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Post by dejan on Jun 8, 2023 16:45:58 GMT -5
I don’t think the original ending would have faired any better. It was supposed to end with the Radio Flyer airplane they built suspended by nothing in the Smithsonian where we see the two boys as adults. Apparently, that was too confusing for audiences so they had to come up with the bookend that are in the final film. Think what hurt the ending the most was how they showed a shot of the makeshift plane flying into the sunset, giving the impression that it could make him “travel all over the world.” It was preposterous to believe he would get as far as he apparently did and that idea in the audience’s mind made it unforgiving. I’m still puzzled over other details of the original draft, including how the flyer wasn’t even mechanical but just a seat with a pair of makeshift wings attached to it. Donner wanted his verisimilitude sensibility in this film as well but there was just too much going for this screenplay for the audience to suspend their disbelief for. FWIW guys, in the Blu Ray 2019 interview with Donner for Inside Moves, he reveals that he changed the ending of the novel for the film! But it was a very late addition. In IM, there is a scene towards the end ,where John Savage's character encounters a drug addicted prostitute who basically tells him to go **** himself. It's a beautifully recited, but emotionally brutal scene, as the prostitute's predicament has only gotten worse as the story comes to a close. Donner said that's how the film was supposed to end, more or less. But because the actress's performance was so effective at amplifying the pessimism........that it induced him into shooting an extra scene where there was an uplifting ending! Bless vagina Donner.......you can't fault the guy's unfailing good will to express that everything in the end ,will always be alright. Sounds like Radioflyer had a similar story. Will definitely try to get hold of it later on this summer, as I have never seen it.
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dejan
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Post by dejan on Jun 8, 2023 16:30:09 GMT -5
This sentiment is probably what drove Donner to resentment towards Lester. With his perfectionist attitude, he probably looked back at the work he completed for two and wanted to redo a large portion of it due to the rushed nature of the production. The 1931 Spanish version of Dracula had an advantage over the English version of looking at their rushes for the day and deciding to up them on a technical level. Yes, but it's also a miracle that Donner shot as much as he did of Part II given the time consuming process of setting everything up. Interesting that in the CapedWonder behind the scenes stills, the cameramen are covered in what appears to be a black quilt.....I am assuming that was done so as to obscure their own reflections in all the glass. There is no question in my mind that Donner would have reshot a decent chunk of what he had already lensed anyways. He even claims in the commentary that he would have called Brando back for some reshoots, had he been allowed to finish. You referenced the ability to see dailies quickly. Back in those days, you could sometimes be waiting for days before you actually got a chance to see what was shot on the day. Nowadays, ofcourse, directors can playback a take digitally , literally seconds after shooting it. So that reference I made earlier in the thread, about the Russos getting caught out by an astute fan who noticed Holland's hair inconsistencies from shot to shot in Infinity War......is less forgivable, given all the tech they have at their disposal.
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Post by dejan on Jun 8, 2023 5:47:48 GMT -5
I have had to pick these off capedwonder: (but even if partially obscured, that portrait is unique to STM and Donner's SII stuff ......) Notice the light switch under the portrait: This one has nothing to do with anything other than it's Gary Kurtz, who must have been on an Empire Strikes back scouting for production crew talent mission!
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Post by dejan on Jun 8, 2023 4:48:56 GMT -5
Love ya CAM.......
But it's definitely Lester!
There is a light switch under the portrait too, in Donner's version.
Said light switch is missing completely in Lester's shots.
That particular Cosby portrait is also exclusive to Lester's DP set up. It's there plain as day ,when Clark confronts Perry about the Paris terrorists at the beginning of the theatrical.
That it would show up in an angle that Donner used just the once is impossible, when every other angle or shot at the DP that we know of that is definitevely Donner, features the other portrait of the unidentified individual. Goto 20:39 in the video below:
There's the portrait that is unique to STM and Donner's scenes from SII again!
As for getting Stamp to shout in the manner of his initial outburst at Brando in STM......
There are plenty of Lester films which feature actors shouting angrily and doing it with conviction! Petulia,How I Won The War,Robin & Marian,On The Way To The Forum,Cuba,The Knack,Royal Flash,Juggernaught,The Muskys,Butch and Sundance......to name but a few.
