Superman Part II

I really like how this plays off the first one better than a lot of versions of II does. It's also a good move I've seen rarely, leaving the secret known. A brave choice and a less clumsy way to deal with the problem of how Lois was to forget. I have no complaints, and was very happy I got to see it.

I loved it. A wonderful job by Ollie, who's created a version of SMII I can enjoy instead of watching and thinking "If only they hadn't fired Donner, what could have been..."

I think Ollie's done a great job in selecting which scenes to use in from the wealth of material available. The blank bullets scene may be my favorite of those first two films (continuity issues aside).

Ideally, this film would include the trial scene - IF that scene hadn't already appeared in the first one. Because it did, I completely agree in cutting it. I do have some quibbles. I thought some of Lex and his minion's humor could have been toned down a little (maybe cut out the search for the bathroom in the Fortress entirely). I also thought the battle of Metropolis could be trimmed a bit more (for pacing reasons and to reduce the product placement). My two other small quibbles is that I think the scenes jumped back and forth between Zod/Ursa/Non's attack and the Superman/Lois at the Fortress maybe bit too much, and while I love the dedication in the beginning, it sounded *slightly* wordy to me - maybe "He made us believe a man could fly" would be enough.

But again, those are quibbles. I'm rating this a ten out of ten in every category. This is a high quality edit with amazing pacing and seamless cuts. It opens with a punch, and really holds your attention until the very end. With the more distracting elements of the Lester cut gone and with vastly improved editing in comparison to the Donner cut, this film allows the audience to truly engage with the movie and Clark's struggle. I would be remiss if I did not also give some high praise to the new ending, courtesy of booshman, who's own SMII Redux edit I'll soon be watching.

Wonderful. Ollie's edit felt very organic and flowed a hell of a lot better than Thau's edit or the let's-invent-thirty-new-superpowers original edit that I grew up on. The streamlining aspects of the piece and the inclusion of some of the best bits of Thau's at-times abysmal reworking along with some of the Lester pieces definitely felt natural. And that was the key. Nothing felt...jarring. Rather, it was quite smooth in transition and execution. My gripes are few, if any, and have ZERO to do with the implementation of such scenes. Instead, my gripes are with the original source material. They revolve around the blank bullets scene, which has always stuck out like a sore thumb to me and which I've never liked (even the acting and dialogue felt forced...as a screen test likely should). The other is in some of the fight-scene FX in Metropolis. Primarily the usage of the Statue of Liberty (which I also thought looked much less realistic than it's counterpart flight-and-kick sequence from Lester's cut).

Other than that, any flaws inherent to the source were Thau's fault (herky-jerk music editing in a couple of portions to support use of Williams' original music) or the issue of having to use as much Donner footage as possible. But this was leaps and bounds better than either released version.

The thing I lament the most is that some of the old Superman Cinema regulars (hell...even me) weren't invited to help save Thau from himself when he cut the thing together. Otherwise, if I could get this in Blu-Ray with lossless audio, I'd have it replace the versions in my Motion Picture Anthology in a heartbeat.

Kudos to you, Ollie. Nice work. :)

Superman 2 was the film that got me into fan editing. It was the first film I did. As a HUGE fan of the first 2 Reeve films, I had made it my personal quest to see every fan edit of Superman 2, and see where the "best" edit ideas lie. Ollie's edit here takes quite a lot of what I feel is "the best choices". Out of the 15 or 20 edits of S2 that I've seen, Ollie's is definitely in my top 5 (including my own personal fan edit of the film).

I don't agree with every choice he's made, but after 8 years since the release of the abysmal "Donner Cut", without any word from Selutron, or any further release to right the wrongs, I'll take ANY edit that is vastly superior to either of the official releases sold in stores, regardless if I prefer "this" version of a scene than "that" one.

Audio/Video quality: Well, it's DVD instead of Blu, but in all honesty just fixing the color timing to the theatrical blu of S2 is a project in and of itself lol. A/V is fine for DVD.

Editing-wise this edit is spectacular. There's a few hiccups sure, but they can always be quickly and easily corrected down the line if Ollie chooses to do so.

Narrative: Again, I have my own choices that I prefer over Ollie, but he more than makes up for it by using "Lois knows" ending. That's EXACTLY how I made it in my edit when I made it 6-7 years ago. Just a little restructuring of the "pizza" scene, and BAM, perfect narrative structure.

One thing I didn't think I would like is the runtime. at 103 minutes, it's one of the shortest edit of S2 made. I thought it would be too rushed (like the way the Donner Cut did), but thankfully Ollie chose the right takes, scenes, and edits that gives the story and characters room to breathe. Whereas the Donner Cut just felt like a rush to get it over with, Ollie makes the short run time "fit" just right. And this coming from someone who's preferred version has always been the KCOP cut, which has the longest runtime at 145 minutes (Nearly 45 minutes longer). So for me to enjoy a really short edit of the film says a lot.

Enjoyment: I loved this edit mostly because, now that the fan editing community has had some time to "take in" the entire Superman 2 fiasco regarding different directors, different scenes, different music...etc now we have a fan edit that comes out years since the last one, and now that we've all had some time to really think things over, it really seems like, to me, we all want the same thing. And by that I mean, we're all beginning to agree with what "works best" for the film. So a lot of us are all kinda just trading off ideas and using them in each others edits.

My edit may no longer be available online, but thanks to this edit, I'm just happy that people will see what I believe is the best ending to the film. No amnesia kiss, no re-hashing the turning back time ending. Lois is fine with knowing his secret. Sure, I would've let the villains live, but those deleted scenes need to be cleaned up first.

Wow. This edit was fantastic. There were some issues in the audio (the sync issue in the blank bullets scene for example) but the video editing was top notch. The narrative was perfect and I enjoyed the hell out of it. It's the best Superman II edit I've ever seen and I highly recommend it! Thumbs way up!