Pirates of the Caribbean: Heart of the Maelstrom

I'm sorry DSM2337 I know you tried and I know you were stuck between a rock and a hard place. It really does seem like if you pull one thread, the sweater unravels. I found it really disjointed. I'm intrigued by the potential; but I found the execution to be lacking. It trims a lot of fat for sure but character motivations get lost, diluted or we just jump ahead with no explanation. I don't even remember the sequels all that well, but with this edit I kind of had a hard time following what was going on. Sure stuff does get explained in very brief one off lines, but nothing feels set up or established. No room to breathe, no time for proper characterization, setting up motivations, flaws, etc. Scenes do genuinely feel missing. Either pacing wise or characters seemingly solving problems one scene after they were established.

I don't know what anyone wants in this movie. I can't tell where anyone's character arc begins or ends. A lot of necessary information probably wasn't there in the first place but I just found it to be really sporatic. There are plot points which get resolved as soon as they're properly introduced. I know it's hard to edit and mix score that's baked into the audio track but it was really distracting when two tracks with completely different bpms overlapped. Or when the songs were tonally on opposite ends. Or when the song suddenly faded out. A lot of scenes didn't have a story beat (usually establishing character, theme or moving the plot forward. Ideally all 3 are present in any given scene or at least 2 out of 3. There are obvious exceptions but you want to get across necessary information in a quick enough pace without it being rushed or expository. Editing is very hard and I'm not faulting anyone for not being a paid Hollywood professional).

I did like the intermission with the hanging, it was a really cool and distinct editing choice. I found it again was missing context explaining what was going on. It is an ambitious effort and I do feel bad about being really negative in this review but hopefully it's not taken personally and constructive enough. It is tough because I'm sure the necessary elements to make the story flow better were barely present in the first place but it feels a bit like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It's a herculean task to try and edit 2 movies together. Let alone, both movies near 3 hours in length. I'm not faulting the effort. Please do keep working at it, I'm interested to hear your voice in whatever else you make. I hope this helps. Michael Hauge has a good framework for story structure (funny enough he based it off of Shrek). I'm not saying you need to learn screenwriting but I do think familiarizing yourself with how 3 act stories are structured will definitely help with pacing, character development, consistency, etc. I do think you do have a grasp on it, and I do think with more experience you will get the hang of it. Hopefully this was constructive, even if I didn't like the fan edit.

This is a tremendous edit and almost flawless in its execution. The A/V-editing is perfect, except a few instances that appear when AWE takes over. As other have already noted, the transition from DMC is imperfect. The idea is good and I like the montage, but the fade-to-black feels to quick, too abrupt. I also agree that the audio in the Tia Dalma-sequence dips in quality a few times. DSM2337's cuts are otherwise spotless.

Heart of the Maelstrom is, apart from the nitpicks above, a great fan edit (with a good title!). It improves both films and turns them into a single, action-packed adventure. The Narrative is, considering the amount trimmed, still clear and even more focused. A lot of nonsense is gone. Personally, I feel the wedding on the ship could've stayed. A reminder of the beginning, if nothing else.

Enjoyable and recommended!

I'll be brief, this is a good edit but it's not particularly for me. I rather enjoy At world's end so seeing the beginning trimmed for pacing makes sense but it's not necessarily something I liked.
I think the rest of the film plays out fine. I think the timeskip is dine, and defeating the Kraken makes more sense than it's original fate.

The Merging of the two Tia Dalma sequences was a bold move and it paid off flawlessly.
I guess the other thing I didn't like was the multi-jacks near the end, you'd cut all instances of Limbo out of the film so to see Jack with the other Jack's near the end was a bit of a WTF moment.

But I think the good outweighs the bad and anyone remotely interested should give this edit the once over.

I've always wanted a FE that combined the second and third PotC films, and at long last DSM2337 delivers! :D He's done an amazing job cutting these two bloating goliaths into a single, far more manageable, film. It's not perfect, but still a fantastic effort!

Video Quality: Excellent! No complaints at all.

Audio Quality: Generally excellent, but occasionally it seemed to fail? As if the audio was suddenly coming in through a really tiny speaker. It was odd considering how otherwise great the sound was here.

Visual/Audio Editing: Nearly seamless. I've got no complaints or issues with the editing job here, it was very well done. Cutting Jack's death and the quest to bring him back was incredibly executed!

Narrative/Enjoyment: The first half of the FE is a VAST improvement over the theatrical cut of Dead Man's Chest. The movie is now a fast funny rollercoaster ride. The real issues I have with the narrative are the bridge between the two films and the third film. Including the musical bridge just made it too obvious that these were two separate films and took me out of it for a few minutes. And while you did as good a job as is probably possible with the second half (there was a LOT of garbage cut, thank you!) it just felt...overlong, I guess? I'm not sure why, but the Kraken fight felt like it should've been the end of the movie and everything afterward just felt like the story getting dragged out. It made me wonder if, perhaps, the story overall would be better served if the Kraken (as cool as it is) was cut entirely.

Still, I enjoyed this and recommend it!

(Watched 1080p mp4 version)

I thought I had cut my two POTC edits TO-THE-BONE but it looks I was way wrong. Setting aside the Jack-being-brought-back-from-the-dead section (From the end of DMC and start of AWE), which is cunningly removed from this edit and totaled about 50minutes... DSM2337 has suceeded in removing a further 30minutes! I'm not even sure from where, as the edits were mostly invisible. Nice work!

Audio/Video Quality: 8
Video looked pretty damn good but I think the 1080p treatment was a little wasted on the 6.3GB filesize. IMHO I don't think you can get the best out of a full-HD 3-hour movie at that bitrate.

Visual Editing: 9
Visual edits were near perfect and the two-in-one Tia Dalma editing was creative.

Audio Editing: 7
Audio edits were mostly smooth-as-silk across the 3 hours but there were 6-7, or maybe 8 occasions in the edit where the audio/dialogue sounded terrible. Like it was fed into a cheap transistor radio in a heavily sound-proofed room and then re-recorded. I'm not sure if this was an error or what? It was especially bad during the Tia Dalma scene.

Narrative: 8
Considering just how much of the labyrinthine plot was removed, there were very few "plot holes". One that stood out, was Jack having a Jar of dirt because??? (That's a minor, minor thing that's easy to ignore). I must admit I was disapointed that the join between the two movies featured a "Some months later" titlecard and musical montage. If you're gonna have a big break like that between the two halves, then this isn't working 100% as a single movie IMO. Especially as I think DSM2337 did some really creative edits around the join, that could have been taken a little further and then not needed the musical/title bridge.

Enjoyment: 9
Despite a few small problems this a superb way to watch these two bloated, convoluted yet often thrilling movies. Because it's just the thrills and with 2 hours and 25 minutes removed, surprisingly, the plot actually makes more sense!

Highly reccomended edit. Probably the definitive POTC experience.