Getting convincing performances from actors,was a trait of Lester and Donner(whatever the tone), across the entire spectrum of their flicks, irrespective of whether said flicks were good or bad(invariably most are pretty darn good!). Let's not forget that Lester was also on set(or at least part of the production crew) for a decent chunk of STM,including the shooting schedule in London at the Daily Planet in the summer of 77'.
Chances are that Lester noted Donner's work, close up. Was Lester on set when Donner filmed the villains trashing the DP? Unknown. But he could have been. Petrou notes on page 103 of "The Making Of " book ,that Lester kept his presense on stage "to a minimum".
Hence Lester's ability to exact a great performance from Stamp, when it came to his turn to shoot stuff in 1979. In fact, in some ways, Donner's takes ironically would serve as rehearsals, for when Lester got his chance 2 years later, specifically for those scenes featuring inserts/reshoots.
It's an unsual scenario, but I think there is some validity to the hypothesis.
Kidder's line of when she exclaims "Superman!" when he arrives on the flagpole is probably the best example. For whatever reason, Donner's take of Kidder lacked a sense of a dramatic reaction. Lester noted it.
In his take....Kidder's face comes into frame. Adds a bit of kinetisism to the shot. Also, her reaction is much more visceral.
It's those little touches which amp up the tension.
For the record, I prefer Lester's pre- arrival of the villains at the DP reshoot: "He shows up everytime a cat gets stuck in a tree"
As opposed to Donner's original: "No no no....there's 3 of them...."
Before the DC was released in 2006, I always used to wonder what that pre arrival of the villains at the DP looked like under Donner. At the time I was in pure Lester hate mode, and was convinced that Donner's versions/takes would be superior!
But was distinctly underwhelmed when I finally saw Donner's original shoot of that scene. Made me appreciate the reshoots of Lester that much more.
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Post by dejan on Jun 7, 2023 14:29:34 GMT -5
I, too, would be interested in inquiring what Donner’s take of “Kneel before Zod” was. It must have been in the pile of shots Thau had because he went to the trouble of adding a new Donner shot that shows Zod exiting the frame. Ah, good catch with the extra shot of Zod exiting the frame, exclusive to the DC! Now we are getting into the pixel peeping weeds here! Goto 0:25 in the video below: ...you will notice that there is the reflection of Zod in the window that the camera is facing towards, so as to capture Supes on the flagpole(in fact , Supes begins to fly off said flag pole). It's a Donner shot ofcourse, but you can see Stamp open and close his mouth, where he must be saying some part of the famouse line! The problem is that the dialogue is from the theatrical version....so is not synchronised well with Stamp's lip movements. So as a hypothesis: Maybe the actual Donner shot was in Thau's possession, but did not synch very well with the audio from Lester's take. But why would that matter? Well, we all know that the on set audio that was recorded during Donner's(and Lester's) scenes in general, featuring the actor's unadultarated voices, was slightly meek sounding. So Stamp's utterance of that line without any alterations to his voice may not have had quite the impact either Donner or Thau were seeking in 2006, especially for such a key sequence. Hence the reason to keep Lester's take. On edit: Notice that in the theatrical,Lester had Stamp raise his arm to accentuate the "kneel before Zod" utterance, which adds extra malevolence to the character's demands. In Zod's reflection in the window in the Donner Cut, Stamp opens and closes his mouth but keeps his hands to his side. So it could have been a performance issue aswell, as to why Thau did not use Donner's take. Either way, would still like to see it. One for Jim Bowers to ask Thau, the next time they talk.
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Post by dejan on Jun 7, 2023 10:02:51 GMT -5
Also watched Maverick Blu Ray for the first time too.
Enjoyed it. It does what it says on the cover! Provide entertainment. Simple as. Good period detail.
Quite a few twist and turns in the final 30 mins or so. Maybe a little too many but that's cool. Good to see a pre- Doc Ock Molina in action. Nice cameos from Glover and Kidder! Good chemistry amongst the leads.
FWIW , I am not familiar with the Maverick TV series and am generally not a fan of the Western genre. I like the "spagetti" westerns a lot though.
