Thor - The Dark World: Hard Forged Edition

Far from the best Thor movie, but still unfairly maligned, this edit gets the movie much closer to its potential level of quality by streamlining its romance, action and mystery beats. Enjoyed this one a lot. Glad TM2YC turned their talents to it!

In my personal quest to find out the right fanedits to fully enjoyed the whole (most of it) MCU I happily encounter Thor - Dark World: Hard Forged Edition and it is absolutely a vast improvement over the theatrical version. I watched this film 5 years ago and I felt it as a missing opportunity - I got pretty bored with it. This edit brings cohesion to the MCU and subtly introduces the first of the infinity stones. Moreover, it helps to increase resonance to Thor's feelings in Endgame installment when the god of thunder returns to Asgard. So, this edit is worthy to be revisited and from now on my to-go version of this movie.

Here, the audio/video edition is seamless and the narrative is significantly improved just re-ordering the scenes. This is masterfully achieved by TM2YC. I would like to justify my lower score in the remaining fields. Audio/video quality is good but not superb in the MP4 (HD) format. It will be a nice upgrade if a better version is released. Especially, some scenes in Asgard suffer much from poor CGI which is more notorious in this edit compared for example to the Blu-ray version. In terms of audio, 2 channels are provided. Finally, my enjoyment was not higher due to the source material itself (nothing to do with the faneditor).

I really encourage to watch this edit and enjoy what TM2YC has achieved with imo a very poor source material.

Great edit. This was a solid movie and with some trimming it is even better. I agree with most of the dumb stuff cut. I liked the humor peppered throughout so I'm glad you retained that. I think the ending is a bit more satisfying. This replaces the film for me.

I really like Thor 1, imho it was entertaining and had a good story-arc with the protagonist going through a period of character-building. I really don't like Thor 2 cause it lacked any interesting story arc and all the portal-stuff was imho lame, the villain even lamer. So I'm not really the natural audience for this edit, because a fanedit, no matter how good can't completely transform a bad story into an awesome story. Still I couldn't resist to try TM2YC's fanedit of it, just to see how much it could be improved by a talented faneditor. So how did I like it? *SPOILER-WARNING*:

I spotted three big changes:
1. The opening exposition was moved to the middle: Good idea, cause that way we get to know about the villains at the same time as Thor.
But I would have even gone further and let the movie start with Jane and her date.

2. The movie's pace is quicker than in the original, shortening transitions, using less expositions: I like that.

3. The end is completely different: This is my favourite change. By not showing Loki, Loki's "death" has more meaning as well as Thor's talk with his father. That is imho the best change of this edit and improves the movie's impact for me. I also liked the end with Thor meeting again Jane, has that nice romantic touch. So two thumbs up for that new ending TM2YC!

(4. I'm unsure if it wasn't already this way in the original or not, can't remember: When Thor and his friends discuss how to bring Jane out of Asgard, the plan's details are talked about and then shown happening with little flashbacks/flashforwards. Loved it, but I'm unsure if it is TMYC's invention or already that way in the original. If the first, then kudos to TMYC!)

Verdict: I love the new ending, but still the edit doesn't completely change the story for the better. The villain is still hugely generic and lame, the portal-thing unnerving, that stuff that is the medium for that dark energy is lame.. But that is pretty much unchangeable through editing, so no fault of this edit.
But through the new ending and the quicker pace it has improved it for me.
Editing is nearly flawless, good work! My narrative and enjoyment-score is only so low because of the source's story.
For fans of "Thor 2" I can recommend this edit, especially because of the new and imho better ending!