Chapter 64: One Film or Two? That Is the Question

Chapter 64: One Film or Two? That Is the Question

"I regret watching the Fate/Zero trailer. I thought it would be enough to satisfy my craving for the movie, but now it’s only made me want it more!!!"

The very first public trailer for Fate/Zero had just finished its global premiere—but the hype it sparked was only just beginning.

Sure, it was only 2003—no, wait, 2004—and the internet wasn’t even close to the all-encompassing beast it would become twenty years later. Social media apps were still in their infancy, and the idea of casually streaming videos on your phone anywhere, anytime, was a distant dream.

But even so, the official Fate/Zero website’s message board was already buzzing like a festival street.

Fans who had just finished watching the trailer were furiously typing away, eager to share their thoughts with strangers across the web.

The pace was ridiculous—messages zipped by so quickly that any given post might as well have been speaking an entirely different language from the one before it.

Still, not even the chaos could put a dent in the crowd’s excitement.

Especially with those rapid-fire cuts of jaw-dropping battle scenes—scenes that, at a glance, made it clear this was on a whole other level from Fate/Stay Night.

"This is honestly the most thrilling trailer I’ve ever seen!!"

"Wait, wasn’t Iskandar the Great supposed to be short? Why’s he being played by a huge guy?"

"As expected of my King! That glorious look alone is enough to send me into orgas—"

"That building explosion scene—imagine that on a theater screen! It gives me chills just thinking about it!"

"Maybe it’s some kind of Master–Servant strategy. What if the little guy in the chariot is the real Iskandar the Great?"

Even Aoko’s normally stone-faced friend, Alice—the very definition of a taciturn girl—found herself moved enough to post her own thoughts, with Aoko leaning over to help her navigate the unfamiliar terrain of the internet.

"The magical techniques featured in this film are quite fascinating. I wonder if the Three Families’ signature magecraft will get a proper spotlight. Personally, I’m also looking forward to seeing the Clock Tower’s Lord El-Melloi make his appearance… Alright, and… click ‘send.’"

The moment Alice’s trembling finger pressed the button, her expression tense and cautious like she’d just swallowed a bug, Aoko burst out laughing.

"Alice, are you sending a message or eating insects?" she teased, patting her friend on the shoulder.

Alice shot her a glare. "I’m not like you. You don’t even have any modern appliances at home, yet you’re oddly good at using them."

"I wish I had them."

Aoko’s smile faltered as she thought about her eccentric grandfather—a man whose brain, she was fairly sure, could be placed in a museum jar of formaldehyde without anyone finding it out of place.

"Speaking of which, Alice… why did you even decide to buy a computer? Weren’t you always the ‘classical magi’ type?"

Alice straightened her back and declared, "The future belongs to the internet. A modern magi must know how to use it, or else they’ll be left behind by society."

"There’s no way you came up with that on your own."

"Of course not. I heard it from Mr. Matou during a lecture at the Clock Tower."

"…‘M-Mister’…?"

The name tugged at a memory—Aoko had met Shinji Matou before, back at a banquet. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t reconcile that cocky brat with the word ‘Mister.’

"Is something wrong?" Alice asked.

"Nothing." Aoko rubbed her cheek awkwardly. "I just can’t shake the feeling that he’s probably riding pretty high right now."

And indeed, the reception for the Fate/Zero trailer couldn’t have been better. The message boards were practically drowning in posts of excitement.

"Naturally. This is Shinji Matou’s work, after all. Right now, he must be calmly reading our comments, perfectly confident as he works on the post-production, ready to deliver us the ultimate film," Alice said with quiet conviction.

Reality, however, was…

"??The f*ck????! Just what the hell am I supposed to do with this movie?!"

In the editing room, Shinji Matou let out a strangled scream of despair.

After enjoying a short and peaceful New Year’s break, Shinji headed to Tsuburaya Productions in Tokyo to begin post-production on the second film of his career.

The post-production studio in Fuyuki City was already under construction, but some of the equipment had to be custom-made, meaning it couldn’t be put to use just yet.

Shinji estimated that by the time he worked on his next movie, he’d finally be able to use his own studio.

But the fact that he couldn’t use his personal editing suite yet wasn’t what had him grinding his teeth.

No—the real problem was figuring out how to cut Fate/Zero.

In theory, with the reference of the anime from his previous life and his editing experience from Fate/Stay Night, Shinji shouldn’t have been having this kind of trouble.

And yet, here he was, feeling “just a tiny bit”—in other words, an astronomical amount—of frustration over how to handle Fate/Zero’s post-production.

The problem was simple: how long should the movie be?

Or, to be more precise—should Fate/Zero be edited into a single movie… or split into two?

That’s why the currently released trailer didn’t feature any footage from the latter half of the story—because Shinji still hadn’t decided whether it should even be part of the first movie.

At the very start of the project, his plan was to make it two films. But after diving deeper into the market data and reviewing the footage, doubt began to creep in.

Looking at film history—both before and after his “transmigration”—most cases of a single movie being split into two had ended in disaster.

And even when they didn’t flop financially, the critical reception usually took a hit.

The same went for movies that stuffed the runtime with excessive setup for a sequel.

