Smallville Destiny

This was a series I loved right away and was excited when I heard it was going to be made, but I will admit that the "freak of the week" formula did become, well, formulaic pretty quickly. Since I can still watch the episodes as-is, of course, this is a very welcome alternate version of the first season, and would definitely be my preferred viewing option overall. Technically, everything is top notch, and all the story decisions made were sound. Even if something seemed odd at first, it was soon explained, so no problems there. Leaving a couple of the "freaks" in made sense from a character development standpoint as well.

Thanks for a really fun edit, LS! :)

P.S. I wholeheartedly agree with this comment by Omaru: "As for other seasons? ... The main arc about Jason and Genevive Teague, I’d probably abandon that in it’s entirety." Yeah, that was horrible! :/

Review by Omaru1982 — May 2, 2011 @ 9:22 pm

Watched this yesterday and today (1 part per day)

Absolutely fantastic, even though I have season 1-7 on dvd I hadn’t watched them in quite a while.
Removing most of the meteor freaks was a great choice, if I recall the fortune teller was just one episode, however splitting up her encounters across different events made it seem like clark’s time with her was enjoyable enough to re-vist her. I know bob mentioned cutting the adaption storyline, but as Clark’s only discovered power (other than speed and strength) it gave us a chance to see him using his power before the finding his dad storyline (nice call omitting clark perving on the cheer squad by the way)

I really have nothing bad to say about this, it plays to everyones strengths, Whitney comes across less dickish, especially early on. The only thing I found close to a continuties were the reporter and kryptonite, what exactly did he see Clark do previously, but I was happy to overlook this very minor detail. Regarding with Kryptonite, we can assume that Smallville is littered with Rock fragments and in his youth he probably encountered some and fell sick, hence Jonathan’s knowledge of them.

As for other seasons? I’d love that, although maybe span a few plots from the various seasons to cut across them quicker? The main arc about Jason and Genevive Teague, I’d probably abandon that in it’s entirety.

Tech: 10/10 (I recall one little scene near the start where the image has been cropped to hide the credits)
Story: 9/10, a perfect digest of the important plot strands of season 1 (and the tying up loose ends from season 2) with maybe a little filler thrown in for good measure.

I would recommend this edit if you are already a big fan of the show or your S.O. wanted you to catch up on season 1 of smallville.

Video:

The video quality was good and the added contrast to the video gave the movie a more serious look. The increased color gain wasn't overwhelming and added to some of the scenes emotionally which was nice.

Audio:

One thing that erked me about this edit was that it was just ever so slightly sped up. I don't know if this was intentional or part of the source translation by chance, but it is something that is often done to films that are too long/slow. It really bothers me because It makes everyone sound like they are huffing helium. If it wasn't for that, I would say it was beneficial in that Smallville does tend to be a little bit slow at times. If the audio pitch could haven be compensated, it wouldn't have bothered me as much I don't think.

Story:

The very beginning of the edit is a very good origin story plot with a very classic pacing. Some where in the middle of part 1, it became very much a series of sort order episodes. Part 2 seemed to be a stringing together of the "tempest/vortex" story with only very light editing. While there is nothing wrong with this, it just seemed like it's own separate edit from part 1 because they are so different in style.

The narrative does not veer from the Smallville storyline in anyway that I could tell. The "Comic book" stills were a really good idea that played well in the opening credits. But I often felt that they would sometimes miss that "snap shot" moment and instead would freeze frame after the moment was gone. It would have been really good to use that effect to break up the many "chapters" in the edit, but alas, that did not happen.

This was a little disappointing for me. I only watched a handful of episodes from Season 1 so I'm not familiar with the source material. The only other frame of reference I have is juice's Smallville Episode 1 edit. (I'm not comparing the edits though.)

The tech side is great. A/V quality is as good as the source material (which isn't that great to begin with). The editing was top notch throughout.

I was let down though because it was just too long for my tastes and I was bored easily by it. Maybe if I was more of a fan of Smallville I would have enjoyed this edit more. As it stands I don't really have any strong desire to see the next installment of Smallville (be it watching Season 2 or watching a hypothetical Part 2 fanedit).

So if you're a fan of Smallville you'll hopefully like this. If you've never seen Smallville before I don't really recommend it to you.

Wow. Who would've thunk that a Supes serial with almost no physical conflict and almost no superhuman stunts would be more fun to watch than the Boy of Steel dodging bullets and tossing people around?

By removing the freaks-o'-the-week, a lot of the action is gone as well, but therein lies this fanedit's strength: the fine character moments are pretty much all that remain. You get to see not only Clark Kent's growing pains, but those of his friends. And his earthly parents aren't the abstractions they were in the comic books and most of the theatrical versions.

A fault of the series itself and not of the fanedit: Lex and Clark know each other rather well, which means that their future selves should recognize each other, allowing Lex to blow Supe's cover.

LastSurvivor's edit is really entertaining, the best Superman experience I've had since watching Christopher Reeve in the theaters.