Dark Knight Saga Recut, The - Part II

Thank you NJVC! :]X

I have mixed feelings about this edit. There are somethings that baffle me like the removal of the copycat's which makes Batman's appearance abrupt and some of the audio and visual cuts aren't that good. Batman having copycats siginifies that he is making a good impression on the city's populace like the Bay Harbor Butcher copycat in season 2 of Dexter (Dexter did it first). I don't like how you took Batman's dialogue out of his scene with Meroni. I know it was over the top, but it really feels like something is missing. You could have at least kept the "Where is he!?" line. When you took out the Batpod doing the cool reverse thing after Batman flipped the truck you made a continuity error. The scene where Joker says "you can't rely on anyone these days you gotta do everything yourself DONT WE!?" had a bunch of audio funkiness. Also, why did you take out the line "You thought we could be decent men in an indecent time!"? And Jim Gordon talking to himself was strange. Now for the good things. I like how you changed the line in The Joker's video to "Are you Batman?". The way you change Bruce and Rachel's fall out of Wayne Tower building was fantastic! Thank you for that. Among other line's and exposition you took out this was a pretty good edit, but I hope you made a v2.

A quicker and leaner Dark Knight.

Gone is the fluff of supporting expositions and narratives and what remains in the wake is a less nonsense action film that most people probably wanted from the Dark Knight.

Stand outs of this edit include the Swat Tower scene. This was my favorite scene in the original cut and I thought for sure I would not like the cuts made, BUT upon watching this sequence I was pleasantly surprised. This edit shows Batman's agility, dexterity, and brilliance in a way that the original edit was unable to convey. The shear speed at which Batman executes each decision is amazingly clever and brilliant in this edit.

I did feel a little rushed visually with Batman's introduction in this edit. The cuts to eliminate copy cats and the karate chopping of the van felt hard and too fast in pace, ultimately leaving me in catch up mode while moving into the next scene. This is, I'm sure, partly the result of my watching this movie WAY too many times :) Besides these few hard cuts, the video editing was near flawless.

The only things I didn't really care for were a few audio edits/cuts and the narrative at times. Audio editing is always a struggle when making significant cuts and some of these pulled me out of a couple of scenes especially at Batman's introduction where the horns swelled then swelled again as Batman walked to the ledge of the descending car park, and at the end when key moments of Hans Zimmer's score were cut out to omit Gordon's son and rearrange the ending(which is my favorite narrative part). This edit made me unsure as to who Gordon was talking to at the end.

I really enjoy the moral struggle and tension of the ferry scene, and while I agree it may be drawn out, I feel it is essential to the final conclusion of Batman and the Joker's confrontation. I've always felt the movie was analyzing whether or not humans are inherently good, and this scene is the thesis statement of the film. I really missed this part and felt the climax of the Tower scene fell a little flat in terms of conclusion and resolution because of these cuts.

Ultimately I really enjoyed the alternate take and speed of this edit as I feel I saw the story more in the immediate moment and through the hero's eyes. While I don't agree with many of the cuts made in this edit, I applaud NJVC for taking the risk to show us all a leaner Dark Knight and to give me a real sense of excitement and anticipation in waiting to watch this edit. Thank you NJVC