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!