Foster on Film

These are reviews of “Fan Edits” and are intended for people who are familiar with the “original” studio cuts.  I may reveal details of those versions, including twists and the ending.

After the Star Wars films, there are more fan edits of The Matrix movies than any other film or film series.  It’s easy to see why.  Like Star Wars, you have an initial film that sparked the imagination of a generation.  It was new and exciting, with multiple layers if you wanted them.  Plus, sci-fi tends to evoke more fanaticism then urban dramas or romantic comedies.  Also like Star Wars, things went wrong with the later films, and those devoted fans were deeply disappointed, in this case by The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions.  Once again, established characters were diminished, pompous speeches were everywhere, and the filmmakers were caught up in their own fame and their ability to create amazing special effects.

But there is a difference.  No matter how silly the characters (Jar Jar Binks), or how dull the story elements (difficult trade negotiations), The Phantom Menace and its follow-ups were coherent.  It may have been a bad story, poorly executed, but it made sense when it was finished, and most of what happened was relevant.  Not so for The Matrix flicks.  In The Matrix Reloaded, Neo (Keanu Reeves) must reach “The Source.”  To do that, he must work with Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) and Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) to kidnap/rescue The Keymaker from a rogue program, and carryout an elaborate scheme, fighting agents all the way.  Except The Architect (the guy at The Source) wants to talk to Neo.  Two hours could have been replaced by one phone call: “Hey, Neo, this is The Architect.  I built The Matrix and I want to be Mr. Exposition, filling you and the audience in on what’s going on.  Come up to my office.  I’ll leave the door open.”  Once Neo learns that the reason for his existence is to repair some code, nothing ever comes of it.  Neo never reinserts this code.  The entire plot of the the movie is dropped as soon as The Matrix Revolutions begins.

Revolutions, unlike Reloaded, isn’t unnecessary, it is incoherent.  The rules of the story no longer apply.  There is a vague structure upon which is placed even wilder special effects sequences and religious allegories.  Neo is no longer a metaphor for Christ; he is Christ.  The Wachowski Brothers (writers, directors, and producers of all three films) lost sight of the difference between a symbol and the thing that is being symbolized.  My reviews of The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions discuss this in greater detail.  You may find that, considering my comments, that my rating is high for both films.  That’s because my film ratings do not signify the quality of a film, but how much effort you should put into seeing it.  I recommend seeing both films once, preferably on a very large screen, just to experience the effects.  But once is enough, and both films get progressively less pleasant on repeat viewings.

As it is the sequels that are lacking, it is those two films that receive the bulk of the attention of fan editors.  I’ve only seen The Matrix touched when the editor is attempting to turn all three films into a single work.  The Matrix has no huge mistakes that need correcting.  Many people love it as is.  Those who don’t (usually people who aren’t fond of the genre) are not going to like it any better if it is re-cut.  As already stated, it’s a different story for the sequels.  The most often cited problems are:

• Focus not on Neo.
• Speeches.  So many speeches.
• Agent Smith’s existence.  (I love the guy, but wasn’t he utterly destroyed in the first film?)
• Over-long combat sequences that rarely move the plot along, nor seem of any importance except to show off new effects.
• Neo has magic powers outside of The Matrix.
• Multiple “The Ones.”
• The Kid.
• Locke is not only perpetually grouchy, he’s a useless commander.  (He’s upset they set off an EMP even though without it, they’d all be dead.  And what is his plan for defeating the machines?)
• Morpheus/Locke/Niobe love triangle.
• The Rave.  (I don’t dislike The Rave.  Sure it’s ridiculous.  Ever dance on rock?  And why is everyone twenty-five?  But since I gave up on sense and plot early, and watch the films purely for what is “pretty,” The Rave works.)
• Merovingian.  He talks.  And talks.  And talks.
• Persephone’s request for a kiss.
• Another resurrection through the power of love.
• Religious symbolism overwhelms the story and characters.
• Unnecessary, irrelevant, and uninteresting subplots (the Trainman, the Last Exile).
• The death of actress Gloria Foster is dealt with poorly. (Deal with it, or don’t deal with it.  Don’t make multiple vague references to it.)
• The ending.  It is not only depressing, but serves only to tie up the allegory, not the story.

