I created my own edit of Star Wars Episode I: The
Phantom Menace recently. I mainly did it for
research and knowledge purposes. I am still a sort
of newbie at video editing and doing this helped me
learn a lot about editing and pacing. I didn’t
create this edit to release it; I just did it for
myself. Right now the quality isn’t great. I ripped
the Episode I DVD to a DivX video file and edited
from there using Sony Vegas 5. After editing I
rendered it to an even smaller DivX file, so it is
totally unsuitable for release or anything. I just
wanted to see how it worked out. It did. And now
comes the reason I created this post: I want to
know how to edit it again but this time do it in
DVD quality. I want the image and sound quality to
be exactly the same as it is on the DVD, and I want
to learn how to put back the finished edit on a DVD
and do all the menus, etc. If one of the editors
here, or somebody that knows about editing can get
in touch with me and teach me how to do these
things, I would be very happy. All I want to do is
create my own personal version of the first episode
that I and my friends can watch instead of Episode
I.
In the meantime, I will list all of the edits and
enhancements I made to my version of star wars
episode I. The only other edit I have seen of Star
Wars Episode I is the one from Rikter’s torrent,
the Angrysun one. I watched it after I made my edit
and noticed a couple of smart things that I later
incorporated into my edit. I have never seen any of
the Magnoliafan edits(I’m still very interested in
seeing them, if someone can hook me up), but I did
read a lot about them. One thing caught my eye when
I was reading about them: Watto humming the cantina
music. I decided to add it to my cut as well. I
hope you aren’t angry Magnoliafan about me ripping
you off, but that inclusion of the cantina humming
is GENIUS! If you are offended by me using this, I
will take it out.
So with that out of the way, I want to list ALL of
the edits and enhancements I made to Star Wars
Episode I.
This is what I call The Perfect Edit (kinda
egotistical eh?). My cut of the film is basically
meant to reduce Jar Jar’s role as much as possible
in order to make him tolerable and also tighten up
the pacing a bit. I removed a lot of scenes from
the movie. The DivX file that I ripped off the DVD
had a running time of 2:16:11. The Perfect Edit has
a running time of 2:01:00. Almost a full 15 minutes
have been removed. I didn’t try to add anything
extra in the movie regarding plot, ala
Magnoliafan’s edit. I just tried to cut this one as
faithful to the original movie as possible with all
the crap excluded, so there hopefully won’t be any
conflicts in regards to story with the other
movies. Another thing, if anybody wants to
incorporate any of my edits into theirs, go ahead.
I don’t mind.
The edits (in order):
1. Obi-Wan’s dialogue in the beginning of the movie
ends after the word “elusive” and cuts to the next
scene.
2. The Viceroy’s dialogue with Sidious has been
shortened. After the VR asks Sid about the Jedi,
Sid immediately replies with “kill them
immediatly.”
3. The scene with the battle droids going to
destroy what is left of the Jedi is changed. You no
longer see TC-14 exit the smoke. Instead the Jedi
immediately ignite their lightsabers and proceed to
cut down the droids.
4. Directly after the Droideka attack scene, I
removed the dialogue of the trade federation guy
about the Jedi being no match for Droidekas.
Instead you see the TF guys watching the screen
when the other TF dude informs them that they’ve
gone up the ventilation shaft.
5. Obi Wan’s line about “the negotiations were
short” is removed to conform with edit #1.
6. The TF invasion scene direct follows Bibble’s
line about where he says " A communications
disruption can only mean one thing. Invasion."
7. I removed the close up on Jar Jar when you first
see him and he screams “Oh no!!” The scene just
cuts to Qui Gon telling Jar Jar to get away and
then him grabbing on to him as usual.
8. After Jar Jar and Qui Gon stand up, the scene
cuts to the next one before Jar Jar gets to say
anything. The next scene begins with the “mui mui I
love you” line.
9. Removed the “More? More did you spake?” line.
10. Cut to the next scene where I remove the
“exqueeeze me” line. It starts out with “the most
safest place would be gunga city” and works better
because it doesnt make jar jar sound annoying and
makes him actually helpful.
11. When Qui Gon asks jar jar if he can take them
to the city the scene is changed around a bit. Jar
jar says “On second thought no” then cuts to a
close up of his head where he continues saying
“this embarrassing…”
12. When Jar Jar jumps into the water, he doesnt do
that acrobatics crap. I cut it so he jumps right
in.
13. I removed the part where Jar jar sticks his
head out of the water.
14. When they enter the gungan city, I removed the
part where jar jar says “so good bein’ home.”
15. After the scene where tarpals says “hey yousa
stoppa there” I removed the dialogue with jar jar.
Instead it just cuts to the other rider coming from
the other side and shocking him.
16. Boss Nass’ dialogue starts with “dis army of
mechanics up der…”
17. After Nass says “wesa no like da Naboo” it cuts
to Obi Wan telling him “once those droids take over
the surface…”
18. I removed jar jar’s line of “any help here
would be hot” It sounded stupid.
19. After Qui Gon demands Nass turn over jar jar, I
cut the part where Nass asks jar jar about the
“life-play.” It just cuts to him doing that stupid
mouth shaking thing.
20. I eliminated the whole “e-gad whatsa mesa
sayin!?” scene by just ending the part where qui
gon bows down with a soft clockwise wipe that cuts
to the Bongo swimming. I also cut out all the underwater parts.
21. After you see the bongo swimming for a while i
added a cross wipe to the scene where the fighters
are flying towards the federation starship.
22. After the VR says “no need to report that to
him until we have something to report” we wipe to
the invasion on the ground.
23. After qui gon gets out of the bongo, i cut it
before he gets a chance to turn his head back and
look at the waterfall.
24. When the Queen and the handmaidens are walking
tobe processed, Qui Gon and Obi Wan are sneaking
around. I didn’t like this because it ruined all
the sense of imminent doom that the scene could
have had so I went and took out the part where they
are sneaking around. In my edit, the handmaidens
are walking around when the jedi come out of
nowhere. I think it works better this way.
25. In the hanger, right after the droid says
“where are you taking them,” qui gon slices at the
droid.
26. Removed the part in the ship where obi tells
qui gon to wait with the droids.
27. Removed R2 bumping into Jar jar on the ship.
28. Removed the Padme cleaning R2 scene.
29. edited the scene where qui gon, jar jar, and r2
are in the desert. Jar jar no longer makes the
comment about the sun and it just cuts to panaka
yelling “wait.”
30. Removed jar jar stepping into crap.
31. Added watto humming the cantina song as the
heroes enter his shop. I admit I stole this idea
from magnoliafan, but it is just too awesome. i got
the sound clip from the sound files of star wars