Synopsis:

Live action and animation come together in this retelling of Multiverse of Madness. The Book of Dreams is all about control. Two powerful individuals, each wanting control in some form. Both mourning a loss in some form. Their dreams have power over them and in the centre of it all is a girl who can punch holes in reality and make dreams come true. Who will come out on top? As long as they all hold on to their dreams, can there be a winner?

Intentions:

Multiverse of Madness seemed lacking, with not many different multiverses and not enough madness. The movie seemed to focus a bit too much on fanservice and didn't have a clear focus. At the same time, Wanda had become such a twisted and vicious caricature of part of her character that was only barely hinted at in past movies or tv shows. I had a notion that this movie could be improved by inserting elements from the What-if episode that features Doctor Strange following a similar path as Wanda does in this movie. Mnkykungfu decided to come on board and work together to develop this concept. The what-if sections would become dreams in which Stephen Strange is viewing an alternate version of himself, giving him valuable perspective and enabling him to understand Wanda. These dreams also help him to gain perspective on who he is and who he could be. The rest of the movie would be trimmed and formed around those core concepts. Wanda would be toned down and made more relatable. Fanservice would be reduced to allow the story to be more tightly focused on Stephen and Wanda and what they want.

Change List:

*It starts with an interview with Stephen and Christine, outlining Stephen's need for control. "I'm the one you want holding the knife" *The 'marvel' intro titles plays and shifts between various multiverses that we have featured in the movie. The one with the illuminati has x-men so the 20th century logo is used for that. the animated dream sequences are supposedly in the spiderverse so there is an animated sony/columbia clip, the dark broken world can be linked to the Hulk universe so we have the Universal logo too. *The first dream starts, a shot of stephen approaching the book of vishanti saying "give me what i need, then a shot of America,then Christine, then... *animated section shows a Stephen who lost Christine and decides to stop at nothing to get her back. This will link into Wanda's actions. *As he wakes up, we see a brief flash of the symbol of Vishanti and hear some shimmering sound and a watch ticking. *We hear the watch ticking sound every time we see Stephen's watch from Christine to suggest that this is a link with the other Stephen in the dream and it is a symbol for his regret and his need for control. *As Stephen attends the wedding the shots are reframed to hide some bad acting of one of the extras. *Christine's asking Stephen if he is happy is removed. *Cutaway of Dream America is replaced with the shot that I used, that is not from the original dream sequence. *removed America saying "that wasn't adream" *reframed some shots in the diner to accentuate Stephen's feelings about Christine. *insert shot of the book of vishanti when America mentions it. *several edits to rooftop scene to remove "that wasn't a dream" and "all dreams are multiverses" stuff. *The world that Wanda dreams of, the Illuminati world is regraded to take on a golden shimmer. *Stephen cuts off Wanda when she is reaching for 'understanding' about Westview. The evil magic garden bit is completely removed with an edge wipe to kamar taj. *As Wong calls Kamar-Taj into action, we cut back to Wanda and see she is using her spectral body to use the Darkhold. or is that her real body? It's the scene from the very end of Wandavision. *all the shots during Wanda x Stephen conversation above Kamar-Taj are reframed to enhance emotional resonance. *Wanda's attack on Kamar-Taj is made less horrific. We need her to be a sympathetic character. She isn't evil. *Wanda does not get drawn into the mirror dimension. It seemed unreasonably overpowered for her to so easily escape from that. *removed her line "I'm not a monster, I'm a mother" as it was just really bad. *inserted reaction shots of Stephen as Wanda talks about dreaming of her boys. This resonates with him due to his own mysterious dream. *recoloured one of the mutiverses as they fly through a whole host of them, it was way too normal looking. *removed the part where America says she doesn't exist in other universes, because her justification is "I don't dream" a plot element that has been removed. *Bruce Campbell is removed. *Inserted Wanda's dreamwalking partway through Mordo's scene rather than after it, to make way for the second dream. *removed Wanda looking directly at the camera. It was an obvious cut so some erratice editing was introduced that hides the cut and also elevates the distress that other Wanda is feeling. *As Stephen is sent to sleep by the tea, the second dream begins. The symbol of Vishanti is seen, and an insert of Stephen picking up the book of Vishanti. *The second dream shows animated Stephen going to the library of Cagliostro to find a way to break an absolute point. He goes to great lengths and starts absorbing the power of other beings to enable him to bring back his lost loved one. This mirror's Wanda's quest very closely and gives Stephen some perspective on that. It also further pushes this idea that Stephen needs to control everything. *At the end of the dream, this Stephen looks toward the camera and says "hello?" suggesting he is aware of our Stephen watching. *after waking up in the glass cubes, several edits and reframes are done to accentuate Stephen's feelings for Christine. *"The Illumi-what-i?" is removed. *As Stephen is taken before the Illuminati, they are all introduced immediately, including Charles Xavier, with no special fanfare and no fanservice. No musical motifs. No extended shots, no silly comedy. *removed Captain Carter and Captain Marvel's confrontational remarks. *As Wanda talks to Wong about how this chamber is meant for her, Shots are adjusted using dutch tilts, slow zooms, Wanda's voice is altered and a red glow is added to Wanda's eyes to suggest she is being influenced by the Darkhold. Music is also switched out to be more tense and creepy. *Blackbolt's voice is heavily altered to feel more like a deafening explosion of sound, *Wanda's attack on the Illuminati HQ is heavily rearranged so that America and Christine are about to escape before Wanda even reaches their room. Stephen's fight with Mordo is removed. It is hinted that Xavier releases Stephen and Wanda's fight with the Illuminati is removed. *reframed some shots in the corridor when Stephen reunites with America and Christine, to accentuate his emotions. *Removed weird spooky creepy stuff as Wanda is chasing after them under the river. *When the book of Vishanti opens up and starts to burn, The symbol of Vishanti now flashes onto the screen and a shimmer noise is heard, identical to the noise when a dream happens. *In the corrupted universe that Stephen and Christine end up in, the entire video frame rocks very slowly like a ship. it's very very slow to ensure no viewers get motion sickness. It is meant to symbolise how this universe is like a shipwreck and this evil Stephen is the storm that caused it. When he dies, the rocking stops. It is very subtle, so nobody should experience motion sickness from it. *The corrupted universe is regraded to differentiate it from the snowy environment of Wundagore. *Evil Stephen no longer asks our Stephen if he is happy. *Evil Stephen no longer claims outright to have killed other Stephens in dreams. He just sort of implies he did something. *We no longer see that third eye open after evil Stephen has died. *As stephen says he needs Christine's help, one shot is reframed to accentuate the emotion. *As Stephen is beset by souls of the damned after posessing his own corpse, he is drawn into darkness, the third dream starts here. *The third dream shows this corrupted Stephen absorbing the last being and travelling to the spot of the car crash where Christine died. He reincarnates Christine and she is scared by what she sees. *we cut back to live action Christine defending our Stephen's body and fending off the souls of the damned, saving our Stephen. *We cut back to the dream where corrupted Stephen has saved Christine and she is scared. The world starts to fall apart due to Stephen's actions. As the world collapses, we see our Stephen's eyes watching the events. Corrupted Stephen is aware of this and pleads with him to help. *As the dream world implodes and fades to black, we hear a few lines recounting how Dangerous other dr strange's are and his tendency to always 'hold the knife', then Xavier's line from earlier "We shall see what kind of Doctor Strange you are", We see the live action zombie Strange's eye as it opens. (in realisation) *We cut straight to Wong on the mountain getting rocks thrown at him as zombie Stephen swoops in to the rescue. *The fight here is trimmed down, removing some awkward bits with Wanda acting all campy. Wong does not tell Stephen to take America's power. *Stephen trusts America and relinquishes control of the situation to her. America does the same for Wanda. Wanda does the same for her alternate self. *The movie ends on Stephen fixing and putting away the watch. He does not manifest a third eye. *In the end credits scene, the shots are rearranged and reframed to hide that third eye. *The Bruce Campbell end credits scene is removed.