And that is only the major flaws.

So, what have the fan editors come up with?

The Matrix Dezionized

The Matrix Reloaded Hacked/The Matrix Revolutions Hacked

The Matrix Regenerated

The Matrix Squared

---

The Matrix Dezionized

Editor(s): CBB Group.  Runtime: 143 min (-124 min).  2005/2006.

This is a focused edit.  The CBB Group attempts to fix the many problems with the sequels by combining Reloaded and Revolutions into one film, and cutting all scenes that take place in Zion.  It’s amazing how many flaws are eradicated in this way, and how seamless it is.  Gone is the unneeded (in any form) first visit to the last city.  Gone is the late night walk which takes up time, but adds nothing dramatically.  Gone are multiple speeches and the rave.  Gone is Locke, and with him, his unreasonably poor military skills and the love triangle.  Gone is The Kid, the Jar Jar Binks of The Matrix series.  Gone are side plots that are irrelevant to Neo’s story, and multiple characters who do nothing but take up space on the screen.  Without that Zion time (nearly one hundred and twenty minutes), Neo is once again front and center.  The first film was his story, and now the sequel is as well.

With such an extreme cut, I’d expect there to be some heavy losses of needed material, but there aren’t.  Niobe is now underdeveloped considering the important roll she plays, and the most exciting effects sequence (the battle for the Zion docks—it is exciting and looks great; it also lacks verisimilitude, which is a significant statement in a film where everything is pushing believability) is gone, but I didn’t mind.  I hardly noticed.  And nothing else cut has any effect on what is left.  The edits are made with such precision and skill that they are undetectable.  If I didn’t know, I’d never guess that this wasn’t a product of the studio.

While the removal of Zion and the renewed focus on Neo is the most important change, The CBB Group also cut many of the sequels’ more painful moments.  In The Matrix, Morpheus was strange, but still a reasonable man who could inspire others.  In Reloaded, he was changed into a raving cult priest.  Much of that alteration appeared in the Zion scenes, but was first visible onboard the Nebuchadnezzar when he tells Link that he must “trust” him.  CBB sliced this out.  It was a poor conversation under any circumstances, but it was particularly damaging to the character because of how early it appeared in the picture.  In Dezionized, Morpheus is much more the character I remember from the first film.

Another improvement is the elimination of Trinity’s rooftop death.  Neo had died and been brought back in the first film (not its finest moment).  It was hardly something that needed to be repeated.  In Reloaded, it played like the climax to  a bad romance novel.  Instead, Neo now catches Trinity, flying her to the rooftop, and the scene ends.  Nothing else is required.

Finally, The CBB Group took aim at excessive effects combats.  Neo fights an army of Agent Smiths long past the point where it is exciting.  It was impressive that The Wachowski Brothers could pull off so many copies of actor Hugo Weaving.  Unfortunately, the scene lacks drama, and feels like nothing but the Wachowskis yelling, “Look what we can do.”  Making it worse, they couldn’t always “do it.”  At times, the digital effects become obvious and the combatants look like cartoons.  Still, the fight is entertaining for a few moments.  Dezionized does not cut as much of the fight as I’d like, but probably as much as is possible without making it choppy.

I was also thrilled to see the never-ending highway chase shortened.  Again, it is still too long, but it is better.

Even with all the slices, the CBB Group was very conservative.  That may seem an odd statement considering they cut 123 minutes, but outside of Zion, they left most of the scenes intact, even ones which cried out to be removed.  A good example is “The Kiss.”  It is repetitive (Persephone explains four times why she is betraying her husband), stops the momentum of the film, and is trite beyond the point where the English language can describe it.  It’s also easy to remove.  Persephone meets them at the elevator doors and they walk together, without explanation, to get The Keymaker.  Done.  There are many similar moments, but it is severe to criticize a fan edit for not being better than the studio filmmakers in every case.  In some, they come out even.

