by CBB
This turns the first 7 episodes of the TV show PRISON BREAK into a 2h movie experience. Fast. Thrilling. Suspenseful. Escaping from a maximum security prison was never smarter, leaner, more dangerous and more genius.

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original film name: Prison Break (episodes 1-7)
new film name : Prison Break – The Movie – Episode 1
film studio name : 20th Century Fox Television
edit crew name : CBB
Date Original Film Was Released : 2005/2006
Date Edit Was Released : May, 2008
Original Runtime : 7×42 min aka 294 min
New Runtime : 136 min
Amount of time Cut/Added : about 160 minutes cut

watch a 10 minutes preview:

Fanedit details:
“Break in – break out – save your brother’s life.” Season One of Prison Break was a huge success as a TV show, most
of all because of the very thrilling and unique way it was told. The show constantly switches between the inside of a maximum security prison, where Michael Scofield tries to break out his brother using incredible wits and a fantastic plan, and the outside world, in which a huge conspiracy about the murdering of the vice president’s brother is revealed.
The fanedit contains the first 7 episodes and tells the story from inside the prison as if it was a movie. To create this not just as a condensed and way too compressed version, the entire conspiracy theme was dropped. I took extra care to find out, what is unnecessary for the flow and what is needed, so the movie can be continued with episode 2 at some day. The mass of changes makes this a rather different watching experience, especially because the episodic feel of the show is gone and many side plots are told differently. This also means, you cannot switch between the movies and the original show.
The timing of the movie is quite different. The TV show switches between inside and outside the prison all the time, which means that there can easily be a lot of jumps between days. In the movie this would have felt choppy, so I tried to add more plot to each day, combine scenes that were actually happening on different days. The result is a much more on the escape focused plot. I also cut a lot of delay features, which were necessary for the episodes, but would have just increased the length of the movie.
I would have loved to get rid of a lot more things, but had to consider the other 15 episodes and all the people involved in the escape. An example for that is the Pugnac scene, which would have been dropped if it wasn’t for C-Note’s appearance.
On a further note I should tell that the scenes I cut are not at all bad. The show is fantastic and a lot of good stuff ended on the cutting room floor for pacing reasons.

The changes:

• - the conspiracy plot is gone. Veronica appears as the attorney in the beginning, but that’s about it. All her investigating is removed, as well as agent Kellerman’s trying to prevent it. All the interactions between Veronica and the prison as well as Kellerman and the prison are gone, as they would have made no sense anymore.
• - the governor is removed. Governor Tancredi, father of Sarah, is quite important in the show, since he has the possibility to stop Lincoln Burrow’s execution. But since this never happens and all the interactions between him and Sarah lead nowhere, his part is dropped (at least in Episode 1). This meant especially in the revolt to remove him from interacting, which worked really well. It now seems as if everything was planned the way it went.
• - Abruzzi under pressure from the family is gone. Abruzzi had quite a lot of contact with mob members as visitors, who try to enforce him getting information from Michael Scofield. None of that was needed for his motivation.
• - Marie Cruz dropped. Yes, Sucre loves his Marie Cruz, but even in the first seven episodes, this side plot is dragging. All I needed for Sucre’s motivation was his cousin telling Sucre that Marie Cruz is now with him. And it works really well.
• - LJ Burrows is history. In the movie there is no mentioning that Lincoln has a son at all. LJ’s scenes were not needed for anything to support the plot.
• - no cell test. Sucre gets tested for his loyalty by Michael in the show. This is done via a fake cell phone.Unfortunately this entire plot was rather weak and also had a flaw to it, since Sucre suddenly was in P.I., but at that time it would have been very unlikely. When he rejoins the escapees, his appearance in P.I. makes sense. To still have Michael ask Sucre about the escape plan, I had to rearrange a complete scene, split it, so it shows a development. It is short but really works kind of well.
• - Haywire and the toothpaste, shortened. The appearance of Haywire was something I would have loved to drop, but since he is one of the escapees later on, it had to be there. I cut as much as possible from these long scenes that did not really support the plot, especially the part about the stolen toothpaste. Michael for sure could have toothpaste on his own and would not need to steal Haywire’s.
• - T-Bag’s overacting. Quite a lot T-Bag’s scenes were toned down, because they were just too much. Robert Knepper is a good actor and he is for sure one of the most important characters of the show, but he tends to act a bit too mad at times. His scenes work well in the show, but in the movie, where less time passes between them, they seemed too much.
• - Lincoln Burrows assassination, his past and other scenes. Lincoln is of course very important for the show, still his actor’s skills are not always the best. He switches between madman, sadman and slugger. I toned his scenes down, so he is more serious and bitter. The assassination plot is part of the conspiracy and had to go therefore. Several discussions of Lincoln with Pope, with Veronica and LJ were also not necessary for the movie.
• - the revolt. The revolt, which is the biggest part of the Episode One movie, is a double episode in the original show. I cut a lot scenes to increase the pacing and remove the episodic feel, especially in the “Sarah locked up at sickbay” scenes, which were just too much. The ones I used were placed in a different order and at different times in the movie.

