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The Ring Two - Unlocking The Well

boon23

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What is it about: Those who wished for a better sequel to the US remake of THE RING can be hopeful. Some of the worst scenes are gone, a new beginning and ending were created to provide a lot more tension and fear. It comes full circle.

original film name: Ring Two
new film name : Ring Two - Unlocking The Well
film studio name : Dreamworks
edit crew name : CBB
Date Original Film Was Released : 2003
Date Edit Was Released : February, 2009
Original Runtime : 129 min
New Runtime : 107 min
Amount of time Cut/Added : 38 minutes cut / 16 minutes added



Fanedit details:
THE RING TWO UNLOCKING THE WELL is a fanedit about both the curse of Samara for others and about demonic possession in the life of Rachel and Aiden. To make it a much more scary movie and more true to the original US remake, a lot of over-the-top and unneeded scenes were removed. The short movie RINGS was included to the beginning and ending, to make it more part of the RING's universe. Most of the atrocious "deer" scene was removed and the psychiatrist Dr Temple was completely removed, because her entire appearance and especially her death was annoying. This does not turn RING TWO into a masterpiece of horror movies, but hopefully into an entertaining sequel that can be enjoyed by fans.

The changes:
- added rings
- cut rings intro
- cut day7 beginning
- cut Rings website
- cut some of the ringmates discussion
- recolored RING TWO for a more greenish taint
- cut Ring 2 intro
- cut couch buying, Rachel cooking, Aidan talking
- cut Samara saying to Rachel "I found you"
- cut the neighbors from the market
- cut Aidan walking through the market
- cut Aidan trying out the toilets
- cut A bit of Rachel's search for Aidan
- cut Aidan approaches the 2nd water crane, fly scene
- cut the deer scene, except for the final impact (to damage the car)
- cut Rachel sitting in the hospital watching TV
- cut Dr Temple entirely
- cut the real estate salesman
- cut the deer bones from the cellar
- removed Aidan calling Rachel after she closed the well
- cut ending
- added Ring video
- added Rings beginning to the end
- added new end credits

released as:
full NTSC SL DVD
xvid avi (700mb)

DVD DETAILS
107 minutes Single Layer NTSC 1.81:1 anamorphic widescreen with AC3-5.1 audio
LANGUAGE : ENGLISH (5.1)
SUBTITLES : ENGLISH (selectable)
MENUS : animated with sound
SCENE SELECTION : yes
EXTRAS: Deleted Scenes (a selection of the most interesting deleted scenes, 13 minutes)
       Samara (history of a ghost girl)
       The Cursed Video (watch the entire video that causes all the trouble and expect your phone to ring, when it's finished)
       CBB Overview for all 32 fanedits
COVER&Disc ART : yes, on DVD-Rom part

Fanedit history and making:
THE RING TWO was a major disappointment. It was not bad enough to be unwatchable, but it could in no way keep up with the tension and suspense of the first remake. The director tried to hard to add symbols and fancy special effects scenes and forgot about an interesting plot. Also he broke the rules by including abilities to Samara that she did not have in the first part (like forcing people to commit suicide). The RINGS special feature: What was originally planned as the bridge to RING 2 ended up as an extra on the DVD. Interestingly it was the better movie and more what people actually wanted to see.

I made my first fanedit of this movie, right when I got the DVD by simply removing the entire deer scene, as this was the most annoying part of the movie for me. But I had planned a true fanedit for a long time and finally I was in the mood to get to it, not because I expected it to be a great movie, but with the hope to create a bearable and entertaining sequel to THE RING, which I still love. I started with RINGS, edited it to make it less of a short movie and more part of a real movie and then got to RING TWO. Now the director seemed to think that people would really care a lot about Rachel and Aidan and what happened to them, but I for one did not at all and removed plenty of their scenes, as they were dragging. In my first cut I removed the entire deer scene, which later on turned out to be not a good idea, as the deers wrecked Rachel's car and an explanation for this had to be included. The removal of Dr Temple, the psychiatrist, who wants to take Aiden away from his mother, was really a benefit to the movie as well as the removal of the real estate salesman, whose funny appearance did not at all work well for me. Aiden. David Dorfman is unfortunately not a great actor and got way too many important scenes in the sequel. I took out a lot of them (especially when he walks through the market and from there to the toilet) and again I think: this is good for the movie.

In my first cut I left the ending unharmed, but when re watching it felt shallow and empty. A complete happy ending felt kind of undeserved, so I decided to create a new one, more open. Samara is such a mighty demon and while it may be possible to protect someone you love from her, you may not so easily get just away with it. And her demonic grudge of course never ends.

