I know I said I’m off the Internet until after I see TLJ, but I just finished watching V2 and I had to comment on it, so now this will be my last post until TLJ!
It’s been a while since I’ve watched TFA, and I haven’t watched Restructured V1 since work began on V2. Holy hell I’d forgotten just how much the restructuring improves the movie, and V2 polishes it to the point where it’s almost indistinguishable from an official theatrical release.
The Maz’s castle sequence is flawless and flows so much better without the tonal dissonance caused by the Starkiller/Hosnian destruction parts. The new VFX shots are seamless, and while Finn’s new line is still the tiniest bit rough, if it had been exactly like that in theaters I wouldn’t have second guessed it at all. Stellar work by Sir Ridley!
The deleted scene is integrated smoothly without damaging the pacing. I agree that it could use one more color pass, and the visual quality does take a mild dip, but it really helps clarify the political situation (helped along by the new crawl, too, which also looks indistinguishable from an officially produced version) - I can’t imagine watching the movie without that scene now.
Same goes for the subtle changes to the Artoo subplot (once again, agree that Threepio SFX are needed there), which I remember being against for this particular edit (though I don’t remember if I ever voiced that opinion). I stand totally corrected when it comes to that. A very subtle, but important difference IMO. I was surprised at how effective I found the recoloring of the firing (now charging) sequence, too.
And of course, the third act has so much more impact now. I thought the repurposed shots during the firing sequence were perfectly integrated, and didn’t notice any awkward slow-motion at all for what it’s worth.
The only critique I have is a technical issue: at least on my media player (watching the 1080p MKV untouched, without the PCM muxed in), the entire sequence of Chewie rescuing Rey and Finn in the Falcon after the lightsaber duel suffers from a choppy/stuttery framerate. Not sure what happened there exactly.
As for the other v2.1/v3 improvements suggested so far, the Kylo hood/mask removal is definitely a good idea, but it’s not immersion-breaking for me. I also do agree that the Republic should be acknowledged in the briefing if that can be done seamlessly.
This (well, the next/final version of this) will absolutely be the closest-to-theatrical version I ever watch again. (Not quite calling it a shelf replacement just yet - Neverar’s Starlight edit still has me very intrigued.)
Stellar work by everybody! 😄 And I get to watch it again tomorrow night with my family - and I’m purposefully going to start it after the fan edit disclaimer just to see if anyone notices it’s different! Muahahahaha…