Alright, so The CBB Group made a lot of cuts, all of them good.  They showed an ingenuity that the Wachowskis lacked when putting together their film and have a better understanding of narrative structure and pacing.  Yes, Dezionized is better than its source material.  But, is it good? Well, not so much.  By clearing away piles of rubbish, by eliminating distractions, Dezionized is a much clearer picture.  The basic plot stands out more, and therein lies the problem.  That plot is still a cancerous boil on sci-fi cinema.  We still have Neo performing magic for no reason.  The first half is still a quest, passing through boring and ludicrous characters, that never needed to happen and ends with The Architect telling Neo information which is dropped for the second half.  And in that second half, Neo becomes Jesus and religious symbolism replaces the story.  At least in the theatrical versions, I could occasionally forget how stupid it all was under the constant bombardment of noise and nonsense.

As is the case for most fan edits, Dezionized tried to fix the original filmmakers’ vision, not replace it.  But it isn’t a vision worth fixing.  I would rather watch this cut than the theatrical sequels, but I’m afraid I’d still rather skip them all.

---

The Matrix Reloaded Hacked/The Matrix Revolutions Hacked

Editor(s): Doctor M.  Runtime: 111/96 min (-27/-33 min).  2006.

The Matrix Hacked is the most interesting fan edit of the series, and I doubt I will find one that is conceptually better.  Dezionized tried to fix the Wachowski Brother’s “vision.” Hacked has a different philosophy.  It follows through with what it looked like they had originally planned. The effect is the same as a producer coming in three-fourths  of the way through the filming of Reloaded and forcing the Wachowskis to stay on track. The plot is more coherent, the religious symbols stay symbols, and the tone matches that of the The Matrix.  In order to achieve this, Doctor M has radically re-worked the films.  He has kept them separate, though I doubt anyone will watch one without following it immediately with the other.  The alterations to Reloaded are substantial when compared to other fan edits, but do not change the general story.  There’s a lot of trimming and tucking.  Revolutions is another matter. Scenes are rearranged, motivations are altered, and the fates of both major and minor characters have been rewritten, all to the better.  I wish Doctor M could have been part of the preproduction process.  He has a better eye for what makes a narrative than anyone hired to work on the film.

Of course, conception is not execution, and the Hacked films do not play out as well in practice as in theory.  You can’t fault anyone for that.  Doctor M had to work with the footage he had, and sometimes that wasn’t quite enough.  So the cuts are not always smooth.  Sometimes it is an awkwardness in the picture or sound, as the film jumps a bit quickly from one spot to another.  At other times, it is new continuity errors, such as The Kid, who is no longer introduced, suddenly walking with Tank’s bags. In general, Doctor M has done a superb job splicing together what he’s got, but the seems are visible.

So, how has Doctor M restructured the story?  Simply, he’s made the visit to The Architect important (thus making Reloaded relevant).  Unlike the theatrical version, where Neo ignores what he’s told about needing to reintegrate the code that he carries into the Matrix and nothing comes of it, in Hacked, it means something.  As The Oracle points out, The Architect’s exact statements are inaccurate, but his general position is correct.  Destroying Agent Smith isn’t the main goal; getting his code to the machine city is.  Neo needs to jack-in to take care of Smith, and then travel with Trinity to bargain with the machines: his code for the survival of Zion.  This puts the climactic Smith fight before the battle for Zion.  And after Neo meets with the machines, then Trinity and Morpheus must go to the Merovingian to get Neo out.  Anyone familiar with the films will see just how major these shifts are.  The biggest improvement is in the ending, which no longer is a reenactment of the Crucifixion.  The new ending is immensely more satisfying.  And the Rave even works when made into a celebration of victory instead of whatever the hell it was supposed to be before.

Other improvements include: Less time spent with Locke’s unprofessional outbursts, a little less of Merovingian’s aimless chatting, no irrelevant “last-exile” subplot, no Trainman subplot, a lot less of The Kid and Zee, and Neo no longer has super powers outside of The Matrix.  All of these changes makes the movies more watchable, though they are responsible for some of the harshest cuts.

Is too much ever cut?  No.  However, the near-removal of The Kid and Zee, who were our guides in the Zion battles, leaves those scenes less emotional than they should be, but the trade-off is worthwhile.  Otherwise, every cut is an unconditional improvement.  That’s not surprising because Doctor M errors on the other side—he doesn’t cut nearly enough.  Since he admits to being inspire by Dezionized, it is disappointing that he didn’t follow its lead in cutting some of the egregiously long action/effects sequences and other problematic moments. Trinity dies on the rooftop, the multiple-Agent Smith vs. Neo fight goes on forever, the chase is here in all its overstuff glory, and Morpheus tells Link to “trust him.”  These changes could have been taken directly out of Dezionized; maybe another fan editor will do just that.  But those cuts would not have been enough.  The changed structure of the movies set many other moments on the cutting block, but no blade is dropped.  Doctor M states “My goal is to preserve as much of the original footage as possible.”  But why, when the finished product would be better with a few more swings of the axe?

