Marvel's Editing Is the Cruelest Cut of All | The Backdrop 

You talking about Carol being a buzzkill and that the movie should've started with her Hala war actually reminded me of a situation where this was done properly. In the testing for Finding Nemo before some pivotal final changes, audiences just were not responding well to Marlin at all. Audiences couldn't sympathize with him and were left annoyed and frustrated with his screentime for a majority of the movie. Why? Because the scene with Coral and the barracuda was originally a flashback that would occur near the end of the second act, instead of being shown to us right at the front. And the poor screening audience reception to him was what prompted the decision to move the flashback to just be the cold open. It just sounds like such a similar situation with Carol here.

This reminds me of a lesson I learned in theater: If you only half commit to the bit/character then you will look dumb/awkward on stage. But if you fully commit then the audience will enjoy the show. It appears marvel isn't fully committing to the bit with these, and then is surprised when the appear bad on stage

I saw the Marvels over two months ago, and I left the theater asking my friends if they noticed how badly edited the wheat field scene had been -- surely there's at least a minute of lines and reactions chopped out to go from mournful confession to all's well that fast. I've been wondering why nobody online was ranting about that editing work. There was so much warmth and cleverness showing through around the edges of ugly cuts, and for two months I haven't seen anyone talk about it. Thank you for this essay!

Editing is seriously underrated. Glad you were able to get this out. Edit: Damn. You're completely right. Studios, and in particular Disney, keep ruining their own products, huh?

Man, Second Wind proving yet again that you need talented people not corporate overloads to make quality content. Another feather in the cap of collectively leaving the Escapist was a great idea.

Second wind has been such a boon for these writers - through all the rebranding of existing series and the adding of new ones, I have been tuning in to every single upload. On the escapist channel I really only watched ZP and cold take. This video was great! Really well researched

Not enough essayist mention Duck Amuck for the perfection that it is. Kudos!

Editting on a video about the importance of editting was on point. Noice.

I hadn't been able to articulate why I haven't watched an MCU movie lately, but i think this was why. These movies used to be big events with weighty, if not super original, narratives. Now it just feels like a bunch of characters making quips completely divorced from their surroundings.

Darren, I think this became your most viewed video in less than 48 hours. Congrats, and keep up the good work, sir.

Your point about the length of a show and streaming metrics is really interesting. It's been known for a while in the music streaming scene: you get paid in full when your song is streamed in full. So you open strong, and finish fast, effectively sucking all the air out of the final product (and making it perfect to be sampled in tiktoks).

A shame the people editing the snowman didnt watch this or even Folding Ideas take on the weird mess the feature turned out too be.

I just watched The Marvels for the first time, and while it was quite good, it definitely felt like ~half an hour was missing. Maybe we can get an extended director's cut some day.

It's incredible how many millions they spend on these projects, and nobody seems to be able to inject even the slightest hint of common sense into them.

Darren Mooney Second Wind keeps making me want to remember the names of creative people. Y'all are cooking something really special here

"Movies are too long." Movies should be exactly as long as they need to be and no longer. If audiences are saying that movies are too long, it means that you're wasting their time with scenes that aren't engaging. "Too long" is a matter of how the movie feels, not how the movie actually is.

Yeah, it's not that the run time of the movie is long, its the feeling of the movie being too long or short. But no matter what, even if the run time of The Marvels was cut shorter than it was, I felt obligated to finish it instead of being motivated to.

Never been able to put this feeling into words, but "It always feels like the studio is promising the viewers that 'at least this'll be over soon.'" sounds pretty accurate to me

Editing is so underappreciated - but also i dont feel bad for the fact that disney is self sabatoging themselves by not understanding this because disney doesnt care about art lol

As someone who doesn't watch any Marvel shows/movies at all, I had the opportunity to watch the first episode of Echo with a friend, and I genuinely have no clue what is going on in that show. From the opening to weird cuts all over the place (and time?), things happening to the main character for which I have no context or explanation as to why stuff is happening and so on. It was honestly completely unwatchable for me. This leaves me very confused as to what you mean by "continuity light, accessible show".

