Synopsis:
Good intentions wreak havoc when Tony Stark unwittingly creates Ultron, a terrifying A.I. monster who vows to achieve "world peace" via mass extinction.
Inspired by SamSpider3’s own extended cut, this adds all-new deleted and extended scenes with finished VFX being masterfully reintegrated into the movie. adding 10 new scenes and 11 more minutes of footage.
Intentions:
I wanted to upgrade the SamSpider3 cut of AOU visually by fixing the green screen shots as it seemed like the EE was a fan-favourite on the website. But I also wanted to add in these 'newly' released deleted scenes as well that were missing from his cut to beef up the movie an extra 4 minutes, so I sought out to created the longest cut with finished VFX.
Change List:
- Added an edited version of the mid-credits scene from Winter Soldier with Strucker and the Maximoff twins to before the Marvel Fanfare
- Added Strucker being killed by Ultron
- Added Pietro handing stolen supplies to the people of Sokovia
- Added Tony and Bruce talking about screwing up Ultron
- Added extended convasation with Cap and Maria Hill about Strucker's death.
- Added extended scene of the Avengers talking about Ultron killing Strucker and what War Machine is up to
- Added Bruce hulking out in the jungle after Wanda jinxs him and scaring a girl in a village
- Added extended sequence of Thor going for a swim in a cave. They now contact the Norns to ask them what to do then simply Thor having his dream again.
- Added extended scene of Bruce and Nat talking at the farmhouse
- Added snippets of the extended scene of Vision's birth with some extra Banner and Thor dialogue and an extra shot of Vision's eyes opening as he is born
- Added Cap seeing graffiti of him in Sokovia saying "FACIST" and him deciding not to wear his helmet
Added scene of Pietro running through Sokovia telling everyone to get out and him flirting with a girl
- Added scene of Cap, Nat, Clint, Pietro and Wanda talking about what to do as the air was getting thinner, some nice banter here.
Additional Notes:
I'll break down the editing and changes that had to be done to each scene
AGE OF MIRACLES PROLOGUE
Since the post-credits scene of Winter Soldier was directed by Joss Whedon and introduced the Twins and Strucker, I thought it'd be neat to put before the Marvel Fanfare. The establishing shot of the castle was reused from later in the film when Ultron sets up shop in the basement, but the shot was reversed so the camera moves in instead of out. The scene was also cut down to remove the SHIELD/HYDRA reference and the mentions to the Winter Solider plot so that it focuses on the cocky Strucker and his devilish plans.
STRUCKER'S DEMISE
Some light colour grading was done to the scene to tone down the green look. The back half of the scene was also rescored so there was more of a terrifying sting and to allow it to flow into the next scene. "Ultron Wakes" was used as it had the right amount of fright. Deathclaw footsteps from Fallout 3 were used as Ultron's footsteps as he walk's towards Strucker. I couldn't find the right SFX for him until I was playing Fallout 3 and heard a Deathclaw about to kill me in the game. So naturally I got the sound file out and put it into the edit as the mad robot.
MAN IN THE CHURCH
Not much was done to this scene, light colour grading so the contrast was a bit better. The sting from Strucker's Demise flows over into the start of this scene.
WATCH YOUR SIX
This was the scene that needed the most visual work done to it as there was a lot of unfinished green screen in the background outside of windows in the Avengers Tower. SamSpider3's original cut didn't have this done and it was the only real complaint I had about that version (as well as some others) so I made it a goal for my own cut. The completed scene in the movie had a visible city skyline outside the window, which would of made it hard to do tracking and a lot of intricate chroma keying, so instead I just made it a solid colour which was looked pretty good. Tracking markers had to be painted out too in After Effects and some pixelation was toned down thanks to DigMod's advice. Insert shots of a tablet with Strucker's dead body replaced the unfinished shots from the deleted scene. The colour grading was redone to match the film, which was a pretty yellow kind of morning haze look.
HULK OUT IN THE JUNGLE
Banner in the jungle about to hulk out was the scene with the most audio work as it was redone from the ground up. It starts with some audio taken from the pilot of Arrow as he runs through the foliage. The scene was rescored from nothing at all to a great track from the Peter Jackson King Kong soundtrack.(which heathen3017 helped out with) that's pretty intense and adds a lot to the scene. Hulk grunts were also added throughout the scene. The following bit with the african village was cut down from what it originally entailed as the Hulk rampaged through the houses and ruined some kid's soccer game, but that's all been cut so that part of that still remains without the unfinished VFX. Some shots from the final film had to be rearranged to accommodate the new scene.
