Smallville Destiny

This was a little disappointing for me. I only watched a handful of episodes from Season 1 so I'm not familiar with the source material. The only other frame of reference I have is juice's Smallville Episode 1 edit. (I'm not comparing the edits though.)

The tech side is great. A/V quality is as good as the source material (which isn't that great to begin with). The editing was top notch throughout.

I was let down though because it was just too long for my tastes and I was bored easily by it. Maybe if I was more of a fan of Smallville I would have enjoyed this edit more. As it stands I don't really have any strong desire to see the next installment of Smallville (be it watching Season 2 or watching a hypothetical Part 2 fanedit).

So if you're a fan of Smallville you'll hopefully like this. If you've never seen Smallville before I don't really recommend it to you.

Review by DwightFry78 — May 30, 2011 @ 5:08 am

Unlike many people around here, I never really followed Smallville loyally, and the first season has a lot to do with it. Frankly, my opinion of it is that it, with its dreadfully lame and repetitive “freak-of-the-week” structure, was so bad overall that it’s a wonder it even got renewed for a second one. Okay, I may be being too harsh, but I got the feeling that every single episode was the same.

However, beneath that surface there happened to be a surprisingly engaging dose of human drama, and it took Last Survivor to reveal it in his firstling by removing all the rubble and putting together a story about people, which is what all great stories are about. It does not turn it into The Godfather, it’s still a whinefest and the dialogue is more akin to what a teenager would write than to what they would say, but the relations between the characters are highly enjoyable and you get to like them all (yes, Whitney too!) It’s true that it could have been trimmed a little further, and it’s true that the limitations of the material sometimes prevent some points to be well-rounded (I’m referring specifically to Clark’s quite out-of-character avoidance of Chloe when their quasi-affair starts developing, caused by the removal of that episode’s freak), but for what LS had to work with, the result is more than solid. Do not expect an action movie, though, there’s precious little of that, this is Smallville as pure drama. The action/adventure excitement, however, does kick in for the last hour of the ride, which might be the best of it.

Technically this is pretty much flawless, with no hard cuts whatsoever, and audio and video quality being consistently fine. I had the chance to see an earlier workprint by LS that showed great promise, which the final version more than fulfilled. This was a very good firstling that has me joining the popular acclaim for similar LS edits of further seasons of the show. 9/10 overall.

Review by bionicbob — April 27, 2011 @ 12:41 am

As anyone who follows the TV Shows Threads knows, I am a HUGE Smallville fan!
But more over, I am a lover of all things Superman.
My comic book collection is overflowing. I grew up watching George Reeves weekday mornings before school in the 70s, I was in theatre seats for all the Chris Reeve movies, I loved the late 80′s Superboy series, enjoyed LOIS & CLARK in the 90′s and have been a devoted follower of Smallville these past 10 seasons. Thus, when Last Survivor announced his Smallville project, I was very curious.
The timing could not have been better. With Smallville ending it’s series run later this year, it felt right to go back to the very beginnings of the series and relive the genesis of this generations’ Superman.

First off, I will get the basic technical stuff out of the way. The dvd menu design is simple, functional and to the point. Just the way I prefer it. The editor provides a nice summary of his intentions as a bonus feature, along with his two trailers. All very clean and nice.

I watched this edit on my good old 56inch rear projection tv (yep, still no widescreen tv for me yet) and the images and colours were clear and sharp. I listened to the movie through my stereo system and the quality was very good, never had to adjust the sound while watching.

While watching I did not notice any significant interlacing, flash frames or fluctuating video quality. I did observed the widescreen matte would sometimes change from normal black to a dark grey briefly. Considering the source material and type of edit this is, most the of audio and scene transisitions work very well. There were a couple I thought could be smoothed out slightly more, but for the most part, I was really impressed. There are a few scenes which are obviously cut and/or restructured, but they were not a significant distraction for me.

I really liked the new music choices for this story. The score used for the opening and closings for Parts 1 and 2, pefectly capture the lyrical quality you want for this type of epic edit. The new opening credits and score, was extremely impressive. It paid a nice tribute to the comic book origins of the material, while maintaining a modern dramatic style. Well done.

So on the tech side, I think this is a very well constructed and executed edit. It shows great skills and great promise.
I would give the tech stuff a solid 8 out of 10.

Now we move into the subjective stuff—narrative choices made by the editor, viewer accessibility and overall entertainment value.

As already outlined by Last Survivor, he has taken season one and the season two opener, removed all the Freak of the Week plotlines, and focused solely on the lives of the main characters of Smallville, the Kents, the Luthors and their supporting entourage.

