I finally got a chance to watch your Andor 1 last night. Wow! What a difference the narrative pacing makes. Removing all the Syril scenes through Ferrix makes it feel like Cassian is actually the main character. I was getting major spy film vibes throughout the whole film rather than the slow unfocused drip of the show’s original pacing. This is a format that is FAR more rewatchable than the D+ one. Here’s my official review:
Audio/Video Quality: This edit was required to be streamed through Google Drive, so they typical degradation from that process is to be expected, but it presented as a typical 1080p film without any major quality issues. I was not once distracted due to a lack of quality in the A/V department. Maybe I’m getting spoiled by modernity, but ever since getting a 4k monitor and working with 4k footage, 1080p has started to look blurry to me haha. So since Andor does exist in 4k and that would be peak quality, I will rate this category of the edit a 9/10.
Visual Editing: Throughout the entirety of the film I spent many moments going, “Did MR remove a scene here or not?” And that’s a good thing! The majority of new transitions were completely smooth and unnoticeable, making me have to go back to the changelog to see if there was in fact a scene in between. The addition of subtitles to the Kenari flashbacks was incredible, though I did notice a typo which distracted from the moment. There were maybe 3-5 transitions where I could tell that a change had been made due to some visual jarring (the biggest offender IMO was right before the title card), but overall the large majority of the film was top tier visual editing. I score this category a 9/10 as well.
Audio Editing: Similar to the above, 90% of the film had perfect audio editing. The only hiccups I noticed were tied into some of the same transitions as the video ones above, but there were a few more where the video was great but some distracting audio carried over between cuts. Nothing too distracting again, but I probably noticed 6-7 instances of this. This area scores an 8.5/10.
Narrative: Now the meat of any fan edit, especially a TV to Movie format. The general story pacing was nearly perfect. It actually felt like a different source material due to the new overarching story. Whereas D+ Andor sometimes felt like watching a real life simulator where sad boy eats breakfast with mommy, this one actually felt like a real, mature Star Wars meets Spy Thriller genre. The slow drip of the revelation of this growing Rebel Alliance was my favorite part. Cassian’s character development was incredibly focused and felt very cinema-esque. Removing some of the lengthy Ferrix segments of side characters was a great choice, and all three of those side characters were done to perfection, especially the bit with hiding who is the rat. Even down to the nitty gritty of Bix’s boyfriend losing her in the alley faster makes scenes play out so much better and I LOVE that attention to detail. Cutting out Syril’s whole pursuit of Cassian on his end did wonders for the first half of the film. Seeing his response to the disaster on Ferrix was a perfect introduction to him as a character, but with all the focused headshots looking at the aftermath it seemed like he was going to be further development of him as an antagonist, but that never happened as he disappeared from the rest of the film which was odd as I was waiting for another appearance. Mon Mothma’s initial scene hit HARD this time around, and it felt like an impactful cameo that made perfect sense in this film. Though, I did feel that her character arc did not end up going anywhere afterwards and she didn’t have any conclusion, so I personally think just that one scene would have been all that was needed. Luthen comes across as one of the most interesting characters in the show and my only wish here was that 1 or 2 more scenes were left in with him as he played too small of a role for how much he seemed to affect Cassian. The heist crew was edited to perfection, each side character was given their one moment in the sun to make an impact on Cassian and they never once dragged on or were given too much spotlight. Absolutely phenomenal treatment of the rebel crew. Finally, I think that the film could’ve benefitted from another 20-30 minutes of runtime as it did end quite abruptly for me. Concluding without the actual heist occurring was a tough one for me. In a way, it was poetic, but after so much build up and planning you naturally expect a payoff. Starting the next film with the heist seems to me like I will lose so much of the investment in the characters that I had been building for the last 2 hours, so I’m not yet sure how to feel about that until I watch the sequel. I think that cutting out ~5 minutes of the initial flashback and adding the heist plot would be perfect and still keep the film under 3 hours, especially considering cutting some of the later Mon Mothma scenes. Overall, I greatly preferred this format for rewatchablitily and cannot imagine sitting through breakfast with mommy again, so this is a marked improvement in that sense. I will score the narrative a 8/10, though I will say I generally prefer slow, long form story telling so a near 3 hour runtime would not intimidate me in the least, which is what I think this film needed.
Enjoyment: With everything said above, this film was a thrill. It was so unique in its storytelling, themes, and pacing. This was a true Star Wars spy thriller. The D+ version was a one of a kind experience, but this edit is also one as well. Baking down all of the crazy number of original scenes into a 2.25 hour runtime is no easy task. I enjoyed the film from start to finish, and would rank it an 8.5/10 experience.
Final rating average: 8.6/10
Thanks for making this, I don’t think I ever would’ve rewatched the D+ show start to finish again, but this… this I could go back to.
