Superman II - Jimbo's ABC Cut

[Jimbo]

To get things started, can anyone notice what is changed?

[Conor]

Sweat patch is gone??

[Jimbo]

Both of them. ;D

[crazy_asian_man]

Truly amazing (and painful work)!

Expect a biggie review soon- if not today, tommorrow latest.

In short, though-
Both the Superman IV fixup and the Superman ABC cut is amazing-

The SII cut in particular was a great blessing, because using restraint and the existing footage (rather than generating fake new footage) is something I want to bend more towards in an update, so seeing an example of that was something that was really helpful to see, as well.

[Jimbo]

So long after the dust has settled, I have recognized the theatrical cut as the superior version of the film. However, I grew up on the ABC cut, and found that all of the additions improved the film, so my goal was to recreate that as much as possible with the footage available.

This is pretty much a Lester cut with all Donner/Lester deleted scenes and extended scenes readded. Every deleted scene has been inserted, except for the prison car escape. In terms of extended Lester scenes, I have included the Souffle scene and the scene where Non kills the boy.

The major things that deviate from a true ABC cut would be the additions I made from the Donner Cut. These include:

- Lex and Teschmacher speaking to Jor-El (This is actually a hybrid scene. Lex now talks to Jor-El AND Lara)
- Donner version of the White House attack
- Depowering scene (Also a hybrid scene, Superman speaks to his mother AND his father)
- Repowering scene (Starts off Lester version, and then once he gets the crystal, it switches over to Donner version for Jor-El's final scene)
- FOS confrontation is the Donner version (no cellophane S, no disappearing acts) it transitions back to Lester version when Superman enters the crystal chamber

All extended bits that the Donner version had over the theatrical version are intact in this cut. So just imagine the ABC cut, and that's what this is.

Any and all footage from the RIC/ABC cut that was not available in widescreen is not included. Little snippets like Superman saying there's some good in Lex after all, or Ursa saying on the moon "and men...to kill!" are not in the film. I wish those deleted scenes were available in good quality because I'd throw those in too.

[Legsy]

Jack has a high speed modem?

[Jimbo]

With spell-checking capabilities.

[EvilSupes]

;D Nice work!

Yeah in regards to Lester and Donner cuts, I hate to say it, but the Lester cut is the most polished one of the two. Understandably the Donner cut was on a restricted budget, but that doesn't account for sloppy decisions.

All the time I see cuts from various editors, and all of them seem to use as much Donner cut footage as much as possible, and I simply don't get it. Inconsistency in picture quality, colours, sound, FX all lead to Lester's stuff being more superior in certain instances. Take for example the Fortress at the end of the movie, the cold colouring, the chamber, the theme, everything there in my opinion is poor compared to the Lester shot stuff (with the exception of the flying S). I don't really blame Donner, we all know he is the best man for Superman 1 and 2, but it's those sloppy, cheap decisions that always frustrate me with his cut, mostly because of Mr Thau.

Anyway, your cut looks great Jimbo! Maybe some more footage on youtube?

[Jimbo]

I'll upload the two Jor-El/Lara Fortress scenes and the new repowering scene tonight.

[EvilSupes]

Ok cool.

[Jimbo]

Sept 23, 2009 11:43:30 GMT -5 EvilSupes said:

All the time I see cuts from various editors, and all of them seem to use as much Donner cut footage as much as possible, and I simply don't get it. Inconsistency in picture quality, colours, sound, FX all lead to Lester's stuff being more superior in certain instances.

I was guilty of that too. It was hot and new and gave us the scenes we wanted. But once the dust settled, I was able to be more objective about it, and the flaws became that much more apparent. For all the flaws the theatrical version has, the doll effects, the slapstick, it's the most refined and cohesive version. There's no doubt it's a movie. The Donner Cut comes off as a cheap fan cut.

My cut only cannibalizes footage here and there from the Donner cut to extend the scenes from the theatrical cut. If, for example, the same scene is in both versions of the film (such as the Diner scenes), then I use the Lester version as the sound/music is better. I did however loop in "he know, I heard him, I just didn't listen" over the Lester version.

[EnriqueH]

Jimbo, I have to say of all the different cuts floating around, yours is the one that has caught my eye. I think it's mainly because we both grew up on the ABC cut and enjoy all the additions with mild exceptions. I like the hybrid Jor-El and Lara scenes, (or rather the idea of them), since I find merit in both versions.

[Jimbo]

Thanks Enrique. I recall us mentioning that the ABC cut seemed to be the best one out there. Theatrical didn't have enough Donner footage, Donner cut didn't have enough Lester footage, and the RIC had WAY too much footage. ABC cut with some mild edits (to remove the slapstick) sounds the best.

