Superman Returned- A Tomahawk Re-Edit

[tomahawk]

I have not really left a scene untouched with basically 30 minutes deleted and 16 minutes added. The film has been reassembled in many respects with some scenes now at different placements and interwoven. New score has been added at certain places and the whole film including credits comes in at 2hrs 20 min.

I really wanted to have Superman's journey resonate more fully and have his journey start before the opening credits and end before the end credits in a more fulfilling way than what some people suggest occurred in the theatrical. I believe I have strengthened Lois's character and the Third act is more tension filled and suspenseful.

Singer treated Superman with reverence, but the editing may have had trouble conveying that reverence in a way in which was coherent and engaging.

One of the biggest complaints I heard about Superman Returns was that it stayed too close to the pace and structure of Superman The Movie. The biggest complaint I have with Superman Returns, is that it didn’t.

In STM, the world we are introduced to is unveiled to us in a way that is focused and engaging (for the time) by introducing us to, and remaining with, the characters that matter to us. They matter to us because they set up who Superman will become and where he came from. By the time we have arrived in Metropolis we believe and are invested in Clark Kent and how this character is going to make his way in a world that is, for all intents and purposes, our own.

In Superman Returns, that 40 minutes of investment conveyed to us in STM is instead written for us on a text card. The introduction to Kal-El’s origins is a voiceover and the opening shot is of a Gothic mansion with manic characters. We are simultaneously being asked to believe in the film as a continuation of the world introduced to us in STM whilst in the first 6 minutes of the film we are told in no uncertain terms that this world is most definitely not that one, and we still have no character to attach to. When Superman does finally appear we have no idea where he has been and really, do we care?

My Re-Edit seeks to address this.

[magicjim]

I am very impressed with the tone of the trailer. Where/when/how can we see the final project?

[tomahawk]

Currently in the process of rendering this to SD for DVD (it was mastered in HD). Then those members who want a copy will be able to get one.

[Jor-L5150]

Sounds interesting

[atp]

Can you fix MoS next?

[Kirok]

Sept 11, 2013 12:10:45 GMT -5 atp said:

Can you fix MoS next?

Hahaha, I expect noting less from you ATP.

As an editor myself I'm always fascinated by how stories can be so dramatically shaped and reshaped in post production. I haven't partaken in any fan editing myself (outside of trailers), but have a lot of ideas I'd love to delve into if I had the time.

SR is ripe for fan editing and while I've read about many a fan edit of it I've yet to see one for myself. So put me on the list for sure, Tomahawk. It's a shame an extended cut was never released. An unfortunate byproduct of SR being a one-and-done franchise that the powers that be are trying to put behind them as they move forward with the MOS universe.

[crazy_asian_man]

I was incredibly fortunate to see a 'sneak peek' of Tomahawk's re-edit, it's a great view... will edit my rough review and post it here later tonight. Some very nice surprises that I didn't expect.

[Shane]

interested in seeing this
been a while since i watched SR

[Ollie W]

REVIEW OF SUPERMAN RETURNED

Recently I listened to a fan discussion on Superman Returns on the Movie Moan podcast which featured a special guest Robert Meyer Burnett who worked closely on the film in a documenting capacity. In the discussion he describes Singer's original opening of the film. Essentially a tone setting fifteen minutes of footage with pretty much no dialogue. Watching Tomahawk's cut of Superman Returns I felt like I was watching the opening that Robert was describing.

In Superman Returned scenes are added, trimmed and re-ordered for a dramatic effect. Now one gets the experience of rediscovering these characters in a way that doesn't feel rushed and at the same time not sluggish in the slightest.

It's easy to understand why Singer felt the need to cut the return to Krypton sequence. He wanted to move things along. But Superman Returns was still an origin story, just a different form and it needed to be given the time to evolve and then launch into some action.

I can honestly say that I feel a casual viewer would be far less lost watching this version. But most importantly the film better resonates the message that it is trying to sell. Now when Superman stands over his son and repeats Brando's dialogue I didn't find it corny, I was actually quite moved. Similarly when Superman confronts Lex and calls the creating of new Krypton 'an old man's sick joke' it's a powerful line.

For the first twenty minutes of this cut we are entirely immersed in Clark's world as we see his struggle to fit back into society all the while knowing the horrors that he has seen. When he meets Lois again it's as Clark and not Superman. This was shear brilliance.

