The Revenant - The Spence Edit

I talked about this a bit in my ideas thread, but I've started moving forward so here we are.

The basic concept is to take this bloated and pretentious film and turn it into an exciting adventure film. The goal is to remove roughly 30 minutes out of the film, making it move faster, and strip it down to the core story

Things being done:
- All the dream sequences are being removed and will be condensed into a single fever dream while Glass is healing.
- The subplot with the Ree chief looking for his daughter is removed, as are most scenes that don't involve either Glass or Fitzgerald.
- Much of Fitzgerald's complaining at the beginning of the film is removed.
- Glass sleeping in the horse carcass is removed.
- Ending has much more pace while they look for Fitzgerald. The campfire scene is removed, as is much of the searching.

Lots of little cuts are being added but those are the big strokes. I'm also doing some music tweaks, using both the original score and also some Nick Cave/Warren Ellis stuff.

This is a fairly straightforward fan fix so this should be ready to go pretty quickly.

Awesome! I loved the Revenant, but it was definitely much too long. Can't wait to see this.

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So far I've got the movie down to 2:06.  The pacing is so much better, in my opinion. I'm going to start doing some music work this week to see if I can up the tension a bit. 

I'm struggling with the ending, and I'm hoping perhaps some of you that have seen the film might be able to give me some input.

After the final fight scene, the Ree leave Glass alone, a tenuous mutual respect forms since he saved the chief's daughter (unknowingly, but still.) My struggle is the scene at the very end where Glass sees a vision of his wife. I've cut most of his hallucinations save for one time, when he's in the little steam hut healing. We know who his wife is. We saw what happened to her (plus it's talked about amongst the trappers early in the film.)  but she isn't a main character in the story and he isn't particularly "haunted" by her. I can't decide if I want to keep this moment or just end the film with Glass on the river bank, alone.

Plus I really, really hate that pretentious last shot of him staring directly into the camera. Like, really hate it.

I would personally cut it and end on the river bank. I think it's much stronger.

sounds cool! i loved the revenant and I'd like to see how this turns out

Well I've got the movie down to about 1 hour 58 minutes, so most of the subplots I don't want to include are gone. By removing some of the Ree stuff I've ended up with some awkward scene transitions, so hopefully they can be smoothed out with music cues rather than putting any of that stuff back in. 

It's been interesting reshuffling the scenes of Fitzgerald returning to the camp and moving them to other parts of the film. I realized how much of his story doesn't really matter, yet to keep him a viable antagonist he can't just disappear until the end. Picking what to use and when to use it has been really interesting. 

I'm not sure how much to cut of Glass' son. I feel like we get the point, but it feels like it might be a bit rushed to me.

I may call on someone who's willing to check out a very early workprint of this once I finish the dream sequence to let me know if any of these element are a problem or not. Probably won't be in watchable shape for another week, but do I have any takers?

spence said:

I may call on someone who's willing to check out a very early workprint of this once I finish the dream sequence to let me know if any of these element are a problem or not. Probably won't be in watchable shape for another week, but do I have any takers?

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Me me! Pick me! 

Smithers, you'll probably hear from me around the weekend.

I knew this movie was ripe for a fanedit the first time I watched it in the theater, and agree with those choices except for Glass sleeping in the horse carcass. I thought that scene showed the scope of his frontiersman survival knowledge and the length he's willing to go to for his retribution as it matched the raw and visceral nature of his ultimate do-or-die mission. 

On the other side, I can see how it's a little Man vs Wild but Glass survives an ice-cold river and hypothermia in his state too and there's only other living things to gain warmth from in lieu of fire, which he couldn't light because of the chasers to remain unseen, the storm and his condition. I don't know the extent of that scene edit but just some thoughts from a newbie, look forward to this nonetheless.

I get what you're saying abut the horse scene, and if it happened earlier in the film I might agree, but I don't think it works where it is placed and it's difficult to move it. All the momentum of the movie is pulling it toward the conclusion, to stop and show him sleep again, inside a carcass or not, just slows it down to much for me. But you may have a point, and I'll look into it

My first render should be done when I get out of work. It's honestly pretty cut and dry, and if everything works on a technical level and I get a couple of previews to check it out, I may end up releasing as is.

