The Ultimate Edit Of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (Completed)

Yes, we all know it’s a disgrace, we all loath this horrifying cinematic failure… but for the last year I have been working on this film to make it just about worthy to bare the Star Wars name, I’ve always looked on previous edits of this movie and thought each has it’s merits, but to me they still never fully captured the Star Wars feel, so I decided to make my own using various reviews of TPM (including of course RedLetterMedia) and previous edits of TPM for ideas, I’ve been using Sony Vegas and Adobe After Effects to make this, which is what Adywan used for making Star Wars Revisited.

Changes I have made are to cut out most Anakin scenes and to make Obi-Wan a more Luke Skywalker type character and to make him seem more “reckless” Qui-Gon is no longer a member of the Jedi Order but a Rogue Jedi who left the Order, this is to explain the lack of Yoda as Obi-Wan’s master as Obi-Wan in his “reckless” ways leaves the Order to complete his training under this Rogue Jedi Qui-Gon. I have reworked many scenes to make Palpatine and Sidius seem more like two completely different people by cutting out most of Palpatine’s blatently obvious sinister looks and suggestions, to add to this touch I used After Effects to give Sidius the white prune face, that’s clouded over to everyone as he plays his roll as Palpatine, “the dark side clouds everything”.

I have done colour corrections and some changes to the score, Naboo is now Alderaan, there is no C3PO in my edit, and in terms of Jar Jar, he is cut out as much as possible and will be revoiced in English allong with Boss Nass, Captain Tarpels and the Nemoidians, using dialogue from Magnoliafan’s “Balance Of The Force” which I would strongly reckomend as it’s one of the best edits of TPM I’ve seen.

I wish I could describe this edit further but I don’t want to stray away from what I need to ask. The release date of this edit was 19/05/11, however it’s still yet to be released because I had to take time off for personal reasons from April to September. Then after the release of the blu ray I wanted to go a step further and have the cgi Yoda aswell but my computer is not advanced enough to rip blu rays or to read any of the blu ray torrents, so this project is at a stand still until I can have the blu ray to work off, if anyone on here can help me by just posting TPM blu ray on youtube so I can download it off there I’d really appreciate it, we’re all Star Wars fans here and I promise I’ll give you something worth watching if you can help me out 😃

TimpsonFilmLTD. said:

Yes, we all know it's a disgrace, we all loath this horrifying cinematic failure...

Nope.

And regarding your edit, are you going to exclude the Jedi Order at all from the main characters? If neither Obi-Wan or Qui-Gon will be part of the order, I'm not sure how would that work with the sequels. But whatever...

Well at first it's just mentioned in the opening crawl, which is then helped in the scene on the trade federation ship when Obi-Wan says "Master Yoda said I should be mindful of the future" and Qui-Gon disregards this as Obi-Wan's new master by saying "Be mindful of the sense of the moment" I also recut the balcony scene at the Jedi Temple to have Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon talking about why Qui-Gon left the Order by using some of Liam Neeson's lines from the training montage in Batman Begins.

Obi-Wan rejoins the order to train Anakin at the end when Yoda makes him a Jedi Knight, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan still have a conection to the Jedi, they just work alone like some detectives would work alone from the police.

Why would they take Anakin to the Jedi Temple then? If they were already rogue Jedi, why not train him themselves?

TimpsonFilmLTD. said:

"Be mindful of the sense of the moment".

 

Um, its "Not at the expense of the moment" actually.

And he doesn't disregard Yoda's council.

Thanks fishmanlee, my mistake.

and they take Anakin to the Jedi because the scene where Anakin tells Qui-Gon he had a dream that he was a Jedi is cut to remove him saying he "freed all the slaves" it now goes.... "I had a dream I was a Jedi" quick flashes of Anakin from episode II on Tatooine in Mos Espa, Watto's shop, talking to the jawas, close-up of his face after his mother's death "I came back here" Qui-Gon gives long stare implying he seen it too, thus when Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan go to warn the Order of the return of the sith, Qui-Gon brings Anakin before the Jedi as he thinks Anakin would be safer trained within the Order because of the anger he sees in Anakin during the fight with Greedo and the uncertain future he sees in the chosen one. He never suggests him or Obi-Wan to train Anakin, and the council refuse, at the end of the movie Obi-Wan rejoins the order so Anakin can be trained within it, if there's any other questions please ask and I'd be happy to answer :)

But why wouldn't it be safer to train under Qui-Gon? If they are rogue that implies they have a divergence with the Order, thus not making sense to leave Anakin there. Specially when he took Obi-Wan away from the Order too. Unless I didn't understood your idea correctly.

