Spider-Man: Birth of a Hero
by blankfistWhat is it about? Watch the trilogy united to one movie.I wanted to do something in the vein of a Marvel-style action packed comic book using all of the pre existing action footage and minimizing the many story-lines from the films to very specific moments that only serve to move the plot forward. This is an action packed Spider-Man thrill ride meant for the true fanboys!
member ratings: 
(22 votes, average: 7.41 out of 10, rated)
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Original Film Titles: Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, Spider-Man 2.1 and Spider-Man 3
New Film Title: Spider-Man: Birth of a Hero
New Run Time: 232 Minutes
DVD details:
2.35:1 Anamorphic Widescreen, NTSC
5.1 Dolby Digital Surround (English)
Static menu, detailed chapter list
DVD cover and disc artwork
list of changes (too many to realistically mention here)
*SPOILER ALERT*
If you want to be surprised by the way in which the new story unfolds, I recommend NOT reading the changes below because they will give away important plot points which have been slightly altered from the original DVD releases.
1 – Augmented original title sequence by adding “BIRTH OF A HERO” animation.
2 – Story-lines from movie 2 and 3 blended so to overlap where applicable. The origin is kept in tact, but the first movie is cut significantly where the story-line starts to focus too much on the Harry, MJ and Parker story arcs.
3 – Peter Parker cries a lot less.
4 – Mary Jane and Peter Parker’s story-line strengthened by removing redundant “get together/break up” scenes and “we can’t be together” scenes.
5 – Harry never experiences amnesia.
6 – Big props to ADigitalMan for his idea to treat Venom’s voice. I’ve also added a small effect to Venom’s voice, but it’s a touch subtler than ADM’s implementation.
7 – There’s no origin given for Green Goblin, instead it plays out as a slow reveal that Norman Osborne is the Goblin. The green mist is no longer a story element, though the green liquid is shown but once as Harry finds his father’s secret arsenal.
8 – Villain story-lines are intermingled – in fact, when Doc Oct robs the bank, Sandman robs the armored car about the same time. I had to do some creative splicing here to get this to work. If you look closely, you may be able to see where I rotoscoped out the pizza boxes in two Spidey swinging shots from SM2.
9 – For the Doc Oct action scenes, I opted for the SM2.1 extended fight sequences: they’re a bit more brutal than SM2 DVD’s version.
10 – No opening Voiceovers. Though, there is one Peter VO at the end.
11 – Parker no longer beats up Flash in high school. The main reason for me to remove this scene was because with Parker doing gravity defying flips in the air and knocking Flash twenty yards down the school hallway, it wouldn’t take much for one of the schoolmates to eventually figure him to be Spider-Man in the coming months. That scene never felt right to me.
12 – Removed Spider-Man losing his powers and the “Spider-Man No More” story-lines. I like them, and they work great in SM2, but they don’t fit in this retelling.
13 – Used SM2’s ending instead of SM3, because it was generally a better ending. And with how I tell the story of Parker and MJ, it really fits well with their budding love story.
14 – Macy Gray has been cut out of Unity Day as much as humanly possible.
15 – Goblin no longer wants to make a deal with Spider-Man.
16 – Most of the levity scenes have been taken out, which includes a lot of the J Jonah Jameson stuff in the Bugle.
17 – Timelines for MJ accepting John Jameson’s proposal have been shifted toward the end of the SM3 timeline, and it works well with the timing of Parker’s story to return the wedding ring to his Aunt May.
Intention for this fanedit:
Although I’m a huge fan of the Spider-Man trilogy, I wanted to do something in the vein of a Marvel-style action packed comic book using all of the preexisting action footage and minimizing the many story-lines from the films to very specific moments that only serve to move the plot forward. This is an action packed Spider-Man thrill ride meant for the true fanboys!
Time needed for the edition:
Discovery of workflow: 3 days
Preplanning: 3 days
Editing: 6 days
Sound Editing: 1 day
Authoring DVD & Artwork Creation: 6.5 days so far
Images:
cover art by Blankfist (download here):
Disclaimer: You must own the original movie before acquiring any FanEdited movie. We here at FanEdit.org respect the company’s copyrights, and don’t want to infringe on any company’s rights. Thank you, FE!
Maybe downloadable from Fanedit.info through Rapidshare (enter and download at your own risk and responsibility)
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I have just finished watching it and wanted to give a comment, even though it is not what I was hoping for after the VERY promising beginning…
Please note that this is all just my opinion and other people might think way differently about this.
For 20 minutes I was absolutely amazed from the changes you made and how you made them, how you rearranged scenes for trimming and what atmosphere came with it. This feeling came back at several parts later on, BUT I could not help feeling not overall entertained especially towards the end. I think it could have been better. Sorry.
In more detail from scenes I recall (contains heavy spoilers):
The beginning, how Peter Parker becomes Spiderman is very well crafted. A lot was trimmed that was unnecessary and the plot this way made sense to me. Really good.
