I was looking for a thread on this edit, but I couldn't find it. I'm probably being dense. Apologies if there is one and I just didn't find it.
I watched this edit last night. Black Hawk Down is a personal favorite of mine, so I was curious about this one. I feel Black Hawk Down has a great mix of spectacular action, beautiful camerawork and good character development. Plus, it's directed by the great Ridley Scott (All Hail Ridley Scott!).
Overall, I thought this edit was very interesting. I liked the concept behind the edit and I think the editor (Voodl) achieved his objectives. Voodl edited out quite a few action sequences, which I personally love, but I can see how the film doesn't need them. It is pretty firmly established that the characters in a fire-fight. In this way, the film focusses more on the characters and their ordeal rather than the action sequences. The cuts were well done, with no obvious choppy cuts.
Changing the soundtrack was an interesting choice. The original soundtrack by Hans Zimmer is, in my view, a particularly good one, so I was interested to see how this would work. As it turns out, the Nine Inch Nails song over the original credits works very well. The transition between the credits song and the OST is a bit sketchy, but then again, they are completely different types of music, so I am not sure how it could have been done any better. I didn't like the choice of song over the end credits, though.
SPOILER ALERT!
'Mad World' (the cover from the 'Donnie Darko' soundtrack, by Michael Andrews and Gary Jules) is a great arrangement on a good song, but whereas the title of the song certainly fits this film, the actual music, in my opinion, doesn't really work.
I enjoyed this edit and so I give it a score of 4 stars. This was my first edit by Voodl, so this edit has convinced that I should watch his other edits.
