I don't know how much longer this video will remain up, but for as long as it is you may want to check it out. Film editor Job Williams, known for re-cutting movies to get what he perceives as the heart of the story, has re-cut Zack Snyder's Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice into the 2 1/2 hour Man of Tomorrow.
It's an interesting exercise that finds Job juggling or outright deleting the many plot threads in both of Snyder's movies in order to come up with a more cohesive narrative. Here's how he explains it...
“Man of Tomorrow is a narrative experiment that combines Man of Steel and Batman v Superman into one film. The goal was to use material from both films to form a single, feature-length, 3-act structure that focuses on Superman. I decided to try to combine material from both films, focusing on their strengths and streamlining the narrative to the rise and fall of Superman."
He continues...
"Since I started with Man of Steel (2.2 hrs) and Batman v Superman: Ultimate Edition (3 hrs), keeping the running-time down to 2.5 hours was no small task. A lot of plot wasn’t used (most of the Krypton sequence, the Smallville fight, the Africa subplot, the jar of pee…), but because the major threads that lead to the 3rd act of Batman v Superman came directly from the battle in Metropolis (the crashed Kryptonian ship, the Kryptonite from the world engine, Batman’s distrust of Superman’s power) I chose to hone in on those story points as the core of the narrative for Man of Tomorrow. Several scenes were reordered or reworked to fit the new narrative structure and better weave the material from the the two films together. For example: Batman/Bruce Wayne is introduced in the 1st act, Superman doesn’t put on his suit until Zod appears, Lex Luthor interacts with the Kryptonian ship earlier, the dour shots of Superman’s heroism from BvS are used much more optimistically, and the flashback to Pa Kent’s death is utilized very differently, just to name a few changes to the structure.”
I managed to watch about an hour of it, and honestly I have some pretty significant issues. Basically Job cut out what he didn't like, which is fine, but it leaves out any context whatsoever. So what we get is a random collection of scenes that Job just really enjoyed. Having just watched Man of Steel and 'Batman v Superman' Ultimate Edition yesterday, I think I'll stick with Snyder's version. Judge for yourself below, at least until Warner Bros. comes and yanks it down.
