Calling out other Superman fans, what do you think went wrong with "Superman II"?

When I watch it now, it seems like I have to fast-forward over a lot of parts to enjoy it. For years, fans were complaining that the Lester version was too campy and criticized the producers for firing Richard Donner. Then, twenty-some years later, they finally find lost footage of SII (that Richard Donner filmed before being fired) and put together a new cut of Superman II. I liked the more darker tone instead of the campy-ness of Lester's, but I didn't like Lois tricking Clark into reveal his secret identity with a gun firing blank bullets. Even though he's invincible, he should notice weather a bullet is blank or not. To this day, I still have mixed feelings about Clark revealing his secret identity to Lois. If they didn't do that, there wouldn't of been neither of those ridiculous endings from both cuts such as the Super-kiss or turning the world's time back just to erase Lois' memory. That's all I got to say for now, I'd like to hear other Superman fans' opinions on this subject.

i liked superman 2. i havent seen the new cut yet but still. that and it was made a long time ago so i can see why you feel you need to fast forward. some movies just dont hold up now as they did long ago. its just a fact of moviemaking. i honestly think that it went bad from SUPERMAN 3, SUPERMAN 4, and SUPERMAN RETURNS. the last of which was completely boring and way off the point. yeah, lets cast a 15yr old as lois lane and make superman have a kid. yeah ok. that was intelligent.

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There are a number of things that went wrong.

First off, the producer's got cold feet about Donner's decision to make two films at once. When he was forced to stop working on II, he took the ending of II and put it on I. That worked well, but now they had no ending for II.

Then, the producers fought with Donner, and fired him, and brought in Lester to finish it. Lester is a great comedy director, but not known for serious action. They were able to retain Donner's original plot for II, but changed up a lot of the tone, making it more light hearted. They also had to come up with a new ending, but the new writers didn't come up with a good one.

As for the unused footage from Donner's film, if he had been able to finish his film, many of those scenes would've been reshot or rewritten. The idea of Lois shooting Clark is cute, but I agree, I dont' think it works as well as the falling into the fire. But, again, we'll never know what that scene would've been like if they had actually shot it correctly.

I also think that many of Lester's stuff still works, and it was a mistake not to include it in the new cut (for example, the Kryptonians attack on the small town).