Jason and the Argonauts: B+ Movie Edition

Here's my review of Scribb's Jason and the Argonauts B+ Movie Edition. Having not watched this movie in awhile, I went into this one without looking over the cutlist. Here are my thoughts. Thanks Scribb for a fun time down memory lane!

Audio/Video Quality: 10
I don't see or hear any quality issues in the video and audio. The only moment I saw issues were when Jason is at mount olympus and he's very blury, but that looks to be an issue with the film itself. This matches the best I've ever seen this movie look, so I give this area a 10.

Visual Editing: 9
The visual editing is great. I will admit that I was skeptical about the frame rate approach on the claymation scenes. I grew up watching this movie along with other Ray Harryhausen films and love the claymation. So any messing with that would be a hard sell for me. Well, Scribb did fantastic on this.
My initial review in the project thread has some nitpicky moments, but Scribb let me know those were actually in the source itself. Some of those issues were centered around Talos and sudden stops in movement. The stillness at the end of some shots is actually in the source materials, but as Scribb pointed out, they stick out more now that the original janky movement of the claymation is now smooth. I woud personally prefer to remove some of those few frames, but after the A/B comparison with the source it's really just a nitpicky point. I went back and read through some of the edit notes and was super impressed with the matte you did of Hermes. I watched that scene a few times to see if I could catch the matte lines and it looked completely seemless!

Audio Editing: 8
The audio levels on the mono track sound pretty even across cuts and transitions, however the 5.1 mix did have some issues that I started to notice around the Isle of Bronze. The source audio on these older films isn't always the best, so I'd need to do a fair amount of A/Bing to see if this is just an issue with aged material or if it's a possible slight crossfade imbalance. An example can be heard at 0:34:46 The audio has a slight increase in volume as Talos bends down to grab the ship and almost sounds like it goes from mono to stereo and then back to mono. This happens for about 10 or so seconds and goes back and forth. This is only present in the 5.1 mix though. The mono track levels sound consistent during this scene. A few other sections where the 5.1 mix betrays some cuts is the Posiedon section at 0:56:31, 1:21:47, and 1:23:19. Again, the mono track sounds fine, but the levels of the 5.1 fluctuate noticeably. Medea's dance number also had a few moments that felt like there were some cuts that were noticeable. Monotrack audio score = 9 , 5.1 mix score = 7, average to 8.

Narrative: 9
I know there are trims occurring, but I couldn't really tell you where most of them are happening in terms of the narrative flow. The movie moves along at a great speed and you don't really ever feel bored or waiting for the next exciting moment to occur. The only real moments where I felt something was missing or rushed were when Jason was saving Medea, when Euphemus dives after Acastus, and when the King of Colchis switches from welcoming to condemning in a blink of an eye during the feast. Overall though, great editing choices!

Enjoyment: 8.5
I was super skeptical at first with the idea of messing with anything Ray Harryhausen, but Scribb really made the claymation characters more lifelike with the visual editing applied to those scenes. It's really impressive what has been accomplished here. There were a few moments that I noticed some missing things and cuts, but this was a fantastic watch that I'd recommend to anyone who loves the original movie. Speaking of cuts, I love how Scribb made cuts that were period correct. The scenes feel natural because the visual editing is spot on for the time period. This subtle nuance is what makes this edit work. You don't notice any visual editing, because it was like Scribb was there 70 some odd years ago in the editing room. Fantastic job!
The only thing that took me out of the edit was the 5.1 mix. The monotrack sounds great and I wonder if it could be used to create a 5.1 mix from to smooth out some of the levels on the 5.1 mix? When I turned on the mono audio track the audio level issues were pretty much resolved. Looking forward to your future Ray Harryhausen ventures!

This is a truly incredible fanedit.

Jason and the Argonauts was one of my favorite movies as a kid. It's full of great adventure scenes and incredible creatures, and it's just slightly more interesting, to me anyway, than movies if of it's type.

However, movies like this are never quite what you to remember them to be when you were young. I watched the original version recently, and I agree with all of the issues Scribbling Man spotted. It's just not quite what I remembered.

This edit is how I remembered it. I don't know what sort of black magic he used to improve the stop motion, but these creatures now more than ever feel like they're really there. It doesn't feel odd or like it's been changed too much, like a Star Wars SE situation. It's the same effects, just smoothed out just the right amount. The skeleton battle, one of the most magical scenes in all of Hollywood special effects, has never looked better.

The pacing is up, the story moves, it doesn't feel as cheesy. The picture quality is excellent. I only listened to the mono track, but I found no issues.

This is a really special edit, one that I am very glad to have watched.

I have been a Ray Harryhausen fan all my life. But I'm not blind to the fact that, in the non-stop-motion parts, these movies don't always have the best pacing. "Jason" is not the worst at that (looking at you, "The Valley of Gwangi"), but in any case, this B+ Movie edition kept me so highly entertained all through that it was over before I even realized. Not a dull moment, not a wasted bit. This is pretty much what should have been released back in 1963. So very entertaining! And while I don't think the effects themselves needed any kind of fixing, I love how they flow here. They move more naturally now, but they don't feel tweaked at all, they still have that old-timey flavor. If Harryhausen has to be retouched, this is the way.

Needless to say, as usual with the Scribbling edits, video and audio and encoding are first-rate. And being the big classic film fan that I am, I'll always welcome more edits of this sort (Harryhausen or otherwise). A real joy to watch!

Really loved this edit, this will now be my preferred way of watching this film.
Cutting the film to an hour thirty really does help the film! While keeping all scenes to the point in terms of dialogue.
10/10. Made one of my fav harryhausen films even better!

I've always considered 'Jason and the Argonauts' to be a fun enough movie, but the reality of watching it never quite lives up to the movie I recall in my head. While 'Jason' is a really excellent showcase of Ray Harryhausen's stop motion work... its pacing and performances haven't aged well.

Well now The Scribbling Man has assembled the film as I thought I knew it. What once felt like plotty filler in between effects sequences, now actually feels like momentum building. And all without betraying it's status as a fanedit. The cuts and the pacing feel genuine. I love how the effects blossom as the movie goes along, starting with the awakening of Talos all the way through to the battle with the Hydra. It's funny, for all the warranted hype surrounding the skeleton battle - and the fact that I've seen the film 2 or 3 times before - I guess I was so wrapped up in the story this time that I forgot the film ended on that sequence. Perhaps it's because these sword and sandals fantasies tend to blur together for me, or perhaps because I was so taken by The Scribbling Man's work smoothing out the stop motion, especially on the seven-headed Hydra sequence, which feels like it would be the grand finale in any other film.

And it's The Scribbling Man's smoothing of the stop motion which brings this fanedit to the next level. The effects now feel so natural without taking anything away from the great work Harrhausen did. This honestly feels like an excellent tribute to the man and I think if the technology had existed he would have utilized whatever he could to achieve smoother motion, much like the "go-motion" effect that Phil Tippet perfected in films like Robocop 2 and Willow. Props to the Scribbbling man for isolating the stop motion creatures so his tweaks didn't ruin the movement of the other elements in the shot.

All in all this film is blast. Going forward, it will not only be replacing the original as my go-to version, but I will likely be going back to this edit more than I would the theatrical cut. Amazing job.