I wanted to share my thoughts after viewing this one, which mostly align with what other reviewers have said. This edit is worth seeing for the extra footage it adds, but it has some noticeable flaws that really detract from the experience.
Thank you for the detailed feedback. I am indeed planning to do a 2.0 version of the edit, hopefully this year and your detailed notes help with that. One of the most obvious upgrades would be the soundtrack. I have to build it again from scratch but I have more skills now to probably fix the parts you pointed out. Some issues like the Qui-Gon’s echoic voice you mentioned can now be made better with the help of AI.
The other is the colour grading. I’ve come to the conclusion that a different colour correction is in order for different locations (space, planets). I agree that some sharpening effects are rough, but the shots can probably also be enhanced with some other way, maybe AI. As you mentioned, the deleted scenes are going to always probably look inferior to the rest of the picture quality, although I have better versions of them now, thanks to Phase3.
Some story and dialogue cuts not working (second bet and Anakin’s goodbye to Shmi) I disagree though, I think they work ok considering I had no alternative footage to use. Many things feeling choppy is probably because we have seen this movie so many times and it’s hard to reset the thinking for what this edit is trying to convey, e.g. Shmi and Anakin are not slaves but just have to both work in the harsh Totooine environment. And the Jedi just don’t have resources to relocate and accommodate the parents of the Jedi-to-be to the nice core worlds, and that’s why Shmi is just staying on Tatooine.
I’ll see which of these points can be improved on when I have the time to revisit the edit. Lately the job (if I could just get paid fan editing 😄) and other real life stuff have been using up my energy but hopefully I will have more time to spend on fan edits again.