Hardware and software information:
Hardware:
Windows XP computer
with an AMD phenom 940 quadcore cpu
and 4 GB of RAM on an ASUS board

Software:
Ulead Media Studio Pro 8.0
Vegas Video 7.0
Cinema Craft Encoder
Virtual Dub
Adobe Audition 1.5
Pro Show Producer
Jasc Paint Shop Pro
PhotoZoom Pro2
DVD Lab Pro 1.52
Cyberlink Power DVD
Cinematize 2 Pro
Irfan View
PGCDemux
AnyDVD
DGPulldown
TMPGxpress

Additional comment: I am not expecting a lot of people to be interested in this small project, but those who are, please leave a comment.

Time needed for the edition:
editing: 5 days, extras: 4 days, DVD menus: 2 days, quality checking and further corrections: 1 day.

persons involved: boon

Images:
cover art by boon23 (download here):
3D_boon23_ring2_UTW_cover.jpg


Maybe downloadable from Fanedit.info
 

JasonN

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I once wondered whether or not Rings would've made a better intro to the film, but thought that its cinematography was a little too different from Ring Two. Either way, I'll be interested in seeing what you did with the film.
 

JMB

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Opinion and spoilers follow:

I liked the first Ring movie pretty well, but never bothered with the 2nd. My girlfriend is a big Horror/Chiller buff, so when she tells me one of these types of movies isn't too good, I usually listen to her. She had gotten the DVD when it came out, watched it once and never since. Actually, when I asked her where the DVD was her response "Ugh. Why?" In fact, she disliked the original so much that I could not convince her to watch this edit with me. And we have seen a few fanedits together.

So I was interested to see Boon's take on this film, without being prejudiced by having seen the original version (even though I knew it was bad). My reaction is: The edit was good, as are all of Boon's that I have seen, but still the movie was a bit lacking for me. Sorry to say this yet again, Boon :)

In the first Ring movie, Samara's motivations seemed to stem from wanting to exact some sort of revenge for her death. Now the filmmakers are saying she just wants a mommy? Not to say that either reason is more plausible or better or anything, but they seem to be a bit contradictory.

The new director pretty much apes Gore Verbinski's style; It had the same slow, measured pacing of the first Ring movie, but unfortunately none of the story. I hadn't read Boon's statement about re-tinting it until after watching it and as I was watching I was thinking they even copied the greenish tint. Good work on that Boon...you fooled me well!

There wasn't anything here that made me cringe outright or anything, so Boon did his job there. Unfortunately, there was nothing that quite compelled me either. Mostly it was logical inconsistencies and an uninspired premise that kept me from really enjoying it. I'll go out on a limb here though and say I'm pretty sure anyone who has seen the original will prefer this version.

In Summary:
Video/Audio: Great
Movie: Not so great

So again, Boon's editing chops are on display here but sadly, for me, the source material can't be redeemed by his skill.
 

theslime

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The new director pretty much apes Gore Verbinski's style
You do know that it was directed by the director of the original Japanese Ring movies, right? I'd say it was Verbinski (and scores more like him) who actually aped the Hideo Nakata style established in the original versions of Ring and Dark Water.

Of course that doesn't make The Ring twO (I even dislike the original spelling) any better. :) I still plan on checking this fanedit out, though.
 

JMB

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theslime said:
You do know that it was directed by the director of the original Japanese Ring movies, right? I'd say it was Verbinski (and scores more like him) who actually aped the Hideo Nakata style established in the original versions of Ring and Dark Water.

Ha ha, yes I knew that thanks to Boon, but I have never seen any of Nakata's other work so I didn't know Verbinski cribbed from him. Thanks for the info!

Definitely check it out. I'm sure Boon would be interested to hear your thoughts on this one, especially since you have actually seen Ring 2.
 

boon23

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oh of course I am interested in hearing more thoughts about it. :) Even if they are not super positive, but I never expected that for this fanedit anyway. It's like I said: if this is now an acceptable movie for a fan of the RING movies, then I consider this successful.
 

theslime

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The story of the making of the various Ring films is actually really interesting. I unearthed information about all the various versions for a film encyclopedia I used to work for. Here's the whole thing, translated in a hurry and with less precise and more colloquial language:

The Ring, The Spiral, Ringu, Rasen, sequels, spin-off shows, books and various

Works:

Koji Suzuki's books:
Ringu [Ring] (1991)
Rasen [Spiral] (1995)
Rupu [Loop] (1998)
Basudei [Birthday] (1999)

