SUPERMAN Ultimate Collection Set Coming to Blu-Ray

[AndyDursin]

Those of us who want the theatrical SUPERMAN II in HD will be thrilled with this release. This Spanish site has confirmation it's coming later this year; surely we'll see it domestically before the new Superman movie gets released in 2012.

Even if it's just a straight reprise of the DVD box-set, this is a must-have for me! That set was tremendous and the documentaries excellent as well.

Here's the English translation from the page...

Warner has communicated in first fruit to zonadvd.com that, at the moment, is working in the launching of the Pack Superman - Ultimate Collection in Blu-ray format. With a content similar to which the company already commercialized in November of 2006 in DVD, but this time in high resolution.

Pack will have 7 discs and will count on the five films of the steel hero; the four carried out by Christopher Reevesand “remake” of Bryan Singer: Superman Returns. Of the classic ones, although the two first already were published in Blu-ray (in Spain only the one), Superman III and IV remained unpublished.

update: we know new details this awaited pack, will include a disc by each film except for the second part that will have two Blu-ray discs; one with the film version and another one with the assembly of Richard Donner. That makes 6 discs, seventh and last it will be dedicated completely to extra content.

http://www.zonadvd.com/modules.php?name ... &sid=29310

[Eric W.]

Excellent.

Another thing you had to have known the double dip was coming. I'm glad I waited. THIS will be worth buying.

[Monterey Jack]

That is some of the funniest "Engrish" I have read in a while.

[AndyDursin]

Hey it's Yahoo Babelfish. LOL. I could have tried translating it myself but I didn't feel like investing the time or energy.

[DavidBanner]

I'm not sure if I'll upgrade this. I'm pretty happy with the DVD set, and I already have the Blu-ray of the first film.

I love the second film, and if they offered it separately, I might pick it up. But I don't see a need to pick up the Blu that's already out there of Donner's edit.

I've never been happy with III, and I remember being flabbergasted by IV when I was stupid enough to pay money to see it in a theater upon its release. At least the DVD set offers the writer's commentary, in which he just rips the movie apart. (I love his early comment about the VFX being a "funhouse" of bad, cheap visual effects, since the budget had been so severely slashed...)

I agree that the documentaries are really interesting - particularly "You Will Believe". It brought me back to a moment in my life when they were running that preview for the first film on the Z channel - and this was after I had seen the movie in a big theater in Hollywood.

It's clear to me that if the personal politics hadn't scuppered the whole thing, Superman II could have been completed in a better fashion. The theatrical cut certainly holds together better than Donner's edit, but that's because they were trying to fix the problems they saw in it. (Lack of a strong opening or closing, mostly passive participation by Superman, lack of a real ending) I believe that if Donner hadn't been taken off the project, he would have done a lot more than simply film the remaining scenes from Mankiewicz's script. He would have wound up reshooting a fair amount of what they had done during the first film - probably almost the same amount that Lester did - and he would have been forced to come up with an ending. When he had Michael Thau put his cut together, he really just went back to the old script, as if the first film hadn't happened. (Meaning that he used the ending he would wind up putting on the first film when they needed a bigger finish - which obviates its use in the second film.)

The Brando footage in II is interesting, and I was delighted to finally see it - but once I did, I realized why Brando always insisted on rebuilding much of his performances on the post-production dubbing stage. It would absolutely have helped to have him do this in this case. It would have helped if Donner could have brought him back for a day or two of reshoots with Reeve, but I doubt this could have happened even under the most ideal conditions.

The saddest thing we missed from II would have been a new Williams score. Ken Thorne's work is fine - he's quite inventive with the existing cues, and he spots some very good placements throughout the project, but it's simply not the same thing as a new score. Granted, I didn't think much of the two cues Williams wrote for Courage for IV, but that's a totally different story.

[AndyDursin]

The saddest thing we missed from II would have been a new Williams score. Ken Thorne's work is fine - he's quite inventive with the existing cues, and he spots some very good placements throughout the project, but it's simply not the same thing as a new score. Granted, I didn't think much of the two cues Williams wrote for Courage for IV, but that's a totally different story.

