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Post by adam15 on Aug 28, 2008 1:22:48 GMT -5
I was breezing over the Superman II 'What Donner Shot' section and it seems Dharmesh still believes that Donner shot all the Fortress of Solitude scenes. I wonder then if the souffle scene and home movies scene are still somewhere in a vault? The article was updated I think after the release of Donner's cut and these fortress scenes are still marked "this was shot" so I think Dharmesh may still think these scenes exist even after Thau said he found all the existing Donner footage.
Thau did say in his interview that the Salkinds weren't paying their storage bills and the footage was moved around so maybe some material was lost? Perhaps Dharmesh can clarify this; hopefully Selutron will be able to search for more Donner SII footage for the untimate Donner cut!
Also wasn't there also a shot filmed with Superman changing into Clark in a cab set right before Donners Daily Planet opening? I thought I saw a pic of this, was it shown in some version of the film?
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Post by Pineapples101 on Aug 28, 2008 3:56:39 GMT -5
And did Donner ever shoot a more explicit love scene between Clark and Lois? So many questions, so few answers from Thau  |
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HOSNI
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Post by HOSNI on Aug 28, 2008 5:28:23 GMT -5
The Donner crew would have shot everything in the fortress in 77' then ripped it all down. If they shot those scenes (then found and restored the negatives) we would have seen them in the DC.
There's no evidence Donners interior set was retained for any reason. Lester's crew wouldn't have had to rebuild for the reshoots 2 years later if it had been.
I'm pretty sure Supes changing into Clark in the cab wasn't ever shot. Perhaps you're thinking about SIII when he changes in the back of the police car?
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Conor
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Post by Conor on Aug 28, 2008 5:36:38 GMT -5
Well I don't think they'd have taken down the fortress sets had it not been shot. So many things Thau could have shown us. Why didn't we get to see the other sheriff and deputy scene Donner shot?
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Post by Pineapples101 on Aug 28, 2008 6:46:01 GMT -5
Well I don't think they'd have taken down the fortress sets had it not been shot. So many things Thau could have shown us. Why didn't we get to see the other sheriff and deputy scene Donner shot? Whoa! Wha...? I never knew such a scene was ever shot. Do you mean when the Sheriff and Deputy confront Zod and Co? Is there any evidence this was shot by Donner? |
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Conor
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Post by Conor on Aug 28, 2008 11:03:01 GMT -5
Was it not? I thought it was. If noy my bad!  |
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Post by crazy_asian_man on Aug 28, 2008 11:16:29 GMT -5
It would be GREAT if the scenes were shot and were released on dvd--- but my guess is that NOT all the Fortress scenes were shot by Donner in time- pity. My guess is that they probably felt that the Reeve/Kidder bits were going to be easy to pickup on later on, as opposed to any Brando/Hackman stuff. (Which may be why there's no closeups for Lois in the Brando/Reeve depowering scene...*sigh*)
Sadly, I get a hunch the same applies to the original Sheriff/Villains scenes. Hope I'm wrong and they re-release this in the future, but...
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Post by Jor-L5150 on Aug 28, 2008 20:48:12 GMT -5
i think the explicit scenes with margot and chris are a myth.
seeing lois naked except for superman's t-shirt was probably considered risque' and from there the " rep " escalated .
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Post by joey m on Aug 28, 2008 21:03:00 GMT -5
I think Lester would have had to rebuild the fortress either way to do his new cellophane-packed ending, and to get Donner's percentage down enough.
Maybe Donner did everything that needed the full fortress, but figured intimate stuff like the dinner could be picked up later on in 79 on a partial set. I think they just ran out of time and needed to move on to the next big setting (Lex's lair, I think).
