REVIEW [Cross-posted from Reddit to share in this forum for others to see]
First, I do want to point out that watching this edit was my first experience with the show. I intentionally did not read the changelog to prevent any spoilers. I avoided watching the show itself because of the bad reviews. I gave this one a chance because I always had good experiences watching other edits by Bailey.
Overall, I would strongly recommend watching this edit. It was fun and fast paced. It almost entirely flowed smoothly and logically. I will provide a bit more details, but SPOILERS ahead.
I did read the changelog after watching the edit. There is no question I would not have liked the show had I watched it. Bailey removed what appears to be most of the toxic waste from the show. Super Skrulls? Glad that never came to fruition. As I was watching, I kept thinking to myself I really hope we never come to the point where the Skrulls become super powered. Not everyone needs to be invincible - it removes tension and creates a situation where nothing is at stake.
In a similar manner, I liked how Bailey limited the Harvest DNA the way he did. My feeling towards this was exactly like the Super Skrulls in that I hoped we never reached the scenario of having magical super DNA while watching.
We have an interesting situation with Beto. Bailey wanted to make it appear that he was working with Fury. I never picked up on that. In my view, he seemed to get increasingly frustrated with Gravik’s deranged behavior until he reached a breaking point and killed Gravik with the support of others. There is nothing wrong with Bailey attempted to make the connection with Fury, but I actually think Beto deciding to kill Gravik on his own gives him more agency and a better character arc as opposed to doing this as part of his job. This worked out excellently either way.
I also liked that I never saw G’iah as Fury. There is no need to have every single character be secretly a Skrull. Bailey also did a nice job of removing extraneous Fury relationships and feuds with others. While watching the edit, I was getting a bit annoyed with the feuding with [Skrull] Rhodey and some of the bickering with Talos. Anymore interactions like that could easily sink the whole show. We already have too much going on with Fury. That was a necessity to tone down everything going on with him.
I have no idea what CGI fight scene was removed, but I can say this show definitely did not need more action considering we got that nearly the entire edit, sometimes graphically. If the CGI fight scene involved super Skrulls, then I am quite grateful that was not there.
There are two major critiques I have. One is with the show itself that is impossible to edit and the other can be edited. A major plot hole for this show is that is makes the Skrulls appear incredibly stupid. If they can shape shift to any human, why not transform to the heads of nuclear powers and order nuclear strikes? The Skrulls had the British prime minister who have nukes, and could also have transformed into the US President and ordered the nuclear strike. Unfortunately, this is not resolvesable.
The other major issue I had was the president seemingly ordering a genocide of the Skrulls that do not leave the earth even though one saved his life. I may need to rewatch to make sure I understood that correctly. If feasible, I think that should be toned down. I think wanting them all registered and killing of innocents should be the only things referenced instead of killing all of them. I think it is fine that he overreacts without crossing the genocide line. That goes too far for me.
==> I want to thank the editor for sharing the edit with me. It was a fun watch and he was right to believe there was a decent show here. I do not believe there is enough material to make it a great show, but is is solid. This is a solid addition to a Marvel collection.