Superman Resurrection

Finally got around to watching this. So this is basically a remake of ADigitalMan’s classic Superman Redeemed fanedit with some great creative ideas.

First, the opening credits of the edit (which are overly long but seems to use the theme from Superman II I want to say, and maybe that was also just as long?) establishes itself clearly as a direct sequel to Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut, complete with the “blank bullets” test-shoot scene, the “freedom of the press” line reading (no vocal in the credits of course), and turning back time. Would personally have preferred it if all of it were out and the recap was as general as it could be to allow for anyone to headcanon a different set of fanedits for SI and II, but ultimately it’s the editor’s choice to make this a straightforward sequel to an official release. No biggie.

Also, while the edits were mostly good, there were a couple of moments in the film where I thought the edit was abrupt, but nothing that took me completely out of the movie. Most of these won’t bother anyone; especially someone who isn’t looking for them.

The rest of my thoughts on the edit is that the execution is almost there, but something is missing. As others have stated it still feels like a Frankenstein’s monster of a movie (lol), but that’s no fault of the editor. And I think it’s definitely an improvement over ADM’s story—not that it was bad, but it only went insofar as being a fun Superman adventure. This edit allows for some more introspection. With the limited footage available it’s extremely hard to form a story with it—the Lana Lang stuff especially feels out of place this time. But with scenes like Lois visiting a sick Clark and emphasizing his feeling lost, and with more connective tissue with the plotlines, I feel like we’re super close to cracking this! The fight with Superman and Clark in the junkyard, unlike in the original film and Redeemed, is SCREAMING to say something thematic, but we’re not there yet it seems. But this got close, and that deserves commendation for such a hard task of making this kind of edit!

Some other notes I had…

A) Why is it 7 years later again?

B) Don’t know why you kept the Kryptonian sage repeatedly saying “betrayed” cornily, after the other gave a sick ass thematic line that almost ties everything together.

C) The early set up Deus Ex Machina of the redundant green crystal from SIV, while it allows for the very nice Smallville scene to play, bothered me for being here in this movie. It retcons the first movie and it’s function is annoying.

D) Connected to that, I don’t think I agree with the new flow of how evil Superman is born. So Superman gets scratched, gets sick, heals himself with the crystal, goes to Ricky’s birthday, but the radiation still has an effect so he turns into a douchebag? I guess it still works but I think it needlessly overcomplicates things, and I personally prefer ADM’s simpler way of Superman being directly affected by the scratch. I feel like my version would still have Lois bring back Superman’s cape as it’s a great, subtle scene, but I’d then transition to Superman starting to turning evil from the radiation. I think the worst this would do is confuse why he was sick before turning evil but it can easily be inferred that it was a rough night slash transformation process.

E) I would personally have made an effort to bring the events of these in line with Returns and (since it referred to events in these movies as well) Crisis (which I think Superman revealing he’s Superman to Lois again here helps with Returns, except for the fact that she forgot again? But that’s a Returns problem in the first place) but that’s totally a me thing that doesn’t matter at all lol.

F) The AI upscaling… I’m not a fan of it in general, as I’m a proponent of genuine grain and detail and its preservation, but I also couldn’t tell exactly where it’s been used (sparingly to fix some stuff vs. Widely) and how much, so I guess it really doesn’t matter since I didn’t notice, lol.

That’s all, great job on this! You got me thinking what I want to do with the 1978-2006 Superman films now! Maybe I’ll have my own take on III + IV at some point.

I want to start by saying I helped on this edit, and I did so with great pleasure even though I'm not a huge Superman fan. More of a Batman fan all be told. I also think these two Superman films by themselves aren't very good.
But alas, we have this edit!
I think the new story is told extremely well and fluidly. Sniper raised the stakes of the film's plots by combining them. I think the editing is seamless. I very much enjoy concise & condensed versions of two films (similar to Halloween The Doctor's Cut) that try to punch up the pacing and tell a good overarching story in around 2 to 2.5 hours. This edit is definitely that.

There is some fantastic buildup to the start of the movie with the way the Fanedit opening credit sequences naturally fade in and out followed by the custom opening summary which serves as a great way to bring viewers up to speed on the events of the previous two films without hindering the runtime, adding to this buildup are the custom opening credit calls which provide an insightful lens into the view of the world as if the viewer is seeing said world through the larger than life perspective of the Man Of Steel himself.

The use of J&L cuts effectively help to bypass and remove most of the superfluous subplots and comedic elements and what remains is a far more focused narrative that gives the Man Of Steel a much more defined and compelling story arc and thanks to the use of Topaz AI both films seamlessly join together like a completed puzzle piece and some examples of this perfect cohesion are the news broadcasts utilised during Film 3’s mountain scene that effectively transition to the main crisis issue of Film 4 expressed during the classroom scene.

The second instance would be how you combined the sickness of Nuclear Man with his kryptonite sickness or in the case of your edit the corrupting radiation poisoning ontop of the energy gain from the crystal module and the Nuclear Man scratch with all ultimately tying that organic storytelling thread around protagonist and antagonist making there respective duels a lot more personal and thematic and I include the junkyard battle in this analysis as well and well that battle was already personal it’s newfound connection to the whole Nuclear Man scratch and sun’s energy amplifies the triumphant feeling of that duels conclusion.

The placement of what is now the mid credits scene serves as not only a great conclusion to the Christopher Reeves Superman saga but the key framing and transitioning from colour to sepia and from sepia to colour felt natural and not only provided that meaningful sense of nostalgia but also gave that feeling of a brighter future for both the people of Metropolis and of course Clark & Lois's relationship, though I do have a few nitpicks though there not about how the relationship was handled I think you utilised that aspect and scene really well.

There are two sound issues with the first feeling like the audio jumps a bit around the 1:10:10 to 1:10:11 hour marks and a sharp rise and drop in audio volume from the 1:10:53 to 1:10:56 hour marks, finally during the reunion dance scene there is a crotch gag that is a little on the cringey side but other than those little things I would honestly say that this is a huge improved over the theatrical cuts of these two films.

This is very much a somewhat longer version of Superman Redeemed, but with much better picture quality. It's a Frankenstein Monster of lesser films in an attempt to make something that is greater than the sum of its parts. It's still not a great film, but it is very much a watchable one, particularly for kids who want more Christopher Reeves Superman action.

First, this version looks and sounds fantastic.

I'm a big fan of Superman Redeemed, so I was eager to see this version and spot any improvements.

While this is a reasonably good version, some of the biggest gripes from Superman Redeemed are NOT addressed, but are instead exacerbated. That is the narrative switch from Ricky to Jeremy and back to Ricky. A solution was proposed in the forum section under Superman Redeemed: https://forums.fanedit.org/threads/superman-redeemed-a-hybrid-of-iii-and-iv-by-adigitalman.151/page-7

The problem remains that Jeremy is superfluous and badly-acted, while Ricky is a worthwhile narrative element.

Also, the lack of transition shots toward the end results in Lois and Clark in the Daily Planet followed by Lois and Superman in the streets and no explanation of how they suddenly switched locations.

While I felt Redeemed trimmed a bit too much, this version retains too much. Both Jeremy and Lenny are narrative detractors from Superman IV and the less seen of these two, the better.

I definitely recommend seeing this version, but I would love to see some fine-tuning/trimming in the future.