The question—as always—is: Are these fan edits good movies?  Almost, which is something I never thought I’d be able to say about Matrix sequels.  The new ending alone makes it a close call.  But even with more unnecessary moments removed, it would still have the Wachowskis’ misconceived concept as its foundation.  While watching, I was still left wondering why The Architect didn’t just ring up Neo and invite him over.  And why is this vital code stuck in some randomly chosen human in the first place?  And why…  Oh, there are too many.  Doctor M has done an amazing job finding the gem stone in the rough, but it’s not a diamond.  Maybe an opal,  and it still needs some cleaning.

---

The Matrix Regenerated

Editor(s): Chocalho da Morte.  Runtime: 253 min (-150 min).  2005.

The Matrix Regenerated combines all three Matrix films, as well as a few moments from The Animatrix, chops over a third of the footage, and drops the English dialog track in favor of Chinese dubbing with English subtitles. Obviously, this isn’t your typical fan edit.  With more abrupt scene transitions, this version has a staccato feel, as if the films were being translated into a manga comic or a B-level Hong Kong flick.  Actually, it feels more Japanese, but as my wife knows some Chinese and was with me for part of my viewing, I’ll stick with Hong Kong.

Chocalho da Morte claims that he isn’t trying to improve the original films, just make something different.  Many fan editors say that with an eye toward future legal problems or to be humble, but in this case, I believe him.  No one would replace their copies of the theatrical versions with this.  Instead, you might toss this on during that party you were planning for all your Asian film fan friends.  Or better still, have it playing on big screens at a local dance club while the speakers blare j-pop.  As for sitting quietly and watching, it’s amusing for a while, but it starts to wear thin at the hour mark, and this goes on for well over four hours.  As a forty-five minute short, this style might work.

I rate Regenerated as poorer than the source material, but that was almost certainly going to be the case even if all of Chocalho da Morte’s work was brilliant since he is editing the original The Matrix as well as the sequels.  The first film has little that can be removed without harming the work, and da Morte’s cuts are almost random.  Pieces are gone, others remain, and I can’t figure why.  The addition of brief clips from the short The Kid (out of The Animatrix) doesn’t help.  At first, it appears that those segments are supposed to be flashbacks to Neo’s high school days, which makes little sense since agents are running about.  When it is finally clear that it is still The Kid’s story, it only becomes more difficult to figure why they are there (time-wise, those events don’t happen until well after Neo has worked out how to use his powers).  Visions of the future?  A metaphor or parallel?  (These films do not need any more metaphors or parallel storylines—there are already far too many.)  Whatever the case, they are an uncomfortable fit.

Things flow better once we’re into the sequel material simply because those films are so bloated that almost any cut is a good cut.  da Morte has removed a great deal of footage and little of it is missed.  I applaud his deletion of the Persephone kiss (the first fan edit I’ve seen to do so), as well as the deletion or reduction of superfluous characters. Many of the moments that made me shake my head are gone, and the ones that are left are somehow easier to take in Chinese.  But even in the later films, it is difficult to figure why he cut some scenes and left others.  In the initial visit to Zion, the speeches are missing, but Neo’s aimless conversation with Councillor Hamann is still there.  We skip Morpheus being “greeted” at the dock, but get The Kid meeting Neo and carrying Link’s baggage.  We lose Neo and Trinity being passionate in the elevator, but keep Neo being treated as the Messiah.  We get Link at home, but don’t have the later payoff scenes when his wife fights the machines.

As in other extreme re-edits, such as The Matrix Hacked, there are some rough cuts, but here, for the most part, they aren’t troubling.  The Hong Kong/Japanese format is more forgiving of jittery storytelling.  The exception is the highway action sequence.  I’m pleased with anything that makes it shorter, but there has to be a better way to do it.  It just stops.  Morpheus kicks the agent off of the semi and bam, we’re back on the hovercraft.

