Man Of Steel: Remastered

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OK, this is a long one...

As I've said in another review, Man of Steel is not a good movie. By this I mean, it's a great example of poor filmmaking. It suffers from poor directing, poor editing, poor blocking, occasional cartoony effects, odd costume and set design choices (e.g., the giant black condoms that send the baddies to the Phantom Zone; the Nike sneakers swish in the middle of the "S" symbol) and a meandering plot (for which I blame the editing -- the script may've been far more clear). (OK, fanboys, relax, that doesn't mean you can't enjoy the original, but that doesn't in any way change the facts of the problem tech aspects of the original.)

So, let's talk about the edit:
The editor's cut a great deal of fat from the start of the movie, where we meet Jor-El and the world of Krypton. The editor gives the opening far better pacing than the original MoS. He removed the most, er condomy, shots from the capture-of-the-bad-guys scene and deleted Jor-El's silly action-hero moments. However, the big error here is that everything from the death of Jor-El to the explosion of Krypton can be cut -- that's about 10 more minutes fat. Everything in that 10 mins -- about how Zod and his minions survived -- is explained by Zod himself later in the film. As such, it's repetitive and makes the opening, treated as a teaser, a bit weaker than it could've been.

Back to the original MoS: Filmmaking 101: Flashbacks should directly reflect what is happening on screen in the NOW. In MoS, none of the flashbacks connect to present day, and while I've not seen the MoS script, I would bet this problem came out of editing. The Fan Editor has resolved this issue with great skill and aplomb by peppering flashbacks throughout the film and *always* making certain they clearly connect to what's happening "today."

In the original MoS, numerous scenes simply made no sense, this includes the death of Jon Kent (which, again, likely made sense on paper, but due to Snyder's blocking, makes it clear that Clark could've saved dad and the dog before those final moments when Clark would've revealed himself to a town that ended up knowing about his powers anyway). Here, the death of Pa Kent, it is implied, just happened w/the passage of time. A brilliant solution.

That natural death of Pa Kent actually makes more sense since his choosing to die by tornado added nothing to the growth of Clark or to the plot in the original.

However, cutting has its downside. In the original, Lois is attacked when she boards a Kryptonian ship stuck deep in some ice. This same defense mechanism is seen later by the terraforming machine fighting Superman. With the former defense scene cut, the latter one comes out of nowhere during the climax.

Similarly, the original movie has several scenes highlighting Clark's lack of a moral compass, all of those scenes -- save for Pa Kent's advice to "maybe" let some kids die in order for young Clark to keep his secret -- set up Clark's decision to kill Zod. With all of those scenes gone, it no longer makes sense to have Superman kill Zod. This was a sore point for classic Superman fans (of which I am one), yet I felt the original MoS set this up clearly (albeit clumsily). This edit does not set it up at all, and Clark's regret for having committed murder just doesn't sell it.

Fact is, the editor changed the coloring, making it less somber, changed the score, making it more upbeat and exhilarating, and changed the film's entire tone. To then keep the grisly murder of Zod just didn't make sense.

On this same point, while the fan editor removed a great deal of the wanton destruction (e.g., it's one thing for Zod to throw Superman into a building, but when the hero is doing it, it's clearly just a gratuitous choice by the filmmakers), he could -- and should -- have removed far more of it to fit the new tone and style he created in the first hour.

The editor's removal of the destruction of Metropolis thus mitigated the movie's ultra-violent tone. As such, much of the climax no longer works -- yet he kept it in tact. I would recommend the fan editor do 1 of 2 things here: 1. Either end the film with the evil Kryptonians being sent back to the Phantom Zone, thus implying that Zod went with them. Or 2. Re-edit it so that the fight with Zod occurs WHILE the payload that opens the PZ is being distributed. That way, with some clever editing -- and perhaps 1 or 2 new effects -- one of Superman's punches can depict Zod being punched into the PZ entrance when said payload does its job.

Re: the Score: Zimmer's score was virtually the only good thing about MoS, although his score most assuredly lacked a crescendo -- an absolute necessity in a superhero film (Elfman's Spider-Man theme had the same issue). The new opening credits sequence, with the John Williams score, is quite wonderful, and the big Superman scenes throughout the film pack a much bigger punch with Williams' score. The problem in using the old Superman score is that on Krypton and throughout the film, we get the same cues over and over again. The editor did his best to switch it up, but there just wasn't enough to draw from. It does get frustrating, but one cannot deny that it most definitely gives the film a more exciting tone and feel (along with the color correcting and improved pacing). I'd suggest he dig through the John Williams library and see if he can find some cues from his other film scores which have a similar tone and style to his Superman work (much like the villain marches is S:TM and Star Wars are similar, I'm sure there are other lesser-known Williams scores that also bear a resemblance to his Superman style). It would be much better than re-using a cue for the 5th or 6th time.

Overall, this was a very well-done edit. It absolutely improved upon the original, clearing up story, plot, and character problems. The new look works nicely, and it now looks like a film made by pros, rather than a big-budget film made by film students. The editing is definitely leaps and bounds above the jerky original.

I hope to see a version 2.0 of this cut to fix the problems mentioned above. But I highly recommend checking this out if you did not enjoy the original.

