House Of Abrasax, The

This is a great edit over all. It tightened up the pacing and made for an more enjoyable experience. Most of the extraneous material has been trimmed away, although it is still a bit exposition heavy.

My main criticism is that, while the scenes with her family are downright obnoxious and mostly drag the narrative down, some of these scenes should have remained intact, especially those depicting what Jupiter does for a living. The reason I say this is because there are at least THREE references to the fact that she works as a housekeeper. These references make no sense anymore because we never get to see Jupiter scrubbing toilets like we do in the original edit.

We also miss out on some much needed characterization for Jupiter. We hit the ground running with this edit, which is good, but an unfortunate consequence is that, by the time the action picks up, we know next to nothing about our protagonist or why we should care about her.

The fact that Jupiter works as a housekeeper and sort of hates her life is an important setup for how she grows as a character. This is especially relevant at the end of the film when Balem says Jupiter reminds him of his mother because his mother "hated her life" (strongly implying that Jupiter hates her life, too). Jupiter replies that she's not his mother before finishing him off. It's supposed to be a powerful moment, but it's sapped of its strength because we simply don't know anything about Jupiter's life, let alone why she might hate it.

Also, when her family is kidnapped, it seems very out of context because this is the first time we are introduced to them, and we have no idea who they are or why we should care, that is until one of the captors says something like, "you must be the mother." Even with this line, it is still quite confusing.

In short, it is essential that we know at least a little bit about Jupiter's life, even if her family is extremely annoying.

I was watching it with a few people, some of whom have never seen the original. They sensed that there were some vital details missing regarding Jupiter's life. I'll add that they were also confused by the kidnapping scene.

Over all I think this fanedit is a clear improvement over the original. I especially liked that the faneditor left in the cheesy romance between the two leads, as I really liked that about the original. Having said that, Jupiter is modelled somewhat after the 'Cinderella' archetype, and that fact is unfortunately lost with this edit, which guts the story of crucial thematic elements. A great edit over all, but a bit heavyhanded.

Edit: Review edited to reflect the fact that a cut I had criticized is actually in the original theatrical cut.