Beast In Me, The

Adabisi edited this back in 2014, so I have reviewed his edit with that in mind.

'The Beast In Me' is an edit that aims to show us what a movie version of The Soprano's would have looked like. I haven't read a great deal about how David Chase ending up getting the show commissioned, but Adabisi kindly explains that Chase had always intended on getting a movie made. So, he created the Pilot episode with the view to attracting networks or studio's to invest in a feature. HBO loved it, and The Soprano's was born. Which in my estimation is still, in 2023, the best crime drama series made so far, and there have been some excellent shows.

'The Beast In Me' is edited from Season 1 of The Soprano's. I like the way Adabisi introduces us to the main players straight away.
Tony and his Jersey crew are sat in the office of the Bada Bing. Adabisi also introduces us to Tony's anxiety issues early on, setting us up nicely for the battle between Tony, and his mother.

I haven't watched any of the box set now since around 2017, so this allowed me to watch 'The Beast in Me' without constantly thinking of which scenes Adabisi chose to leave out. The story moves along nicely, nothing seems out of place, and the two hour and nine minutes breeze by.

The 'only' gripe I had, was how Adabisi chose to end 'The Beast In Me'. I completely get why he chose to end it like that, but I personally would have preferred it ended differently. Even though the edit dates back to 2014, I don't want to spoil it for anyone who, like myself, is new to this edit,

I was surprised that in the intervening years that Adabisi hasn't tackled any more of The Soprano's storylines into a feature, given that 'The Beast In Me' does a grand job of presenting us with the son/mother dynamic. However The Soprano's offers such detailed story depth in its ensuing Seasons that more edits of the quality of 'The Beast In Me' are crying out to be undertaken.

As a fan of the show, I type this in the hope Adabisi chooses to do more Soprano's edits but fully aware it's more than unlikely.
And Adabisi, if you don't mind indulging my suggestions (that I'm sure you'd be way to busy to undertake, but that would be awesome to see) ...these would be a fantastic continuation of your excellent 'The Beast In Me' edit.

'The Beast In Me 2 : Bonpensiero The Rat'
Continuing on from Adabisi's first edit, where Tony realises someone close is an informant,
Just showing how suspicion grows, and how Pussy ends up, would make an incredible movie edit.

'The Beast In Me 3 : The Release, Rise & Fall of Ralphie Cifaretto'
Ralph was one of the shows most loathsome characters. It'd be fantastic to see how Tony's patience runs
thinner and thinner until he eventually takes action.

'The Beast In Me 4 : 'Blundetto'
Season 5 was so, SO good. A movie edit could stick to the introduction of Phil Leotardo, and Tony's cousin
and the gruesome end he meets at the farm house. This whole story would set up the final movie edit.

'The Beast In Me 5 : The War'
This would be perfect, All the prior tensions boiling up in to an all out war.

Apologies for the wishful thinking, I don't in anyway want to detract from my main intention here, and that is to say that I highly recommend 'The Beast In Me' to ANY fan's of The Soprano's.

Let me start off by saying The Sopranos is my favorite tv show of all time (It's 1A to my 1B The Wire).
I acknowledge that I will never love any fanedit of this show because I love all the little nooks and crannies that the show goes into. That's really the joy of the show. I mean losing the whole College episode alone, while non-essential to the main plot of the power struggle between Tony, Uncle Junior, and Mama Livia, is reprehensible to me because it also represents everything The Sopranos is about.

Having said that, Adabisi's edit distills the main plot points of the first season. The power struggle between Tony and Uncle Junior and Livia playing puppet master behind all of it. So from a pure plot perspective, it succeeds, as we get some understanding of the balance between Family and "Family". The plot works through the paces quickly and we see most of it take place. The ending truncates the whole show in an inspired way, echoing the ideas from the. show. The show is brilliant because of how dense it is, the writing is fantastic. Yet watching it this way, feels like a clip show, you lose sight of the depth of these characters and only see the plot machinations. A lot happens off screen for the supporting characters, a lot of the supporting characters are severely underserved to focus on this main plot.

Certainly Season 1 has a lot that can be trimmed, "A Hit is A hit" is probably my least favorite episode of the entire show.

Overall it's an interesting experiment but I can't recommend it. The Sopranos as a show has always been meant to explore these depths and takes great pains to explore the psychology, dreams, and world of Tony Soprano and his relationships. In all it's glory and in all it's mundanity. This fanedit can only takes snippets from a lived in world. But moments like, "they built this", "I didn't hurt nobody" and the "where's my arc, Paulie" is what the show was built on and are timeless but lost here.

The technical editing was top notch all around, only a few minor quibbles here and there, no comments there.

The Sopranos first season was pretty good to begin with. This edit picks up the pace, and is certainly a good way to start of the series. Focuses mainly on the principal character, as the subplots sometimes detract from this in the TV show. Excellent build-up and ending, and would love to see a sequel from Adabisi one day.

I remember watching sopranos season one way back.
It's not like a watched it from beginning to end, but a few episodes here and there.
I though it felt sloppy. Great concept, just not very well executed.
The acting was less than great at times,
and the story at times came across as stupid or contrived.

But there were some moments of genius in there,
when James Gandolfini in particular really shone as an actor,
(some of the surrounding characters were great too, but he was the star for sure.)
and the story felt really genuine and epic. Like others have said bordering on Shakespearean (but not quite)

This edit contains all the genius and almost none of the stupid.
It's fairly close to being a perfect edit of Sopranos season one.

As it is, to me it comes across as episode 2 of a 3 episode Sopranos miniseries.
Like any good episode 2 this is where most of the important character development and plot
of the miniseries happens, and it's satisfying and complete in itself. As long as you are aware of all the characters and the general plot beforehand (which is what episode 1 is about).
And the (as I interpret it) cliffhanger ending leaves you craving for the next episode (episode 3, the resolution)

All in all this is really enjoyable, and a really good take on sopranos season one
and I do recommend watching it.

But you do need to know the characters and general plot
to fully understand what's happening.
And the ending will leave you wanting for more.
So I would suggest watching a few episodes of the series to fill in the gaps.
I wish I could recommend specific episodes, but I don't know season one that well.
Perhaps someone else can fill in for me? =)

Confession time.... I have never watched a full episode of The Sopranos.

I seen bits and pieces over the years, but I always seemed to miss it during it's original run. So while I am aware of the general characters, but I am pretty much oblivious to all the intricacies of the character relationships and arcs. Even after watching Adabisi's work print, I went out and bought season one to gain greater insight but it still sits on my shelf unopened.

So I pretty much went into this fan edit cold and open minded. And I was rewarded with a very rich and complex story about family. And when I say "family", I do not mean THE FAMILY i.e. The Mafia, for this is not Goodfellas or the Godfather. This is the story of a son, a mother and an uncle and how grief, greed and misunderstanding is their undoing. As Neglify commented, it has a very Shakespearean feel.

And this element of the edit I enjoyed. However, at times I found the story to be very dense, dozens of character's names and incidents are mentioned without always seeing them or getting a full explanation; particularly the subplot about the New York mob. The edit is very plot driven, almost at the expense of developing some of the supporting characters. For me, the character of Pussy felt underdeveloped. I never got the sense he was Tony's best friend, only just another member of his crew. Thus I just could not entirely accept Tony's anguish and spiral downwards when he believes he may have had Pussy mistakenly whacked.

But with that said, I still found the edit completely captivating from start to finish.
Thumbs Up. :)