Wow, way to bust out a Darin Morgan reference, you love to see it. Strongly recommend Folding Ideas' video about Suicide Squad for some great insights about editing.

Well said, the cynical editing definitely lost me on the first episode of echo as I didn't need the rehash of her story and it felt poorly done. I really liked the idea of the 'deaf mode' moments but they were treated more like a gimmick than her state of being. After that the trash editing on that daredevil fight made me bow out entirely.

The fact that fans of the Lord of the Rings movies generally default to the 4-hour extended cuts when they rewatch the series definitely suggests that movie length is not automatically the problem. For me, the movies that I'm immediately suspicious of are the ones that clock in as close to 90 minutes as possible. It doesn't mean that they're necessarily bad, or that longer movies are necessarily good, but if a film manages to get cut down to about 90-95 minutes, especially when including credits, it gives me the sense that the studio had little faith in the production, and wanted it cut down to as short as possible while still being just long enough to justify a theater release.

The quality of all the shows on Second Wind are through the roof. I love them all. Thank you for your hard work.

Absolutely excellent video that reinforces my choice to support y’all’s Patreon. The Marvels was extremely fun, but it was excruciatingly obvious it was edited to hell. You could tell there was an entire arc about Kamala Khan becoming disillusioned with Carol, but that it was cut for time. Thank you for this!

This guy needs a regular series: an informative video and an excellent critique.

Had no idea that Men in Black had a completely different plot before editing. Apparently they redubbed entire conversations between alien characters that were originally shot speaking in English to make it work. Fascinating detail.

I've still been enjoying the MCU, but it is refreshing to watch this as some of the most well-reasoned and thoughtful criticism of the recent output (that I've seen, anyway). Leaves me feeling "yeah I liked it, but it _could have been better."_

I heard a rumor today that they might bring back thanos, if true, it makes this video’s point about the Disney taking the nostalgia route quite relevant. It kinda feels like the mcu has entered its “direct-to-video sequel” stage.

A lot of attention was brought to the editing process back in the 80s with Blade Runner. Weirdly, it was then brought up against in the 90s with Apocalypse Now, a movie released 3 years before Blade Runner. Again with Mad Max Fury Road when the writers and director largely admitted they had handed in nothing but a massive collection of shots with no cohesion and there was no movie at all before the editor pieced it together. And of course today we have the famous Zack Snyder controversies. The point of all this is that across film history, people have been sporadically reminded of how many movies are made and ruined entirely by editing. Editing often done by a single person with no input from anyone who participated in the filming, but usually with heavy input from the studio & producers. Perhaps more often than not, the studio and producers have a movie they want and no matter what the script or director says, they make that movie happen in the editing room. Even in defiance of what is actually filmed, as apparently was done with The Marvels, they produce a different movie than the one they have film for. Brilliant editors take the absolute chaos that is every film production and spin it into gold. They are very possibly the single most vital part of the modern film making process, but that is NOT a good thing. Editing is and has always been important and necessary. Editing has _not_ always been where the movie is written. And while we might want to lean on editors to try and salvage something terrible, writers and directors _NEED_ to be the ones defining the story, the pacing, and the scenes because they're the ones with a special skillset that qualifies them to create a vision in film. Studios and (very occasionally) rogue editors stripping away that vision because they think they know better than the people whose entire career is defined by this one thing are hurting themselves, the film industry, and the fans who wish they could see something great.

You guys are great. I’m glad you escaped the Escapist; I would be missing so much good content.

The studio wants to announce a bunch of big projects to spike a news cycle but then has no interest in following through to create a quality product.

I'm not sure if I've seen this intro before, but it was a pretty nice one! Kudos for it!

It’s crazy what 2 frames off the header, 2 frames on the tail can do for the feel of a shot, sequence, or even the entire picture. Editing is a chronically underappreciated art.

