Man of Steel: A Symbol of Hope

Man of Steel has never looked so beautiful. If there's one comment I can make in this review that means more than anything else, it would be that one. TM2YC took a movie that was so poorly graded and dull looking and turned it into a vibrant and well rounded visual beauty. Everything in this movie from the shots to the costume looked absolutely wonderful only for an ugly coat of paint to ruin that, and TM2YC has basically repainted this new film into one of the prettiest superhero movies of the modern era. The new look alone makes this movie a lot less boring to watch.

As for the cut itself, it is definitely an improvement over the original. While some cuts of Man of Steel opt to cut 20+ minutes out of the film to improve the pacing and reduce the bloat, this cut tries more to take a look at the film as it is and fine tune the flaws. With only 9 minutes cut, this isn't a new vision of Man of Steel's story. Rather, it is very much the version of this story that we wanted to see put on the screen in theaters. Along with the color grading, several small touches like cutting out the overabundance of unnecessary language, removing Lois's scream of terror and pain, changing the opening shot, and removing Clark's yell at the end help to make this version of the movie a lot less mean spirited than the one we saw in theaters in 2013.

Man of Steel has always been a movie that either bored or angered me, but this cut has finally showed me a fine tuned version of Snyder's vision that I can appreciate and enjoy. It is amazing that removing several bad moments and regrading the film can help you to not only enjoy those elements being gone, but also find more joy out of the characters and story that have been there since the beginning. Much like TM2YC's Ghostbusters fanedit, this is a cut that can very easily replace the theatrical version and not just feel like a good fanedit, but a professional and superior edition of the movie. My only small complaint is that some of the score gets reused a little too much in this version, but that also can help to create a bit more of a consistency of theme across the film. This feels like a perfect start to the DCEU, closer in tone to the likes of Wonder Woman and (hopefully) Justice League.

After watching and thoroughly enjoying this cut, I'm curious to see what TM2YC would be able to pull out of the even messier sequel, BvS. I'm not keeping my fingers crossed, though, as I know this edit was already a tremendous undertaking and BvS would require even more hard work to pull out such a masterfully fine tuned and remastered version of the film. The highest praise I can give this edit is that it is now my definitive go to edit of MoS, and I hope to some day find a BvS edit that can follow it well and fit into a better DCEU.

A solid example of little things making the difference. This isn't a radical reshaping of MoS. This is high quality, unobtrusive work which keeps the spirit of the movie, but takes away some of the baggage. My favourite part of this edit was actually the new titles. It's one of those things that adds life to a movie. I never liked having the prologue smash straight into present day. It has its own self contained 3 act short film, then the whole movie slows down and resets without ever stopping to seperate the 2 parts. it is also a nice reminder of the original movies' opening credits.
-The regrade gives the movie a consistently more inviting look, never apperaing oversaturated or ugly.
-I like hearing the Zimmer superman theme. It never feels out of place wherever it is used.
-All the little nips and tucks are welcomed, always pushing the film in a more heroic, or at least less aggresive direection.

A streamlined presentation, things that got in the way of people really getting behind a decent reinterpretation of the Superman legend. This is also, pleasantly, more of a sanitized edit too, with much of the foul language cut back so you can enjoy this edition with your kids. Present in many forms is the "hero" theme which is used in key sequences from the film, serving as a bridge between the father and the son, and allowing us to follow the generational journey. The film is no longer on a "mission to explain" either, the audience is allowed to think for themselves and follow the story on their terms. The final fight is also scaled back a bit.

This edit is made of steel and then some. A spirited glimpse into what can be gleamed from Cavile's potential as the last son of Krypton.

So my friend is a Comic book film fan, like everything comic books (i.e. he's spent a lot of time invested in understanding the nuances and easter eggs of all comic book films through youtube shows and podcasts and the like), and has somehow convinced me to rewatch the Snyderverse before four hours of Justice League.

We start with Man of Steel, but instead I've convinced him to watch the fanedit.

So let's talk about the fanedit A Symbol of Hope.

It's essentially the same film, minor edits (~10 minutes in total) in particular to the overlong action sequences to speed them along and show less wanton destruction caused by Supes himself. The two other big changes that are most appreciated are that it recolors most of the movie so that it pops brightly and colorfully and rescores it so that the awesome Han Zimmer Man of Steel hero theme (from the trailer) plays more frequently during key moments. (There are two audio tracks, we went with the Hopeful Mix instead of the Extra Heroic Mix, due to reviews here.). We both universally loved the recoloring and rescoring. With The Hopeful mix we found it the right mix without over-usage complaints that were rallied at the Extra Heroic Mix. This is truly a Superman theme.

