Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D: Centipede

Easily the best way to watch the first season of Agents of SHIELD. I genuinely love this show but always felt the first season was rough. Here DSM2337 has trimmed the fat way off and created a genuinely cinematic event that fits seamlessly into the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe, and even has a fun post credit scene too!

Some of the audio cuts aren't perfect, but it's hard given the files available to work with, but easy to forgive.

This is the best way to experience Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. What's been done here is excellent changes and removes all of filler and boils it down to what we need to know. The Audio/Video editing is good, but there are points where you can tell a cut has been made. For example, strange fade to blacks, audio tracks being cut too early, or tracks changing suddenly. I also noticed there were a few moments where I thought the dialogue was mixed a bit too quietly, making it difficult to understand what characters were saying in those moments. However, these instances are few and far between, so it is not too immersion breaking. I also would've preferred higher quality audio on the 1080p version, I feel like it is a bit too low for a 1080p video file. The video quality looked fine on my computer monitor. Overall, despite some small audio/visual issues, this is a great way to experience the story of AoS.

As anyone who knows me from the forums knows I am a big comic fan, and that includes their adaptation to Movies and TV. In my personal opinion, while it has had its missteps, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is my favorite adaptation of the comic characters to live action media.

I agree with DSM2337's assessment of Agents of SHIELD, and it is not limited to its first season; the show does provide interesting plot points and character development, but it stumbles and does a lot of navel gazing wasting precious screen time. I put partial blame for this on the selection of TV producing house - ABC studios has been known to over stretch plots on many of their TV offerings and they have yet to adapt to the current 13 episode or less per season format.

Anyway on to the review of this edit, a great job is achieved of boiling down the plot and story offered by the first arc of the premiere season of this show, we get all the required information in two hours without any of the filler; which is a great achievement in itself. High marks for enjoyment.

The editing is also very well done, if not perfect; some fades that have no apparent reason like for instance when Coulson and Skye fly away on the flying car Lola stand out, some black screen transitions that do not work to well are also peppered throughout the edit. Wish this could have been avoided. 9/10 on video editing.

Audio editing, quite well done; no noticeable breaks or cuts; which is suspect was achieved with the aid of the aforementioned black transitions. Sill full marks.

A/V quality, as with every review a 2.0 audio track gets a 7 from me, also I noticed some issues with the audio, dialogue was somewhat muted while music and sound effects were comparatively much louder, I had never experienced this in my entertainment system with similar audio tracks; don't know what caused this but another point is deducted from the score making it a 6 overall. Video is crisp at 1080p. - On a side note I wish reviews allowed to give separate scores for audio and video quality, in case any site admin/mod reads this.

Enjoyment and Narrative - the best that could be done from source material is achieved in my opinion, yet it still feels somewhat lacking. 9 on narrative for effort, 8 on enjoyment.

On a personal note, the song used for the end credits is too loud and in my opinion does not fit with the tone of the plot. One point deducted from Audio Editing for this.

This is quite an interesting project and I look forward to watching the next installments.

Great work giving this such a cinematic feel. Visually in particular you feel like you're watching a HQ MCU production. Plot wise, the episodic nature of early season one makes it hard to tie something like this together well, and you've made a great effort. The only thing lost I feel, is the steady character development for Skye as she grows in confidence and connection to the other members of the team and begins to feel at home and valued. But this is an ongoing thing and couldn't be helped. Very well done.

It was great to revisit the first season of AoS in this new way. I was impressed by just how expertly DSM created a feature from the materials he had to work with -- it looks and sounds great, and the pieces are tightly interwoven to really flow like a feature film (or at the very least, a really good tv movie). Using the throughline of Mike Peterson's journey to carry Skye's introduction and Coulson's mystery was wise and works wonders to keep the story together. I particularly like the way the team members' introductions are handled in this version -- much more organically that the original pilot, IMO. Well done.

From a narrative stance, I do wish we'd had a montage or "___months later" (perhaps repurposing a climax from an episode not used here or in later planned fanedits?) to show the passage of time and growth of the team indicated by Skye's comments to her hacker buddy, and I'll agree with other commenters that Coulson's rejected phonecall feels abrupt. Part of me wishes that there'd been some way to work in at least one more "Tahiti... it's a magical place" somewhere, to tie in its use at the beginning with its use at the end, making it more clear that it's a Pavlovian response.

Those nitpicks aside, again, my compliments to DMS, and I look forward to seeing what comes next!