Superman: The Movie 4K UHD (1978)

[Agent Kay]

The club scenes are long gone apparently.
The Clive from casualty nuclear man scenes are nearly all found and all you can see of the club scenes

[Stevie81]

Mark Rosenthal stated that ALL lost footage was found back in 2006, they only didn’t include The Metro Club scenes due to musical rights which have now been resolved. No reason not to put them in now

[captainsolo]

Returns is indeed less brightned but the overall color tones and black levels are changed to a degree that it loses much of the atmosphere. Thus the sets look more artificial when in actuality they were designed around the theatrical release and on screen look far more effective.

[Stevie81]

Returns had atmosphere???

[eddievanhalen]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

HDCAM SR is "outdated" enough to be able to carry 10-bit 4:4:4 with 440 Mb/s video bitrate, specs that would smash any current consumer video format into smithereens. But hey, I guess it's only one step short of a wax cylinder or a piece of papyrus? And that format is what it was shot on, not what it was stored on, which is likely the same 10-bit DPX files that most DIs get rendered out to and then stored on LTO tape. The capability is there, whether you want to believe it or not.

You say well, Game Of Thrones season 1 was also shot to HD CAM SR 10bit 4:4:4 and it looks great on UHD BD. I was exceptical at first but finally got the season 1 UHD BD set and I'm very happy I did. It's the best Game Of Thrones has ever looked, from the same format Superman Returns used.

[LexInHD]

If WAC could give us a new director's cut of IV and give it a 4K remastering....oh....my....that would be great!

[ShellBeacher]

Originally Posted by MisterXDTV

It's surprising they are giving the first movie the royal 4K treatment, I don't think the sequels are coming anytime soon if ever...

1978's Superman was in 2017 made part of the National Film Registry (with a print officially housed in The Library of Congress' Motion Picture and Audio Archives down in Culpeper, Virginia) as a film of significant historical or cultural value, so there's a sincere and legitimate preservation reason here in taking care of the film, no matter who's paying for it.

https://www.loc.gov/programs/nationa...istry-listing/

[Platitude]

I hope they do the theatrical version of II, if they start doing all the movies. The Donner Cut is an interesting peak at what might have been, but the use of test footage and reusing the ending of the first movie make it not work as well as a complete film for me. If they did both, great, but if they were only going to do one I would pick the theatrical.

I liked Returns a lot the first time I saw it in the theater but with each subsequent viewing over the years my opinion of it has decreased. Wouldn't mind owning a decent copy of it though.

[Bolty]

I once played peakaboo on Pike's Peek.

As much as I hate the Donner Cut test footage and the brain-numbing reuse of the reverse of tine -- I will never watch the Lester version again.


And in my book the forget kiss is only slightly worse than time reverse redux.


All they had to do was let Lois keep the memory. It was so simple

[Bourne1886]

Originally Posted by Platitude

I hope they do the theatrical version of II, if they start doing all the movies. The Donner Cut is an interesting peak at what might have been, but the use of test footage and reusing the ending of the first movie make it not work as well as a complete film for me. If they did both, great, but if they were only going to do one I would pick the theatrical.

I liked Returns a lot the first time I saw it in the theater but with each subsequent viewing over the years my opinion of it has decreased. Wouldn't mind owning a decent copy of it though.

I really liked Donners S2 as I think his vision was superior to Lester. I know it was imperfect because of the test footage etc but its still the better way of doing it. What if heh!

[Bolty]

The time reversal encore was the best way to go? They themselves admitted they would have come up with something else if Donner hadn't been fired.
And since this was, like it or not, a 2006 release -- and the Reeve iteration was finished -- there was zero wrong with leaving Lois aware he was Superman.


And the bully comeuppance scene being left in shows just how little thought they put into the ending. No one in that diner has any idea why Clark confronts him if the time line has been turned back.

I just fast forward the time reversal thing when I watch the Donner cut.

[Danzigg]

OMG I never knew about the deleted scenes for Superman IV, went down the rabbit hole and search them out, made me see IV in a different light would love to see a alternative cut.

[Socko]

Originally Posted by Stevie81

Returns had atmosphere???

Thank god yeah, otherwise all the characters would have had trouble breathing.

