Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens: Restructured

First off I've only watched the original 2 or 3 times so at first i thought HAL was trolling me and copied the same movie LOL but I did notice a few little things after a while. Like the emperors voice in the Ray vision, I knew they didn't foreshadow that for IX, I like that change as well as most of the others I read in the details after watching.

But the big deal which i knew was coming was the Starkiller base. I have to agree with the detractors, i didn't care for it. The editing to achieve this was phenomenal and HAL did a great job like always, but i feel like the reasoning for changing it was weak.

Overall it's a top notch edit nearly seamless.

Excellent work throughout. Transforms what was initially a "cover-band" version of A New Hope into a dark mirror of that film's hopefulness. Everything that went right for our heroes the first time goes terminably awful, or at least the things that felt like mere plot points in Episode IV (Obi-Wan's death, the destruction of Alderaan) resonate much more strongly here, thanks to the editor's re-alignment of events. The First Order is framed as dangerous insurrectionists who have managed to strike a blow against democracy, and the galaxy is upended once again, setting the stage for much more tense stakes of the next instalment. No amount of editing can smooth over the lucky coincidence-powered story beats that fuel this movie, but theme and character are at least allowed center stage to distract the viewer from these failings. I look forward to seeing what miracles Hal9000 can work with Episode IX next...

The Force Awakens Restructured addresses several weak points and pacing issues that exist in the theatrical cut. The changes I noticed most in this cut:

Kylo Ren no longer has a Darth Vader fetish, nor an altar to Darth Vader. I like this change, it makes the reveal that much more poignant when Rey reads Kylo’s mind and senses he fears that he will never live up to what Darth Vader was.

Better editing of the audio and video snippets Rey experiences when grabbing Anakin’s lightsaber for the first time.

Starkiller base is introduced WAY later in the film. The Resistance doesn't find out about the Starkiller weapon until well after they’ve launched a plan to save Rey in this edit. Starkiller base doesn’t launch its first attack until right after Han dies. Kind of a downer, the initial mission fails because Han’s team didn’t detonate the explosives in time. Personally, I felt with all that had been cut from Starkiller base’s backstory, even more could have been cut, to make it a race against the clock for The Resistance to destroy the base before it got to fire a single time. But that’s really my only point of contention with this edit.

What was cut wasn’t needed, and what was kept was good. The changes make sense, and this is a fan edit well worth watching.

Not much to add to the many reviews:

- The main edit effort works, firing once instead of twice. It doesn't feel like anything is missing from the film.

- Edited transitions are seamless.

- My kids didn't realize they were watching a fanedit, despite having seen the theatrical multiple times.

- This edit successfully replaces the theatrical for me.

I must say, I wasn't sure the idea behind this edit would work (saw a video, thought it looked great), but I can safely say that it does work!

So, first, the technical qualities of the edit. Visual is top of the line. Perfect. Well done!

Audio, however, has a few problems. Most notably, throughout the movie the volume is very uneven. Both my buddy and I noticed this, and we compared it with the original and I don't know what happened but the volume swings a lot in intensity. I don't suppose that was intended so this is an issue.

Also, as everybody pointed out, Finn's line "It's the First Order, they've done it" makes little to no sense in context. Removing it entirely wouldn't hurt the movie at all. Just cut to him coming up and saying "Where's Rey?" after everybody reacts, or cut to someone else after he says "It's the First Order" and leave it at that (no "they've done it"). Maybe a Han reaction shot/someone else?

However, I just LOVE how this edit gets rid of the god-awful reactions shots in the original to the planets exploding. It's completely impossible for anyone to witness such an explosion from across the galaxy, even within the same solar system planets can be hours away at light speed, so this edit works wonders within that context. I love the Han/Starkiller firing, I love the insertion of the speech, the modified Kylo Ren+Snoke scenes, everything works!

It also reduces one parallel with A New Hope so there's that.

The ending though doesn't work in the original (it's too quick, tonal problems gallore too), and it still doesn't work in this one. Not much we can do because there aren't really more available scenes, it's just a rushed movie problem.

I enjoyed watching this quite a lot, and the narrative stands improved. Some issues (mainly audio) remain, but if those are fixed, this could definitely replace TFA for me.