West Wing: The 25th Amendment

As a fan of West Wing I was intrigued by this edit. I really wasn't sure what to expect. I was wowed from beginning to end. Even knowing how the storyline progressed before watching this, I was still pulled into the narrative and rather than going from episode to episode, I got a feature length movie that was smooth, cohesive and compelling.

This character driven drama continues to build in a flawless fashion that keeps your attention from beginning to end. At no point do you feel like you are watching a televised series with scenes piled together in order.

Every scene was one logical progression after another. The emotional weight of the series wasn't lost in this feature length movie. It had the heart and passion that the TV series West Wing always possessed. The editing gets a high mark because of how well scenes flow from one to the other.

The storyline, editing, character development, music, and drama were pulled together and presented as a top tiered political dramatic movie. Highly recommended.

Summary:

This is an absolutely wonderful fanedit. Highly recommended for West Wing fans or lovers of political drama.


Technical:

The editing here is solid all the way through. If I hadn’t read the cutlist after I would have never known how many episodes were combined. Hell I had to read Wikipedia to really understand how much work was done. This edit flows so smoothly one scene to the next. Bravo.

Commercial break transitions were handled nicely; I didn’t notice any on-screen credits or zoomed shots to remove them. DVD quality was good, matched the source quality.

I had small nitpicks with some of the audio editing. They were really minor so I’m not going to waste time talking about them. You may or may not notice; they may or may not bother you; your mileage may vary.


Storytelling:

The narrative structure is the strongest part of this edit. I have never watched a single episode of The West Wing but I’d always wanted to check it out. (And yes I purchased the source material.)

You can go in completely blind deaf and dumb and still be able to follow everything. I connected to the characters and once the plot kicked into high gear I was glued to my screen. The three act structure is done very well and this feels like something that was intended as a theatrical movie.

And this show is really good. They weren’t kidding when they said they had great writers. Powerhouse storytelling, acting, everything.


A/V quality – 8
Editing – 10 visual, 9 audio
Narrative – 10
Enjoyment – 9

Recommended drink: Man O' War