Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2: Pruned Edition

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The technical elements of this edit are flawless. Seriously, great work. They help to move the narrative along at a quicker pace, and you really don't notice a single issue with the cuts A/V wise.

However, as a big Guardians of the Galaxy fan, Vol. 2 being my favourite, I did not enjoy this edit as much as the original. I have an echoic memory (audiographic memory - like photographic memory but for sound), and thus I remember things like song lyrics, sound effects, soundtrack queues and, most importantly, film dialogue very well. So, having seen this movie a number of times, I did notice what was cut a lot of the time.

And, while I do feel MCU humour does tend to 'break' the moments a bit, I actually think they generally work perfectly in the Guardians films. So, the cutting of that kind of stuff did throw me off a bit (not a problem if you don't have the same connection to the franchise, or an echoic memory).

Additionally, a more valid criticism then my hyper-awareness, is that I felt cutting out a lot of 'banter' or even just normal dialogue that got removed made for some strange moments. For example, when Quill and Gamora are arguing, I'm pretty sure some of the dialogue got cut, and it made them get aggressive way too fast. Instead of their voices getting progressively hostile, they just kind of go from chit-chat to yelling down each others' throats. There were also some moments where I think the soundtrack was replaced due to cuts made, which also stuck out to me.

Essentially, the editors' technical elements are flawless, but sometimes these technical elements ignore other elements of filmmaking such as pacing and dialogue, which stuck out to me very much.

Take this all with a grain of salt, as other reviews don't really express my criticisms, and maybe a lot of these issues were already present in the original and I just never noticed because I wasn't looking for them. Again, a lot of this stuff won't be a problem if you don't have the same hyper-awareness to this sort of thing as I do. I will be sticking to the original on a rewatch of Guardians 2, so I can't recommend this edit for people like me. However, it does have great merit and there's no reason you shouldn't watch it for yourself.

The second guardians suffers from Marvelitis with the excess of jokes outbalancing the drama. This fanedit fixes those problems and makes the film much more compelling and I couldn't tell where the jokes were cut out. The humor lands better in this, as a result and keeps the movie more interesting in my eyes. More fanedits needs to be made for movies like this where the humor can get in the way of a good story (Dr. Strange). Overall great job!

It was superb. This is the kind of edit that makes me so happy to be on this site. I remember seeing the theatrical version in theaters, and on the way home kept thinking, "I can't wait to see someone fanedit that movie." I didn't hate the theatrical version, I just was a little bored and found it off-putting. It had so many extra jokes and quips that frankly weren't funny and just slowed the movie down. Was too self-indulgent. But I loved this edit. It perfectly shaved down all the excess crap, and gave me a fun and entertaining movie. Amazing work. I have no complaints, only praise.

Aside from a few issues of having a joke payoff without it, really, having been setup, this was an excellent edit. I would recommend this over the theatrical cut any time.