Review Detail

9.3 12 10
Shorts April 03, 2012 3169
(Updated: August 22, 2012)
Overall rating
 
9.4
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
10.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
8.0
Enjoyment
 
9.0
This is a fabulous edit. I was a big fan of the original film as well, so I wasn’t sure a significantly condensed version could be pulled off. But it was pulled off beautifully.

At first, the story seemed a bit jumpy and I wasn’t really getting into it. But I realized that this was a Super 8 version of the movie, and the feel of it was probably similar to actual Super 8 movies of the era. It’s possible that, given the nature of the type of edit this was, nothing else could really be done about it.

So I settled in and just accepted that I wasn’t going to get emotionally connected to it this time. But then I did! All the right scenes are there; all the right emotional notes are hit. I had tears streaming down my face just as I did for the theatrical version!

Visually, the film looks terrific. The deliberately grainy look gives this production not only the feel of a Super 8 film, but frankly the feel of an actual documentary from the 1970s. If not for the fact that I know who Tom Hanks and the others are already, I would have thought that someone was just standing there at the actual launch (and inside the shuttle) capturing the whole thing.

There were some parts where scenes seemed to be moved around, but the editing was seamless enough that I wasn’t ever quite sure when things were edited and when they weren’t. I think the final shot was taken from a different point in the movie, but if I hadn’t already seen the original (of course), I probably wouldn’t have noticed.

I’m going to give this edit a 9 out of 10. I take just one point off because the film did seem to have a choppy feel to it in the beginning, although I have no idea what I would have done myself to make it better. This may simply be the best version possible in this format. But at any rate, for the second half, I wouldn’t change a thing! Terrific job!
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