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Superman II is the 1980 sequel to the 1978 feature film Superman. It was the only Superman film to be helmed by two directors. For this reason the film is surrounded with controversy since original director Richard Donner had completed, by his estimation, roughly 75% of the movie in 1977 before being taken off the project. Many of the scenes shot by second director Richard Lester (who had been an uncredited producer on the first film) in 1979 are refilmed Donner sequences. It was released in Europe and Australia in late 1980 but not distributed in the United States until June 1981, which is unusual for such a major production. According to statements by Donner, roughly 25% of the theatrical cut of Superman II contains footage he shot, including all of Gene Hackman's scenes. In 1984, when Superman II premiered on television, 24 minutes were re-inserted into the film (17 mins in US ABC TV). Much of the extra footage was directed by Richard Donner. A brand new re-cut of the film, restoring as much of Donner's original conception as possible, titled Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut, was released in November 2006.
PlotSpoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
The film begins with a prologue in which General Zod and his co-conspirators, Ursa and Non, are banished to the Phantom Zone by the Kryptonian elders as punishment for their crimes. The story then moves forward in time. Clark learns from Perry that Lois is in France to cover terrorists who have seized the Eiffel Tower and have a hydrogen bomb. As Superman, he races across the ocean to Paris. In the course of rescuing Lois, Superman throws the hydrogen bomb out of the atmosphere and into deep space, where it explodes. The shockwaves shatter the crystalline conduit into the Phantom Zone, now floating near Earth. Zod, Non, and Ursa are released. Lex Luthor, meanwhile, has escaped prison with Miss Teschmacher's help, leaving a hapless Otis behind. He uses a gadget he constructed in prison to find Superman's arctic Fortress of Solitude, where he learns from a hologram about the three Kryptonian villains and their prison's only weakness: it could be shattered by a nuclear explosion in space. Putting the pieces of the puzzle together, he hurries south, convinced his device has detected the three criminals' alpha wave signatures. Image:Christopher margot1.jpg Superman and Lois Lane at the Fortress of Solitude. Clark and Lois are on assignment in Niagara Falls, Ontario, investigating what Perry calls a "honeymoon racket." Superman rescues a boy who falls over the railing, and Lois suddenly decides it is far too convenient that Clark disappears every time Superman shows. She tries to prove it by jumping into the Niagara River and screaming for Superman to save her. Clark never changes identities but, unbeknownst to Lois, uses his heat vision to break off a tree branch for Lois to use to stay afloat. Later, as she dries off in the hotel room embarrassed and dejected, Lois asks Clark for a brush. As Clark brings it over, he trips over the head of a bear-skin rug and his glasses fall into the fireplace. Clark quickly snatches them out of the fire with his bare hand. Realizing that his hand wasn't burned, Lois determines that Clark is Superman. After some hesitation, Clark admits the truth and takes Lois to the Fortress of Solitude. He shows her the crystals which created and control the operations; Lois leaves the primary green crystal under her purse, outside the control panel. After a conversation with the hologram of his mother Lara about the consequences of being in love with a "mortal," Superman agrees to give up his powers to begin a relationship with Lois. Before he enters the "crystal chamber" and undergoes the painful depowering process, his mother tells him that once he has given up his powers, there is no return and that he shall remain a mortal human for the rest of his life. He emerges from the chamber a human, and tells Lois that his sacrifice was made for her. The two retire to his bedchamber and sleep together. Meanwhile, the three Kryptonian criminals have devastated a joint NASA-Soviet Moon expedition, killing three moonwalkers. They fly to Earth, which they believe to be a planet called "Houston", having overheard radio transmissions between the moon mission and mission control in Houston, Texas. They wreak havoc on a small town, easily defeat the U.S. military's response, deface Mount Rushmore and arrive in Washington DC to attack the White House. General Zod demands the surrender of the President of the United States and eventually the entire world. Returning from the Fortress of Solitude, Clark finds that without his powers he can't even defend himself against a diner's bullying customer. His despondent mood worsens when, in horror, he watches the President announcing the surrender of Earth to General Zod. The President suddenly pleads for Superman's help; Zod issues a challenge to Superman to face him. Realizing the danger posed to the world and the terrible mistake he made, Clark returns to the Fortress in search of a way to restore his lost powers. Arriving in the dark sanctum, he falls into despair, shouting for his father. He sees the green crystal glowing where Lois accidentally left it.