Japanese films:
Ringu (1998)
Rasen (1998)
Ringu 2 (1999)
Ringu 0: Basudei (2000)

Stranded projects:
Ringu 3 (2000?)
Rupu [Loop]

Remakes and spinoffs:
The Ring Virus (KOR 1999)
The Ring (USA 2002)
The Ring twO (USA 2005)

Japanese TV movies:
Ringu: Kanzen-ban (1995)

Japanese TV shows:
Ringu: Saishusho (1999)
Rasen (1999)

Comments
Rasen (1998) is actually the sequel to Ringu (1998) and they were actually filmed and released simultaneously. When Rasen bombed at the box office and Ringu turned into the biggest Japanese hit ever, the director of Ringu, Hideo Nakata, was hired to make a completely new sequel with a newly-written script not based on Suzuki's book. Since few had seen Rasen, Nakata's second film was given the confusing title Ringu 2. Later, Ringu 0 was released as the concluding part of the "trilogy" consisting of four films. This is a prequel based on the works of Koji Suzuki.

Rasen was not released Internationally until after all three other films, and it's thus been released as Ring 2: Spiral and Ring 4. To make matters even more confusing, the American The Ring (2002) and the Korean The Ring Virus (1999) are both remakes of the first Japanese film, not the novel, since the Ringu made a lot of changes to the original story. For instance the novel have two male protagonists. Similarly, the American The Ring twO (2005) is neither a remake of Ringu 2 nor Rasen nor one of the original books, but a sequel to the changes made by the American remake. To confuse matters beyond comprehension, it's actually directed by the original Japanese director.

Though even "original movie" makes no sense. The novel was actually filmed for Japanese TV in 1995 (Ringu: Kanzen-ban) and with a spin-off series (of the TV movie, not the book) called Ringu: Saishusho (1999). The TV series Rasen (1999) is the sequel to the spin-off series.

There are also manga releases for all books, some of the films, and probably some of the TV spinoffs. The graphic novelization of Rasen is considered to be better than the actual film, but since it was adapted from the book, not the film, it confused the hell out of me since I'd only seen Ringu, not read the first book.

The planned film of Suzuki's third book, Rupu (Loop), has been put on hold since it would confuse nearly everyone. It would necessarily be a sequel to Ringu and Rasen, but since Nakata FUBARed the continuity with Ringu 2 hardly anyone would get it. And The Ring and The Ring twO didn't make things easier either.

Weirdly, Ringu 2 introduced a lot of new plots which were slated to be resolved in Ringu 3 not based on the books. When plans for Ringu 3 turned into the prequel Ringu 0, Ringu 3 was postponed indefinitely and will probably be shelved (with the Nakata cliffhangers intact). If Ringu 3 ever gets made it should really be called Ringu 8.

Why should I be the only one who's confused? :?
 

theslime

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Hey Boon, I watched this just now. Great work! The original Ring two is not very present in my mind (and I felt no need to rewatch it), so I can't really comment on specifics. However, this is now a pretty good movie and in some cases better than the first one. Yes, I actually mean that. The first one suffered from too much comic relief - as did Ring two of course, until you fixed it - and scenes that made little sense from an emotional point of view. Not to mention the world's most useless character (the boyfriend).

This film now accepts the basic premise of both the video and the possession and moves from there. Then it goes in some interesting directions, even if it backs away from some of the more interesting conclusions. What if she'd actually killed Aidan? That I would have loved to see. What if both Rachel and Evelyn were in fact stark raving mad? What if Rachel killing Aidan had only made Samara stronger? I guess what I'm getting at is that in your edit, the scene felt unsafe. It felt like she was losing it. Naomi Watts is a great actress (as she proved in Mulholland dr.), but it's the character too. Driven. In contrast, the first film felt more like survival horror. This is emotional and more of a mindfuck than the first one.

Verbinski's touches always smelled like Hollywood hack to me, so it's actually good to have Hideo Nakata back, even if he can't direct an actor if his life depended on it. Still, his use of effects is better than Verbinski's. He's more sure of what he's doing, and goes further. More experimental. Samara's climbing effect actually got to me, even though it looks ridiculous. Visually it's better too. Though not as good as the Japanese Ring, which (while riddled by narrative issues) wipes the floor with every other Ring movie in terms of visuals.

