Northwest Passage: A Twin Peaks Fanedit

Disclaimer: I'm not a fan of Twin Peaks, and I've only previously managed to get through the pilot. However, this is a very well made edit. Cutting down 16 hours of content down to 5 hours is very impressive. And despite a lot being cut, the pace is not high. It still feels like a TV series. I mostly followed the plot (as much as is possible when Lynch is directing), although it is convoluted, and I started to lose track of things towards the end. I do believe even more content could have been cut at certain points to further streamline the narrative and place the focus on more essential points (although I respect that this has already been done to a great degree).

Editing-wise, the cuts were superb, the only thing I noticed were occasional quick music fades that are unavoidable when making TV-to-Film edits. I wish that some of the loud background music had been removed when characters were speaking, although this is no fault of the editor. Cutting the footage from 4:3 to 16:9 was a great idea, looked great on the TV. A/V quality was excellent.

In conclusion, this is a high quality edit, but Lynch is still a nutjob. I think fans of the series should definitely give this a watch, but non-fans are unlikely to be converted.

Positives:

Technically great. Audio/video are excellent, and it looks great in widescreen. You get the whole Laura Palmer story all in one sitting. Most of the pertinent scenes are here and fit in seamlessly, with a few exceptions. All of the unenjoyable filler is removed. No more Nadine ridiculousness or idiotic Civil War reenactments!

Negatives: The edit is just too straightforward, almost to the point where it is un-Lynch-like. Really the only Lynchian weirdness left is the visions various people (especially Cooper) have. Gone is any mention of the Black Lodge, which is my favorite aspect of the entire series. The long sequence in the Black Lodge is abridged and reduced to a vision Cooper has in the Road House when he remembers who the killer is (as revealed to him by Laura Palmer in a dream). It's clever editing, but I really miss the Black Lodge being an actual place, which makes the riveting scene where he enters it, as well as the subsequent long sequence inside it, much more impactful than what is seen here.

I would have left in: 1) Almost everything related to the Black Lodge, 2) Enough of the Windom Earle plot (which was pretty good) and surrounding subplots where the events of the final episode, including the entire Black Lodge sequence, make sense, and 3) Any scenes of Lynchian weirdness. For example, the scene where Agent Albert Rosenfield suddenly professes how he models his life after Ghandi and King. All this additional material would probably add an hour or two to the edit, but so be it.

Curiously, Q2's other Twin Peaks fanedit (to the Fire Walk With Me movie) adds in additional subplot elements and strengthens the Black Lodge element, so these two fanedits aren't really compatible.

There are a couple minor problems with the narrative where a transition is awkward because something got edited out that was necessary to explain a subsequent scene. One is the attempt to steal Laura's diary from Harold Smith. The entire Harold Smith subplot was so reduced that we don't know what Maddy is doing when she shows up and looks for the diary to steal.

There is a small problem with the widescreen conversion where, in the scene in the Black Lodge (here just a vision) where Laura flicks her fingers downward, her fingers are out of frame.

A very competent effort, but not what I was looking for. I'm not sure who would enjoy this other than people who don't like David Lynch but are curious about the main story in Twin Peaks.

I had the pleasure of seeing this fan edit at the Paley Center in Los Angeles recently. Kudos to Q2 for a job well done.

Quality: Expecting a tv show from 1990 to be editable, look good, and maintain high quality audio is absurd. Based on what Q2 had to work with, I was impressed with the quality. But, keep in mind that I was seeing this in a theatre being projected from who knows what. It was excellent seeing the show in widescreen. The one thing that I really noticed was the difference between the episodes leading up to the reveal and the addition of the final episode in the waiting room. It was a jarring difference in quality visually. But somehow Q2 managed to keep the audio and music especially undisturbed.

Visual: At times, I noticed edits that were awkward. When you're splicing together multiple episodes, dealing with audio changes, continuity, I can definitely understand the difficulty involved. I give it an 8 because it was occasionally noticeable, and I disagreed with some of the changes. It may have been more noticeable to me in particular since I've seen the show enough times to know exactly where a cut was made. The main thing I noticed was how long Q2 managed to stay in a very fluid run until all of a sudden there was a cut to black that I didn't expect. That threw me.

