Synopsis:

Summer’s out in 1962 America and the kids are back at school. Bookish English transfer student Michael becomes smitten with Stephanie, the leader of the popular Pink Ladies, but she isn’t interested in his type. Can he forge a cool alter-ego and win her over? In case that doesn’t sound familiar, this is Grease 2, slightly streamlined and made to no-longer feel like a sequel.

Intentions:

I have more of a fondness for this film than the original Grease (which I can’t really take seriously in any capacity), this edit simply removes the parts that hold it back for me, namely the references to its famous predecessor and one scene/song that I find extremely awkward. I did the first version of the edit a while back and didn’t think it worth listing, but finished it off recently after hearing interest and receiving encouragement from another editor, so here it is!

Change List:

0:00:00 Added personal plate and fanedit disclaimer. 0:04:03 Cut 10-second exchange between T-Birds and Miss Mason, felt awkward. Removed dialogue from centre channel with AI audio extraction, then raised its volume by 15 dB to prevent a drop. 0:04:34 Cut Michael being met by Frenchie as he gets off the bus, total ~32 seconds. 0:04:53 Removed continued conversation between Michael and Frenchie, total ~14 seconds. 0:06:49 Muted Frenchie’s line “You’re gonna love Rydell!” by replacing 2 seconds of centre channel audio with that which occurs just afterwards (the drumbeat helped with alignment) and raised volume by 8 dB to prevent a drop. 0:12:52 Removed ~1-second shot of Frenchie calling to Michael. 0:13:07 Removed 43 seconds of Frenchie and Michael talking. 0:22:09 Removed shot of the man already in the doorway after Johnny says “Be my guest!”, felt like it sagged at this point. Thanks bionicbob for feedback on my original version, which was a little too aggressively-cut. 0:35:42 Cut last 14 seconds of the first scene of academic fraud, Louis no longer comments on what else the fallout shelter could be used for. 0:44:28 Removed shot of Frenchie arriving from behind a tree and watching Michael learning how to ride a motorbike. Faded in instead to the following wide shot, zoomed in by a factor of 1.49 to crop out Frenchie, added 25% upscaled overlay and layer of grain to make it blend better. 0:44:30 Removed following shot of Frenchie watching, cutting straight to the side shot of Michael falling off, now at half-speed to allow a better blend into the following song. 0:44:32 Removed Frenchie’s “Stephanie…” from centre channel using AI audio extraction. 0:44:36 Cut from Michael having fallen off his bike to the talent show rehearsal, song started as he was falling off to beat the old fade from him walking away from Frenchie. 0:55:15 Cut final 5 seconds of the last shot of Johnny, he no longer gets up and leaves. This is to allow “Cool Rider” to fade out over the now next scene, Michael asking Stephanie if she has ever read a Superman comic, the part where he talks to Frenchie has been removed. 0:55:39 Removed Michael looking at Frenchie and saying “Right?” 0:56:30 Removed the entire “Let’s Do it for Our Country” scene and song at the fallout shelter, total of 4 ¾ minutes. Slightly-extended the fade-out of the siren in Miss McGee’s office to give a smoother transition to Stephanie at the garage. 1:02:02 Cut short the conversation between the T-Birds after the Pink Ladies leave them at the garage, goes from “Weirdos!” to the song “Prowlin’” as Goose walks behind Johnny, missing 18 seconds of crass talk that mentions the deleted fallout shelter scene. Filled in an audio gap (created by removing clashing dialogue) with clean section taken from just before.

Additional Notes:

The new title comes from the 2014 stage adaptation, named after the song sung here by Michelle Pfeiffer in her first starring role.

Other Sources:

Any direct references to Grease (1978) have been cut, apart from the changed title these are mainly the appearances of Frenchie (apologies to Didi Conn). Her character doesn’t do anything here beyond mentioning that Michael is related to the previous film’s Sandy and having conversations with him filled with needless exposition, before disappearing halfway through. The other major change (and bulk of the runtime shortening) is the deletion of a scene and song that takes place in the second half of the film, which makes it very hard for me to believe that the Pink Ladies would want to have anything to do with the T-Birds afterwards. Also required trimming a scene that calls forward to this and another that calls back, all these pieces make up a little over 5 minutes. Noticed that the image was squashed vertically, to compensate it was stretched back from 816 to 908 pixels tall based off the Paramount logo and a bowling ball: the aspect ratio thus changed from 2.35:1 to 2.11:1, when compared to the old DVD used for the workprint some side information is normally lost but the higher resolution is definitely worth it. Certainly don’t want to crop the top and bottom to get a traditional AR at the expense of even more image being lost!

Special Thanks:

Many thanks to bionicbob for previewing, not to mention expressing interest in a project I had left alone for two years and getting me to finish it.