This is actually quite fascinating to watch, you can almost see why they went in the direction they did, with the goofy moments, the silly noises, the ill fitting music. This movie suffers from the pit falls most sci-fi movies fall into, great ideas, bland execution; a great story told in an uninteresting way.
The original Star Wars movie almost certainly would have suffered the same fate, were it not for the ideas of other talented people working on it, the script doctoring, the concept art, the special effects, the edits, the score. Without any of that, the Star Wars we know would not have existed, it would have been lost in the landfill of time where so many other lower quality movies (sci-fi especially) have been relegated; it would get a brief notice on shows like Mystery Science Theatre and Best of the Worst on Red Letter Media and almost immediately be forgotten about again.
Let me be clear, this is not your fault, you can’t frame the shots in a more interesting way, you can’t change the pacing of the story (anymore than you already have), you can’t allow a scene to breathe, you can’t better establish the stakes (anymore than you already have), you can’t make the actors say more interesting dialogue that better establishes who they are to each other or what their place is in the story.
What you have done is provide a far more, much needed, serious tone to the movie, that has disorientated me and left me wishing, “My god! Won’t someone please lighten the mood around here?” “Where.Are.The.Scat.Jokes???”
This became most apparrent to me whenever Qui-Gon and Obi Wan were just hanging around inside the naboo ship just talking about space things and tinkering with the ships mechanisms, I realised, damn I’ve seen this movie before, like a thousand times in every other sci-fi film attempt. I honestly think this movie needed that for me, a moment of realisation that this is just another messy sci-fi story, like any other, it wasn’t constantly trying to key-jingle at me with ‘flashy’ CGI or references. In this instance me being bored but engaged, as opposed to rolling my eyes and losing focus like I so often do with the prequels is honestly a great improvement for this film.
This probably sounds like a bad review but it’s really not, bland and serious is a definite improvement for this film that I didn’t think was possible.
This is still easily the best version of this movie. The star wars fan edit obsession with making the runtime still be at least 2 hours long is a baffling one to me and I deeply respect that you didn’t do that here. Streamlined is a very appropriate name for your edit and the story definitely benefits from it.
I do however have some nitpicks:
- The beginning of the title crawl reads: “Fora” when it should read: “For a”
- I actually do think you missed a trick by not including the underwater city scenes, this establishes some great world building that you could greatly improve upon, it adds some flavour and intrigue to the geo-politics of the story. It better establishes what Jar Jar is and what he could contribute to the story, it better expands upon the journey the Jedi had to take to reach the palace and it also better establishes them as problem solvers, negotiators, and peace keepers, and seeing them leave in the submersible could nicely tie into the shot of them showing up at the palace. The gungans coming out of nowhere at the end is a bit weak and feels more like a deus ex machina, Jar Jar speaks to Padme about Gungan warriors being strong and fighting to the death, but we have no frame of reference here.
- The line of dialogue “There will be no more commands from Her Highness today” really should be there, not only does it lend a much needed sense of personality to Qui-Gon, (he’s not just a loyal knight following orders, he’s got attitude and ideas about how things should be done) it’s the leading line of dialogue that follows the rest of that sequence, that he knows who the real identity of the Queen is. The line, “The Queen trusts my judgement handmaiden, you should too” is not present here either and would make for a nice trifecta in which Qui Gon is being quite cheeky about it now, it also helps us to understand what kind of person Padme is.
- I feel the same can be said of Obi Wan’s “pathetic life forms” comment, it creates friction between him and Qui Gon, who then goes on to say to the council that “He is head strong and he has much to learn of the living force, but he is capable”. I noticed you left in the scene where Obi Wan clearly doesn’t like that Anakin shook his hand and Qui Gon laughs at him, or the scene where Obi Wan says “What’s this?” when he sees Jar Jar. I’ve always seen Kenobi as a privileged rich kid who thinks he is better than everyone else, contributing to his failure as a mentor to Anakin, I think this line is far more important than you think it is. I really don’t think you should be so absolute on moments of light and levity, especially when it contributes to a characters personality traits or how they grow and change over the course of the trilogy (limited though it may be, there is no need to limit it further).
- The Gungans (including Jar Jar) either need to be better mixed into the audio or need to be re-recorded or both, their voices distractingly stand out whenever they talk, and do not feel like they are a part of the environment. The Naemoidians however, sounded fantastic and I really enjoyed their new dialogue, I loved the moment where they become noticeably nervous whenever Palpatine shows up or when Maul is mentioned but not in a way that they make it too obvious.
- The scene where Sebulba is attacking Jar Jar has some shots in it that look a little too tinted green, I don’t know if this was the best result possible but it was a little distracting.
- Would it be possible to delay Anakin’s “What is it?” by a second or two after Qui Gon destroys the probe droid? As it is, it’s way too immediate. I feel as though he would need to take in the scene before saying anything, there is plenty of time in between Qui Gon destroying it and saying “a probe droid”. This one is SUPER nit-picky I know, but the scene would benefit from it, as it is, it’s far too immediate.
- Inconsistent audio levels all throughout the movie, some scenes are louder than others, some better audio balancing would be much appreciated. Not really an issue with headphones, but with speakers it’s really noticeable.
- I respect your choice in ending and even agree with it, though perhaps some sinister music playing over Yoda and Mace’s conversation is needed that swells upon a slightly longer hold on Qui Gon’s funeral pyre (if possible) before closing with a wipe and music change would work better. As is, it feels a bit lack luster and abrupt, almost comical, almost.
SUPER, SUPER nitpicks that probably don’t need changing:
- At around 1:05:46, someone’s foot step sounds like an audio pop for the beginning of the much louder transitional music, it may be best to remove that one footstep sound.
- At around 54:57, when the screen wipe for the establishing shot of the Jedi temple completes, the colours seem to change ever so slightly, I don’t know if this is the case for the original version as well, may want to adjust that, may not, it is a super minor thing after all.
Great work Phase3, can’t wait to see what you do with 2 and 3.