Audio: This deserves a 10 because I was amazed at how well the audio ran throughout. Not one smidge of a dropped line, music was fluid, beautifully done. I suspect that use of the soundtrack may have been involved.

SPOILERS!
Narrative: The lead up to the reveal was awesome, very well done, cuts made appropriately and the strength of Laura's story was surprisingly fluid without all the filler. The reference to the loud swedes was hilarious. I had to downgrade the narrative because the reveal was choppy and very disappointing to me, as a huge fan of the series. In my opinion, I don't think there's anything wrong with the reveal being somewhat early, which is the original intention. One of my favorite scenes (is this weird?) is Leland looking in the mirror and changing to Bob, the first reveal, and then Maddie's death scene. I can't believe it was on television. It is an amazing scene, shot with gut wrenching transparency, the rolling through Bob and Leland, it's sickening and exciting in a way that only David Lynch can achieve. I couldn't believe my eyes when all we saw was Bob. It was also very awkward when they discovered Maddie, the whole gazebo thing, there were portions of that which could have been left out altogether. The road house reveal should have played verbatim as jumping to the end of the season left a sour taste. As someone who's seen the ending many times over, Dale was not there in relation to Laura for any reason, I did not like this.

Enjoyment: Let's face it: seeing anything about Twin Peaks in an actual theatre was very fulfilling and I'm so glad this opportunity was available. Whether or not we had bells and whistles in the LA screening, it was still amazing. I was loving every second of it. This is definitely aimed at those who haven't seen the series and would probably be better in that case. I will not end up watching this again, just due to the way it ends. But like I said, huge kudos to Q2 for a job well done.

QUALITY

Quality is decent. The cropping to 16:9 naturally means a reduced resolution.


VISUAL EDITING

The conversion to 16:9 generally works really well. Occasionally shots look a little tight, but it never felt intrusive or like it detracted from my enjoyment. It was nice to experience the series in this aspect ratio and it definitely helped in conveying a more cinematic feel.

In terms of cuts, I found a fair amount of shots to be too quick, mainly establishing shots and mostly in the first half. 1:20:20 of Part 1 I remember being especially abrupt. There's also a frame jump at 2:14:34 in Part 2 (probably a misplaced keyframe from cropping). The end credit scene has very obviously had the aspect ratio stretched and doesn't look great.


AUDIO EDITING

No doubt there were numerous cuts and trims that went by unnoticed. I did notice quite a few audio transitions though; nothing jarring, but some obvious crossfades. Again, more in the first half than the second. A minor thing, but there is also a relatively loud audio pop during the credits.


NARRATIVE

First thing's first, this is being presented as a 5-hour movie, which seems like a crazy idea. Looking at it like that, it's way too long. However, perhaps it is best viewed as a 2-part TV movie of sorts? It is presented in two 2.5 hour chunks, and this mitigates the excessive runtime considerably. Being able to view it in two screenings of a reasonable length works well, the pacing is generally good and it never feels episodic.

Unfortunately, there are narrative problems, as others have noted. There are minor(ish) things, like characters referencing something that no longer exists in this cut (Lucy mentioning seeing Bobby's parents, Donna mentioning Howard's letter), Audrey makes a single appearance that has no relevance to the plot, and then never makes another appearance again; Big Ed (a civilian) randomly tags along to a police bust (which the audience have no context for since there's no introduction to the bookhouse boys here).

And then there are more significant things, like having Doc's heart attack and Leo's shooting offscreen. If these characters were entirely relegated to the background, that could work at a push, but because this edit isn't 100% focused on the perspective of the police and FBI, and we do have deviations where we focus on these minor characters, it feels odd to have something so massive happen to them and then only get the info dropped in with a single line of dialogue. We also have no context for why Doc has his heart attack, nor is anything ever said about him having the other half of the heart necklace, in spite of it still being emphasised on camera when he's listening to Laura's tapes. Plus, to have a murder, a heart attack and two other attempted murders all on the same night is crazy - the series acknowledges this and has an explanation; this edit does not. I could keep the list going, but I don't want to labour the point. Suffice to say, the narrative is far from perfect here.

