Jenn Dolari @dolari@driveinsaturday.org

Hmmm...no churn ice cream likely needed churning. Let's see if it comes out okay after 8 hours in the freezer....

Tonight's Earworm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtrYO-Mog60

That's looking to be about a full set of scripts there....

Heat pulse coming. THAT MEANS ICE CREAM!

Last Boost: That is the most Carrie looking Kei I've seen ever.

Finished the second draft of Mario Puzo's Superman. It's quite the read.

For the most part, it follows the original draft with a few extensions and "smoothing over" of scenes. In the original script, stuff "just happens." In this one, there's more detail added: The Krypton scenes and Smallville scenes have a little more material that makes the scenes far less choppy. Scenes of Kal-El journeying to earth are added as well. The stealing of the kryptonite now has an actual heist, versus just kind of happening as Luthor and Eve walk by. The rescue of Clark from radiation poisoning has scenes of taking over the ambulance and plane, as well as a crash landing.

There's no Jor-El or Lara holograms until we get to the Fortress of Solitude, instead they're substituted with a "computer voice." I'm assuming they were going to make a Big Reveal of the two once they Fortress is made, but that doesn't seem to be in the script. They just show up.

All the Galaxy Communications scenes are the same, except that Perry White takes over Martin Edge's role (who is never seen, only heard) over a PA system. Luthor Lux is now Lex Luthor. :)

Once Superman loses his powers for Lois, he insists they get married and have a wedding feast in the Kryptonian fashion. IT's a hilarious scene as it's obvious Lois wants to get him to bed to make love, but Clark wants these grand marriage proclamations ("This sounds more like a declaration of war than a declaration of marriage") and then eats like a pig. Lois is just kind of strumming her fingers through this whole scene, poor thing. Probably my fave scene in the script.

The Pope Assasination plot, and Luthor's grand declaration of three great crimes is removed at this point and we go straight into the Peacock Throne and H-Bomb episode.

At this point in the script, there's a break written in where Puzo specifically says "here's where you can have the film split into two" and even considers calling it "The Four Great Villains and Luthor's Three Great Crimes."

This is all almost all new material moving forward. Luthor mentions he has three great crimes he plans to do, beginning with the assasination of the Pope, which is moved here. Added to this plot was a quick recognition of Luthor as a priest before the assasination, and a random hijack attempt after the assasination is quashed.

Kent considers quitting Galaxy Communications because, while he's getting all the scoops, he IS the scoops as Superman. Martin Edge refuses to let him go but gives him a 30 day vacation. Kent asks Jor-El about profiting off his superpowers in the new business. Jor-El can't answer - that's an ethics issue, and has to be his own decision.

Luthor launches his Second Great Crime. He tells his henchmen that he plans to steal the US' new nucear submarine and sell it to the highest bidder. But as the plot unfolds, it turns out that he plans to launch the nuclear weapons off the submarine instead. Superman attempts to stop him, but Luthor has the launch codes and will launch the missles unless Superman lets him have the submarine. Instead Superman leaves, and drags the submarine to the ocean floor. Luthor negotiates his way out of being arrested.

Kent decides to quit Galaxy Communication just as the news of Australia being wiped out hits the office. The Four Great Villains have arrived and hae destroyed Australia.

At this point, Lois realized Kent is quitting to go to Australia, and suspects that, while he ISN'T Superman, he's at least in contact with Superman, which KEnt confirms. He gives her power of attorney if he doesn't make it back, and tells her there's a letter in a safety deposit box that will explain everything should he not survive.

At this point, he goes up to the penthouse of Galaxy Communiations president Martin Edge (who has only rarely shown up in this version of the script with Perry White taking over his role, but does show up every so often to deliver the important news and hand out assignments), and it turns out the Martin Egge is ALSO Clark Kent, in makeup.

Oddly, at this point, we have the same out-line vagueness of the first draft. It's again far less "Screenplay" and more "outline" where the destruction is genertically described. The only real difference is that Jor-El doesn't say "there's no way to defeat them" instead saying "they can't be killed for ethical reasons."

The story ends the same way witht he four villains being powered down and memory wiped, and Luthor questioning wehter Superman will memory wipe him.

Oddly, in a very prescient move, there's a post-credits sequence where Luthor is hiring new henchment for his next crime (Superman didn't mind-wipe him), and it's the Four Great Villains applying for the role, presumably for Luthor's Third Great Crime. :)

This is a much MUCH smoother script than the first one, but still has a way to go. These seem to be the only two drafts Puzo did for Superman. I'm not sure if there were any drafts by the Newmans that morphed this movie into their publically available scripts. But the seeds for the movie are absolutely there.

Okay, that made me laugh:

Comparing the first and second drafts of the Mario Puzo versions of Superman:

For those of you who've read the ST:TMP comparison pages at https://dolari.net/startrek/tmp/index.html, any suggestions for updating it for a possible Superman comparison?