I'm burned out on superheros. I don't know what it would take to get my interest.

It really did feel Daredevil was meant for a later episode. Then with the whole series being released at once, this move/change becomes pointless. You don't need to use your money shot footage in episode 1 if people have access to all the episodes at once. The decision to release it all at once certainly came after the edit though.

This does help explain why most post-endgame Marvel shows/movies tend to feel like they have serious pacing problems, they're patching together a bunch of scenes to appease corporations instead of trusting creators to tell a good story. if there's one thing these always seem to share it's missed potential, so many interesting ideas are never given the time of day in exchange for mediocrity, quips and cliches

I ended up watching Echo, but skipping the first (and second, unfortunately) episode. I really loved what I watched! I'm glad I didn't have to sit through all of the backstory at once! I wish the stockholders at least had more faith in that project in particular, it could have been even better.

*FUN FACT:* The Phantom Menace was originally six hours long but was edited down to two.

It must be so frustrating to be a writer or director on these projects. Whatever you turn in will get retooled to fit what Marvel thinks is best.

I get the feeling more with every passing year that Marvel Studios being sold off to Disney was the beginning of the end. Right at the peak of them hammering out their formula to keep each new film engaging and building up a greater narrative, they got bought out, and the formula became a rule instead of a guideline. Everything that diverges from it, even for the sake of fresh and creative ideas, gets hammered out and the rest made to fit criteria worked out by executives whose know-how is rooted in business rather than creative entertainment. Editing as restriction, rather than refinement.

One of my favorite films of all time is directed by someone who’s usually in the editing room - Walter Murch. (The movie is Return to Oz, his only directorial credit, though he has won great acclaim as an editor and sound designer.)

I’m so glad I completed disconnected from this particular kind of slop. Whatever little these media products might pretend to offer is so minuscule and deeply burried it might as well not be there. And seeing their decisions such as with the editing all but confirms they know it too.

Well, that's what happens when speed is put above quality in your film making. It's like the phrase, "Haste makes waste" isn't valid anymore or something.

I wasn't sure if I was going to enjoy this video just based on the title. Because I liked Echo and The Marvels. But y'all gave voice to some legit points. Damn. Props.

Amazing little essay, helped me understand a lot. Thank you!

Bravo with the editing of this video to prove that editing is vital to any presentation.

I was a video editor for a tv news channel, what they call "heart attack" editor one. Yeah, exactly how it sounds. Always producers telling you what to do and just running for your life. I retired before 40 not because i could.. but because i had to. You know what i mean Darren?

This reminds me so much of the subscription model for software. "Revenues must increase! Enshitification will continue until morale improves"

I it is very telling, when the best, most critics could say about the Marvels ,was that it was short. 🙈 Which is a shame, because there were some elements of an interesting movie in there.

This is totally spot-on. And it's this cutting making more and more of their audience 'feel' like the studios don't care about the characters and the stories, which is itself EXACTLY why so many people (myself included) aren't watching the new Super Hero movies and series. it's like the executives are trying to make a papercut better by using a knife. You can't maintain or grow an audience if your audience feels like you don't even care about what you're putting out. if they don't care, why should we? The Star Wars series, with the exception of Mandalorian s1 and Andor, also very much suffer from this. They spend way too much effort on just quips and references and cameos and not enough on the substance that makes something good. And until they stop treating their audience like idiots and stop taking us for granted, their audience/retention bleeding is only going to get worse and worse.

Modern movies may not be longer, but the bad ones sure do feel longer!

The only problem with your argument is that you believe there is an interesting movie/show behind edits of Echo and Marvels. But it's way more likely that they were even less watchable - even if having more of a point.

killer addition to the second wind team

having the main characters at least appearing to mourn the loss of an entire planet (or two) is at least more than Guardians of the Galaxy 3 did!

Companies in their search to maximize profits seem to forget that making a good product will do that work for them. They are making low quality movies/series, fucking with the release date, and the length , in the hopes that it might make something. To me at least, it seems like a worse decision than just trying to make something good, if you have no faith in your product what makes you think we will have any?