The first thing that bothered me (and it was minor, but still took me out) was when uncle Ben gave aunt May a heads-up gesture. There was no explanation that they had any kind of problem with him. He mentions it later on, but it feels out of place, where it is.
We move on to Spidey fighting Bonesaw, again very well trimmed for the better,uncle Ben getting killed and Peter stopping the thief (presumed killer).
Then comes the quote: “With great power comes great responsibility…” this uncle Ben quote would have made much more sense, if it had been said before as it was in the original. Again it felt out of place (still the problem is minor).
Next to come is the introduction of the green goblin and I have major issues with that. Because there is none. We never see Norman take the serum nor get insane nor get the green goblin at all. He is just there, fully dressed and with unexplained superpowers (especially physically). The Spiderman universe is settled in the real world, so superpowers don’t come easy to everyone and I found myself really wondering, where he got the power from and why he was so mad being the leader of a successful company and so on. The explanation blankfist’s edit gives us that it drives him mad to lose the company… The original does the same, but it furthermore gives us the serum, which actually is the reason for the green goblin to be what he is.
The following fights and the plot was again very well trimmed and fun to watch, but I could not get over the superpower thing, so my entertainment level was kind of low, except for the relationship things inbetween, which were interesting and well edited. If I did not like the green goblin in the original I found him even worse in your edit.
We move on to Harry saying: “MJ is in love with Peter” ??? Why would Harry say that to his father? There was to much missing here. It is used as an excuse for Norman to hunt down Peter Parker/Spiderman, but it made little sense, since Harry had no reason to say it, as Peter made no move towards MJ. All that happened in the edit was MJ asking Peter to go out with her and Harry together. She also really admired Spiderman and Harry was jealous about that. But Peter? No.
Next Spiderman says to the green goblin that he tried to kill aunt May, but
this hasn’t happened in the edit. We only saw him scaring her. To much missing for Spidey’s line.
When the edit approaches the 2nd movie there is a very noticeable color change, but I consider this minor.
I really liked the Octavius part. You made this part exciting and cut the right parts from it. Very well done. My favorite part of the edit (except for aunt May umbrella scene, which I always hated and still do) I am not so sure mixing it with the sandman was such a good idea, because there is such a long time where he does not show up anymore. The idea to introduce him so early is kind of good though as it makes the movies 2 and 3 better flow into each other. Still it makes one wonder, why the sandman, who was all about getting money for his sick daughter, waited weeks to make his next move. It’s not like the guy had any kind of private life to attend to. Introducing him later would have worked better.
Still a great middle and for me definitely the best part of the fanedit.
When Spiderman 2 approaches its end, I would have really preferred the cut directly go to MJ and Peter in the web, instead of Peter leaving first (wherever) and switching to Harry discovering the secret room first.
We move on to Harry finding the goblin’s hidden room. Besides the scene being really very cheesy (as it was in the original), he finds the serum… but we never knew about any serum. We also don’t see him using it, so the audience has no idea what the green thing is about, but its presented as being important. And indeed it is as it would have explained Harry’s superpowers. The scene didn’t work well for me as did all Harry/Goblin Jr. scenes later on.
With the beginning of movie 3 the fanedit starts feeling long for me. Maybe because part 2 had so much good action and part 3 cannot keep up with that, maybe because I am at about 3h already, but the pacing does not work well for me, so the 3rd part of the fanedit most of all dropped my mood, even though you made some really good changes.
The addiction to the venom dress comes a bit fast as does Peter’s hair change. In the fanedit his behaving bad to his landlord is enough to make him feel real bad, but it seems like something is missing there. Perhaps it would have been better to drop the entire scene, let Harry blackmail MJ and let the story move on. We see the addiction taking place anyway. With the interception of the physician it should have been enough explanation.
Fighting the sandman still looks terrific, but somehow I have an action overdose, because it does not excite me at all.
Now what is MJ doing with that microphone? Besides that, great editing job of some ridiculous venom/Peter dancing scenes. First time this did not bother me to much. Still I think even the walking through the street with the girls looking at him would not have been necessary.
The relationship between Peter and MJ and gets a bit tedious meanwhile… together, apart, together… sigh… resulting in her being kidnapped again at the end, which really makes me smirk at best, but annoys me, because it is getting to much. The final battle between sandman, venom, goblin jr and Peter was actually rather boring.
And the wedding finale… I could have done without. I was actually happy the movie was finally over.
The end credits were just of the original movie. I was hoping for fanediting stuff comments or something, but you can’t have it all. I am sure this was a lot of work anyway.
So… to conclude this:
The movie started for me great (I loved how you added your name in the credits, although I would have preferred credits, where ALL main actors of all 3 movies would be named), turned to very weak with the appearance of the green goblin, even worse than in the original movie, was great with Doc Oc, was superficial with venom/sandman.
I think this was an average fanedit. It could have been a lot better, but of course it could have also been a lot worse. The faneditor made some interesting and radical choices for trimming so much and most of them worked very well. However, some details should have been added for a more logical plot.
