Northwest Passage: A Twin Peaks Fanedit

The first thing that perplexes me about this fan edit is how a 300 minute running time qualifies as being re-imagined as a feature film. When was the last time you saw a five hour movie at the show? The second thing that perplexes me is why Q2 thought editing out all of the subplots and character digressions in Twin Peaks was a good idea since that is actually where a good amount of the entertainment value lies.

Some of the viewers who gave this rave reviews claim to not like David Lynch and that is likely the best audience for this fan edit. Anyone who enjoyed Blue Velvet or Lost Highway would be doing themselves a disservice by watching this version instead of the complete program. On the other hand, if David Lynch isn't your thing and you still for some reason want to watch Twin Peaks then I guess this is the version for you.

The plotting from series one episodes is clean and if you aren't familiar with the program it's likely you won't even notice that anything is missing. Q2 had more problems editing down season two. Leo Johnson is depicted as a major suspect but is shot off-screen. The attempts by Donna, Madeleine and James to investigate Laura's murder are so muddled it would have been better to cut them completely. Their first person of interest, Dr Lawrence, has a heart attack off-screen. Their second investigation, of the agoraphobic Harold Smith, suffers from abrupt jumps in time and culminates in a scene where its difficult to tell exactly what Donna, Maddie and James are even trying to do.

Northwest Passage largely rights itself after Harold's death as the focus shifts away from Laura's friends back to Agent Cooper and his attempts to solve the case. The reveal scene is no less powerful in this version than it was in the original series and provides one of Twin Peaks greatest moments of horror and tragedy.

I'm honestly on the fence about whether this fan edit is worth watching or not. You do get 5 hours of mostly excellent Twin Peaks, which is nothing to sneeze at, but so much that is wonderful and strange about the show is missing--seeing characters I loved when first watching the show pop up for one scene and then disappear completely is frustrating.

Q2 also did the Fire Walk With Me fan edit that added 90 minutes of deleted footage. That version improved on the original because it allowed you to spend more time in the Twin Peaks universe. It's counter-intuitive to me that the same person who made that would also chop down the Twin Peaks television program to create a subplot free version. How could somebody with an affinity for Twin Peaks do both?

Pros: The story is much better paced, focusing on who killed Laura Palmer. The transitions are very well done.

Cons: Some scenes aren't needed and could be removed. While cropping the film gives it a new and interesting look, the loss of visual quality is not worth it.

In conclusion, this is a must-watch fan edit.

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.