Superman Redeemed

Review by pjt — December 18, 2008 @ 6:49 am

*This rating was given before reviews were required*

Review by latenights — January 15, 2009 @ 12:29 am

This is the one that has finally convinced me to give fan edits a go. The Batman Forever/The Dark Knight edit tweaked my interest when I first read about it but I just thought the movie was too lame to give the fan-edit a decent chance to improve much on the quality. After seeing the Richard Donner cut of Superman II and loving it (even with the audition footage, which IMHO is a much better scene than the accidental reveal of Lester’s version) I decided to make that the definitive version and wanted more of the same. When I tripped over this fan-edit I was desperate to see what ADM could make of these two movies in the hopes he would give Christopher Reeve one last moment of glory.

Effort and creative flair to pick the scenes out of the whole for this reimagining of the story has go to be 5/5.

*****SPOILERS*****

Using the Lester Paris scene was inspired, even though the scene itself is weak (but there’s nothing can be done to counter the appalling acting and direction!)

Another inspired choice was the NuclearMan scratch to bring about the Bizzarro transformation, but I have to agree with the other posters about the speed with which the transformation happens, and I agree that some of the scenes from IV where Supes/Clark gets sick would ease this.

The footage from Superman II and III blends almost seamlessly (I’m a huge fan and couldn’t help noticing which film which footage came from, but it wasn’t distracting to me, if anything it made the experience more pleasurable because as a fan I could see what ADM had gone through to create this cut), and even some of the footage from IV fitted in perfectly (like parts of the NuclearMan terorising downtown scene where the men in suits wear hats!) though that was more by luck than design I should imagine based on the available footage. The rest fit in well, with the obvious jarring of Lenny Luthor’s outlandish suits.

The short running time means the film rips along but this edit somehow manages to reflect the mood of Donner’s films in certain scenes (how I don’t know – all credit to ADM for achieving this), but some of the more campy or overacted scenes (like Lex “firing” the nuclear arms dealers) and elaborate exposition and set-up from the axed story lines (I’m looking at you, thermally unstable acid!) were still superfluous to requirements IMHO.

Unfortunately this edit can’t escape that it’s been cobbled together from two and a half weak films, and though it’s huge fun and I highly recommend it to any fan (my nephew doesn’t have a choice – this is what he’ll be watching instead of the originals) it still isn’t a movie that actually redeems Superman.

But all in all, given the source material, an outstanding job. Think I’ll go give The Dark Knight a try now…

Review by joebshmoe — November 19, 2009 @ 3:39 am

*This rating was given before reviews were required*

Keeping this short as most of what I have to say has already been said already.

Audio: This was the largest flaw of the edit. There are quite a few cut's that are very abrupt and some just sound strange.

Video: It was overall pretty good. I could nitpick but no need. The enjoyment of the edit made the quality a second thought.

Narrative/Enjoyment: 99% of the merging of the two movies were done excellently. As it was said in another review. I would have preferred to see Supes get sick after the scratch before he went bizarro. I rewinded this part 3 times thinking i looked away and missed something. This is the only part of the edit that really jumped out at me that this was a fanedit. Everything else was done pretty spot on.

A much more enjoyable version of those two movies. Not perfect but it does replace part 3 and 4 and me

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.