Evaluating The Matrix Regenerated in the same fashion as I do other films, and even other fan edits, is unfair.  This is less art and more pop culture reference.  Call it a ride.  If it doesn’t completely succeed as great art, it does succeed in what I assume the fan editor wanted it to be—a schlocky, old school Hong Kong action pic.  That just isn’t a goal I’m interested in.

I don’t know where the Chinese dub-track came from—China’s a good guess.  My R1 disks don’t have it so I couldn’t do any comparing.  It is a phenomenal dub.  For a majority of the characters, the lip movements matched the words, which is a rarity (not so much for Laurence Fishburne due to his clear enunciation).  I can only assume that the two sentences in English (“I never finished the training program.”  “Neither did I.”) were a mistake.

---

The Matrix Squared

Editor(s): Spence.  Runtime: 165 min (-102 min).  2006.

Spence knows how to get the best out of a bad situation.  The bad situation is Reloaded and Revolutions, and after going through Spence’s rotating blades, they still feel like Reloaded and Revolutions, just leaner, meaner, and a lot less painful.

Added to the mix is the animated short Final Flight of the Osiris (part of The Animatrix), and live-action scenes from the video game Enter the Matrix.  Reloaded, which is one of the most verbose films ever made, is strangely choppy and vague at the beginning.  The Wachowski Brothers left the main story details out of the film, giving people a reason to buy their animation disk and video game (which contains multiple scenes that were shot simultaneously with Reloaded).  That left those of us who don’t play video games out in the cold.  The Matrix Squared fixes that.  Before the opening credits, Spence has inserted the second half of Final Flight of the Osiris, which shows them discovering the army of machines and sending their report to Zion.  He leaves out the combat-play sequence, where we got to know the characters—it’s my favorite part of the short, but is unneeded here.  Considering how important the Osiris is to what happens for the next few hours, its adventure clearly belongs in the introduction.  Spence only uses a few minutes from Enter the Matrix, and again, it is material that should have been put in the theatrical versions.  It clarifies Zion’s and the captains’ plans, and rounds out Niobe.

The cuts are more important than the additions.  Almost every painful moment is gone.  The Merovingian no longer talks forever about nothing.  Locke no longer complains about the EMP saving their lives.  The Kid no longer runs up to carry baggage, and in my favorite deletion, Persephone does not ask for a kiss and recite multiple times why she is helping Neo: The elevator stops; she tells them to follow her, and then they are walking through the kitchen.  Perfect.

Of course, characters are greatly effected by the changes.  Some, who have little to do with anything (The Trainman, the Last Exile) are gone, while others who only muddy the story (The Kid, Zee, Locke, Councillor Hamann) are greatly reduced.  Interestingly, this allows me to get a better feeling for the relevant characters.  Not Neo of course, but he is a poorly written afterthought in the sequels, so there’s not much that can be done about that.  But without the rambling of the theatrical version, Morpheus, Link, Captain Roland, and particularly Niobe become more human and better subjects for my empathy.

With Squared, Spence proves himself to be a skilled editor.  The old rule states that a good editor is one who can cut even the best scenes if the story as a whole is better without them.  (It is derived from an even older rule for novelists.)  In the case of The Matrix sequels, you need to replace the phrase “even the best” with “cool,” since we’re talking about combat and effects sequences.  The films are filled with moments that are only there so that the viewer can exclaim, “Hey, that’s cool!”  Perhaps the most obvious is Neo’s test fight with Seraph.  If you’re a fan of ’70s chopsaki, you’ll probably enjoy it, but it is much like sticking a tap number in when Zion is attacked.  I saw The Blue Angels when I was a kid, and thought they were cool.  I also got a kick out of seeing King Kong climb the Empire State Building, but neither of those belongs in a Matrix film either.  Spence removes Seraph’s high kicks, and a number of other empty “wow” moments: the attack on the nightclub, the missile hitting the drilling machine, Neo’s first fight with the agents (OK, that one isn’t a “wow” moment, but it doesn’t qualify as anything else).  The effect is to ramp up the excitement because now, when big, loud, shiny things happen, they are actually important.