In someways....Donner's Maverick is the equivalent of Lester's Butch and Sundance. Good ,clean ,harmless Western fun. Kinda weird how there are some artistic symmetries between the two here.
Next up from Donner's work that I have never seen: Assassins and Timeline.
And from Lester's repetoire: 1975's Royal Flash. This one's interesting because the Blu Ray cost a fortune....so there is some demand out there for this one....looking forward to see what all the fuss is about. Film was a commercial bomb but that does not bother me. Any film with Oliver Reed and Malcolm McDowell has to have some fireworks!
But as it stands......for me personally....Inside Moves is the champ amongst Donner's non Supes work.
Petulia, intimate, in a similar vain to Inside Moves , but this time focusing explicitly on the degradation of a romantic relationship, using non linear time chronologies(Nolan, take note!)....... for Lester.
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Post by dejan on Jun 7, 2023 9:58:29 GMT -5
@cam
Definitely a little gem and according to the great man himself, his best film! Not sure if you already have the BluRay but if you don't, get it!
Also found this interview from 2016 where Donner himself reiterates that he would liked to have made more intimate films:
Radioflyer is another film I have not seen either, so will have to track it down.
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Post by dejan on Jun 6, 2023 17:05:39 GMT -5
So dear CAM Finally watched Inside Moves on Blu Ray! Holy moly. IMHO......... Donner's best film and whilst this may sound sacrosant....maybe even more than STM itself! But don't worry about me, Donner says so himself in the extra features on the Blu Ray! Interview was conducted in 2019, and may well be one of the last he ever gave regarding his back catalogue outside of either Supes or Lethal Weapon. In fact Donner says that after Supes ,he was offered every big blockbuster type thing going and turned them down in favour of IM. He refers to the blockbuster stuff that he refused to do as "Superman bullpoop"! But these are the types of films that I wish Donner made more of. Great acting. Fantastic storytelling. Strong chemistry between the leads. The above are normal Donner trade marks. The difference with IM is they occur within the confines of ordinary characters with normal f**ked up lives, as opposed to the extraordinary stuff(son of the devil, superheroes,medieval magic, kids on far flung adventures and cops who survived every explosion known to man - lol! ect ect It's a film strong on neorealism , in the manner of the European Waves from the late 50s and 60(Goddard,DeSica ect). No music. Let's the emotions of the characters substitute the music. A home run, creatively speaking. Donner says he was frustrated at how badly the film was marketed on it's release, resulting in so few seeing it. And it makes me sad that these types of films, even if they are made now, don't stand a chance against most of the B.S blockbusters that hog the limelight. Here's looking at you Disney!
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Post by dejan on Jun 6, 2023 16:44:00 GMT -5
Hah! Selutron didn't even do nuthin'. Come on. Let's go. Selutron will be back. As long as he’s alive he’s gonna try again. The Selutron cut: Scruffy.....so morbid. A sentimental replica of Donner's Superman II, long since vanished. No style at all.
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Post by dejan on Jun 6, 2023 5:04:58 GMT -5
I'll tell you who I'd write a letter to that would do some good "I just wish he would've said 'yes'!" Brilliant!
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Post by dejan on Jun 6, 2023 4:49:11 GMT -5
I envy those who are skilled in Deepfake or AI or CGI software - they probably could restore the Donner cut the way that it should be done- filling in the missing shots and scenes in the Mank script (that couldn't be solved even if the RDC was edited properly), what with voice duplication for actors who passed away or to generate footage that wasn't shot and can't be shot for whatever reason. They could re-create all the unshot Donner scenes using AI technology with photo-real representations of Reeve and Kidder mined from all their previous movies. Just look at what they did with Harrison Ford. What I'd be most worried about is the scene of AI Villains Ruling the World by destroying key monuments. Might kids these days find such a scene.. destroying monuments.... rather tame in light of over a decade of MCU action? To be fair....even by the mid 70s, there had also been several disaster films which featured epic destruction of either cities, buildings or objects(planes/ships/cars ect ect): Towering Inferno,Earthquake, ,Poseidon Adventure,Airport 77' are the ones that come to mind.....there maybe others i am missing. Actually even 1978's The Swarm featured a train being derailed in the opening scene. CAM linked to it on another thread. The novelty of SII as conceived by Donner and Mank was that said destruction would be induced by human like individuals as opposed to "naturalistic" type events(earthquakes/fires/malfunctions ect). As I've said in a couple of other threads, as scripted by Mank, that destruction sequence needed a bit more padding otherwise it would have been almost too quick, ironically reducing the resonating effect of said destruction. If Donner had been allowed to finish in 79'.....I think he would have found a way to elongate that sequence. On edit: Recall CAM mentioning 1979's Meteor. Goto 1:11:11 for the big set piece: For 1979 that effect is very impressive. The overall movie, however, not so impressive! But that sequence of Hong Kong getting flooded was the big show stopper of the entire flick! Donner's task would have been herculean because Mank's script required Paris,Tokyo,Washington and NYC(Metrop) to all take significant damage. How long would that have taken to shoot and how much would it have cost, had Donner been allowed to finish in 79', remains an intrigueing mystery!
