Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2: Pruned Edition

I'm a huge Guardians of the Galaxy fan. I thoroughly enjoyed Vol. 2 in theaters, but after watching it at home I felt like Gunn just went a little overboard in parts.

At first I was annoyed by the lack of a detailed cutlist for this edit, but I decided to give it (along with a few other MCU edits) a chance in the lead-up to Endgame. And I feel like this is the highest praise I can ever give a fan edit of a movie I've seen in its theatrical form many times:

I didn't notice 95% of what was missing.

That's right. This edit is a full 16 minutes shorter and other than the pre-credits sequence and a couple of jokes here and there, I didn't even notice, and I fell in love with the film just the same way I did when I saw it in theaters the first time.

As with several edits in recent years, I wish it was available in a larger, higher-bitrate file, but beyond that, this will probably be the only version I watch from now on.

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.

I thought the theatrical version of GOTG2 was... "fine". I really enjoyed the story and most of the character arcs. My only real gripe was with some of the humour coming at the expense of more dramatic moments. This is edit solves most of if not all of those problems. It's been a long time since I watched the theatrical so I can't be entirely sure what was cut but boy oh boy does the main narrative and all those character moments shine much more than I remember!

Video and audio quality is fine, not the best, but that hasn't stopped it replacing my Blu-Ray from now on. Great work!

This is one of those rare edits that turn a movie I strongly disliked into one I'll rewatch and enjoy again for years to come. The theatrical cut of this movie suffered terribly from lame and obnoxious jokes that never knew when to end, and which had a way of ruining good moments. This edit flows smoothly without it ever being slightly apparent that something is missing. I watched this with a friend who is a big fan of the original, and even he didn't notice anything missing. So I'd say all around it holds up very well.

That said, we did miss the full opening Marvel title and regret it being sped up. The video quality is, as the editor puts it, best enjoyed with the expectation of a softer HD experience, due to a lengthy conversion process. And there is one instance where I noticed a cut between scenes could be heard at the 40 minute mark. These nitpicks are nothing though when faced with such a vastly superior version of the film.