Hello all,
In my fan-edits of the Star Wars prequel trilogy, I have trimmed many scenes in order to improve pacing, plus I’ve added in new VFX and SFX, added in different pieces of John Williams’ score that wasn’t included in the original film, removed as much exposition as possible, and altered dialogue in some places.
For anyone interested in watching this edit, you can either send me a private message, or get a link from the Fan Edit Central site.
A quick overview of what I’m doing:
New opening crawls for each prequel.
Opening titles: I’ve used the 1977 versions of the 20th Century Fox opening titles, the “A long time ago…” text and the green Lucasfilm title, all sourced from 4K77.
Some adjustments to the colours where appropriate.
Source video: the AOTC HDTV preservation done by schorman.
A light film grain has been added to the whole film, plus I have made brand-new upscales of several deleted scenes for this edit.
I am aiming to have these films match the tone, pacing and storytelling style of the original (pre-Special Edition) Star Wars Trilogy. I want to edit these films so that the prequels wouldn’t give away too much information that you would later find out in Episodes 4, 5 and 6, so that these edits could be viewed prior to watching the original trilogy if desired. For example, in my edit of episode 3 there is no hint that Palpatine is a Sith Lord until he reveals his true self in Revenge of the Sith, and the name “Darth Vader” isn’t used in my edit of episode 3, thereby retaining the surprise revelation in The Empire Strikes Back.
I’ve sought to remove the poorly-timed, and poorly-executed attempts at humour. So, there is no slapstick humour, and no silly conversations from Battle Droids or Super Battle Droids.
I’ve re-recorded and replaced the dialogue for the Gungans as well as the Neimoidians. Replacing the dialogue allowed me to create new subtitles for them, which in turn granted me the opportunity to alter and hopefully improve their characters.
I also added in new subtitles for these characters, with alternate dialogue to what was in the films, and did my best to improve the flow of the story, and also improve the characters too.
Thank-you list:
My edit wouldn’t be what it is without the help of greenturnedblue and futon88 – extra big thanks to the two of them!
DsqrDStudio for using one of his VFX shots.
Jackpumpkinhead, for footage of Mace Windu with a blue Lightsaber.
A list of the major alterations, cuts, trims and additions:
- New opening crawl.
- Opening scene after the crawl: the camera now pans down, in order to match the opening of the other episodes.
- Removed a few lines of dialogue from Captain Typho and all of Corde’s dialogue.
- Anakin and Obi-Wan: removed as much of the unnecessary antagonism and pointless bickering as possible.
- As with my edit of Episode I, I have done my best to make Anakin more likeable, plus less creepy, petulant, and annoying.
- Upscaled and colour corrected deleted scene of Padme addressing the senate.
- New transition shot from the senate building to Palpatine’s office.
- Palpatine’s office: small trims to improve the pacing, new subtitles during the hologram announcement, plus cut the final shot of Palpatine looking rather grim (and slightly devious).
- Newly recorded dialogue and new subtitles for Jar Jar. I’ve also greatly trimmed the scenes with Jar Jar.
- Padme’s apartment at night: re-structured to improve pacing.
- Altered the speeder chase; Anakin now disables Zam’s speeder with his Lightsaber. I’ve removed her using a blaster, plus added some new explosion SFX to replace the original blaster shot sound effects.
- Trimmed the speeder chase sequence. No flying through power couplings.
- Since I’ve removed Anakin losing his Lightsaber, I’ve painted-out Obi-Wan holding Anakin’s Lightsaber prior to entering the nightclub.
- Anakin running through the streets of Corsucant: added in his Lightsaber on his belt, in order to avoid a continuity error since he doesn’t lose his Lightsaber.
- Coruscant nightclub scene: corrected a continuity error where a shot of Anakin was flipped.
- Altered Zam’s dying words via subtitles to “…In Kamino….system…”. Removed the portion of the dialogue where she says “called”, plus altered the timing of the toxic dart.
- Removed the Dex’s Diner sequence. I wanted to portray Obi-Wan as someone with the knowledge and skills required to decipher what was going on, rather than relying on other people for information. Also, this scene, along with others, were cut to improve the pacing.
- Removed the words “home planet of” from Mace Windu. We already know that Naboo is Padmé’s home planet.
- Removed the request for Anakin to speak with Palpatine. I wanted to show that Anakin has a lot of trust in Palpatine, and goes to see him as a friend.
- Padme speaking with Jar Jar in her apartment: I used alternate music from the AOTC soundtrack, plus trimmed the scene slightly, added re-recorded the dialogue for Jar Jar, plus some new SFX.
- Removed the Yoda & Younglings sequence, as it makes Obi-Wan look incompetent, plus in my edit he has the skills to find Kamino himself, without asking either Dexter or Yoda for assistance.
- Obi-Wan in the library: changed his dialogue from “Impossible…perhaps the archives are incomplete?” to “Impossible…perhaps the archives were erased?”. This was done via a real-life voice actor, and not via an AI audio system.
- Upscaled deleted scene of Obi-Wan and Mace where they discuss Anakin, and Obi-Wan gets into his starfighter. As with my edit of Episode 1, I’ve cut any reference to a prophecy or “chosen one”.
- Trimmed and re-arranged sections of the chat between Anakin and Padme aboard the starship.
- Upscaled deleted scene of the arrival on Naboo, with new SFX for the shuttle.
- Upscaled deleted scene of Padme’s family and dinner scene (excluding the bedroom scene). Some of the scenes have been restructured, plus new SFX and music has been added.
- New transition scene going from the dinner scene to Anakin & Ruwee chatting.
