Synopsis: "Ruthless crook Patrick Koster (Sean Bean) and his partner kidnap Jessie to force Jessie's therapist father, Nathan (Michael Douglas), to help coax a mysterious code number from a traumatized teen girl (Brittany Murphy)."

Edit summary: This edit cuts back on the mother, daughter, and police woman scenes in favor of a quicker and less interrupted suspenseful ride. The police scenes in particular feel like a third wheel until late in the film, and the mother/daughter scenes don't do much beyond belatedly fleshing out the characters a bit more.

Synopsis: "Simon Baker (in his first Emmy-nominated role) stars as Patrick Jane, a rogue detective and case-cracking consultant for the California Bureau of Investigation -- a far cry from his last gig as a semi-famous "psychic medium" with no paranormal abilities. Despite his bogus past, Patrick's charm and powers of observation endear him to the CBI team -- except for Senior Agent Teresa Lisbon (Robin Tunney), who doesn't care for his antics. Tim Kang and Amanda Righetti also star."
(Synopsis compliments of Netflix)


Edit summary: Cut the majority of the cop procedural episodes that had no relevance to the Red John plot, keeping only a handful of the more interesting ones, and streamlined the RJ storyline. Some episodes are rearranged and altered to create a better overall flow with the much shorter series length.

Synopsis: "Star Wars is a space fantasy that follows a group of characters with special powers who participate in the struggle for the fate of the galaxy, with the Empire trying to seize control and crush the Rebellion. The series is split into three trilogies, Episode 4-6 were created first, then a prequel trilogy (Episode 1-3) was released, giving the origin story for some of those characters. Finally episodes 7-9 basically reboot the series and poorly recreate the main plot from episodes 4-6 to "continue" the series with new actors in a cash grab for a new generation."

Edit summary: Ep1: Cut a ton of Jar Jar Binks scenes and some bad CGI, heavy trims to the pod racing to improve the pace of the film.

Ep2: Cut some Jar Jar Binks scenes, some bad acting moments, a bunch of droid slapstick, and streamlines other scenes for pacing.

Ep3: Cut the missiles and buzz droids in the intro, the back half of the General Grievous fight, streamlined some of the lightsaber fights to be a little less "dramatic", and trimmed quite a bit of bad acting and dialogue.

Ep4: Cut a little bad CGI, lame lightsaber moments, lightsaber jump cuts, and a long unnecessary droid scene, plus a few trims to fix some plot holes.

Ep5: Cut the random yeti plot, the cave, and Yoda acting crazy. Trimmed a couple iconic but poorly acted moments.

Ep6: Cut some bad CGI, and some parts of the Ewok battle.

Ep7-9: Trash bin

Synopsis: "A retired orchestra conductor is on vacation with his daughter and his film director best friend in the Alps when he receives an invitation from Queen Elizabeth II to perform for Prince Philip's birthday."

Edit summary: Trimmed into a short film purely focused on Michael Caine and Paul Dano. I liked the essence of the spa vacation without the drama introduced by the side stories. This does change the meaning and the core stories quite a bit in the process.

Ver8: Remastered

Synopsis: "When a renowned architecture scholar falls suddenly ill during a speaking tour, his son Jin finds himself stranded in Columbus, Indiana, a small Midwestern city celebrated for its many significant modernist buildings. Jin strikes up a friendship with Casey, a young architecture enthusiast who works at the local library."

Edit summary: I have a lot of respect for this director, he did an amazing job weaving a light story into some beautiful imagery. Really excellent the way he juxtaposed the actors with the architecture.

This edit just tightens up the story slightly, toning down some of the side characters to keep the focus on the Jin and Casey story. It makes the pace slightly less sluggish but does not make it a fast movie by any means, the contemplative vibe is left fully intact along with some long periods of silence, it just isn't quite as extreme as in the original.

Ver7: Remastered

Synopsis: "When the CIA's most skilled off-book operative accidentally uncovers corruption, a psychopathic former colleague puts a bounty on his head."

Synopsis: "After a highly unusual zombie saves a still-living girl from an attack, the two form a relationship that sets in motion events that might transform the entire lifeless world."

Edit summary: Fix a couple continuity errors, and strip out a couple corny action sequences and stereotypical tropes.

Even though the edit is small in terms of minutes cut, it does make a huge difference to the vibe and flow of the film. Cutting the shoehorned action unfortunately removes most of the tension, and rearranging the scenes in a more logical way makes it seem like a much simpler story since it isn't being interrupted.

I like the unique story, but it does feel a bit too quick and light in places that should matter - like the end of three days, and the final bonies fight. They should have beefed up those moments rather than shoehorning in the unnecessary moments cut by this edit.