Spider-Man: Hero Within

A/V: Mostly no problems here. Spider-Man 1 is cropped so that it matches footage from 2 & 3. There were one or two video fades, and several times where the audio faded out too quickly. Otherwise, most of the cuts were unnoticeable.

Narrative: This is essentially an expansion of Spider-Man 2 which supplements the story with footage from 1 & 3, whilst eliminating the love triangle stuff and Green Goblin. Although I feel even more could have been cut, this edit works quite well as a standalone film, containing Peter Parker's origin and a single main villain. It also fixes the Mary Jane plotline significantly, and even teases Venom at the end. There's also a pretty hilarious extra in the DVD.

I encourage fans of Spider-Man 2 to check this one out.

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.

Why did I not watch this one sooner?

G1's Spidey was Spectacularly and Amazingly Entertaining!
I can easily see why this edit won FEOTM. While there are some minor technical things here and there (as other have mentioned in other reviews), I found them easily foregivable as the story moves at such a great pace and is restructured enough that it feels fresh and new.

And I did not realize it until the edit the was over -- NO NORMAN OSBORN!?!?!
It hit me like a ton bricks at the end! I was having such a good time, I did not even realize he had been cut. This is an incredible piece of editing in my opinion since this character haunts and shapes the entire original Spidey trilogy. Great work G1!

If I were to nitpick, I would have liked a better sense of a passage of time. I think a montage or two may have assisted with this, particularly in moving Peter from High School to University to his life in the city. Also, I am not certain Peter losing his powers fit with the over all arc in this version. It felt too soon for that drama, though I would have definitely keep the courtship scenes. And as others have pointed out, I would have to agree the final Venom tease would have worked better as a post credit teaser.

But as I said above, G1 has crafted such a wonderfully fun and engaging story, expertly choosing the best parts from the trilogy, that any shortcomings are, for the most part, very easy to over look.

It is a fun popcorn ride! Thumbs Up!

This was a brilliant, brilliant fanedit. I loved it! The choices made by the editor and the way the whole thing flowed was superb, IMHO.

If I am to offer some constructive criticism, the colour timing from SM & SM2 are very different to SM3. Personally, I would have tried to re-time the SM & SM2 footage to match the more muted, blueish colour palette of SM3. I also would have moved more of the 'montage' stuff to a bit earlier when Peter first decides to be Spider-Man. Having only the SM3 footage after Spidey makes his choice feels a little short, and yet you do include a montage a bit later that I feel would have worked it a bit better moving it further up. Just personal taste there. I'm sure it's fine as is.

One of the other things I think could be improved (and I'm clutching at straws here) are some of the transistions. If you're going to use a 'fade' then it needs to be rendered a little better or put in a different place or take longer as I noticed it didn't match the fades that Sam Raimi's editors used. The music was sometimes a little off in those transitions too. Perhaps a change of score would help or a audio substitution of some kind.

I really, really liked this edit. And the DVD menu was superb. Excellent edit!

STUFF I LIKED:
- The way the first two movies were spliced together was quite extraordinary; very seamless indeed.
- The romance between Peter and MJ had a lot of focus and it was done very well.
- Pacing was very good; you definitely succeeded with the goal to make a properly structured movie with a normal runtime out of the trilogy.
- I loved that cliffhanger ending with the venom substance!
- Crystal clear video quality.

STUFF I DISLIKED:
- This is just a personal thing, but I do miss the goofiness of the trilogy. The jokey light-hearted tone was, for me, just part of why I like the series so much. Still, I understand removing the jokes for pacing reasons.
- I didn't like the Spider-Man 3 scene with Gwen that was added in. It felt like a weird way to introduce the properly-suited Spider-Man. The edit would have been fine without that scene.
- (Nitpick) Some of the cross-dissolve transitions were a bit distracting and didn't look very cinematic.

OVERALL:
This was a very ambitious edit; despite the fact that I like the series for its goofiness I could at least see what you were trying to do with it, and so for the most part Spider-Man: Hero Within was a very enjoyable watch.