Thor: Love plus Thunder minus Comedy

For the record, I have never seen Thor: Love and Thunder (I have seen the previous films). Every now and again I choose to make a fanedit my first experience, as I find it interesting to just go in blank sometimes and without familiarity bias. That being said, I had seen one or two clips from the thread and I also knew that Korg was going to be "actually" dead, when previously he was a talking head I think? And I knew that there was some kind of character change for Zeus, but I didn't have full context.

NARRATIVE

First off, it's clear tremault put a lot of work in here, and I do admire that. The opening montage seemed like a good way to open the film and was really only let down by some audio stuff (more on that below). I haven't seen the original, but my friend said that the opening scene with Christian Bale played out much better.

Unfortunately, I found most of the viewing to be a bit of an odd experience. I see from the description that tremault wanted to allow the film to "breathe" but I'm afraid that doesn't really come across. Instead it felt very rushed and choppy. It's my understanding that the original film maybe has this problem anyway, but I watched this with someone who had seen the original cut and they said they were having trouble following and basically having to remind themselves of what context was cut.

Why is Natalie Portman now Thor? There doesn't seem to be any explanation for this, which felt to me like a pretty big hole. Korg is dead, but events surrounding that are still lighthearted even if humour has been excised. In fact, one of the really odd things about this edit is that you can tell everyone is playing things "tongue-in-cheek" except there aren't (hardly) any jokes. So it just comes across like everyone is acting really strangely. This changes a little in the second half - events seem to take a darker turn and become more action focused, but by this point I kind of felt like I was coasting along just accepting events as they happen. I didn't understand why there was significance to this weapon for opening this gate... Why the bad guy was going to make a wish to some statue. There's a scene where one minute Thor and the others are talking, and suddenly a child's head just appears on screen and Thor teleports to where they are to chat to them. This all happens so quickly and it's very confusing.

Possibly the most bizarre change is what's done with Zeus. Reading the intent, I think Zeus is secretly helping Thor? So the visual trickery here is quite well done but it just isn't clear what's happening. My friend was completely thrown by it and I had to pause the film to give them context - they, who had seen the theatrical film, and me who hasn't seen it giving them context... because I'd caught some context from what I'd scanned from the project thread. That's not how it should be and fanedit narratives need to hold up for someone who doesn't have the context of the theatrical cut or details on an IFDB form.

But let's say it works and the audience has clocked onto Zeus helping Thor psychically - why does Zeus then kill Thor's friend Korg? Why does Thor immediately jump to kill Zeus? And why is he excited about having done this? I'm afraid I just don't see the logic. I also don't see how the segment is relevant to anything else that happens in the narrative.


QUALITY

In regards to the technical aspects, the visual quality is mostly reasonable considering the file size, but personally I think it's at the lower end of what editors should be putting out. Unfortunately, the opening titles and closing credits dip lower than this and have visible compression artefacts.

The audio quality skirts the line of decent throughout and sometimes does not hold up well. Perhaps this has just gone too far on the compression end, but in some cases I think it's clear that a lossy source has been used and broken up under compression. Some added audio elements are clearly of a lower bitrate, so these poke out and break apart where the main film audio fares better, revealing some changes. The opening montage, for example, features a song that sounds to me like the source was possibly a lossy mp3 and the S's at the end of lines are quite piercing as a result of what I assume is further compression.

I personally think that far too much quality has been sacrificed here and it reflects negatively on the edit. It's not always possible, but whenever it is, we should be using lossless audio sources. These are much smaller and more practical to work with than lossless video files and it really make all the difference. Rendering at a higher audio bitrate also doesn't add much onto your file size when compared with visual compression.


VISUAL EDITING

While the general editing style comes across choppy, in terms of the more "fancy" stuff - transitions, special fx - there's some great, creative visual editing here. The likelyhood is I probably wouldn't have noticed some of it, but there are a couple of things I saw from the project thread and I thought they were nicely done. I also very much appreciate tremault taking the time to include subtitles. I'm a big advocator for that these days.


AUDIO EDITING

Quality of added elements comes under this umbrella a bit, and I'm afraid that the weakest moments of the edit were pretty much any rescoring work. The music is generally well balanced in the mix, which I don't often find, but because of the audio quality and incomplete sound design, the scenes just aren't sold. Rescoring is hard. It requires a lot of time, effort and patience. If you're doing it in surround, it's very demanding. This edit is presented in stereo, which makes things a touch easier. But the reason it doesn't work is simply because it sounds unfinished. Random dry sound effects poke through what is mostly a music-dominated mix. This is not what you expect from a film mix and it just immediately tells me "oh, this has been rescored" and I'm taken out of the edit. Aside from key sound effects like sword clashes, punches, etc, you need to add back ambience. The sound of weather, the sound of a crowd, footsteps, shuffles, grunts etc. The brain notices when this stuff is absent and only music is playing. Often it's the sounds that you don't think about; the kind that when you listen, you don't think you can hear them, but if you were to mute them in the mix, you'd know something was missing. It's also important to add the appropriate room sound to sound effects so they aren't just leaping out of the mix bone dry.

Some montages might be the exception to this rule. The opening montage in this edit could maybe get away with not having all the sound rebuilt. The issue is tremault decides to rework select sound elements for select scenes, so it's inconsistent, and again comes across weird on the ears.

