Man of Steel: A Symbol of Hope

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.

I'm not a big fan of superhero movies, and I dislike how they factory like produce them nowadays without much effort or heart put into the movies. I however do like the DC comics animated movies and I think Man of Steel is my favorite superhero movie. It's just so epic. So yeah, I did like the original quite a lot and felt it didn't need much changing. Now this fanedit should suit me and I must say that it does indeed.

The biggest thing to notice is the colors. The movie looks stunning! The original colors never bothered me that much but after seeing this one the movie came alive in more ways than ever. Everything looks so nice and... well, heroic? :)

The music editing was really good as well, I liked it. I never felt the movie really needed it as the sountrack is amazing but it does work. It just got a bit repeatitive towards the end. The audio is in stereo by the way and it may bother people who have 5.1 setup but I like stereo so it didn't bother me.

Lois Lane was quite annoying in the original version. In this one she's better. She's still quite boring and shouldn't have that much screen time. But this fanedit made her character better nevertheless.

Many of the little changes like Jonathan Kent dying were handled well.

This fanedit was very enjoyable indeed and I don't feel need to watch the original version any longer. Good job!


Edit: After watching this fanedit couple of times I think the narrative points being 10 was a bit too much. The problem is deep rooted in Man of Steel. The pacing just isn't that good. The action should be spread throughout the movie. Nevertheless, great fanedit and it improved narration quite a bit still.

Visual Quality + Editing are phenomenal. The Y+G gain (an annoying staple of Snyder films) has been lowered, saturation boosted, and oh my the difference in the interrogation room is HUGE.

Audio Quality is fantastic and the editing barely stood out. There is a slight blip at (53:56) where Clark says "I'll go get him" and repeats the latter half of his sentence, and occasionally the re-scoring was slightly abrupt. Otherwise great.

The Narrative is not hugely different from the original, but slight changes certainely make it easier to stomach. Fight scenes are reduced, although damage is still extensive. Characters are less monologuey, although still a bit too earnest. All things considered, there is very little an editor can do, without completely rewriting the film that could perfect the narrative, and taking that into account TM2YC has made a valliant effort.

I ENJOYED (TM2YCs) Man of Steel. I smiled (at least 3 times). I shed a tear for Pa Kent and Clark when he died, and Lois didnt bother me nearly as much, and lets not forget that glorious "Flight" sequence. I can say none of this about the original and that should speak to the quality of this edit (It made me FEEL more than the OG). The few things I wasnt totally fond of-- I recognize that rescoring is tricky-- The insertion of the "Heros theme" became slightly tedious and after hearing it a few times I found myself annoyed by it. And personally I would have liked more extensive changes (as that was clearly not the intention of this edit, it does not affect my rating).

Wonderful work, and I'd like to thank you again, you have given me hope to revisit my abandoned MoS edit, and in the end isn't the point of Superman, to give people hope? ;)

Right off the bat, this isn't my exposure to a "Man of Steel" fan edit, in fact there were three different edits before hand with very different goals and results. Thankfully though, I myself haven't come across a single bad one, and TM2YC's experience is no different. Similar to most takes on the film, color grading is a lot more pleasing thanks to saturation/brightness adjustments, the pacing is a lot quicker via carefully timed cuts to plotting and action, and I can easily call this a superman film that rings true to the character. Only this time, a huge emphasis is put on "the character of Superman", with cuts to a lot of swearing, more restraint on the cgi infested battle sequences, a much less angsty atmosphere due to simple changes to the soundtrack and more subtle edits, heck even the addition of nicely placed title cards in the opening gives a proper feel to the whole thing. Are there still issues that keep it from reaching "Wonder Woman" level of quality? Sure but to be honest most of them come right down to the script being to focused on exposition/self important speeches and the hand held cinematography (would've been nice to have a tripod there, Zach). All in all, the edit is very well executed top to bottom, and frankly I would love to see TM2YC take on Batman V Superman in the future. Grab an American flag and put on your red capes, here comes Superman to save the day.