300: Earth and Water

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Faneditor Name:
Original Movie/Show Title:
Fanedit Type:
Original Release Date:
2007, 2014
Original Running Time:
117, 102 minutes
Fanedit Release Date:
Fanedit Running Time:
147 minutes
Time Cut:
72 minutes
Available in HD:
Synopsis:
When Xerxes of Persia launches an invasion of Greece, two of her most legendary warriors - Leonidas of Sparta and Themistocles of Athens - lead the defense of their homeland.
Intention:
As soon as '300: Rise of an Empire' was announced to take place before, during, and after the original 300, a fanedit was inevitable. Combining the two films was like putting together a big puzzle that was covered in blood and sweat. The end result is, I feel, a war epic that revels in absurd action and doesn't forget to have fun.
Release Information:
  • Blu-ray
  • Digital
Editing Details:
Given that 'Rise of an Empire' takes place before, during, and after the original film, I used that as the main body of the film. Despite the films being about the same conflict, both have rather different approaches to how the story is told. I did my best to reconcile these differences, detailed in the cuts and additions, so they truly feel like one film.

Cuts and Additions:
This is a general list of cuts and edits. You'll notice that more content was cut from 300 than Rise of an Empire. This is because Rise of an Empire was a fair bit shorter and there wasn't really all that much to cut.

- All scenes from Rise of an Empire were slightly desaturated and film grain added to bring them closer in appearance to 300.
- Added Aztek Fanedit Classics bumper to the beginning.
- Added "Earth and Water" to the original title card for 300.
- Opens with the battle of Marathon. Trimmed in a few places.
- Added "490 B.C." at the beginning of the battle.
- Trimmed the first scene in Athens, added "480 B.C." to beginning of scene.
- Cut all of Leonidas's back story. The first Sparta scene is him training with his son.
- Trimmed scene with the Persian emissary.
- Removed Themistocles talking with Dilios when he visits Sparta.
- Cut the underwater dancing oracle.
- Trimmed the 300 leaving Sparta.
- Removed voice over from the night time storm scene.
- Combined the first battle between the Spartans and the Persians and the Athenians at sea.
- Trimmed the second naval engagement between the Athenians and Artemisia.
- Removed voice over from night battle with the Immortals. Fight trimmed a bit.
- Trimmed battle before the Captain's son is killed. Removed voice over from scene.
- Trimmed the defeat of the 300.
- Trimmed scenes with Themistocles talking with Daxos and Ephialtes.
- Removed voice over during the sacking of Athens.
- Trimmed scene with Xerxes and Artemisia before the final battle.
- Removed Gorgo's voice over before the Spartans arrive at Salamis.
- New credits, with "The End is the Beginning is the End" by Smashing Pumpkins as the music.
300_disc
300_cover_art
Faneditor Name:
Original Movie/Show Title:
Fanedit Type:
Original Release Date:
2007, 2014
Original Running Time:
117, 102 minutes
Fanedit Release Date:
Fanedit Running Time:
147 minutes
Time Cut:
72 minutes
Available in HD:
Synopsis:
When Xerxes of Persia launches an invasion of Greece, two of her most legendary warriors - Leonidas of Sparta and Themistocles of Athens - lead the defense of their homeland.
Intention:
As soon as '300: Rise of an Empire' was announced to take place before, during, and after the original 300, a fanedit was inevitable. Combining the two films was like putting together a big puzzle that was covered in blood and sweat. The end result is, I feel, a war epic that revels in absurd action and doesn't forget to have fun.
Release Information:
  • Blu-ray
  • Digital
Editing Details:
Given that 'Rise of an Empire' takes place before, during, and after the original film, I used that as the main body of the film. Despite the films being about the same conflict, both have rather different approaches to how the story is told. I did my best to reconcile these differences, detailed in the cuts and additions, so they truly feel like one film.

Cuts and Additions:
This is a general list of cuts and edits. You'll notice that more content was cut from 300 than Rise of an Empire. This is because Rise of an Empire was a fair bit shorter and there wasn't really all that much to cut.

