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The Crow: city of angels - Second coming v3.0 (Completed!)

This sure looks like it is as well deserved as a thing can ever be. What a huge project!
 
Ok, I got to watch this today.
Nice. I'm grinning.
Oh, I guess I need to be more professional in my review.
Ahem...

The Crow 2 was a bastard stepchild of a film crucified on the memory of its predecessor's success. Miramax, in its hallmark ruthlessness, butchered a director's artistic vision in hopes of making a clone that would payoff at the box office.

In order to set right what once went wrong, SDH took a risky style in reconstructing what can best be described as a virtual workprint...
And it pays off in spades.

Using still frames, script text, and even grainy pixellated footage, SDH has seamlessly pulled together a movie far superior to the theatrical cut.

General Audio/Video Quality: As stated above (and in other reviews) there are obvious limitations to the source. With that being said, changes in quailty never felt jarring and I didn't find myself reaching for my remote control to compensate for volume variations.

This is perhaps one of the most effective fusions of wildly variable sources I have seen.

Technical A/V Quality: Unfortunately Second Coming is blighted with beginner video gaffs. The video appears to have been edited in 29.97 fps instead of 23.976. The detrimental effect is that 100% of the video has been re-encoded with a 20% waste of bitrate. Even DVD sourced material suffers from jittering and color banding.

The audio is mpeg and that's bad. This is a violation of DVD standard and as a result may not play back on all stand-alone players (particularly those in the U.S.). While PAL regions allow for mpeg audio, NTSC spec requires PCM, DD, (or DTS provided there is an additional PCM/DD track with it).
Again this means the audio is 100% recompressed with a different compression codec causing even the DVD track to suffer.

Edit Quality: SDH is a brilliant editor (period). I can't imagine how many hours went into this project but it is quite possibly flawless in execution.
Production and film stills were used dynamically for missing footage with the occasional animatic: just impressive. (Although I did get a fit of giggles when the first animatic of the Crow cawing came on).

The on screen text was very legible on a television screen with plenty of time alloted for reading but never too much.

The music was well chosen and seamlessly blended with the film's soundtrack bridging the missing content to provide a smooth aural experience throughout.

The only possible problem was the occasional hesitation at scene changes. While this happened no more than a half-dozen times, it may very well have been the (fan) editor's decision. Either way it wasn't particularly distracting in light of the film's already splashy editing style.

Edit Story: Perfect. Everything made sense. No wasted plot lines. No holes. Not much else to say.

Now that I know what this movie was suppose to be, I feel horribly gypped by Miramax. (Bad bad Weinsteins. (Noise of swatting Weinstein noses with a DVD box.))

Sprug has successfully spun a bad film into artistic gold using a flamboyant style and an excellent technical method setting a new standard for fan editors everywhere.

General A/V Quality: 4/5
Technical A/V Quality: 2/5
Edit Quality: 4.5/5
Edit Story: 5/5
Overall (not an average): 4.5/5!

Cheers. Now please do a by-the-script edit of Crow 1!
 
Thank you VERY much for your review, DoctorM!! It 'most brought a tear to my eye lol. I am so glad and excited that people have been accepting this one!

For the tech. A/V quality, this was unfortunately unavoidable. As I had started on this project years ago, the editing program with all the save files doesn't allow frameserving (I was unaware of frameserving at the time). So I had to re-encode. A bit of a bummer, I will admit. But to start this project all over with all that work went into it on a new program would be a nightmare. :-o

For the mpeg audio, I have an idea about what happened there. I used Tmpgenc DVD author 1.6. I think this converts the audio to keep 5.1 sound instead of downmixing to 2.0. Can anyone confirm this?

"(Although I did get a fit of giggles when the first animatic of the Crow cawing came on). "

Hah, glad you got a kick outta that. If you mean the one where he's perched on Ashe's shoulder during the Kali scene, I just couldn't resist making his beak move. :grin:

"Edit Quality: SDH is a brilliant editor (period)."

"Sprug has successfully spun a bad film into artistic gold using a flamboyant style and an excellent technical method setting a new standard for fan editors everywhere."

I cannot say in words how good those comments make me feel inside. Thanks again DoctorM (and to you as well, GAD) for the kind words and review!! :)

Other: I've never read the script for the first crow movie. What's changed in it? I know about the Skull cowboy, though. It's a shame they didn't include his scenes on the Collector's DVD. I remember first learning of Miramax/Disney butchering films, and was like "what the... Hell?"

The Crow: CoA, Hellraiser: Bloodline, multiple HK flicks and most recently Thief and the cobbler (a wonderful restoration). and so many more that hit the chopping block.

I don't think i'll ever trust them.
 
The Skull Cowboy scene was released on a DVD-Rom extra disc.
It contains the raw footage without effects and the audio sounds like a guy talking through a mask (which is exactly what's happening).

