Batman: Year Two (Miniseries), The

I was one of those that enjoyed this movie somewhat, but DAMN was it long! The simple fact that this fanedit splits the film into 4 “episodes” (thus giving it breathing room) automatically makes this the preferred way to watch this. The editing here is quite smooth and meticulous, but unfortunately there are specifically 2 moments where the sequence of events is a little awkward:

1) It’s a bit weird that Batman visited Joker first before visiting Alfred at the hospital after the exploding package (a simple switcheroo of a couple scenes could fix this) .

2) When exactly did the moment of Batman meeting Catwoman at the cemetery take place in this edit? There’s no indication that there’s a mini time skip between Carmine Falcone being killed and the Arkham visit to the Riddler (the idea behind moving this ending scene earlier was brilliant though, but the execution is a bit off).

But the absolute jewel in this edit (other than splitting it into 4 “episodes”) is the ending. Moving the conversation between Bruce Wayne and Alfred to the end was an absolute stroke of genius. And to have it end with the added music, them holding hands and reconciling, and Bruce Wayne seeing the Bat signal and thus is called back to his quest? Brilliant.

Also, adding small hints of Riddler's greater scheme through news broadcast was also an absolute masterclass in fanediting! Excellent work there!

All in all, this edit is my preferred way to watch the film and is definitely worth at least a single viewing.

Let me preface by saying I loved the original film and while it can be slow at times I typically prefer "detective batman". That being said, I felt like it would work in a series format and then after a random search I ended up finding this edit. I should also add that outside of Star Wars edits, this is my first real viewing of a fanedit.

And I am so glad this is one of the first ones I've watched. This edit may just be my definitive way to watch moving forward. Now if I hadn't watched the film multiple times I may not have noticed some of the smaller edits such as removing the kiss scenes and the bat signal at the end. The little cuts and edits were so unnoticeable that I would have sworn the movie was mostly just cut into four parts. It wasn't until I would watch an episode I would realize I enjoyed the flow and continuity that this edit had to offer versus the original.

The only edit I would say was noticeable were the title shots. I didn't have a problem with them but they did seem somewhat drawn out or at least obvious. I think if I hadn't known this was a movie first I wouldn't have noticed. They seemed pretty natural but since I've watched the movie several times I did notice it.

Overall I loved this edit. Loved the original and this gives me a version that I can watch in doses and lengthen the experience over several days versus setting aside several hours. Only thing I realized as I typed this is that now I have to watch the movie version of the sequel when I think I prefer the show format. As you can tell, I definitely recommend this version and I cannot thank DonKamillo enough for taking the time to do this edit.

An amazing edit of this incredibly long film. It's way more digestible in this series form. I can't recommend this enough. Thanks for all the hard work.

If you're going to watch The Batman, this is a very cool way to watch it. Potentially better than just pausing the original halfway through and finishing later. It certainly is an unwieldy film that lends itself to being broken up.

My review of the film itself, what works and what doesn't, is in full here: https://boxd.it/3rve8x For this edit, it's not really about fixing any issues I had, and indeed most of my complaints are script and casting, not very fixable. What this does better though is in trying to give the story a flow and sense of progression rather than make it feel like a slog. I think it mostly succeeds.

The chapter breaks mostly work very well, especially in the first two episodes. The titles do feel a bit abrupt when they come on each time; a slight fade-in on each would work better. The beginning of the third episode felt a bit odd to me... it would be more natural to cut in titles when leaving the asylum instead of in the middle of a conversation. The beginning and ending of the final episode really didn’t work for me, though. We left off on a tense cliffhanger confrontation at the end of episode three, but then we start this finale with a long, slow scene, then flash backwards to the cliffhanger. It’s a weird choice, and when I looked back at the editor's change list, I saw that this scene was moved to there. Explains why it didn't fit for me. Then the ending is again, a really long, quiet conversation. Checked the change list... yup, another move in the edit. TBH, it really made the film feel like it went out on a whimper, so it may be the biggest barrier to rewatchability.

The other issue I had here was that honestly, Batman and Selina not acting on any attraction in this film kind of created a plot hole for me. It just felt like there was no substantial reason for them to say some of the things they do and to go out on a limb for each other several times. They weren’t anything to each other yet, so they should be making more objective judgments. This is partly a weakness of the original movie, where the relationship just felt a bit forced to me in general, but it felt even worse here.

I should also mention that while the audio and video edits felt quite good to me, I had persistent audio sync issues with some of the dialogue. Usually, altering the sync by about -.3 seconds fixed it, but it was not always off with that consistency.

Overall, I do recommend watching this way and making up your own mind. And I'd also recommend that any fans of this go check out Batman: The Animated Series, which has the best Batman of all time, and is basically where this version of Penguin started. RIP Kevin Conroy (1955-2022)

BRILLIANT & AMAZING are the two words I would use to describe this edit. I only watched "The Batman" once a few months ago, so outside of the added "Joker" scene, I'm not really sure what was added or removed in the edit. If you didn't know this was a full length movie, you would absolutely think it was a mini-series. I watched vol 1 & 2 one night and 3 & 4 the next night... it was nice/cool to be able to stop after the 2nd episode and pick back up the next night & not have it feel like I just paused the movie and continued. I really loved the opening & ending credits as well, which really gave it that miniseries feeling. This is probably the best "miniseries" of a movie I've seen since the "Back To The Future: Hill Valley Chronicles"... I would def love to see Don take on some of the other "bit too long" movies (Justice League) and/or trilogies (Dark Knight) and turn em into miniseries as well... Thanks for all yr hard work, Don!!!