Superman: Risk and Revelation

Nice little edit to wrap up Superman TAS as it should be. Some transitions are a tad rushed, but overall it's a solid episode. I should also point that I never watched Superman: Brainiac Attacks, but I have absolutely no problem whatsoever following the story.

I remember watching this edit evolve across the versions, and being impressed with the skill Zarius brought to the table. He managed to shorten the movie into a length reasonable for a TV episode, in a way that successfully covered all the bases for a Superman: The Animated Series "finale." Each cut was well chosen. I liked beginning with Jonathan and Martha at the farm, setting up the problem Supemran has to overcome for the story. I like keeping Brainiac as the satellite-robot version the whole way through, it makes the voice change with Lance Henricksen a bit easier to swallow for the viewer as him being slightly different. Lois already having a hint at Clark's identity early on also nicely ties into the ending with her recognizing Clark as Superman, and the lenghts he goes through to save her makes it all the more worthwhile. The transitions were well executed, and it never feels like I'm missing much. Risk and Revelation is an effective bridge between STAS and JL/JLU in that respect.

About the only nagging feeling I still have is keeping Lex around. Yeah, it makes sense for him to be here, and Zarius wisely cut down on his screentime, but Powers Boothe' portrayal of Lex Luthor still feels out of place with the rest of the edit, which largely keeps ties to the DCAU. Lex celebrating Superman's death with a Lua is still pretty funny though, so maybe that's worth it. I greatly enjoyed Risk and Revelation, in some ways more than my own edit of Brainiac Attacks. Well done.

As a DC completist, the original Brainiac Attacks DVD has been staring at me from my shelves for nearly 15 years now, and I've never been able to finish it, I'm ashamed to say. My love of Superman: The Animated Series is such that seeing the mischaracterized cast (particularly Luthor) in this DTV outing was too painful to slog through. Thanks to Zarius, I've managed to make it through a mercifully truncated version, though, for which I'm grateful.

The obvious absence of voice director Andrea Romano means that, although Tim Daly has returned as Clark/Superman, it might as well be a different actor with how hard he's phoning it in, not to mention Clancy Brown sounding particularly like he's off-balance in his remaining scenes as Luthor. Though I *will* admit that Luthor celebrating Superman's supposed demise with a goddamn luau is so wrong it's kind of right.

In all, Zarius' editing of the flawed material he had to work with is top-notch, and succeeds as the bridging material between S:TAS and Justice League that we never got, and a romantic-but-not-sentimental resolution to the Lois and Clark romance.

Highly enjoyable short edit that has all the flavor of a classic Superman story. In fact, with its action-packed, no-nonsense approach it reminded me a lot of the Max Fleischer Superman shorts from the 1940s. I confess having a soft spot for the admittedly flawed and not really very good Superman: Brainiac Attacks movie, mostly because of the visuals and the animation (many of the best moments remain here) and this is a very good distillation. My number one problem in this movie was the bumbling portrayal of Lex (I'm used to Gene Hackman so this might not bother me so much if it didn't have the TAS design - Lex would never be this goofy in TAS), and that's thankfully mostly gone (the "Lexopolis" slip remains, but that's no big deal). I thought turning Brainiac into the all-machine version instead of the green humanoid alien one (by removing the latter - who has a cameo in the end credits) was very creative. I also love the new TAS-style intro made from footage of the film.

The only issue that I had with it editing-wise is that some of the transitions/dissolves are way too fast and would have needed a bit more space to breath. Namely: Clark throwing his glasses in the trash bin to Supes arriving in the Arctic, Super-Computer scene to Supes first entering the Phantom Zone, and first Lex Scene to back in the Phantom Zone. With more room to breath at those spots I'd call this edit perfect.

Technically, it has the issue of the audio being too low for some reason. I had to raise the volume way up to watch it. Video looks fine, no artifact whatsoever, but it appears to be an 8bit export and not a 32bit one, so image is overall darkened and the darkest spots are flattened. I know this error well, I've been guilty of it in the past. But it still looks very good.

This was short and sweet and had me smiling all along. Superman fans overall, and particularly fans of either TAS or the classic era, will really enjoy it.

This was fantastic. Thank you for fixing this movie! Great job. Great idea. Great execution.

Not sure if Superman: Doomsday could be similarly fixed, but I think you're onto something with this concept!