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Phil
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Post by Phil on Aug 28, 2008 22:32:37 GMT -5
It would be GREAT if the scenes were shot and were released on dvd--- but my guess is that NOT all the Fortress scenes were shot by Donner in time- pity. My guess is that they probably felt that the Reeve/Kidder bits were going to be easy to pickup on later on, as opposed to any Brando/Hackman stuff. (Which may be why there's no closeups for Lois in the Brando/Reeve depowering scene...*sigh*) The fact that we have no close-ups of Lois during the de-powering scene sadly supports this theory. Bummer. |
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Post by adam15 on Aug 29, 2008 21:43:58 GMT -5
Ahhh screw that I mean remember when in the docos of that bastardized TM 2001 edition they showed a close up of Lois smiling in the S costume. So I really think that the footage exists. It has to exist because we got hardly any Donner footage in the Donner cut. No way Donner shot 70 or 75 % of Superman II if this was all we got. Virtually EVRY SINGLE new Donner scene is incomplete and needed a double. There gotta be more out there, maybe some was destroyed like Donner said. Oh well
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Post by crazy_asian_man on Aug 30, 2008 0:57:43 GMT -5
Yah.... there was so little new footage, it broke my heart--- and on top of that- Thau chose to cut/trim MORE Donner footage (i.e.- the unnecessary dialogue trims on the balcony scene and w/Lois/Supes in front of the FOS). The suprising lack of 'new' Donner footage with Lois/Supes in the Fortress itself was pretty disappointing, too. On one hand, I know Donner said the strategy was to shoot EVERYTHING needed before tearing it down....but on the other hand, on one of the docs, there was a certain point on production wherein they said that they'd just focus on STM and leave SII for later---- so.... I hope you're right about more Donner footage out there- but it would suck if what's in the RDC is really all that exists in salvagable form at this point. |
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Post by adam15 on Aug 30, 2008 4:22:28 GMT -5
I hope they do a COMPLETE Donner cut someday and create every scene they didn't shoot in CGI. (NO CGI JOKES PLEASE) CGI is getting more and more realistic and in maybe 5 years time I'm sure they'll be able to digitally re-create Reeve and Kidder, etc. and blend CGI scenes with the live action ones in a seamless manner to complete SII.
Oh and I completely agree about the unnecessary dialogue trims, why on earth did Thau trim Donner's footage?? I thought the goal was to put as much Donner footage in as possible! Even more unforgivable was deleting entire Donner scenes like the Villians entering/exiting the fortress and Jimmy's new camera. I don't understand why they put in the terrible time travel ending just because they had footage for it when they neglected to use Doner footage that would have actually been used in the cut if Donner finished it!
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Post by TylerDurden389 on Aug 30, 2008 10:45:32 GMT -5
One thing I wonder about is if the original spoken dialogue in the Donner scenes that were used in the theatrical version (and the RIC) still exists. For example I wanna hear Terrance Stamp's original voice during the moon scene, etc... I figure since we got Reeve's and Kidder's original audio put back in at the end of the diner scene, I'm curious if ALL Donner shot footage has the original spoken lines as well.
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Post by crazy_asian_man on Aug 30, 2008 18:41:54 GMT -5
Was that the original audio for the diner scene, though? It sounds like Reeve, but was that Kidder's voice in that same scene? I know that Thau mentioned trying to get Kidder back to do some loops, but that her voice had dropped. The dialogue from Lois in front of the FOS seems MUCH softer and higher than was in the RIC... We know that Reeve had a (horrible) voice double for RDC.... was a lot of Lois' also doubled?
Funny thing is: if the RDC was well done, NONE of these things would be in question. *sigh*....
