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Ever edited your own version of a movie? (1 Viewer)

Alex Spindler

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Here is my template for putting the two films together. Revolutions is in far more broad strokes awaiting the DVD release, but you can see where it was headed. It was built from my recollection and the transcript of the movie, so I had to edit it down to a legible format.

In the end, the second movie ends up cut more in terms of running time. Several plots are gone, as well as the expected pruning of the dock, niobe run, and superbrawl. There are some large plot cuts, such as Sati, that purists will cry foul from, but I don't think they would edit the films at all.

I figure I've saved something close to 50 minutes from the first film leaving around an hour or so of footage from the second film to get in.


Anyway, this was a fun experience to act as an editor. It's was nice to try and map out the continuity when you made cuts. It's not where it would be if you had access to the original screenplay, but I think it would still play very well. The pacing should be nice as you have the Burly Brawl as your opening action sequence, the freeway chase as you central action piece (highlighting Morpheus and Trinity as they feel left out of the finale) and then you cap it with the Dock fight (which is going to be focused more on Mifune and Zee than the Kid) and the Superbrawl.
 

Simon Young

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Well, you've got me officially curious. I'm off to rip The Matrix Reloaded and have a stab at some of the cuts you suggest. I don't think I'll leave out as much as you, though. I don't want the cuts to be TOO jarring. So if any of 'em simply don't work seamlessly, they've got to go.

I'll let you know how I get on.
 

Robert Anthony

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That was VERY cool. I like how you broke that down.

I'm NOT so sure we should lose the Persephone kiss--that's a nice sequence. I like how you broke down the Burly Brawl, and even managed to make the Zion sequences at the beginning short and sweet.

The REAL genius was the idea of editing the ending of Reloaded so that there's never a 3rd team, that Trin was always supposed to go in, and that Trinity doesn't die at all. That she never gets shot. You can do that REALLY easy, and it makes perfect sense. I LOVE that idea. I also think the Bane/Smith copy scene as flashback during Bane's interrogation is a cool idea.

The Seraph cutting IS tricky..how about after he says "I can take you to her" you just cut to Neo in the hallway and Seraph shutting the door. You don't have to worry about them still in the room--and you get the backdoor conversation.

I'm not so sold on keeping the Councilor's conversation with Neo. It's overdone exposition, and it's not really adding anything, information wise or even thematically, to the show. Empty philosophy. I think going from Neo waking up to the word that the Oracle is ready really pushes the pace along, and makes a lot of sense, considering that's really all they're waiting for anyway.

I WOULD keep the Coma, though. Just cut straight from Neo collapsing STRAIGHT to his waking up in the trainstation. The trainstation stuff has one of the most honest laughs in the whole movie--and besides--the slo-mo focus on the guy in Reloaded at the meeting with Merv is paid off at the trainstation. You can continue to omit Sati for the rest of the movie--because now this conversation works JUST on the philosophical level. Actually--I don't know if deleting Sati really kills that much screentime and makes much of a difference--she doesn't take THAT much time up, and it pretty much is the sole explanation for the Oracle's changed appearance.

I would also think leaving the battle for Zion as is is best--that entire sequence is edited PERFECTLY. Although with the loss of The Kid in the rest of the movie, it makes him and the grizzled general more of an "out of nowhere" character--but you need him to open the door, so you might as well leave all those sequences in. The way they edited the stand at Zion--it's REALLY hard to cut and re-arrange anything without losing valuable info. It's probably the best edited sequence in both movies, by far.

I think a LOT of the edits in Reloaded are going to depend on whether you have the standalone score to help smooth transitions out.
 

Alex Spindler

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Great feedback

Some reasons for my cuts as they were,
I broke Persephone loose because the Kiss was a non-event. It turned out to have no payoff in Revolutions, so it plays like dead air. I don't need anyone to prove that Trinity loves Neo, as the first film establishes that well. And it actually works well to have her lead them right into the chateau because her clear justification is her cheating husband and making a game of it.

I really wanted to cut straight to the courtyard, but he shows up and is glowing, which pays off later when Neo has computer sight, so I had to give him a few lines of dialogue. Perhaps if I could get Neo in the courtyard more easily I would have removed Seraph altogether and not made the whole thing so roundabout to get to her. But, it really helps to see him produce the keys and see the appearance of the anachronistic white hallway in the original Seraph setting. It makes the Chateau situation make sense.

I understand what you mean about the Councillor's speech. It's a lot of time, but it makes the film's resolution more palatable by establishing it here. It also helps to establish a bit of the Councillor's wary belief in Neo that pays off in the council's decisions to trust in him. But, it could probably go without too much pain. I tried to make it easier to take by breaking it up with the Bane bit.

