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Joel Schumacher has never been ashamed or denied that the final cut was his vision, and in several interviews he develops and justifies his choices and style.
To this date, no fanedit has ever done this, as they always took liberties in cutting out small (or sometimes entire scenes) moments here and there that say more about the editor’s personal taste than about the director’s wishes.
The objective of this fanedit is to try to restore, with all the discarded material available to the public, what would be the most complete version of the film possible to honor director Joel Schumacher and his pop culture opera approach to the Dark Knight.
Sources:
- The older Blu-Ray rip;
- Batman Forever: The Virtual Workprint and his HD Rebuild version by Bobson Dugnutt;
- Trailers and DVD Featurettes;
- Seal “Kiss From a Rose” Music Video;
- Both 35MM trailer scans by Denis-Carl Robidoux.
Additions and changes:
Basically I restored the original timeline and added all deleted scenes, extended shots and dialogues available out there at trailers, music vídeos, featurettes and making ofs.
I used most of the original Virtual Workprint edit as a base to the deleted scenes audio mixing, but there were two scenes that used Elliot Goldenthal score from Batman & Robin (the hair salon and the ending shot with Batman and Robin running), which I considered to redo and select tracks composed for Batman Forever.
A little bit of grain and scratches have been added, with the colours been a little bit faded because i think the Blu-Ray looks too oversaturated compared to the DVD and VHS rip.
I also used a new shot created by Bobson Dugnutt in his recent Virtual Workprint HD Rebuild.
Unlike the Virtual Workprint that reused some shots from the theatrical cut (the book opening with the wind, Bruce eyes extreme close up and the small bat flying) at the “Secret of the Batcave”, i chose to use all the original footage from the deleted scene itself.
I’ve been working in two versions: a regular and a “35mm experience”, with the colours being based on the trailer scans by Denis-Carl Robidoux.
The more detailed changelist would be:
- Original timeline restored;
- Alternate opening at Arkham Asylum;
- Extended dialogue at Wayne Enterprises;
- New Two-Face shot after "Let’s start this party with a bang’';
- New Two-Face shot at the elevator shooting;
- Extended Batman footage jumping out of the elevator;
- Batman ‘‘Going down?’’ line after the elevator shooting;
- New Batman shot with the grappling gun;
- Extended Batman and Two-Face helicopter dialogue;
- Dick Grayson training deleted scene back in;
- Batman crime scene deleted scene back in (using Bobson Dugnutt batmobile cockpit shot);
- Bruce talking to Alfred at cave deleted scene back in;
- Extended shot of Riddler throwing bombs;
- Mystery of the batcave deleted scene back in;
- Extended Robin hero shot;
- Chase and Alfred at car deleted scene back in.
