Forbidden Marvels' Daredevil: The Man Without Fear

Overall, an excellent edit. I haven't watched this since it first aired and it didn't feel like I was missing anything by the end of it. Other than a rough transition here and there, I was pretty happy with the quality overall and subtitles/ multi channel audio are always a ++ for me!

I would highly recommend this for anyone looking for a shortened version or a quick recap!

As others have added already, the music and dialogue audio needs to be rebalanced a little.

The "few days later" transition sequence (38:32) didnt fit the atmosphere of the movie. While the movie felt gritty and subtle, the transition felt very dramatized and borderline cartoonish. Personally i would have conveyed the passage of time with a simple cut to B roll/recolored (stock) establishing shot and straight into the Karen scene or even with a fade in to the Karen scene with plain text indicating "a few days later".

Although this is definitely pushing the limits, i think the length can be slimmed down even more. Scene for scene i think the editor condensed the story excellently, but i think within some scenes there can be some dialogue or pauses that can be polished off or recontextualized. Getting the film under 140 minutes wouldve really helped. Overall a good watch where every scene had a reason to be in it, but ended up still feeling a little drawn out inevitably due to a long runtime.

Rather than having the "Karen apartment" fight be drawn out with a flashback, i personally think it wouldve more effiective dramatically to give the Nobu fight more time. *Read bottom paragraph for why*

Criticisms aside, i think this edit was very concise and efficient, my biggest praises are with the usage of music and monologues to summarize a lot of story beats. Thanks to the clever usage of music, I very clearly saw the intention of when the acts began and ended. Mirroring the heroes' and Fisk's activities was also a genius way of framing the story. Im amazed that the editor was able to omit so much runtime and conversations, but still keep enough dialogue in the script so that there are callbacks within the movie. Comparing the original visuals to the edit, I have to say the recolor definitely helped it feel more like a standard MCU movie. Good balance of primary, secondary and tertiary characters. Every supporting character that was vital to the story, had enough screentime to be fleshed out (like the Owl, Vladimir, Wesley, Ms. Cardenas), everyone that was just needed due to the continuity (notably Det. Hoffman, Turk, Mahoney) showed up just enough for me to remember them. Which is impressive because when dealing with shows, there can easily be an oversaturation of characters. Cutting Night Nurse was a tough but rewarding decision.

Overall I'd say this edit successfully turned an entire TV show into a seemless Daredevil movie.

Continue reading for my personal rant of why i think the Nobu fight shouldve been kept:

One sequence i thought shouldnt have been shortened so much was the Nobu fight. That fight was such a catalyst moment for Matt. The fight acted as the biggest physical trial of Daredevil so far. Where Fisk out maneuvered Matt strategically (by getting ahead of the media), Nobu dominated Matt physically. The Nobu fight was the realization that there are even greater dangers out there if he continued to pursue this secret life. His near death experience was definitely a humbling experience that reminded the audience that in the end he's still human. Visually nothing compared to the "Oh Sh*t" moment when Nobu pulled out his kyoketsu-shoge (the hook on a rope). Visually, just by revealing that weapon, you can tell its about to push Daredevil's senses to the limit. In my opinion, this fight should have been a little longer, i couldve done without the Karen and Foggy scenes interrupting when the fight got good. Not to mention it felt a little jarring he went from getting punched in one scene to being eviscerated in the next. Recontextualizing or removing the flashbacks from the fight in Karen's apartment for this fight wouldve heightened the stakes of the Nobu fight.

This edit takes bold steps in condensing the Netflix tv series into barely fitting a feature length. It does things you may not expect or may consider blasphemous as fans of the show. The hallway fight? Interrupted. Claire? Missing entirely. The Nobu fight? Cut down (punny I know). But all this IS in service of getting the time down, so fanatics, calm down. Do we need extended single camera takes in a shortened version? No, absolutely not. After being initially surprised by some of the decisions I realized quickly they were the right call. I can't say I didn't miss anything, but what I did "miss" I didn't miss, if you get me. So that's what it is, the whole first season boiled down.

What was done really smartly was the actual editing. In the original show there may be a scene from the show where someone's eating food, and there may be a completely disconnected scene of two people talking quietly and in a static room, where the subject of conversation happened to be the person who was eating several scenes ago. In the edit, that conversation becomes voiceover we hear over the scene we see of the person being talked about, and we then associate their behaviors with what's being said. There is a lot of clever stuff like that in the edit, and it makes the work well worth your time, adding context.

There were two moments the audio stood out to me. 1- In the introductory scenes, there is a sudden drop that should have a fade out in Matt's voiceover, I think it's while he's confessing. 2- Much later, when he meets Melvin Potter the music gets a little loud and the shots of him boxing have leftover different music bleeding through.

Overall I would highly recommend this over re-watching the whole show. A first time viewer would probably be on the fence but could absolutely watch this and move on to season two without missing a beat.

I enjoyed for the most part and yes audio could be improved a little. Subtitles are included so that's a plus.

Amazing that the editor managed to condense the story into 3 hours. There were a handful of plot threads that weren't explained fully, but that's typical of TV-to-movie edits. Video was perfect, I didn't notice anything wrong. I did notice the audio levels weren't quite right through the whole thing, every now and then music will overshadow dialog or SFX will be cut short, but these are things the editor will no doubt figure out over time.

With the new color grading, this will probably be my go-to version if I want to rewatch the series.