The coma is such a hard thing to do. It's drummed in that they only have hours to go before Zion is destroyed, and this is just dead time. The trainstation laugh is pretty funny, but there is so much that even in full form that section is problematic. While being caught between worlds is interesting, it doesn't really do much to help the film. The Oracle's description of how he takes down the Sentinels is about as good as it gets.

I've had some thought lately of using the later, "I need some time" scene from Neo to transition directly from the post Reloaded sentinel zapping to explain why he doesn't have much direct screen time until he asks for a ship. It should make the transition easier without a coma.

Sati and the trainstation is a real problem. From her standpoint, I didn't really need to have machines with emotions, because I think Smith nails that point like a massive hammer. And the architect and Revolutions Smith hammer home the human emotion stuff as well. Cutting Sati and the train station all saves a ton of time that is in service to itself. If Neo is in there, we need to know where that is (requiring R-K's description). We need to know how he gets out, requiring the trainman stuff. Needing the trainman means we need the first Oracle/Trinity/Morpheus quest discussion. And to do that, you have to reintroduce Merv, who I think makes an acceptable exit in Reloaded. Plus, we're talking a very short period of time and he is in different clothes and has really inconsistent behavior even in the final film. He's acting like its been days since they've talked in the final film while there have only been a couple of hours. And not having Sati meant some savings later as Seraph doesn't have to protect her or any of that side track.

I figured that Sati/Trainstation footage was about 5 or 6 minutes alone. Club Hel must be close to 10 minutes by itself. One thing this process has opened my eyes towards is the value of every single minute.

The loss of Gloria Foster is a huge handicap for the original film, and this just makes it all the harder. By leaving it at the Oracle's cryptic,
"So, do you recognize me?"
"A part of you."
"Yeah, that's how it works. Some bits you lose, some bits you keep. I don't yet recognize my face in the mirror, but... I still love candy."
It's bad, but not much worse than what was there before. I couldn't justify reintroducing the Sati/Hel/'shell' just for the sake of explaining the unfortunate equivalent of a Back To the Future girlfriend change.

I think the Zion battle had a huge amount of repetition. They continually show shots of Mifune screaming and firing, or the machines swarming over and over, and shooting out multiple legs of the diggers (as well as multiple diggers). Considering the point is that they are supposed to lose until Niobe shows up and EMPs them, the footage of them should be emphasizing them losing. Plus, by interspersing the three stories more completely, you get to hide a great deal of the screen time and keep just the showcase moments.

The problem with the Zion sequence, as opposed to say RotK, is that there isn't much variation. The machines have one attacking unit, the squiddies. The humans have two, the shell launchers and APUs. Toss in boring stuff like bravery in reloading them just emphasizes that you're watching the same thing for a long period of time.

I figure if you keep things like the starting overwhelming fire on the hole, the machines overrunning out, attacking the leg of the digger, some choice takedowns of APUs, Mifune's last stand, then splice in the decision to open the gates to just before Niobe comes crashing through will give you the best of without the extraneous shots of APU vs squiddie fire, reloading, and constant Lock status updates which don't amount to much. When I have the DVD in hand I could be a bit more specific with how I think it could work. Also, having the Superbrawl to break it up will make this much more clear.


Of course, you hit the nail on the head on the biggest challenge. I knew up front the audio would be the biggest hurdle. I think you're right. Using the official soundtrack would probably be easier in some cases than synching the existing soundtrack. That's why I asked how others had handled this in the past back on page 2.


I had a fun thought. If you could get a bit of credit suppression (create a break in the end credits) you could add in outtakes of your favorite scenes and lines of dialogue that get excised. So you could add the train gag, the Seraph unique weapon cocking, and the couple of slow motion chateau fight stuff if you'd like.
 

Robert Anthony

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You're completely right about the Persephone kiss. I just hate to lose that moment. But you're right--it's a lot cleaner to just move straight ahead without that brief stop.

I still think you can get the Seraph info by just cutting straight from his "I can take you to her" to him shutting the door in the hall. Door-shuttings always make for a very natual edit point, and you see him putting the keys away after he opens the door, and pulling out the keys again. The conversation there helps out, and we duck the pretty redundant and not very good fight, as well. I think that's actually a better solution than just cutting to him in the courtyard.

Reintroducing Merv isn't a bad idea, either. The gravity fight is retarded, but Trin and Morpheus confronting him in Club Hell is pretty close to priceless. That's gotta stay. If, after Seraph kicks ass in the parking lot, and we cut INSTANTLY to them coming down the stairs, guns drawn, we're shaving about 8 minutes off that whole sequence, getting to the meat of it instantly and saving one of the best exchanges in the flick.

