Falcon and the Winter Soldier: The Spence Edit, The

Well, yet another excellent edit from Spence!
I was really doubting that this show could be salvaged for me in any way but Spence was like, hold my beer!

To be honest, I only watched the show once when it came out and that's it. So, I can't speak in details about all the changes, which I'm sure are quite a lot. But there a couple of scenes that I do remember clearly so I will comment on those for sure.

To get the typical stuff out of the way, if you somehow didn't get it from my first comment, from a technical point of view Spence's edit is almost flawless! Even though I did not remember most of the stuff that were cut out, I did not miss them at all! The cuts were seamless, the pacing was great and the plot was moving forward naturally. The movie clocks in at two hours and fifteen minutes plus the after credits scene.

I only have two issues with this edit, although the first one I'm not sure that I care all that much, but I believe it is something that must be pointed out. Spence has removed the entire sequence of how Bucky broke Zemo out of jail. At one moment they are talking and when they are done and we move to some other scene, Zemo appears in a guard's uniform. The way it was done was great, it was actually so good that I had to check if this was how it was done also in the series. It wasn't. So, I can definitely see if someone is bothered with the "how the hell did Bucky broke Zemo out of a high security prison".

The second issue that I had, but I'm not sure if it was left in because it's impossible to remove or because Spence actually liked it, is the God awful speech that Sam gives to the senator at the end. It was tactless, unnecassary, blunt, on your face and borderline ridiculous. The fact that at the next scene we see the statue of the black Captain America is political statement enough and gets the message across clearly, but discreetly, as it should.

There is also a pretty minor minus regarding the second time where Sam went with Bucky to talk with Karli, she is unmasked, false Captain America enters the room, Sam and Karli jump down (all of this happens within a second) and Karli wears the mask already out of the blue.

Lastly, before the last action sequence, like half an hour before the movie ends, there is a big downtime and tightening of loose ends and even though I knew the movie is not ending I strongly felt that it does and I was kind of checking out. It feels like the movie has two endings. I don't know if there is anything that can be done for this, but I thought I should mention it.

Other than these complaints, the edit is excellent, it most definitely salvaged the show for me and I recommend this to anyone who kind of enjoyed the series but was left overall unsatisfied.

Thank you Spence for all your hard work and thanks to anyone who read my review!

I always thought this series would have worked better as a movie and it sure does. It didn't feel rushed and every part of the story was clear. The editing and audio was super clean. If someone was to watch this for the first time they wouldn't question it as a TV show. Brilliant work, this is my favourite edit yet will definitely be watching this version as my go to from now on. My only issue I have is that there wasn't a second post credit scene and maybe include some more scenes of Lemar as we didn't really get introduced to his character but those are just minor things. 10/10

This is how I will rewatch FatWS from now on! I haven't seen the show in a while and I really can't remember most of what's cut. While I did miss a couple scenes, they really weren't important to the central plot and this movie does a good job staying focussed. I think you did the best with what the original story gave. My only narrative edits would be 2 things: the ending after the final fight drags on for a little bit too long and there's no second post credit scene! It's a marvel movie, there's almost* always something! Oh and audio note, mostly great job but sometimes the music in the first half was a little loud compared to the rest of the tracks. I don't think I had too much of a problem with it the second half but maybe I just got used to it. Awesome job on this one. Highly recommend everyone check this out

I had a lot more fun watching this movie than watching the Disney+ miniseries. These Disney series give fan editors a good substantial amount of material to work with so they can really take the best parts and craft the cleanest version of the story. I feel for editors who try to fix a traditional 90-minute movie. You can easily just end up with an episode of a tv show. For example, a friend of mine made a fan edit of “Escape from LA” and ended up with a 50-minute movie. The 2 ½ hour Spence edit is similar in length to "Captain America: Winter Soldier," so it fits into the series well.

Speaking of that film the biggest criticism I can give to "FATWS" is that Captain America Steve Rogers isn’t in it! I’m sure I will say the same thing about the upcoming Captain America movie. There was obviously nothing that the showrunners or a fan editor could do about that. My second critique would be the main villain of the series (Flag-Smasher, played by Erin Kellyman) was not very well cast. The showrunners could have done better but for a fan editor, it would be difficult if not impossible to cut her out. I also am not a fan of gender or race-swapping characters. However, I liked the trims made in this edit and I didn’t hate her as much. Her cockney British accent was difficult to understand at times. This edit did not have subtitles but it did feature surround sound which is highly appreciated for those of us with a home theater. I did really like the other villains, Baron Zemo (played by Daniel Brühl) and U.S. Agent (played by Wyatt Russell).

I have not watched the series since it came out so I can’t comment too much on what was specifically cut, but I didn’t miss any of it. I remember when it was first released that one of the main criticisms was that, because it is basically a 5.5-hour movie, waiting a week in between episodes totally killed the momentum and lessened the pleasure of watching it because it’s easy to forget what happened last time. This is unlike “Wandavision” which was clearly set up to be a weekly series. You probably couldn’t do much better than this to make "FATWS" the movie it was intended to be. The only thing I may have trimmed or removed completely was when Falcon gets on his soapbox at gives a lecture about race near the end. He was just a mouthpiece for the writers and he goes on and on about it. But other than that I really enjoyed this edit and recommend it. The audio and visual quality were excellent and professional.

Marvel Shows dont do the trick for me.
I am always hoping for something great but dissapointment rules the MCU TV World in my views.
There are bits that are good and the same was with F&WS. I thought this one would be a "haudrauf" clear action paced show and what could go wrong here.
But somehow i felt underwhelmed by the fast that the Flagsmashers are ...what to call it, noit threatening enough ?
They feel in parts likie cranky hippsters.

This is a fantastic edit! This movie version was the perfect fix´nmix.
I dont miss anything, but i only saw the whole real thing once and than this edit. So for me not missing anything, means its structure tells a good story in a good flow and pacing.

Spence, if you could be so kind to repair some other shows as well please :)
I am up for it.