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Despite chronic lack of time I recently decided to entertain myself by trying to recut the prequels, more specifically, to turn Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith into one movie with a focus on Anakin Skywalker. As I said this is merely a side project I sometimes take a look at when I’m bored. I am in no way a professional editor, and my skills are pretty basic. The main problem I face at the moment is when cutting in the middle of scenes with music, making it sound choppy. The ideal solution would be to remove the music entirely, but from what I’ve read this can range from challenging to impossible. So I was thinking of muting certain parts and adding new music on top instead. Of course this won’t work in scenes with dialogue Any advice would be appreciated.
I would also appreciate some feedback on my overall judgement of what to cut and what to keep. My intent in cutting the movies was to remove stuff that to me didn’t make sense, to cut out some of the fat, and to make Anakin less of a creepy sociopath murderman and Padme less of a lovesick puppy. Here is a list of some of the bigger changes I’ve made so far:
*The movie still opens with the attempted assassination by splosion. Palpy’s office, elevator scene. Less of creepy Anakin mentally undressing Padme.
*I’m still not completely sure what to do with the chase scene. I thought about making it somewhat humorous, by cutting directly from Obi Wan saying they won’t start an investigation to Anakin hitching a ride on Zam’s roof. Obi Wan’s investigation subplot is cut out expect for the Diner scene, after which he goes directly to Kamino.
*I was thinking of adding the deleted scene with Anakin dreaming on the freighter, since it helps set up what I intend to be the emotional climax of the movie’s first half.
*Also adding back the scenes of Padme’s family. They’re not exactly exciting, but I want something to build up Padme and Anakin’s relationship instead of those scenes that are definitely not being kept.
*Anakin has his nightmare and goes directly to the Lars farm. Since the Phantom Menace’s existance in this version is ambigous we can assume that Anakin just knew where his mother was. He goes off to find her, murder ensues. He returns and has the funeral. They receive Obi Wan’s message and send it to Coruscant, however they do not go to Geonosis themselves. Palpatine guilts Jar Jar and gets his army. The Clones go to Geonosis to save Obi Wan and the Clone Wars starts.
*I placed the scene with Anakin’s sandpeople rant here as a dramatic benchmark to this part of the movie. It’s cheesy, but it works.
*Yoda laments the war, which doesn’t make him look like a hypocrite because he didn’t start it, Palps and Windu did. I went to an effort to not show Yoda during the Clone attack on the arena as well.
*No Jedi rave party duel, no acrobat Yoda, no droid factory, no Sith Dooku. Dooku’s purpose in this version is just as a former Jedi who warns Obi Wan about the Sith in the Senate. No scene with Sidious and Dooku at the end, in fact no reference to Palpatine as a Sith at all before Anakin’s turn.
*This causes problems in the opening scenes of Revenge of the Sith, and I’m still not sure what to do with it. Since Dooku isn’t a Sith anymore, that means I can’t have the duel, which in turn more importantly means I can’t have Anakin behead Dooku, which is a big moment in his development, but in turn it might be a bit redundant, since the sand people massacre already showed Anakin going over the edge like 15 minutes ago. However, I also get rid of a lot of nonsensical dialogue (“Sith Lords are our Speciality”, “Leave him, or we’ll never make it”). Dooku also dissapears out of the picture completely, but oh well (Yes, it does pain me to cut out so much Christopher Lee). More problematic is showing the lads rescuing Palpatine without the Dooku scene. The best thing I can think of right now is to use the deleted hallway scene with Shaak Ti and cut before they escape, to the bridge scene, where I guess we can say Grievous also brought Palpatine, because that’s what Grievous likes to do, I guess?
*No “Love has blinded you?” scene. Cut directly from “I’m preggers” to Anakin’s nightmare.
*Obi Wan goes to fight Grievous. As he jumps down in front of him we cut to the scene where Cody talks to the council. Cut back and Obi Wan is in a fistfight with Grievous before shooting him. It’s a bit jarring, but I guess it creates a semi-humorours “Wait, how did they get here?” moment.
*After Grievous death we go to the opera scene, cutting out the line about Grievous location. Placing this scene after Grievous death is a bit problematic, since nobody mentions it, but I guess we could assume they didn’t know yet. As Palpatine starts talking about “Good is a point of view”, I cut out some of Anakin’s arguing, to make it look as if he’s thinking. After this he goes to Mace Windu and informs him Palpatine is a Sith. This shows that Anakin is intuitive, if not impulsive, able to interpret Palpatine’s hints, rather than a vegetable that needs Palpatine to directly tell him he’s a Sith. Padme’s ruminations without the Palpatine voiceover. Anakin jumps in his speeder. Mace enter Palpatine’s office. As the Jedi ignite their sabers we cut to Anakin landing his speeder and entering the building. As he comes into the room Mace has Palpatine against the broken windowframe. For the life of me I just couldn’t take that fight seriously, so I cut the whole damn thing. The three other Jedi just dissappear, but I guess it’s kind of explained when Palpatine shows his true colors.
*Cut out some sociopath Anakin lines talking about killing Jedi. I tried to make it look like Anakin isn’t actually that keen on killing the Jedi, but he knows he’s too deep into the rabbit hole to go back now. Cut the scene of Anakin and the younglings. Still kept the scene where Yoda and Obi Wan find their bodies though. Cut Yoda beheading the clones cause’ he ain’t got no lightsaber! The scene instead ends on a cliffhanger as the clones approach him, which is absolved when Bail tells Obi Wan they rescued him. This feels kind of unessecary though, and I’m considering cutting the whole scene.
*No Yoda and Obi Wan killing clones outside the temple cause Yoda ain’t got no lightsaber! Also you’d think two recently declared enemies of the state killing troopers in the middle of the capital would get more response.
*Obi Wan talks to Padme. He is not shown sneaking onto her ship. A few cuts are made to make Padme seem more passive on Mustafar, like not running out of her seat at the sight of Anakin. Her shocked reaction to seeing Obi Wan on her ship is cut, as well as a few other lines in that exchange. This is all changes the scene so that it looks like Padme knowingly brought Obi Wan to Mustafar, making her character look less helpless.
*More cheesy lines cut (If you’re not with me, Absolutes, Don’t make me kill you, etc.) The fight itself is cut down to about 4 minutes, with less Tarzan, platform jumping and cheesy dialogue (i.e., after Obi Wan says “I have failed you”, Anakin just deathstares him).
*No Yoda vs Palpatine, cause’ they ain’t got no lightsabers!
*Cut out the “You were the chosen one” speech, as no reference has been made to the concept prior.
*No “Lost her will to live”, Padme’s cause of death is ambigious. No Vader surgery room rampage and ensuing exchange.
I’ll post some clips but they’re kinda rough. Any advice is welcome.
