Matrix Revolutions: The Epic Edition

Original review: Febuary 1 2012

I finally got to watch this epic edit tonight, and was highly impressed with the skill and creativity that went into it. It looked and sounded superb, made some fantastic cuts and, overall, was a much much more enjoyable experience than sitting through the two sequels (especially revolutions, I still quite enjoy reloaded as a stand alone film.)

Video: I watched the bluray, and was taken to that special bluray place. Thank you for being an HD snob Gemini, we all benefit from it! The picture was brilliant, and I didn’t notice any flaws at all.

Audio: Same deal. Great work, your technical prowess was obvious throughout, and everything was well balanced.

Story: You have improved it a great deal.

Things I liked: Simplifying the story by cutting out many flabby elements, including Smith in the real world, Neo’s powers in the real world, Neo lost in the train station, the multiple 1’s story thread, the 2nd visit to the frenchy who likes to wipe his ass with silk…Great. It plays more like a classic hero tale now in it’s general structure, which can only be a good thing.
- The effects work in the ’source’ scene was a great surprise, and a very clever and original way to avoid meeting colonel Sanders in the tv shop.
- Supporting characters, especially in Revolutions, are now more likable, probably because they’re not surrounded by a load of bolony in the other story threads anymore. I found myself caring about the action in Zion for the first time, so great job there Gem.

Things I didn’t like as much:
- There were a few points where the edits unfortunately did jump out at me and take me out of the film, and these were mostly due to awkward wipes and cross fades. There were about 4 or 5 of these that I thought could have been a bit smoother, but without seeing the alternative, it’s hard to say. Maybe this is as good as it could have been, but they were there so I’ll mention them.

- There were also a few stitching problems, such as after the epic flying truck crash rescue, we almost instantly cut to a very calm Neo, Morpheus and Trinity in the car. There is no response to what they have just been through, and it feels jarring. I also thought the sudden introduction of all of the revolutions minor characters in that ‘bridging’ section felt awkward as well. If this was really intended to be one movie, ideally we would have met those characters in the early meeting scene, but never mind. There’s nothing you could do about that really, and I think you managed well.

- The biggest story problem for me was the lack of a conclusion with Trinity, She’s a major player, and the last we see of her she says “I’m coming with you”… but then she doesn’t. I think this hurt the edit a fair bit actually, as you really can’t leave the major love interest and female heroine stranded like that… but oh well.

- two more minor gripes
1) The movie still felt too long, I think you could easily cut another 30 minutes and tighten up your already tightened narrative further. The heavy handed philosophy is, at times, incredibly cringe worthy. It sometimes, dare I say it, borders on the levels of wooden and cheesy only achieved by one other director that shall remain nameless (George Lucas). “I dreamed a dream…” still makes me laugh out loud. I half expect Morpheus to burst into song, and start singing Les Miserables. And he says “I believe” about 8 too many times. So I guess I would love to see the slightly less epic but more condensed and less wanky edition if you can ever be bothered, but I understand if you’re done and dusted with the matrix after this mammoth effort. You have permission to use that title by the way.

2)The rave. Goodness me I hate that scene. I understand why it’s needed, but I thought a lot of slow motion grindy shots could have been trimmed to tighten that scene further. I guess the problem is it makes Neo look like he has premature problems, given that the climax of the dance is so obviously supposed to coincide with the …ahem. Naked Gun anyone?

But seriously, overall I really enjoyed this edit, and I can’t quite believe you managed to get me invested in the Revolutions scenes. Bravo, and great work on making the Matrix sequels palatable again. I have only watched one other 2 in 1 matrix effort, and this blows it out of the water in my opinion.

Congrats Gem, nice work.

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

I am a huge fan of the matrix movies. The Matrix might have even be the first movie I ever saw on DVD. I eagerly anticipated the sequels and while I was definitely wowed by parts of Reloaded and Revolutions I was ultimately left feeling unsatisfied.

The idea of fanedits of the matrix sequels had always intrigued me. The Matrix Revolutions: The Epic Edition is the first Matrix fanedit I have ever viewed. (Guilty as charged of having the avi of Matrix Dezionized sitting on my harddrive unwatched for over a year). Overrall I was extremely impressed with this fanedit.

VIDEO: 10/10 Excellent picture quality. I watched the edit this past weekend while house sitting for my parents who, now retired, indulged themselves and bought a gigantic widescreen hd tv. The picture looked great on a big screen.

AUDIO: 10/10 No pops or audio drop outs or anything. Seamless audio. Great work.

MENUS: Simple nice looking menu design.

EXTRAS: In the Beginning and The Prologue were a nice refresher. It had been awhile since I had watched any of the Animatrix stuff

THE EDIT:

I didn’t read the cutlist or read about any of the changes that were made in this edit before hand. There were some nice small cuts here and there made to The Merovingian scene (before the highway chase). And only as I write this review am I realizing some of the little things that were taken out. So nicely done on trimming the excess fat there.

