Review Detail

This is a long overdue review since I watched this long ago, I simply forgot to do this. This Extended Edition Fanedit of TASM is great. I watched both this and the Untold Story Edition so I'll be taking about both.

The Extended Edition is the definitive way to watch the film. It lets the film breathe in a way I think it would've had Laura Ziskin been alive to stop Avi Arad from botching it in editing. This is as close to a "Webb Cut" as we have, and improves an already underrated film.

The Untold Story Edition is more complicated, and where I dock points from. If I'm looking at TASM apart from a sequel, as a totally standalone film, this is better. It makes it feel like one complete story. But the second film DOES exist, and because of that I feel the story about the parents should be spread across them. Hell, I would've made it a trilogy-running story arc in the background of the main plots that only exploded in the final third film. And because Masirimso's newest edit of TASM2 cuts out that arc because of this version, it makes the second film feel lopsidedly short compared to this one. A saga should get grander over time, but with these versions it's the first film that has the nearly 3 hour runtime, and the second film with the short 2 hour runtime. Which goes against the tone and style of both films. TASM1 wants to be a gritty focused origin story for the most part, so it should have a runtime under 2.5 hours. While TASM2 is the super ambitious (Too ambitious) film with tons of villains and plot, so it should have the long epic runtime, regardless of the film's execution the runtime fits the tone. TASM2 crams so much story in even without the Parents Plot, it needs more runtime to breathe. And while I haven't seen his new edit, the short runtime puts me off of it. Because honestly if TASM2 is just the other plots strung together, it seems like it might have Rise of Skywalker syndrome of just going from stuff happening to stuff happening. The Parents Plot at least gave us a breather for the most part. It also, if edited differently from Arad's Cut, could be really important for the plot of the film. I know I'm getting into critiquing TASM2 and it's edit here, but the big reason I think the Parents Plot can make sense there is Peter not wanting to give Harry his blood and not explaining why. If edited right, with the Roosevelt scene before that, it could make Peter have legitimate reason to distrust Harry and not want to give him his blood. But if that story is only here in the first film, where it connects even less to the core focused arc, that opportunity is gone. And if there's not a better decision made there, I might just end up sticking with Masirimso's old TASM2 fanedit that still had that story there, even if it's worse quality. I guess what I'd like to see is an option from Masirimso to have the Untold Story back in TASM2 if that was preferred. It can't hurt to have an "Untold Story Edition" for both films in case someone prefers it in one or the other.

This has been some useless ramblings about otherwise fantastic edits.