DVD DETAILS
136 minutes NTSC 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen with AC3-5.1 audio
LANGUAGES : ENGLISH (5.1), no subtitles
MENUS : still with sound / animated transitions
SCENE SELECTION : yes
CBB OVERVIEW : yes, for all 26 fanedits
COVER&Disc ART : yes, on DVD-Rom part

Your intention for this fanedit:
I am a true fan of Season One of Prison Break. Still I hardly ever watch the entire show, because it is that long. I find the idea of a TV show being turned to a movie fascinating and this show seemed perfect to try that, so I could enjoy it in an acceptable amount of time and maybe even very different to the original show.
My goal was to create an action and suspense filled movie about a genius attempt to break out of a maximum security prison.

Your way to achieve your intention:
At first my idea was to make ONE movie out of the entire first season, but this did not work, because too much important plot was involved to make the final escape happen. Characters needed introduction and interaction. Side plots were necessary for the main plot. So I decided to create more than one movie and put in each of them as much as possible to a) create an entertaining, fast paced movie and b) stay true to the show.
It was very difficult to achieve this for several reasons:

1. the show is heavily scored. If you cut somewhere, you always have to re-arrange or sometimes even create a new score to make it fit to the previous scene. Luckily I own the soundtrack and it sure helped a lot.
2. a TV show blends in the credits, when the show is running. Several scenes could not be dropped, where the credits are displayed.
3. TV shows air as episodes, which means that every episode has a beginning and an end, is a complete watching experience. In a movie it feels really strange, if it has an episodic touch. To get a continuity of the plot meant a lot of rearranging and sometimes restructuring of the scenes. I used quite some of the transitions that the show also uses, but a lot less of them.

Hardware and software information:
Hardware:
Windows XP computer
with an X2 6000 dual core cpu
and 4 GB of RAM on an ASUS board

Software:
Womble MPEG DVD Wizard
Ulead Media Studio Pro 8.0
Vegas Video 7.0
Cinema Craft Encoder
Cinematize Pro
Virtual Dub
Adobe Audition 1.5
Pro Show Producer
Jasc Paint Shop Pro
PhotoZoom Pro2
DVD Lab Pro 1.52
Cyberlink Power DVD
Irfan View
PGCDemux
AnyDVD

Time needed for the edition:
half a year of planning (on and off), 1 week of editing (video and audio) and 1 day for cover art and DVD authoring.

persons involved:
just me, me, me.

thank you:
AvP, Winnie,Nono, Heinrich, ThrowgnCpr

Recommendations:
1 nomination. This fanedit was nominated for the best true fanedit in 2008 for the annual FE awards.

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Images:
art by boon23 (download here):

cover art for Prison Break trilogy by AvP (DOWNLOAD HERE):   See all this artists covers HERE

cover art for Prison Break trilogy by boon23 (DOWNLOAD HERE):   See all this artists covers HERE

cover art for Prison Break trilogy by boon23 (DOWNLOAD HERE):   See all this artists covers HERE

cover art for Prison Break trilogy by elbarto1 (DOWNLOAD HERE): Winner of the 9th Cover Art Contest

cover art for Prison Break trilogy by Ghostcut (DOWNLOAD HERE):

cover art for Prison Break trilogy by Messenjah14 (DOWNLOAD HERE):

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