Wolverine: The James Mangold Restoration, The

White out shot transitioning end of fight before tower into the plane goodbye scene was a bit jarring but other than that everything it aimed to get across worked well and I very much enjoyed it.

QUALITY

I'll get the most negative aspect over with right away: the audio quality was very poor. I'm surprised to see no one has mentioned this, so I don't know if this is the case across the other versions, but I did ask before downloading and was told that the file types were just there as a matter of preference. I saw the Version 3 MKV and it sounded like the audio had gone through two too many phases of compression. I notice that the bitrate is 128kb/s which is way too low anyway for what is being presented as a blu-ray equivalent, but there's definitely something more than that at play from the sound of things. While the quality generally sounded brittle, the sound of rain and loud action scenes betrayed obvious artefacts which were not pleasant to listen to.

In terms of visual quality, this largely looked very good. There's the odd darker shot where quite a bit of compression is noticeable, but more often than not everything looks clean and crisp, although not on par with what I'd expect from the file size.

Since this was a collab with some work being done by SS and some by Keo, I wonder if some of this is a result of passing compressed files back and forth? This is purely speculative though.


VISUAL

One tiny niggle is the opening text, giving context for the concept of the edit. This is nicely written and gives clear reasoning, but it's dumped in large blocks that go by much too fast to read. The name of "James Mangold" also just suddenly appears on screen instead of fading in with the quote like everything else, which I assumed to be a small oversight.

A larger thing is a re-purposed dream sequence with various bits of added sound design and quick visual cuts going on (at around 32:45). I remember it being trialled when the edit was in-the-works and there was something about it that jarred with me then, even though I liked the idea. Seeing it in the context of the edit made it seem all the more 'fanedity' to me. Other than this, there was nothing bad that stood out from a visual editing perspective and obviously a lot of the transitions work very well.


AUDIO

Mostly good across the board, though there were a few cuts that sounded slightly unnatural to me. Mostly in the first half of the film:

- 23:09
- 33:21
- 39:45 (there is a jump in the audio)
- 50:08
- 53:00-53:10 (this is an odd edit simply because a music cue fades in then immediately fades out again)
- 1:27:07

Note that I viewed this on a surround system. Some of these come across a lot better in stereo.


NARRATIVE

I have only seen The Wolverine once, so in some cases I'm not sure if narrative weaknesses lie with the theatrical cut or not. Largely this is more or less coherent, but it also just seemed a bit vague to me in regard to motivations etc. While the bigger picture of a girl on the run with Logan as protector was clear, I always felt like there was some context missing. This may have been an issue with the original, I can't be sure, but that's how it felt to me.

The mystery of why Logan has a machine attached to his heart is both baffling and also jars with the stated concept of the edit (to keep things grounded and avoid added science fiction elements, as per Mangold's intent). That being said, the film does largely come across as a grounded thriller that happens to star Wolverine, and I did find this refreshing. Arguably it makes it slightly mundane and underwhelming as an X-Men entry, but I preferred it to the mecha madness we get at the end of the theatrical cut.

Funnily enough, compared to most others, I don't really consider the end to be all that anti-climactic. We get two big action sequences, one of which is with the only person we've been presented with as a villain during the course of the movie. What IS abrupt is the transition from "end of battle" to "all's well that ends well"; we just get a whiteout as the smoke clears and then we're at the airport, waving goodbye. Technically, I thought this came across quite well, but you can tell scenes have been skipped over. Still, it's nowhere near as jarring or unnatural as I thought it would be based on reviews. A much larger issue in my view is that our "main baddie" is done away with, and then our final battle is with someone I didn't even recognise. I think they were present at the funeral? But beyond that, I didn't know who they were supposed to be or why they were significant. The fiance also seems underdeveloped. Logan says he "seems like an asshole" but I didn't recall them ever having a scene together, then when we next see him it's Logan breaking into his room to interrogate him.


ENJOYMENT

The audio quality is the biggest flaw for me, and something I was surprised to encounter. If that wasn't an issue, I would probably consider this preferable to watching the theatrical, despite some narrative confusion. But hearing audio artefacts and how brittle everything is during loud action scenes was grating and distracted from my enjoyment quite a bit.

