taken care of this! The villains are portrayed here as careless and comic, whereas in Donner's version they were cold as steel, and not to be messed with. In one re-shot scene, we see three villains who are Superman's foes land on earth and take interest in a snake. The snake bites the female villain and instead of showing her wrath on nature, as was seen in Donner's moon scene which she kills an innocent astronaut in cold blood, she sets the reptile on fire and giggles about it! Central themes of love and home were lost because of this as well. Because of budget problems and deadline, the producers could not finish the re-shoot and "Superman II", and had to fill the gaps with Donner footage from the vault, making "Superman II" confusing and abstruce, and that is what made "Superman II" an atavistic failure. 70% of the film is clumsy, contrived comedy and useless violence, while 30% of the film is straight forward, full of munificent morals and such. The final cut has one scene showing the villains breaking into the white house and consequently taking over the world, with sheer John Williams music, the next scene you see them bored and incoherently complaining about being on a world where "mankind doesn't even resist." The first film "Superman" had morals of justice, and the American way, while the second film was supposed to show morals of love and home, and earthly pleasures that remind people of the good in the world-in a sense, taking along with the "truth, justice, and the American way." This message was lost between the footage by raconteur Donner and comic Lester. Nonetheless, the film was a box office success, and many critics, including the late Pauline Kael and Roger Ebert praised the film for it's portrayal of good versus evil in the modern day society. Some of the footage shot by Donner that was not put into the final cut of the film has since been seen on network television showings and bootlegs, but not all of it. The original opening which gave the film a better sense of dangerous excitement, scenes involving Kal-El and his father were scrapped(Due to the Marlon Brando court case) and the full original ending have all been locked away in London vaults and never before seen by anyone. So on the all in all level, "Superman II" fails because it is nothing more than two films put together, one a comedy, one an action drama, and this keeps "Superman II' from being anything close to what the original has become.

This movie is just great fun!! The 3 evil villains are so good and funny. I especially like the woman villain and her comments on how superman's weakness is the human's and he "cares for these human's, like pets" This movie is cheesy I admit but it's great cheese!! And I mean the ending where superman puts the American Flag on top of the White House is so Classic!! After all superman fights for "Life, Liberty and the American Way! I recommend this movie to all!

It's really a shame that those jerks the Salkinds fired Richard Donner after he made the first Superman movie into a smash hit. For one thing, the 2nd one could have and would have been better with Donner still at the helm and, quite possibly, "Superman III" and "Supergirl" may not have sucked. The only thing in the movie that Richard Lester really deserves any credit for is directing the 12 minute fight in Metropolis between Superman, General Zod, Non and Ursa. That scene is still fun to watch, even with today's overblown CGI.

Well, #2 is the love story entry in the series as Lois Lane discovers that Superman and Clark Kent are the same guy and she lets him know about her infatuation with him. They go steady in his Fortress of Solitude, he gives up his powers so he can live a normal life with her (which the comic book Superman WOULD NEVER DO) then he has to get them restored after he finds out that the villains General Zod, Ursa and Non are raising hell and taking over the planet. Lex Luther is also back for the 2nd go around.

People keep complaining that the film doesn't explain how Superman got his powers restored. Well, I have an old copy of an ABC Sunday night showing of "Superman II" and, mind you I still haven't bought the DVD, the TV showing implied that Superman used the green crystal - the same one that started off his awakening in the first movie and built the Fortress of Solitude - to restore his powers. And according to an interview I read with Richard Donner, the whole idea was that Superman restored his powers by draining all the crystals in his Fortress of Solitude and lost the ability to contact the ghosts of his parents in the process. Another plot hole I can't get over is how Superman ever fell for the Margot Kidder version of Lois Lane - she's an illiterate, chain smoking scatter brain! Gene Hackman still gives the worst performance of his career as Lex Luther, but hey, it's Gene!

Legend has it that Hackman refused to do "Superman III" because he was outraged over the way the Salkinds had treated Richard Donner.

Christopher Reeve is still a good Superman though, and here he actually has a real threat in the form of cold blooded Terence Stamp as General Zod, who is helped by Jack O'Halloran's mute hulk Non and Sarah Douglas's misanthropic Ursa (she later played the evil queen in "Conan the Destroyer"). And as mentioned above, the fight between Superman and Zod's trio is a knock out. Don't miss Christopher Reeve/Superman throwing Terence Stamp/Zod into the giant neon Coke sign!