The image quality was really good, I noticed some little stuttering in some scenes, but it’s minor. The color change from 1 to 2 was very obvious, but also minor, the image was sharp and detailed, the transitions were well done.
The audio quality was perfect. I did not notice any hard cuts there.
The DVD design is bare. Simple menus with no audio. But the faneditor took the time to name the chapters, which I do not see often, but it’s good.
All in all this gets a 3 of 5 from me. I can see the huge amount of work that went into that and the great talent of the faneditor, but I would really enjoy this being improved some more.
I will rather watch Spiderman 1 and 2 in their original version and never watch Spidey 3 again if I don’t have to.
Review by boon23 — February 17, 2008 @ 4:35 pm
It might just be me, but I couldn’t even get to the intro of the Green Goblin.
Review by Tolan69 — February 19, 2008 @ 12:03 am
This edit is great…the best part for me is the Doc Ock/Sandman robbery mix….that worked so perfectly it’s unreal!
some stuff hungover from the normal versions, in this edit…make little sense e.g. Spider-Man and Goblin being criminals!!! without the bugle scene this was pointless and should have been removed. Harry telling Norman MJ loved Peter…seemed a bit weird..how does he know? – Peter and his glasses during the ock kidnap scene…i know in the movie he loses his powers but here it looks odd. But i suppose there’s nothing that could be done about it…mary Jane accepts that engagement to John Jameson faster than a mother fucker!!! she wastes no time haha
If this were to be a DVD title it would be the “ALTERNATE MARATHON EDITION” because it all works…just…i will say this though…watching this version made me realise how tonally different these movies are to one another, they belong apart and viewed individually!…this is truly Brilliant though well done…Pat on the back old chap!
Review by AnEyeOut — February 20, 2008 @ 4:49 pm
Downloaded it, enjoyed it!
Of course there are a bunch of plotholes, for example you could have just cut the “Peter loves MJ” scene and show Pete in the hospital saying “He knows who I am”, then Peter runs to the phone, calling MJ and the Goblin answers.
The Sandman/Dock Ock robbery is just great – also Peters line “Where do all those guys come from is funnier considering he just fought a 6-arm scientist and a Sandman.
The birth of Sandman/Dock Ock was really good and also the fight scenes from Spidey 2.1. enhance the battle sequences. The early introduction of Brock is a thing Raimi should have done himself in Spidey 2.
Despite plotholes and continuity errors… I enjoyed the hell out of it: 5 stars
Review by Sunarep — June 20, 2008 @ 4:29 pm
Wow! I mean just, Wow! This is absolutely awesome. Not that there aren’t flaws, but overall I loved It.
My main complaints are confined to the first third. I’ll echo what others have said in that the lack of an explanation for the Green Goblin doesn’t really work, and that there is no reason for Harry to think MJ loves Peter. Also, why is there a news headline about how Spiderman’s a criminal almost immediately after the scene were he’s being cheered for saving Unity Day. It makes no sense at all. Other than that it was very well done. Although, personally I think that the first movie was strong throughout in it’s original form, and thus in no particular need of a remix. Honestly, I think this edit would have been stronger without the first third (and yes, I do realize that would belie the stated intention of the author, but what can you do?). I imagine that this would have fixed BOON23’s complaint about “action fatigue”.
However, this brings us to the merging of parts 2 and 3. I can’t even express how much I loved this part. You took everything that worked in each of these movies and put it together in one 2 1/2 hour expression of cinematic genius. Considering that Spiderman 3 was almost this long in and of itself, I can only tip my hat to you. You cut out all the crap that I didn’t like. No more Peter losing his powers. No more amnesia for Harry. No more disco douchebag Peter. What’s not to love? Somehow, the fact that Venom is only in the last third of the movie doesn’t even bother me anymore (and this pissed me off to no end in Spiderman 3). Probably because there’s so much else going on that I never had time to wonder when Venom was finally going to show up. Also, the voice change adds a lot to the character somehow. It just makes it feel more like Venom should. In fact, I can only think of two small criticisms to this section of the film. One is during the transition from the Doc Oc robbery into the Sandman robbery. It seems kind of odd that he puts down Aunt May and immediately just happens to swing into the middle of Sandman hijacking an armored car. It seems that ther should have been some sort of shot establishing that me saw this going on first, not there was necessarily footage for you to do this with, but it just felt weird. The other is that it does seem odd that Mary Jane is going to marry John Jameson like immediately after breaking up with Peter. However, I’m more than willing to forgive these small missteps due to the overall awesomeness of the rest.
In closing, I’ll say that I gave this a 4 star rating. But, let me say that if it had just been the mash-up of 2 and 3, it would have been a 5 star all the way. Great work, man. Looking forward to seeing what else you’ve got.
Review by JCPRuckus — November 14, 2008 @ 2:36 am
ITs s phenomenal edit with a great ending and a much much better take o nthe trilogy! My only quirk would be the narration being gone and the seen with Uncle Ben, just felt cut off to me but what the who , GREAT EDIT!!!!!!
Review by boon23 — December 12, 2008 @ 3:30 pm