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Post by dejan on Jun 6, 2023 4:24:45 GMT -5
Was it a pic of Bill Cosby or OJ Simpson? I'm pretty sure it was the Juice. Also you could tell the "Come to me, knell before Zod!" shot was Lester... it was way too OTP to be Donner. Pretty sure it was Bill Cosby. The difference between the photo before and now I think isn't an error, but to show a time difference from the beginning of the movie to that point. I feel like it was shot by Donner- (Admittedly I could be wrong)- the contrast being from the quiet performance to that outburst. I felt it worked by doing it ONCE - whichever director shot it. (The extended tv bits with Zod going on and on by Lester felt a bit bland and the taunts a little childish.) When we see the look of the added Lester shots when the villains return to the DP- look at the difference of lighting, etc. - from the Donner-shot material. At the same time, I do admit- the "Would you care to step outside?" as a far stronger insert. But it was neat to see a bit of the Donner take on the scene. (I wish we could have seen the other alternate takes Donner had for much of the RDC.) That insert of : "Kneel before me...." ....is definitely a Lester insert. It's a blink and you will miss it addition. But in every shot that is by Donner of Zod at the Daily Planet, there is the same portrait(of an unidentified individual- possibly Cosby?) behind Stamp, that was behind Clark(when confronted by Perry),in STM, and again behind Reeve and Kidder in the opening at the DP in Donner's SII. Goto 0:01, 0:21 and 0:29 in the video below: .....and you will notice the portrait that is common to both STM and Donner's SII shots. The shot at 0:21 in particular , when Zod looks up as he reacts to Supe's taunt("General"!),and the one 0:29, when he turns to Luthor, still has that STM portrait behind Stamp, which accentutates Donner's ownership. So there is no question that the "new" insert by Lester.......is Lester when Zod shouts the famous line. Of course, would be curious to see Donner's original take. Couple of possibilities: 1)Was shot by Donner but lost over the subsequent 26 years. 2)Was shot by Donner and not deemed good enough by Lester at the time,and subsequently, by Thau himself, 26 years later. 3)Was actually never shot by Donner at all, thereby forcing Lester to shoot it in 1979/80, and therefore inducing Thau to use it, 26 years later. I think that option 3 is very unlikely....leaving the other 2 as the best reasons why we have what we have.
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Post by dejan on Jun 5, 2023 18:49:51 GMT -5
428Q EXT. OBSERVATION DECK.
NUCLEAR MAN soars into the air with LACY.
428R EXT. EDGE OF SPACE
They leave the earth's atmosphere.
428S EXT. SUN AND MOON
The moon slowly covers the sun
AMENDMENT NO. 4 (pink) 11-Sept-86
428T CLOSE SHOT: NUCLEAR MAN Reacts horror struck at:
428U HIS P.O.V.: AN ECLIPSE
428V EXT.SPACE In the unnatural darkness, deprived of energy, NUCLEAR MAN goes rigid, helpless and immobile, still clutching LACY.