Additional Notes:

Working together is challenging. The process on this movie reflected the themes within the movie to some degree. One of us had to be the one holding the knife. This edit would not exist without Mnkykungfu, but the final product unfortunately could not make both of us 100% happy. I want to give my thanks to Mnky for sticking with this project, His presence has been absolutely essential. There are some things that could have been done, but lack of footage made it nearly impossible. It is easy to get carried away with an idea and convince other people that something is possible, only to discover that you've dug yourself into a pit.

Other Sources:

What if season 1 episode 4 Wandavision season 1 episode 9 Columbia Pictures logo 20th Century Fox logo Universal logo WHIH Newsfront Viral video Warzone music from Wandavision season 1 episode 8 https://freesound.org/people/plingativator/sounds/114281/ https://freesound.org/people/SpliceSound/sounds/369891/ https://freesound.org/people/unfa/sounds/258339/ https://freesound.org/people/tim.kahn/sounds/94114/ https://freesound.org/people/Dpath/sounds/704696/ https://freesound.org/people/sandyrb/sounds/84347/ https://freesound.org/people/ycbcr/sounds/556991/ https://freesound.org/people/TMPZ_1/sounds/442471/

Special Thanks:

Co-producer - Mnkykungfu rear cover design - Wakeupkeo previewers - Almighty Cutie DirtyCop1036 lifeincontext Dekared helpful feedback - WhatTheActualMark addiesin Nic