Synopsis:

This is a new take on DANCES WITH WOLVES, the famous 4h Western/Adventure that is so similar in its story to Avatar. Condensed to 2h30 minutes this is a much faster paced intense movie with no voice overs from John Dunbar, no irritating madness and less over-the-top scenes. The conflict of the two worlds and clashing cultures has been toned down to a more realistic, but still highly emotional take.

Intentions:

To tell Dances With Wolves in a new, faster paced, plot condensed version that gets rid of exaggerations, focuses on John Dunbar and his journey from being a soldier to joining a Sioux tribe, and to let the audience experience the turn for themselves without the voice-overs that take away any thinking of their own.

Change List:

- cut suicide attempt beginning (because it’s a strange beginning and the madness contained is not needed. The scene was probably used to establish John Dunbar’s relationship to the army, to make it obvious how special and how daring he is and that he is willing to die for a thing he believes in. All of this though gets clear later on.) - removed all voice overs of John Dunbar telling us of his experiences and journey (it is a not needed influence and keeps the atmosphere from being quiet. It influences the audience and stops them from thinking and seeing for themselves. Without the voice-over the scenes have a different, but even deeper impact.) - cut the madness of Major Fambrough (because that guy is utterly confusing and weird for no true reason) - removed all scenes of Captain Cargill and his men at Fort Sedgewick (Dunbar will find it deserted and like the audience wonder why that is

Additional Notes:

After watching Avatar I was reminded on this wonderful movie and realized that I hardly ever watch it, because it is just too long. I thought about fanediting it, condensing it and maybe remove some of the weird parts that always bugged me a bit. When I watched the movie again, I realized that these voice-overs are a bit annoying, especially because they happen all the time and leave the audience no option to feel or see anything the way they want to. So I decided to get rid of them. I also realized that my original DVD was truly bad quality and purchased the bluray to work from a great quality source. It truly shows. This fanedit looks by far better than the original DVD. I asked my friend, ThrowgnCpr several times if he would think this or that would work – and his input has helped me (and this fanedit) a lot. It was for example his help that led to the deletion of the flashback scene of “Stands With A Fist”. The input from Mollo on the forum was also great and helped shape it some more (although I did not do anything about Mary McDonnell and her Bonnie Tyler look – sorry, dude). But like me he felt that the mad major Fambrough needed the full editing treatment to be bearable. He actually suggested to skip him entirely, which I did not do for plot reasons, to give John Dunbar a true soldier beginning and the audience some needed moments to get to know the character and his intention for his voyage. “I am here on my own request to see the frontier before it’s gone.” is a key sentence to me that must be in the movie. My initial goal of 2h was not possible without sacrificing too much important plot and atmosphere, so the final runtime is around 2h30min. The plot focuses a lot more on John Dunbar. I removed many scenes with “cute Indian” humor, because they did not add to the intensity and distracted from the depth. My take is more serious, faster paced and deeper than the original. The questions always were: is this scene needed? What does it do for the progress of the movie? Is it important for the atmosphere? The removal of the voice-overs and fully recreating the audio of these scenes was a huge undertaking. It took hours for a few seconds. Overall I used more than 150 different sound effects.

Other Sources:

Special Thanks:

ThrowgnCpr, Mollo also thank you: Uncanny Antman, Winnie, Nono, Heinrich.