User Review
Do you recommend this edit?
Yes
Owner's reply
March 17, 2024
Thank you for taking the time to leave a nice review. Your criticism is both fair and expected. So far about half of the feedback I've gotten was people embracing this ending (more than I expected) and the other half was people strongly disliking it (which I anticipated). I wasn't originally going to say anything but at this point the cat is out of the bag so to anyone interested in my SUPERMAN EPIC the only big controversial decision I made that may be a deal breaker for some potential viewers is my choice to use the final Daily Planet scene from Donner's Superman II. The main issue being Lois' line of "I FEEL LIKE I'M SITTING ON THE BIGGEST STORY OF MY CAREER, AND I CAN'T REMEMBER WHAT IT IS.." I may even make a whole video explaining why I made this decision but here I'll just run over a few quick points.
1. Technically in my cut I made sure to prove that Lois does in fact remember because she ends the scene typing "Superman saves humanity from eternal damnation" rather than "Superman takes the day off." So right there we have confirmation that Lois did not "forget" any events. 2. Now the issue w/ the scene is the use of the word "Forget." That's really the only problem (and they blow right past it anyway). I look at this scene now, the way I repurposed it, as a continuation of the banter between the two of them at the beginning of the Donner Cut only now Clark can play along, which he does. it's a glimpse into how their relationship would have been going forward which I really truly love. We have a stronger Lois that got all her crying out of her system the night before (in previous scene) that shows up to work where we get "the same old clark and same old Lois" (as promised in the previous scene). So Lois is rejuvenated but she has a problem, she is in fact going to be forced to sit on the greatest story of her career. She can't write about the fact that she knows Superman's true identity. She can't write about the fact that she knows Superman gave up his powers etc. So she is in fact sitting on the biggest story of her career and may in fact have to bend the truth to write about what happened. There's no debating that. Additionally neither Clark nor Lois should be talking openly about their situation (nor should they be kissing really) at the Daily Planet. So what we end up with is the first scene/interaction with the two of them both in on Clark's little super-secret. 3 Using this scene also brings consistency to the finale/whole film. 4. The scene features better writing, a better set, better cinematography AND SIGNIFICANTLY better performances from Margot Kidder and Christopher Reeve (I don't even think it's close. Margot was 10x better under Donner's directing). 5 For me, to see Chris Reeve end this movie joking about how Superman "saved the city or saved the world or saved the universe as a little inside joke w/Lois was extremely entertaining and may even be my favorite scene in the whole Epic. I love it. I also love that it ends with Lois saying "You know you're really SUPER" which to me actually works better the way I have it, as an inside joke between the two of them, then the way it was originally written, as an inside joke for the audience. 6. Finally I think it's redundant to have Lois crying at the Daily planet after the two absolutely EXCELLENT previous break up scenes (Fortress and Lois' apartment). There's much more to say but this is already very long. So that's a little glimpse into why I made the decision I did, why I feel it's the right scene to use for this version and how I think it actually works better than the alternatives. Additionally I will be looking into a slight update with tweaked dialogue from A.I. for a future RE-RELEASE. In the meantime for anyone interested in this edit that has now been turned off by this ending decision I made, there will be two additional versions of my this edit released later this year (Superman Epic as ORIGINALLY INTENDED and Superman Epic Alternate Cut which is more for the Lester fans). Both upcoming versions have different endings that I decided on years ago as my plan all along was to give viewers options by releasing THREE different versions rather than forcing everything into a hybrid cut. Thanks for reading.