Back in Metropolis, Superman uses a form of telepathy (a kiss) to erase the knowledge of his dual identity from Lois, returning them to their usual status quo. Later, Clark takes revenge on the customer who bullied him at the diner, and the film closes with Superman restoring the American flag atop the White House and assuring the President that he'll always rescue the Earth. CastScoreControversy and cult statusOff-screen problems hampered production of this movie: like other Salkind productions such as The Three Musketeers (1973) and The Four Musketeers (1974), this was filmed at the same time as the first Superman movie to be a direct sequel. However, Marlon Brando filed suit over his percentage of the first film's profits, so as a response, the Salkind's excised his scenes from the second film. Director Richard Donner argued with the producers over their attempts to make the film "more campy," in his opinion, which led to his removal and replacement on the project by Richard Lester. Following that, Gene Hackman declined to return for any reshoots by Lester, which cut down the number of scenes in which he appears in the final cut (or with a few scenes where a body double was obviously being used). Image:Superman2newdvd.jpg 2006 DVD rerelease. Another reason behind Richard Donner's removal may have been that the Salkinds were upset that Donner went over their originally planned budget for the movie. Warner Brothers ended up getting more and more involved in the race to complete the film, allowing the studio to receive more profits from the film's box office take than the Salkinds had originally agreed to. With their power slipping away, Donner was unfortunately made the scapegoat. Despite all the difficulties, and with only a few noticeable shifts in tone between the two directors' scenes (Lester's scenes tend to be more campy and humorous), it was noted by critics to be a remarkable and coherent film, highlighted by the movie's battle sequence between Superman and the three Phantom Zone prisoners on the streets of Metropolis. Scenes filmed by Donner include all the Gene Hackman footage, the moon sequences, the White House shots, Clark and the bully, and a lot of the footage of Zod, Ursa and Non arriving at the Daily Planet. Since the Lester footage was shot almost two years later, both Margot Kidder and Christopher Reeve's appearances look different between the Lester and Donner footage. Reeve appears less bulked up in Donner's sequences (filmed in 1977), as he was still gaining muscle for the part. Kidder also has dramatic changes throughout; in the montage of Lester/Donner material, shot inside the Daily Planet and the Fortress of Solitude near the movie's conclusion, her hairstyle, hair color, and even make-up are all inconsistent. Indeed, Kidder's physical appearance in the Lester footage is noticeably different; during the scenes shot for Donner she appears slender, whereas in the Lester footage she looks frail and gaunt. In the years since the film's release, the controversy continues to be fueled, while the film itself has achieved cult status. In 1983, Alexander Salkind's production company pieced together an "Expanded International Cut" of the film for television using approximately 24 minutes of footage not shown in the theatrical release, some of which was original Richard Donner footage shot before Richard Lester became director. The "new" footage expanded on the film's many subplots, including a further explanation of the villains' task on Earth, Superman and Lois' romance, and an alternate ending involving Lex Luthor, the three Kryptonian villains, and the final fate of the Fortress of Solitude. This 146-minute expanded version was released throughout Europe and Australia in the 1980s (the initial expanded U.S. ABC and Canadian CBC telecasts, though edited differently, were derived from the European/Australian TV edit). In 2005, several Superman movie fans attempted to bring the film closer to Donner's original vision by creating their own professionally-made video restoration of the "International Cut" and offered free DVDs of it on one of the many Superman fan sites, but their efforts were thwarted by Warner Bros., who reportedly threatened legal action. All four Superman films received Special or Deluxe Edition releases in 2006 coinciding with the release of Superman Returns. It was confirmed that Ilya Salkind has released Donner's footage for a separate Superman II disc and that Donner was involved in the project. According to an interview conducted by website supermanhomepage.com, Ilya confirmed that Time Warner now owns all of the footage shot for 1978's Superman, 1980's Superman II, 1983's Superman III, 1984's Supergirl, and 1987's Superman IV: The Quest for Peace including distribution rights. SE restorationist Michael Thau worked on the project alongside Richard Donner and Tom Mankiewicz, who supervised the Superman II reconstruction. Despite some initial confusion, Thau confirmed that all the footage shot by Donner in 1977 was recovered and transferred from England. The new edition was released on November 28, 2006 and called Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut. The new cut also features less than 20% footage filmed by replacement director Richard Lester. Trivia
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