From here on end the movie gathers momentum as Lex's plan takes shape but not in a way in which the audience has to be spoon fed everything. Rather the movie builds towards a third act which moves faster than the theatrical cut.

With subtle trims performances are much stronger in this cut and I'm talking primarily about Kate Bosworth and Kevin Spacey. Bosworth is still for mine the worst Lois Lane ever. She was much to young for the role and the way she was written was very unlikeable. However in this version she is at the very least more understandable which is a pretty awesome achievement. Spacey was lauded by most but I always found his portrayal of Lex to be very cartoony. In this version we get a more evil and original Lex Luthor with much of the one liners cut.

In summary the core idea of this film now resonates with me in a way that it did not before. No longer am I bother by the subtle nods to STM as I now feel Donner's film is being celebrated in a better movie than what we got. This is the version of Superman Returns that I'll reach for every time I spin the Superman series. Great job Tomahawk!

[EnriqueH]

Shit, I'm intrigued!

I'd love to see it. Is it uploaded anywhere?

Some thoughts on what frustrated me about SR:

1) This movie needed a super villain.

2) Luthor was corny.

3) Superman gets hurt 3 or 4 times. In fact, the movie is bracketed with scenes of Superman injured badly. With no super villain(s), I might add.

[Keith]

I'm interested in seeing this as well. Sounds like a much better experience than SR was. I bout loved it when it came out, but now I like it and sometimes it's "meh".

This sounds better... Can't wait to check it out.

[atp]

Speaking of fan edits, when will Selutrons S2 be released?

[tomahawk]

In this edit, we are not reacquainted with Lex until after Clark has met Lois, Jason and Richard. I found that the Theatrical version lost focus on the reintroduction of Clark/Kal-El by alternating between the reintroduction of Lex. If I don't yet care about the person being threatened, I surely won't care about the threat. I decided to stay with Clark, have him reintroduced to all the supporting characters and locations which in turn introduces us to this world and enables us to be grounded in the reality unfolding to us, just as it unfolds to Clark.

This will be available to all who own the SR and STM DVD. Just doing some conversions as we speak to ensure easy access for everyone. Probably 2 or 3 days away. Anyone who is interested, make your thoughts known in this thread and I will follow up.

[crazy_asian_man]

SUPERMAN RETURNED review

In reviewing fan cuts, immediately, it seems like there's three ways to review it:

#1: Does it hold up on its own/ is it coherent wit the editorial changes made?
#2: Is the film improved/ lesser by the editorial changes?
#3: How smooth is/are the transitions?

First off- the SUPERMAN RETURNED fan cut is incredibly well cut- but the question that pops up to me, is:
do the changes/ insertions/ deletions make it a better film (to me)?

The short version:

Most of the changes- YES! The insertions really help a lot- and made it a different and better film- particularly the stuff with smallville & the opening bits with Brando and the newspaper. Some of the changes, didn't help or hurt- as I was fine with it being in the film, but didn't miss it too much--- but only one change I really had strong feelings about changing, that I didn't think was for the better, but I'll get to that as it comes.

What's interesting is having the focus PURELY be on Clark/Supes from the ROTK sequence- to getting ready to go to the Daily Planet- without the distraction of Lex nor flashbacks to Supes as a boy (who looked too much like Singer and not Routh anyways which always threw me)- it feels a little slower in the first half to me, (particularly when the airplane rescue/1st public Superman appearance comes later on- more on that later)- but slower isn't necessarily bad… but it does take a bit to get used to, if you'd seen SR a dozen times, where Lex's threat hangs in the background almost right away-

Speaking of Lex-
The widow bit is a nice removal and is more/less substituted with a deleted bit, and it does work better. The widow bit in the theatrical didn't drive me nuts, but I never was in love with it, and was fine having it removed.

Another thing that I was surprised worked well as a deletion was the infamous 'Stalkerman' bit. While I was fine (enough) with the bit of Supes' checking in on Lois & all & hearing that she doesn't love him, the way it was done in the film always straddled the edge of 'maybe this is Superman crossing the line' of checking up on his old flame. The deletion is done so smoothly, it does make Superman seem a bit more noble and yet, you still get the sense of rejection and loneliness from the bits around this scene anyhow.

