Was it a mistake to leave reporter Clark out of MOS?

[Shane]

in MOS he just kills him screams for a bit then onto the next scene at the graveyard thought it was a bit weird myself

[ye5man]

In Donner's version, they had the arctic police take them away, with the deleted scenes and the script.

That wasn't Donner's version. (Was it in the 2006 cut? I honestly cannot remember)

In the RDC version, I blame ridiculous editing (here, it DOES look like Superman uses the heat vision to destroy them in the FOS) , but even then, apparently Superman went back in time so that they stayed in the Phantom Zone and the Luthor plot apparently never happened.

RDC = cut scenes. Not offical

In Lester's version, the script has Superman create a hole (yep) for each of the villains- including Luthors to keep them in at the Fortress of Solitude. (This was a voiceover that- thankfully- they never kept)

Yep, but it was cut.

It was quite vague in the official cut (like it or lump it, Lester had final say) but I always presumed they were killed.

[crazy_asian_man]

Sept 26, 2013 4:38:44 GMT -5 ye5man said:

In Donner's version, they had the arctic police take them away, with the deleted scenes and the script.

That wasn't Donner's version. (Was it in the 2006 cut? I honestly cannot remember)

In the RDC version, I blame ridiculous editing (here, it DOES look like Superman uses the heat vision to destroy them in the FOS) , but even then, apparently Superman went back in time so that they stayed in the Phantom Zone and the Luthor plot apparently never happened.

RDC = cut scenes. Not offical

In Lester's version, the script has Superman create a hole (yep) for each of the villains- including Luthors to keep them in at the Fortress of Solitude. (This was a voiceover that- thankfully- they never kept)

Yep, but it was cut.

It was quite vague in the official cut (like it or lump it, Lester had final say) but I always presumed they were killed.

What I meant was- if you look at the original Mank script and what was shot (in the deleted scenes for SII)- they weren't killed as Donner's intent while shooting it.

Lester's edit kept it vague--- but the shooting script (at least the draft I have) went further and had voiceovers written (with the image being the outside of the FOS presumbably so they wouldn't need to get Hackman back)- suggesting that Superman dug holes for the prisoners to stay cooped up in as makeshift cells and let Luthor choose which one.

I agree RDC=more like cut scenes, horrible horrible editing.

In any case- I saw Superman II in my early teens and I imagine if I saw it when I was 7 or 8 (as some here had viewed it) I would have drawn the same conclusions- that Superman had killed them. With all the Lester goofiness and silliness throughout the film (the Phantom Zone criminal gags/whatnot), nothing was graphic (the most graphic being the stuff that Donner shot, which is a whole other tone),and given that it was (at the time) a HUUUUGE deal for any superhero to kill anyone in comics (at that time frame), I would have majorly been surprised if that was ever the intent.

The Fortress of Solitude was built on water, right? So, since we just see them fall into the vapors, I always presumed that they were swimming under the vapors- but rather than have them 'splash' (which might have looked too silly), that it was a convenient way to get them out of the scene without killing them.

(Contrast that to Batman Returns, where we see the dead floating body of the Penguin.)

Based on (primarily) what was in the script, what Donner shot, the tone of the Superman comics (which had still the comics code authority stamp on it forbidding heroes to kill, if I remember right, until they did away with it years later), I feel pretty sure that Superman didn't kill the prisoners.

SIV? Whole other story. ;p