In my previous post, I wrote about the anticipation for fan edits of The Hobbit trilogy as a single film and I characterized them as “inevitable edits.” Last week I encountered TolkienEditor’s The Hobbit: The Tolkien Edit, which is the first of these recombinations to be publicly released. Culture bloggers and journalists picked up on […]
Category Archives: Blog
Inevitable Edits: Waiting for the Hobbit Superfilm
Yesterday I came across Peter Sciretta’s story on /Film about The Hobbit: The Complete Journey, a fan edited trailer by Joel Walden that combines material from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012), The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013), and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014): Reflecting on the trailer, Sciretta writes: Since the release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, […]
Remix Roundup: Loki, Godzilla, Transformers
This is part of an ongoing series of posts in which I share some interesting revisionist/transformative video works that relate to fan editing. Loki: Brother of Thor First appearing in September 2014, this fan edit by Loki Odinson culled material from Thor (2011), The Avengers (2012), and Thor: The Dark World (2013) to form a composite film centered on the character […]
Welcoming the Raiders Guys at KU
In 2013, I was fortunate to catch a screening of Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation (1989), the famous shot-for-shot remake of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) produced by Chris Strompolos and Eric Zala over the course of seven years while they were growing up in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. This fully costumed, fully action packed remake has […]
Publication Notes: ‘Fan Edits and the Legacy of The Phantom Edit’
“Fan Edits and the Legacy of The Phantom Edit“ is my first essay published in volume 17 of Transformative Works and Cultures, which is an international, peer-reviewed journal published by the Organization for Transformative Works. In my essay, I provide an extensive history of the controversial reception of The Phantom Edit, discuss its various effects on the critical reception of contemporary fan […]
The Woes of ‘Watchmen’
“I don’t know why Hollywood is fascinated by my book when they never care to film it as I wrote it.” — Richard Matheson, on the adaptations of his novel I Am Legend In a 2009 interview for Ain’t It Cool News, Terry Gilliam voiced some of his dissatisfaction with Zack Snyder’s Watchmen (2009), which he found to […]
The Return of ‘Watchmen: Midnight’
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? I often receive requests, in person and online, from people interested in watching my fanedit, Watchmen: Midnight. Today is the fifth anniversary of the original film’s theatrical release, and to mark the occasion I’ve produced an updated version of Watchmen: Midnight. It’s currently available on DVD-9 (with new menus, pictured above) and […]
There and Back Again: Travels and Exhibitions in 2013
There were several experiences in 2013 that I did not write about until now, including some great opportunities to screen Watchmen: Midnight and talk about fanediting with academics, fans, and aca-fans alike. April 17-19: StarFest 2013 in Denver, Colorado StarFest is an annual science fiction and fantasy fan convention founded in 1977, making it one […]
‘Charade: 5 Minute Version’ and the 90to5 Editing Challenge
The “90to5 Editing Challenge” is an annual film editing competition in which participants must recut a feature length film (90 minute runtime as a generalization) down to approximately 5 minutes while maintaining the essence of the original film. In this post I will discuss some of the implications of the 90to5 Editing Challenge and share […]
Copy, Transform, and Combine: ‘Everything is a Remix’
Everything is a Remix (2010-2012) is Kirby Ferguson’s short video series about remixing and why it is integral to creativity. To summarize his perspective, he recently delivered this presentation at TEDGlobal 2012 in Edinburgh, Scotland: Ferguson’s maxim of the basic elements of creativity — Copy, Transform, and Combine — distills the process that artists, writers, engineers, […]