The addition of Brando was too much to pass up on, so he's in there. However for the Lex and depowering scenes, most of the lines that both parents delivered goes to Lara. The unique stuff like "yours is a higher happiness" and the Trees poem goes to Brando. The explanation of the Phantom Zone goes to Lara.

I played around with the shots so that Superman (the 1979 reshoots) actually turns his head to LOOK at his father. You'll be able to see when I post the clips tonight. I hope it works for other people too.

The beginning of the movie is unchanged however. So I kept the non-Brando voice-over condemning the criminals. It's a different movie, it doesn't need to directly pull a scene from the last movie. I like a bit of variety. However, there was one shot at the trial where they literally painted Brando out of the shot. I reinserted a shot from STM to restore Brando to the scene, if only for a couple seconds.

Total runtime is 2:25, just a minute or two shy of the actual ABC cut.

[Jimbo]

Here's the new Lester/Donner hybrid re-powering scene.



Well, not much of a hybrid. One picks up where the other one left off.

[MerM]

Pretty good so far. Music edits work nicely.

[crazy_asian_man]

Jimbo Review notes-
Prologue:
* Nice touch with the Red Warners' logo- a bit of a "must-have" now...
* No dedication was fine w/me--- fits with the intent- to refresh the memory of the ABC version- with using all available dvd-quality footage and best of both worlds as much as possible.
* The addition of the Brando shot--- interesting.

Credits:
Same as Lester version, not much to comment here, but LOVE LOVE LOVE the genius idea of inserting the matching END credit of "A Richard Donner Film" before "Directed by Richard Lester". Nice!

DP- Paris opening through Criminals' release..
*Same as ABC, not much to comment unless I missed something.
The Lester section of Paris that's always felt painfully slow to me, I know the mission statement was to recreate the ABC, so, it does match the goal set....but.... wouldn't have minded it shorter...

Cab hits Clark/ Orange Juice Part One:
* The more time passes, the more I hate the Orange juice scene w/Lois--- it just makes Lois the character more unlikeable. But that's a fault of Lester alone-

Luthor in Prison/Was this a mix of Lester/Donner audio or straight from the RDC throughout? If it was a mix, smooth as silk audio edit!

Moon Attack:
I have to admit....it is odd now to see the way it was probably originally shot--- One of the FEW decisions I support Thau on, was giving the moon a blue tint. Seeing it now without it feels lacking to me, but it's probably how Unsworth intended it way back when though.

And...ough, boy do I hate the dialogue of the mission control guys to deflate the tension. Boo, Lester.

Prison Break extension/ lumping the first Honeymoon Havens scenes together
Interesting choice to balance these two together--- it actually works better than I would have thought in terms of 'flow'.

EXCELLENT removal of the "Of course he's Jewish" line. Played it back three times, and didn't feel any glitches. Great!

Luthor/Fortress #1/Jorel
Nice balance of choices to sew together (and what not to) for the extra Hackman/Perrine bits in approaching the Fortress.

About the addition of Lara-
Probably one of the few things that I felt was a bit distracting, in jumping back and forth... maybe in this first case, because there's no shot of the crystals popping out of the ground for Lara's appearance (transition) like in the LC, and later on, the going back and forth from Jorel to Lara felt visually jarring , but I have to admit that Susannah York's presence definitely adds something nice to the whole scene.

Nice choice of how to wrap up the scene- the dissolve back to the "Going South" scene- great!

Lois Jumps into the Water-
One of the few Lester scenes that I actually enjoyed anyways. (included it in my own, with slight audio modification)

Villains land/Ursa burns snake-
The Villains' land/fisherman's double take--- ok, not the most offensive of Lester's crimes, although I can't stand the snake scene (why would it hurt Ursa, if bullets can also barely be felt?)--- Lester's fault again.

Pink Bear/
Nothing changed, not much to comment on.

Cops see Villains in the road/
Nice deletion of the beginning 'I think I'll eat the fish' conversation. The rest of the scene, though, still, bugs me, even trimmed down. Lester's fault.

Lois/Supes to the FOS
Nice scene. Glad you kept the LC for Thorne, too.

East Houston gets picked on by the villains/ extension of Willie getting killed
The kid with the English accent still annoys, but the smoothness of adding the scene back in was excellent. Great job!

Lois/Supes/Flower scene
Not much to comment on, ok lester scene- and better in, than deleted.

East Houson Reporters/ Criminals vs. Villains
Glad that you cut out the bit with the army guy coming out, and looking like he wasn't injured at all--- ALWAYS hated that bit.... suprised that Thau kept part of that in, as well.

