Batman: Descent Into Mystery

Dwight Fry's Batman: Descent into Mystery, more than two years in the making, is one of the best fanedits I've ever had the pleasure of viewing, and hands down my new favorite Batman film! The amount of effort put into this really shows, and at no point did this feel like a fanedit. Great work!

The audio and visual editing are top notch. Nothing was out of place and the audio work is very professional. The new color correction is remarkable and very film noirish.

The fact that you removed the romance element of the film while simultaneously improving the narrative proves just how pointless and unneeded it really was. Batman is now not only the main focus of the film (Which is one of the main problems with the original), but he is also more faithful to the comics. The intercutting between Batman's and Joker's origins works very well. The removal of Prince's music and out of character moments makes for a much improved movie!

The extra features were very intriguing, particularly Bluyoda's surreal The Killing Joke short. The color correction comparison and black and white reveal looked great, and overall the presentation is wonderful!

I can gladly say this is not only the best Batman movie ever, but also one of my new favorite movies, and will earn a place on my shelf. Thank you for a very enjoyable birthday evening Dwight! Now you definitely have do to Batman Returns!

Audio/Video Quality: 10/10
Visual Editing: 10/10
Audio Editing: 10/10
Narrative: 10/10
Enjoyment: 10/10
Overall Rating: 10/10

This has taken EVERYTHING that was poorly done in the original and made it the way it should have been. The choice of cut scenes, audio changes, and color correction are all spot on! Thank you to Dwight for all the hard work, I truly enjoyed this.

I don't consider Tim Burton's "Batman" a bad movie, or even all that badly flawed. There are a few things that I don't like (Prince's songs, the hasty way the Bruce/Vicki romance starts out, and a few others), and a few things I think could have been done better (The 1930s/1940s and 1980s elements of the movie's style and sensibility seem to clash at times; I would have preferred that the overtly 1980s elements be toned down or even non-existent). But those are just nitpicks. Overall, I like "Batman", and don't really have all that many gripes with it. A lot of the things that many people consider flaws with it (Batman killing, Joker being the killer of Bruce's parents, etc) don't bother me. And I like Kim Basinger. So, to me, a lot of the items on the cutlist seemed like unnecessary changes.

Despite all of this, I watched "Batman: Descent Into Mystery" with an open mind. And I thoroughly enjoyed it. A lot of moments and lines that I like are removed, but the cuts were made so well that I kept forgetting that anything was missing. Had I never seen "Batman" before viewing this edit, I wouldn't have known that anything had been cut. And even though I have seen "Batman" multiple times, and practically know it by heart, I found myself somehow not noticing some of the changes, and taking a few minutes to notice others. I also was impressed by how well the movie works without the romance. Surprisingly, I found myself preferring "Batman: Descent Into Mystery" to the original movie in many ways, although I still like the original movie, including quite a few of the things that you removed. To me, "Batman: Descent Into Mystery" is more "perfect" than the original movie, but misses a few of the original's greatest moments. All things considered, it's different, but about equally good, perhaps even a little better. It doesn't replace 'Batman" for me, but it's a great alternate version.

I consider this edit mostly perfect, but there a few things I didn't like. One is that without the Bruce/Vicki romance having come before it, the scene with Vicki walking down the street as the Bat-signal shines into the sky suddenly seemed like it was missing something, but having thought about it, that might be just me. The other is something that I consider a jarring and sloppy flaw. At the end, the music rises to a crescendo, the camera pans up over the buildings of Gotham, we see Batman, standing up, looking at his symbol projected into the sky.....then, in big, yellow letters, the words "To Bill, we know better" pop up. I know what the phrase means, and the sentiment is a nice one. But sticking it up on the screen, in big yellow letters, during one of the most iconic shots in cinematic history, comes across as a joke. It takes me right out of the moment, and takes away from the great visuals of the shot. Still, you did such great editing and color-correction work that I decided not to take any points off.

"Batman: Descent Into Mystery" is a great fanedit. I highly recommend it.

It's hard to say how much better this film is than the original. The pacing is tighter, the tone is darker, yet you still get a cackling maniacal Joker, a tormented Bruce Wayne, and a brooding Dark Knight. What's missing is everything that wasn't Batman - every moment that made you think "Wait, would Batman do that?"
Ironically I had just watched Tim Burton's original Batman, listening to Kevin Smith's analysis from his "Fatman on Batman" podcast. Every point he made against the original is fixed here. If you loved the original, as I do, you owe it to yourself to check this out. You'll end up loving it twice as much.

I really loved this edit of the movie. At first, I really missed the Prince song Party Man, but as the movie went forward I realized how out of place that scene would have been in this cut--and we got Prince's "Trust" a little later. (I'm a Prince fan. He wrote a song called 200 Balloons for that scene, and it's a on a CD Single. If I ever re-edit this, I've always wanted to use that track.).
In general, there isn't any one thing I can point to that is "wrong" with this edit. The problem is that there isn't much emotional investment with anyone. The things you cut, I agree with. And yet if the Joker didn't kill Batman's parents, that fight in the belltower doesn't have much power to it, IMO. I mean, Batman seems super-pissed and taking the whole Joker-trying-to-kill-everyone-in-Gotham-including-Vikki-Vale thing personally. It just felt a little emotionally hollow.

I still have to say it was a really fun ride, perfect editing. The Joker was great--I found myself speaking dialogue out loud with him. I was glad none of the lines I remembered so well were gone.
In many ways this is much more fun than the original. Much tighter and the Joker is menacing and charismatic. Also, I thought the picture and sound were very very good on my tv, much better than I remembered it. This seemed to fly by!