This is great insight, really appreciate you and the second wind team 👌

I think I half agree with the argument here. Yes, the recent Marvel editing is aggressive at retooling movies and shows to be shorter, more palatable, and more bingeable, and fails to make the movies actually interesting. But this seems more like an escape hatch for an already mediocre project. If the script is garbage, sometimes a "get this over with" edit is the best option to cut losses. But it will take more than just a different editing style to make the MCU good again.

When I went to watch The Marvels, I missed the first half hour, but still could totally understand what was going on. Makes perfect sense now

This was fantastic, excited for more! Way to go, Second Wind!

"audiences are choosing to see the longer ones" I'd argue that's not necessarily true. I suspect that the large portion of audiences that actually makes up significant box office returns go to see whatever is _marketed_ the most, and that audiences 'choosing' to see the longer movies could just be a result of studios marketing movies that are longer. Don't know. Just pointing out that just because more people go to see a given movie doesn't necessarily mean their choice was the primary factor.

"Is that like a personal attack" will never not be funny

The Star Wars thing is a myth I wish would die. You can argue it was saved in the edit but no more than every other film, and Marsha Lucas was not the only editor. She even pushed to keep a lot of the unnecessary scenes that were cut (everything with Luke's friends on Tatooine) because she'd put a lot of effort into those scenes.

Echo is a fantastic story cut into bizarre pieces. There is a great show there, but man, the editing is... so rough.

What a shame. The MCU has so much potential and was phenomenal over the years. How the mighty have fallen.

I loved hearing "exception that proves the role" used correctly!

Having re-watched Across the Spider verse last night, the thing that impressed me the most wasn't the gorgeous animation, the bonkers plot, the critique of traditional superhero stories, or even the amazing characters. It was how it was willing to take it's goddamn time... As crazy as the movie is, not as much happens in it as you'd think. If I were to break it down into its essence, it'd be as follows: Gwen leaves her dimension to join a multiverse spider team, says "hey" to Miles, he follows her to another universe, ends up breaking it a little and gets berated by the head of the spiderverse team. Miles then learns that his dad is going to die (and that Gwen knew), and if he tries saving him , it could break more universes, leading to him running from said spiderverse team. He manages to escape them, but ends up in the wrong dimension where a villanous version of himself holds him captive. Roll credits. You could argue that I could have truncated that a bit more, which is possible, but I think what we can all agree is that the story above is really reductive and doesn't do it justice. Gwen leaving her dimension wouldn't have felt that monumental were it not for the 20 minutes we spent with her, learn more about her past, and feel the relationship with her dad. Miles following Gwen and getting hurt from her wouldn't have felt like much were it not for their scenes web swinging and talking. And of course, Miles' willingness to risk the collapse of the multiverse wouldn't have meant anything were it not for the opening where we see how attached he is to his family and how it's at an inflection point. While there's an art to trimming out what you don't need, I think one of the most important things you can have in a movie are the seemingly unimportant scenes that just allow the characters and world to breathe. Hell, it's why the actual goddamn Snyder cut of Justice League takes one of the least atmospheric movies I've ever seen and actually makes it somewhat good...

I need to watch this series more, Darren is a genius

Damn, i didn't even watched the escapists products, learned about you guys through polemic, but this is a gem you guys are cooking!

Well laid out points and not just a hate show about the MCU? Amazing, love it, more please. Regarding the space cats scene and the i forget the name of the planet where they speak by singing, I really liked those parts of the movie but they are clearly not written by the same people writing the parts where millions of people die and captain marvel is big sad about destroying the kree people. Your video was about editing and couldn't expand into writing without losing focus, but this whole writing by committee business is really killing superhero movies. I feel like they were trying to emulate someone like James Gunn who can balance the drama and comedy very well, but the big decision makers weren't up to the task creatively.

There is little to save when there are no competent writers, who make stories they want to tell in the big studios anymore. Just product managers and content creators.

