John Carter of Mars

The original was a disappointing failure, not least of which were inept marketing and odd narrative.

If you liked the original, or simply wanted to like the original, then check this out.
BBob has shredded a chunk of dead weight. The story now moves!
He trimmed much of Carter's Earth exploits, most of which were unnecessary to begin with.
Enough remains that viewers get an idea of Carter's backstory, and the pain he carries.

Video - Others have made comment regarding the black and white scenes. They looked fine. Sepia would have looked just as nice, as would have washed out colour.
The editing was rock solid. Even during scenes I knew were missing, I never missed them.

Audio - Bit weird here. I listened to this using headphones and several passages struck me as over boomy or too echoey. That would be Chapter 03, Chapter 05 (@ 47"), and Chapter 06 (@ 1:00"). These were all interiors, and all featured the Princess.
When I listened to this using exterior speakers, everything was decipherable again.
I listened to the original using headphones, and the reverb did not seem to be as bad.
BBob prefers 2.0 sound mixes, and I wondered if somehow the rear channels found their way into the 2.0.
This is a quibble. As mentioned, it was not noticeable on main speakers.

Narrative - Terrific job. This is now my go-to John Carter. His ending sets the stage for the sequel, Gods Of Mars, which down the line, might confound the unwary.
A fun summer film. Vast improvement on the studio release and absolutely recommended.

The long and short of it is: this edit is better than the theatrical release, but it's still not that great of a movie.

Details:
BionicBob takes off a lot of extraneous material at the beginning and end of the film that just bogged it down even further. Great choice. It should go without saying that the edits are all made skillfully and seamlessly. His choice of filtering the beginning to look very muted didn't do it for me. Maybe I'd like it more if I rewatched, but my current impression is that without similar scenes at the end, it doesn't work thematically. It would also work better if all Earth scenes were pure black and white. There are some other good editing choices in terms of taking out story distractions, but there are still multiple cheesy moments that I wish were removed from the film. A laughably fast Mars-dog goofily leaping through a scene of carnage. A Martian crying at a wedding. Etc. Typical Hollywood blockbuster cheese. The beginning and end credits are actually my favorite part....the old-timey titles, the historical artwork...there's a lot of love there.

Unfortunately, all that old school pulp cool doesn't really translate to the movie. There's not a lot an editor can do about this. Taylor Kitsch just isn't a great actor, and he doesn't pull off this role. The script is way over-dense and way too rushed on the world-building. There are 4 cultures and civilizations, all with their own technology, rituals, weapons, and animals thrown at you in the first 20 minutes, not counting the Old West. It's just way to much to take in. The plot is also loaded with characters, all with their own sub-plots, none of which have time to breath. And yet somehow almost everything here feels like we've seen it in other movies. Andrew Stanton is just fully to blame as the director who apparently wouldn't listen to anyone's advice (look it up). I can imagine dialogue and scenes from his script working in an animated kids film, but they don't here. I wish they would've made a film that leaned into the pulp roots of the character, but well, nothing to be done.

As is, this isn't a bad film, and if you're going to watch a version, watch BionicBob's. It's just not a movie I'd ever rewatch, imho.

Fun edit of a bad film. The fan-edit is -- as always with BionicBob -- smart and smooth. So, in technical terms, a superb job, and in terms of the story, a big improvement.

I can't give it a higher rating for narrative and enjoyment, though, for the simple reason that -- in my humble opinion -- the film is really bad.

There are breath-taking scenes, incredible FX, not least the Tharks and Woola, and some good bits, not least the Thark scenes,

But it just mangles and rewrites the source material for no good reason -- the usual Hollywood assumption that a random scriptwriter and some suits know better than a global bestselling author -- and far too much for my tastes as a ERB and John Carter fan, John Carter as anti-war, Dejah Thoris as super-scientist, the Therns as weird interstellar planet wreckers, Sab Then with a super-weapon, problems in Barsoom as due to war (and a Thern conspiracy), Red Martians not being, you know, red ...

This is too much, and way beyond what even the most brilliant fan-editor can fix.

This was an interesting watch and edit. I enjoyed the original release of the film and didn’t find much fault with it, other than screenplay wasn’t as close to the novel as I would like. Bionic’s edit doesn’t change those facts in meaningful way but the changes to the chronology do help make it a little more faithful to the Novel and there are some new stylised parts of the film, which I found very interesting. Notably the start if the film in now in B&W and the end credits have been changed. Both are nice touches. I feel the edit was technically competent and it feels like a lot of love and thought went into the edit. I enjoyed the changes to the chronology, especially the end of the film. The one thing that didn’t work for me was a cut to when John starts to explore Barsoom, to the princess demonstrating her new invention. I was enjoying watching John Carter explore Barsoom and that was interrupted by the cut. I did notice was abrupt change in music tempo at around 51 minutes into the film, I'm not sure if this is in the original or its due to changes in the edit.

I would recommend this edit and thank you to Bionic for sharing his work with me.

I was a little mixed on this cut. I really loved this when it came out in the theater and marvelled at how far CGI technology had come.

At the beginning of this edit, I felt a little rushed along by the story pace. I wanted things to slow down a bit and they eventually did. By the time Carter was captured by the Tharks, I was enjoying the pacing.

I did not miss some of the dialog that was removed throughout and thought those cuts were appropriate.

The color saturation was a mixed bag for me. I liked that it made Mars and the Martians more visually striking, but it came off a little odd at times, like watching an old Disney movie. (Ironic, I know) I also seemed to notice some of the CGI effects a little more in this cut, especially when Dejah was holding herself hostage. I don't know if it was caused by the color saturation, the non HD source or a little of both or something else, but I noticed it more.

All of the visual and audio editing felt seamless to me except I felt something had been cut when Carter and the old lady were walking together. I also could tell that there were cuts made during the battle with the (evil tharks??) whatever they were. Then during the sword fight with the bad guy (sorry, my memory sucks) I noticed somethiing wasn't quite right. None of these were really that jarring, but noticeable.

Regarding the flashbacks to the wife being in color, I think I understand what Bob was going for here, but I would have preferred them in B&W. Maybe a brightened B&W for those scenes to contrast with the dark visual of the burial scene.

One thing I think got rushed through too quickly was Carter learning to walk and jump on Mars. It just felt like that wasn't fully established and would have preferred to leave in most of that scene.

All in all the thing is well put together and definitely worth checking out by those that loved the original, like myself and those that weren't so impressed.