Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut

When I picked up my copy of Superman Returns this week, I noticed that they also had some other Superman-related DVDs, including a "Richard Donner cut" of Superman II, and a new Superman boxset called the "Christopher Reeve collection." Since I already bought the "complete Superman collection" a few years back, I didn't feel the need to pick either of those up.

However, after I got home, I became more curious, and looked up more info. Apparently, when Richard Donner was shooting Superman: The Movie, he also shot most of the sequel. The studio halted production on the second movie to get Donner to finish the first one, and also because he was over-budget. At this point, 70-75% of the sequel had already been filmed.

When the second movie went back into production, several things happened, all of Marlon Brando's scenes as Jor-El were removed, and Richard Donner was replaced by Richard Lester as director. In order for Lester to be billed as director, he'll have to film at least 51% of the movie, meaning much of what Donner shot had to be removed or re-shot.

So, this "new" version is quite a bit different from the theatrical version, and fills in some of the gaps in it. Overall, I think it's a better movie, I'm just not too keen on the scientific aspects in the way they ended the movie. But then, this is Superman we're talking about. "Scientific aspects" of the story pretty much went out the window a long time ago.

A more detailed review of the Richard Donner cut can be seen below.