Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut (Part 2 of 3)

WTF? Not in the Donner Cut...

Superman II

The intro

The first thing I noticed that was different about this cut of the film was that Marlon Brando was present during the opening. The Lester cut has a re-shot scene that was set during the opening of Superman 1; he cut Brando completely out of the film. This new cut has an impressive opening of Krypton’s landscape that wasn’t in the Lester cut. There is also a new reaction shot of General Zod when he threatens Jor-El. I also like the use of Superman I material to connect to part 2. Remember when Superman throws one of the rockets into space in the 1^st film? Well now instead of a bomb, the rocket frees the three villains from the Phantom Zone. This is a way to open a sequel. Non of the Paris stuff is in this version.

In this cut, the opening credits are done in the same fashion as the first movie and with the far superior John Williams theme. I also enjoyed the new opening shot of Metropolis, which gives the movie a grand feel. We get to see Donner grander shots and vision just within the first few minutes.

The Three Villains

Donner has admitted that Lester did many the scenes with the three villains early on, except for the scenes with Luthor. Gene Hackman refused to do any of the re-shoots under Lester’s command. I noticed that Non (the big one) doesn’t squeal in this version but grunts instead. There are extensive cuts to many of the scenes in the town fight and with the redneck Police officers, and I feel that they are improvements. You have to keep the Villains menacing. Lester sometimes couldn’t figure this out.

The moon sequence remains mostly uncut, and this has to with the fact that Donner filmed this really cool scene. As I stated before, I couldn’t believe how vicious they are during this scene. And, this was a PG movie! (Note: they did get rid of the girl/curl dialog with the Mission Control guys.)

In this cut, most of the goofy ‘special powers’ are cut out. The Mount Rushmore scene has been replaced with the villains destroying the Washington Monument instead. They knock it over. You don’t know how much I hated when they used eye beams to reshape the Rushmore heads.

When the villains attack the White House, Donner added the bit with General Zod grabbing a machine gun and killing some of the guards. Again, this would have given the movie a PG-13 rating. However, there wasn't a PG-13 rating back then.

(Note: The killing of the young boy by Non isn’t in this cut either, but then again that scene was filmed by Lester. And it is only in the extended ABC/international cut)