THE NORN CAVE
These scenes with Thor and Selvig still exist in the final cut, but were edited down with some new dialogue being recorded and the context of the exposition being changed. So now these scenes have been put back the way they were before the theatrical cut. Audio from SamSpider3's EE was used here as he rescored and did some extra SFX, so I just used that here. I also colour graded the whole thing so it was a bit darker and spookier, looks pretty neat I think
BRUCE AND NAT
I'm sure this scene is better for their relationship or something, haven't really watched the scene back in full yet. I brightened the whole scene up from the horribly shadowey state it was in the on Blu-Ray. Also added some sappy love score to the background.
VISION'S BIRTH
There is a much longer version of Vision's birth on the Phase 2 Box Set, but since it has very unfinished VFX, I cut it down the the bare minimum like SamSpider3 did but finished the green screen shots of Banner almost hulking out (thanks to krlozdac). I also opted to use the deleted shot of Vision opening his eyes from Trailer 3 instead of the unfinished shot from the deleted scene like SamSpider3 did. There's an extra few lines from Banner here too and one of Thor repeating some Asgardian words that he said in the Norn Cave. Not too much new stuff, but the scene flows a little nicer.
QUICKSILVER FLIRTING
This quick little scene with Pietro running through Sokovia telling people to get out has a cameo from an older gentleman who appeared in the deleted "Man in the Church" scene. It also had a little bit of jarring unfinished VFX that I've tried to mend so that it looks a lot better. Bit of light colour touch ups here to remove the green tint.
SOKOVIAN GRAFFITI
Originally this scene started with the Quinjet landing and Cap putting his shield on his back, but since those shots had unfinished VFX, they had to go, so the scene starts on the shot of him picking up his helmet. The sound of him throwing it back into the jet was made excellently by Crimson713 by blending some SFX together so that the helmet isn't so silent. There was also a tiny bit of green screen in the distance between two buildings that was barely noticable, but I keyed that out still just to be sure. Both this scene and the Quicksilver scene was also rescored with 'The Mission' from the soundtrack.
WE FIGHT ROBOTS
Some big portions of the background of the first shot had green screens up, so fixing up that was the first step and was done to great success I think. There is some in the background of the Black Widow/Hawkeye shot, but with all the smoke, it's unfixable and hardly visable so I left those as it. There was colour timing that had to be done shot-by-shot to maintain a sense of continuity throughout the scene so it all matched up. TM2YC gave some advice here on how to do that.
Other Sources:
VIDEO SOURCES
- Avengers: Age of Ultron Blu-Ray (2015) - The feature film and the "Man in the Church, Watch Your Six, Bruce and Natasha, and Norn Cave" deleted scenes were taken from the standard BR release
- Avengers: Age of Ultron - Trailer 3 (2015) - Vision's eyes opening as he is ""born" is taken from the last shot of this trailer
- Captain America: The Winter Solider (2014) - The post-credits scene with Strucker and the twins was re-edited as a new prologue
- Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase 2 Box Set Bonus Disc (2016) - "Strucker's Demise, Hulk Out in the Jungle, Fight for Newborn Vision, Quicksilver Flirting, Sokovian Graffiti and We Fight Robots" are all taken from this disc
AUDIO SOURCES
- Arrow: Pilot, Season 1, Episode 1 (2012)- Used audio of Oliver Queen running through a forest at the start of the "Hulk Jungle" scene
- Avengers: Age of Ultron: Extended Edition by SamSpider3 (2016) - Audio from this cut was used in the "Norn Cave" and "Newborn Vision" scenes
- Avengers: Age of Ultron: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (2015) - 'The Mission' and 'Ultron Wakes' are used in the Quicksilver Flirt/Sokovian Graffiti and Strucker's Demise respectively
- Fallout 3 (2007) Deathclaw footsteps were used as Ultron's footsteps as he entered Strucker's jail cell
- FreeSound.org - Crimson613 used sounds from this website to create the 'thunk' of Cap's helmet as he throws it back into the Quinjet in the "Sokovian Graffiti" scene
- King Kong: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (2005) - Sacrifice (Part 2) was used to score the Hulk Jungle scene too
Special Thanks:
krlozdac for doing extra green screen and keying work on a few shots in the extended Vision birth scene where I could not Crimson713 for building some SFX for the Sokovian Graffiti scene and giving feedback on the preview cut of this edit heathen3017 for helping with finding the perfect track for the Hulk Jungle scene and giving all around great help and assistance throughout the production of the edit SamSpider3 for creating the original EE, of which I've borrowed some audio work from and for giving me the initial inspiration for the edit Creative Consultants (those who have helped in some capacity throughout the thread in the past year or so, whether it just be feedback, or a really nice comment) flaminio, kal-el, addiesin, Masirimso17, nic, TinyBreadMouse, ChainsawAsh, motleycat Enterprises inc, stferguson78, Horrifyingly Hilarious, DigModiFicaTion, Take Me To Your Cinema (TM2YC)