right, just watched ep II - Twilight of the Republic
a really good and original edit, it definitly combines the better elements of fan edits done so far, and with some original ideas added too. so far i would say this is my favourite edit available from the ones i have seen, though there are some improvements i would like to see before it moves to DVD.
what worked for me
- padme's reveal postponed (no immediate introduction) on the landing pad
- cut dialogue from anakin
- anakin's 'youve grown too' line turned into quiet a nice joke (anakin has now learned wit)
- shmi being dead already, and anakins 'i mss you . '
- cut yoda fight
- no more dex
- less crap exposition
- no R2 and 3PO in geonosis.
what didnt work for me
- my key critisism for this was the cutting of the scenes around the middle of the film, especially when we are following obiwans investigations and anakin on naboo. if the scenes of the separate characters could be combined to form longer 'chunks' i think it would allow the viewers attention not to be thrown around as much. i understand though that the cutting of bad elements of the film caused this, but maybe just less mental traveling would help. all in all i found it hard to engage with the film because of this.
- introducing kamino, i do think some form of introduction would help, even if it is the jedi analyser droids telling obi wan that it is a kamino dart or whatever, they dont necessarily have to talk about the planet itself. i just felt there was something missing.
- force lightening from dooku. unavoidable really, but would it be possible for him to force throw anakin? as he is more of a gray jedi though this isnt really an issue
- music cuts. you did a great job of blending the music between cuts, but it still did seem to move prety weirdly. its hard to describe, but i think it could be down to AOTC having HORRIBLE music in comparison to the other movies. this was felt more during the droid factory scene and the arena battle.
what i found interesesting, but am unsure whether would work or not
- i really liked the blue text, but would prefer the who SAGA to be a bit more standard, or for each film to have a dfferent colour. its not a major issue, and its cool that you went with it. it could be cool if you make your ROTJ edit have blue too so maybe it is a JasonN trademark. it also would go with your dark city/matrix edit (which i cant wait to see btw, love dark city!)
- im not sure how much colour correction you did, or if this was in the original, but anakins sabre was a lighter blue when he kills the worms in padmes room, a very similar colour to the blue in ANH. it made it look quite retro. retro is good.:)
what i would like to see added (or removed)
- someone suggested removing the lights from a number of senate seats, that would add to the twilight element, so as the various scenes from the senate progress, more dark patches are visible. would you consider reinserting padmes senate scene?
- maybe if anakins mother wasn't dead, you could do a scene similar to SSWR?
- not having 3PO in the film
- alternative music (though that would be a mammoth undertaking)
- maybe doing some of the small tweaks featured in SOTDS? (though now im just nitpicking)
overall the most enjoyable AOTC experience so far!