I find the SUPERMAN IV score to be utterly atrocious. Embarrassingly performed, poorly arranged -- even if Williams was supposedly "more involved" with that project, I'll take Ken Thorne over IV any time. (And I quite like his SUPERMAN III score, which relied less on recycling Williams' themes, giving him more freedom to score the film on his own).

One of the only good things I'll say about IV is that it's better than John Ottman. Then again, anything is...

[DavidBanner]

Andy, on this one I am forced to disagree. Regardless of Superman Returns, I have only two words to say about Superman IV that should stop the whole discussion.


Nuclear Man.

I mean, really? Nuclear Man? NUCLEAR MAN?!!

I'm still angry about that, and it's been nearly 25 years! And I still want my money back!

[AndyDursin]

oh SUPERMAN IV is the worst. It's worse than SUPERMAN RETURNS, though I find the badness of IV to be more entertaining on repeat viewing than RETURNS, which I just find to be boring and badly cast more than inept (though I would throw misguided in there too! lol). I was more talking about the music...

I remember seeing IV the day it opened with my parents. I was 12 and excited about the movie but somehow knew it was going to be bad since it opened in the dead of August and had no critic reviews -- even then I knew that was the sign of a disaster!! :0

[Eric W.]

oh SUPERMAN IV is the worst. It's worse than SUPERMAN RETURNS, though I find the badness of IV to be more entertaining on repeat viewing than RETURNS, which I just find to be boring and badly cast more than inept (though I would throw misguided in there too! lol). I was more talking about the music...

I remember seeing IV the day it opened with my parents. I was 12 and excited about the movie but somehow knew it was going to be bad since it opened in the dead of August and had no critic reviews -- even then I knew that was the sign of a disaster!! :0

4 truly is an abomination. Superman Returns is a MASTERPIECE compared to it and I'm hardly a fan of SR saying that.

[AndyDursin]

There are varying degrees of badness.

SUPERMAN IV is incompetent, shoddy, poorly executed on every conceivable creative level. It's an embarrassment.

SUPERMAN RETURNS is a misfire of a different kind -- dull, tedious, poorly written, badly cast. It's like Singer just didn't like Superman -- he liked the Donner '78 movie -- but the character itself, he didn't "get." So he changed the whole concept to suit his own point of view -- turning Superman into this creepy stalker, alienating him not unlike the X-Men mutants, and giving him a child. None of which is what the character is about.

It's a case of pick your poison, but I'll go with the laughably bad grade-Z Cannon movie over a misguided, boring "modern" take on Superman myself. At least SUPERMAN IV doesn't drag on for 2.5 hours.

[Eric W.]

There are varying degrees of badness.

SUPERMAN IV is incompetent, shoddy, poorly executed on every conceivable creative level. It's an embarrassment.

SUPERMAN RETURNS is a misfire of a different kind -- dull, tedious, poorly written, badly cast. It's like Singer just didn't like Superman -- he liked the Donner '78 movie -- but the character itself, he didn't "get." So he changed the whole concept to suit his own point of view -- turning Superman into this creepy stalker, alienating him not unlike the X-Men mutants, and giving him a child. None of which is what the character is about.

It's a case of pick your poison, but I'll go with the laughably bad grade-Z Cannon movie over a misguided, boring "modern" take on Superman myself. At least SUPERMAN IV doesn't drag on for 2.5 hours.

I get what you're saying. I'll take "none of the above" myself.

[mkaroly]

In addition, even though SUPE IV was putrid it did have music composed by John Williams...even if it was preformed poorly. SUPE RETURNS had a really, really bad score.

[AndyDursin]

In addition, even though SUPE IV was putrid it did have music composed by John Williams...even if it was preformed poorly. SUPE RETURNS had a really, really bad score.

The orchestra performance in SUPERMAN IV is so horrible, I guess they had to do some sessions in London to clean some of it up. Of course, not that you could tell a difference....there was probably a reason why Alexander Courage was an orchestrator as opposed to a composer for most of his career.