On a related note, there are some general effects that an edit like this has on the feel and flow, which are really just a byproduct of the concept and can't be helped. The first part of the edit feels very dry overall, since there is a lot of procedural stuff and info-driven dialogue, without much of the quirky character moments to break things apart and make it more digestible. There is also less of a mystery in one sense; since we spend less time and see less of the townsfolk, we're therefore limited to a smaller set of suspects, making it easy for the audience to put the pieces together and draw conclusions based on where the narrative is focusing. On the other hand, whereas the original series reveals to the audience who the killer is before their capture, Q2 decides to keep the audience in the dark with the police; I think this was a smart move and it worked well for the narrative.

Some have noted the absence of the black lodge plot, and while I like that plot and am sad it couldn't be included, it wouldn't have worked for a filmic narrative and would have made things feel far more episodic. Unfortunately, its absence does make one of the giant's clues superfluous: "the owls are not what they seem". It is worth bearing in mind that Q2 makes the interesting decision to include part of the trippy stuff related to the black lodge and insert it within the climax of the edit. I thought this was well-executed, although I'm not sure what value it added to the narrative, personally.


ENJOYMENT

Issues aside, across its 5-hour runtime the edit nicely condenses the main initial narrative thrust of the series, with a few tweaks to make the experience a little different this time around. I really enjoyed being able to re-consume the series in a much shorter amount of time.

There is some talk in the reviews as to who this is aimed at, and I also saw someone treating this as their first experience of the series. It seems to me that Q2's intent was an alternative spin in a cinematic format for those already familiar with the material. Because of narrative issues and the absence of some great material, I would strongly recommend people not let this be their first experience, but I think it's a good option for a revisit. I also disagree with people who think all the Lynchian-ness has been stripped away... plenty of the weirdness is left. Most of what Lynch directed of the series were climactic episodes, which are naturally retained. Plenty of opportunity was here to trim some of the awkward, drawn-out dreams and visions, but these mostly remain intact. I think any hardcore Lynch fan is probably also the sort of person to frown on any kind of edit, full stop. If one wants to speculate on the meaning of Twin Peaks and bask in the mind of Lynch, then naturally anything unsupervised by him is not going to be the way to go. But if you simply want to enjoy a different take on the material, this is a fun ride.

April 15, 2011 @ 1:02 am

Northwest Passage: A Twin Peaks FanEdit – review by emphatic

Note: This review will only handle the edit itself and none of any available extras on the DVD and AVCHD discs, as I got the AVCHD and stripped that down to the edit itself to watch in my HTPC.

VIDEO:
The video quality is top notch. Twin Peaks has never looked this good. The brand new 16:9 framing of the show never feels weird and I often feel myself going “what a beautiful show this is”.
10/10

AUDIO:
The 5.1 audio track is superb. I noticed some very low original music from a scene (I think) where it sounds somewhat like the music that’s in the scene after drops into, but it doesn’t affect the mood of any of those scenes at all, so it doesn’t affect my score.
10/10

While I’ve seen at least 10 FanEdits so far, I think this is the first time I’ve actually written a review. When Twin Peaks premiered on Swedish (National) TV, I was a mere 17 year-old and missed out on all of the mystery, weirdness and excitement even though all the grown-ups could not stop talking about key moments, often looking happily disturbed. A couple of years later the show was on again, and this time I was hooked from the get-go. Swedish cable TV have a habit of showing this during the summer holiday season almost every year, so I have seen it more than once on TV and then when the whole show was released in that nice Gold Box it was a release day purchase for me. I’ve only watched the extra material on that box though, as the thought of all the crap they made us suffer through in the second season has turned me off it many times now. I mean James Hurley leaving town and getting mixed up with a supposedly scorned housewife? Gimme a break.

