Avengers: Extended Edition, The

First, let me comment on the skill of the fan-editor, samspider3: in a word, Excellent. The edits here are virtually seamless -- it was only my familiarity with the source material that clued me in to what was being added and changed. If you aren't familiar with the theatrical release, you would never guess what was changed (except for one scene, which was unfinished in the source).

Now as for the movie itself, I have less kind words. The Avengers as theatrically released is practically a perfect movie. Sometimes movies are cut for timing, sometimes because of studio meddling -- but sometimes scenes are cut out because they just don't work. An archetypical example of this is the Jabba the Hutt scene from Star Wars Episode IV: not only is it a clumsy scene in itself, but it simply restates the much better earlier Greedo scene -- and in the larger scope, completely spoils Jabba's arrival in Episode VI. It is better and rightfully left on the cutting room floor.

Just about all of the scenes added in Avengers EE are of this nature. While I love Maria Hill, she's just not a significant enough of a character to bookend the entire movie around. Scenes with The Waitress just stop the movie cold, especially during the Battle. An added scene with Loki and Hawkeye seriously spoils the later scene where Black Widow "interrogates" Loki. And is there any one person in the world who is finally satisfied knowing where Banner got the motorcycle from?

Even so, as a die-hard MCU fan, I would recommend this edit for an MCU fan's collection. I enjoy the Universe, and this EE allows me to spend 11 more minutes in the Universe, and for that I am grateful.

In closing, here's an idea I'd like to throw out there: Kevin Feige recently commented that they would not be doing any more One-Shots. It might be interesting (if possible) to take a bunch of deleted and other scenes and re-cut new One-Shots out of it. The Waitress, for example: make a little mini-movie with her as the main character. You'd even get a Stan Lee cameo in it. Other possibilities are out there, too. That would be fun to watch.

While I really liked the beginning of the edit with Hill at first, I kind of missed the original intro, and felt like this compromised the ending a bit, which in my opinion wasn't really seamless, especially when compared to the original.

Some of the added scenes were pretty great and IMO necessary additions, but some of them weren't really as great: The Hulk scene with the security guard would be great if not for the fact that it spoiled where Loki was going to open the portal to the audience, and I think finding it out with Stark really works wonderfully. Some of the added stuff in the battle is good too, but at the same time compromises the pace, like the bits with the guard and the chitauri gun (the audio and video of this part is also somewhat jarring). The additions with the waitress were great, though.

All in all I still preferred the original cut of the movie when putting the pros and cons of this edit. But that's just me. It's still a pretty good extended version of the movie.

I loved this edit. The deleted material was put back in seamlessly. If I hadn't seen the theatrical cut way too many times I would not have known what was added. I watched this with my wife and kid and they had no idea this was a fan edit. Great job all around.

I watched this edit last night, the audio and video editing is excellent, I actually could not tell what was added and had to go back to the thread to see the changes list, that is because nothing felt out of place or out of sync in any way.
Another good edit by SamSpider3

I was fortunate enough to get a copy of this from the editor.

First off, let me preface this by stating that I am a huge fan of the MCU, and really admire the effort that Marvel has expended to create a cohesive universe for their characters. That said, Avengers is not one of my favorite films in the series.

We have this apparently huge secret organization essentially running the planet, and no one knows about it--but that's acceptable, and there's no fallout from the events in NY. I had a difficult time swallowing that.

What this edit does is add in the deleted scenes, and bring back something much closer to Whedon's original vision of the film. He humanizes the characters, and gives SHIELD some pushback against the "World Council" through the Maria Hill debrief, which now frames the film, and also makes the events of the film, at least in my opinion, more believable.

The edits are, to my eyes, seamless. The film is richer with the addition of the scenes, and makes the story, especially the Steve Rogers story, much deeper.

This will be the version I choose to watch going forward. Great job!!