Apologies for this delayed response. There hasn’t been much activity on the thread and so I honestly forgot to check. In any case, I certainly think a collective effort, or working together as a team, is a feasible way to approach such a project. A fan-edit of a single film, or even a trilogy, is a daunting task. Sometimes even a single scene. But we are talking about approximately 80 hours of footage, all told. I know we’re not talking about changing much early on, but it’s still a lot, and some of these ideas will be technically challenging to execute well.
I’m a bit torn about changing the story, or straying from the source material. While I’m certainly tempted, I think the safer option is to keep things as is, but try to improve the execution.
Regarding consistency, that is a major motivation for me. We should definitely swap in Von Sidow for the first appearance of the TER, for example. For the astute viewer, these changes simply don’t make sense. (Are we supposed to believe the guy shaved or something?)
As for “The Bells”, I think the issues don’t really lie in the episode itself, but in the lead-up in previous episodes and previous seasons. Sure, making Daenerys come across as more ruthless earlier on is a possibility. But I don’t think we should attempt to telegraph her switch too strongly. The story does an excellent job in the very beginning of hiding both its ultimate protagonist and antagonist, and allowing the viewer to unknowingly cheer for the villain. It’s a theme that has much to say about the nature of good and evil and our perception of such. Her destruction in King’s Landing should remain both shocking and painful to watch. (It just needs to make sense.) So, I say let her hear the bells. That is the moment when she snaps, and I think it is important to maintain. The lead-in for the episode actually did well with the voice-over flashback montage from previous seasons. Perhaps that is an idea that could be incorporated into the main storyline. (Is she hearing voices? Etc.) The books do seem to hint at this, and it could be fun to play around with.
Splitting things into shorter episodes for the final season is also an interesting idea. Thus far, I haven’t yet purchased the previous seasons (been holding out for some crazy boxed set or something cool). So, I’ve only seen the aired episodes. But does anyone know if there are any extras or deleted scenes ripe for finishing and including, etc.?