- All scenes from Rise of an Empire were slightly desaturated and film grain added to bring them closer in appearance to 300.
- Added Aztek Fanedit Classics bumper to the beginning.
- Added "Earth and Water" to the original title card for 300.
- Opens with the battle of Marathon. Trimmed in a few places.
- Added "490 B.C." at the beginning of the battle.
- Trimmed the first scene in Athens, added "480 B.C." to beginning of scene.
- Cut all of Leonidas's back story. The first Sparta scene is him training with his son.
- Trimmed scene with the Persian emissary.
- Removed Themistocles talking with Dilios when he visits Sparta.
- Cut the underwater dancing oracle.
- Trimmed the 300 leaving Sparta.
- Removed voice over from the night time storm scene.
- Combined the first battle between the Spartans and the Persians and the Athenians at sea.
- Trimmed the second naval engagement between the Athenians and Artemisia.
- Removed voice over from night battle with the Immortals. Fight trimmed a bit.
- Trimmed battle before the Captain's son is killed. Removed voice over from scene.
- Trimmed the defeat of the 300.
- Trimmed scenes with Themistocles talking with Daxos and Ephialtes.
- Removed voice over during the sacking of Athens.
- Trimmed scene with Xerxes and Artemisia before the final battle.
- Removed Gorgo's voice over before the Spartans arrive at Salamis.
- New credits, with "The End is the Beginning is the End" by Smashing Pumpkins as the music.
Cover art by Aztek463 (DOWNLOAD HERE) image

Trusted Reviewer reviews

2 reviews
Overall rating
 
9.3
Audio/Video Quality
 
8.0
Audio Editing
 
10.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
9.0
Enjoyment
 
10.0
Turning the 2 films into a single chronological narrative works wonders, particularly in increasing the quality of the sequel’s narrative. For me, this turned the sequel into an almost as interesting story as 300 was, and that’s an achievement in itself.

The editing is top-notch here. The transitions from one film to the other were perfect, couldn’t find a difference between the original cuts and the (many) new ones.

At 17m12, there’s something weird happening with the framerate, just for a few seconds, the video seems jittery. I’ve checked, this is not present in the original.

User Review

Do you recommend this edit?
Yes
Format Watched
Digital
Comments (0) | Was this review helpful? 1 0
Overall rating
 
9.5
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
9.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
9.0
Enjoyment
 
10.0
Overview - Stroke of genius, this edit. Chronologically sequencing events from 300 and 300 Rise into one edit was a well conceived, though doubtless very tricky concept to pull off. Each film has their own, altogether distinct, look, and there is the concern that shifting from one film to another would distract from enjoyment. In addition, elsewhere I had rated the individual 300's 7/10 and 5/10, mostly for narrative issues, and I wondered if this edit would rely on excessive action at the expense of story.

Video - Sure enough, from Sparta to Athens, the hue swings from reddish to bluish. Yet there were a lot of blacks in both that acted to visual cohere the elements. Along with those ever present floating cinders and motes. I don’t know whether this was sheer luck, or if Aztek463 had this planned all along. In any event, visually the films merged.

The editing I thought smooth, and the choices smart.

Audio - Cracking 5.1 sound. Dialogue was never a problem and the bass solid. The only quibble I had came at the very end. The credits. The music jumped abruptly from heroic score to pop song. The aural presence was utterly different. It was jarring and catapulted me straight out of the film. Ninety seconds on, I was done. The Pumpkins should have wailed later, or been cross-faded. That’s just me.

Narrative - This is where Aztek excelled, elevating 300 Rise almost to the level of 300. The narrative sleight of hand had me enjoying the sequel much more than I had originally. I still found the heroes of the second film weaker, the villains stronger. Xerxes not as dominant as remembered, perhaps by design.

Enjoyment - Oh yeah. Thank you for doing such tight edit, that you kept the running time to under three hours. I won’t view 300 Rise again. Fire and Water will be my go to there. Does not eclipse 300, though I doubt that was the intention. Action binge fest, and a fun one at that.