I was pleasantly surprised to see the removal of The Architect scene with Neo. One of the most ridiculous expository scenes in movie history (Will Ferrell did a great spoof of it for one of the MTV Movie Awards). But suffice it to say I really didn’t like that scene in Reloaded and I’m glad it was removed.

Thank you for removing the “I love you too damn much” line (makes me want to puke everytime!)

The Reloaded and Revolutions were “bridged”/connected was creatively done and, in my humble opinion, it worked perfectly.

Managing to remove Smith taking form of one of the unplugged guys (i forget the character’s name), trying to sabotage the humans, blinding Neo with the ray gun etc. I always disliked this part and felt Smith should not be part of the real world in the movie and only be in the matrix, that was just my personal preference. And along the same lines I think it was a good choice to take out the scenes where Neo’s “powers” spill over into the real world (i.e. being able to stop the sentinels with his mind).

For the few nitpicky, “i would have kept this/removed this” stuff. This is just constructive criticism and only my personal opinion, im sure others may disagree. But at first i was kinda bummed out that you cut the line “where’s my puss- heeey!” when he comes back to zion and enters his apartment. I definitely laughed in theaters during that scene. And Link is a bit of comedic relief in the movie. But thats just my opinion.

I’ll have to rewatch my Matrix Reloaded DVD to see what Neo actually says but in the edit when Neo says “sorry i took so long, i know you wont understand this i need to take one of the ships” Morpehus asks where and Neo says “the matrix” and it looks off. The audio and Neo’s mouth looks out of sync. I realize you must have done some editing to that scene and used previous audio of Neo saying “the matrix” and inserted it in this scene. I sympathize as Im sure it is a tough editing job to replace dialogue like that and make it look good, but it did stick out a bit.

I won’t go as far as to say Matrix Revolutions: The Epic Edition will replace my copies of Reloaded and Revolutions just yet. I think I will have to watch some of the other Matrix fanedits before making that decision. But I definitely enjoyed this edit far more than the theatrical versions of reloaded and revolutions! In some point in the future, I plan on watching with geminigod’s commentary.

Great fanedit. I know a ton of work and planning was involved in this edit. So if you do decide to do another fanedit in the future, I will definitely be watching.

The first Matrix was a fantastic, game-changing film, and I don't envy the Wachowskis the difficult task of creating two sequels to such an influential piece of art. While almost any sequel would fall short of the first, the result was two overlong, self-important action/war films that failed to bring enough new ideas to the table to justify the effort.

This edit gets a lot right in condensing the narrative into a single 3 hour epic. The new plot is relatively easy to follow, it includes much of the good and discards a lot of the bad.

Unfortunately, the very simplicity of the new narrative turns out to be this edit's greatest weakness.

Spoilers Begin

The first 2/3 of the edit essentially tell a condensed version of Reloaded, but without the Architect waiting at the end. Instead, when Neo enters the door he goes immediately to the machine city. This allows for an extremely condensed version of Revolutions, but because it skips the 'twist' that Neo was never intended as the chosen one, Neo never has to make a meaningful choice in the edit. He begins the story believing that he is the chosen one, and follows the Oracle's directions to save Zion. His defeat of Smith occurs the same way it does in the first film - he destroys Smith from the inside with his 'chosen one' powers, presumably, since we do not see the Machine God aid in Smith's destruction.

Spoilers End

In short, while this is a good 'action movie' cut of the Matrix sequels, it loses too much of Reloaded and Revolutions to replace them in my viewing.

I first watched and reviewed this fanedit about a year ago, but upon re-watching it today having not visited the Matrix franchise again since - or fanedits in general - I thought it'd be nice to re-review this edit with a relatively fresh perspective. And this time around, I enjoyed the edit a LOT more and developed a whole new appreciation for it. So I thought I'd re-write an earlier review I wrote for it on the Fanedit Forums, which unfairly focused on criticizing geminigod's relatively great editing skills despite giving a very positive score overall.

So firstly, here are the main major changes to the films themselves in slightly more detail *OBVIOUS SPOILERS AHEAD*: Throughout the entire movie, there is so sub-plot about Agent Smith possessing Bane and entering the real world. By doing this, the whole sub-plot of Neo/Bane being stuck in a coma can be exercised, and additionally there is no footage or mention of the Caduceus crew. Additionally, Neo has no powers carrying across into the real world, only in The Matrix. But the most dramatic change is towards the end of the first half of the film. Instead of Neo meeting the Architect when he enters the door of light, it cuts straight to Neo entering the Machine City and having a peace deal with the Machines if he destroys Agent Smith. Trinity and Neo do not go to the Machine City, instead asking for a ship to borrow to go into The Matrix with, and the edit then goes straight into the battle for Zion and the final battle between Neo and Smith.

How well does this work? Pretty much flawlessly in the first 100 minutes. The pacing is expertly done, with the story still making a heck of a lot of sense and being easy to follow as one stylish, enjoyable action scene after another is thrown your way with a side of universe mythology and a touch of philosophy. The editing is barely noticeable, save for a split-second frame glitch and slowed down shot that happens in the Zion rave scene, and everything just goes into such a cohesive whole that you'd assume this is how the original Matrix sequel was made in the first place.

