I, like many of you, recently finished the second season of The Mandalorian. With it over I found myself with a sizeable Star Wars shaped hole in my life. So, I decided to start my first ever Star Wars edit inspired by the Mandalorian.

The aim:

To cut The Phantom Menace down to a TV episode length keeping the focus squarely on the two Jedi’s

Objectives:

• Minimise Jar Jar Binks to a nearly mute background character
• Remove scenes that are not centred on either Qui Gon or Obi Wan or develop their narrative
• Remove all reference to Anakin Skywalker who is now known simply as ‘The Boy’ as an allusion to ‘The Child’
• Remove all reference to the prophecy and the midichlorians
Keep run time to 50 mins or less.
• Recreate Mandalorian titles
• Recreate Mandalorian creates using concept art for the Phantom Menance

So far I am roughly 2/3 of the way through producing a work print for this. There are some hefty narrative changes from the theatrical release of The Phantom Menace most notable the Jedi never visit the Gungan city and the podrace doesn’t take place. Full disclosure I love the podrace but it doesn’t serve this edit. This isn’t Anakin’s story, this is the story of two knights of the republic. I decided to call the episode 'Chapter 4: The Boy" as an allusion to Baby Yoda and to Episode IV. It can be imagined as a stand alone episode in a none existent TV series.

Samples:
https://vimeo.com/494105410
https://vimeo.com/494105610