Prometheus – Special Edition

This review is not aimed to offend, just to give my honest opinion. Agent 9's fanedit is the highest rated Prometheus edit so my expectations were high, even higher after watching the very long but otherwise excellent Giftbearer fan edit. The amount of work put into this edit is evident, I commend the creator for their efforts, however...

My enjoyment was completely ruined by the misuse of tracks to influence the viewer's emotion or convey character intentions in some scenes, incorrect audio levels during scenes with dialog, looping snippets of tracks from tracks intended for other scenes, bizarre audio effects added/manipulated to the existing score and lastly shoehorned tracks from the other Alien movies that do not fit the tone of the film nor the film's score that was left intact. It's a great idea, but it was poorly executed, key scenes were spoiled. Scenes intended to unravel before the audience are given away by new score elements that remove the suspense and reveal the plot surprises, these scenes should have been left untouched.These problems occur throughout the movie from title screen all the way till the end credits roll.

It's very unfortunate considering how much effort went to this. It would have benifited from critical review prior it's fanedit.org official release. The audio aspect of this project would have benefited from the collaboration of someone with strong audio editing experience.

Other than the above I have no complaints with the visual editing, there are certain scenes I would have prefered to see but I won't criticize the creator's choice considering what they had to work with and their choice how to tell the story. The movie's narrative is much more cohesive, there are lots of small edits that make a lot of difference.

I have just watched this Agent 9's fan edit of Prometheus. To begin with, let me say that Prometheus is a very bad movie, and nothing seems to change this fact. I thought maybe a new edit could have saved it, but it is still what it is, and Prometheus basic concepts are embarrassingly ridiculous.

With that said, I'll leave my thoughts about the movie, and continue with the actual edit. This version is a feat in itself , and manages to rescue many of the very worst parts. By cutting away a lot of unnecessary and - above all - silly parts, the film is worth seeing, without compromising on quality. Speaking of quality, it is topnotch and I did not notice any new edits or other adjustments.

(Be warned, possible spoilers ahead:)

Agent 9 has chosen to remove several parts that are terribly bad, such as the exploding head, Fifields ridiculous howl and the scene where Vickers and Janek decides to leave the control bridge to have some private time. This last mentioned change does however lead to a logical gap: if Janek would not have left the control bridge, he would reasonably noted that Fifield and Milburn were in trouble. Which of course might have lead to another chain of events. However, I prefer this change, it makes Janek much more credible and captain-like.

I am not sure that the color corrections were necessary, but since I did not notice them, I guess they were well considered.

I liked all added scenes, they give the movie more depth.

What I did not like:

As for the sound, I noticed that the applause at the opening scene sounds rattling, like sound with low quality.

Im have not compared, but I suspect that some scenes where cut, when Prometheus is entering the alien planet. I wish that some of these were kept, because they add lot of atmosphere, and are a beautiful and almost poetic part of the movie.

Other than that, I believe that Agent 9 done an excellent job and would highly recommend this version before the theatrical version.

I have to say that this is the best fan edit I've seen and I've seen a lot. Adywan's SW:R is something entirely different as he fixed the shoddy effect work of the special edition and the original movie, but Agent9's work on PROMETHEUS plays with the existing footage and creates a much more satisfying experience, in my opinion.

All the re-integrated footage works brilliantly and his choice of edits improve the characterisations and motivations. It's impossible to entirely fix the shoddy writing in the movie but I believe this is the best that we'll ever get - a fixed version of Ridley Scott's return to the Alien universe.

Speaking of Alien, Agent9 really makes his edit feel like it belongs more in the Alien canon. His sound editing is superb and every choice he made enhances the film.

I missed the original beginning but after a while I realised that this particular edit doesn't need it and it was right to drop it. I would personally cut the TED speech right down as it meanders and doesn't really help the movie. I would have cut to the titles when Weyland explains about Prometheus stealing fire from the Gods. "What have we done with it?" That would set up the tone of the movie perfectly and would justify cutting the original opening. It also hints that we haven't done anything to be proud of which could be the motivation behind the Engineers decision to exterminate us.

The new title sequence works brilliant and the 3D is very good, although I would have reversed it so that the title "PROMETHEUS" was 'out front' and the credits were behind it. Unfortunately, my BD player won't allow me to fast forward to reverse the disc so I can't check but if there isn't a date at the TED conference, there should be as the date is established later in the movie when Prometheus arrives at LV223.

On a purely technical note, I was hoping to replace my 3D Prometheus disc with Agent9's edit and keep them all together in the steelbook I have, but unfortunately a couple of technical issues will prevent me from doing so. There is no menu with the disc, which I can live with, but it's a pain not being able to fast forward or rewind. I won't blame Agent9 for this as it could be an issue with my BD player. However, the bitrate is lower than my original movie and the 3D is... different. It's a little hard to put my finger on but I believe the subtle instances where objects are in front of the screen are no longer in front. You definitely get 3D depth going back but nothing coming forward in the original unaltered footage. The silica storm is a good place to compare versions. Also the oratory. I remember an orbit coming slightly out of the screen but this doesn't happen in this version. It's a very small matter, as I said, but I was hoping to replace my original theatrical release with Agent9's edit as I believe his is the more solid movie.

The re-instated Fifield monster works brilliantly and you do get the feeling that you are looking at an early xenomorpth although the colour timing isn't as successful as elsewhere. It looks a little too much in the magenta area to my eyes. I could be wrong. And for everyone who hated the rolling space ship, just watch how Agent9 fixes it. Miraculous.

To summarise, this is an absolutely astounding fan edit. Not only does it fix problems with the story but it also links the film more firmly to it's predecessors. Brilliant, brilliant work.

I'll have to re-watch the Prometheus Unbound edit to see if it's still a more favorable edit than this as I originally pegged Unbound as the near perfect edit, but narrative-wise this feels like a close call.

This edit has a ton of re-working done to [mostly] seamlessly remove not only the larger issues, but nearly all of even the small things without affecting the original narrative. While I'm not happy that the TED talk made it in here as well (I seriously don't get why people think it belongs), everything beyond that is pretty smooth. There are some minor issues with audio editing where it clips in, as well as some of the 3rd act editing can get a bit choppy but nothing that stands out too much. Ultimately, the narrative here is smooth and I'm glad it didn't include any of the Earth/excavation scenes, and the Fifield departing from the crew bit - actually the whole Fifield subplot - worked very well.

Outside of the narrative, my only issues are with audio and video editing and [take this with a grain of salt] the video quality of the 1080p release that I happened to watch. It was very blocky, blurry, and just looked like it was encoded with a low bitrate even though the bitrate is 11mbps. Maybe it's just my source. I don't remember where I got it from to be honest, but if the version I watched is an official release, it looks upscaled. Regardless, it's a great edit and potentially in the run for best edit out there... I recommend this and Prometheus Unbound. Both are great edits.

I've found my favorite version of Prometheus. I didn't notice any audible defects (though, I did watch this late at night and had the volume down so I wouldn't wake anybody!) and the visual editing was always strong, no stray frames or sudden jump cuts. The MP4 version could have had better video quality, but the promise of a revised version on Blu-ray makes me a happy camper!

My only real quibble was the use of the original theatrical ending where Shaw and David have their discussion about going to "Paradise" before they rappel to the ground. As was mentioned in the forum, her choice of words calling David a "f***ing robot" was a bit more realistic given how much he had put her through. Also, I loved Rapace's delivery of the line. :P

Great job, A9! I look forward to seeing more of your work.