The low quality aside, it would need some effects work and a redub of the actor.

Wikipedia sez:
In the original screenplay, there was a character called the Skull Cowboy, meant to be played by Michael Berryman, who acts as Eric's guardian angel, telling him exactly why he has come back, what he must do, and played an integral part in the final story line. According to the original screenplay, the reason Eric lost his powers is because he had finished what he came to do: get revenge on Shelly's and his own death. The Skull Cowboy tells him this when he returns to his grave, and stands on the steps of the church before he enters warning him he is now vulnerable. However, the character was cut in order to put more emphasis on the bird as a power link.
Click to expand...

There is additional deleted footage on the 2 disc DVD release (and a stills montage of the skull cowboy).

Imdb alternate version info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109506/alternateversions
 
can someone explain me where i can find Disc 2? i downloaded the rapidshare links packs, but it was just 1 disc image, is this correct?
 
disc 2 has not been released yet.
 
We aren't necessarily ruling that out either, Immortal. :)
 
It is an extended cut, but at the same time it is a tightened cut. I trimmed some scenes that I felt worked better for pacing, and several scenes are edited very differently. One of the biggest differences is that 95% of all scenes in the movie appear in a different spot in the edit (how they were intended originally before Miramax swapped/botched everything around). It's pretty much an entirely different film than it's released counterpart.

Here's a recent bit from director Tim Pope:

http://www.timpope.tv/index.php?page=532

"But I did feel awful that they basically re-edited
the film to the point where I did not recognize it.
Bob Weinstein, one of the legendary film-mogul brothers, phoned me after I was back home to say, did I want to see the director's cut?!"

So the Weinsteins stamped "director's cut" on their cut of the film, and released it to the public, lying & ripping everyone off in the process. It's nowhere near Tim Pope's cut. Talk about BS.

Sorry about the delay on the 2nd disc btw everyone. I got caught up in some things but it should be coming very shortly now. I just need to create a torrent and also a pack for rapidshare. I'll be taking another stab at an xvid version soon, too. :)
 
Well I just had my first fanedit "initiation" lol.. really though, I can't imagine all the BS all you longtime editors have gone through with people (trolls?) posting crap comments like this.

piratebay

"C_Lab at 2008-02-17 00:27 CET:

Well congrats to whoever made this, you've made a bad movie worse. I've seen a lot of corny shit and this was up there. The only good thing about the second crow movie is Iggy. Take it from me whoever reads this, it sounds interesting but don't be fooled, it sucks ass."
 
yep, the usual stuff. And the good thing about demonoid was, that you could inform the mods about such comments and they would get deleted for flaming. But not on piratebay. You might also get bad votes just because people don't like the idea of fanediting.
And that is why we have this place here. To get constructive comments and to really discuss the art of fanediting.
Don't let this bother you. The world would be a beautiful place if it wasn't full of a-holes. ;-)
 
boon23 said:
Don't let this bother you. The world would be a beautiful place if it wasn't full of a-holes. ;-)
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I hear ya, Boon! I won't let it get to me. :)
I wish Demonoid was still around or would come back. I miss that place.

boon23 said:
And that is why we have this place here.
Click to expand...

And I love this place! It's a great community here with many helpful people. This is one of the very few forums on the net that I regularly visit. 8)
 
Can you quote whatever it is? You can't see the link if you aren't a registered IMDB member.
 
First post from the thread.

jester_eye said:
Apparently someone out there has gotten a hold of some deleted material and has had the time and energy to recut the movie, putting the scenes in the order of which they were originally meant to be and added the deleted scenes back in. Search google for ?The Crow: City of Angels ? Second Coming? for information.

I?m currently downloading the torrent (it?s a bit slow) and can?t wait to see how much it?ll change with the new facelift.


Edit 12/17:
I was able to get the torrent downloaded and gave it a watch this weekend and was utterly blown away.
Granted, there?s not a whole lot of new footage added, but the way in which it was done and how the missing elements were portrayed showed that this movie could have been something incredible had Miramax not royally screwed the pooch.

I haven?t seen the original COA in quite a long time, though I tend to dust it off every couple of years and give it a go, each time remembering why I steer clear for so long between viewings after the credits roll.

Not the case after watching the recut. I am a huge fan of the original and had they released what I saw on the torrent, I think COA would have become my favorite of the two.

It?s too bad that a definitive edition will never be made to correct the erroneous flaws in what Miramax put out to the public. .
Click to expand...
 
Second post:

DJ_Amok said:
I downloaded this Edit some days ago and I am absolutely amazed by the amount of work and dedication that went into it. It really shows how studios can turn a good movie into an utter crapfest by removing any scene that could be challenging to the audience in any way. I encourage every fan of the first movie to give the edit a try.
Click to expand...
 
Is there a higher quality cover available?
The one I have is 1067x690.
 
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