Qui-Gon left because of the celebacy rule of the Jedi which he explains to Obi-Wan with help from some Batman Begins lines, as for Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon dosn't take him from the Order, he leaves because he sees anger as a crutch to aid him if used sensebly, and finds Qui-Gon, a fellow Rogue to allow this in his training, however after he sees Darth Maul, a creature of pure hate and anger kill his master he renounces this belief and returns to the order, Yoda then dubs him a Jedi on merit of his actions.

Perhaps a sample of their dialogue in that scene then? Or a scene by scene outline? I do see what you're trying to get at, but it's hard to imagine how this can be pulled off in a way that doesn't come across as... well, almost schizophrenic. 

As a firstling faneditor, it's very ambitious to try and tie yourself in with what Adywan is doing. With that said, some people here may take it as a bit pompous. Link to some examples to your work on Youtube, etc. to show off the quality of what you're doing.

You seem very excited to share your vision of TPM; best of luck to you! It took me 2 years and multiple times starting over to finally get mine out. Just make sure to come across as well grounded, and you'll find quite a bit of support on these boards.

darth_ender said:

This edit certainly sounds ambitious, but I feel like people are largely ragging on this guy instead of giving him encouragement.

I merely questioned some of the story points of his edit. I may have sounded a bit agressive, but that's probably due to his untrue statement on the first comment.

You don't agree that TPM was a cinematic failure?  Commercially it certainly wasn't.  But artistically it's hard to argue with that conclusion. 

Anyway, everyone is entitled to their own opinion.  Neither of you are being 'untrue'.

Bester said:

You don't agree that TPM was a cinematic failure?  Commercially it certainly wasn't.  But artistically it's hard to argue with that conclusion.

Our opinions differ, and as you said, everyone is entitled to their own. What I said is untrue is the generalization made.

TV's Frink said:

I assume he was referring to the "we all loath (sic)" part.

That's correct.

Cheers, thanks! I know I can never do what Adywan pulled off and I'm not trying to tie myself in with his work, this is just my version of TPM, I know alot of the ideas are pretty out there but all together they make alot of sense. On youtube I only have the trailer up, but I plan on releasing a second trailer because the first has some scenes that I hadn't perfected at the time and one that I've since cut out of the movie, I do however have a handful of almost complete Sidius face change scenes that are I suppose good enough to put up and in terms of the dialogue exchanged between Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon, I still need to find extra dialogue from Ewan McGregor to fit into what Qui-Gon is saying.

@stretch009

Thanks for the tip, I'll watch as soon as I can

@ darth_ender

Thank you! I do hope to finish this A.S.A.P. Although the blu ray's all that's holding me back, I may have found a solution to my problem though, so I'm getting back into that editing buzz again, but just to clear things up I do own the blu rays, my computer was the problem, but I've found a way.... atleast I think.

@ Alexrd

Bester said:

You don't agree that TPM was a cinematic failure?  Commercially it certainly wasn't.  But artistically it's hard to argue with that conclusion.

Our opinions differ, and as you said, everyone is entitled to their own. What I said is untrue is the generalization made.

TV's Frink said:

I assume he was referring to the "we all loath (sic)" part.

That's correct.

My bad, I didn't mean to generalize, I wrote that to grab the attention of the people who do feel like the movie failed, which would be the people most likely interested in an edit of it.

@ Vladius

Yeahp! I'm a bit ashamed of it now looking back, the colour is real screwed up and I couldn't really make a face change for Sidius work in the lighting for this scene, in all it was rushed and based off another trailer I'd seen, to make matters worse it starts 26 seconds in, that's why I'm making a completely new trailer once I get this blu ray going

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bcmShLKPMM