Revenge of the Fallen: The Real Effing Deal (Released)

This is my second edit of this movie (The Kitten Calendar Edition) and it’s actually been available in it’s first form for awhile now, though I’m putting the finishing touches on an updated version that I hope to have uploaded before the weekend is up.

What is it?  It’s basically my Kitten Calendar edit with about 5 extra minutes removed.  The extra footage that is removed is dealing with mostly the twins, but also Sam’s parents, and Wheelie.  The reason I made this version was to allow people who have an overwhelming hatred for those elements to still be able to watch my edit of the film.

The total run time (with credits) is now 125 minutes, which is over 25 minutes cut out.

It’s available now, but only in it’s first form (which focused only on cutting down on the Twins).  The second version (1.5 minutes shorter), like I mentioned earlier, will hopefully be available before the weekend is up.

First available will be a Single Layer DVD.  Following that will be a DL DVD with both the Kitten Calendar Edition and the Real Effing Deal version.  This will be a called “Revenge of the Fallen: The Reformatted Collection”  After that, a blu-ray of The Reformatted Collection will be available.

The final version is now available.

Cool, I'll try to get my hands on it in the near future. My rapidshare account expired last week though so it might be a while. :(

With Kitten Calendar Edition, I was particularly intrigued that you released a Blu-Ray version of it. Have you considered doing so with Real Effing Deal as well, or possibly even an AVCHD disc like what Adywan is doing with his Star Wars releases? That seems to be a very well liked distribution format for HD fan cuts since most of us don't have access to BR burners.

I will be doing a BR version at some point (as well as a DL DVD) but that takes almost a week to upload.

LOL, take your time then. I look forward to seeing it, but I am patient. :)

My edits are available on MU, not RS. 

I'm trying to decide if I should make a combined release of my 2 ROTF edits, or make 2 combined releases of my edit of the 2007 movie along with one of the ROTF edits.

Very well done! Other than seeing a Dual Layer version of this I can't say enough good things about it.

I've also watched Gieferg's and while I do love some of his sound editing experiments ("You've got the touch," Bumblebee Talking, and the Soundwave voice, the last of which I really love), I think overall, the Real Effing Deal is the best fan edit of the film I've seen thus far (no offense, just my opinion)

Edit: So am I right in assuming the "Dual Layer" version won't be any higher quality than what's already out, just a branching version of both your edits (in short, two SL's slapped together)?

First, thank you, I'm glad you like it.

Secondly, if you mean the dual-layer of the combination of 2 of the edits, then yeah it would be basically 2 SL-DVDs, just on a single disc format so one could watch either from the same disc.  There will be a DL-DVD version by itself that will have a higher bitrate so it should be higher quality.

Bumblebee Talking,

It's not "my sound editing experiment" it's deleted scene which was released before ROTF's premiere but is not present on DVD. But This is a good idea - since BBB is talking through the radio faneditors are able to put there anything they want, the possibilities of changes are almost unlimited.

Is the video quality of version 2 of this edit improved in comparison to first version?

My bad, thanks for clarifying. In think in your edit Gieferg the twins are still mentioned in the opening battle, if I'm not mistaken.

(Originally I didn't get that scene, I was thinking they meant the "RC Twins" but there were three of them... until later in the movie "the twins" are the two idiots).

A lot of people were confused by that.

The problem is that Josh doesn't say "Arcee! Twins! ..." he runs 'em together a little too much, "Arcee twins! ..."

To me there's a pretty clear fluctuation in his voice that it is "Arcee! Twins!" though perhaps that's because I've listened to it so many times it's easy to for me to hear, but I was never confused by it to begin with either.

From what I understand, the subtitles confuse things too and don't use the correct punctuation.

in your edit Gieferg the twins are still mentioned in the opening battle

Yes, they're still mentioned there. I wanted to delete it but ultimately forgot about it (it's not a big problem for me anyway). I was also kinda confused because of how Duhamel delivered that line. Of course if it was all about Arcee there should be "triplets" instead of "twins".

Yeah. I thought I knew a lot about Transformers Lore (turns out I mostly just know the original US TV show that ended in '87 and the animated movie, only read two or three of the comics in the late 80's/early 90's), but the "twins" were actual characters from G1. But I don't think they were envisioned as retarded "ghetto/hillbilly kids." 

I was talking to a good friend of mine the other day and for him (to my surprise) the only good thing about TF2 was the Twins. He was one of those folks who didn't really like TF the first time (and was a fan of the original cartoon), but let it grow on him with subsequent viewings. Go figure...

But yeah, it wasn't until my third viewing that I finally understood what was supposed to be going on there. I guess the producers refer to Arcee as the three robots (I thought maybe they were supposed to combine into one larger robot, but they don't), but "canonically" each of the motorcycles is a totally separate robot and Arcee is just one of them (the red/purple one?).