Thank you to both of the editors for the experience and I'm sorry I can't be more positive. I hope the audio can be improved in a future version (assuming it's not a fluke in the particular file I have).

Decided to go in fresh for this edit since I haven't seen the film before so this may act more as a film review than a fanedit review.

Overall, it's not that bad. Definitely more of the "uber grounded" type of films that I'm just tired of at this point, but it worked more here than in other films.

Yeah, the original mini-series this is loosely based on ain't done............at all here honestly. But it's not painfully butchered as in other films either.

As for the edit, the ending was a bit confusing but after reading some of the editor's notes it made more sense. Though I do think it could have been executed a bit better. The removal of Viper was expertly done though, barely noticed her being missing at all.

I will start by saying that I really liked the original, despite not enjoying much the third act. The tone was almost completely out of place compared to the previous two acts, but still, I enjoyed a lot the "Ronin" take on the Wolverine.

Now, when it comes to the edit, up until the moment where Logan kills Shingen, I loved it! I was thinking, no way, these guys actually did it and have restored the original vision of the director! Granted, the first two acts were the "easy part", but still, it gave me the impression that the third act will fall in line. The editing was superb, audio the same and the changes that were made were most welcome. Particularly I was pleasantly surprised with the seamless removal of the action sequence in the love hotel and how it went from Logan passing out at the balcony, straight to the part where the son of the hotel owner is removing Logan's bullets. Also, no more Viper ;)

But then, we went to the third act where I was really really surprised, and not in a good way, about what was done. First of all, the edit from Logan removing the sword from his chest to the pagoda where his next destination was, was abrupt. Then, we have an awkward sequence of Harada saying something to Mariko and trying to kiss her and then we go straight to the fight with him, the ninjas and Wolverine. As it turns out, it was the final battle, where yet again there is another abrupt cut of Wolverine and Jean, which leads as to the scene of the plane where Logan is leaving and saying goodbye to Mariko. The end.

I never saw this coming. In my mind, the way this edit was going, I was sure of one of two things would happen, either the final battle would be with Shingen, which I would had loooved if that was the case, or they would have heavily trimmed the Silver Samurai sequence. Well, I was wrong on both accounts. I don't know about you guys, but if the final battle was Shingen vs Wolverine, it would have been perfect. Obviously, you would need to remove the "come and get her" scene and find some in-between scenes to connect the end of the battle with the scene at the airport, but I think it's possible, even if we get a couple of abrupt cuts to achieve that.

The only reason I recommend this edit is for people who absolutely cannot stand the third act of the movie and for the excellent work that was done with the first two. For me, I think I will stick with the original version..

Thank you guys for reading my review and a big thank you to Silver Screen Samurai and Wakeupkeo for all their hard work!

A fantastic edit all around. From a technical standpoint, there are no hiccups with the audio and visual edits, as they come together seamlessly. Even the original sequences added in, I had to check the cut list to make sure they were unique to the edit instead of being from the original, they were that good! The story has been heavily refined into what Manigold would have wanted, a neo noir, Japanese flavored adventure focusing on Wolverine, bringing out the best in this movie in the process. I don't even mind some complains others had about the edit: 1) I like that we don't actually know who poisoned Logan initially, in a film like this its nice that there's a mysterious element you'd have to think about after it ends, and there's room for interpretation. Based on the previous scenes, I assumed it was Shingen's doing. 2) The ending may be a bit abrupt, but it's well executed in its concept and I like the symbolism: Logan leaves behind his past to focus on the woman right in front of him, high up in the tower.

That being said, I feel Harada is the weakest link in the edit. His turn as the antagonist feels rather sudden, as unlike Shingen, we don't have any scenes with him to set up his eventual return. That's understandable, given the only scenes he has are shared with Viper, who has wisely been cut from the narrative, but it still leaves a jarring turn as he suddenly takes over. I feel even a few scenes earlier on with Harada that have been cut, like him helping Logan escape with Mariko, would help his character stand out better, but I'll admit that might not be an option. It still a worthwhile, gorgeous edit to watch.