[Agent Kay]

Originally Posted by Bolty

The time reversal encore was the best way to go? They themselves admitted they would have come up with something else if Donner hadn't been fired.
And since this was, like it or not, a 2006 release -- and the Reeve iteration was finished -- there was zero wrong with leaving Lois aware he was Superman.


And the bully comeuppance scene being left in shows just how little thought they put into the ending. No one in that diner has any idea why Clark confronts him if the time line has been turned back.

I just fast forward the time reversal thing when I watch the Donner cut.

The time reverse was never meant to be in 1 to be fair.

[s2mikey]

Originally Posted by Stevie81

Returns had atmosphere???

Its certainly not a great film whatsoever but compared to the insipid vomit that SM 3 & 4 were its like Citizen Kane.

[FilmFreakosaurus]

Originally Posted by Agent Kay

The time reverse was never meant to be in 1 to be fair.

But it was used and Donner approved it because they were running out of time in order to meet the release date, so that throws the ending of II to Lester.



It is what it is. There's no changing the fact that if you want Superman: The Movie, as finally conceived, to flow with Superman II, then you have to take it warts and all.

[TM2-Megatron]

I'll definitely pick this up. By no stretch imaginable is it my favorite superhero film (too cheesy for that, and the real estate obsessed Luthor stuff is silly), but it's an entertaining product of its time.

I hope we get the rest of the series, as well. 3 and 4 were fantastic schlock.

[motorheadache95]

Originally Posted by Danzigg

OMG I never knew about the deleted scenes for Superman IV, went down the rabbit hole and search them out, made me see IV in a different light would love to see a alternative cut.

Yeah, Superman IV, especially towards the end, turns into an editing nightmare and really becomes incomprehensible (I guess Superman is okay now... and knows that Nuclear Man is coming for Lacy? LOL)

The Anthology Blu-Ray release of Superman IV has some of the footage in the deleted scenes feature, but it's not all of it, the footage is from a low-quality source, and some of the audio is from an unfinished version.

I would love for them to finally put out the full original cut of the movie. I wouldn't expect a 4K disc, but a Blu-Ray release like the recent TV-cut release of the first film sounds doable.

[captainsolo]

Originally Posted by Stevie81

Returns had atmosphere???

Yes it is achingly beautiful. Then again I consider it a masterpiece and the best thing Burton has ever done so I may be biased. However seeing it in 35mm two years ago was literally like seeing another film brand new-the disc versions really do the photography a disservice. On video the main set clearly is a set, but on film it appears far more organic and dark. The snowing scenes which I always felt were incredible are even more so-and hearken back to the absolutely magical snowing scenes from MGM classics, Ambersons etc.


I don't think we will ever get a proper revisit of II or a new cut-but what should be done is to create a new release with properly presented new scans of each version (with the Megasound and 2.0 mixes of the theatrical) and then every scrap of extra material so that it becomes much like an archival release for fans and newcomers to dig through. If there is an available master for the TV version this should also be included and the final release should then resemble Criterion's Mr. Arkadin which is another film that was cut up and can never be fully represented as originally intended.
Furthermore it would be nice to actually have a representation of at least the original intended flow of events for the original shooting script of the big I-II dual film that they began production on so that fans could be able to see the complete original intent and learn exactly where ti started to go off kilter.

I think that is the only way to do it justice. Creating a new version is really only going to come down to individual opinions as there is no real way to resurrect the original intended film.

The original film got a deluxe four disc DVD reissue so there is precedent for a multidisc deluxe version of SII with its myriad of extra materials.

[dallywhitty]

Originally Posted by captainsolo

Yes it is achingly beautiful. Then again I consider it a masterpiece and the best thing Burton has ever done so I may be biased. However seeing it in 35mm two years ago was literally like seeing another film brand new-the disc versions really do the photography a disservice. On video the main set clearly is a set, but on film it appears far more organic and dark. The snowing scenes which I always felt were incredible are even more so-and hearken back to the absolutely magical snowing scenes from MGM classics, Ambersons etc.

Pretty sure Stevie81 was referring to the infinitely inferior Superman Returns as having no atmosphere.

You're right about Batman Returns being a masterpiece, though. Wonderful film.