Putting aside rescored elements and one or two other moments, there were significant portions of the edit where the audio flowed smoothly and went by unnoticed. I imagine there were a lot of cuts made to the film, and so I would guess there was a lot of good work on transitions throughout. Excluding rescoring, it was typically the audio quality and visual cuts that let things down.

I do often try to give timecodes but if I'm watching with someone else I don't like to ruin their experience by constantly pausing the film to make notes. Hopefully what I've mentioned is context enough but I did go back to get a timecode for a particular moment that stuck out as needing more work:

- 47:57 - 48:02 - this doesn't work at all IMO. I can hear the audio crossfades and the visual cuts are abnormally quick. The shot of Korg's head is also very odd and somewhat in poor taste considering he is meant to be "actually" dead in a serious way in this edit(?). I don't think the segment adds much narratively, so personally I would just cut from the kiss to 48:02 ("guys we're here").


ENJOYMENT

It was difficult to enjoy the film because it was difficult to follow the film. The noticeable compression on opening and closing titles and limited audio work for rescored elements was also a distraction. Personally, I was not a fan of the music choices for the beginning and end of the edit, but that's subjective.

It's worth bearing in mind that I'm a musician by trade and am used to needing to be picky about audio. I also watch edits on some relatively expensive gear, which does tend to highlight faults more clearly than on your average device.

Thank you, tremault, for letting me watch this. It's clear that a lot of work has been put in, and I do admire that. It never feels good posting a negative review (especially when going against the crowd!). I always strive to be honest when I give feedback though, and I think that is the best way towards building a better community and helping us all improve on this hobby of ours :)

Tremault had some serious work cut out trying to remove the comedy from this deeply awkward entry in the MCU but has largely succeeded in crafting something watchable and actually quite moving here. The brutal arc of Jane Foster throughout the film no longer feels undercut at every possible turn (particularly as death is elsewhere treated as something reversable and comic in the original cut of the movie -- looking at you, Korg). Some of the fixes don't entirely work (the dream sequence cutaway with Zeus is a valiant attempt to trim the middle of the movie's bloat while still retaining important exposition but I'm not sure it quite succeeds). There's also just a few instances where the re-editing is apparent due to some lapses in editing grammar -- a number of characters are shown for the first time without any proper introduction, not given a name nor even a character establishing shot. Valkyrie in particular appears first as part of a group shot where normally she would be at least visually shown to stand apart from her subjects. Granted, not necessarily an easy thing to accomplish given the mess of the original film, but some kind of visual orientation is needed when introducing key characters in a text.

Nitpicks aside, this is such a vast improvement over the original version, and with some revisions, this could easily be a seamless replacement for the Thor 4 we got. The potential is there to be one of the most moving entries in the MCU -- if only Taika Waititi had had tremault's good judgment for emotional story beats on hand in the editing room!

This edit is so well done! The tone is steady and the remaining jokes are funny. Gorr is creepy and always feels looming; and I love that we understand his motivation from the go and his change of wish feels more believable now. I feel like theirs some audio issues once they arrive in the shadow realm but not detrimental. I love that korg is limited but the song when zues kills him feels clunky. Also, since you cut that New Asgard is a tourist trap you should cut them converting the ship from a ride, if possible. Also, if you put the flashbacks in the beginning after he closes his eyes so that star lord snaps him out of it might flow better. I love janes reveal, both as thor and that she has cancer. Her death broke my wife in this version lol

Long story short, this edit is amazing; turning a terrible movie into something worth watching!!!

Going into this edit, I was a little cautious. The opening scene after the Gore prologue with the Guardians I felt was really well done, but such a drastically different tone from what was presented in the theatrical cut. I was worried I would miss some of the comedy throughout the film... but all of my worries were for not!

Tremault has done a terrific job in removing so much of the unnecessary, over the top comedy! The result of which is a vastly superior movie with an actually compelling story that focuses on love and protecting those closest to us.
Jane being revealed when Thor first sees her is great. I do miss some of the flashback stuff, since I feel like we never got a quality set up for their relationship Jane's prior two film appearances, but I also don't see a place where they could go back in. Similarly, I wouldn't mind seeing some of the chemo-treatment scene integrated when Jane's cancer is revealed. That said, the edit still works really well without those scenes.
Removing the "love triangle" between Thor and his two weapons is a hugely welcome change, done seamlessly, and features one truly awesome transition shot around 26 minutes in! The crowning achievement of this edit, however, has got to be the improvements made to the Gore story line. Removing much of the comedy helps to make Gore no longer feels like he's in a completely different movie! With the run time cut, Gore isn't ever gone for too long, and the reduction of overt comedy really helps ground the story with Gore, which is a tragedy at it's core. Now, the ending is a little abrupt, I wouldn't mind the epilogue scene being reinserted, even if it is a little campy. But I also respect the decision to end it where it does.

Overall, while it doesn't completely redeem Love and Thunder, this edit is such a vast improvement from the theatrical cut!

SO this was my 3rd time seeing the movie, but it had to be this edit.
I wondered "what is left after all the comedy stuff". in the end its enough to make a good watch.
We had fun seeing the movie, and most of it flows perfect and the cuts are well done (and most of them well deserved).
A little hasty in the Townfight and i would have loved to see more of Jane in Flshbacks but the idea that we all see MIghty Thor at the same time for the first time with Thor makes it extra special.
After all i have to say that this cut still leaves me thinking why there is so much overdrawn comedy in it.

It will be my last time seeing this movie but i am glad that it was this stripped edit.
Well done !