Superman II – The Richard Donner Cut is the director’s cut of the original Superman II. It’s more than just a director’s cut since due to internal politics, there were many scenes and actors cut from the original plan and reshot for the Richard Lester version of the film (which is what was released to theaters). The story is mostly the same, but Donner had intended Superman: The Movie and Superman II to be a two part story. But creative differences between Donner and the producers caused the produces to replace Donner. The DVD release brings back original footage and shows the movie the way it was mean to be shown.

Superman: The Movie and Superman were intended to be a two part story and Donner was filming them together. But the delays that were caused by the double shoot pushed off the release date of Superman: The Movie. The producers then put Superman II on hold and pushed Donner to finish the first movie. After that was finished, the producers were faced with a number of decisions. First was the Marlon Brando issue. Brando was taking a huge chunk of the box office and the producers wanted to drop him from the sequel, even though all his scenes were already filmed. This caused friction with Donner, who demanded creative control. The friction became so bad that Donner was dropped and replaced with Richard Lester.

Since the producers didn’t want Donner to have the director’s credit, large amounts of the script were re-written and scenes were re-filmed to make sure Lester received director’s credit. Gene Hackman (Lex Luthor) refused to reshoot his scenes with Lester, so any scene with Hackman had to be fit into the new script. The second movie was hastily finished and released to huge box office success. But Donner wasn’t happy that his vision was changed.

Thus we come to Superman II – The Richard Donner cut. Large portions of Donner’s original script and filmed scenes were put back into the movie. Since Donner had not finished with Superman II at the time of his firing, some scenes from the theatrical release had to be put in to finish the story. Since the Lester shots were done later, some scenes jump back and forth and you can notice differences in hair and makeup with some characters. Marlon Brando was put back into the movie and reshot scenes were replaced with the original shots.

The net result is a film that works better as a bookend for the first movie. The tone is noticeably different as Donner took a more serious approach to the character. For people who remember and love the original Superman II, the refurbished Richard Donner Cut should provide and interesting and different take on the movie.