Fast forward to the end of 2010 when I saw the teaser trailer for this edit. I knew in an instant that I was in for a treat, and man, I couldn’t be happier with the end result. Watching this very suspenseful edit is a joy, and not once do I find myself missing the antics of Nadine Hurley, Hank Jennings, Colonel Briggs or the characters involved in the Ghostwood Real Estate project. I watched the edit with my girlfriend who’s also a big fan of the show, and her only comment was about how Johnny Horne’s face was being shown without him being previously introduced.

Notable highlights that (very smartly) adds even more mystery to it all:

When a dazed and confused Dr. Jacoby shows up at the hospital “out of the blue” and is admitted we get a very good explanation for this shortly after and it felt just perfect and fresh. We don’t need to see what happens to him as it’s just not much more than a random attack.

When Donna, James and Maddie have a sit-down at the Double R diner, we see someone start a song at the jukebox, then lazily stroll past them to the adjacent booth where (fans of the show know) he’ll be eavesdropping on their conversation for the duration of that scene. At the end of it, this is originally “revealed” as the camera pans over to show his face even though we’ve seen his unmistakable neck each time the camera is on Maddie. Even if he later would appear as a criminal associate of Leo’s (like originally), just showing him like some silent predator biding his time in the background works great.

Waldo being put down. Would it matter to know who’s responsible? No. Does it make things interesting? Yes.

The Leo Johnson shooting. I would have liked to have seen the infamous “soap in a sock” scene added in (to provide a motive for the shooting) as now not seeing the shooter gives the viewer a chance to choose Bobby Briggs as actually doing something heroic (from outside that window, as Leo is no longer “chopping wood indoors” in this edit). It’s really up to the viewer to decide what happened to Leo. If we’re led to believe it’s done by Shelley or Bobby, later having Bobby roll Leo around in a wheelchair would not have any distracting effect.

The black eye on Albert Rosenfield. This is never explained and is a lovely little nugget for fans of the show and totally in character with Albert’s overall snootiness gone too far and ending with someone giving him a knuckle sandwich. Cooper never ask him about it.

Cutting short the humiliation of Andy as he breaks down and cries when the case’s horrifying time line is read aloud by Cooper in the conference room and Albert taunt him with the “three hankie crime” comment.

Leo turning up in a wheelchair with Bobby as the driver felt a bit weird, but it’s more an added mystique than raises questions IMHO.

Things I personally would have handled differently (I’m not an editor, so don’t know if everything I suggest below is doable):

When Cooper executes his patented “Tibetan dream suspect exclusion technique” with a bucket of rocks, a blackboard and a glass bottle, Johnny Horne’s face has never before been shown, yet here he gets a “flash from memory” like the other names on Cooper’s list of names. Not a big deal all in all, but if a future V2 would ever surface of this edit, it would be nice to just cut to one of the attendees instead of showing the flash of Johnny.

Big Ed’s sudden appearance as an asset to the “off the books task force” visit to One Eye Jack’s felt a bit too unexpected to me, as the whole Book House Boys’ part is cut from this edit.

When Special Agent Cooper is telling Sheriff Truman that they need a warrant for the arrest of Benjamin Horne, there’s a quick shot of the blackboard showing the drawing of the map to the Black Lodge. Knowing what it is, it’s quite distracting to a seasoned Twin Peaks viewer.

I really could have lived without the Mr. Smith subplot. Too bad he has that diary as I really don’t like the “huge hair” shot of him with and Donna in the indoor green house and even though we get to see the cool neighbors, the soapy feeling of this part’s easily the worst part that remains of the “filler material” from season 2. Also, in a short instance, the wrong cheek has blood on it (blood that magically appear even before the rake touches his skin I might add) Personally, I wish that the diary somehow could come from Dr. Jacoby instead (seeing as Donna tips off Cooper about Mr. Smith and his possession of it).

The white fur that Leland takes from Benjamin Horne’s stuffed animal that ends up planted on Maddie never really pay off.

Entertainment: 10
Picture: 10
Sound:10
Overall: 10

So, a full 10/10 from me! Awesome work!