EvilSupes Superman II HD Cut - Coming Soon!

[EvilSupes]

I'm not sure if you are all aware but a few weeks ago I asked Bobby to pass on a message about my Superman II HD Cut while I was unable to get to my computer.

What the cut will be (you can probably guess) is mash-up with the best parts of Lester's and Donner's cut, as well as some of my own additions. There might be some rotoscoping involved in regards to 'CGI villains rule the world' but I am still currently figuring that out and undecided about that.

Anyway, I'd like to hear some of your thoughts on this, and what you'd all like to see and I'll do my best to get back to your comments.

[matt]

Neat!!! I would like to read your outline for your edit!

[Bobby M]

Can't wait for this. Sounds awesome and, as far as I know, will be a genuine first.

If there's any way you can incorporate some sort of CGI Villains Rule The World Scene then please try to do it.

Keep us posted on developments if you can, ES.

[TylerDurden389]

Sounds awesome!! I hope you favor Donner Cut footage over Lester. The picture quality is so much better, especially on the moon and in the FOS. In my fan cut if I wanted to use sound from Lester's cut, I would simply mute the DC footage and play around with the frames until I had them synchronized perfectly. Which was definitely NOT easy when you consider how much Thau did to edit Lester's scenes. Removing a few frames at the end of each shot, and in some cases actually SPEEDING UP the footage. Something to keep in mind if you decide to do that.

[EvilSupes]

I'm gonna be using the best bits from both Lester and Donner so don't worry. The moon sequence will of course be Donner as it has the superior picture and sound. Stuff like the metropolis battle will feature a mix of donner/lester footage and sounds. I will upload some clips I worked on earlier in the year to youtube or an upload service to give you an idea of what I am doing.

Originally myself and CAM were going to work on a HD cut together but I think CAM is quite busy and drained from working on his other S2 bits he did.

Anyone here is more than welcome to help if they want. The less work to do the better.

[Jimbo]

That sounds pretty cool.

I've been looking around for the theatrical cut in HD, but I haven't found it yet.

[EvilSupes]

I have it right here on my pc. I was going to send you it but it never happened once I started getting ridiculously ill.

I'll see if I can get someone I know to post the disc for me for you to have.

[Jimbo]

I think we each tried sending the other a disc in the mail. Both got lost somewhere in the journey.

[EvilSupes]

Yeah and I spent extra to get those discs to you faster, bastard Royal fail service.

I might upload S2 HD instead for you to download piece by piece if that's better? Might take me a while but better than wasting money on a mail service that may/not get to you.

[Bobby M]

Good luck with this cut, EvilSupes. I know a lot are looking forward to it, including myself.

I appreciate that you'll be making this version exactly the way you yourself want it, but if you want any suggestions then mine would be this:

Don't do what a lot of other fan editors have done and make the mistake of trying to create a Donner-biased cut. Or even a Lester one for that matter. Use all available footage from both directors to make the best cut possible. I think too often, editors have fallen into the trap of the "Donner is awesome and can do no wrong" mentality and used his footage as much as possible, often to the detriment of their cut. Because Lester shot a heck of a lot of good material for that film, and I think it's a shame it usually goes uncredited, sometimes as a result of spite. So if Lester's take on a particular scene is better, then use the Lester footage. Don't go for maximum Donner just for the sake of it.

Regarding getting the HD theatrical SII to Jimbo, I'd recommend sending it to him via registered mail. I think Royal Mail are generally a good service, but there are other options out there too. I can't imagine what a pain it would be to upload an entire film in HD. Yikes.

[Jimbo]

Feb 3, 2010 18:20:37 GMT -5 EvilSupes said:

I might upload S2 HD instead for you to download piece by piece if that's better? Might take me a while but better than wasting money on a mail service that may/not get to you.

That'd be awesome, man!

Sites like tehparadox usually host stuff like that, but they only have the Donner cut.

[atp]

Feb 3, 2010 18:37:01 GMT -5 Bobby M said:

I appreciate that you'll be making this version exactly the way you yourself want it, but if you want any suggestions then mine would be this:

Don't do what a lot of other fan editors have done and make the mistake of trying to create a Donner-biased cut omitting the CGI villains rule the world scene please. Or even a Lester one for that matter. Use all available footage from both directors Thau's computer to make the best cut possible. I think too often, editors have fallen into the trap of the "Donner is awesome and can do no wrong" mentality and used his footage as much as possible, often to the detriment of their cut. Because Lester shot Mr Thau created a heck of a lot of good material for that film, and I think it's a shame it usually goes uncredited, sometimes as a result of spite. So if Lester'sMr Thau's take on a particular scene is better, then use the Lester CGI footage. Don't go for maximum Donner just for the sake of it. Try do it please.

Good post dear Bobby.

[Bobby M]

Yes, that too. We must have that scene. Please.

[EvilSupes]

Dunno if anyone was ever interested. Started up the project again but due to the sheer filesize of the uncompressed codec used this isn't going to be a 5 minute job. Need to get bigger storage really to speed up the process of getting it done. Will provide preview youtube clips soonish.

[TylerDurden389]

yes, I am DEFINITELY interested. I've seen every fan cut of S2 and I'm always interested in seeing more ideas that other editors have.

I was actually gonna post this in my fan cut thread since you wrote something there, but it belongs here more.

I recently went back and re-did my fan cut and fixed a lot of problems I missed originally, and in the case of Lester and Donner's video and audio being too different (as you pointed out), I actually went and re-did the Metro battle and used Lester audio over Donner footage. It was a little difficult getting the "whoosh" sounds to sync up, but overall I think I did a bang up job (no pun intended lol). I even got Zod to kick Supes into Lady Liberty with the same audio from Non punching him into the building. One thing I did was, when Ursa calls out to him right before that happens, we actually SEE Ursa flying now as she says his name.

Basically, with the exception of the scene where Ursa hits Non with the flagpole (and a few shots that Thau just HAD to remove half a second of, or sped up the shot), the entire Metro battle is ALL Donner footage now. One thing Thau DID do right was fixing up the overall picture quality. Even Lester's scenes look better by comparison.

As for the FOS scenes, I added a blue tint to try and get Lester's footage to match Donner's, but unfortunately it ends up making all the other colors look kind of "green" (especially Superman's suit). If you're gonna fix this problem in your cut I would LOVE to see it.

Looking forward to the clips!!

[Knight]

Sounds interesting HD would be excellent. I look forward to seeing your work,EvilSupes.

The best thing about the cuts we all do,is that they are exactly what we want our Superman II to be, whether we option more Lester footage or Donner stuff-or Lester-edited Donner footage.

At least we now have the option to cut the two together and are not stuck with Lester's Cut.

[Jimbo]

Interested here too. The theatrical version in HD too.

[Bobby M]

Yep, sure there's lots of interest in this. Please keep us all posted on progress.

[EvilSupes]

Thanks guys. I am glad you are interested because that means I can share the experience of what I have edited with other people than simply just to entertain myself as my own preferred edit type of thing.

Most of it is actually done. I did bits and bobs here and there each week for a few hours while taking my time with it while I was ill. I would say it's approx 75% complete. I decided to just go my own way with it. I haven't seen an edit yet that uses some of the editing decisions I have done - this yet has to be determined wether it will be good or bad of course. But due to the extremely large size of all the files and the limited storage space I have it is taking me longer to finish it. I will upload some clips to youtube soon. I keep saying that but I definitely will at some point it's just I've had to keep my computer off a lot at the moment because of the summer heat causing my pc to slightly overheat and various other crap that's going on.

Jim, you have a PM.