428W EXT. SPACE
SUPERMAN flies to the rescue, releases LACY and together they sweep down towards the earth's surface.Ok, I was wrong. It was in the script- though the movie seems to have them in deep space.... even at the edge of space, it's a bit goofy. The execution just made it look worse. But- considering all the other sins in the movie, this probably would have been overlooked if everything else was in working order... Thanks for that ,CAM. Don't think there is much left to be said. If a proof writer(maybe Reeve himself?) noticed the physical incongruencies of Lacy surviving in space, he/she obviously had no power, or time to excise this abominable idea. However: One thing that SIV has going for it are the quality of the background plates for the flying sequences(i.e when Supes and Lois fly over NYC and San Francisco).It was just that the optical compositing of the actors on said plates was so poor that it let the show down. But: If I had been a technician in post production back in 1987...... I would have dropped the San Francisco plate from the Lois/Supes romantic flight sequence and used it as a background behind Nuclear Man and Lacy....basically signifying that he is trying to kidnap Lacy away from Metropolis......hey it's the best one could do under the circumstances!.....and it would save the repetition of the same plate being used twice..... Anyways we got what we got! Here's to SuperLacy!
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Post by dejan on Jun 5, 2023 16:00:48 GMT -5
Was the Nuclear Man taking Lacy into outer space part, also in the script? If so, whoever wrote that, should have been shot! If it was not in the script and added in post, whoever did that should also have been shot! What was Nuclear Mans end game? Once he was in space with Lacy, then what? That's a question for Konner,Rosenthal and Mr Reeve! Whatever they were smokin' when they wrote that sequence in the script.....it must have been potent!
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Post by dejan on Jun 5, 2023 4:19:26 GMT -5
Hard to get excited about this after seeing Zod and the terraforming crap again Looks like MOS all over again, just with a Flash pov Yep. It's like too much candy. Eventually it's gonna make you sick.
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Post by dejan on Jun 5, 2023 4:12:16 GMT -5
It's interesting that for a couple of us, the main pull of this film is Keaton. For me personally, he's still the best Batman.
But for a younger audience, who have had Bale,Affleck and Pattison in relatively quick succession, Keaton may not really have much resonance. To be fair, even by the mid 90s, Kilmer and Clooney had already done enough to obscure Keaton's double whammy as Batman.
By the early 00s , and after the damage done by Shumacher in the late 90s, people started to harken back to the Burton/Keaton axis.
Then Nolan popped up on the scene in 2005, relagating Keaton to the long lost history books, at least as far as younger fans were concerned.
On the other hand:
Whilst still enjoying Batman 89' and 92'....they were still uneven movies, somewhat tainting Keaton's overall impression as Bat.
Seeing how Homecoming redimensionalised Garfield's reputation as Spidey......maybe Flash will reinvogorate and remodify Keaton's legacy as Batman.
On edit: The fact that Keaton already had a little stint as Vulture in the MCU......may also affect how younger fans see Keaton in the Flash:
"Look mummy.....it's the Vulture pretending to be Batman!"
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Post by dejan on Jun 5, 2023 2:32:33 GMT -5
Was the Nuclear Man taking Lacy into outer space part, also in the script?
If so, whoever wrote that, should have been shot!
If it was not in the script and added in post, whoever did that should also have been shot!
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Post by dejan on Jun 4, 2023 2:22:11 GMT -5
Metallo and CAM Having just rewatched SIV the other day, one thing that struck me which I had not really noticed(or payed much credence to) on my previous viewings over the last 36 years or so, was the fact that both Reeve and Kidder were interacting with each other as if there had been no passage of time from STM to 1987! .... In SIV, we were essentially back to square one. And that was the wrong tonal approach , especially given the fact 10 years had elapsed by that point. It feels like Reeve and Kidder are uncomfortable trying to play their parts from a behavioral perspective(and not a physical one) ,as if they were 10 years younger! That was totally the wrong approach. So going back to CAM's original question at the beginning of this thread(sorry - I seem to have derailed it with my slagging off of SIV!- lol!)......but that's one thing i would definitely change if I was writing the script for SIV......to make it look like there has been a passage of time in how the 2 leads interact with each other. That's exactly how I felt- given Kidder had aged a bit (pretty good considering time, but Reeve only looked like he may have aged 2-3 years from SII imo)- Reeve was fine as Supes was always pretty much always a boy scout in every incarnation- but Kidder as Lois I thought should have played it a little less doe-eyed in the hotel scene. On the flip side= scenes where they had executed it as if Lois was more mature and put in a bit of evolution with the relationship with Clark/Lois- I mostly loved- the flying ballet/reunion in particular - as if both were older- outside of terrible fx, was great and more mature, imo). Also the United Nations scene- the one where she goes to see Clark when he's sick--- has issues from its writing, but the intent is nice. Still- while I (and everyone else) wish SIV was better, I'm still glad what we got was good enough for me to be glad that they at least tried, and I do really like the scenes that did work. Yes.Totally agree. When they land back on Clark's balcony and Supes asks Lois if she remembers everything. That small interchange was the kind of tone Furie should have been aiming for , from the first frame, right through to the last. In those few seconds, he managed to get Reeve and Kidder to exude the emotion that accentuated the passage of time. Personally speaking, what the actors look like is irrelevant, because it's always going to be a case of margins in how their appearances fluctuate throughout the years. The performance is everything. In fact , thinking about it,Reeve's look changed significantly throughout STM itself. Donner's and Baird's trick was to edit the movie skillfully enough, and to get the requisite takes that contained the appropriate quality(and to excise those that didn't), to counteract any fluctuations in appearance.
