Superman Redeemed

This is quite simply the best that could be salvaged from some extremely uneven movies. The fact that it all holds together as a narrative is remarkable, but A Digital Man managed to pull it off. This will be what I use from now on whenever I want to show someone the highlights of Reeve's post Donner films.

A tremendous bit of alchemy, this is exactly what fan-editing is all about. Somehow smashing together the best parts of the worst Reeve Superman movies has yielded this excellent new climax to the series (get outta here, Superman Returns!). Others have covered the seamless melding of the Nuclear Man plot with the hallucinatory meltdown of Clark/Superman in the junkyard, but needless to say, it enhances everything all around, and provides a welcome insight into the character through pure action -- which should be the goal of every superhero movie!

And, blasphemous as it may sound, I've always been a Clark/Lana guy, so to have Clark end up with his childhood sweetheart (played to perfection by Annette O'Toole) at the close of this series (after his disastrous brief relationship with Lois in the second film) feels organic, earned, touching and like a full circle to this entire franchise. And the arc that Superman goes through in this movie, both in his personal and global struggles, feels completely fitting and like he has acheived the wisdom that his hologram father unsuccessfully tried to impart in the first iflm.

As an edit that's nearly a decade and a half old, there are some technical glitches to be sure: scene transitions flicker and glitch a bit, there's inconsistency between the quality of scenes from time to time, and the battle on the moon still looks painfully fake, all of which seem like problems that could be alleviated by a fresh pass by ADM or another gifted editor. But regardless of technical quibbles, "Redeemed" now has a permanent place in my collection behind Superman The Movie "Up, Up and Away Edition" and Superman II "The Expanded Richard Donner Cut" as the tight, consistent trilogy that Christopher Reeve's flawless Superman portrayal undoubtedly deserves.

This edit is proof of the power of fan editing. Two crappy sequels combine to make one fluid and interesting story. The amazing part is that the whole story stayed together from start to finish and it was a satisfying finish at that.

My nitpicks with some of the editors choices:

1. I don't think Luthor's prison escape was needed. We never saw Ned Beatty and Valerie Perrine again in the movie so it seemed a little awkward.

2. The edit of the part about sending Lois on the first Concorde with "Outta here" removed was probably unnecessary. I don't think the Concorde ever flew out of Bermuda. Clark had been to Smallville and back twice in the meantime, so we could really just assume Lois finished her vacation and came back to work.

3. The edit of Lois talking to Perry and Clark was pretty noticeable and maybe unnecessary.

I know this edit has been around a long time, but hey - it's new to me.

Both, Superman III and Superman IV sucked a lot. The third one was quite boring and uninteresting while the fourth had a great villain but the rest of the movie was a complete disaster with even worst visual effects than its previous incarnations.

This fanedit tries to make a good movie out of this two crappy things. We can say that it has managed to make something that we can call movie, not like the other two. It is not perfect but at least after watching it we will not think Superman is completely dead.