Superman: Son of Krypton - Another Man of Steel Edit (Released)

Disclaimer: I came up with the title a while ago without knowing about krausfadr’s, so sorry about that!

Hey all, this is a fan edit I made last year that made for Man of Steel, back when the Justice League Snyder Cut was announced. I got it to a “finished” state, but the final product was still rough; partially due to lack of experience, partially due to being too extreme with some changes and causing visual/audio continuity issues, and partially due to the fact that I’ve since lost the files. It was fun, but I was okay with keeping it in my folder alone.

Now that the Snyder Cut is out though, and surprisingly has a good enough movie within it that a fan edit would be a worthwhile endeavor, I wanted to share my Man of Steel edit. It’s still in the state it was, but with other people eagerly working on DC edits of their own, I felt like sharing on the very off-chance that it gives someone more talented any ideas.

Like many people, I tried to broadly remove or tone-down a lot of “Snyder-isms” in this edit. Clark acting vindictive, Pa acting selfish and cowardly, some more graphic scenes of violence, and instances where Superman and the military cause mass destruction. I didn’t make a proper change list at the time, so forgive me if it’s incomplete, but here’s some stuff I remembered skimming through it again:

• New opening with the animated DC Superhero logo/montage that later movies used, ripped straight from Wonder Woman specifically. Partially just because I like it, partially for more immediate continuity with the later movies (were I to make a BvS edit it would start the same).
• Title appears early, following Kal-El’s birth. Doesn’t look great or roll off the tongue well, but it just seemed like a natural place for it at the time.
• Shortened Jor-el climbing out of the “gene pool,” cutting the laughable shot where he carelessly smacks the priceless Kryptonian monkey skull onto the ground
• Shortened Jor-el’s Attack of the Clones-esque fall from the pool to his dragon
• Cut Jor-el strange line “a boy child” and shortened the following fight with Zod, as the notion that all Kryptonians are bred for a single purpose is lost when a scientist can wipe the floor with a soldier in martial arts (plus it’s just awkward)
• Cut Lara’s hesitation in launching the rocket (and possibly in general?). I did this to give her more a little more credit as a world-saving scientist and not just a doting mother, but I kinda regret it because the edit is rough and a mother’s love isn’t a bad thing.
• Removed Clark stealing clothes, and replaced the licensed song during the scene with quieter music from the movie’s score. I had to edit in some license-free audio of cars to pull it off, just in case you notice the audio sounding a little odd.
• Removed Pete Ross calling young Clark a “dicksplash” on the bus. Maybe it’s lame and naive of me, but I just don’t think a Superman movie needs weird crudeness like that, and as a bonus the edit now makes it appear that Clark has heard the bus tire get punctured before it actually pops.
• Pa Kent implies that he and Clark have discussed keeping his powers a secret before, but by moving some audio around he no longer says “maybe let kids drown lol.”
• Clark doesn’t ruin a trucker’s livelihood by pettily destroying his truck outside a bar.
• Lois doesn’t mention being in a dick-measuring contest. It wasn’t outside her character, but again, I just wanted to lessen some of the language.
• Lois doesn’t mention “needing to tinkle.” Wasn’t a language thing, just thought the joke was lame, but in retrospect the edit is too rough to justify it.
• Idea borrowed from Job Willins’ Man of Tomorrow: Superman’s donning the costume and first flight is moved later in the movie to when he surrenders to the military, after the church scene. Meanwhile, in the flight’s original place, I’ve moved up the scene where Clark returns home to Ma. This makes more sense to me than him going to his dad’s grave before he goes to see his living mom, but it also means references to Lois (a reporter came by today) have been cut from the scene where he talks with Ma. Lois’ investigation scene then comes after this, using an extra visual and voice-over to compensate for the transition (Lois’s voice-over was originally over the end of the flight scene).
• Tornado scene! Pa Kent no longer commits suicide, nor does Clark knowingly allow him to die. Pa gives Clark the child to take to the bridge and runs back to help others, and implicitly dies when the car is tossed on him. Clark doesn’t realize what has happened until it is too late. Obviously, the present-day follow-up is now edited so that Clark doesn’t say “my father died specifically to keep my secret.” In retrospect, I probably didn’t edit that last part enough, but I was mostly content with the tornado.
• Cut the General’s line about Zod “about to make a dramatic entrance.” Literally only did that for my friend who irrationally hates the line, lol.
• “New” scene?! When Lois is publicly exposed as knowing information about Kal-el, Zod’s ship, monitoring earth’s media (we know he controls TVs, at least) now picks up that information. This is done through a combination of stock audio, audio from BvS’s “political pundit” montage, a shot from Clark meeting Zod, a shot from Zod’s backstory, and a slow pan over an image of the ship’s exterior. The purpose of this scene is to more clearly explain to the audience why Faora later insists that Lois Lane must come aboard the ship to be interrogated. Of course, any material in this scene taken from other parts of Man of Steel have been edited out of their original places to the best of my ability.
• Superman doesn’t talk with the priest at all. He’s in the church before the flashback of the bullies begins, but when it ends he has now made his decision and is suiting up for the flight to Zod. The priest scene was painfully on-the-nose religious symbolism, and is redundant when the flashback already shows Clark’s thought process.
• Removed Superman posing like a cross as he leaves Zod’s ship to catch Lois’ escape pod, and cut some shots of Zod’s scout ships to speed up pacing.
• Ma Kent doesn’t tell Zod to “go to hell”
• Superman’s assault on Zod is less aggressive and doesn’t involve flying through a silo and blowing it up.
• Destruction of 7-11 is lessened, both for product placement and Superman causing property damage (and probably death).
• Superman doesn’t taunt Zod/mock Zod’s pain (hurts, doesn’t it?).
• Removed the Colonel’s line about having experience against Kryptonians. Line makes no sense, he’s never fought one and only just met Superman minutes ago.
• Throughout Smallville fight, I have cut/shortened as much needless destruction as possible, including military gunning down civilian cars, the military plane crash vaporizing an entire street, Superman throwing himself into buildings, Superman blowing up a trainyard, and the entire IHOP scene. Regrettably went too far at the end by cutting the villain throwing a train car into Sears, as Sears gets blown up by missiles anyway and now there’s a continuity error with the train car. Oh, and the painful Sears product placement as Superman leaves at the end is gone now.
• Throughout Metropolis destruction and fight, have made similar edits to Smallville. Less USA military planes carelessly destroying their own city, less Superman destroying buildings needlessly, Faora’s assault on the plane is less graphic, and there is a bit less “9-11 imagery” with Jenny & Perry.
• Superman and Lois don’t kiss or crack jokes on ground zero. They appear to almost kiss (could interpret it as relief rather than ill-timed romance), but are interrupted by Zod.
• When Superman crashes Zod head-first into the train station, the impact is now implied to have killed him (added a louder “boom” on impact), completely cutting the prolonged head-snap scene. This is possibly the roughest part of the movie, both anti-climactic and making it odd that Lois got there so fast, and is the biggest reason I didn’t bother posting this edit before. If I ever try my hand at this movie again I’ll do something different.
• Superman crashing the drone scene is cut.
• Idea form Job Willins’ Man of Tomorrow: incorporate Superman heroics montage from Batman v Superman into the ending, adjusting the score/speed of the credits as needed. Obviously in a theoretical BvS edit I would no longer have that scene in one of the two movies.

Well, I think that’s it, though there may be small things I forgot. If you want the link, ask and you’ll receive.