Man of Steel: A Symbol of Hope

I'm one of the five people on the planet that really like Snyder's DCEU movies, so any fanedits/fixes for me have to focus on the details. It's also unrealistic to expect that every aspect of an edit is going to work for you, unless you do the edit yourself.

"Man of Steel" has always been a movie I've defended more than it deserves. I'm a Superman fan and I have a special relationship with the character, but it's impossible for me to ignore this film's terrible screenplay or its overlong, loud action sequences. Any fanedit would find it hard to fix the former (for obvious reasons), but it can do a lot with the latter.

"A Symbol of Hope" is not a very invasive edit and, for my purposes, this is a good thing. With a few seemingly minor changes, it makes a world of difference. "Man of Steel" 's problem for audiences was that it wasn't "fun"; one can interpret this in a variety of ways, but knowing the target audience for this type of film, the answer comes down to it not being a superhero movie. "Man of Steel" is an alien invasion movie, about an orphan alien living among us, until his biological family comes to claim him for their own. The set up is clever (and would've been amazing with a better writer), but this means the action is framed through the eyes of the humans, the audience; that's why there is so much unnecessary destruction. It's a disaster movie, but there's Superman in it.

This edit manages to fix this by employing two basic tricks: for one thing, it adds the "heroic" theme in key scenes. It's so minor you'd think it doesn't matter, but it actually does a lot to change this to a legit superhero movie.

The other, far more important trick, is the editing down of action sequences. TM2YC's idea to trim down the action to only the sequences that involve Superman actively trying to save people was brilliant in its simplicity. Not only does this make the film less tedious and less loud, not only does it change the tone of the movie without ever needing to actively change the tone of the movie, but most importantly it creates a bond between the audience and Superman, the hero. It's that lack of a connection, this alienation, in the theatrical cut that led so many to blame Superman for the destruction of Metropolis. By keeping the action focused on Superman, no matter how loud and violent it gets, you invest in the character and his struggle to stop it all. It doesn't matter if he often fails, what matters is that all you see is him trying.

There are other small cuts and fixes here and there, some minor moments I'd have preferred to keep in (why does everybody cut out the truck, or Superman crashing in his first flight attempt?), but this isn't really criticism. As I said, no fanedit will be perfect for you; where it counts, in its stated purpose, "A Symbol of Hope" succeeds and then some. I *enjoy* watching this edit. It has pretty much replaced the theatrical cut for me, whenever I feel like watching Man of Steel. This is near damned perfect, assuming you don't outright hate the movie as it is. If you already like Man of Steel, but you wish it was a little less exhausting and a little more Superman-y, I highly recommend this one.

PS: I would recommend not using the Extra Heroic Mix. It does wear the theme out a bit and I'm not entirely comfortable with the music being used for Jor-El. I understand the father-son connection, but a lot of this film is Clark not being a product of Krypton. I think it loses of a bit its punch. The regular Heroic Mix is plenty effective as is.

I love a lot about what was done in this, but there were a couple of things that I really did not enjoy unfortunately.
The colour grading is fantastic, most of the edits are also fantastic.
everything seems to flow well and it feels like a professional job.
Some of the choices however, do not work for me. The use of the hero theme is laid on fairly thick for my tastes. as a result it loses it's impact.
Then the part where he 'learns to fly'... it feels too easy lacks a lot of the impact it could have.
I would have liked to watch all the way through, but the music made it difficult and I was feeling frustrated and I don't think it's fair on the editor to feel that way.

Aside from all that, I think the way Jonathan Kent was dealt with was awesome. I much prefer the way this was presented.

mostly, this fanedit has such great ideas, it partially inspired me to do m own fanedit of this movie years later.

Firstly, I have to echo others' praise of the color grading TM2YC has done for this edit. It really helps the film to feel less dour, and helped me to notice some things I'd never noticed before (like Superman's black suit while falling into the pile of skulls at the end of the talk between him and Zod). Very well done. One unfortunate side effect is that it helps highlight some dodgy CGI that the muted theatrical grading helped to hide, but it's worth the tradeoff (and that doesn't happen often).

Now, onto the edit itself: it's great.

Don't expect the wheel to be reinvented as far as structure goes, mind you - it's very much the same film. But TM2YC's subtle touch manages to highlight what works well while mitigating some of the fundamental missteps. Superman is more of a hero, there's less frustratingly expository dialogue, and thank God the "he's kinda hot" bit was cut completely.