Adding the Souffle scene.....
Actually works a LOT better here overall than I would have thought, even though I'd seen it before in the IRC- good choice. "I'm going to change into something more comfortable", I was always ok with.

East Houston/ Zod speech
Not much to comment on--- although always sad knowing what that scene SHOULD have been played against in the Mank script.

Superman talks to Jorel and Lara
Hate to admit it.....but seeing Reeve in the costume talking with his folks is more powerful than even the Donner version in white shirt. Geographically, I have a hard time without seeing a master shot of seeing where the parents are in relation to one another, but I know that would mean making a new fx shot--- but then again, even if a rotoscope shot were put in to solidify the illusion that both Jorel and Lara were there--- it may or may not really work, anyways.

However.... I have to admit the scene was one of my favorites in helping visualize how the scene could work emotionally with both parents there, and well cut.

Donner White House Attack
Not much to say here. I have tiny quirks and prefs, that I put in my own cut- but I was totally fine seeing this extended Donner scene here.
(I really preferred Lester's sound fx over the Thau sound fx and mixed those back in)

Nice reinsertion/blend of LC for Thorne music, too.

Diner Scene
Nice insertion of words here- and great choice with LC over RDC edit choices of DOnner's scene.

Repowering
Also found this one really entertaining to see the pluses/minuses in going this route of starting with LC/ then transition to RDC. The coloring/darkening looked great for the DOnner transition.... although I think that I might have trimmed a few seconds of the walk back towards the crystal console and started that DOnner shot at 1:34:37 instead, for smoother visual transition (after all, there's the extreme closeup of the crystal that helps with the transition as well).

Havea mixed reaction to the dark/green color correction lightening staying AFTER Jorel appears. Not sure which is better quite yet.

Luthor talks to the Villains
Not much to say. Classic Donner and good extensions.

Australia transition
It is a great transition....but as I've mentioned before-- Lois looks SOOOO awful there, it's hard to fully embrace, although the emotional tone is oddly a stronger few moments here.

DP attack
What's not to like (besides Lois' telling JImmy to take a picture- blame Lester)- Stamp's voice changes between LC and RDC is a little odd, but very minor.

"General would you like to step outside"-
Hate 'rat Lois' shots. Otherwise, still cool all these years.

Metropolis Fight
Removing the cheesy audience bits helped it out a lot. Great transitioning between two cuts.

Though..... not crazy about the mother screaming/baby basket stuff, but it does fit the ABC restoration rule.... so...

Anyhow, falling asleep. To be continued- More notes next time and thanx again for letting me check out the cut!

[Jimbo]

Sept 24, 2009 2:30:38 GMT -5 crazy_asian_man said:

Prison Break extension/ lumping the first Honeymoon Havens scenes together
Interesting choice to balance these two together--- it actually works better than I would have thought in terms of 'flow'.

I didn't have much of a choice. I used the night shot of Lex and Teschmacher in the balloon just after the escape (as presented in the Donner cut), since it makes more sense. With the daytime version removed, there's nothing between the Honeymoon suite and the main Niagara scene.

Nice choice of how to wrap up the scene- the dissolve back to the "Going South" scene- great!

I did that for two reasons:

1) To get rid of the flubbed "too true to be good" line
2) To get rid of Teschmacher's talk about marriage (which did not match her lip movements AT ALL) and to get rid of the Lex voice double

East Houson Reporters/ Criminals vs. Villains
Glad that you cut out the bit with the army guy coming out, and looking like he wasn't injured at all--- ALWAYS hated that bit.... suprised that Thau kept part of that in, as well.

I made two other changes there. I used the new CG flamethrower that Zod blows back into the building. It's much better looking than the hand-drawn animation. I also used the Donner version of the rocket being launched at Non. It looks less fake.

A more subtle change is when Zod speaks. He says "I am General Zod, your ruler. Today begins a new order. Your lands, your possessions, your very lives will gladly be given in tribute to me, General Zod.

He already SAID he was General Zod. I deleted the italicized one.

(besides Lois' telling JImmy to take a picture- blame Lester)

That was all Donner.

Though..... not crazy about the mother screaming/baby basket stuff, but it does fit the ABC restoration rule.... so...

Me neither. It was necessary because I couldn't cut into it without destroying the music.

[crazy_asian_man]

(besides Lois' telling JImmy to take a picture- blame Lester)

That was all Donner.

I know Donner's footage had Jimmy take the picture on his own...which I was fine with- but I hated Lois' telling him to take a picture- isn't it the theatrical which has that line from Lois in it? I was assuming it was a Lester dub, but could be wrong-

[crazy_asian_man]

Continuing notes-

Non/Supes underground/ Ursa with manhole cover/Zod and Marlboro truck..

