It’s funny to see that people aren’t as harsh nowadays with the PT as they used to be. Even myself.
A few years ago, when the bluray set was released, I tried to rewatch them. At the sole exception of ROTS that I still like as it is, I wasn’t able to go through TPM and AOTC. But I found out that Hal9000’s fanedits “salvaged” the best out of them, removing all of the bad, enhancing the good. And at each iteration, Hal has been putting back things he had previously cut: a simple sentence here, a shot there, etc., and in the end, after watching version 6 of his edit, it seems COD has now become a very conservative take on TPM: only 20/25 minutes removed, mostly the worse Jar Jar jokes, the gungan subwater village (and the entire journey through the planet core), all Anakin’s “yeppeee !” and other little things of the same nature (I’m still glad that COD Anakin destroys the Trade federation ship on purpose, and not just by luck like TPM Anakin : you can’t always explain everything by “it’s the will of the Force”, George 😕).
Well, I like COD v6 a lot. I know exactly what was put back and I’m ok with it. I’m even beginning to think it would be possible to watch the theatrical version without as much difficulties as before. Even the Jar Jar tongue joke works now, it somehow makes sense (talking about Jedi reflexes, and actually showing this kind of reflexes in the context of a dinner scene with alien species : I mean, yeah, it works !, I totally get what Lucas was trying to do, even if it’s not as good as what we were expecting).
So, again, excellent work Hal and thanks for keeping a high quality standard for your releases.
For those wondering, I’m not sure i’ll make an alternate track for COD: all the changes I made have either been taken into account by Hal (even improved: Jar Jar voice over delayed by 1 second indeed works better !) or are no longer related to the edit (no more added music during the race). Only change I would make is removing Shmi’s “I raised him” line. Not sure it’s worth the effort !
I have nevertheless kept the podrace montage from v5 in a separate file 'cause I love the effort put to use McNeely’s excellent score (I kinda miss the low res extra shots you used to achieve the music sync by the way 😃), and I’ve also kept the “dawn before the race” scene (it’s a cute little scene).
Unless there is a v6.1/v7 (Hal, never say never again 😄); it’s my go version. I would be interested only by an extended cut of the same v6 that would add a trimmed Gungan village version (with no journey through the planet core though), à la L8 edit. And maybe along with the “dawn before the race” scene.
I’m looking forward to TAS v6 now !
(also for LOE v6 of course, but for ROTS I’m really hopping Octorox does make his conservative edit one day 😉).