The fight sequences are something I thought were handled very well, and I suspect account for a large percentage of the time cut from the film. Every time I watch Man of Steel, I get bored about 1/3 of the way through every fight. In "A Symbol of Hope," I was engaged through all of them, even the Smallville fight and Superman vs. Zod. While there's still an excessive amount of death and destruction, it's mostly caused by the villains, with TM2YC doing his best to show Superman save as many people as he can (though he wasn't given much to work with on that front).

My favorite part about this, though, has got to be Pa Kent's death. Every single MoS edit should just swipe that scene wholesale from "A Symbol of Hope" - I mean, with TM2YC's permission, of course. But it's just so perfectly done that I can't imagine a better way to handle the scene. It doesn't feel edited in any way, and it plays up Clark's internal conflict exactly the way the original scene was intended to, but without shooting itself in the foot in the process like the theatrical cut.

The rest of the nips and tucks are well-chosen and very well executed. The expansion of the hero's theme works well except in the "kiss" scene - unlike others have mentioned, I quite liked it during the Krypton sequence, except for a slight technical issue I'll mention in the next paragraph. The rest of the music replacements - when I noticed them, and I'm certain I didn't notice them all - worked seamlessly. The "first flight" sequence is wonderful and exhilarating, as it should be, and again doesn't feel edited even though I know it definitely was. I also especially liked the "quiet" during Jor-El's "in time, they will join you in the sun" speech.

On a technical level, there was exactly one cut that bugged me in the moment, and I know it was an audio transition issue, but I can't for the life of me remember what/where it was, so it clearly didn't have much of an effect on my enjoyment of the edit. And like I said, it was only one cut - everything else was, as usual, perfect. As for the issue mentioned earlier during the Krypton sequence, it was during Jor-El's flight after stealing the Codex: when he notices his bird-lizard's wound, he speaks reassuringly to it - the music replacement/sound FX rebuilding here has mixed Jor-El's lines too low so they're nearly inaudible. I should note that I'm watching this through a 2.1 soundbar, so this may be less of an issue in a 5.1 setup with a discrete center channel.

I still wish the oil rig scene was gone, but other than that, it's extremely close to perfect. This is definitely replacing the official version in my DCEU canon.

This is a great example of a subtle fan edit done right.

Man of Steel is a movie that I think has always begged for a great fan edit, and there are some good ones. However, in all the others I've seen, the faneditor gets a little too ambitious and ends up falling a bit short in execution. The seams start to show.

This fanedit aims to 'recalibrate' the movie we got rather than restructure it. Microedits, subtle rescoring, a fresh color grade, and a few more significant but deliberately placed cuts bring out the hope and optimism that were crushed under Snyder's excess in the theatrical cut.

Pretty much everything about this edit is seamless, although the new score in the scene of Jor-El on the flying creature stuck out a bit to me. I understand that TM2YC was trying to create a father/son parallel but I think that sweeping theme is best saved for Superman himself. I also think the narrative structure still has some weaknesses that can't be fixed with a simple edit like this one.

Overall though, I highly recommend this edit. It's now the definitive way to watch 'Man of Steel' for me.

First off may I concur with a fellow reviewer that the colour correction is reason alone to watch this fan edit. MOS has never looked better and is much more even in its presentation.

Highlights for me include the tornado scene, re-scored first flight and the title cards were a neat addition. Small edits like in the interrogation scene bring some much needed fun and shows the overall care taken with this fan edit.

One scene I would have trimmed is Lois making out with Superman amongst the carnage. Whilst less troubling given the editing plays more as though the civilians got out, the scene still bothers me because of the dialogue that follows. 'They say it's all downhill after the first kiss.......I'm pretty sure that only counts if your kissing a human'. Just doesn't seem like a Superman thing to say.

The score: The MOS theme remains one of the few nuggets of optimism in a otherwise downbeat film and is the chief reason the theatrical trailer worked and got fans excited. Therefore I welcomed greater use of it in this edit. However there were scenes where I felt it didn't entirely work and I think this has to do with its slow build up. I also wouldn't have used it for Jor-El leaping from the archive tower as I think it's best we first hear it with Superman.

However overall a really solid fan edit that gets the most out of the original source material. Highly worth checking out!