Spider-Man 3.1: The Hybrid Cut

An extended edition of Spider-man 3, integrating in deleted scenes and utilizing the officially released Editor’s cut as it’s base.I know what you’re thinking, why would anyone want to watch a longer version of this movie, mostly it’s because a lot of the cuts that I saw only added to the film.

Spider-man 3 is almost legendary in how much it was panned. Coming off the zeitgeist of the second film, it was considered a disappointment.

Yet, it still retains some of it’s Raimi goofy melodramatic charm. Raimi’s love of horror takes front stage with the Sandman character a few times here but just like with Doc Ock it’s intertwined with a melancholy sadness.The scenes with the Sandman reflecting his inability to connect with his daughter because of his continuous bad choice. There’s a particular scene here with a sandcastle that is quite poignant.

Thematically it’s also a rather interesting film, leaning on the idea of forgiveness, with Harry forgiving Peter and vice versa along with Peter forgiving Flint, and MJ forgiving Peter. It leans heavily on a tenuous emotional factor of the three core friends (Peter, MJ, and Harry) that essentially is the thoroughline of the trilogy. Unfortunately, a lot of the compelling Harry Osborne moments get lost in the background of the film as we give time to Eddie Brock and the Stacys.

Also it continues to get emotional mileage out of Uncle Ben’s death. When it’s all said and done, Peter’s responsibility here is to “keep saving” people, and it’s done threefold, either physically (with Eddie Brock) or emotionally (with Flint Marko and Harry). And even if it’s the least enjoyable part of the film, I do appreciate how the Venom subplot weaves in with a story of forgiveness, unresolved grief, anger, and revenge.

As for the fanedit: It’s seamless in its ability to weave in new scenes. Not all of the deleted scenes are winners, particularly more shots of the folded Venom suit in the case. Yet from what I saw of the cutlist, everything in here makes sense.

Spider-Man 3 was always a film that was gonna be difficult to save. This edit does its best to keep the original film by adding deleted scenes from the Editor's cut of the film and reinserting Theatrical scenes that work better that in the EC.

Overall, the film is much more enjoyable, to a degree. The movie gets a bit more breathing room for the villams and characters, though, its still a film with flaws. Bobson does his best with it and makes it slightly more appealing.

This is an almost perfect version of Spider-Man 3. It has all the best alterations of the Editor's Cut and corrects a few minor editing hiccups I had with that one. The only thing I didn't like was the butler scene being reinstated, as I thought getting completely rid of it was one of the best choices in the Editor's Cut. But aside from that, this is absolutely phenomenal.

Thank you for this extended cut! I always dislkied Spider-Man 3 because they compressed too much in a short amount of time. I still feel that, but putting the extra scenes in made it better.

A noticeable improvement over the Editor's Cut, but still needs trimming and reordering.
I did not like the Theatrical Cut. Really, really didn't. Only after hearing good things about the Editor's cut two years ago did I give the movie a second chance, and it was much, much better. The addition of the deleted scenes and the reordering of several scenes made the movie much more comprehensible, and Peter's addiction made a lot more sense. However, there were a few scenes missing from it that I remembered vaguely from the TC. And this is where Bobson's Hybrid Cut comes along.
The HC does what it aims to do well - allowing the audience to see the full story by creating the longest possible version of Spider-Man 3. Bobson's editing, as usual, is technically superb. However, the edit doesn't fix the film's major narrative flaws, which is why I deducted a few points. For example, three unrelated villains are introduced in the first 20 minutes by seemingly randomly cutting between them (especially between 8:10 and 17:07). I think the narrative can be much stronger by further reordering several scenes throughout the movie, and hopefully trimming others (e.g., emo Parker).