West Wing: The 25th Amendment

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

It was a good scenario to pick for a fan edit. I'm a fan of the west wing and I always like to find fan edits to help bring people into the series that I like to watch. There was only some minor video/audio things, but these might have been from the original footage and not from the editing.

I had watched the series about a year and a half ago. Going into the beginning of the fan edit, I was a bit confused as to who was who and who did what. I think anyone who had not already watched the show would have been thoroughly confused.

I understand the assassination thing, but I think the piece as a whole would have been stronger without it and instead use the time in the beginning of the film to better introduce each character and their job/duties, OR have this be the second of a series of fan edits. maybe a nice trilogy. Maybe I'll make a prequel, who knows!

Other than that, very enjoyable and nice to see the old gang again.