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Post by adam15 on Aug 30, 2008 22:57:56 GMT -5
Well none of the new Donner scenes were looped I don't think. Thats why we hear a loud clank in the opening scene and why Zod sounds weird. They also removed some of the dubbing Lester did over Donners scenes like in the diner. Reeve and Kidder do sound different but we're hearing their original performance on set, they took out the dubbing so Reeve would say the proper "he knew' instead of the overdubbed 'they knew'
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Post by crazy_asian_man on Aug 31, 2008 18:11:42 GMT -5
I could be wrong, but... A couple of bits that I'm suspicious of looping- For Reeve: Daily Planet scene: the "Lois, what have you done?" dialogue and the high-pitched "I'm not a coward Zod" during the Metropolis fight. I think the diner stuff is the original Reeve performance. For Kidder: The last couple of lines in the diner seem a lot softer from Kidder- I could be wrong- as well as the front of the Fortress scenes that sounded deeper from Kidder in the IRC. The "new" Zod footage, to me, actually sounds like Stamp to me--- also he seemed scarier when he was soft-spoken, as when they restored some of the Donner footage- so that when Donner had him scream, he really did sound like a lunatic who was at both ends very soft-spoken, cold, and cruel at the same time. (Like when he kills the astronaut quietly on the moon.) When Lester made Zod louder all around, it was enoyable in its own right, with the evil grinning and loudness almost all about, but the performance seemed more one-dimensional imo. Still... It's a pity that there weren't 'cliffnotes' at the bottom of RDC like there are with the IRC to cement when doubles were used, etc, eh?  |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2008 21:57:42 GMT -5
"Who is this imbecile? Where is he?" is one of the greatest line readings by a villain ever.
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The Phantom Menace
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Post by The Phantom Menace on Aug 31, 2008 22:47:06 GMT -5
"Why do you say this to me when you know I will kill you for it?"
Which line reading do you prefer? I gotta go with the Lester version.
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Post by crazy_asian_man on Aug 31, 2008 23:28:48 GMT -5
I prefer the Donner stuff almost always to Lester's, but I can see how one would choose the Lester line read.
I think the differences in the line readings go a long way in showing just how different a performance could have been shaped. Donner had such a specific difference with each of the characters, each line that got changed in tone must have killed him.
For my two cents, I prefer the cold, unpredictable and creepy Zod by Donner.
Lester's mix and taking Zod over the top as a two-dimensional villain was ok, but far less interesting to me, especially as now with RDC we can see bits more of what Donner had in mind with Zod.
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Post by Jimbo on Aug 31, 2008 23:49:43 GMT -5
Both lines work for me, but only in their respective versions. I tried reinserting the Lester version (since I knew it the best) into a largely Donner version of my cut, and it just didn't fit. For Donner, he was cold and mad, and in Lester's version he was more foppish.
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Gandy
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Post by Gandy on Sept 1, 2008 2:31:38 GMT -5
I was breezing over the Superman II 'What Donner Shot' section and it seems Dharmesh still believes that Donner shot all the Fortress of Solitude scenes. I wonder then if the souffle scene and home movies scene are still somewhere in a vault? The article was updated I think after the release of Donner's cut and these fortress scenes are still marked "this was shot" so I think Dharmesh may still think these scenes exist even after Thau said he found all the existing Donner footage. Thau did say in his interview that the Salkinds weren't paying their storage bills and the footage was moved around so maybe some material was lost? Perhaps Dharmesh can clarify this; hopefully Selutron will be able to search for more Donner SII footage for the untimate Donner cut! Also wasn't there also a shot filmed with Superman changing into Clark in a cab set right before Donners Daily Planet opening? I thought I saw a pic of this, was it shown in some version of the film? It's entirely possible that Michael Thau didn't put it all the scenes in. I get the feeling that there' footage out there that hasn't been accounted for and/or they didn't use. I figured all the Fortress footage would've been captured. |
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Post by Jimbo on Sept 1, 2008 3:07:33 GMT -5
The fortress footage was shot near the beginning of production, right? Mid-1977 as I recall, months before they halted production of Superman II scenes. Since they were still shooting both Superman movies simultaneously, it would make sense that Donner was shooting all the scenes that used that set before moving on. I agree with Gandy there.
It'd be a huge miracle for 100% of the shot footage to be located, so we have to accept some casualties.
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Post by adam15 on Sept 1, 2008 5:57:25 GMT -5
Thank you so much for replying to my post Dharmesh! I would like to ask you a question: Why would Thau not put in these Donner fortress scenes?
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Post by Ollie W on Sept 1, 2008 6:50:20 GMT -5
I agree with Gandy in that more fortress footage must have been shot. Whether it was found is another matter though I'd suggest not.
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