User Review

Do you recommend this edit?
Yes
Format Watched
Digital
Comments (0) | Was this review helpful? 1 0

User reviews

9 reviews
 
78%
 
22%
5-7 stars
 
0%
3-5 stars
 
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1-3 stars
 
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Overall rating
 
9.5
Audio/Video Quality
 
9.5(9)
Audio Editing
 
9.8(9)
Visual Editing
 
9.9(9)
Narrative
 
9.0(9)
Enjoyment
 
8.9(9)
View all user reviews View most helpful
Overall rating
 
8.4
Audio/Video Quality
 
6.0
Audio Editing
 
10.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
8.0
Enjoyment
 
7.0
Now this was interesting.

The edit works incredibly well as a single narrative, regardless of the movies being released almost a decade apart. The reprising roles make it even more convincing, and no unaware viewer would take this for less than a back-to-back production of two separate installments. There are some narrative inconsistencies that could have been edited along - like the persian emissary disdain for Queen Gorgo's say as a woman, even though he is shown to have been Artemisia's mentor at that point. But that's on the nitpick side. While other reviewers have taken issue with how prominent the sequel story is in the edit, I think it's for the better since it gives the original some real-world political sustenance instead of relying just on mythic sandals-on-the-ground.

AV quality is just okay, editing is pretty flawless throughout.

Good showcase for fanediting.

User Review

Format Watched
Digital
Report this review Comments (0) | Was this review helpful? 1 0
Overall rating
 
9.2
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
10.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
7.0
Enjoyment
 
8.0
Top notch editing. The technical profiency of this edit is very high. It was an interesting watch, but at the end of the day I just don't care about the events in Rise as much as the original. This makes them as good as they can be, I think. I wish the movie didn't have to go on after the ending of the original 300, but narratively there would be no way to make that work. This was a cool idea executed as well as is possible. I think the story of the sequel/prequel just isn't that strong. I'll watch this edit on occasion though it doesn't replace 300 for me.

The editing is pretty seamless and the picture quality is outstanding.

User Review

Do you recommend this edit?
Yes
Format Watched
Digital
Report this review Comments (0) | Was this review helpful? 1 0
Overall rating
 
9.2
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
9.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
8.0
Enjoyment
 
7.0
The editing here is superb, and the quality of chopping these 2 films together is top notch.

Unfortunately, the weak spots of the film are from the prequel. I hated 300 Rise of an Empire completely. Outside of the origin of Xerxes, the prequel was just garbage...and sadly, while the editing and pacing here was really well done, I still had zero interest in the 300 Rise characters or plotlines. The original 300 bits are still equally as good as they ever were, but it's obvious where the shift in tone and color scheme take place when switching between films, and I just didn't give a crap when the Rise parts came into play.

I was just hoping that the Rise portions would be minimal, which they weren't. I feel like the Spartan story took a backseat to the sub-par Rise bits in this edit. We never really got to know the Spartans before the war, although we got history on the main characters from Rise. It's a shame because the quality difference between 300 and Rise is huge. I feel like Rise is better off a secondary supplementary material than being a focus.

If anything I would have cut the stupid sex fight between Eva Green and whats-his-face from Rise. That was just dumb. I was hoping at a minimum, this edit would omit it, but alas it was still there.

I can't knock the quality of this edit though. Technically, it's a very professional edit. I just was hoping to much less Rise and retain the majority of 300. And the majority of my 7/10 score for enjoyment here goes to the original 300 bits.

User Review

Format Watched
Digital
Report this review Comments (0) | Was this review helpful? 1 0
Overall rating
 
10.0
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
10.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
10.0
Enjoyment
 
10.0
REALLY liked this. Like a hell of a lot. It works almost perfectly well. Good job taking out Wenham's narration from 300. I'm sure that wasn't easy.

User Review

Do you recommend this edit?
Yes
Format Watched
Digital
Report this review Comments (0) | Was this review helpful? 1 0
Overall rating
 
10.0
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
10.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
10.0
Enjoyment
 
10.0
An outstanding work.

I loved 300. The sequel, 300: Rise of an Empire was...ok, but not something that I would watch more than once.

This fanedit takes the best elements of both films and ties them together into one seamless narrative. I was very impressed with both the visual and audio editing, and Aztek463 has succeeded in making a fanedit where the end result is greater than the sum of its parts.

Highly recommended!

User Review

Do you recommend this edit?
Yes
Format Watched
Digital
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View all user reviews