Thor - The Dark World: Hard Forged Edition

A great edit of what could have been an awesome movie if it had been streamlined like this.

Thor is my personal favorite Avenger and I am glad and grateful for TM2YC's hard work on this, which can be appreciated thoughout.

No screen time is wasted this time around and the exposition is reduced to the bare minimum, falwlessly edited for video in HD and audio; sadly, as many other faneditors these days, it provides a 2.0 audio track; therefore I have to apply my rule of deducting points from the A/V Quality department.

***spolier alert***

My only complaint is the removal of the Loki surviving and taking over posing as Odin twist in the original. Not only it stays true to Loki's character arc and motivations, I think that will play an important part in the upcoming entries in the MCU and shouldnt have been removed. Enjoyment department loses a point for this.

The Marvel Cinematic universe has a formula that works for a lot of people, among those me, for the Original Thor Dark World movie they hired a visionary director who had a vision of the character and world but didn't agree with the formula and that clash was reflected on the movie. In this edit we get a different view of things almost a "what if" the director had more creative freedom. I really enjoyed this edit, I liked the jokes on the original one and was glad that they remained here, the narrative of the movie flows better and we don't get repetitions of some plots and jokes, unfortunately it can do miracles with the antagonist of the movie but overall this edit is fantastic as are all of TM2YC's edits. The video and audio as always are flawless, the transitions make it seem as if this was the original film, congratulations, great work.

*Minimum Spoilers*
TM2YC took a muddled mess of a film and edited it into a much better one. That's the aim of the majority of fan edits, I know, but if you take the main three MCU heroes' Phase Two films, the only well-regarded one is The Winter Soldier. Iron Man for all of it witty dialogue and funny moments, is ruined by BS character decisions and nonsensical motivations, as well as ignoring SHIELD entirely. Thor: The Dark World not only fails to balance its comedy with its drama, but opens with pointless exposition and removes all mystery from its villains. Basically, by introducing its villains before its heroes and preventing you from learning with the heroes about the villains, you're that one step further away from fully associating with the movie's protagonists. What TM2YC does with this edit is takes that burden of having forcing the audience to pay attention to the opening lesson and carry that knowledge throughout the rest of the film, you are able to discover the Aether with Jane and experience her confusion WITH her, instead of being brought out of the experience when you think to yourself "Hey, I think that's the thing from the beginning; I think I'm keeping up with this movie even though I'm not quite sure how any of this works." Instead of frustrating the viewer with giving things they half-understand, the viewer is encouraged to trust the movie to explain things eventually; and TM2YC does. The pacing is saved with this edit! The humour in the latter half of the film feels earned! Loki doesn't quip along and claim he hates his mum (which we know is a lie since his character progression relies on this connection). The weird post-credits scene in the theatrical cut has been inserted into the body of the film, where it belongs!!!

The editing is brilliant and seamless. The changes to the subtitles are well-written and a massive improvement. The ONE PROBLEM I have with this edit (EDIT: aside from the occasional dip in quality in darker scenes, which was easy to look past)...is the removal of the film's final shot. Even though it gives the movie a better ending that doesn't leave the viewer with a sh**-ton of questions, it's a grand bloody shot and deserves at least some place. I mean you have a perfect space for it in the post-credits montage! Nonetheless, a great edit that elevates the hell out of previously mediocre movie.

I really appreciate you sending this to me, because now I won't hesitate on whether to watch a mediocre Thor sequel any more. For a light fan edit as you put it, you've managed to fix a lot of my personal gripes with the flick. First, the color correction looks very natural and professional. I know from personal experience that it's one of the more difficult aspects of fan editing. Second, the cuts you made were again natural and were actually creative as well as seem less. I'm also glad you left in the quips and humor untouched (from what I could tell) since that was what saved the original cut for me. And finally, the overall improvement in the narrative, in the fact that the flick is pretty much a waste of time in terms of impact on the cinematic universe. Well, again with the use of deleted scenes, re writing the subtitles and some clever re ordering (btw I love the way you ended on Loki) that is no longer a problem. Now I wanna see you possibly tackle another MCU entry in the future.

Thanks for the edit, I must say it flows pretty well, much better than the original!

I'm not sure what to think of the ending concerning Loki, I thought it was much more ambiguous than the theatrical cut. Is that a good thing? I don't know. However, the official canon is the less ambiguous part that's why I'm uncertain of this one. Still, it works and the end credits scenes are definitely in the correct order now.

As far as the editing, it was seamless throughout. Had I not watched the original, I wouldn't even notice what got cut. The added scenes blended perfectly with the theatrical ones. I did notice a small drop in picture/audio quality but maybe that's just because the blu-ray is uncompressed and maybe has a better bitrate overall, which would be unsurprising. However, it's definitely good!

I noticed that you removed 1 or 2 Loki lines here and there, most notably a line with Odin, and I'm not sure I can agree with this. Loki's actor kills it in this movie and I'm not sure that removing any of his scenes is worth it, even if it's just 1 bit of dialogue. That's the only thing I wouldn't remove, in my opinion.

Apart from that, the movie paces so much better in the early parts it's an incredible bump from the theatrical cut. The "exposition" scenes are placed in a way better position in the movie and leaves a lot of surprise/suspense to the early parts, a kind of "what's going on?" feeling instead of already knowing because of narration. This movie is a great example of why avoiding narration is often the right choice: you removed it and placed the exposition where it made more sense and the movie was greatly improved by it.

So, a very great edit, I'm glad I have this now and I strongly suggest people to get it. I would hope for a slightly tweaked version restoring the removed Loki dialogue but that's just nitpicking. I don't think it's much more than 1 or 2 lines of dialogue in all. I was thinking specifically of "Give or take 5000 years" and such.

Have a nice day!