Even if the first film was a success, the follow-up often took the brunt of the backlash.

The most infamous example? Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3.

Of course, calling a film with nearly a billion dollars in global box office ( a “failure” was a bit unfair.

But the critical collapse of the third film—and the fact that its earnings fell short of the second—was undeniable.

There were other cases, too—Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 & 2, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 & 2— the list went on.

Hollywood, after a round of painful trial and error, had basically abandoned the “Part 1 / Part 2” model altogether.

Shinji was confident that with Fate/Zero’s spectacular script and his own ahead-of-its-time filmmaking approach, even a two-part release could rake in the box office.

But… the Fate franchise’s reputation would almost certainly take a hit.

Not enough to collapse entirely—but the complaints? Oh, there’d be plenty of those.

And that was something Shinji wanted to avoid at all costs. This was only his second film—his second chance to prove and promote the film model he believed in.

Even if it meant earning less money, he wanted to nail the reception.

Breaking it down, Shinji felt that the backlash came down to one fundamental difference between film and TV.

With TV, the audience is used to cliffhangers.

But with movies, people buy a ticket, sit down in a theater, and expect to see a complete story.

From a paying customer’s perspective: I’ve spent money to be here, and you’re giving me only half the story? What’s that supposed to mean?

Worse still, no one wants to spend two hours in a theater only to realize the “grand finale” is just a glorified teaser for the next movie.

Say what you will about the Marvel Cinematic Universe being like a long-running drama series—at least Marvel made sure every installment told a self-contained story first, and only then sprinkled in setup for future films.

The one time they broke that rule—Avengers: Age of Ultron—the reception tanked.

Sequel hooks were fine, but the story itself had to feel complete.

That was the most honest truth Shinji had learned about movie audiences, gathered from every possible channel he could tap into.

And so, in the end, he made his choice—scrap the two-part idea, and edit it as a single film first.

After several weeks of wrestling with the footage, Shinji finally managed to complete the first rough cut of Fate/Zero—a beast of a film clocking in at five full hours.

It was long, yes. But considering that most movies’ first cuts hovered around four hours anyway, Shinji figured that with a bit more effort, he could probably whittle it down into something workable.

And so began the grind.

Day after day, he sat in the editing room, staring at mountains of footage, shaving seconds here and minutes there. Sometimes he’d even dig up scenes he’d already cut, just to see if swapping them in might make the runtime shorter.

After all, a shot that seemed useless at first could—under the right editing—turn into a stroke of brilliance.

Editing wasn’t just about shuffling clips around in order; it was about narrative logic, rhythm, and the delicate craft of transitions.

Unfortunately, there was no magecraft shortcut for this. Shinji had to do it the old-fashioned way—patiently, relentlessly, one cut at a time.

His guiding principle was crystal clear: this was a classic, large-scale special effects blockbuster.

Even if the ending was less than cheerful, even if the story took some dark turns—when the credits rolled, the audience had to leave the theater feeling exhilarated.

Countless revisions later, the five-hour monster had been carved down to three hours, eighteen minutes, and twenty-seven seconds.

That was without the end credits and a few pure VFX sequences. With those included, the film would run closer to three and a half hours.

It’s still too long.

Shinji’s target was a sub-three-hour runtime for the main feature. Any longer and, even if theater chains didn’t complain, the audience’s bladders surely would.

So, the cutting continued.

First to go were the “nice to have” shots, followed by redundant explanations, then filler with no real narrative weight, and finally anything that strayed too far from the main plot.

Some of the cuts hurt. There were scenes he loved—scenes he’d poured himself into—but he convinced himself with the promise: They’ll go into the extended edition.

By late February, the war was finally over.

Through blood, sweat, and creative sacrifice, Shinji had produced a main cut of three hours and two minutes.

From there, the workload became lighter. Now, it was mostly about supervising—overseeing the digital effects work, monitoring the actors’ post-recording sessions, fine-tuning the sound design and score… all the quality-control work that kept the project on track.

Curiously enough, both Fate/Stay Night and Fate/Zero were produced with Japanese as their primary language, but for the English dub, most of the actors voiced themselves.

After all, the cast either consisted of Heroic Spirits who could speak almost any major world language thanks to the Grail, or magi who had been studying in English for so long they could deliver lines like natives.

Ironically, the only real outlier was Kayneth—an actual Englishman—who needed someone else to dub his Japanese lines.

And then there was Shirou… whose “construction site English” was so painfully awkward it could make a British person curl into a ball and start scratching a floor plan into the carpet.

Just as Shinji was starting to relax into this slower pace, an all-too-familiar presence returned after a long absence.

“Was that on purpose?” Shinji asked, the corner of his mouth twitching as he looked up from the console in Tsuburaya’s editing suite.

“On purpose? Hardly,” Cloris replied. “The Oscar nominations were just announced, so my work in North America wrapped up. I thought I’d drop by to check on your… movie’s progress.”

She trailed off, sighed deeply as her eyes met his.

“I was actually thinking about pulling some strings for you—getting you a Golden Globe or even an Oscar nomination. And then you just turned it down outright. What a waste.”

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