Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2: Pruned Edition

This is the edit that saved the MCU for me and made me go back and watch the other movies. rb puts on a master class of editing here. If you didn't know it was a fanedit and you'd never seen the movie before, you'd most likely never know that anything was taken out. This edit prunes just the right amount of the movie to make it a stronger and more enjoyable outing. Bravo rb! We miss you.

Unquestionably a tighter, better edited version of the GOTG2 than the one we got in theatres. The emotional stakes (and stunning FX that I'd forgotten were so impressive, looking at you, arcade game space fleet shootout) are front-and-center here with a lot of the self-indulgent banter chopped down. My only negative criticism is that the extreme editing on Ego's plan, while mostly done incredibly well, seems to rob the climax of some of its far-reaching power and stakes since we never see for ourselves the scope of his plan. But a change I'm happy to live with if it makes the film feel more personal. I hope we see more from "rb" before long, this edit shows a lot of potential.

I'm going to try to be specific in offering points that are not in many of the other reviews here. Essentially, what everyone echoes again and again is that a lot of the longer humorous scenes are cut down. True. Perhaps because a specific cutlist was not published, people seem not to have realized a lot of other things that were cut alongside this, but they stood out for me:
-Peter and Gamora's relationship is altered to be more aggressive, less romantic
-explanation of Ego leaving eggs all over the universe is missing, now we're just suddenly watching a random Dairy Queen blow up for no reason
-the seeds of jokes and comments are removed, making other lines come from nowhere and seem random and/or mean, such as: Drax telling Mantis his impression of her, Peter being called "pathetic" as a thread, seeding Yondu's Mary Poppins rescue moment, there being a limited number of spacesuits and packs, and many more

As well as the things that are missing, there are still beats included which don't let the serious moments breathe and instead immediately undercut them with a joke. Nebula taking over the pirates and then eating a too-bitter radish, Yondu's funeral being immediately followed with Kraglin playing with his arrow, his burial having MULTIPLE shots of silly objects being placed around him, etc. Yes, it's a funny film, but it's also a film with heart, and there's still a lot more room to let those moments have their spotlight.

And on the other hand, there are still more cuts that would help the edit. Sure, you probably need to leave the giant Pac-Man in, but can't the game sound be removed? Do you need so many jokes of Baby Groot bringing random objects to the cell? Such a long, oblivious argument between Rocket and Quill while their friends get sucked out the back of the ship and Nebula crawls around trying to eat a radish??

In the end, this edit is six of one and half a dozen of the other for me. I think it comes down to if you just want a version of GotG V2 that's 15 minutes shorter. There are points for and against watching this version instead of the theatrical, but I suspect most people will end up being forgiving because the story moves faster. On a rewatch, the jagged edges and tonal imbalances that result from that might not be very consequential. For me though, they were.

The technical elements of this edit are flawless. Seriously, great work. They help to move the narrative along at a quicker pace, and you really don't notice a single issue with the cuts A/V wise.

However, as a big Guardians of the Galaxy fan, Vol. 2 being my favourite, I did not enjoy this edit as much as the original. I have an echoic memory (audiographic memory - like photographic memory but for sound), and thus I remember things like song lyrics, sound effects, soundtrack queues and, most importantly, film dialogue very well. So, having seen this movie a number of times, I did notice what was cut a lot of the time.

And, while I do feel MCU humour does tend to 'break' the moments a bit, I actually think they generally work perfectly in the Guardians films. So, the cutting of that kind of stuff did throw me off a bit (not a problem if you don't have the same connection to the franchise, or an echoic memory).

Additionally, a more valid criticism then my hyper-awareness, is that I felt cutting out a lot of 'banter' or even just normal dialogue that got removed made for some strange moments. For example, when Quill and Gamora are arguing, I'm pretty sure some of the dialogue got cut, and it made them get aggressive way too fast. Instead of their voices getting progressively hostile, they just kind of go from chit-chat to yelling down each others' throats. There were also some moments where I think the soundtrack was replaced due to cuts made, which also stuck out to me.

Essentially, the editors' technical elements are flawless, but sometimes these technical elements ignore other elements of filmmaking such as pacing and dialogue, which stuck out to me very much.

Take this all with a grain of salt, as other reviews don't really express my criticisms, and maybe a lot of these issues were already present in the original and I just never noticed because I wasn't looking for them. Again, a lot of this stuff won't be a problem if you don't have the same hyper-awareness to this sort of thing as I do. I will be sticking to the original on a rewatch of Guardians 2, so I can't recommend this edit for people like me. However, it does have great merit and there's no reason you shouldn't watch it for yourself.

My experience with the theatrical cut of GotG:V2 was excruciating. There were so many "wrong" moments, unbearably awkward, or just out of character. I remember especially disliking Drax because his character was so horribly treated.
rb's fanedit saved this film for me. It trimmed nearly all of the cringe-worthy scenes, and did it seamlessly. Well done. It is the definitive copy for me, at least until rb releases a "Chopped Edition"... :)
In short: Highly recommended.