Hi Taolar, I just watched your SOJ edit and I am very very impressed :) Overall, fantastic work, this is the best cut of Superman I and II I have seen yet, you have really utilised the various pieces of Superman II in a really coherent way to extend the first film and make it flow as it originally should have.
Overall, I can see that a few parts (especially in the second half) are a little rough and am confident you will go over everything with a fine toothed comb and make things as perfect as possible before the final release, so I won't go over minor quibbles like these. The main points I wanted to mention are as follows, to give some suggestions and constructive criticisms:
As has been mentioned by lorang, the scene where Lex is explaining the missile launch plan to Superman while stood on the big map in his lair is rather rough and jumps about a bit too much, leaving me a little confused. The one thing that stuck out at me as being most confusing is the very first shot of the missile being launched, it seems to appear from nowhere after Lex and Superman are talking. What I think would work better is if the dialogue continued from that section into his "Now, you may or may not know..." dialogue, but have the first missle launch shot as the visual while he is giving a voice-over explaining his plan. I feel that this would make a much tighter connection between how Lex's "plan" and the missile launch are connected, as it isn't immediately obvious why this missile shot is there, only later on in Lex's dialogue where he explains how a bomb will sink California, by which point I was a asking "What is the missile about?" Then the cut between him smashing the map with his cane and the second shot of the missile going off course really can make an impact and make the audience go "Oh, shit!" Do you get what I mean? It's just this first shot of the missile launching seems a little too abrupt at that point in the scene. Mixing it into a voice-over would make more of a connection in the viewers mind, I feel. It woud also lose a bit of that initial walking around on the map, birds eye view shot, which isn't very good IMO, especially as it looks like Lex is talking to Otis about the plan as SM is out of shot for the first few sentences, and it made me go "Oh, he's talking to SM" when he walked into shot, which again is messy.
How are you going to transition from part 1 to part 2, the couple seconds of Black between them is too much atm, but I guess this is still rough. I'm hoping you lose all relation between part 1 and part 2 and they flow together as one film, I don't want in any way to feel like I'm wathcing two seperate films here.
You said you'll be re-editing the section where the villians first land on Earth, which I feel is necessary, it is a little shoppy here, their first landing scene is probably a little abrupt, needing a little longer before it cuts to Niagra (where the sound should fade in as it is too dramatic a cut for an initial scene which isn't dramatic).
I def agree with lorang's comment about adding in the arm wrestle with Ursa, if only briefly. It does make a bit more sense why the guy goes through the window, just needs that couple extra seconds to tie that together better, I feel. PS love the Johnny Cash music here instead of the Bee Gees, perfect choice :)
I really love how you added the TV footage onto the television of the initial shot of the Whitehouse, that is SO much better than either the silly Mt Rushmore or the footage used in the Donner cut. That is a much better idea. One thing that bugs me though, but I'm sure you can't do anything about, is that you see the back of the presidents head here, which kinda ruins the fake president when the villians first break into the Whitehouse. If someone was paying enough attention here, they would realise that the bald fake president who kneels before Zod initially wasn't the same guy as in this brief scene. It sticks out at me, but I don't know what you could do about this, just something I wanted to mention.
I gotta say, if there is any way you can introduce some Jorel footage back into the scene where SM gets his powers back, I would be very happy to see it. I understand your argument about Jorel lying to SM but to me, this is about a parent protecting their child. He lied to protect him, to try and persuade him not to forsake his powers for Lois. I can accept that. This scene in the Donner cut made me love Superman II so much more as I hated the "mystery" of how SM managed to come back with his powers without any explanation, it just seemed lame to me. When I saw the Donner footage it made me so happy, especially with Jorel using the line "The son becomes the father and the father becomes the son" again, which is so beautiful. This Donner version of this scene really tied it into the first film, and about how SM first loses his adopted father, then, which must be so emotioanlly painful for him, he chooses to to lose his paternal father for the greater good of humanity, which really shows how selfless he has understood he must become to fullfill his destined role on Earth. Sorry to rattle on, but yeah, for me the Donner version of this scene is so amazing that I would be very sad to see it missing from your cut, even though you don't like how Jorel lies to him, I think that from an emotional POV, it makes sense to me and is one of the most significant messages in the whole film.
Finally, I really like your new ending, definitely superior to the super-kiss or the spin-back-time endings, both of which I always thought were lame. I do think that your new shot footage needs to be made a little more subtle, it is a bit too forcefull atm, a subtler cut would probs be better, and the sound isn't mixed to well, there is too much room atmos on the voice, it doesn't sound like it is has been recorded in a studio then played back on a TV set, but yeah tweak that and it'll be great. I think the pace is a little bit too fast though in this final section. After a 3 hour film I think it needs to conclude a little slower, giving more time for SM and the audience to contemplate what has happened between him and Lois and where he must go now, it just seems a little rushed, extend it a bit more and it'll work perfectly.
Hope all this is constructive, sorry if I'm waffling a bit and dont make loads of sense, hope you get what I mean. Overall, this is gearing up to be the best version of SM I have ever seen, with the final touches completed and a final DVD released, it will be a fan edit masterpiece and you should be very pleased of what you have achieved :)
Thanks again.