It's just really problematic because you can't really edit out the slo-mo of Sati's dad being hauled off from Reloaded--and so if you cut out Sati, you leave that hanging. You almost have to include it so as not to leave a thread hanging. If you could kill the dad being hauled off, you could cut Sati no problem, but they spend a fair amount of time and focus SHOWING you that guy--it's hard to not follow up on it without killing off the internal logic the movie is running with. There are a fair amount of scenes in the trainstation you can delete without killing the whole sequence. And if you cut the entire councilor speech, and just go from Neo waking up to the Oracle message coming in and Roy Jones delivering it, there's a goodish amount of time you can now give towards more easily getting around more troublesome edits by keeping some of the trainstation/merv stuff.

Plus, I don't think Merv's clothes are that big of a problem. I believe the different setting explains it as well--people dress up to go to the club, and they often act differently there, too. It makes sense, for the most part, that he'd act differently there than he would at an afternoon "Business" luncheon.

You make really good points about the battle, and now I'm in complete agreement with you. My only worry is that for all the repetetive moments, it does have it's own internal logic going on. I'd be worried that it'd end up looking and feeling like a "Greatest Hits" type thing instead of feeling like it's own little story of the battle.

And I had the PERFECT edit point on Trin's speech. You could kill about TWO MINUTES of that thing perfectly and not only NOT lose any of the emotion, but actually boost it.
 

Simon Young

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Well, I'm now in the process of converting the video part of Reloaded. I'm going to try and keep the 5.1 track throughout the edit, in the hopes that one day I may be able to produce a fairly professional DVD.

What are you guys going to use to construct your edit?
 

MatthewLouwrens

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Interesting thread. I've enjoyed reading this, just to hear how people would change different films. The discussion about The Matrix sequels is particularly enjoyable.

One question - has anyone tought about including sequences from Enter The Matrix? Is there anything in there that would add value? (I don't know - I haven't seen the game).
 

Alex Spindler

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I think there is an easy edit to remove Sati's father (for some reason I missed including it). If my notes are right, it is a take unto itself so you can remove it with a simple cut.

You may be able to retain the coma, but the trainstation brings a great deal of baggage. I couldn't cut many lines out when I first tried shortening that aspect. I was rather happy that I came to the no-coma conclusion because I was able to make the third act the action finale that I think it is supposed to be.

I'm very open to seeing how that section can be done economically. I just couldn't make it work when I tried it (but I also biased against most of the scenes that were cut).


Matthew,
That's an interesting suggestion. I've only heard annecdotally about the EtM footage, but I thought most of it is about Seraph. However, doesn't it have something about the Oracle losing her body? If so, that might be a useful bridge to make her casting change easier to deal with. Hmmm...more research needed.
 

Ray_R

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I've always wanted to develop a 135 minute plus Edition of ALIEN. Inserting all the deleted scenes and such back into the film so as to make a Special Longer Cut. Only a dream for me...
 

Alex Spindler

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Ray, the new director's cut of Alien inserts just about all of the deleted scenes (although a slightly different version of the cocoon scene). I thought it was quite good.

I think it's available separate from the Quadrilogy set now.
 

Will_B

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The rave scene of Reloaded is the entire point of the film! It's "humanity" - it shows what humanity is: life born out of the primordial muck (symbolized by the mud which eventually everyone is up to their ankles in). It's the heart of the second film. And the people showing up with gifts for Neo like he is the latest incarnation of the Dali Lama is key to the end of the third film - that Neo may have sacrificed his body, but his soul may be back.
 

Brian W.

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Just on tape, with the long version of close encounters constructed from the Criterion laserdisc.

I would love to create my own edit of the Lord of the Rings films, though.

For Fellowship, I'd use the Extended Edition prologue, cut to the Theatrical Edition at the title card, back to the EE when Gandalf arrives at Bilbo's door, switch back to the TE when Bilbo departs for Rivendell, back to the EE at the arrival in Bree and stay with it till after Moria, then use the theatrical intro of Haldir, completely cutting the EE Haldir scene, then cut back to the EE upon their arrival in Lothlorien and stay with it till the end.

Two Towers, I'd simply use the Extended Edition, except cut the new conversation immediately after Gandalf returns -- I prefer the theatrical version of that scene. I actually might cut the new Gollum Dead Marshes scene, only because it really disrupts the flow of the plot. And I'd love to cut some of the Arwen flashbacks... there's too many flashbacks in that movie.
 

Ray_R

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Alex,
I own the Director's Cut 2-Disc of Alien on DVD. I just thought it would be interesting to compile a super-long version of Alien just for the hell of it using all the deleted scenes reinsetred in the appropriate places.
Ray

P.S. It's just a fantasy for me.
 

