Northwest Passage: A Twin Peaks Fanedit

‍

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.

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.

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.