This could have easily been another 5+ minutes longer. I blame the editor.

Great video and I agree… but I’m still bitter that this wasn’t about how boring and bad the actual cutting is in these films, butchering what could’ve been spectacular fights or heartfelt scenes. Just bland

I really like shining a spotlight on this topic, and it made me think about a part of film and TV production that I'd never considered before. Having said that, why does a video specifically about the art of editing keep cutting away from the subject to five-second gags featuring the thing that was just mentioned? The one with The Marvels title card and the Duck Amokfather one felt like they underlined the point being made, the rest feel sort of out of place.

Not really interested in gaming content at this point but I'd sign up to support regular film discussion of this quality

Once again, Darren … wow. You’ve earned your salary this month, Mr Professional Critic. This insightful take just makes SO MUCH SENSE! It is far more credible to me than the “go woke, go broke” bleating from the peanut gallery. Maybe one day, these films and TV series could be recut from the post-production stems (are they called stems in film, like they are in music?) … if they are kept, which I guess they may not be. Until then, I will quietly mourn the better stories that could have been told.

there's something poetic about Disney's editing being so cynical & faithless causing people to be less interested so Disney loses faith & becomes more cynical about the shows

The problem with blockbuster editing that I find the most obnoxious is actually not the editor's fault. I don't think they even get to make most of these high-level decisions. I think the problem is the cinematography--or rather the prioritization of it over storytelling and acting. Every shot must be perfectly aligned and focused on the star actor. Every line their star actor reads must be perfect. Only use the best snippets from each take--no matter how small--stitch em together, and let continuity be damned. They force the editors and colorists to fix EVERYTHING. And the result is that the average cut is less than 3 seconds. The POV is constantly bouncing back and forth between the people who are talking. You get fewer cuts where you can see all of the actors speaking, reacting, responding to one another, and... well, _acting._ Even monologues are chopped up into teeny tiny pieces. This all started as a way to cut corners and salvage scenes with bad acting, but it created this snowballing problem where directors and producers think that this is how movies should look because that's what the audience is accustomed to. Stanley Kubrick and Sidney Lumet have been spinning in their graves so fast they could use their carcasses to shoot in IMAX. I think this attitude towards filmmaking is absolutely murdering the drama. Dramatic scenes are often dead on arrival because we're not allowed to immerse ourselves in each scene. We don't get to see actors lead the pacing by transitioning through multiple emotions across multiple leans. Each line read gets its own cut. Even an actor's emotional transition has its own cut. The whole team is so focused on grinding sausage that there's no emotion invested into the film itself. The producers and directors don't even realize that they're throwing out the filet mignon when they tell their editors to cut the "fat." It also kills the action, because you rarely get to see any impressive choreography on display. The actor will make exactly one movement and then they will cut. The editor has to Frankenstein every footstep, every punch, and every kick together into a cohesive scene. If they get good footage and are absolute wizards at their job, the editors can make it kinda coherent. At its worst, you get abominations like the basketball scene in Catwoman and it's a disorienting mess. I feel like any director who wants to make an action movie should be strapped to a chair and forced to watch Buster Keaton and Jackie Chan movies until they repent. They need to consistently give the editors full scenes to work with. Stop trying to fix every goddamn thing in post. Hire actors who are capable of stuntwork and memorization. Shoot longer scenes and lean on the actor's ability to memorize and perform the choreography. Make it an exhibition of their talent! Keanu Reeves figured it out and that's why the John Wick movies kick so much ass. Marvel started doing that for Shang Chi and it finally seemed like they were getting back on the right path.... but then someone had the disastrous idea to say "let's throw some comedians in the middle of all this so they interrupt the action and crack jokes every 3 seconds." It was laid on so thick that it ruined a lot of the the genuine physical comedy on display. It was painful to watch. I can't imagine any editor thinking this was a good idea. My bet is that the producer or director was pulling rank and forcing it.

