I’ll have to go back and listen for comparisons. It’s just that these voice doubles are really noticeable at times. Also, wasn’t Sarah Douglas dubbed the entire film?
The REALLY noticeable difference in voices is Stamp/Zod. In the Lester scenes and the Donner scenes in the theatrical version, his voice was pitched a bitch lower to make him sound more menacing. When you watch the Donner Cut that has entirely new scenes with him, his normal voice is present and it’s clearly higher than what we’re used to hearing. This is just one of the many reasons I can never take Michael Thau seriously when he talks about putting the Donner Cut together. His main job is a sound designer, not a film editor, but even then he didn’t do his job right since he forgot to either go to the original dailies with Stamp’s original line readings, or to simply dub Stamp’s voice in the new Donner scenes so there’s consistency.
Say what you will about Lester, but at least him and his crew remembered the “little things” like, oh I dunno, the sound of police sirens and bedlam on the streets below after the Metropolis battle and they’re all talking in Perry’s office. In the theatrical cut, you hear all of it. In the Donner Cut? Nothing. It’s beyond obvious that they’re clearly in a soundstage/studio. Hell, you even hear something in the background FALL and hit the ground during the scene when Lois figures out Clark is Superman (when the 2 of them are in Perry’s office alone right before she jumps).
How does a professional miss these things, plus a million more I’m not gonna bother listing because I’ll get banned for spamming the page.
I think Oliver Harper put it best about Michael Thau and his efforts in reconstructing the Donner Cut.
https://youtu.be/i3vfYlpPuHo?t=807
I really wish Warner Bros had given them a larger budget and assembled some professional people to help supervise the Superman II project like they did for Blade Runner: The Final Cut.
Personally, I never understood why the majority of the actors’ onset lines were dubbed over by soundalikes for the Donner Cut like with Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder and other minor actors. I can understand a bit why this was done for Zod and Ursa, but not for others. The vocal delivery of the soundalikes also sound phony to me. Even in the theatrical cut, there are a few times where you see Gene Hackman speak, yet it’s the soundalike dubbing over for him. Very strange.