Brian W.

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Simon, I looked at your list of scenes. I forgot about the funeral scene in TTT. For my own version, I would omit Eowyn's singing, but not the entire scene.

I considered omitting the EE opening as well... and Gollum's little converation with himself as he's leading them through the rocks.

What do you mean by the original audio cue on the chase scene? Are you talking about Gimli's "what fair rock can tell" line?
 

Alex Spindler

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Ahh, I wasn't thinking about the other deleted scenes.

Will,
As I said, I don't think purists would like any of the cuts. As to the rave scene, it still retains a shot of he dancers feet in the mud. I thought the followers asking him to watch over their loved ones and leaving gifts was better dealt with by the retained dialogue discussing him as a religious figure (Link and the councillor primarily).

Simply said, I disagree, but the whole point is about making your own version of a movie.
 

Simon Young

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The audio cue I'm referring to is a bit of music that Howard Shore re-recorded for the EE. In the theatrical version, when we see the wide shot of the Three Hunters coming down the hill, it was all silent for just a moment, and you could hear the pounding of the Uruk-Hai for just a little longer. In the EE, the music starts the moment we cut to the wide shot, adding an extra few beats before the Uruk-Hai theme comes in.

I preferred the theatrical version.

As for the funeral, it really doesn't cut well if you take out Eowyn's singing. I really liked the subtlety of cutting straight from Theoden's face to his son's grave...made the point nicely. As for the Gollum stuff, I'd keep everything that they added in the EE. I like his new conversation with himself, because, for me, it's one of the funniest bits in the movie! "Hurry Hobbits!" *beat* "Follow me!" Classic. And the dead marshes sequence helps establish that Gollum hates Lembas bread, which is paid off in Return of the King.

Your description of you ideal version of Fellowship is almost 100% exactly how I was cutting it (until I gave up, of course). However, I kept the theatrical version of the prologue also - I really don't like the dodgy blue-screen shot of Isildur putting on the One Ring, and I feel it disrupts Galadriel's narration. Also I would take out the scene just before they get to Moria, where Gandalf and Frodo talk about the power of the Ring. Perhaps even the scene where Frodo and Sam see the Elves in the forest. I really liked the way that sequence flowed in the theatrical cut. But otherwise, our cuts would be very similar!

I'm in the process of cutting up Matrix Reloaded right now. I'm doing it slightly differently to what others have suggested. Neo's dream? In. Most of the stuff on the Neb? Out - cut straight from the landing to the meeting inside the Matrix. The agent fight? In. Neo and Trinity's conversation about Morpheus and Lock, and the Kid stuff? Out. Morpheus' conversation with Lock is now much, much shorter, and flows as one sequence. Neo receiving gifts? Out.

That's as far as I've got. It's trimmed 6 minutes from the first 20 or so. If I continue at this cutting ratio, I'll have trimmed the film down from 2h15m to 1h35m. If Revolutions shapes up to be the same length when cut, or even short, I'll be satisfied with the running time of the final movie.
 

Alex Spindler

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Sounds like your cut is a bit ahead of mine. I added in some of The Animatrix, which adds some of the time that was cut by the loss of the agent fight.

I hope you're documenting the change points. I'd be interested in how you were able to get the Lock/M talk down in size. I'm almost thinking that it could be removed entirely by not having them greeted at the Neb's door.
 

Simon Young

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The conversation goes something like this:

"You were ordered to return to Zion"
"I did"
"But you asked one ship to stay behind!"
"I would have stayed but I needed to recharge my ship"
"If it were up to me, you would never set foot on another ship for the rest of your life"
"Then I am grateful that it is not up to you"

Much snappier, and you don't need to make the point about Morpheus' beliefs because they are touched on later.

Also, the conversation with the Councillor is a little shorter:

"The council has asked me to speak tonight at the temple gathering. The people must be told what is happening."
"May I suggest....blah blah blah"
"What about you, captain? What do you suggest?"
"Blah Blah Blah"
"I hope you're right"
CUT
 

Alex Spindler

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Oooh,
I like that. That is efficient. I'd only be slightly hesitant to cut some Morpheous belief stuff primarily because I wanted to make sure his fanatical devotion was established by the 2/3rds point so the post architect rug sweep works well against him. But I can certainly hear how your changes flow, and I'll bet they work very well.

Good choices
 

Angelo.M

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I'd love to have Alec Baldwin's scenes from Pearl Harbor isolated on a DVD.

Didn't care for the film, but his scenes are priceless... :D

..."but that's just me"...
 

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