The Lester stuff (the way its shot- I know I sound like a broken record- um- cd) is pretty annoying the way it's shot not only like a bad comedy, but it's not even TRYING to match Donner's look/feel in the slightest...

But- I love how you extracted the "The car, he'll pay for it" - nice.

Bus toss-
"Don't do eet! The peeeople!!!"- that you left in, I'm one of the few folks on the planet that was actually fine with it.

The villains blow people-
Glad kfc and some of the Lester silliness is gone.

Back to the planet-
"Let us take his favorite" content-wise is a better ending to that scene....but oh, man,
did Lester go out of his way to make both Kidder and Douglas look absolutely horrible? Content-wise, though, again, agree it's a better cap to the sequence. (similiarly the Australia transition/intro)

Flying over the arctic-
Stamp's voice here sounds the best over the other variations, agreed.

Walking into the Fortress-
Always liked this bit- maybe it's a mixed blessing that Thau didn't put it in and put it aside as an untouched deleted scene--- he might have added really odd music cues or hacked it up more.

Fortress confrontation-
Hated to admit it (as I've always been a Donner stickler for the most part), but the visible closeups by Lester work stronger than the obscured view in the Donner when he's faking getting depowered.

Is there an award for armpit stain removal? Excellent job!
Didn't care for the Lester Non shot of him falling in, but it's preference-
Great removal of "Smallville Strongboy"- I kept it in mine, but worked really well with the music overlay.

The transition shot at 2:08:59 is a little funky continuity wise, but it's how it was in the ABC version, too- with Lois and Supes hovering WAY above the ground, then subsequentlly they're flying close to the entrance of the FOS. (Besides, given how many continuity guffaws there are in mine, it sounds a little silly for me to mention)

RDC Lois/Supes talk and balcony
I preferred the IRC audio more, but I agree that it's a shame that there's nothing dvd-quality available for some of the extended sequences, and we're often stuck with RDC or LC or combo of the two. I did some minor rotoscoping on mine to try to keep both the IRC audio and RDC footage, but in the end, I think your choice is probably more effective by simply keeping the standard of using only available hiq footage.

Lois' looks terrible and talks to Clark in the office
Not much to comment on edit wise other than again feeling venom for Lester's direction- Could you have removed Leueen from the scene like you did the armpit stain? (jk)

Jimmy's brand new camera
Fun scene, all Donner- even though I get why you cut it at that beat where Clark has a thought stuck in his head, rather than going to the janitor's closet, the janitor's closet I thought was always a nice tip of the hat to the Fleischer animated shorts.

Lester version diner
I used that, too. Some fans don't care for the Lester sound fx here and prefer more realistic sounds (which is valid), but I liked them in the original, so I liked that the LC audio was here, too.

Flag scene/frozen fountains to the end-
I always laugh when I see this scene- because I can only remember an audience member shouting out: "The fountains aren't moving!" --- as if the projectionist could fix it! ;p

Anyhow- even though we disagree on some aesthetic choices, great job!!!!

[Jimbo]

Thanks CAM.

Here's the hybrid scene of Lex Luthor at the Fortress:

[Conor]

Very good very good! The contrast between Jor-El and Lara is noticeable through no fault of your own! I loved the switch of characters at "Your father thought long and hard...". It fit really well!

Good job! Can't wait for it!

[Jimbo]

It's already done.

Here's the depowering scene:

[TylerDurden389]

Very nice job Jim. Having his mother there really does add emotion to the scene. Especially seeing both of them fade away. Not to mention 'I love her" is spoken better here too. And yes it's true, seeing him relinquish his powers while in the suit does add more to it as well.

Gotta admit though, the part where he splits in half and his face is "etched" away used to scare me when I was little, and even now I think it's a bit much. If it happens to him, it should happen to the villains too lol.

[EvilSupes]

I've always thought that the depowering with his mother was far, far more emotional. I just think the music and the acting by reeve does the whole scene justice. In the Donner Cut scene Reeve's acting is a bit too cheesy and the music that is clearly heavily edited by Thau doesn't really fit as well. I love all the stuff by Jor-El but I just think the music and Reeve's acting doesn't fit as well as the one done by Lester with his mother unfortunately - which is a shame because otherwise Donner's scene would be superb.

Very nice edit!

[Jor-L5150]

JIMBO!!!

i need this !

interestingly , the wifey handed me your " tale of two dicks " fancut , it was in a stcak of dvd's in box in the cabinet ...

personally, i think lesters version was " better " ina technical sense- because lester had the tools he needed. donner never finished it, he would have reshot some things and the RDC is "RDC" in name only.

looking forward to your work on the quasi-ABC cut.