However, things unfortunately get a little shakier after that. The edit relies heavily on a new scene constructed from existing footage to set up a new narrative, and while the scene isn't awful and lasts for less than 1 minute, it's a scene that is *clearly* edited and feels a little disjointed. The plot threads introduced immediately following the scene feel a little rushed too, with the pacing being simply not as tight as before, and the drama/battle within Zion is simply not as engaging as the action sequences that filled the first half of the edit. The editing in general becomes more noticeable too, with a few smash cuts that feel sudden or fades to white/black that feel unnatural. However, even with that being the case it only mildly distracts from the story at hand rather than derailing it, and thankfully the narrative finds it's footing again in the last half hour, becoming a gripping, suitably epic and hugely satisfying wrap-up to everything we've seen in the rest of the film.

In terms of the quality of the edit itself, the video quality is fantastic for an AVCHD and so is the sound, although it suffers a bit mix-wise since the dialogue always seems a bit too quiet compared to the action scenes. The DVD features are simplistic, but the addition of two shorts from the Animatrix as optional intros really helps set that "epic" feel for the movie, and the commentary from geminigod is a nice addition too.

If I'd give the original sequels a 7, and the Dezionized edit an 8 for trimming the fat, I give The Epic Edition a 9 for doing the same thing but packing a bigger emotional wallop. The score would've been higher if the editing was consistently flawless as it was in the first half, but nonetheless, well done to geminigod for turning the sequels into the true successor the original film deserved!

It is a bold and confident step to refuse to tell us what changes have been made in this Matrix edit, but I put my trust in GeminiGod and set aside three hours to see if the ‘Epic Edition’ meets its highly ambitious goals. While this is certainly a project which has received a lot of effort and is a display of some impressive technical skills, on the whole I feel it loses its way as much as the other Matrix sequel edits that I have viewed.

The Good
- In general, the trimming down of the films is good, I particularly enjoyed the first hour which was a finer version of Reloaded.
- The added scenes, though noticable, are still impressive.
- The inclusion of the two animatrix films is an excellent choice and perfectly sets oneself up for an epic Matrix experience.

The downfall however, is the narrative. It isn’t easy to blend two films or to reshape the plot as much as GeminiGod has attempted, and again for the first hour it mostly holds together. But towards the middle, things get shaky.

It is not clear how Neo and Morpheus find the Meriovingian so quickly, but this can be assumed by the audience. However, immediately following that scene, Neo meets the Oracle for a second time (taken from the second film): the fact that he knows where she is undermines the film’s plot so far – everybody disobeyed direct orders simply awaiting word from the oracle, Neo must then pass a test simply to be taken to her, after which she dissapears again. The conversation which they have does not make much sense in the context of its new place. The Smith subplot now feels rushed and does not feel like the logical conclusion to Neo’s journey (because it isn’t). The squeezing together of the two films makes an already convoluted plot even weaker – look at the ships for example. As the films begins, Ship #1 The Nebucaneza returns, but ship #2 waits for the Oracle. Ship #2 returns, so #1 leaves with ships #3 and #4. Ship #3 gets blown up, then ship #1 is also blown up, at which point ship #5 turns up and takes the crew of ship #1 to find ship #4. Five ships with no characterisation of the crews is too many but at least over the course of two movies they progress the plot, here the flaws of the sequels are highlighted rather than reduced. Similarly, the inclusion of every Neo fight scene from the movies means we spend most of the time watching him engage in pointless fights (agents, to seriphim, to smith, to meriovingian guards, to smith again). Finally, the inclusion of Sati, and the Architect at the end doesn’t make much sense. Sati may have been hard to edit out, but the use of the Architect would be plain confusing to somebody who had not seen the original, not to mention his dialogue with the Oracle doesn’t really work without the plot developments cut from this edit.

On the plus side, the Epic Edition did remind me how much I enjoy the sequels in spite of their obvious flaws, but the films are designed to be separate. Putting the films focus on Zion is a good idea, and it works for the first half, but by the second half the edit is trying to be something which the source material does not allow.

I do not mean to put down a labour of love, and my review is only harsh due to my ridiculously high standards; for me a true fanedit is one that manages to improve on the original film – a feat in itself – and can be viewed with absolutely no knowledge that it is an edit (for example, Star Wars Revisited, Black Knight Rises, Spiderman Redemption). There are some good ideas here, and some very high quality editing, but the final product isn’t for me.

Overall ratings
DVD menu: 8/10 simple, with excellent selection of shorts.
Sound 6/10 the dialogue is very quiet and the action is far too loud, although this might be simply from the original. I did find myself having to constantly change the volume while watching.
Narrative 6/10
Editing 8/10 (a few technical errors)

Review by gugliemo — June 24, 2011 @ 4:23 AM