Northwest Passage: A Twin Peaks Fanedit

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.

This is one series where a lot of people just seem to think 'oh yeah, that weird show that was weird.' Yeah, it was weird, but there is a LOT of humor in it too, and not just of the dark variety. It's a lot of fun and Q2 left it intact, I'm happy to say. A lot of editors might try to take out the humor and make the series darker and edgier, but it's nice the way it is; a solid crime drama with a sort of wacky twist to it.

Anyway, everything about this is pretty much flawless in every way! Highly recommended.

December 8, 2011 @ 11:54 pm

How to judge something like this?

Did I enjoy it? Yes.
Did I miss anything? Well, yes, I miss Audrey Horne, but who wouldn’t? But she has no place in this, which does make me wonder why she got that one scene with Coop.
Was I confused? A little, at times. Some things we were told had happened, and then we went ahead without really making us feel the importance of it…if that makes sense. It’s because in the series we saw it happen, here we are just told of it, and at that point the series didn’t need to give that information weight, because the viewer already knew.
Was I confused when I watched the original series? Hell yes.

The ending is cheesy, but still dark, as the real murderer in not caught. I thought it worked, but we do wonder what happens with the one-armed man and how he could have stopped Bob.

I thought the video was great. Beautiful show.

I do believe I enjoyed watching this more than I would have enjoyed watching the whole series again. There is just too much that I don’t find that good, especially when we get later into the show. This highlighted some of the best things, and actually improved on some scenes.

For this reason along with the above I’ll rate this 9/10.

A nice piece of editing.

Update sep 9 2012

Added ratings for the categories.

April 16, 2011 @ 9:43 pm

Video 10/10. Audio 10/10. Editing 10/10.

This is the most enjoyable Fanedit I have ever seen. I love a lot of them, but none have gripped me and entertained me as much as this one, despite knowing what happens.

I would like to add that if you are new to Twin Peaks, watching this first and then watching the full two seasons is the way to go. You’ll really enjoy Twin Peaks more that way.

Northwest Passage: A Twin Peaks Fanedit = 10/10.

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!