Knock at the Cabin - The Choice Cut

[JasonFlippy]

Hi!

I am working on an edit of M. Night Shyamalan's "Knock at the Cabin" that either completely removes the unnecessary flashbacks (as well as possibly the bit about the one guy being a gaybasher) or moves them to the front of the film as a prologue. I felt this nagging thread throughout the movie that never came to fruition, probably because it was a Shyamalan movie. It felt either overstated or under-realized, and I actually really enjoyed the movie aside from that.

Thoughts? Has anyone seen the movie and felt the same way?

EDIT:

I made A LOT of small changes and a A LOT of big changes, deleting whole scenes, rebalancing some footage, removing cringey line deliveries, adding some music, changing the flow of some scenes, and MORE. This one really got away from me haha feel free to read over the change list if you want: CHANGE LIST (SPOILERS)

After considering what @tremault said (big thanks!), I decided to leave the gaybashing in as much as possible but remove anything confusing related to it. It is absolutely integral to the character development, but it was a little misleading the way it was delivered.

Here's a 90 second clip of part of the new opening I put together, to show off my credits:

And there's the poster I made! Gotta show my man Rupert the love he deserves, and it reminds me of Funny Games, which has a similar conceit.

I'd say I'm 95% done with this one, so I will be submitting it within a week or so.
I'm also working on getting it subtitled, so we'll see how that goes haha
Gonna screen it for my wife and get some outside feedback.

Thanks!
Jason

 

[tremault]

To be honest I felt that was pretty important to Andrew's view of humanity and part of his character journey.
I can respect your feelings on it though.

I really enjoyed the movie in it's entirety and I don't personally feel that issue, but it could be interesting to rearrange the flashbacks.

 

[JasonFlippy]

I agree with you for sure that that's why he's so angry about the fact that they, a gay couple, seem to have been targeted, which is why I was only considering removing the gay bashing. The problem is that it creates this loose thread where one of the people "tormenting" them knows them but the others don't.

My thought was when Andrew is yelling about "hoooow convenient that a gay couple was selected!" I would flashback to him being hit with the bottle and getting stitches.

 

[tremault]

I see what you're saying. the fact that he knew them... but maybe that was what was really required? something to really spike Andrew's trauma and make it so much more difficult for him to make the decision? But I guess it's subjective if that works for us or not. I think it's certainly great for you to provide this as an option

 

[The Scribbling Man]

Literally just finished watching this for the first time. It occured to me that it could be interesting to see the scenes play out chronologically. I don't think the flashbacks are redundant though. Apart from some iffy performances here and there, the biggest issue is the ending: underwhelming and uncompelling. It's a smack bang average shamalaama movie and I don't think there's much that can elevate it (personally).

 

[Samael Lynch]

Go bold and end the film with us not knowing who dies.

 

[JasonFlippy]

Go bold and end the film with us not knowing who dies.

Even bolder is the ending of the book where they shoot the little kid by accident but it doesn't count, and then you don't even know if anyone does the sacrifice to save the world

 

[JasonFlippy]

I see what you're saying. the fact that he knew them... but maybe that was what was really required? something to really spike Andrew's trauma and make it so much more difficult for him to make the decision? But I guess it's subjective if that works for us or not. I think it's certainly great for you to provide this as an option

You're 100% right that Andrew needs his trauma spiked, I think your comment inspired me to re-include the bar scene but still delete Redmond's involvement, to remove that lingering "what in the Shayamalan is gonna happen with the other 3 zealots?" feeling that bothered me throughout the movie.

 

[tremault]

to remove that lingering "what in the Shayamalan is gonna happen with the other 3 zealots?"

ah I understand now. In this sense I agree with your reasoning entirely. It's that constant guessing that we may do knowing this is a Shyamalan movie. I did my best not to guess anything while watching so as not to disappoint myself by getting it all wrong, but it certainly is the natural inclination to try and guess what 'the twist' will be. I see where you're coming from now.

 

[JasonFlippy]

Oh cool, I was getting nervous that I was imagining things haha

It was tough for me ESPECIALLY when they revealed the one woman was a nurse and he was getting stitches at the hospital. Like I was absolutely certain the nurse was going to be the one woman, and the other woman would have served them breakfast at some point.

 

[JasonFlippy]

Updated the main post with a current changelist and a quick clip of my new opening credits.
If anyone is interested in seeing this, please reply here and I will make a note to send it to you when I complete it

 

[tremault]

Updated the main post with a current changelist and a quick clip of my new opening credits.
If anyone is interested in seeing this, please reply here and I will make a note to send it to you when I complete it

Good job on this. It's not for me, but I had a look at your credits. I think the text looks too clean, I would recommend putting a little bit of a blur on it, to make it fit with the footage better. Nice layout and good choice of font and colour.

 

[JasonFlippy]

I will do just that, thank you!

 

[ArtisDead]

The approval of this edit finalizes your approval as a faneditor. Congratulations! Flippy!

 

[tremault]

Congratulations and well done!

Welcome to the club

 

[Samael Lynch]

Amazing work my man! Can't wait to watch it!

 

[JasonFlippy]

Thanks everyone! This is a really fun community and I'm proud to be a member of it.

Thanks to everyone who has shared their edits with me for viewing (way too many to mention) and I'm consistently impressed by quality of the edits and the skill and vision needed to make them.

Big thanks to @Wraith for a very cool dialogue around his Tarantino edit, @DonkeyKonga for showing me how far an edit can go with his No Nuke Cut, and @ArtisDead for being very supportive and helping me learn in lots of ways what it means to be an editor and to be part of the community!

I'm excited to keep editing and we'll see what happens in the near future!

 

[DonkeyKonga]

Thanks everyone! This is a really fun community and I'm proud to be a member of it.

Thanks to everyone who has shared their edits with me for viewing (way too many to mention) and I'm consistently impressed by quality of the edits and the skill and vision needed to make them.

Big thanks to @Wraith for a very cool dialogue around his Tarantino edit, @DonkeyKonga for showing me how far an edit can go with his No Nuke Cut, and @ArtisDead for being very supportive and helping me learn in lots of ways what it means to be an editor and to be part of the community!

I'm excited to keep editing and we'll see what happens in the near future!

This is a film that could really use an edit! I must say I enjoyed the original movie a lot more than I thought, but it was a bit.. clunky at times. But compared to recent M Nigh movies it was a masterpiece lol. Have you seen old? That movie is hilariously bad!

 

[JasonFlippy]

Extremely bad haha but I think someone did it on here, named Sandcastles after the original graphic novel

 

[DonkeyKonga]

Even bolder is the ending of the book where they shoot the little kid by accident but it doesn't count, and then you don't even know if anyone does the sacrifice to save the world

This can probably be done relatively easy with an ai voice over, probably. Only you can't show it. (I don't work with ai voices, but I assume it could be done)