I was skeptical when I first read this, really wondering how well the season long “B” and “C” storylines would hold up. As my memory is stained with the many horrible and repetitive freak villains that ruled through season one. Happily, the subplots of the daily struggles of young Clark and his friends and family work really well. Which is a testament to the strong writing team of the first season and the wonderfully engaging cast of actors.

That said, this edit definitely does not flow like a feature film. It is very, very episodic in nature, filled with teen angst, and soap opera twists. This is particularly evident in Part 1 of the edit, where all the various plot lines seem random and disjointed. However, in Part 2 most of these threads quickly come together, forming a mostly coherant tapestry, and a satisfiying conclusion.

As a long time Smallville watcher, I found the 4 plus hour movie experience to be a fun nostalgia ride. I enjoyed revisiting many of these storylines. But what would someone unfamilar with the Smallville series think?

They may find the edit a bit too long, I think another 20-25 minutes could have been eliminated. There were some story bits I thought could have been cut to keep the story moving faster and more focused. Such as the “adoption’ bit from Part 1 and the “nanny” bit from Part 2. But these are minor things.
If there is one potential weakness to Last Survivor’s edit removal of the Freaks of the Week, it is we the audience don’t get many opportunities to see Clark being heroic. They talk about it alot, but we, the audience, don’t get to see too much of it. This started to worry me as I watched, but Last Survivor has smartly closed Parts 1 and 2 with a big action piece, thus finally giving the audience a glimpse at the hero Clark is destined to become.

So I think structurely the narrative works and a non-Smallville fan will be engaged and will understand the storyline. Due to the nature of this type of tv edit, not all the storylines are tied up in a neat bow by the time the final credits roll. There are some unresolved threads and cliffhanger elements. But instead of being a destraction or disappointment, they work well as nice tease of things to come. Make sure you watch the entire end credits for a little surprise!

So again, I would give the creative/entertainment elements of this edit a strong 8/10.

I think this is very good first time edit and I whole heartedly APPROVE IT!

So if you are a long time Smallville fan, or have always been curious about the series but have never watched it, I would recommend checking out Last Survivor’s SMALLVILLE DESTINY.

THUMBS UP!

I watched this last night and wasn't blown away to be honest.

I'm intrigued as to why the decision was made to anchor this edit in its television roots rather than go for a streamlined 'smallville the movie' experience. To me that idea has the potential to craft something more engaging and intentional - whereas this edit felt a bit meandering and aimless to me at times.

Without a doubt, the episodes that LS chose to focus on were some of the best moments from Season 1. The fortune telling old lady and the Ryan story really grappled with that theme of destiny, and I understood what LS was trying to do there. Those themes are certainly present, and come through loud and clear. But we also have many scenes of Lana, Chloe, Witney etc, and these stories just aren't as interesting to me.

One of the major problems of constructing an engaging narrative from cobbled together episodes of a tv show is finding a strong throughline that can anchor the whole thing together. I'm sorry to say, I didn't feel like this edit achieved that successfully overall. Yes, removing the villain of the week did put more emphasis on the drama, but the drama as performed in smallville is arguably not all that compelling. It's pitched squarely at teenage angst, and sitting through scene after scene of that tone and sentiment was difficult to stomach after a while - like bold and the beautful: the teenage years.

What I would love to see from a smallville edit would be to focus almost exclusively on the relationship between Clark/Lex, and their respective parents. I realise those aspects are front and centre in this edit, but by including all the minor stories of the peripheral characters, that focus is lost a bit along the way. I do think there is a strong story in here to be drawn out, but perhaps by limiting it to 90 minutes max, and including the arc from seasons 1 and 2 of the show, you get to end the 'movie' with that wonderful scene with Christopher Reeve, and have a fitting and emotional climax to the story, pointing towards his great destiny. In a perfect world, I would also add elements of the Williams sound track throughout to point the way.

Technically, the edit was fine. I watched the AVI, so the picture quality wasn't perfect, but the audio and video editing work was great, and did not distract in anyway, save for only a couple of noticable changes.

My lasting feeling is that perhaps LS started out with the intention to craft a tight and focussed movie length adaptation, but ended up getting too attached to various storylines along the way, and went for the tv mineseries approach instead. If you want to relive the key relationship moments between all major characters from the first season of smallville, then I would recommend this edit for you. On the other hand, if you want a tightly paced and plotted look at the origins and destiny of two huge characters in pop culture mythology, unfortunately I would have to say this doesn't quite hit the mark.