In Superman II (1980) does Superman kill General Zod?
June 23, 2013 12:35 AM   Subscribe

In Superman II (1980) does Superman kill General Zod according to A: your memory, B: the scene?
posted by TheophileEscargot to Media & Arts (17 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
I'm pretty sure they ended up back in the Phantom Zone, if I remember the film (which I last saw aged 7) correctly.
posted by pipeski at 12:45 AM on June 23, 2013


In the shooting script (PDF), the last mention of Zod is:

ZOD is hurled helplessly through the air the entire
length of the Fortress, crashes against the far wall,
drops to the floor.


Soon after:

The snow cat lumbers off through the snow. SUPERMAN puts
his arm around LOIS. They gaze off at the Fortress in
the distance. SUPERMAN stares hard, deeply affected by
the sight of the structure which has meant so much to
him for so long. His eyes suddenly begin to glow with
his X-Ray super-vision burning white-hot.

517 ANGLE ON FORTRESS - SUPERMAN'S POV

The melting Fortress seems to hang suspended for a
moment, dazzling in the brilliant light. Then - in what
almost seems a burst of suicidal energy - it disappears.
The barren landscape is desolate once again.

posted by dontjumplarry at 1:23 AM on June 23, 2013


I'm pretty sure Superman kills Zod. Not quite in line with the traditional take on Superman's ethical code, but I doubt that beating up a guy in a truck stop also wouldn't be considered proper Supermanian morality either.
posted by MShades at 2:28 AM on June 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


It's hard to say given this film's weird history. In the original version it does seem like they were killed. Then, in the extended version that came out a while later, they are clearly shown to be arrested. And now there's another version that Richard Donner cut, and I haven't seen that one, but I know it has yet another ending.
posted by selfnoise at 4:35 AM on June 23, 2013


The YouTube clip is what I remember from theaters in 1981. (My fifth-grade math teacher gave me a high-five when I wore my Superman "S" t-shirt to school the week Supes II came out, the last week of classes.)
posted by steef at 5:41 AM on June 23, 2013 [1 favorite]


If the "Superman kills Zod" reading is correct, that would imply that Lois Lane kills Ursa after cracking wise. I though they were just banished to the aether or something.
posted by Svejk at 6:02 AM on June 23, 2013


That's your typical comic-book death, where they'll be dead until another writer has a good idea for them.
posted by empath at 7:10 AM on June 23, 2013


Wouldn't the fall into dry ice have killed them?
posted by buzzman at 7:40 AM on June 23, 2013 [3 favorites]


Huh, I thought there was a shot at the end of the three of them back inside that pane of glass thingie rotating through space.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 8:25 AM on June 23, 2013 [6 favorites]


The only edition I have that I can check is the Donner recut, but in that one, he and Lois toss them into the abyss beneath the Fortress of Solitude, then Superman destroys the entire structure with heat vision as they leave. HOWEVER, the ending of this cut is Superman doing his turning back time by flying rapidly around the earth bit (which Donner intended for II, not I) and in doing so, Zod and his compatriots end up back in their mirror prison in the Phantom Zone.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:53 AM on June 23, 2013


Sooo... in that version, it goes from the scene don'tjumplarry described from the script to the last bit TWinbrook8 mentioned.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:57 AM on June 23, 2013


I had always assumed Superman had killed Zod (after first crushing his hand) since he threw what was now a mortal-human across a room into an wall where he then fell down into what I supposed was ice-cold arctic water. In my mind, Zod drowned or quickly died of hypothermia. Same with Non and Ursa. Really, that Fortress of Solitude needs some serious baby-gates put up.

But looking back at Superman II a few years ago, it is so bad in so many ways--so much of it is like the wacky-banjo bar fight scene in Westworld. And Superman giving Lois a Kryptonian ForgetMeNow at the end? Ugh.
posted by blueberry at 10:07 AM on June 23, 2013


A propos of nothing much at all, I had forgotten that all the Phantom Zone villains sport outfits from Liza Minnelli's wardrobe.
posted by La Cieca at 11:51 AM on June 23, 2013 [2 favorites]


My memory is of the baddies spinning off into the Phantom Zone. From the scene you linked it looks like a typical Hollywood cop-out where they really wanted the bad guys to be killed, but wanted plausible deniability if they got taken to task for it or if they wanted to bring the characters back in a later installment.

On preview, what Empath said.
posted by under_petticoat_rule at 5:21 PM on June 23, 2013


The baddies spinning off into the Phantom Zone happens early in the movie, when Zod et al are tried on Krypton and originally sentenced.
posted by mediareport at 5:54 PM on June 23, 2013


Yeah, they are sentenced at the beginning of Superman: The Movie and spin off into space saying "forgive us!" and then never seen again until...
...the beginning of Superman II, when their phantom-zone mirror-thing (which apparently took the scenic route, thereby taking like 30 years longer than baby Supe’s christmas-ornament rocket) is busted open by the explosion of a nuclear device that Superman removes from the Eiffel Tower and tosses up into space.

posted by blueberry at 9:44 PM on June 23, 2013


The 'Later Releases' bit of the wikipedia page discusses the various endings.

Original is in the video linked in the OP, (they fall into the ice) the Expanded International Cut in 1983 showed them being arrested.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman_II#Later_releases
posted by memebake at 9:51 AM on June 24, 2013 [1 favorite]


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