Superman Redeemed

uperman Redeemed: III & IV merged - an ADigitalMan fanedit

Here\'s the \"About\" menu from the Redeemed disc:
Quote:
2006 was billed by Warner Bros. as \"The Year of Superman.\" We were given a new film that was respectful to Richard Donner and Christopher Reeve. We got the Donner Cut of Superman II. And we got one of the coolest DVD boxed sets to date. Unfortunately, Superman III and IV still suck. While they do have their good moments, they are mostly painful to watch. Superman III has been described as a bad concept produced well, and Superman IV has been described as a good concept produced horribly.

I watched them this year for the first time since I was a kid and came up with a crazy concept: Could these two be edited into one film with most of the lousy parts removed? That became my challenge. After completing the Hybrid Cut of Superman II, I vowed to do this next.

Using elements from all four movies (including some esoteric deleted stuff), I was able to cobble together a new narrative around Clark\'s return to Smallville, and Superman\'s Quest For Peace. While it\'s still not perfect, it\'s certainly enjoyable (at least to me. and the cringeworthy elements have been minimalized. I hope you enjoy this crazy little project, and hope it redeems the legacy of Christopher Reeve for you, as it has for me.

This project of pure insanity presents a hybrid cut of Superman III and IV, with elements of all four films worked in. I had the crazy concept for this film after watching them for the first time since I was a kid during the summer of 2006. Though they\'re both miserably wretched to watch, they do have some fantastic elements in them. III had the great stuff with Lana in Smallville, plus the classic good vs. evil Superman battle. IV had a great concept with Superman trying to disarm the world and Lex trying to capitalize on it, but the FX were miserable, the action sequences were misguided, Lenny was annoying, and the whole Lacy plot was nothing but superfluous padding. It would have been a great movie of the week in the early 80s at best.

Was there enough salvagable material in these two, and could it be constructed into a working plot? I wasn\'t even sure going into it, but I thought so. When I realized that the Paris sequence from Lester\'s SII could be the lynchpin of the story, it all fell into place. The end result is surprisingly coherent and entertaining. Some bad FX still remain, and a couple of disjointed cuts were inescapable, but it\'s better than sitting through those two films in their entirety ever again. Just as the character of Superman is redeemed in the junkyard, so do these two junky films get redeemed, leaving a more fitting legacy for Christopher Reeve. Hence the name: Superman Redeemed.

I could detail the edit, but I think I\'ll let it speak for itself. A few notes though:
1. A healthy dose of the STM Original Soundtrack helps to patch scenes together and punch others up.
2. Lenny doesn\'t bust out Lex, Miss Tessmacher does while Otis looks on, dumbfounded. It was great to put these characters into this film. Thank you Donner Cut Deleted Scenes!
3. Brando is heard.