Wolverine: The James Mangold Restoration, The

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.

For the content that was available, this was a great edit. The ending was a little abrupt for obvious reasons, but at the end of the day this is now my preferred way to watch this movie. Thank you.

I loved this!
I really appreciated the smaller scope this edit turned the movie into, and I wish the theatrical version leaned more in this direction.

This edit now has made it one of my favorite X-Men movies with the removal of Viper who I did not like very much, and the Silver Samurai fight which was just alright.

If only there was a way to make the ending feel not as abrupt, it would be all 10's for me. This will be my main version of this movie moving forward!

This was an interesting fan edit to watch. I will not go into details regarding the narrative changes as it was already mentioned in details by other fellow reviewers. Certainly one thing stands out here is Wakeupkeo's love for the original movie. He completely changed the mood of the movie. The film feels now like a neo noir super hero movie. It is better paced and a lot of unnecessary scenes have been trimmed to serve the new mood of the film.

I went into this fan edit clueless and had no prior knowledge on James Mangold struggle with the studio. This fan edit reminds me of Paul Schrader Dying of the light cut which elevates the orginal movie
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So is Silver Screen Samurai better than the original cut. Maybe not, but one thing is certain is.. Wakeupkeo ability on giving us a wonderful new take on the Wolverine. Well done and hope to see more edits from you in the future.

While I'm certainly glad that CGI mess of a third act was removed, there were still some minor issues with the narrative stemming from its removal. In the theatrical, the robot bug was placed in Logan's body by Viper. In this edit, how it got there was a mystery because of Viper's removal from the narrative.

I liked that the fight with the ninjas and Harada was re-contextualized to be almost like a fight between suitors of Mariko's affections- as Harada was a former lover of her's- but Harada's fate was never revealed in this edit, though it could be presumed Logan had killed him.

The transition from the snowblower explosion to the final dream sequence with Jean Grey was well done, but it took me a couple of rewatches of the scene to get that Logan had caused the explosion to take out the ninjas, then it knocked him out long enough for him to have his vision of Jean, and then he recovered to get Mariko, which then transitioned to the airport scene.

Overall, a very well done edit, but I feel removing some of the characters and removing the original third act and replacing it with the new one created its own share of narrative problems. It's still very much recommended, and I enjoyed it much more than the original.