Captain America and the Red Skull

Once I found the fanedit community, this was probably the edit I was most excited to see. A cut of First Avenger that makes the film a self-contained period superhero movie? Sign me up! I couldn't help but compare this to another Joe Johnston-directed underappreciated period superhero movie, the Rocketeer. And this edit really goes a long way to recreating that same pulp feel in First Avenger.

I was excited to see a self-contained Cap movie that had a bit more of a Joe Johnston pulp hero / original golden age Kirby-Simon feel to it, but what I didn't expect, and what pleasantly surprised me the most, is how this edit literally benefits every single character.

Steve was Captain America before he even got the serum, and this made me feel that. I think it was the moving of the scene where Zola and Schmidt discuss the blue cube, but the flow of the movie here was much improved, to Steve's character's benefit.

Much of the cut time benefits the other characters as well, I felt like I'd gotten to know Peggy, Col. Phillips, Howard Stark, and many of the Howling Commandos much better than in the original movie. Maybe it was the overall flow of the movie, or maybe it was that, by omitting the other scenes, they just had a higher screen time by overall percentage, but I really felt it with these characters specifically.

Zola is weaselier. Schmidt is colder and more threatening, and more unhinged. This was a truly fantastic performance by Hugo Weaving that I don't feel I appreciated before seeing this edit.

The only parts that didn't really work for me were the slow-mo shots (throwing the shield at camera and jumping off the giga-tank) in the "destroying Hydra" montage... they just felt clumsy and dated, but I don't know that there's much editing could do for those specifically. And the other part that didn't work was the first confrontation between Steven and Schmidt, and the big reveal of the Red Skull. It felt like it came up way to abruptly, with no real lead-up, and the whole sequence just felt kind of awkward to me. And it's weird the way its edited that Skull and Zola just kind of... show up, mouth off, do a quick fight, and then leave. I know the reason to be because of the self-destruct sequence, that they just run into Bucky and Cap on their way out, but I definitely didn't feel that pressure prior to or during the scene. It felt like Skull was just leaving for the hell of it.

The cut of the reaction to Bucky was brilliant, and vastly improves that part of the movie. The cut of the final confrontation and the ditching of the plane are ESSENTIAL improvements of this movie. They actively make the sequence better and make more sense.

This is a great edit that gives me Rocketeer vibes, AND makes me appreciate every single character in this movie at least a little bit more. Loved it.

loved it so much :)

I watched both PE's Captain America edits and both are excellent. The original movie I felt was a bit boring but this edit really helped move this along. NO issues with edits that I could find. This becomes my go to version and I thank PE for his great work and fine eye for detail.

If you want to see a better version of Captain America then this is the edit!

I'm continually impressed by the skills of the fan-editors on this site, and Problem Eliminator is no exception. I've only dabbled in film editing and the results have been sub-optimal. Problem Eliminator, on the other hand, takes the source material and deftly puts it together as he likes. Video edits are smooth, and music cues line up perfectly. If I wasn't so familiar with the original film, I would never notice the edits.

I went into this edit with high hopes, as I've always felt that the weakest moments of Captain America: The First Avenger are the present-day scenes. I understand their necessity in the greater MCU, but they detract from the main part of the film: Cap's origin story and adventures in WWII. Removing these bits and making the film a pure 1940s adventure seems like a good thing. Unfortunately, I think Problem Eliminator went a little too far. Many of the little scenes he cut are some of my favorite moments from the film. For example, the big fight at the end is trimmed extensively so that it feels rushed and too quickly resolved. This paradoxically has the effect of making Cap seem like both more and less of a hero: a super-superhero would quickly dispatch a villain, but in the full version you get to see Cap doing all sorts of hero stuff, like fighting a Hydra goon on a flying bomb.

Problem Eliminator is planning a fan-edit of The Winter Soldier, and it will be interesting to see how those two movies hold together. While this edit didn't quite work for me, I do recommend it as an alternate view of The First Avenger, and I'm looking forward to see how he tackles Winter Soldier.

So much better than the original. I remember being so bored when I watched it, but this edit kept me entertained the whole movie. I couldn't tell where any edits were. I think the biggest improvements were around Bucky's death scene being more impactful, and overall the movie being shorter with better pacing. Still not one of my favorite Marvel movies, but it is much better now.