X-Men: Requiem War

April 29, 2009 @ 11:37 am

re v3.21

wow! great watch! there are some technical issues still present (audio glitches, a few odd transitions…) but otherwise a great way to experience the xmen saga.

creativity in editing is very enjoyable and now we have a brand new xmen!

i agree completely with boon’s review, too. 8/10 looking forward to a v4?

March 22, 2009 @ 5:31 am

I have to say, I was not expecting much. X-Men was enjoyable enough, X2 is one of the great comic book movies, and X-Men: The Last Stand was practically a Sci-Fi original with a more notable cast. But color me impressed. I’ll try and break my concerns down film by film.

X-Men’s editing was brilliant except for some minor details. “I’ll have Jean braid your hair” was a good line, and it’s absence is missed, but Rogue’s stripe appears out of nowhere. From what I can tell, she got it from absorbing Wolverine. Just a few quick flashes of the Ellis Island sequence would have improved that scene, just to emphasize the point a little more.

X2 was the weakest job, I felt. Your goal of a darker world is well-realized, but the X-Men were not completely bleak, and some overzealous editing cuts out much of the humor that made the original film great. A lot of that humor came from the interactions of the younger X-Men during the mansion attack and the scenes at Bobby’s house, both of which, I felt, should have remained more or less intact, and once again the loss of one of the funnier lines of the movie proved detrimental. “No beer?” “This is a school.”

X-Men: The Last Stand fared much, much, much better thanks to your cuts, but with the re-insertion of a few scenes, it could be better. The Danger Room sequence, as stupid as it may have been at times, was some of the only true character moments in the film, and the loss of the Bobby/Rogue/Kitty triangle renders Rogue’s decision to seek the cure makes more sense. Angel’s formal introduction with his father trying to cure him, and his subsequent escape could be thrown back in, just to show the nasty side of Worthington, and so his appearance at the end wouldn’t be as awkward.

All in all, I was surprised that I missed the younger X-Men plots as much as I did, but as I said, reintegrating several scenes, and less editing of several included would make for a much better edit. One that could be labelled the quintessential X-Men cinematic experience. As it stands, a solid 8.5/10

March 16, 2009 @ 2:40 am

I just watched this last night.
Although the last hour dragged on a bit, the first 2 hours flew by and kept me very much interested.
Since it has been so long since I have seen X1 and X2, I couldn’t tell which part was from which movie most of the time. It is quite seemless and much more entertaining than either original movie.

Great work and thank you for your efforts.

8/10.

I was hesitant to get the Trilogy as well but I have changed my mind, since I was actually left wanting more :)

March 13, 2009 @ 9:22 am

Some expert work here. :)

The blending of films #1 and #2 is often ingenious – you’ve paid maximum respect to storytelling and technically the editing is wonderful.

It’s a shame that film #3 by comparison has glaring weaknesses in its script (though a good story idea) and in its overblown CGI sillyness. It’s clearly the work of a different director, too, but overall I thought you made a pretty good fist of trying to integrate a lousy 3rd movie into films #1 and #2.

Thanks for your efforts Wraith.

8/10 from me.

February 25, 2009 @ 10:19 pm

X-Men Requiem War v3.21 by Wraith

review by boon23

Prologue:

It is the length of the movie with 192 minutes that kept me a long time from watching this, even though I promised Wraith to do it a long time ago. Now finally my bad conscience was strong enough to launch it and it took me 3 sessions to finish it, not because I was not entertained, but because I hardly ever have over 3h to spend for a movie.

The project itself was always fascinating to me, as it was such a huge undertaking to really turn the 3 X-Men movies into one consisting story. I watched an hour of the first ever release of this (which is another reason why I put it on hold for so long – and there were quite some inconsistencies, but the potential was already there for a great movie.

And with this probably final release I started again. It’s X-Men time.

As for all my reviews: this is just my personal opinion of this fanedit. I cannot tell anybody else, if he or she will experience it in the same way or the opposite. So my review is not objective and does not reflect the opinion of fanedit.org.

!!!!This review contains heavy spoilers!!!

The edit:

From the very beginning it is perfectly clear that this is not just all X-Men movies united to one. The plot jumps from 1 to 2 and back and forth to really tell one story about the coming war between mutants and humans and that’s about all this fanedit is about. There are hardly any sidetracks and the plot develops to the peak in the finale with quite a huge climax with the finale of X-Men 2.

What wraith did with the 3 movies is incredible. The fanedit has a completely new flow to it and so many well known scenes are presented in a truly different context. Wraith had an idea and he consequently put it to life with a lot of skill. So much effort went into this project and it really shows, starting with a great plot, very good edits and audio cuts. It really has the feel of ONE movie. And it’s a great one.

It isn’t perfect though. At various points scenes are referred to that have not been included, when for example Rogue says she saved Wolverine’s life, when in fact she did nothing but watch in this movie. There is a Jean Grey scene, where she says she had lost control before, but nothing happened in the fanedit. Also the quality of the scenes varies, because some of the included deleted scenes were of lower quality.

Then there are some things about the plot that should be mentioned: The capture of Magneto is not shown and it is kind of missed. He suddenly is imprisoned and the first Xavier visit feels a bit out of place. I also had my difficulties believing that the war plans of the Magneto group were continuing without him. The X-Men 3 part felt a bit too long, especially the final fight.

However, it is the best version of X-Men I have ever seen – and I mean that for all 3 of them, especially the third one, which really gets a great improvement by the huge amount of cut scenes. For such a huge project I cannot say much else but: Bravo.

editing: 9 of 10,
entertainment: 8 of 10

Image and video quality:

The image quality was good, except for a few of the deleted scenes that were of a bit lower quality. Well done starting and end credits, though I think that one starting credit would have been better than two.

Video quality: 9 of 10

Audio editing and audio quality:

The audio editing was most of the time well done. There are some clicks and some scenes are a bit too loud in comparison or too quiet. Still: wonderful audio editing.

audio editing: 9 of 10
audio quality: 8 of 10

presentation:

The DVD comes with a still main menu on which 2 video screens are put. it looks a lot like tmpg dvd author and not realyl good. 25 chapter menus all with sound is kind of an overkill. The included extras are both bad quality. Cover art was attached, which is ok, but not great.

DVD menus: 4 of 10, cover art 6 of 10, extras: 3 of 10, existence of chapters, extras and cover art: 10 of 10

This results in a 6 of 10 rating from me for presentation.

Final result: 8 of 10.

A great fanedit, which I can highly recommend to anyone who likes X-Men or superhero movies in general. It is a huge improvement over the originals IMO.