With the Rings segment (directed by Jonathan Liebesman) it's the other way around. The effects are silly, but the story works, and you get characters you actually care about and a story that's much better than ye olde demonic possession story. I completely agree that it's a real letdown to cut to Rachel and Aiden. What's cool is that Rings seems to be a byproduct of the ending of the original Japanese Ring. It's about copying - the ring as a mental and physical virus. I like that a lot. Much more interesting.

I seem to have wandered a bit....

I think this edit is flawless. Image and sound was great (I watched the avi, which even at a very low bitrate looked pretty good), and the fact that you cut whole characters makes a lot of sense and makes the minimalist paranoia feel more real (not to mention shorter). I applaud all the cuts I can remember, and some only from your description in the other thread. And reinserting Rings is crucial to making this not only watchable, but even pretty good.

technical:
editing: 5/5
sound: 5/5
video: 5/5

entertainment:
edit: 3.5/5
original: 2-2.5 (can't remember exactly)
 

boon23

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thank you for the nice review, theslime.
Yes, I would have loved to let Aidan die. This would have made so much more sense, but with that happening there was simply no way to end the movie, at least none that I saw possible. Aidan is in every scene, when Rachel gets pulled into Samara's world - and that finale is somehow of the essence. All I could do there is to make it unclear if Rachel actually succeeded or just committed suicide in the end.
And yes, the killing scene was unsafe, but not unsafe enough to really let the true killing happen. I would have needed some kind of mourning or going completely mad scene after that for Rachel.
It was a very difficult edit, I had so few scenes to go in the direction where I would have preferred to go: more subtle, more mysterious. But again, if I managed to make THIS movie more watchable to you, then I am really happy.
Thanks for taking the time to watch it and write the review.
 

theslime

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My pleasure! Like I said, it wasn't just watchable, it was actually pretty GOOD. And with this source material, that's some achievement.

Another thing that continues to fascinate me with a good fanedit is how things you thought were bad turns into good just by having other stuff cut or modified. A good example is how Natalie Portman's acting in TPM was actually pretty good at times, and when Magnoliafan changed the trade federation story to slavery, it actually mader her acting - "my people is dying!" - seem better with none of the dialogue changed. You achieve some of the same effect with Hideo Nakata's special effects. With omitting the worst and over-the-top parts, the ones that remain look pretty good.
 

Kylexmonroe

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i have been trying to find this edit everywhere. if someone could please point me in the right direction it would really help me out. thank you so much
 

boon23

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dvd is gone (wasn't downloaded anymore). avi is still available on MU.
But the post seems to be about finding it at all. You cannot find it everywhere, because it is somewhere. Reading helps.
 

TV's Frink

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boon23 said:
You cannot find it everywhere, because it is somewhere.
Ooh, I feel like I just ate a fortune cookie. ;)
 

Analingers

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I really want to see this edit! This honestly sounds way better than the original sequel tbh, what made me mad was that in the first movie it was hinted the morgans we're actually the real parents and did either some demonic ritual or use a foreign concocution to have anna pregnant with samara. I've read that there was many documents that were used for promotions for the original stating how anna gave birth to samara, but now they're long gone. I really wondered if Verbinski would have liked the idea for a sequel, and what it would've been like if the franchise was under in his hands. Like literally the only scene i liked from this whole movie was Rachel reactanting Anna's death. We still don't know what was truly in Ehren Krueger's mind for samara's history, with this sequel making samara being adoptive which obviously contradicts the live birth certificate in the first movie and deleted scenes of the first movie. I honestly wished Gore Verbinski would make a sequel and have all these sequels either retconned or ignored. It seemed so out of character for samara to start demon crawling and wanting rachel to be her mother, i mean i loved the spider walk and i've watched rings too, but while it's impressively cool, i really don't think that would be how samara would be from the first movie. All the sequels were a mess, but the 2005 Rings, while filled with jumpscares and that "raaaaachellll" mommy issued yearning line, it did feel like a true terrfying short and If the was last and only sequel that actually would've been really cool. Anyways IS THERE A WAY TO FIND THIS EDIT! THIS IS LITERALLY MY FIRST TIME FINDING A FAN EDT WEBSITE AND I'VE ALWAYS WANTED TO SEE THE RING TWO REEDITED! WHAT WEBSITE CAN I FIND IT? WHAT IS MU???
 

ThrowgnCpr

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Analingers said:
IS THERE A WAY TO FIND THIS EDIT! THIS IS LITERALLY MY FIRST TIME FINDING A FAN EDT WEBSITE AND I'VE ALWAYS WANTED TO SEE THE RING TWO REEDITED! WHAT WEBSITE CAN I FIND IT? WHAT IS MU???


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