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Post by dejan on Jun 4, 2023 2:06:59 GMT -5
crown and CAM Superman IV as a whole, felt like a spare tyre(and a cheap one at that!) and looked like a dead animal scrapped off the side of a road!
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Post by dejan on Jun 3, 2023 17:12:53 GMT -5
Metallo and CAM Having just rewatched SIV the other day, one thing that struck me which I had not really noticed(or payed much credence to) on my previous viewings over the last 36 years or so, was the fact that both Reeve and Kidder were interacting with each other as if there had been no passage of time from STM to 1987! Outside of the one scene when Supes does the romantic flight thing with Lois......every other scene has Lois treating Clark as if they were still in Perry's office being introduced to eachother for the first time in STM(from a tonal perspective)! Let's be honest, in STM, generally speaking, Lois is pretty dismissive of Clark(and intentionally so). In SIV, she misses him on the train but it's no big deal. Even in the double date scenario, she is still commanding Clark on how to behave and to "notice the dress" of Lacy, instructing the poor fella ,almost like a maternal figure! She even tells Lacy when Supe's drops by: "now there's a different kind of entrance" .....further differenciating Clark from Supes, in a quasi derogatory way. It's cool as it's done for laughs and it's still endearing, but the problem is that we are no longer in 1978. It's now 1987 and Clark is still playing second fiddle to Supes in exactly the same manner that he did 10 years prior! Even in the pivotal scene when she visits the diseased Clark in his appartment, Lois goes on a monalogue about the missing Supes, whilst poor Clark sits there all curled up in his blanket , without barely a caring thought from Lois!(that's not quite true....but he is still is a distant second to Supes!). Without wishing to come across as a Lester apologist, but darn.....he made sure that there was an evolution in the Lois - Clark relationship , relative to STM. And if you break down Lester's scenes for SII, he very deliberately placed one or two exchanges between the 2 characters where Lois begins to express sympathy for Clark: In the office: Lois: "What else are friends for"? Clark: "Friends huh?" In the Honey Moon Haven Hotel room: Clark: "Gee, you look very pretty" Lois: "Thank you Clark"(places her hand on his shoulder) Next to Niagra Falls: Clark: "Maybe we should hold hands too" Lois: "Here is my hand Clark, hold it!" These were fantastic little touches which opened up the Supes/Clark- Lois dynamic.....it was now no longer just Supes that could make an impression on Lois.......Clark could too. And there was only a 2 year gap between STM and SII, but Lester's team were wise enough to at least attempt to exhibit a maturation of the Clark - Lois paradigm. In SIV, we were essentially back to square one. And that was the wrong tonal approach , especially given the fact 10 years had elapsed by that point. It feels like Reeve and Kidder are uncomfortable trying to play their parts from a behavioral perspective(and not a physical one) ,as if they were 10 years younger! That was totally the wrong approach. So going back to CAM's original question at the beginning of this thread(sorry - I seem to have derailed it with my slagging off of SIV!- lol!)......but that's one thing i would definitely change if I was writing the script for SIV......to make it look like there has been a passage of time in how the 2 leads interact with each other.
