I just saw the Donner Cut of "Superman II" and having seen it I can hands down say I prefer the original Lester cut.

While the Donner Cut was very interesting and I was amazed at the new footage (having thought it would merely be extended scenes via seamless branching) I didn't think it had the same awe inspiring impact that the original had and has when ever I see it.

I like the new beginning, but only because it was different. I don't prefer it.

On a whole, I think re-creating a movie from originally shot material is incredible and can't believe they actually did this some 20 years later I think the original is the better and more preferred cut.

What are your thoughts/opinions?

I'm going with the original Lester cut. Picked up the Donner cut on Blu-Ray and it didn't do anything for me. Maybe it was the bad inserted footage sticking out, but the

I think if Donner had been given the chance to do the films the way he wanted to, they'd be *much* better than what did happen. As is, I enjoy them both, but I think I prefer Donner's a slight bit more (realizing the limitations they had in recreating it).

Donner's cut is a notch better.

Hated the Paris stuff but despised the Super-Kiss so I have to go with Donner.

Jor-el's explanation for removing and reinstating powers 100x greater than mommy's

Re: the Donner ending,

That said, I like 'em both. But gun to my head, probably Donner since it's more in continuity with Returns.

For continuity's sake....the Lester cut
For sheer what could have been awesome value...the Donner cut.
I am still in awe of what could have been. While I still like Lester's cut, Donner's cut still had that magic feel to it.

I went with the Donner cut? although I didn't like the



and I thought all the scenes of Ursa, Non and General Zod entering the small town before the arrival of the army were memorable and important IMO.

That is one thing I liked about Donner and thought was weak in Lester: the whole Paris scene! I just think it was uneccessary and doesn't flow with the whole Americanized aspect of the Superman franchise and especially in II where we basically just see middle America (Houston) and Metropolis.

After years of thinking how great the Donner cut was going to be, I went with Lester.

I think the Donner cut is proof that movies should be collaborative efforts. If "creative differences" start to develop on the set, and the director is not willing to listen to others' suggestions - that is not necessarily a good thing. It takes a lot of different input from a lot of different people to make a film great.

And the Donner ending still makes no sense...

But I'm not saying Donner's cut was all bad. That "look" Jorel gave Lois was gold.

A combination of both. The ending of the Donner Cut sucks hard, but I like a lot of what he had - the way Lois finds out Superman's secret, the Jor-El scenes.

That is a good way to put it, pretty much how I feel

The Donner cut takes virtually ALL the romance out of the movie and makes Superman's sacrifice of his powers seem like a selfish act instead of an act of true love (as it is in Lester's cut). For that reason, and several others already mentioned here, the Lester version is superior.

Yes, Donner MAY have been able to make a better movie had he been allowed to finish in 1979/1980, but "as is", you have to go with the Lester version.

Donner cut has the Brando scenes which would have wound up on the original if the producers weren't cheap. But the Brando scenes look cheesy with his big head as fx.
I remember seeing stills of Brando walking around with Superman. I wonder if they cut up close to his head and maybe changed what was originally filmed. Anybody know what I'm talking about?

we have two flawed films...glad to see the Donner cut, but It isn't a masterpiece with the conditions he had to work with

Lester cut has not stood the test of time through the years, but I still think it is a good sequel to a great original.

Donnor cut would have been better had it been finished in 1980, but I look at that cut as one big deleted scene bonus feature that is cool to watch, but ultimately as a film falls way short.

The Brando scenes are great as they are worth the price just to watch them and show your friends who also grew up with Superman II. The beginning is so much more believable and blends in real well as a part to II to the end of the original.

But the two keys scenes it falls flat, and unfortunately cause Donnor never got a chance to shoot them properly, kills the film overall: The Superman reveal scene where it is just taken from screen tests and is so jarring because.......it is screentests! And the ending is repetitive cause it was used in Superman I.

Now I don't say this in any disrespect to the Donnor Cut, cause it would have been better then the Lester, just the fact that Brando was in there, but it is an unfinished film, but I am still glad it saw the light of day.

