Owner's reply
July 14, 2019
Thank you so much for the kind review, the-scribbling-man!
The jittery slow-down effect at 31:19 is, indeed, present in the original footage; I did not alter that in any way.
While constructing this edit, I shared your concerns about Linda meeting Veronica, and tried my best to remove Linda from that scene entirely. Visually I was able to do it, but unfortunately there are bits of foley from Linda's presence on top of Veronica's dialog that I could not remove (i.e. the movement of Linda's leather jacket and the door opening and closing as she exits). In the interest of keeping my cuts as clean and unnoticeable as possible, I decided to keep Linda in the scene while doing my best to remove any allusions to her excised relationship with Ron. With these edits, what was originally a joke about Ron wanting to see two of his lovers kiss now becomes one that simply plays into Ron being a bit of a pervert. While screening this edit for my girlfriend who had never seen Anchorman 2, this moment got a big laugh out of her, which alleviated almost all of my concerns when it came to leaving Linda in the scene. Not only does this provide a joke where there wouldn't have been one had I removed her, the joke itself acts as enough justification for having Linda walk out in the first place. After the screening, I even asked my girlfriend if that scene in particular gave her any impression that a relationship had been going on between Ron and Linda, and she said no. Still, if I had been able to cleanly remove Linda from that scene, I would have, just to avoid any questions entirely, even if it came at the expense of a laugh.
Thanks again for your review, and I'm really glad you enjoyed the edit!