Finally got around to watching it last night, and I have to agree with Klar Ken that while this is a fun film, it's still as frustratingly flawed as Lester's version (just a lot less embarassingly CHEESY!).
Many of the flaws are a function of what he had to work with. This is closer to the script they'd really intended to shoot, but not quite.
The climax of Superman I was supposed to be:
- stop the fallout from the bomb in a spectacular fashion (never fully shot)
- fix the earthquake resulting from the impact, catch Luthor
- then a cliffhanger involving Zod and crew being freed by the -other- bomb he hurled into space, flying toward earth.
No Lois dying, no time travel until Superman II. It was Lester's input (as middle-man between Donner and the Salkinds) that had changed a lot of Superman I things. Donner and Manciewicz never had a firm plan for how they'd finish II given how they finished I, if I understand things correctly.
Lots of things bugged me. First, I still don't understand what exactly Jor-El is in the Donner films.
Heck, I don't understand much of what
Krypton is in -any- of the films, apart from a cool-looking deus ex machina.
Second, although the timing's a bit reshuffled (now Supes sleeps with Lois BEFORE he's depowered), the biggest flaw of this film is still in place, and that is Superman's selfish and stupid renunciation of his powers for a piece of you-know-what. In fact, now it's twice as stupid because Jor-El is right there telling him, "Son, don't be so stupid!" I'm sorry, but any guy who would give up his powers to be with a chick is not my idea of Superman.
Third, and it ties to the second, Donner's version makes the de-powering even dumber than Lester's. In Lester's version, he has to depower in order to make love to Lois, presumably in a nod to Larry Niven's infamous observations on what sex with a Superman would do to a woman. But in Donner's version, Lois has already survived sex with Superman, so why depower? Apparently because Jor-El says he has to. I get the distinct impression Jor-El is saying (and I'm not sure I disagree), "If you're going to put a woman before your job, you don't deserve to be Superman." But so what if the big giant head DOES say that? Why should Superman listen? Why does he have to choose between sex and his job if sex doesn't kill the girl? Why can't he keep the powers, even if he's too selfish to actually use them to help anyone? I don't get it.
The idea was that he was supposed to be blinded by love. The Superman II script was to have made that more clear, with him doing some playful and irresponsible things on a super-scale. There was never supposed to be any sex shown or sex before that depowering scene -- the closest is the tease where they make the souffle (which I think was only ever filmed by Lester). I don't think you can safely assume they went "all the way" just because she was wearing his S shirt, but you can assume they were close.
Jor-El bugs the poo out of me in these movies. I often rail against the modern comic Superman's propensity to run home to Ma and Pa Kent for advice all the time, but Donner's Superman is just as bad with Jor-El. Dad's always there for advice and to bail the dummy out, and here he's even chastising him for his dumb choices. Movie Superman is all about either obeying or rebelling against Dad, and it's not majestic or quasi-religious, it's just creepy...it lessens Superman as a hero to be a "little boy" answering to his pop.
Part of it is that the movie Superman was taken away by daddy for 10 years right around the time he'd become a man. That scene never made sense, especially along with the rocket ship flooding baby Kal-El with information.
So how does he get back to civilization? We next see the couple in a rental car, but how far did they have to go to get one? Or does Avis have a North Pole branch? And once he decides he's gotta go back, why not rent another car instead of walking the whole way?
Those are relatively minor expository things.
And while we're at it, would it kill the defender of Earth to have some sort of monitoring system in the Fortress, so when supervillains take over the world he isn't the last guy to hear about it? Screw the tapes of Jor-El reciting Joyce Kilmer poems (which hadn't even been written yet when Jor-El died)...how about a subscription to CNN?
Part of the deus ex machina that is Kryptonian tech, the ludicrousness of which is highlighted in...
I liked that a lot of the "comedy" was cut out of this version
...Tessmacher finding the bathroom.
In the final scenes at the Fortress, it still looks as though the Zoners are killed by Superman and Lois (since their "arrest" remains cut) and in fact since we never see Luthor leave the place, it looks like he's dead, too, given that Superman destroys the place from a safe distance.
Did you actually have to see the trucks haul him off before you believe that the trucks hauled him off?
And onto the "world goes backward" bit. I actually like the visuals on this version better than those in "Superman:The Movie," but there are lots of problems. If time is reversed, then the Fortress is not destroyed, Jor-El is not dead (or is that "double dead"?) and that poor dope in the diner gets beat up for nothing. I always hated in the first film how Clark went back to beat up that guy -- a petty act at best for Superman -- but in this version, the guy doesn't even know why he's getting clobbered. That is, if you can call what Clark does "clobbering"...all he does really is a couple of sight gags that would instantly give away his secret identity and most likely would not satisfy his lust for vengeance (because that's all this is).
I agree it would've been better if he sat there, nice and innocent, and the trucker bully approached him with intent to rumble.