Cyborg I: The Retro-con Cut

I love, love, love this kind of edit. Putting a revered, long-running TV franchise/series like this into a more easily digestible (not to mention coherent) form is a real public service, and BionicBob's love of the material shines through, from the care put into the artwork, the extras, the explanation featurettes explaining what has been changed and why -- this is a fantastic package, to say nothing of the edit itself.

Oh yeah, the edit itself! Well, by integrating parts of the pilot/TV movies into an early episode of the series proper as flashbacks, we're given an excellent in medias res explanataion of Steve Austin and his background, without a lot of tedious origin story buildup. Re-structuring and bobbing-and-weaving amidst continuity plotholes could have yielded a murky mess, but BB's edit has the narrative drive and thrills of a good modern action movie, and has left me eager to watch the rest of his Cyborg series.

I loved The Six Million Dollar Man as a kid. I had the cool Steve Austin ...uh, doll, where you could look through the back of his head through his bionic eye. I used to make him beat up Stretch Armstrong. Sorry, not important :-)
This was a great edit. I really liked the opening black screen with the sounds of the launch and subsequent crash while the credits were happening. It was slightly disappointing to then open with the motorcycle cop, but we quickly got to Steve and his backstory. The flashbacks work very very well, though in my mind, everytime we got the eye close-up my brain reverted to my much younger self and mentally made the sound "buppabuppabuppabuppabuppa..."
When an edit is done this well, there is little to say. Any issues were with the somewhat cheap production of the original TV show, or some of the somewhat bad acting and casting. Or the not-very-attractive love interest. I'm glad Jamie Sommers is soon on the way; Steve could do a lot better than that doctor. And who on earth cast the backwoods cop from Live and Let Die as a NASA employee? I would not trust that guy around rockets.
All I can say is -- Well done! And highly recommended, particularly for those who grew up watching this show.

Quick addendum--I had not watched the 13 minute bonus of The Lost Mission when I reviewed the movie. I just corrected that and it was awesome! The music was especially cool. I love that the mission seems to be "grab the hot girl and run away!" despite whatever Goldman states earlier. 13 minutes of pure fun! Lots of button-pushing and wire re-arranging too. Also, one of Steve hidden bionic powers is the ability to pass people ahead of him while climbing up a ladder! This short gets 10's across the board for me and an 11 for pure enjoyment. (I didn't realize how much this show had been deeply ingrained in my psyche until the real TV show opening credits started and I spoke every line in unison with Goldman. "Gentlemen, we can rebuild him...."

rogue-thex feb 24 2012

This review is based on my opinions and my personal viewing experience, nothing is meant as an attack. Spoiler warning!

I really liked this edit! I like the music replacement because i could never tell where there was new music; so it is very well done. There are some volume issues, but probably wont be noticed by the casual viewer and they did not spoil the experience for me. I think i heard a small pop at the closing of one of the flashback scenes that i don’t think was supposed to be there.
I would have worked on the style of the transitions between flashbacks more, Bob almost had the Easy Rider type transitions going in a few places and it would have been better if perfected a bit more IMO (however interlacing issues may have may have made it very difficult for Bob to do all the things he would have liked to do in this matter). When Steve is looking into the fire: i thought it would have worked better if you cut to a shot of a garbage can burning (close up shot of fire, not necessarily a burning garbage can) and have it zoom in on the fire, as it zooms in it blurs and transitions into the flashback, then when the flashback is over use the same method only reverse: unblur/unzoom -> shot of steve watching fire, then you wouldn’t have had to re-use the eye shot (which wasn’t colored for night). Some of the transitions felt a bit forced but if i didn’t know it was a fanedit i probably wouldnt have thought about it (but there’s only so much to work with when fanediting). But that’s just me. I like the slick use of the heartbeat, and black and white to color and back again works just right!
I felt a few bits of dialog in the flashbacks were odd as i wondered what they were talking about (when they would mention stuff from another episode).
I think BionicBob accomplished what he set out to do, Great Job man!
I must say that i liked The Lost Mission bonus edit the best, it was hilarious and fun as hell!
The menu design is the best Bob has done thus far IMO and the extras are very nicely executed.
I mentioned earlier in this review that Bob was faced with interlacing problems and had to use some filters to make sure it wasn`t apparent, i NEVER ONCE noticed any interlacing on my tv so Good work, Bob!

8.75/10

Keep up the good work Bob, you rock!

Dwight Fry Feb 25 2012

I loved this edit! I’m not all that familiar with the source material, but it’s hard to tell this was a fanedit at all. The elements I know were fanedited, were integrated in such an organic manner that seem to belong there from the beginning. I particularly liked how the transitions to the flashbacks were handled, with black and white bits marking the beginning and end of each one, but avoiding the all too easy (and tired) temptation of making them all B&W.

The episode that forms the bulk of the story was well chosen, it’s compelling and has a very Twilight Zone flavor, particularly at the start with the deserted town, the bodies, and the doll. Given that it was the first one in the series, it has that introduction feel that fits nicely with Steve’s backstory. There were two little (fanedited) bits I particularly loved: after Dr. Forbes asks Steve “What’s underneath your shell?” Bob inserts a shot of the bionic arm. That made me smile. The other one is, when in a flashback Steve, recovering from the operation, closes his bionic fist for the first time, the bionic sound effect is inserted and I thought that made the moment very powerful and heroic.

Not all was perfect, though. A couple of things didn’t totally convince me. One was the opening credits sequence, as it’s on a black background and with each of the names staying for a bit too long. It can be off-putting. Maybe I would have used the first half of the first flashback, before the plane starts to fail, as the credits background… My second quibble was with the scene between Goldman and Dr. Wells. Not only I thought it wasn’t narratively needed and included a mention to the villain of the second TV movie that is a non sequitur, but since it’s part of a flashback, how can Steve remember a conversation he didn’t witness?

Technically, this might be the most polished Bionic Bob edit to date. ZERO interlacing issues. I’m not totally sure about the aspect ratio, though: it feels like it should be full 4:3 but is slightly stretched horizontally with slim black bars on the top and bottom. Nothing too distracting, though. And the audio might include the odd pop and crackle, but so do official releases of old TV shows.

The Lost Mission was fun, and better than I expected. Probably because I was fearing Roger Moore quips and you had Steve not utter a single word. But the only thing I thought sucked was the demise of the villain, not even thinking of getting out of the way of the missile and patiently waiting for it against a background of wrinkled paper. But the edit itself was very nice, and could almost be part of the upcoming silent consecution. And, of course, excellent music.

If you make more edits of the show, I will be definitely watching. Keep ‘em coming! 9/10.

TMBTM Apr 21 2012

Very enjoyable fanedit! Always loved this show.
The few little problems I had were already brought to attention by the others reviewers but they are all minor ones.
Edit is cool, menus are (very) cool, Steve Austin is cool, so is Bionic Bob!