: I honestly think that's all I would cut out. You gotta leave enough in so the
: emotion of the scene gets through. I think this shifts the focus a bit
: more to the chief and what he's feeling, and also makes the 'you don't
: talk much do you?" line slightly more humorous.

And it actually fits with our last ten years of MC interaction.

: I wish I had proper shots of the chief to insert so we aren't on Laskey for
: so long, but I have what I have.

Yep, and as I mentioned, I would need to dub MC because I'd get rid of that last bit of cheese in the scene, the "Our duty as soldiers" It's a stupid line best thought than said.

: I watched this in context of the entire rest of the ending, and I don't
: really miss Laskey talking about Earth. Some folks might. Just an
: experiment.

He's like Michael J Fox in Back to the Future. I'm not interested in comedy here. But again dub-work: he can keep the 'I don't get to see her often enough' and 'I miss her' while we see they're looking at Earth. His quick bio is unnecessary, nor do I want to hear the cheese of 'beautiful isn't she?' This would also bring back the emotion you said was lacking above.

Really, if it were to work it wouldn't be just more cuts, it would need to be reworked. Your initial cut is about as far as you could go *just* with cuts, but to get rid of talk and focus on the emotion and gravtas, you'd need new angles and more creative direction. Maybe a fade/dissolve close up of Cortana's hand touching his armor as he remembers her, or something along those lines. Anything to make up for the forced 'look how he's trying to be strong, but can't' line running throughout.

- M