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.

I had a lot of issues with the original - it felt slow and ponderous to me and the visually was way too dark. This is a much tighter edit, and the cuts that have been made to 'spiteful' Supes make a positive difference. Great use of the bombastic soundtrack! The reviews below really say everything that I feel - you've really increased my enjoyment of Man of Steel!

TM2YC once again establishes his firm place among the great faneditors. The color correction alone makes this version of the film an improvement over the original. What was a hampered by Snyder's seeming obsession with washed out and muted colors has been replaced with vibrance and life.

The number one edit that made me rewind and watch again was how TM2YC reworked Johnathan Kent's death. The way he edits this scene brought an instant emotional response that I did not get from the theatrical version. Masterfully edited here.

I'll admit that I didn't care for the extra Hero themes throughout the film, but the their integration was wonderfully executed. I enjoyed this edit and will be rewatching it in the future.

I highly recommend TM2YC's work. This again is a textbook example of how to do things right. The attention to detail, collaborative approach, and patience throughout the editing process has resulted in another phenomenal edit from the man whose cinema we all want to be taken to.

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.