You're right about it in terms of pacing as it slightly slowed down even the original's momentum towards the climax and it would be more noticeable in your trim. If the setting, background, makeup etc. lined up with an earlier scene with a way to explain the carcass, like after surviving the rapids, it could've been placed there. He wakes up and goes into the snow cave afterwards anyway so it is logical in terms of flow to cut that whole bit after the plunge. Then again, I can see some cuts made within the scene itself to move it along quicker. 

I think it's a memorable, standout scene in terms of the way it fits into the overall movie and here's my reasoning. It can be interpreted thematically as it shows how nature/ life takes and gives in juxtaposition with the bear. One almost ended his life but this one saved it, when he needed it most, coming full circle in a sense to show that he was not abandoned after everything he went through to get to that point. It was the other side of the coin, perhaps a sign to show that he was righteous in his cause. So maybe this scene's placement in the 3rd act, closer to his realization at the end with Fitzgerald that, "revenge is in God's hands", it played a role to him understanding that. Or maybe I'm looking too much into it and we're back to being pretentious .

I get the themes of it, but it's not exciting 

Got this on good shape. Of course I'm having some rendering issues as per usual but I think it'll be good to go tomorrow possibly the next day. I'll get the preview out and go from there.

spence said:

I get the themes of it, but it's not exciting 

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Forget the themes, I don't get how gutting your horse that you just plummeted off a cliff with and sliding inside it's ribcage for survival is not visually exciting. But it's your edit and that's just my opinion. I look forward to your hard work regardless.

escapeartist said:

spence said:

I get the themes of it, but it's not exciting 

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Forget the themes, I don't get how gutting your horse that you just plummeted off a cliff with and sliding inside it's ribcage for survival is not visually exciting. But it's your edit and that's just my opinion. I look forward to your hard work regardless.

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One of my biggest problems with The Revenant, and one that can't really be adjusted with a fanedit, is that really the whole thing is not visually exciting. It's the nature of the way Innaritu directs.

You can read a great, interesting breakdown of what I mean right here: Film Crit Hulk Article

However, to sum up, the way Innaritu directs is very "outside looking in." What I mean by that is his style allows us to feel like we're observing the events of the film as if we're actually there. That's a nice idea in theory, but it also creates a strange dissonance between us and the characters, as if rather than experiencing the events with them, we are just watching them experience it, as if it's some sort of VR demo with which we have no interaction.  We rarely feel anything happen the same way they do. An arrow whizzing into frame and startling a character is not the same as an arrow whizzing by "us". It's a cool visual, but it doesn't make me duck out of the way.

Basically, we see everything, but we don't feel it.

Compare this to something like Fury Road, where we feel every crunch, clang and rumble, as well as the characters fear, hopefulness and determination. This is all accomplished by direction so visceral that you feel every moment of it. What Innaritu does is meant to feel "immersive" with the long takes and longing looks, but it's actually less effective than thrusting  us straight into the action. 

Innaritu's long takes don't serve any narrative point, they don't give us a greater understanding of the events of the film or its characters. They are not framed in a way that draws your eye where it needs to look, it doesn't present any one thing as particularly important. We're essentially a fly on the wall, a silent observer. We're there, and yet we're not. To use a video game reference, it's basically "Spectator Mode". By involving us the way he does, it actually has the opposite effect.

There are moments that absolutely work. I'd say moments in the opening attack and the majority of the bear sequence are actually much better than the rest of the film.

Also, I hope you don't feel that I'm arguing with you. Fanedits create these unique situations where something can work for one viewer, but not the other. I appreciate these sort of discussions and you sharing your opinion.

Finally resolved my issues and finished up the subtitles. Gonna let the edit bake overnight and see how it turns out in the morning. I have a feeling this is pretty close to completion after a few tweaks.