Narrative:
The most noticeable cuts regarding plot are three fold, first regarding Papa Kent's answer "Maybe," to the question, "should I have let them die (the kids in the bus)," second the Superman scream after he kills the last of his kind, and finally, the biggest one, the Papa Kent death scene is truncated to make it seem like Clark hesitated in saving him rather than being explicitly told by his father to let him die. All three of these stood as controversial with the death scene standing out as the most controversial for my buddy.

The first one, the "maybe" scene, my friend argued that it takes away from Papa Kent's philosophy about protecting his son from revealing himself, I still think the line makes Papa Kent an asshole and I appreciated it's removal and found that enough of the uncertainty and concern still came out in the scene.

Nothing much to say on the Superman scream after Zod's death really.

I think given my buddy's investment in understanding Zack Snyder's intent he's more attached to the original scenes than I am, particularly the Papa Kent death scene, claiming that it completes Papa Kent's arc and is integral to the one son, two fathers (with two ideals) theming of the film. I just shrug but I see his point. Papa Kent believed in his philosophy so strongly that Clark should hide who he is, that he was willing to sacrifice himself for it. The dog is still a stupid freaking plot device to get there though.

The film as a whole wasn't changed much, it wasn't a world beater then, and this edit still isn't a world beater. As a film it's important to remember that this film wasn't so much a Superman film but an alien invasion film starring Kal-El. As a result Zack Snyder spends most of the film with hefty philosophical questions about what it means to be a a super powerful alien on Earth, what it means for society to find out that they're not alone in the universe, and how people will react to that. These portions are slow, yet meditative in a way and mostly really work. Even though I enjoyed them for what they were, they're not quite as hard hitting as similar toned and paced understated character study of Signs. Nonetheless, years later, I continue to find Zod's global message on the tv quite unsettling and a fantastic piece of suspense, scale, and scope.

Much of the third act is quite tone deaf to the rest of the film and this edit goes a long way to fix this. Both my buddy and really loved the tightening up of the overlong action scene. In the original, the rest of the film gives way to bombastic action and destruction which is thankfully reined in for this edit, in an attempt to give more oomph to Superman as savior, a hero attempting to save the people of his new home. After it devolves into clear good/evil delineations and fist fights, it's really sad that any of the promise of the film as a first contact film is lost. The third act echoes the tragedy of 9/11 and yet it's heroic as Clark and Lois share a kiss among the destruction.
Sure this Superman is conflicted as a hero because he doesn't have all his ideals in place, he makes it clear he doesn't want to fight any of the Kryptonians but he will to save his home. Which makes sense, as Zack Snyder's DCEU is a multi-film saga of the origin of Superman, and how he became to be the Superman we know and idealize. It's littered with stutter steps, but that's what the whole vision is.

I think there's still some enjoyment in this film, rescored and recoloring helps, and some neat trims to action. The plot changes, particularly the Papa Kent death scene changes the theme drastically beyond that all of the edits I see are positive.

I think there's some clear influence from Nolan here, particularly in the theming of superheros in the real world ala the Dark Knight trilogy, and the whole DCEU may have done better if Nolan had retained this influence.

Nonetheless, with Man of Steel, the inherently darker, washed out color palette is all gone and it's better for the brighter colors even if it doesn't fit the more somber tone of the film. I enjoyed my time revisiting Man of Steel in this fanedit.

The audio and video edits are seamless and very well-done. It removes the bad parts, like Clark's dad saying "maybe" he should have let the kids die, and the truck being destroyed. It's overall an almost perfect edit for me. I just wish the fight scenes weren't cut, especially the part where Faora-Ul quickly takes out a handful of soldiers with quick dashes. It was one of my favorite parts of the movie.

I think I am in the minority when it comes to Man of Steel in this aspect, though, because I don't have a problem with the destruction or fight scenes at all. It's actually my favorite part about the movie.

The regrading of the movie was great and the colors look a lot better than the official release. The scene in Krypton where General Zod and others are launched in the phallic shaped pods has a light flare overlay, and I didn't like the way that looked.

I would highly recommend this fan-edit to anyone who already enjoys Man of Steel, but might have a few gripes with it. This edit handles most of those.