Jumper - Recut

[Smithers]

So I picked this movie up for a few bucks and decided to watch it just because and actually found it to be a decent movie. For those of you who don't know, this movie stars Hayden Christensen as a wise-cracking guy who can teleport and is trying to escape Samuel L. Jackson who hunts teleporting people. The movie has some pretty good performances and decent writing but falls flat in a few important things:
1. Music - the movie contains so little music so you are left not as excited as you would think you should be in certain scenes, when there is music, it is just in the background and serves no purpose to the emotion or story
2. Storytelling - the movie contains several pointless scenes (examples: teleporting cars for fun, Sam Jackson attacking a guy in the forest) that don't serve a purpose. The film also has a VERY long origin story for the protagonist
3. Climax - the movie does not kill any of the villains and (like I mentioned before) does not contain any music during the action sequences which are actually pretty cool and contain good acting and awesome special effects
4. The whole ending - The movie pretty much wanted to set up for a sequel but it wasn't good enough

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we end up with new enemies made, new characters introduced, and the original villain still out there!! That is in no way satisfying to any viewer, especially if you have no sequel(s) to give closure to the story. Pretty much the only plus to the ending is our protagonist gets the girl(... but... nobody actually cares about the girl).

This is a project as a first time fan-editor for practise with audio editing and some special effects. So far I am using music from the 'Bourne trilogy' and 'Mr. and Mrs. Smith' which were also scored by John Powell and have some good music for funny and emotional parts of the movie.

Basic cutlist:

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-cut mother subplot
-re-scored many scenes in the movie
-tightened up the origin story
-rearranged Samuel L. Jackson's scenes to make him more threatening and persistent
-killed off Samuel L. Jackson
-new end
-new intro
-new title card
-cut voiceover in opening

Intro (rough): 

Trailer: 

OT thread at: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Jumper-edit/topic/17546/

UPDATE: Version 1 finished, submitted to IFDB!!

I may come back and revisit this, I have a few ideas that I'd like to go back and check out but for now it's done. Let me know what you think!

 

[blueyoda]

Jumper wasn't bad at all and I'd have watched a sequel had there been one.

I'll be checking this out.

 

[TV's Frink]

I will check it out as well. I only own Jumper because it was given to me for use in my own project, but it's not as bad as I was expecting.

 

[PatientWho]

Remove the half sister if you can. Played by Kristen Stewart. Served no purpose.

 

[ssj]

This edit sounds eeenteresting.

 

[Smithers]

Remove the half sister if you can. Played by Kristen Stewart. Served no purpose.

Ah yes I hate Kristen Stewart and she only stands there and stares blankly so yes, will cut her

 

[Smithers]

Looks like I'm going to be cutting the mother character too. She serves no purpose to the story other than to set up a sequel.

Soon I will release a rough version of the first 10-15 minutes of the movie as I am re-working the whole opening.

 

[samspider3]

Damn... Jumper actually needs something like an Extended Edition. A relevant and important Extended Edition because the movie was generic and uninteresting. It needed more scenes to help to explain the, what it seems, interesting universe of the jumpers. It's a missed opportunity.

 

[Smithers]

Damn... Jumper actually needs something like an Extended Edition. A relevant and important Extended Edition because the movie was generic and uninteresting. It needed more scenes to help to explain the, what it seems, interesting universe of the jumpers. It's a missed opportunity.

Yes, sadly the deleted scenes on the blu-ray are anything but useful when it comes to storytelling. They don't add anything to the story. It's sadly better to cut certain plot points and use music and editing to make other ones interesting. I'm going to try and make the idea of Paladins more intriguing by using music to make the audience listen to explanations. The movie was based on a book which I actually want to read now to see the potential. To make things clear: this will not be very faithful to the book since there is not enough material to make it faithful and good.

 

[samspider3]

Don't worry. Personally, I don't care movies are faithful to books as long they are coherent and have a solid presentation.

 

[Smithers]

Quick update, I've been busy lately since it's summer but earlier today I picked up a copy of Jumper in 3D and watched it! The 3D was pretty underwhelming as I expected from a random 3D conversion found at Best Buy but whatever. I currently do not have the hardware to edit a 3D rip of the film and I don't think anyone would care anyways 😕

Some more news which is good is that I picked up the Jumper game on Xbox 360 for $1 and found that Griffin recites his lines in the game much more clearly than in the film and without music in the background. This makes me very happy because the guy is so damn hard to understand and now when he delivers actual exposition and explains the rivalry between Jumpers and Paladins you can actually understand him the first time!

Anyway, I'll keep you guys posted and will upload clips eventually.

 

[Kal-El]

One of the films where Sam Jackson really phoned it in and they should've gone with someone else Interesting to see what you'll be doing with this. I saw this film after Episode III and it was a welcome change. It also showed -for me at least- that not all the Christensen criticism was entirely justified. He can act, he simply chose not to do any of it in AotC

 

[thecuddlyninja]

So much of acting is totally dependent on the director. Not to excuse a lot of garbage acting, but can you imagine how hard it must be to do what George Lucas wants and make it good? It has very rarely ever happened.

 

[Kal-El]

So much of acting is totally dependent on the director. Not to excuse a lot of garbage acting, but can you imagine how hard it must be to do what George Lucas wants and make it good? It has very rarely ever happened.

A lot depends on the script and the director's vision, I agree, but regardless of what either says, if the line reads 'Anakin angrily tells Padmé that Obi-Wan's holding him back' or something to that effect, I do feel that there are certain standards your acting should adhere to

 

[thecuddlyninja]

Natalie Portman is a fantastic actress and she is terrible in the prequels, too. If you do it well but the director wants it to be goofier or "more dramatic sounding" because he is a giant man-child, then guess which take is in the movie? I think this is veering too far off track so I'll just say that I've seen everybody who was awful in the prequels be really good or great in something else.

 

[slekyr]

I think it was all George's fault, he doesn't write the best dialogue and he doesn't care about actor's performances as much as the special effects and editing. I think it was in the documentary The People vs George Lucas where the original cast talked about how he would always just say "faster" and/or "more intense" as well as always just saying that he would fix it in post.

That's why there is a noticeable difference in acting when comparing IV and V. In addition, Hayden did a good job in Shattered Glass (2004), Natalie did a great job in Black Swan and pretty much anything else she's in besides the prequels, Sam L Jackson is good in every Tarantino movie, and so on and so forth. A director can keep rolling until the actor/actress gives the most desirable performance

With that being said, I should probably mention to get back on topic before Frink does :-D

 

[Smithers]

With that being said, I should probably mention to get back on topic before Frink does :-D

Agreed [emoji14]

 

[Smithers]

One of the films where Sam Jackson really phoned it in

Yep, his lines are awkward and jittery, as well as being repeated two to three times in the movie making them even more dull and goofy. His character will be cut down quite a bit and his scenes will be rearranged throughout the film. This is one of very few movies where I actually want less Sam Jackson.

 

[Smithers]

A quick update, the edit is going quite well, I've settled on the free editor: "Lightworks" since it will work on mac, windows and, linux. The editor is working extremely well for me and has done everything I've wanted it to. So far I'm about two-thirds finished and I'm getting worried because the movie is becoming increasingly short, hopefully the final product (title and credits included) will be roughly 1hr 20mins. Here are a few screenshots just to show how many little cuts I've made:

 

[Smithers]

Also, PM me if you want to Preview the edit, I'd like technical criticism and input on what you like and don't like. Thanks!