I'm not here to argue at all either. I held off on replying because I wanted to read that link but I just couldn't do it, all caps annoy the hell out of me, sorry. Here's my reply to your post only. I'm not in the industry or even familiar with editing etc., I only love movies as a viewer and I don't post much online about them so keep that in mind.

Mad Max: Fury Road is one of my all-time favorite movies and I've seen it 4 times already (twice in the theater) and I get what you're saying about the degree of immersion in respect to differences in their styles of directing, just like how people are different in how they view and react to different films, which also comes down to state of mind and mood. For example, I have an affinity towards animals and nature and liked that scene because of the respect he gives to the horse so I'm definitely biased; I also love westerns so I viewed it as a "survival western" along with "adventure" that you mentioned in your first post. Neither of us is wrong, it's a different perspective of the same material and I would love to see it as an action-adventure. Variation and variety are good.

In addition, the fanedits' are mostly made for re-watchers so I can see how the horse scene would drag on subsequent viewings, but one has to keep in mind additional viewing company that might be watching the movie for the 1st time who'll have no idea what scenes they missed out on to decide for themselves how well they personally regarded it. That scene is worth one watch in my book and I'm sure you'll agree. However, I doubt what I described earlier about that scene was actually Inarritu's intention; I think I was looking for something that wasn't actually there to give it more meaning when he just wanted to show something new and gritty that hadn't been seen in a big cinematic release with Hollywood A-listers. He likes to be a show-off with the camera and I highly doubt that scene happened in the book or with the real Glass.

Inarritu's style and skill is more technically inclined, which transfers into delivering technically experimental directing, especially at this stage in his career, with attention to visual detail and long takes his forte for which I'm sure he took inspiration from Alfonso Cuaron because of their similar social circle, as cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki worked for both and their nationality. This is one reason I wasn't that impressed with either Birdman or this movie besides the technical as much as I liked his earlier work, Babel and Amores Perros, because they were character driven dramas without the flair. They were technical on a deeper level with their script and direction, now he has moved towards being more visually technical.

To elaborate, I think The Revenant's visual content is exciting only because of the cinematography, costume design and makeup but it's long take editing/ pacing with no development, and direction (outside of the opening attack and the bear attack) show that emotional coldness and observer disconnect because the non-visual content wasn't really there, for which the the source and other areas are also to blame. Although they can be seen as an ode to the loneliness/ struggle of the characters and vicious nature as it was in that setting but then this is not a PBS/ BBC doc either.

This is why I wanted a fanedit, because it is really simple in plot yet pretentious in how deep it thinks it is with the repeatedly drilled themes. In that regard, he's become the Mexican Nolan minus the exposition because they've both tried to infuse an emotional core unsuccessfully IMO; like Nolan with most of his later work, especially Interstellar, and Inarritu in The Revenant with the son and wife. I thought me becoming more cynical and jaded was the reason I didn't buy it to be genuinely moved but you seem to have had a similar experience with The Revenant at least. (No disrespect to Nolan, I really like his earlier work).

Overall, I get your direction with this. You want to make Glass's mission more immediate and urgent and cut all the extraneous visual fodder, because it is after all a simple mission of revenge and Glass and the viewer should just get on with it on that adventure.

escapeartist said:

I wanted to read that link but I just couldn't do it, all caps annoy the hell out of me, sorry.

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I just wanted to jump in and say that you're missing out on one of the sharpest voices writing about movies today by avoiding Film Crit Hulk. It's a silly gimmick but written suprisingly well and you absolutely won't care once you read ONE whole piece, I promise. He writes about very underdiscussed aspects of cinema and screenwriting, and he does it superbly.

Edit: You can go to capconvert or caseconvert and translate it to normal text if it helps. It's worth it IMO.

I think the best argument for keeping the horse scene is that HE CUT OPEN A FREAKING HORSE AND SLEPT INSIDE IT'S BODY SO HE WOULDN'T DIE AND THAT'S AWESOME.

The film crit hulk piece on the revenant vs. mad max is fooking brilliant. Tenks for the link.