I've never understood the complaint about movies being too long now. Anytime my folks put on a 4-6 hour classic, they would tell us about how the films had intermissions during their theatrical runs.

Marvel's problem isn't trying to save it in the edit, it's trying to save it in the reshoots. That's a big part of why their budgets get massively blown out. My philosophy is that everything is saved in the edit tbh. The movie doesn't exist until the editing phase, and regardless of how experienced you are, the vision will always shift and change in the final re-write

“Worst cut is the cheapest” would’ve made a better title

Does anyone know what happened to Dar-Binn's science guy? He completely disappeared from the story when the bad guys land on the singing planet.

Never had it phrased this way before. Thanks.

Don’t ever say “the exception that proves the rule.” It’s a BS way of hand-waving away cases that show the rule is false. It’s like claiming “all all numbers between 3 and 11 are prime” is true because 9 isn’t prime.

I think when people say a movie is too long it can immediately say a lot about someones reception to the movie, if your enjoying and engaged then you'll never mention it's run time as a pro or a con.

I was just saw Poor Things at the theater. I ordered a large popcorn (with butter) for my wife and to my amusement we got the special popcorn tin that usually costs like $20, for free! the tin was, of course from The Marvels. gotta clear out that inventory somehow! 😂

The tactics Marvels uses shot to shot is nightmarishly quick

Loved this video, I hope Disney see this. I felt like Echo has something great in there somewhere.. the best of the MCU always had a soul because the creative people behind it got the confidence and backing from Disney.

As someone who knows nothing of the editing process, this is really really interesting!

Here's the problem: Studio-"ok visionary director we trust your vision. Please make the movie you want" Also Studio-"for no reason, we're going to strip your film to the bone"

Editing hasn’t been the same in the MCU for a while now and I’ve noticed that when they kept reporting about Thanos’s original opening for Infinity War and how a lot of Phases 4 & 5 feel kneecapped by editing decisions that make them feel too long or not long enough with telling the stories they want to tell

A piece of videogame critique about good open world games is their trust in the player missing content. Legacy of Kain, The Witcher 3 Baldurs Gate, Elden Ring, they all have so much content you can just miss if you don't explore the world. But the designers trusted their game to be good enough that people would want to. I think in almost every form of media a lack of faith poisons the art from the ground up.

very interesting and also quite ironic, considering how fans have been able to rescue these movies to some extent via fanedits.

that was an awesome analysis on editing, with a side note on corporate greed and creative bankruptcy

"This comment has been modified from its original version. It has been formatted to fit this screen, and edited to run in the time allotted and for content." Excellent vid...

For me its kind of proof that the thing Feige used to save Iron man's production came out of necessity, remember they just had a storyboard with literally nothing else written. Because of collaboration was needed and it saved the entire risk Marvel was taking. However since that Feige has pretty much eliminated anyone who would question or even say he is wrong. Feige is becoming more like Lucas, The Wachowskies & M night people who are talented but again need another person beside them to actually live up to the myth they have built around themselves. Lucas surrounded himself with Yes men for the prequels, Wachowskies made simple thoughtful conversations incoherent by playing obscurity for depth & M night let his ego to his head by making lady in the water a movie so silly and stupid but still thinking it is a serious work of art. Bottom line if you are a "visionary" who's behind the scenes doc features people talking more about how others help you getting the vision then you should let them be around you to bounce your ideas.

Wow, I didn't know all that about Echo being cut to pieces. It did feel like DD turned up at the wrong time though so it makes sense they must have shredded it to fit him in early. I couldn't wait to watch it as I really enjoy the "street level" stuff much more than all the galactic time travelling nonsense so to me it still felt fresher than a lot of the more recent stuff but now I wonder how much better it could have been without all that interference.

I really want to watch the show that is burried within echo now that you phrase it that way

More often then not, a long movie is a good one and a short one is not short enough.

When are we going to get Darren back on a weekly podcast? The Recap was my favorite thing you guys did at the old channel. Just need more Mooney in my life