Contact: A Personal Voyage

Maybe I was more impressed than I should’ve been when I first watched this last month. Maybe I should’ve waited longer before revisiting it, after finishing up with the book just earlier today. Either way, the initial watch was ultimately better than this one for me. Zemeckis has such a wit to his editing (e.g. using match cuts both in a literal and thematic sense) that anything not in-line with it felt kind of jarring. That doesn’t mean I noticed every cut made in this fanedit, certainly not, but enough to never keep me fully immersed. Furthermore, while I do agree that the tone of some stuff removed in this edit was far too sappy, cliche, and otherwise just downright silly, and cutting it out was definitely a wise decision, it strangely feels like doing so has achieved quite the opposite of the intended effect. Without those hyper-filmic, borderline parodic moments for the rest of the film to contrast against, it all ends up feeling less grounded as a whole. The highest Peaks of Ridiculousness are gone, sure but a lot of the movie wasn’t exactly residing in Earnest Valley to begin with. To me this edit actually felt a lot less tangible. Even moreso because of the nearly elusive pace introduced. Sixteen minutes were cut, which sounded reasonable to me beforehand, but in hindsight I think the original was a lot more careful than I realized. All the same story beats are here, just without the same impact. However, I seem to be the exception on all this, and both in terms of the narrative and technical aspects, this edit certainly still “works”.

This is a great edit of the film I particularly like the pacing improvements and moving the final scene earlier in the movie so that it doesn't undermine Ellie's voyage (in the original she basically acts like nothing ever happened). My only minor criticism was that in a couple of the edits you can tell that a bit has been cut as the actors have changed position too quickly (but that is inevitable with the source material). The relationship between Palmer and Ellie is improved with this edit and I like the fact that the problem of who looked after Ellie after her dad died is resolved (or at least no longer stands out as a question). Technically I can't fault the edits that were made (many of which I only spotted because I know the original so well). I would definitely recommend this edit as an improvement on the original.

Big thumbs up!

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A significant improvement of an already wonderful film. Highly recommended!
I love the Theatrical Cut, despite its flaws, but this edit is far superior. The trims, though mostly unnoticeable, greatly improve the pacing and get rid of weaker elements in the plot. Gone are cheesy moments and some tropes, such as the dead mother that does not contribute anything to the plot.
There were two trims I found slightly jarring - at 1:10:19 and at the very end. Upon further inspection, the first was a bit jarring even in the TC, and the other was because of good reasons (moving the epilogue to a more reasonable time slot).
Bottom line - this edit is beautifully edited, and my new go-to version of the film.