[Archon_Wing]

BTW, if I were to edit the movie, I would go with what I was imaging how it should be done before I saw the actual movie.

I'd start the Nanoha vs Vita fight asap after introductions are made. We just need to briefly introduce Hayate, have that scene, have Nanoha introduce herself and what happened previously. Honestly, Vita should be beating the crap out of Nanoha while the opening credits are still fresh. This will involve the audience more.

Yes, cut out everything before that and restore Fate intervening with Yuno and Arf. They fight for a bit but the Book is invoked, draining them though Nanoha manages to get her SLB off anyways.

This completely sacrifices Chrono, but oh well. You can even have Nanoha and Fate at the sunrise when they recover, thanks to the extra time we gain and then take you can use Fate's body language to indicate the degree of closeness between the two. Fate is distraught, but Nanoha is there for her... wait wtf, didn't A's have that anyways? >.>

At this point, we can deal with Fate moving in and having a talk with Lindy.

The moment we cut out the Chrono/Grahmn subplot, we can just forget about worldbuilding and just go balls to the wall on these things. The movie made a clear choice to go in that direction, so, no point in trying to backtrack.

This quickly establishes all necessary information for a viewer to realize what is going on without prior watching.