And finally done with the first draft of Mario Puzo's original Superman draft. It got wierd, and Superman II was basically condensed to the last ten minutes of the movie. I'll have a general thoughts summary at the end of the plot summary after the "-=-" line.

The news team visits the H-Bomb plant, which also has a nuclear reactor. The reactor is what Luthor and Eve are going after as his second of three terrible things he planned to do. He causes the reactor to explode, exposing hundreds to lethal radiation. Clark Kent gets dressed in radioactive-resistant clothes to help, but instead finds and recognizes Luthor. They fight, and Luthor manages to cut the radiation suit, exposing Kent to a lethal dose of radiation.

Kent is dying, and has less than two weeks to live. He tells Lois to get everyone to the Fortress of Solitude where he can use the molecular chamber to make him a Kryptonian again, this time, forever. The news crew sneaks Kent out of the hospital and fly him to the Fortress, where he's cured of radioactivity and turned back in to Superman.

The news crew celebrates his recovery and the knowledge that Kent is Superman. But Superman has had the champagne they're drinking drugged so they'll forget he's Clark Kent. Lois pours hers out when Superman isn't looking, and feigns amnesia.

As they're all sleeping, Lois wakes up and goes to the molecular chamger and runs it, hoping she'll become a kryptonian. She has a fantasy sequence where she becomes Superwoman with Superman, flying and loving him. They land at a circus where a strongman who looks like Luthor challenges Superman and then Superwoman to a challenge, which they both easily defeat.

Superman wakes her up, and tells her the moilecular chamber doesn't work on humans, and insists she drinks the champagne, which she does.

Luthor unleashes his third evil plan, which is to explode an atomic bomb in Metropolis. Superman goes into Luthor's lair, where he tries to trick Superman again with his hologram duplicates, but Superman figures out the real Luthor and gets him to say where the bomb is: a plane circling over town. Superman finds the plan and drives it into deep space where it explodes.

Clark Kent and Lois Lane accept the Presidential Medal of Freedom for Superman for saving Metropolis when Kent senses a problem - looking into the sky, he sees the Four Kryptonian Villains coming closer to Earth in the Phantom Zone.

It's here that the script's tone changes from a screenplay to more of a general and vague outline. Superman heads to back to the Fortress where Jor-El and Lara tell him that the Phantom Zone could be broken open with a nuclear device and that he cannot defeat the four villains as they will be as powerful as he is. As the four villains completely escape the Phantom Zone, they lay waste to the cities and towns across Earth. Superman decides he can't beat them 1 on 1, and comes up with a plan that involves Luthor. In exchange for full amnesty, Luthor will help Superman defeat the four villains.

A fight ensues between Superman and the four, and he's very much defeated. He retreats to Luthor's lair, where the four villains are surprised to see multiple holograms of Superman. They try to find the real superman when all the holograms dissapear. Luthor has turned them off. He's willing to let the villains know where Superman is if he can join them, and they allow it. Luthor takes them to the Fortress of Solitude.

The four villains struggle to get into the fortress, and Luthor calls out Superman. "You're trapped in there, and that's fine. We can run things out here." Superman lets them in where they fight to the center of the fortress.

At the center of the Fortress of Solitude, is the molecular chamber, and once he has all four there, he activates it, turning them into humans. He then destroys the chamber to prevent the four villains from changing back inside the ten day period. He offers them a solution as humans: drink the same memory erasing chemical and start life anew, which they all do except Luthor. Luthor talks with Superman and says he doesn't want to have his life erased ("without evil, you can't be good!"). Superman assures him that the drink is not drugged for him. Luthor asks him if this is the first time he's lied. Superman says he's not lying. After all, you helped save the world.

The script ends with a newscast by Clark Kent that the current crisis is over, but that humanity is threatened by its own violence and environmental damage.

-=-

This script really is just kind of all over the place, and feels less like a chohesive screenplay as much as it feels almost like a series pitch. "Here are multiple adventures we can have that could be expanded into movies." In fact, the last adventure, with the four villains, is incredibly vague and feels more like an outline than a finished piece.

But the movie is basically here. We have the Kryptonian opening, pretty much intact, and the Kents bringing Superman up. They're super short, but they're there.

From there, we have little bits of Superman I and II scattered throughout the script, mostly Superman II, but not in a cohesive story. Once the Bentons get the script, it's far far far more cohesive as a story.

I do have Puzo's second draft as well...it may be a little more cohesive, but I don't plan to go into too much detail until I've read the whole thing. I honestly expect it to be the same as the first draft with extensions, edits and rearrangements. But if there are differences, I'll post about them once I'm done with reading and comapring it.

IT's a neat little document for one of the best superhero movies ever made, which came from a very scattered episodic script.