Man Of Steel: Recut

I saw Man of Steel in the theater and while I enjoyed it, there were a few issues that lessened my enjoyment of the film.

The first issue is the opening sequence on Krypton. While interesting, I felt it took too long to get to the main character: The Man of Steel. I saw the movie with my mom and about 5 minutes into the film she turns to me and asks "Is this the right movie?" My second problem was the narrative. It tries to deal with too many ideas and it felt somewhat disconnected. The third flaw for me is the action, it goes on for too long for my tastes. I like a good action film, but world busting action sequence are common in modern films and can only hold my attention for so long. A movie needs to get back to character and story development to keep my interest.

So on to Avid's FanEdit of Man of Steel. Technically the edit is great, I only noticed a few abrupt transitions, but otherwise the audio and video is great. I watched the MP4 and the quality was superb on our large screen TV.

The Narrative is definitely improved. Avid does a great job fixing two of my issues with the film with one major edit: Moving the opening sequence on Krypton to the later half of the film. The film begins with Clark Kent immediately and follows his childhood to adult story. This also helps makes the film's story seem less disjointed. Clarke's initial story has nothing to do with Krypton and Civil War. It is mostly about his family and using his powers responsibly.

Krypton's story is not told until Clark discovers his heritage. This is great since it sets up the second half of the film. That being said, the sequence still feels too long and I would have liked a few more cuts. At one point Zod explains his escape from the phantom zone. If not sure if this would be possible, but it might be interesting to splice in the majority of Zod's rebellion story here instead.

My last concern was the long-winded action sequences. Avid4 made a few cuts, but they still went on for too long in my opinion. This time I watched it with my dad and he also thought they dragged on too long. Some may disagree, but I would have liked to see a few more cuts. I think it might be possible to remove the first half of the world engine sequence. It seems superfluous as it tries to build tension with the trapped Daily Planet girl.

Overall the edit is great and I recommend it. However, the film is still over 2 hours and 10 minutes. I think there is room for more edits. I was still bored with the action sequences by the end of the film. I would have liked to see the action and Krypton sequences cut down a bit further.

WOW.

When I first saw Man of Steel, I hated it. I've seen it again since, and wasn't as annoyed by it, but I still had issues with the story and Zack Snyder's penchant for blowing up everything he possibly can for the sake of it. I also wasn't confident that simply rearranging the story would do very much, but man am I eating those words now.

I love this edit. Any problems I had with it were problems I already had with the original film, but most of those were fixed for me with this cut. The movie feels very natural now, and a lot more of the beats work for me this time around. Nice work.

I have to be honest with you, when I first saw Man of Steel on bluRay it took me two sittings. Not that the movie was bad but I guess my expectations were very high. After watching it a few times I finally enjoyed it.
Coming into this edit I was intrigued by the fact the movie would go in more of a chronological order. I finally watched this edit and it BLEW MY MIND! Unbelievable editing from beginning to end. I watched this all the way through and kept my interest throughout. I like the fact the Krypton scenes were flashbacks in telling the story to Clark. Which was brilliant. This is topnotch stuff here. This will replace my other Man of Steel as my go to copy.
Video Quality was excellent, Audio was great, all the editing was brilliant. Narrative and Enjoyment exceeded my expectations. Great work Avid 4D, I'll definitely need to take pointers from you in fan editing. Provo!

PS: The opening credits were outstanding and didn't bother me or felt awkward to me.

An excellent fanedit, that really improves upon the original. The decisions were sensible and enhanced the story; there was nothing that felt glaringly out of place.

The only small critiques I can offer is that the flashback sequence of Krypton takes too long; it's about 15 minutes long and could perhaps be cut out by removing that "genetic codex in Clark's DNA" subplot (since that doesn't get elaborated on and it's never suggested that Clark is going to renew the race somehow). Shaving just 3-5 minutes off that sequence would be very welcome.

Otherwise the edit is an excellent one, and easily replaces the incredibly dull original. Visually it could do with a colour regrade, like that achieved by Agent 9. If there is a Version 3 of this edit on the horizon, that would be a welcome change.

Otherwise a great work.

Thank you AViD! :]X