Man Of Steel: Remastered

I'd been looking forward to this one after being impressed with Agent9's editing skills on Prometheus and his overall sense of presentation and professionalism with his Prometheus Special Edition.c

I didn't think he could better himself after that edit... but he has surpassed himself in my opinion.

I read some of the comments in his "work in progress" forum thread but I resisted commenting until I'd seen the finished product. What I think is worth baring in mind are twofold:

1) what did he attempt to do?

2) did he achieve it?

Whether or not I think this film is helped by removing Hans Zimmer's wonderful score is irrelevant. That was Agent9's intent and I think he succeeded in a way that I haven't seen any other faneditor come close to, including my own meagre efforts at replacing an original score.

Secondly, his aim was to remove the dreary colour timing from the original and make it more vibrant and he was mostly successful as much as anyone without access to the original materials could be. Sometimes a scene or two looks a little too magenta but that is very occasional and I'm prepared to accept that because of all the wonderful work he did in making this look like a Superman film.

Both the colour timing and music replacement gave me goosebumps when I watched it for the first time. I actually believe the film looks better with a more natural palette than that horrible sickly green, over processed look that Zach Snyder released it in. It'll be interesting to see if Snyder dials it back a bit for BvS.

I can't imagine how much work went into doing all of that and if he'd just done that and not edited the movie I would still be applauding his efforts.

But here is where I believe the hidden star of this particular show is... the editing.

The re-structuring of the original story has been done brilliantly! I read a lot of criticism about how in the released version Lois was lazily dropped into the story whenever they needed her to stumble across something and I've agreed with that criticism. Also some of the other things, like the treatment of Pa Kent has also made me side with the internet critics. Agent 9, much like he did with the terrible character motivations in Prometheus and with that contentious rolling derelict, has made Lois make more sense in the story to me. After Krypton explodes, she becomes the dramatic thrust of the story, searching for the enigmatic saviour she's heard stories of. The re-structuring involved here lets us follow Lois's discoveries and that's how we meet Supes. The added bonus of this is that we lose a lot of superflous stuff that the rambling original flashback structure didn't need and inflated the run time to make the final act harder to sit through.

All the stuff cut, I don't miss. All the re-ordering of scenes are inspired. And all in all this is a triumph of editing! The best I've seen after all these years of downloading superb fan works from this community.

The only minor quibble I have is that it's not clear to me why Krypton exploded when it did or how many years have passed when we pick up the story but that's pretty pedantic of me as we all know this story well.

From top to bottom with it's adept colour re-imagining, it's maestro like sound editing and the creating of new titles and effects and editing makes this for me one of the greatest fan edits I've had the pleasure to watch.

Highly recommended.

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:

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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.

It's an interesting experiment, but I can't help but feel like it's a bit of a mismatch.

The color correction job is phenomenal, the brighter hue being easier on the eyes overall compared to the original's teal green. Thea ctual audio editing is commendable, there are spots where you can hear the original Zimmer score but I was shocked at how thorough the dialogue separation was. The music added is reasonably integrated, Williams' Superman score and parts of Ottman's Returns score used in mostly appropriate contexts (though some parts like Superman and Lois holding hands in the desert could have used silence. and the score would randomly appear). The restructured narrative works just fine and removes some dumb parts from the original, and I'll admit it was awesome to see the new opening credits delivered like that.

All that being said, the biggest issue with the edit is that the Williams score doesn't really fit the movie all too well. Zimmer's score fit with what Snyder was trying to accomplish, this more somber and darker take on the Superman mythos (I don't think it was good but that's beside the point), but the Williams music is too classical and plain heroic to fit seamlessly into this particular movie The direction style, the aesthetic, the writing, it wasn't made with the WIlliams music in mind and it shows clear as day during the entire Superman vs Zod battle. The music is just nowhere near as fist bumpingly intense as it needed to be in order to match, and it feels especially strange to hear the romantic Superman/Lois song blare the scene right after Superman snaps Zod's neck. It's not a bad edit by any means, I recommend this as an experiment to see how different it feels in comparison to the original, but I can't say it's "better" in my opinion.

Man of Steel Trailer #3 is my favorite movie trailer of all time, but Man of Steel the film was in many ways a disappointment. The pacing was laborious, the storytelling muddled and unevenly executed, and the action scenes exhausting. While this is not the definitive edit of Man of Steel for me (As far as I'm aware, that edit doesn't exist yet), it's a really strong alternative way of viewing the film, especially if you had no love for the original. The strongest points of this edit are pacing and economy of storytelling: The Krypton sequence is fast and furious, replacing the exhausting ordeal that was the original. The focus on Lois Lane toward the beginning of the film and the re-purposing and reordering of the flashback sequences was a revelation. The action is trimmed down to a more manageable length. Overall the film feels much more confidently told and was able to grab and hold my attention, unlike the original. Also, one of the most maligned scenes from the original film, Pa Kent's death by tornado, is thankfully nowhere to be found.

However, there were also aspects of this edit that did not work for me. The new color grading is mostly great but sometimes looks a little bright and oversaturated, like it's trying to overcompensate for the darker colors of the original. The original film had beautiful high-contrast cinematography which sometimes gets a little washed out in this color grade. kk650's recolored version of the original MOS tones down the grungy green grade while still playing to the strengths of the original photography.

The John Williams score is cool as an alternate take on the film, but in my opinion it does not really fit as well as the Zimmer score. I am probably in the minority here, but I prefer Zimmer's score to Williams, which was great in the original Superman but it's trumpeting brass and triumphant fanfares sound out of place here, whilst Zimmer's booming percussion and minimalist piano did not. The opening credits sequence also plays way too long for a modern film.

Lastly, I feel that some of Agent9's edits serve to bury some of the themes of the original Man of Steel rather than trying to salvage them. Particularly Clark's anxiety over humanity fearing and rejecting him is still here but is weakened by the removal of the Church scene, and the Williams score does more to hurt in this area, making scenes sound triumphant that should be more pensive. I also think a flaw in the original film that ought to have been addressed by the editor is that Superman dons the suit and takes flight before he's committed to revealing himself to the world. It could have been a truly earned moment but it feels like the film blows its load too early. I know it might be a bit strange to have Superman travel back to the arctic after he's returned to Smallville, but I think this could have been accomplished by splitting the the scene between Clark and Jor-El in two. The suit reveal could have been saved for later.

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!