Generally, the changes are unnoticeable, but a few edits are distracting.  Here and there, a scene change is too abrupt or music will burst in.  One example is The Merovingian and his men suddenly appearing after Neo and company free The Keymaker.  You can tell something is missing.  There is also a mistake: a frame of Roland is visible in the middle of a scene with Locke.  Also a video glitch during the council scene caused the sound to go out of sync for a minute.  This is most likely an issue with the particular DVD and not with the edit, but without seeing another copy (not easy to come by), I can only guess.

While my normal cry while watching Matrix fan edits is, “Cut more!” Spence comes close to pulling everything possible—note, I said close.  His work has resulted in a few scenes becoming orphans.  We get the setup, but never the payoff.  Link’s discussions with his wife, Zee, are not character building for Link, but for Zee.  It prepares us for her combat with the machines.  But Spence has pulled that combat (a good cut), leaving the first without purpose.  We’re also shown Councillor Hamann chatting about his speech, but not shown that speech (a very good cut, but why not cut the discussion as well?).

Spence has vastly improved Reloaded and Revolutions, but that is all he has done.  What’s here is the Wachowski Brothers’ films lacking much of the foolishness.  It is the result of a good editor getting a hold of a bad script and some spectacular footage.  He uses great skill, but not great talent.  We’re still stuck with a nonsensical plot that only exists to display the numerous, and often contradictory religious symbols.  Neo is magical for no in-story reason.  The entire Reloaded segment is of no consequence since The Architect wanted to see Neo and it comes to nothing.  And the ending misses the tone of the first by forgetting that these are characters and the movies should be narratives; instead it’s all about the overblown theological symbols.  These aren’t Spence’s mistakes; they belong to the Wachowskis.  Spence just does nothing to remedy them, making the overall viewing experience less than overwhelming.

I can say that if you have Reloaded and Revolutions on your shelf, go ahead and toss them in the closet, and put Squared in their place.  Conceptually they are the same, but the execution is far superior in Squared.  But me?  I’ll be putting all three in a hard to reach corner.  Now if only something can be done about the conception…  Perhaps a yet-unseen fan editor can combine the ideas behind The Matrix Hacked and the execution of The Matrix Squared.  Then, maybe, there will be something to sit next to The Matrix on my shelf.

This is a review of a “Fan Edit.”  Details of the original film, including twists and the ending,  may be revealed.

For anyone outside of the goth subculture, The Crow is primarily known for the death of Brandon Lee. The son of martial arts legend Bruce Lee was shot and killed in a stunt gone wrong. It’s hard to guess how the movie would have been remembered had Lee lived, or even what the movie would have been like. Better, I’d guess.

The story follows the simple revenge exploitation standard (I Spit on Your Grave). A girl is raped and killed and her boyfriend, Eric Draven, is tossed out a window. A year later, Draven returns from the dead for vengeance. He hunts down and kills the attackers in a predictable fashion. Spicing up the action (and supplying enough additional plot to make the movie feature length) is the incestuous, Machiavellian pair of Top Dollar and Myca, crime lords who seek a way of steeling Draven’s invulnerability.

As is, The Crow isn’t satisfying.  (Read my full review of The Crow.)  What works is its stunning visual style, dizzying cinematography, mythic subplot, bizarre characters (well, a few anyway: Top Dollar and Myca command every scene they are in), and the savage violence.

More important when considering fan edits is what doesn’t work, most notably, the demystification of the avenging ghost through repeated scenes of chit-chatting.  Yes, this ultimate goth spirit spends half his time sitting around shooting the breeze.  He has a nice talk to a policeman over beers.  He chats to the scrappy girl multiple times.  The production loses its grandeur when the icon of death is reminiscing with a twelve-year-old. And to go with that, the film would have benefited from both the girl and the policeman being eliminated or greatly reduced.  The plot is overly simplistic, but there’s not a lot you can do about that.

So, The Crow is ripe for fan editing.  It’s a tricky film to work with as the removal of Shelley, the young girl, and the policeman would leave a few holes.  But this is also a movie where replacing dialog with dark wave music would not be out of place.  There are possibilities.

---

The Crow: The O’Barr Edit

Editor: Suicidal Wombat Productions.  Runtime: 53 min (-48 min).  2007.

