Was a bit under the weather recently and had time to just bingewatch this. It's a really ambitious edit and I think it mostly works. The real test would be showing it to someone who's never seen the show but who is a keen cinephile, and seeing if there are things that don't add up for them. For my part, I didn't rewatch any of GOT, and instead just watched this directly to see if there's anything that stood out. Personally, I think there are just a couple of issues that prevent it from being one of the great fanedits, and then there are several more that are just personal suggestions. I post them here rather than in my general review of the fanedit, in case anybody else wants to weigh in.
Episode 1- The audio levels jump once in each of first 2 eps (much quieter for about 2 mins, then back to loud again)
E2- Theon's character is mostly redeemed here, but I want to cut him looking afraid before jumping off ship. It's enough if he just thinks he can't win against his uncle so he just runs to fight another day.
E3- Similarly, somebody needed to reign in Pilou Asbæk's performance as Euron in many of the S8 episodes. There's a fine line between being hateable and his over-the-top hamminess that doesn't fit with the rest of the tone of the show. Thankfully, most of the offending bits are cut here, but his high-pitched “oh nooo! What a twat!” line about Theon should also be cut.
Bran’s V.O. mostly worked for me, but his talk to Jon kind of comes out of nowhere in this episode. It would be better positioned right after the “I need to talk to him” conversation he has with Sansa earlier.
E5- Again, I appreciate the effort to redeem Theon, but he gets such a ridiculous beatdown here that his miraculous recovery and triumph doesn’t make much sense. If you want to cut the kneeing to the groin, I think you're going to have to trim his beatdown too because the fight is incredibly one-sided right now, and not in his favor.
There’s no explanation here for why Littlefinger gives the dagger to Bran, and everyone is skeptical about it. A scene earlier could be created where Bran gives a vision/message to Littlefinger saying basically “bring me the dagger”. This can pay off his master plan later… Additionally, Bran’s line “I don’t want it” when he gives the Valerian dagger to Arya should be cut…firstly, it sounds a little emotional (and he’s not supposed to have any now) and secondly, it's better if his only explanation is “What use is it for a cripple?” This can set it up as if he saw in the future that he wouldn’t be able to attack the Night King but he could get him through Arya. Meaning he’s giving this dagger to her knowing it’s a death sentence, but it’s necessary. That's some real GoT s***!
E6- I realized in retrospect that the ending here was supposed to be Dany getting a vision to go North, but that totally didn’t come across at the time. She’s never had visions, and there was no reaction shot from her, no voice from Bran, so this just seemed like a crosscut showing what was happening elsewhere and not something she saw.
E7- Here's where I think Bran's VO is a few sentences too long, esp with no reaction shots from Jon. Simply “Jon…Jon, be careful. This storm isn’t natural. He’s hunting you…” would be enough. Clearly, if you can insert reaction shots of Jon suddenly turning to look slightly in one direction or another, that would really help sell it. Generally speaking, all the VO from Bran could use more reaction shot inserts.
E8- Okay, this is the first major issue with the edit. With the restructuring, Dany suddenly showing up to save Jon here doesn’t really make any sense. Gendry runs back to Eastwatch, but there’s no sense that him telling these guys what happened would somehow quickly get back to Dany. Dany has already gone out of her way to help Jon despite not knowing him much at this point in this edit, so it’s not like she’d feel any responsibility to hurry and check on him as soon as she got the Iron Throne. There’s no VO from Bran sending her a message or really any reason or method at all to explain her sudden arrival. It’s also really hard to believe Jon somehow makes it out of a frozen lake and gets that whole way back by himself without running into the whitewalkers or freezing to death. Why cut out BenJen here??
E10- Jon is suddenly riding a dragon!? Okay, this is the 2nd major issue with this edit. I know you had it as a vision that Jon and Dany ride dragons at the end, but the scene where he first learns to ride a dragon really has to happen before this point. That a momentous occasion, as we've never seen anyone else in the show do anything remotely like it (besides Dany) and we can't have Jon just suddenly fighting atop a dragon in a blizzard, whether it's partially controlled by Bran or not. Really have to commend you for making it look like Bran warged into the dragon at points though! Were the black levels improved on this episode?…it looks less murky and easier to make out than I remember.
E11- This episode otoh, is dark as hell and impossible to see in the opening castle scenes. Could levels be adjusted?
I do miss the rise-up in the crypt…it was a clever surprise and gave some of our less-used characters a way to contribute to the fight.
Between the death of the Night King and Jon and Dany back in King’s Landing, I thinking a long, slow fade-to-black and gradual fade-up would communicate a passage of much time (for travel and recovery).
I'd slightly trim how hyped-up Drogon is before melting the throne…a 10 second scream seems a bit much without any triggering emotional event in this edit; 1 or 2 seconds would be fine.
The last major issue is the ending, I think. The flying scene here is obviously Jon’s first time on a dragon due to his reactions and flopping about…it’s really strange given that he was just capably flying one in a blizzard in combat! The long scene really needs to be used earlier, and just a few shots from it can be flipped/clipped and used here. The musical montage endings for everyone are done pretty well, though I think the very final shots don’t really communicate very clearly what’s happening. I know you want it to seem that Jon and Dany are going to go live in the North now, but the Dany footage just doesn’t really register that way to me. I honestly think with the sort of clip show of the characters you use, that an on-screen text plate next to each one describing what they did after would be the way to go. You know, like in American Graffiti, Three Kings, The Commitments, and so on. This would be the perfect workaround to more clearly communicate what happened after, maybe even get a bit creative. It’s also a way to follow up on characters you don’t have the appropriate footage for, like Bronn, Bran, Yara, Podrick, etc.
Overall, none of these issue break the edit, but I do think that it could be tightened up and truly end up fixing the series. It's not hard to make something better than what we got by just cutting out the offending bits. But this one actually forms a nearly-viable alternative structure and focus. The effects-work and vision is commendable, and I think it's very close to being a great wrap-up to the series.
