Risa

I would love to see what the fan edit looks like. I (re)watched it just last week and the theatrical cut is... a mess, to put it gently. There's almost too much going on, with not enough focus on the elements that make the story tick. But there's lots to work with here that would make a very high-production-value 50 minute Trek episode.

Scotty and Uhura's flirting was cute, but it doesn't go anywhere so it's dead weight film-wise. But without it, the characters have even less to say in an already crowded story. It's just sad.

One moment that stuck out to me was the bar fight. Kirk just tosses a Catian stripper, over his head, into a literal "pool" table and she's rendered dead/unconscious floating face down in the water. Either she has bones like a baby bird or Kirk is on 'roids. I can't make sense of that edit unless there was a longer fight that got chopped down somehow. It makes zero sense.