Fight Club: I Am Jack's Laryngitis - Redux

Big fan of the original. Big fan of the fanedit.

Before I criticize, I need to gush.. This LOOKED amazing, and felt increditbly different than the original. I'm not sure if I haven't seen Fight Club since the bluray came out, but this felt much more visceral, violent, and personal than what I remember. Without Jack to say sarcastic things and make jokes about the disgusting and horrible events, the reality of what you're seeing just sits with you. Many people I've showed Fight Club to over the years told me it was too violent and made them sick. And this time, without the comedy to keep me safe, I felt the same way. Crazy experience.

Also, I've seen this movie more than 10 times in my life, I've quoted every line, it's been in my top 5 movies for years... but I noticed things that I never saw before (like Marla overflowing her coffee at group therapy). I noticed something new in almost every scene. The narration has always been my favorite thing about this movie, so without it, it really was like a new movie for me. And for that I thank you.

Now for the critique. Visual edits were done nicely, but detracted from the movie in my opinion. There were a few specific moments I was excited to see with no narration, and most were clipped or moved to better suit the awkward no narration shots. In my opinion, as nessecary as the cuts may seem, these shots would have been more comtemplative left intact. Even with stretches of no dialouge, or awkward shots. The best example is the apartment explosion. This is one of the most brilliantly directed and edited shots in the entire movie. The shot cuts back and forth between the narrator's apartment filling with gas, and the narrator coming physically closer and closer to contacting Marla in the payphone. When he finally calls, and we hear Marla answer "hello?", the spark ingites the gas and the apartment explodes! This was THE scene I was excited to see in this edit, so it was dissapointing to see it edited. And I did feel like editing it to be a linear shot of an explosion took a lot away.

For a new viewer, audio cuts were where the edit suffered. There are many times in the original when the overall audio is temporarily lowered while the narration is raised. As far as I could tell, the audio wasn't evened out for this edit. So there are a lot of strange fade outs and ins for seemingly no reason.

Overall, this gave me an experience I won't soon forget, so for that it gets high points.
As a standalone edit though, there were some technical issues so I have to be fair.

Without Edward Norton's voiceover, David Fincher's masterpiece becomes an entirely different and somehow even stranger difference, and I mean that in the very best way. This edit is an absolute must-see for anyone who's a fan of the original film and a fan of Fincher in general. This gets my highest recommendation.

Wow, fantastic edit to my favourite movie of all time. Never even entertained the idea of a version without narration but holy shit does it work. Removing some of the cynical narrative drive makes for a much more artsier movie, one that keeps you guessing and reserves answers til slightly later, keeping you on edge. The presentation is beautiful and the sound editing was done extremely well, resplicing the amazing soundtrack into the mix. Never noticed an edit. Brilliant work.

I really enjoyed this edit. The beginning 20 minutes or so is a bit awkward but after that it feels perfectly natural. You actually notice some small details in this version since you aren't focused on the narration. Only editing issues I noticed was when there was the occasional missing sound effect. I don't know if those were never added in the first place or maybe they had to be removed. Either way it's not a big issue. Overall I don't think it usurps the original film but it's very close.

The audio edits are sometimes noticeable, but nothing major.

This is a different experience from the original, without narration the film changes to a different genre altogether. The viewer actually gets to be mor focused on the action of the scene, instead of being occupied hearing the Narrator.

It actually made me think of what other narration-heavy films (even the ones where the narration is very well done) could improve / metamorphose if an edit like this were to be done.

Overall, any fan of the original should check this.