The stated intension of the fan editor (I’ll assume an individual until told otherwise) is to make the film as much like the comic book as possible.  I can’t say how well he succeeded.  It’s been nearly ten years since I read the comic.  But that doesn’t matter since I have no interest in his intension.  You can attempt to make a movie more like its source material.  You can also attempt to make a movie more like a watermelon.  Both options make about equal sense.  Two of the greatest movies, Blade Runner and Casablanca, are notorious for abandoning their sources.  My concern is only if a film is good, and in the case of a fan edit, if it is better than the original.  Unfortunately, it isn’t, in both cases.

Suicidal Wombat Productions’ cuts are severe, turning the feature into a short film.  The majority of Shelley’s screen time is gone and the policeman now is nothing more than the officer who happens to work the local area. This is a vast improvement and puts the film on the right track. Their subplots are not missed.  I would have liked to see even more trimming of Shelly as she’s still around to talk with Draven in the street as well as have breakfast with her mom (because there’s nothing better in a gritty revenge flick then a girl and her mom frying eggs).

The cuts also keep us with Draven, seeing the world as he does.  Most filmmakers make the mistake of leaving the protagonist when it is almost always more exciting to keep a single viewpoint.  This is particularly important in thrillers.  But the fan editor didn’t give us enough of Draven.  If we are sticking with him, then it is vital to start with him, but his resurrection has been removed.  It was an emotional jolt, and without it, the picture feels like it fades in on a story already in progress.

As I watch fan edits, time after time I end up saying, “Why didn’t he cut more.”  The biggest mistake is almost always being too delicate.  Not this time.  In general, Suicidal Wombat Productions chops too much.  This is most evident with the main villains, Top Dollar and Myca, who no longer have any great plans, nor are they adversaries to Draven.  Top Dollar is just some guy who has far too many lines for his limited purpose, and Myca is a girl who stands around a lot (yes fans, Bai Ling’s shower scene is gone—now that’s cruel).  This causes three huge problems that kill this version.  First, they were the most interesting and entertaining characters in the film.  Without them, no one shines. Second, without their subplot, the story is too simple even for 53 minutes (45 minutes excluding the credits).  It wasn’t all that clever before, but now we’re left with a painfully linear story: dead guy comes back and kills four guys; the end.  That’s the plot for a twelve minute short.  Finally, while Top Dollar and Myca are cut, they aren’t cut enough.  Keeping in mind I don’t think they should be cut at all, if their story is gone, they shouldn’t be hanging around all the time.  Undoubtedly, if the fan editor had been the original filmmaker, these two characters wouldn’t have been written into the story.  But they were written in, and appear in too many scenes to be excised after the fact.  If a viewer who hadn’t seen the original sat down to view this edit, he’d spend half his time scratching his head and asking why those two irrelevant characters kept popping up.

The Crow The O’Barr Edit is a black & white film because the comic lacked color.  Since the feature had a de-saturated pallet, it doesn’t make much difference, but what little it does is negative.  It is a movie where blood should be red.  What would have worked better is a Sin City treatment, where most of the world is shades of gray, but a few important things stand out with vibrant, primary colors.

The Crow is a movie in need of help, but it doesn’t get it here.  If you like the comic, you’re in luck because it is still available.  If you want to see a good Crow movie, like me, you’ll have to wait and hope.

This is a review of a “Fan Edit,” and is intended for people who are familiar with the “original” studio cut(s).  I may reveal details of that version, including twists and the ending.

Perfection.  I’d say “brilliant,” but it really isn’t; it’s obvious.  “Brilliant” should be reserved for things that everyone and his uncle couldn’t see from Albuquerque, in the dark, wearing an eye patch.  In this case, however, apparently no one was in Albuquerque, in the dark, light, or dim, with any kind of eye covering.  There it was, staring everyone in the face, and it took a couple of fan editors to see it.

The perfect but not brilliant matter in question is an edit of The Big Sleep.  The Big Sleep is one of the pillars of Film Noir. It is literate, exciting, and one of the best films ever made.  I don’t have a definitive list of top twenty or thirty movies, but I have no doubt that it would slide into that crowd.  How could it not?  Based on a novel by Raymond Chandler, the screenplay was co-written by Nobel Prize laureate William Faulkner.  It was directed by Howard Hawks and starred Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.  And the movie is even better than that list would indicate.  They attained a synergy seldom seen in any art form.  Yeah, The Big Sleep is that good.  (Read my critique here.)