The blu-ray for my Transformers: The Reformatted Collection is now available.  This a single blu-ray containing BOTH Transformers: Reformatted and Revenge of the Fallen: The Real Effing Deal.

Both movies are in 1080i and include their own menus.

Wow, BD media is down to $6 per disc (and $67 for a burner)... still!

I think I only paid about $2.70 for my discs.  And I see they are now as low as $2 each at Meritline.  I haven't seen a drive that cheap though.  I think $169 is about as cheap as I've seen a burner.

I'd reeeeeeeealy like to get my hands on the Blu-Ray of this, but sadly I haven't the means of burning a Blu-Ray+R. If anyone here with a BR burner wouldn't mind helping a bloke out though, feel free to drop me a PM. ;)

I'm watching the Blu-Ray version of Real Effing Deal right now. I must say, it's a pretty darned solid edit, and it looks gorgeous. From a technical standpoint it's pretty seamless so far, and I don't really notice what's been cut until after a scene is over and I have a chance to recall (although in all honesty, I've only seen the original once). Barring any serious flaws in the end of the film I think I can safely say I won't be missing the offical cut at all.

This cut isn't as as experimental as Gieferg's cut (don't expect any Soundwave vocoder voice or G1 music), but it's very well technically executed cut and I like it a lot so far. I haven't seen the earlier iterations of Real Effing Deal, but it seems to me like most of the complaints I'd read about it have been adressed in this version, so kudos to you, Kevinicus.

If you hate the Transformers movies, then I don't know if this is going to win you over. But if, like me you enjoyed the first but were sorely let down by the sequel, I think you will find this a much more enjoyable film than you remember seeing in the theater. It's still a flawed film, and in terms of plot it's still pretty poorly laid out compared to the first film (which I don't think even the most skilled of editors can truly "fix"), but it's still entertaining popcorn, and it's a movie I would feel comfortable popping into my PS3 when friends are over. And again, watching it on Blu-Ray is awesome! Having a solid fan cut that I can watch in picture quality similar to the official release is very much appreciated.

Also, on a side note, I have tested it both on my PS3 and the Blu-Ray player at school and have not run into any compatability issues.

Closing thoughts: a little annoyed that Robot Heaven is still in there, but I understand the reasoning behind not taking it out. The scene was a necessary point B to reach point C, and something I did notice in Gieferg's cut was that losing the scene did seem to cause a slightly bigger rift in the narrative than was already there, even if it came across as less silly. Given the alternative, I'm OK with leaving the scene in, and given how much the movie has already been improved I'm OK with a little bit of the cheese being left in.

Thanks for the thoughts Tim.

I never had a huge problem with the premise of the Sam/Primes scene, but wish what was really going on had been explored better, and I absolutely hate the look and feel of the scene.  I would have removed it if I could, but Bay and co. had to make the matrix fall apart. 

I just thought tonight about perhaps doing some of the Prime's voices playing over the shots of Sam as they're working on him, so that you get sort of the gist of what's happening in his head, and what he's hearing, but without seeing the stupid scene that goes with it. 

I'm too lazy to work on it though.  As far as I'm concerned I'm done with editing Transformers (until the 3rd one at least) and I'm going to start making Avatar a likable movie once Slysoft gets that encryption fixed.

3rd one?  Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

;-)

Kevinicus said:

Thanks for the thoughts Tim.

 

I never had a huge problem with the premise of the Sam/Primes scene, but wish what was really going on had been explored better, and I absolutely hate the look and feel of the scene.  I would have removed it if I could, but Bay and co. had to make the matrix fall apart. 

I just thought tonight about perhaps doing some of the Prime's voices playing over the shots of Sam as they're working on him, so that you get sort of the gist of what's happening in his head, and what he's hearing, but without seeing the stupid scene that goes with it. 

I'm too lazy to work on it though.  As far as I'm concerned I'm done with editing Transformers (until the 3rd one at least) and I'm going to start making Avatar a likable movie once Slysoft gets that encryption fixed.

The scene with the primes could have been a lot better if it hadn't looked like "robot heaven." That was what kept the scene from working for most people I think. If it had a more technological, digital look, it would have been a lot better. I'm not saying that the matrix of leadership should have been completely de-mystified, but if it looked a bit more "Tron-like" it would have felt like a natural extension of the Transformers' technology. They are living technology, so it makes sense that their afterlife would have a technological look to it. Instead, we got some goofy "all robots go to heaven" nonsense. Maybe an after effects-savvy fan editor in the future could give the MOL a more technological look, but that would take a lot of work and some very clever art decisions.

Where can I search to download the DL DVD version?

I don't remember if I even got around to uploading a DL DVD.

Edit:  In fact I did not.  I only got around to a SL DVD and as part of my Transformers collection on blu-ray.  At some point I'll have to get around to it.  I need to upload quite a lot of stuff actually, but I need to clear up some hard drive space for the .rar files first.