The Lester cut is superior. Yes, there's some cheesy humor, but it's no worse than Miss Teschmacher using the can in the Fortress of Solitude.

The biggest improvement in Lester's version over Donner's is the romance. The middle of the film feels way too rushed in the Donner cut. And I like it better that Clark/Superman reveals his identity to Lois because he wants to, not because he's tricked.

I'm torn about the showdown in the Fortress at the end though. The Donner cut managed to build a lot of tension without resorting to crazy, over-the-top powers. On the other hand, I've always kinda liked those cheesy superpowers.

Two things that are definite improvements in the Donner cut though are the Jor-El scenes and Non being switched from dumb comic relief to a scary-looking badass.

Even with all of its flaws, I prefer the Donner cut. The Jor-El scenes alone give the losing/regaining of his powers much more potency, and this movie actually feels like it's of a piece with Superman: The Movie, which Lester's cut didn't. That doesn't mean that Lester's cut is bad, but the Donner cut definitely feels like it's the second part of a two part story. Of course, the ending is awful, but Donner clearly would have found another ending if he had the chance. In the end, I think Donner's cut has more weight to it.

I liked the Donner cut for throwing out most of the cheesy humor. But why mess with the music cues during the fight scenes? The new generic cues (notably with the theme missing) during the fight scenes take a lot of dramatic impact out of them. I would get chills everytime I saw those newspapers fly off the rack and then John Williams main theme would cue up and you knew Superman was back! When I saw the Donner cut, that scene suddenly did nothing for me without that music intact. That is just one instance of many turned from dramatic and exciting in the original to ineffective in the new cut.

I can't think of a reason why they would need to do this. This is the change that disturbed me the most. It really highlights how important music is to dramatic scenes in films.

Actually, I hate the music cues in Lester's cut because they have different instrumentation from the Williams' original that loses a lot of impact for me.

Some people point out the Lester version has campy humor making it inferior to Donner's vision. Honestly, I just don't see this. In the Lex Luthor scenes in Donner's cut, I counted no less than four bathroom jokes early on in the movie!

For Lester, only one campy scene comes to mind. (And I'm sure it's the same one everyone thinks of as the worst - all the rollerskating, hairpiece-flying, phone-booth-talking, ice-cream-splattered New Yorkers getting blown away.) It's my least favorite scene in the movie, but you could at least argue that it tries to inject some comic relief (rather poorly of course) inbetween the film's two climatic fight scenes so the audience gets a little breather between Superman's defeat and then his victory.

There's one other problem I have with the Donner version that I consider a serious lapse in plausibility. It seemed like a neat idea at first, but now I've decided that Superman accidentally freeing the three super villains with Luthor's nuclear missile makes no sense. I much rather have the terrorist scene at the Eiffel Tower, because it takes place a few years after part 1. Am I actually supposed to believe that Donner's part 2 takes place only a few days later? So in the space of, say, three days, Luthor somehow got sentenced in a court of law, built two elaborate devices - one that projects a holographic image of him playing chess, and another that monitors Alpha waves, and meanwhile reconciled with Miss Teschmacher who finalized an elaborate rescue with a hot air balloon?

Maybe I'm just more used to the Lester cut, but the Donner cut left me feeling blah. Things were just too convenient and it didn't seem that anyone had to "work" for any payoff. For example Lex Luthor just happens to stumble onto the crystal that explains the story of the three Kryptonian villians by chance... after trying just two other crystals. Superman has all these superpowers but doesn't realize Lois shot a blank at him. Ugh.

While the explosion freed Zod and his companions, it most likely took them a while to regain their faculties and get to the moon.

It's unfair to rate Donner's cut with Lester's. Lester's cut is polished and seemless. Donner's is edited from audtion tapes and lost scenes. Had he been given the chance to submit both films the way he had intended it, I doubt any of us would remember that Lester was the Three Musketeers director. In fact, Superman 1 to IV might have been a work of genius had Donner been given full reign. He was more than interested in making a series judging from his commentary.