So, what can there possibly be to edit?  In 1945, the film was shown to soldiers, but there was no hurry to get it out to the general public (the war was coming to an end, and the studio had plenty of war pictures to get out while they were relevant).  In the mean time, Bacall’s Confidential Agent flopped and there was fear that her recently risen star might fall.  Audiences wanted her edgy and sharp, which she wasn’t in Confidential Agent and was to only a limited degree in The Big Sleep.  So, re-shoots were called, giving her sexier outfits and wittier lines (and more of them).  The romance was intensified and her character, Vivian Rutledge, was made more likeable.  To make room for Bacall’s enlarged part, some of the private-eye work was cut: twenty minutes out, eighteen in.

Did the changes make it a better film?  It’s hard to say.  It was a masterpiece before and a different masterpiece afterwards.  Certainly the straight replacement scenes are richer and more entertaining:

Vivian: You go too far, Marlowe.
Marlowe: Those are harsh words to throw at a man, especially when he’s walking out of your bedroom.

However, the ’45 cut is ever-so-slightly less murky, and with a plot this confusing, a touch of clarity may stop a few brains from exploding.

---

The Big Sleep: Doctor M Reconstructed Gangrel Hybrid Cut

Editor(s): Doctor M.  Runtime: 123 min (+9 min).  2007.

Gangrel (who may be a person, group, or flock of crows) saw what the studios should have, at least for the DVD: the two versions could be integrated for an even better third.  Use the 1946 cut as a basis, and then put back in the bits that explain the story.  But Gangrel ran into technical difficulties.

Enter Doctor M (who could be an individual or a pride of space kittens), who took Gangrel’s idea and ran with it.  He also retracted Gangrel’s alteration of Marlowe’s encounter with Mona Mars.  (Gangrel chose the 1945 version because he found the actress who played Mona sexier than her replacement.  That’s a subjective call I can’t make, but what is clear is that the later version is considerably more dynamic).

The changes (from the ’46 version) include:

• Extension of Marlowe’s search of Gieger’s House.
• Addition of Marlowe driving with an unconscious Carmen.
• Addition of Marlowe, Bernie, Capt. Cronjager, and D.A. White discussing the case.
• Addition of Marlowe working on the code.
• Addition of Marlowe pocketing his gun before entering Art Huck’s service station.

What Doctor M gives us is everything good about the ’45 version, but with added clarity and improved pacing.  That last bit might be odd since the D.A. scene was removed and the house-searching scene was trimmed to improve pacing and keep the film relatively short.  But The Big Sleep is rapid fire from the start.  It races without a dull moment.  It didn’t need any help with speed.

When the Bogart/Bacall romance was intensified (sorry, make that Marlowe/Rutledge) it became one of the quickest screen romances, and I’m counting eighty years of romantic comedies.  These two develop strong feelings with relatively little interaction.  Re-inserting the cut P.I. moments doesn’t increase the objective number of days that are supposed to pass in the film (another day or two would make such a close bonding more likely), but it makes it feel like more time has passed.  This, in turn, makes the quick budding relationship feel as if it is progressing at a more believable rate.

While I proclaimed this the perfect cut, I’m going to have to pull back on that, declaring this to be the near-perfect cut.  Clipping in a brief 1945 scene of Marlowe driving with the unconscious sister causes a continuity error when he arrives at the Sternwood estate (the scene was undoubtedly cut for this reason).  He walks up to the door in the rain wearing a coat, and when the door is opened from the other side, it’s ’46, and both the rain and coat are missing.  It’s hard to ignore.  (The butler later handing Marlowe his coat is not a continuity error as it has now begun to rain in 1946, and the Butler has been to the car where he could have picked up the coat.)

Doctor M’s additions are seamless.  Without foreknowledge, I’d never have guessed this wasn’t a studio release.  The picture isn’t as crisp as on my DVD, however, I only noticed because I did a direct comparison.

OK, so The Hybrid Cut isn’t perfect, but damn it’s good.