Hello! This is my first real attempt at this sorta thing, an attempt to, in my eyes, better The Phantom Menace. I know these are probably dime a dozen at this point, but I thought it’d be fun to do!
The primary goal is to shift Qui-Gon and Anakin as the definitive protagonist, remove much of the unneeded clutter, comedic relief, all that jazz.
Change List:
-A new color grade, attempting to remove the horrid pink tint over the footage, as well as trying to get it looking more like Star Wars ‘77
-The Gungans, Neimoidians, Battle Droids, and Darth Sidious are now subtitled over, using the French dub of the film (The latter three heavily pitched down)
-New Opening Crawl, establishing a slightly more interesting plot (will most likely be redoing)
-The Trade Federation are now just The Federation, an extremist section of the Separatist movement
-The Opening goes straight to the escape from Naboo
-Cut out a few lines or moments I didn’t quite find pleasing
-Cut out Padme thanking R2
-Replaced the conference scene with the Federation and Darth Sidious with one earlier in the film, Sidious merely alludes to Maul
-Cut most of the Jar Jar antics. Some are still in, of course, Jar Jar is still largely comedic relief, though to a far lesser extent. His personality has also been changed to a more laid-back type.
-Cut out the “Are you an angel” line, Padme and Anakin’s conversation starts with Anakin talking about how one day he’ll fly away from Tatooine, and ends at Padme’s realization that Anakin’s a slave
-Cut out Watto saying mind tricks don’t work on him
-Resubtitled Anakin and Watto’s conversations, tried to make Anakin more of a smartass
-Cut out Jar Jar and Sebulba’s initial meeting, instead replacing it with the “Anakin and Greedo” deleted scene
-Tried to cut Threepio out of the film, he is still in the background, but doesn’t speak, and there’s no mention of Anakin building him
-Removed the “At last we reveal ourselves” scene. Tried to make Maul more mysterious
-Tried to remove most of the references to Anakin being a bad pilot, tried to go for more of him being inexperienced
-A major change is Anakin not being the Chosen One, just a very powerful force user. During Qui-Gon and Shmi’s talk, Qui-Gon asks who the father is, to which Shmi gives a sad look before saying “I carried him, birthed him, raised him”. The implication being he left while Shmi was still pregnant.
-Removed the annoying kids
-Moved Qui-Gon and Anakin’s nighttime talk to after the podrace. Instead we just see Maul land and send out the Probe Droids
-Removed the Pod Race commentators, as well as all of the cut away reaction shots. The pod race is now one giant lap, with people dying left and right.
-Added TIE Attack to the early parts of the race where there was no music before.
-Cut out the scene that shows Sebulba survived the race
-The nighttime scene has been moved to after Qui-Gon reveals Anakin is free. Though I removed the midichlorian part, ending the scene at the “sleep well Ani” line
-Re added part of the deleted scene where Qui Gon realizes they’re being tracked by the Probe droids
-Really tried to trim down the politics scenes, shortening and restructuring scenes. Now they’re barely able to get a word into the Senate before being interrupted by the Federation spokespeople, who are able to go unimpeded, causing Padme to get fed up and declare the vote of no confidence.
-In a similar vein to other fan edits, I tried to remove lines about Anakin being “too old”, to remove the weird pseudo cult-like indoctrination the Jedi seem to be doing
-Tried to remove all mentions of a “treaty”, instead the Federation’s goal is the force Naboo to join the Separatist cause.
-Inspired by Sheepish’s amazing edit, I changed Anakin and Qui-Gon’s discussion to remove mentions of Midichlorians, instead Qui-Gon tells Anakin that, when he clears his mind, he’ll hear The Force speaking to him.
-Tried to subtly explain the hostility between the Naboo and Gungans better in Boss Nass’ conversation. The implication made is that the Naboo had colonized the planet, destroying many sacred places to the Gungans, and dismissed them as barbaric savages due to their warrior ways.
-Cut explicit mention of Jar Jar being made a general
-Anakin joins the space fight intentionally and before any one notices him in the cockpit. Thought it’d help show his defiant behavior later seen in AOTC and ROTS off early.
-Tried to reduce the slapstick in the Gungan Battle
-Added the “Bad feeling about this” line to the moments before the duel with Maul.
-Fixed one shot where Obi Wan’s lightsaber was for some reason not at it’s proper opacity
-Heavily tweaked Obi Wan and Maul’s duel. There is no more pit part, and Obi Wan slays Maul using his lightsaber, instead of grabbing Qui-Gon’s
-Tried to remove some of the extra cheesy lines and “oops” moments from Anakin’s destruction of the Federation ship
-Padme doesn’t get an upper hand over Viceroy Gunray until after Anakin shuts down the droids
And that’s about it so far.
Clips (Would have more, buuut Youtube’s a pain when it comes to this stuff):
Opening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFPMh8gfYMM
Meeting with Boss Nass: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eer5Pe-b-BE
Anakin’s Defiance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzia-0UQUXA
Obi Wan vs Maul duel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMu-KJO9oC4