LOST I - Genesis

Once again a faneditor cleans up the pieces that Lindelof threw against a wall and trusted us to make sense. And very similarly to Prometheus the basic story of Lost wasn't all that super complex as we thought to.
It boiled down to an story about a few survivors who became player in a chessgame of two immortal (maybe?) beings. The reason many (myself included) were so disappointed with Lost was because the show promised so much and used so little. Constant red herings and storylines that got teased yet never resolved.

A friend of mine started watching the series after it ended and got really into the mysteries like the whipsers and Walt and the Aaron and I realized just how many plotlines the producers threw in and then later decided "well the psychic who told claire to board the plane was a fraud"
Walt is another of those "mysteries" that never got resolved but instead of facing those problems the authors remained mysterious for the sake of being mysterious up until the end when they had to lay their cards on the table and present us the magical cork.

So very much like prometheus: giftbearer this fanedit doesn't change or alter anything that has come before. But it streamlines it and gives us only the things that will be important for the long run.

Personally it didn't feel episodic (aside from some credits who appear from time to time and remind you). It just felt like a super long story that gradually unfolded. The way the others are handled (or not handled) is actually quite clever as it makes the first movie completely about the oceanic survivors and only slowly introduces us to the mysteries of the island.

because the sometimes overtly dramatic/foreshadowing moments are gone there is a lot less pressure on the story. it is the story of people trapped and some of them are just survivors... not everyone needs to be a telepath.
I especially love the complete omission of Kate's entire backstory. She is one of the most pointless and boring characters in the series and every time the writers tried to give her a story it was just stalling the plot.
Many characters are very different because the flashbacks are missing. Sun and Jin become less important. But thinking of how pointless Sun and Jin became it doesn't really hurt that much. Sure they were my two favorite characters in season 1 and 2 but that was mostly because of their backstory and not becuase of what they did on the island.

Narratively Radzinsky has a lot of clever tricks up his sleeve to make everything work. This guy really has been sitting infront of a pc and going through all possible episodes because he always uses the right amount of flashbacks and dialogue so that one could watch this edit and fully understand the story.
The only thing where it kind of doesn't work for me is the not-empty coffin that Jack finds. I understand that the missing body is a mystery that never gets explained so I am thankful for that omission but the audience doesn't know that jack has brought the body of his father along with him so he just finds a coffin and it is not really clear if it is his father's and if it is then what the hell it does on the island.

The change in Rousseau's kidnapping was also well done.
Right now I am very interested in how Sawyer's backstory will be handled. it was teased that he wants to kill a man... the question is if we will see this story explained before D.B. Cooper appears on the island.

Streamlinign the story also gets rid of a lot of soapy elements. Watching the edit i remembered the subplot about shannon and boone having sex... oh my... or the watch of Jin... oh man...

Thankfully all this is gone. The use of flashbacks is very well done although it is really locke heavy compared to the rest... then again locke's flashbacks aside from desmond, ben and richard were probably the most significant.

The introduction of Jacob was also fantastically well made. It gives the series a much more complete feel since he has been there from the get go. As a series it would have probably been too obvious if his first appearance would have been that but for the sake of telling a complete story his appearance makes so much sense and gives the story a much more complete feeling than having a random guy we have never seen pop out at the end of season 5.

I can't wait for more Lost!

ADMIN NOTE: The reviewer mentions a serious problem with the audio of the edit. 2 Administrators and a member of the Academy checked the fanedit and the audio error was not present.

Ok where to start. First off my scores may be low but for a firstling the edit is good. but it and all 3 part's that have been released suffer from the same issues.

Visual Editing: Overall I have found the visual editing to be spot on. The on screen credit's really do hinder the flow of the edit. If not for those it would not feel episodic in nature. Every time they pop on the screen even for the few seconds they are there they remind me of an episode start. Other than that the Video is solid. One other thing is, there are no proper end credit's Just the Lost logo at the end. Why not take the 15 min and type up a end credit's or at the very least use the ones from the show

Audio Editing: Transitions and what not are fine and well executed but when watched on a 5.1 setup 95% of all audio comes out of the right channel. This is true for parts 1-3. I personally rebalanced the audio on my own so I could watch. This is a major flaw in the audio and if the edit had not come with such great reviews I would have just turned it off. Even when watched through my 2 channel TV via HDMI cable from the same BD player, I had all the audio out of the right channel there also. (NOTE: 2 Admins and 1 Academy member has checked the audio and have not experienced the same issue that I have.)

Narrative: I found that most of the narrative works and most of what was cut works well. The editor did a great job structuring the edit. I loved the Jacob flashback with Jack. Alot of things that I absolutely loved. That being said if someone had not watched lost before they have zero reason to care about the characters as next to all character development has been cut. In the case of Kate this works well. But in most other cases not so much. There are times we see a character for just long enough for someone to talk to them, then a short time later that character does their plot specific thing. The only other gripe about the narrative is the lack of taking the time to do the minor tweaks. Here is just one example it might be from part 2 not sure as i watched them all back to back. But the issue happens in all 3 versions. Characters will make references to stuff that has been cut. For instance Kate in the source material was always following them. In this edit she only does it once and then they make a comment about how she always does it. They are just minor things but they do stand out.

Enjoyment: Despite the flaws of the edit and after i fixed the audio I thoroughly enjoyed the edit. It was long but it was good. It is clear the editor has a great mind for getting what he want's out of the source material and using it wisely. I would just like to see some more attention to detail. Project's of this scope are always hard to tackle and the editor has done some good work. I would hope to see a Version 2 of parts 1-3 before the next installment.

Would I recommend the edit. Yes if you have watched lost and you just want a speed run. If you are not familer with the show I suggest a full watch of season 1 before watching this edit.