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Overall rating
 
8.6
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
8.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
9.0
Enjoyment
 
6.0
Well, an AMAZING achievement with some stand-out points - but ends up a little flat and dare I say a bit... boring.
This is mainly to do with Williams' score. Apart from the iconic theme, the rest of the music is rather bland. It doesn't match the frenetic action on screen - this is the problem of taking a 30-year-old action theme and matching to today's action. It's just way too slow.
It also felt like a lot of music was just on repeat throughout a scene, particularly the action sequences.
Also, because replacing the score necessitated rebuilding the soundscape, in many places the soundscape is just a tad too empty.
The edit ended up being very action lite as a result of the shuffling of the scenes. Now I kinda liked it (and it was very reminiscent of Superman 1), but it made me understand why they didn't go this route in MOS.

Regards editing: I thought the church scene (or something else showing his internal conflict) was necessary before he just appears in front of the tanks. The jump from Lois arrested to "Where is Lois" is way too abrupt. The church scene isn't brilliant, but it's not as bad as everyone makes it out to be either.

Now the positive:
The editing is first class here! Edits are technically brilliant. Flawless. Story-wise they work too.
The cut-down Krypton opening is brilliant.
New credits are great, if a little long. (By the way, Kevin Spacey was listed in your credits, but wasn't in the film)
The colour grading is flawless.
The THEME - oh hearing the Superman theme was PERFECT!
Audio-work is AMAZING. What a huge undertaking!

Summary:
Because of the 70's action muzak and 70's style framing (Act 1 seems to drag on forever) I found myself a bit bored on occasion .
The rescoring, in total, detracted more than it added. I feel annoyed at not scoring it 100% because of the huge undertaking - I think it deserves 18/10 for audio editing because of it. But it wasn't perfect and led to some scenes feeling a bit empty, which was weird.
Perhaps a hybrid of Superman theme with Zimmer's score?
Be that as it may, I recommend this edit to everyone: for some it replace their copy of MOS, for others, like me, it is simply a master-class in fanediting. Applause A9.

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Overall rating
 
8.4
Audio/Video Quality
 
8.0
Audio Editing
 
10.0
Visual Editing
 
8.0
Narrative
 
7.0
Enjoyment
 
9.0
Audio/Video Quality: 8
Given how much effort Agent9 put into regrading this thing (With glorious success!), I thought it was a shame that it looks quite compressed. The filesize is too small for full 1080p HD encode IMO. This would have looked better at 720p perhaps, or up the filesize to exploit the full HD resolution.

Visual Editing: 8
The new credits look eye-meltingly fantastic. The regrading looks stunning. The editing is mostly flawless. Only a couple of moments stood out: The cut to Jorrel's face at the end of the mural talk (Was there a grading error here?) and the cut from the pod --> to the crashed spaceship. I think I already mentioned this in the ITW thread but cutting from one spaceship crash-landing at night, to a spaceship which has crashed in the day, naturally leads a viewer to think they are the same spaceship. It takes about 5 minutes before this confusion is cleared up.

Audio Editing: 10
Bloody genius! Don't get me wrong, I love Zimmer's score and his triumphant new theme but ooooh the feels having John William's score instead!

Narrative: 7
The narrative is stripped down and stramlined with mostly good effect but I really was not keen on the first act (Thankfully after that is over, it's near perfection for the rest of the runtime). For a fanedit to truly succeed it has to work as a movie in it's own right and I don't think this does. I'd be very surprised if somebody who had never seen MOS before could follow the first act (Sure it made sense to me because I've watched all the bits that were missing). Clark and Lois' relationship was sketchy in the original, here it's just gone. He never saves her life on the spaceship, so that bond is missing for a start. The look Cavill gives her in that moment made him Supes for me, so very sad that was jettisoned. Cavill gets 1 minute of screentime where he doesn't speak, 5 minutes of Russell Crowe explaining the plot to him and then he's suddenly Superman... hurray!...? I think? Who is this guy again? What does he stand for? He's just Superman, with no character building or introduction to get us behind him. As I say, after that opening portion the removals are really effective, so do stick with this edit because it pays off in the end.

Enjoyment: 9
I had my problems with the narrative as I've stated but the wonderful new score and impressive regrading more than make up for that. This doesn't replace the original for me but it is a cut that every Superman fan should have on the shelf next to MOS. It's a totally different exciting experience. Very much recommend!

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(Updated: October 03, 2015)
Overall rating
 
8.4
Audio/Video Quality
 
9.0
Audio Editing
 
9.0
Visual Editing
 
9.0
Narrative
 
7.0
Enjoyment
 
8.0
I enjoyed this edit more than I should and that is because of the massive replacement of the soundtrack with parts from John William's soundtrack* from older Superman-movies and because of the new colourgrading which is just nicer on the eye. Great work, Agent9, kudos for those!

But the narrative in the first half could use some work:

------------------------Spoiler-begin---------------------------------

spence already mentioned it, it's quite a problem that we don't see Clark grow up and learn about his abilities, instead we see him grown up and nearly immediately getting his superman-suite. This actually reminds me of the way it was in the "Supergirl"-movie, where she comes out from her dimension onto earth and immediately has her supergirl-outfit and flies around (I have to admit though that Helen Slater looked just beautiful flying around as Supergirl :)).

The other problem is that it is unclear that Zod and co were organizing a coup d'etat until they were captured, I thought that they were acting on the orders of the council, maybe some scenes cut made this more confusing.

*The use of the Williams score really helps improve the feeling, but during the scene of Superman killing Zod and his crying out, it was better with the silence of the original to underline the shock.

-------------Spoiler-End----------------

Editing by the way was very smooth and well done, and nice work on the credits in the beginning, similar to the credits of the original Superman-movies.

All in all, it's better than the theatrical version, because of the new score and colours, and because the destruction is reduced, but imho it could be and should be improved regarding the narrative of the first half. I hope you will consider a version 2.0 because you are on the right track, Agent 9.

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