One thing I WISH was deleted was 'It's deadly…. to him'- but there are some personal bits that I kinda wish stayed; 'Clark looking at the painted stars in bed, 'Will you be around', 'don't lie/burrito' bit at the DP, Lois fainting--- but personal preferences and choices inevitably will always vary on fan cuts.

An invisible (which I mean as a compliment) edit is a bit of cross-cutting that Tomahawk had with going back and forth with the Superman city rescues and the boat getting hammered by the Kryptonian crystals. Having these happen at about the same time does really improve the pace and intensity of both sequences.

Anyhow- summing up…. The amount of work for something like this I know is tremendous, and was great to see. Very professionally cut, and, while I wish a few bits didn't reach the cutting room floor, this is a great fan cut that (for most of the time for my tastes) improves an already great film.

[atp]

I think there is a good movie hidden inside SR somewhere, and so I would like to see this edit.

[Rod]

that would be the day.
i definetely want to see it.

[Deleted]

Sounds interesting.

[tomahawk]

Thanks Ollie and CAM for your reviews. A lot of time went into this edit so I am really glad that you took the time to really critique these things. It is really appreciated even if there are choices that aren't agreed with.

So the DVD has now been completed and everybody who expressed interest has now got access to the dual layer disc.

A HD version will also be available if there is enough demand for it.

[crazy_asian_man]

Thanks Ollie and CAM for your reviews. A lot of time went into this edit so I am really glad that you took the time to really critique these things. It is really appreciated even if there are choices that aren't agreed with.

Thanks again for letting me view it! I know it had to be a ton of work, I really enjoy it as an 'alternative' SR experience.

[Deleted]

I always said that "Superman Returns" is a movie that had fantastic ideas for moving the characters forward in natural ways. It's a brave movie. That said, it's also flawed. Those flaws lied in the editing. Tomahawk's "Superman Returned" addressed a lot of issues for me.

Here's something I know everyone won't agree with me: I love the slower pace and somber tone of the movie. Doesn't matter which cut we're talking about. Think about it this way: "Superman Returns" is an obvious alternate third movie. No matter how wishy-washy Bryan Singer was, that's just the way it is. In fact, he could have saved folks a lot of confusion by simply saying at least six months in advance of release, "Folks, you need to re-visit or discover the first two movies. This is a continuation." That said, the tone of the movie feels like the slow song in a musician's set list: no concert you will see will bunch all the slow songs together and all the up-tempo songs together. There's a pace and a rhythm to the set list. "Superman" is the solid piece to set the mood, "Superman II" is the kick-ass rock song, "Superman Returns" is the ballad, then there's a big go-home anthem or something. Unfortunately, Singer didn't get a shot at a second movie to deliver the big finale. "Superman Returns" is like going to a Springsteen concert and hearing him play "Stolen Car."

What in the blue monkey heck does this have to to with Tomahawk's cut? The whole first act is probably considered slow and boring to a lot of modern audiences. But I love a good character piece that has to build. We need a foundation, and Tomahawk lays the foundation way better than Singer did. Singer told us the set-up in three paragraphs. Tomahawk showed us how things went down: Return to Krypton really needed to be in the movie. We needed to see how fucked up Krypton was and how there was no way in heck anyone else could have made it out. We needed to see and feel how alone Kal was feeling. If we don't do that, then the payoff of the discovery of a son loses some of the impact. And I don't mean the impact of the reveal for the audience. Most people speculated it was his kid long before the movie came out. I'm talking about seeing the impact on the character. Tomahawk put Kal front and center in the first act. Cutting out the unnecessary Lex bullshit was fantastic. Do we really need to see how Lex obtains the mansion and boat and helicopter? No. We never saw how Hackman turned an abandoned subway station into an underground penthouse with a swimming pool. We just know that Lex is Lex. He has a way of pulling this shit off. We know it's not because he worked hard for it. (Well, maybe he did. Criminal enterprises are probably just as difficult as legitimate ones.). He's not the focus of the movie anway, so who gives a shit?

Some of the smaller changes were hard to catch. I watched the official cut back in June before "Man of Steel," so it's not like it's been so long that I don't remember the film. But Tomahawk has cut this thing at a professional level. It's absolutely seamless to the point that I didn't notice the subtle edits to change up the order of the boat destruction and the city destruction.