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Post by dejan on Jun 2, 2023 11:31:15 GMT -5
It's an interesting discussion for sure, regarding what constitutes a definitive representation of a character, but also as a film in general. Timing is another key. We all love STM(and SII- at least in my case!) not just because of all the elements that you folks have already underlined,but subliminally, also due to the contrast of said film(s) compared to everything else that was out there during the same period(sci fi/fantasy/super hero or any other genre).
With Batman, I would be lying if I did not say that Mat Reeve's version is quite a compelling watch. If it had come out in 1989, or even as late as 2005, it would have probably been groundbreaking. As is, in 2022/23, it's a great interpretation.....but it's nothing new from an overall movie going perspective.
Burton definitely pushed a few envelopes in 89'.....but it seems like we all agree there is a degree of uneveness to the whole presentation. Personally, Keaton's still "my number one guy!", in terms of conveying what I think the idiosyncratic Wayne, juxtaposed against the "in the shadows" Batman would look and behave like. But I wanted the environment to be similar to what Donner(or quite frankly , Lester too) had done for Supes(in terms of using some real locations). Don't get me wrong....I actually love the artificial gothic look and ambience that Burton gave to the environment.....but with the entire story or film being set in said environment......a sense of claustrophobia emerged for me. Maybe that was Burton's intention, but the film felt too monolithic for my likeing. In the end, Nolan gave the environment, but not the character, at least for me,Bale lacked the psycological charisma of Keaton, ......I know for others it's the other way round!....or as CAM said, they prefer everything Nolan did.
So it's horses for courses!
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Post by dejan on Jun 2, 2023 11:12:05 GMT -5
@cam
I see you mentioned Star Trek The Motion Picture and The Wrath Of Khan as being some of your most watched movies.
Same for me too!
Love both of them. Again, i watched them back to back on home video quite a few times over the last 40 years or so.
Even though they are completely different.....can't get enough of either of them. TMP is a beautiful looking film, as Metallo underlined.....but I love the story and acting even though both of those usually get derided by critics and fans alike.
And Khan is still so tight from a structural perspective. Not one ounce of film is wasted in conveying whatever element of the story needs to be told.
I am huge fan of III and IV too. One of my big regrets was when they did a triple bill of the the first 3 movies back in 1985....and not being able to go.
Also....gotta admit I teared up in the cinema in 82'(aged 8) when Spock kicked the bucket. I also teared up during ET too!
Has not happened since though! lol!
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dejan
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Post by dejan on Jun 2, 2023 9:20:29 GMT -5
Depended on the surface conditions............. Maybe when he saw Ursa he reconsidered his choice to marry Borris? Who can blame the poor fella. But maybe Non had his eye on Ursa too! Wasn't too happy to see Mike take a shine to Ursa......so crushed him in the lunar capsule.
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dejan
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Post by dejan on Jun 2, 2023 1:13:34 GMT -5
Did Astronaut Mike and Cosmonaut Borris really get engaged? Apparently their rorschach tests suggested it. Depended on the surface conditions.............
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dejan
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Post by dejan on May 31, 2023 11:18:25 GMT -5
Chip in here with me thoughts, chaps!
It's an unfair comparison because they are different genres......but LW2 is much better than Batman 89' IMHO. Batman 89' had so much hype going into it before release, that it was always going to struggle to live up to said hype in the minds of some(like me!). But much like it's chief competitor that heady summer , Last Crusade, it ended up being a champ for a lot of folks. But that hype ended up obscuring stuff like The Abyss and LW2, which had real meat to the bones, IMHO.
I think Donner could have done a better job on all fronts compared to Burton, with Batman, if given the opportunity. The tone would have been radically different for sure.
I was under impressed with Batman's action sequences ways back then.....they almost seemed quaint compared to what Donner was doing with LW2. Ok some of the fight choreography was decent in the Church sequence at the end.....but still ways too little for me.
I could say something very controversial and admit that I am still waiting for a definitive Batman film to be made! Neither Burton at one end of the spectrum......or Nolan at the other, hit the jackpot for me.
But granted....I am in the minority on that one!
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