West Wing: The 25th Amendment

Caveat - RollWave was kind enough to point me towards this fanedit when it became suddenly unavailable. RollWave personally contacted me after I expressed interest in viewing this edit.

I am a HUGE West Wing fan. My friends and I ran though the entire series on DVD, usually multiple episodes per night. This particular storyline is one of our favorites, and I was interested in seeing how RollWave slimmed it from 336 minutes to a svelte 144.

The answer is simple - Voodoo. RollWave practiced Voodoo. Because to be honest, and having JUST watched the series, we could not really tell where the edits were. And to us, that was amazing.

If you know West Wing, this is a treat. If you DON'T know West Wing, this is a really great stand-alone film, or an outstanding introduction to the series, or a way to convert a non-fan.

The visuals were flawless, even on a DVD-5. The audio editing, as previously mentioned, had a couple of minor transition issues, but I'm not sure how they could have been avoided, and if you weren't looking for them, you would not notice them (I shouldn't have read Neglify's review beforehand, LOL). The story itself was outstanding. One of our favorite storylines from the series, in an easy to digest morsel.

And "The Jackal" as the end credits was brilliant!

Run, do not walk, and watch this Fanedit.

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