Years late…
So, I am late to this party, but here goes.
If you are a fan of the art of movie making then you have no choice but to watch Richard Donner’s version of Superman II frame by frame. If you own the LaserDisc version of that print, go you! I own that set of discs, but don’t have a working player right now. 
Richard is a genius among geniuses, and he was written off because he wouldn’t simply stamp the changes dictated by the studio in the lame attempt to achieve greater profits. He worked day and night to define Batman as a conflicted hero. This is not something easily ignored.
I rented this cut on Blu-Ray, and while I can definately tell which shots are production, and which are not, I enjoyed the end product far more than what was released into theaters.
Richard Donner’s cut is the natural sequel to the original Superman film. Donner was never given a chance to develop the ultimate villain. Instead we’re stuck with “people” like Lex Luthor. There was a world to investigate from this corpus…
Instead, the writers chose to extend the legend beyond their initial encounter. Art works best when it has some imagination to work with.
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