Also on the topic of Tomahawk's skills, the picture and sound are fine for standard def, even on my 50-inch screen. It's damn near DVD quality. (On another technical matter, I wasn't able to burn the files to a DVD since the files are larger than the discs I have lying around at home. But I was able to run them through the Mac The Ripper DVD ripping software and convert the DVD files to mp4. From there, I played the movie via iTunes and streamed it to my TV via Apple TV.)

Anyway, does this address every flaw? No, there are some things that can't be cut around. Lex's crazy land scheme is still there, and the only thing that could have strengthened Lex's motivations was a script revision. However, I did see Lex a bit differently as Tomahawk chose some alternate scenes. Take the first boat scene in which Lex talks to Kitty about Prometheus. It's roughly the same dialogue, but Singer blocked the actors in a completely different way. I also liked how another unnecessary bit was cut: the museum Kryptonite heist. We didn't really need to see it. We get the scene in which Lex sees the meteorite exhibit story in the Daily Planet. Then later we see Lex and Kal Penn working on what is obviously a meteorite, and guess what? It's green. Now, why else would Lex want a green space rock? If the audicence can't figure it out, they don't know shit about this world. As I said, if Singer had told people to watch the first two, he could have cut a lot of fat from his movie.

I think those are the big ones. I've always enjoyed "Superman Returns" for the direction and concepts it aimed for, even if it missed the mark in some instances. In some ways, I still enjoy it more than "Man of Steel," which in many ways is still just a retread of an origin I already know by heart. If we had to continue the Donner vision, at least Singer tried to grow the characters and the world around them and do something more than a standard adventure.

[tomahawk]

Cheers Brad! Yeah, focus was the problem I thought SR had. Too much on superfluous things and too little on the things that matter.

And on the meteorite heist, i just found it dull quite frankly. And it cut up and dulled down one of the few "action" pieces with Kitty's "car chase". Not to mention it is mentioned in the newspaper, then Kitty states it on the boat (moved up in my cut to straight afterwards) and then Lois mentions it at the Daily Planet ("Even Superman missed that one") so it was an easy cut for me. Not everyone agrees though but that's cool.

The HD version of this edit will be available soon too.

[atp]

Sept 16, 2013 2:26:22 GMT -5 @bamabrad said:

Here's something I know everyone won't agree with me: I love the slower pace and somber tone of the movie.

I don't think anyone has a problem with a slower pace. Remember, STM was really slow in the beginning, with all the Krypton and Smallville stuff. If the acting and story are good, slow can be just perfect.

[crazy_asian_man]

This is a continuation." That said, the tone of the movie feels like the slow song in a musician's set list: no concert you will see will bunch all the slow songs together and all the up-tempo songs together. There's a pace and a rhythm to the set list. "Superman" is the solid piece to set the mood, "Superman II" is the kick-ass rock song, "Superman Returns" is the ballad, then there's a big go-home anthem or something. Unfortunately, Singer didn't get a shot at a second movie to deliver the big finale.

Great post, Brad!

Totally agree with what you're saying here.... but at least if Singer's not doing the Superman follow-up, then my one consolation is that at least we got Singer with X-men:First Class and now Singer back with X-men & large-size Sentinels! (Something most likely which never would have happened if Singer stayed with Superman. (On the other hand, if Singer ended up doing SR 2 and subsequently overseeing the whole DC superhero universe, I would TOTALLY have been down for that.)

[Deleted]

The wild thing is that if Singer had gotten a sequel and even had a three-year gap between release (2009), he still could have returned to X-Men in time for First Class, assuming he didn't get a third Superman film.

[crazy_asian_man]

Sept 16, 2013 15:03:06 GMT -5 @bamabrad said:

The wild thing is that if Singer had gotten a sequel and even had a three-year gap between release (2009), he still could have returned to X-Men in time for First Class, assuming he didn't get a third Superman film.

*sigh*

What's odd is that I thought TDK's giant grosses would have encouraged SR 2 to get made, because of its darker nature. Instead, (and I don't know how) I read that TDK's giant grosses inspired a reboot instead. I can only guess that they felt more entitled to have a Superman film make a billion dollars (?) and thought a reboot would get there faster than a continuation of Singer's Superman.

In any case- I do wonder at times if the 'alternate universe' with Singer doing Xmen 3 would have resulted in NO Donner Cut- and- NO Xmen:First Class (which I loved)- but instead gotten Xmen 4 instead by now....

Hard to know.... (Although I do know a standalone Magneto film was considered for awhile- though I think that's what morphed into First Class)