Beast In Me, The

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.

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. :)