Spider-Man: Hero Within

I was really not expecting much honestly, but after watching it, I am blown away! The story itself feels completely organic and it flows well. Peter's troubles as SpiderMan are more fleshed out and the romance with MJ seems real. My only complaint is with some of the video fades and cuts that others have mentioned. They felt too abrupt and seemed a bit out of place. That is my only complaint though. If you enjoyed Raimi's Spiderman films, please give this edit a try! I was quite pleased and surprised as well.

I had the pleasure of watching Spiderman: Hero Within last night, and although the technical details are just about perfect, the narrative was a slight disappointment, but more on that later.

Audio/Video Quality: Looked spectacular 10/10

Visual Editing: Generally great, but the sudden dissolve about 51 minutes in is too quick and was a momentary distraction. Same goes for a similar transition at the 14 minute mark, when it dissolves from Peter web slinging for the first time to him walking home. Again, it feels fanedited and wasn't convincing. Those were the only problems I saw with the visual editing, the rest was amazing! 9/10

Audio Editing: Just about perfect! 10/10

Narrative: The first half hour was great, with a more focused origin story, but once Spiderman shows up (Excellent use of the crane sequence from Spiderman 3) the plot kinda wanders around for awhile until Doc Ock appears. In fact, after the first half there just wasn't really a consistent pace until the climax. I liked the new ending very much, but there wasn't much closure to the storyline however.

Those gripes aside, I can say that the deletion of the overwhelming cast of useless side characters and subplots made this much more watchable. Nearly all the corny humor has been chopped (With the exception of J.J. Jameson), which makes for a darker and more serious film. Thankfully, the romance has been drastically simplified, which again works stronger than it did in the original. 8/10

Enjoyment: Overall this is a solid and very original Spiderman edit, but the pacing during the second half was rather off-putting. STILL HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! 8/10

Audio/Video Quality: 10/10
Visual Editing: 9/10
Audio Editing: 10/10
Narrative: 8/10
Enjoyment: 8/10

The editor had a lot of bold ideas, and for the most part it works. As others have said, a few minor details could have been handled differently.
Personally, I enjoyed this edit a lot, its now my go-to version.

I’ve always liked Sam Raimi’s Spiderman Trilogy. Refreshingly light hearted, well directed and generally very entertaining, they serve as a reminder to film makers making superhero movies today, that not everything needs to be as dark as Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy. Spidey 2 is undoubtedly the most impressive in my eyes, but the other two (yes, even the messy third chapter) have their moments too. So, the idea of an edit combining the beginnings of the Spiderman legend from the first movie, with the excellent Spiderman 2 was an exciting one.

Generally, it’s an edit which works very successfully. It breezes along, never outstaying its welcome and at just over 2 hours is a perfect length for this kind of combo edit. The key here for me is how natural the “hand-over” part of the edit feels; by that I simply mean the section when Spiderman 1 ends and Spiderman 2 takes over. I’m pleased to say, that g1orkatos executes it about as well as one could hope for. By having the Spidey 2 footage start after a montage of Parker using his new-found skills for the first time, it appears natural that some time has passed and that some of the characters look slightly different – it’s particularly noticeable for example that MJ has had a change in shade of red hair colour.

Also, the use of the thrilling crane-disaster scene from Spidey 3 works wonderfully well. It took me a moment to realise it didn’t actually come from Spidey 2, so seamlessly was it included into the edit. Excellent work there. Indeed, from a narrative point of view, Hero Within comes off as a huge success. Particularly impressive is the heartfelt material with Peter’s Uncle Ben, which because of the nature of Doc Octopus being a more intimidating and interesting villain that the Green Goblin, has more impact with acting as inspiration and courage for Peter to continue his plight as the webbed crusader. Okay, the romance between him and MJ still comes off a little too “school playground” for my liking, but overall the choices made in the edit to show the blossoming feelings between the two are nicely judged.

Technically g1orkatos also pulls out all the stops. The dual layered DVD version I saw looked great, with some nice subtle colour correction to match Spiderman 1 with the palette from the second film. However, the small amount of footage from Spiderman 3 did stand out a little bit, but I think that’s more to do with Spidey’s suit seeming a little darker. Nothing too distracting however. Audio too is very solid throughout.

So, a perfect edit then? Well, unfortunately not quite. A couple of audio transitions are not as smooth as they could be, which go hand in hand with some visual crossfades which bring a little bit too much attention to themselves. Of particular note is the abrupt fade/cut just as Peter is discovering his powers for the first time on the rooftop. Also worthy of note, is the final shot which hints at the forthcoming sequel. As others have said, it’s too short a scene to serve as the last shot of the actual movie… it would have worked much better as a “Marvel teaser ” at the end of the credits.

Overall however, this is an excellent edit and in truth is a perfect way to see Spiderman 2 as if it had been the first in the series. Bring on the sequel!

This was a pretty good edit. It's not perfect, but it's enjoyable.

Quality - A/V Quality is excellent. 10/10

Visual Editing - There were some awkward edits (a few dissolves that felt out of place and a couple cuts that stood out a little bit), but they weren't "deal breakers" for me. There was some really spectacular things done with the editing as well, such as the footage used from Spider-Man 3 and all the extraneous characters that are cut out perfectly. 7/10

Audio editing - There were 2 transitions that stuck out to me, but it's not like you raped my family or anything. 9/10

Narrative - This is the real interesting part to me here. When I first watched the workprint I was irked by the flow of the story, as we spend so much time setting up Spider-Man's origins without introducing the villain until half way in. But it's kind of how Amazing Spider-Man is structured, in that the villain's story seems like an afterthought. And in a way it's almost like how Batman Begins in structured (spending majority of time on pure origin and then halfway through get to the bad guys). Watching it a second time, this didn't bother me and I was able to get more into the story at hand. 8/10

Enjoyment - I love Spider-Man 1 & 2, so it was easy for me to really enjoy this edit. 9/10

Recommend? If you're a fan of the Spider-Man movies I think you'll like this take on the story. But if you're a stickler for perfection the flaws may stick out more for you.