Finest Hour: A Supercut of Dunkirk and Darkest Hour

Awesome edit! The edits here are basically perfect, and the difference in style between Dunkirk and Darkest Hour add a unique dynamic between how the two parts of the story feel in relation to each other. Every cut or edit or rescore looks and sounds great. I watched the monochrome version and it looks amazing and helps keep this edit distinct from its two sources. It won't replace either movie for me, but it instead will act as a standalone experience going forward.

This is truly a perfect fan-edit; a brilliant and creative concept executed flawlessly. Every edit was cinema-quality, which is not easy to pull off with a Zimmer score! Although I enjoyed both original films, I would recommend this edit over either one in isolation.

The question, then, is not whether to watch this edit, but how best to watch it. The two original films have drastically different color grading, which remains jarring despite the editor's immense efforts to remedy the issue. For that reason, I prefer the black-and-white version. However, for the sake of completeness, I should mention the two scenes which do not work as well in grayscale. First, there are a few brief (3-5 seconds) underwater shots from "Dunkirk" which the black-and-white version blurs into incomprehensible gray. This is a nitpick. Second, the striking visual of black oil creeping across crystal-blue waters in "Dunkirk" is almost entirely lost in grayscale, as the oil and the sea are largely indistinguishable from one another. However, the presence of oil in the water is still made abundantly clear through dialogue, and it can also be seen on the soldiers' faces and clothing. In terms of narrative, absolutely no clarity is lost in the black-and-white version.
Personally, I will gladly sacrifice a few cool visuals for a more uniform color grade, but those who don't find the color differences jarring may disagree with me.

I enjoyed the original The Darkest Hour a bit more than I enjoyed Dunkirk, but in this edit the balance actually works very well between them.
One of the highlights here is the impressive perfection of all the audio and video edits.

The narrative becomes a different beast, shifting between London (the political, rhetoric and moral battle) to Dunkirk (the real, messy and desperate fight for survival). Some reviewers here said the this change in tone doesn’t work, but for me it worked very well. The film now alternates between intense tension and suspense (war council) with terror, fear and suffering (on the beach). For me (who liked the original The Darkest Hour more than Dunkirk) this works very well in contrasting the reality of what’s happening on the front line against the political battle, improving an already perfect drama following Churchill’s struggles.

Yes, the tone shifts are there but I’d argue that’s what makes it work; the 2 realities shown are completely different experiences of the same war, so the different cinematography, color palette and directing techniques are simply reflecting that. The final narrative, the flow of the story and the pacing are all impressively refined and polished.

The change of the Dunkirk part no longer being non-linear also improve things a lot. The whole story is now full linear and I found the characters and events feel a lot more grounded and real because of it.

Thank you for this masterfully done narrative building and editing. It keeps the best of both films and the final result is a masterpiece of filmmaking.

What a brilliant Movie this is.
Yes, this is the Movie, not an Edit or anything, because both Movies compliment each other now.
The missing background from Dunkirk is here now and the emotions thru that, are even higher now.

Flawless cutting and editing.
As you can see, my second rewiev on the same Movie because this is my go to Version now.

Tremendously effective; whatever is lost by abandoning the ingenious formal experiments of Dunkirk is more than made up by giving what was otherwise a fine but unexpectional biopic (Darkest Hour) a keen sense of the battlefield consequences of risky and human political choices. Can't wait to watch this again, I look forward to checking out the black-and-white version, which I suspect will combine the two sources even more seamlessly.