After the rushing into pre-production of Superman, Superman II footage remained in vaults in Pinewood Studios for the time being. This was where the cast and crew were supposed to pick up filming of Superman II in early February of 1979. However a new order was called in by producer Ilya Salkind. A new director to be exact, and that was the dellima of Superman II. In 1977-78, Richard Donner shot a near estimate of 80 % of Superman II simultaneously with Superman, but that is not the point. The point is that his version was a much more subtle version, which followed the characters emotions from the blockbuster first film, and had an exciting plot of Lois and Superman falling in love, villains killing earth beings, and Superman almost having to risk it all for the world...or the woman he loves! But when director Richard Lester came in to do reshoots and shoot all new scenes, he had a different vision in mind. His version was simple. Make the villains look like dumb butts, while Lois and Superman enjoy an unequal relationship where Lois is given the back seat treatment to mediocre looks and a Superman that would rather make the metropolis people laugh than save the world! As that is what so wrongly happens, we shall go over the facts. Superman and Lois are supposed to have the kind of love that EVERY American dreams of having. Donner insured this in never seen love scenes which would have garnered the film an R-rating. Lester's love scenes are cheap and tacky with hilarious dialogue and no wit to back it up. The villains scenes in the Donner version are cruel, ruthless, and downright evil. In Lester's scenes, the villains pronounce names wrong, look at eachother in stupidity, and act like imbeciles. The film had a good premise going for it: Superman has just saved the world from nuclear destruction and then the villains arrive and start destruction. Meanwhile, Lois and Superman fall in love. That was still the plot, but the myth and mystique which made the original film such a classic are nowhere to be seen here. Instead we get NASA jerks talking about a "curl" in space! Lester was really trashing the mythology with this peice of junk. America had thought that the second Superman film would be a film that they would remember. No such luck as one would have guessed. The film is basically two unfinished films sloppily put together in this turkey! Superman II is NOT without interest. In fact, alot of the scenes are fun to watch because of the action sequences. But it is true what others say, that it seems like Lester was trying at a Beatles/Superman film. Clumsy comedy and stupid chaos ensues as the villains blow through metropolis. Another thing that gets on this writer's nerves is when the townspeople are rooting for Superman in the battle sequence! This villains are trying to kill these people and what do they do? They don't run in fear as they should, but root for Superman when he beats the villains up, calling out rediculous dialogue such as "C'mon! Get 'em Superman!" as if they are present at a high school football match! Too much stupid writing and directing. I will always have respect for Superman II because the whole Superman series has been a part of my better memories in life for a long time. We have yet to see if the true version of Superman will ever be released on DVD, in the form of the Richard Donner cut, as so many fans like to call it. IT is really Ilya Salkinds cut, as he has the contract to the rights of ALL the films(including Supergirl) and their footage. All in all, Superman II fails on a lot of top levels but has the interest for lower levels. Only if Richard Donner's version gets released, will we as an audience and appreciative film viewers get the true experience of Superman II: The Adventure Continues!

In my opinion this movie is still not quite as good as the first movie, it still manages to keep the flavour and charm of the original.

For me what really stood out about this movie was the villains, which are Zod and his gang and Lex Luthor. Terrance Stamp stole the show as General Zod and really sold me on the character's arrogance in relation to Earth. This arrogance was best depicted during the whitehouse scene when upon learning that superman would challenge him, he merely retorts "Who is this imbecile?". What I liked about the Kryptonians in this movie was that all 3 of them were their own character with differing personalities, something which I felt was lacking in Man of Steel (No disrespect to Michael Shannon). Gene Hackman once again is brilliant as Lex Luthor, although for me he was overshadowed by Zod (Which is OK as Zod is the main villain of the movie).

Ken Thorne's score is great and manages to hold up next to the John Williams score of the original.

The special effects, while appearing dated by todays standards are very good for the time and still look very believable. These effects stood out during Superman's fight with Zodd in Metropolis and with the depiction of the Phantom Zone at the beginning of the movie.

Unfortunately this is the last of the Christopher Reeve Superman movies that was of high quality. If you're planning on watching these movies I would recommend that you watch all 4 at least once, but for every subsequent viewing just watch the first 2.

Also RIP Mr Snake, all he wanted to do was say hi