- Anakin and Ruwee chatting: added background scenery to remove the camera and lighting equipment visible in the scene. Many edits I’ve seen of this sequence simply zooms-in on the actors, however I elected to complete the VFX for this scene as much as possible.
- New transition scene, with new VFX and SFX, going from Padme and Anakin having dinner, to the lakeside kissing scene.
- Anakin & Padme kissing by the lakeside: changed the daytime scene into an early evening scene, plus relocated the scene to after their dinner. I’ve removed Anakin talking about sand, as well as removed the fireplace scene.
- I removed Anakin’s line about “not having a choice” to go to Tatooine. Of course he had a choice!
- Kamino: removed the blue tint, to make the sky and buildings more grey.
- Removed the line from the Kaminoans about the quantity of clones, as it lessens the impact of seeing them later on.
- Continuity errors fixed: several shots on Kamino were flipped in the original film, which I have corrected. It’s most obvious when you notice Obi-Wan’s Lightsaber is on the wrong side of his belt. I corrected the following shots:
A. Two shots of Obi-Wan walking with the Prime Minister of Kamino.
B. Balcony shot of Obi-Wan looking at the clones marching up a ramp.
- Removed Yoda saying to Obi-Wan that he shouldn’t assume anything.
- Removed Mace & Yoda talking about diminishing Force powers.
- Added in an upscaled extra shot of Obi-Wan and Jango’s confrontation from the AOTC trailer.
- I’ve added in the correct SFX for Jango’s blasters, so that they match the sounds heard later in the film.
- Added the SFX of Obi-Wan’s Lightsaber deactivating and activating in one shot, as they were missing in the original film.
- Removed the multitude of unnecessary shots of Boba Fett.
- Trimmed Obi-Wan hanging from the cable; he now swings and jumps to the walkway quickly, without hanging there.
- Removed Anakin’s nightmare scene. This way, it implies that Padme & Anakin are sleeping together, as she says that she heard him having a nightmare.
- Removed Anakin saying “Jedi don’t have nightmares” {VFX work by Caleb Gamman}.
- Removed the confrontation in the asteroid field between Obi-Wan and Jango. I also removed the scene of Jango landing on Geonosis, as that removes any surprise later when Obi-Wan spots the Trade Federation starships.
- New VFX: I’ve removed the laser blast damage on Obi-Wan’s starfighter, so as to not create a continuity error with blast marks and damage appearing on his starfighter, since I’ve removed the asteroid chase sequence.
- New VFX: Since the asteroid field scene has been removed, a new shot has been created, of Obi-Wan tracking Jango Fett {thanks to greenturnedblue for the idea}.
- Removed Gunray’s lines about not signing anything, and wanting Padme’s head on his desk. Re-recorded dialogue, and added new subtitles.
- Relocated dialogue from Dooku where says “Patience, viceroy, patience; she will die” to after Gunray speaks.
- Added new dialogue and subtitles for Poggle The Lesser during the above sequence. The separatists are now much more vicious and determined, which differs greatly to how they were originally depicted in the film.
- Removed Anakin telling Padme about killing the Tusken Raiders. The original film caused a contradiction in her character: in AOTC she had no real reaction to his confession, yet in ROTS she is horrified to learn that he killed Younglings. Removing his confession now serves to show that Anakin hides his actions from Padme. I’ve left in part of the sequence though, with him saying “why did she have to die?”, then Padme consoling him. I’ve also removed the angry emotional outbursts from Anakin.
- Separatist meeting on Geonosis: corrected the silly audio glitch for Wat Tambor, and made new subtitles for Shu Mai, with alternate dialogue to what was in the original film.
- Watto: new subtitles, with alternate dialogue to what was in the original film.
- Rickshaw droid: removed the droid’s dialogue.
- The Droid Factory sequence has been greatly trimmed; Threepio and Artoo don’t leave the starship. Once Padme gets thrown into the vat, Anakin saves her by using the Force to lower the vat. After that, both of them are captured. I used the Lightsaber deactivation VFX by Sir Ridley, kindly provided in Hal 9000’s prequel trilogy resources folder.
- Since Anakin isn’t “The Maker” in my edits, Threepio doesn’t recognise him now. I’ve added an extra line of dialogue from Anakin asking about his mother.
- Removed Yoda sensing Anakin’s pain, as he doesn’t do anything about it, and never mentions it again.
- Altered the time of day when Artoo receives Obi-Wan’s message; now it’s sunrise instead of early morning.
- Trimmed Cliegg Lar’s speech at the funeral.
- Altered and trimmed Threepio’s dialogue when Artoo goes to find Padme at the funeral.
- Removed Mas Amedda’s line “If only Senator Amidala were here”.
- Removed Padme’s exposition about exhaust vents.
- Removed Threepio’s dialogue in the starship as it’s taking off from Tatooine.
- Removed Anakin’s line “Don’t worry, I’ve given up trying to argue with you”.
- Used, with permission, a shot from DsqrD’s edit: “….a special effect shot to keep the factory door closed (so as not to reveal R2 and 3P0 as per the original shot) when Anakin Force-flings the Geonosians.”
- Upscaled deleted scene of Anakin and Padme meeting with Dooku.
- Mace Windu: blue Lightsaber (with thanks to Jackpumpkinhead).
- Trimmed the scene of Padme declaring her love for Anakin, to improve the pacing.
- Trimmed the executions scene, to improve the pacing.
- Corrected a continuity error, where one of the chains meant to restrain Anakin on the column was already up, even though he wasn’t physically there yet.
- Removed the poor attempts at humour, such as the Battle Droid / See-Threepio head-swap scene, as well as all instances of “Uh-oh!” and “Roger Roger!” from Battle Droids, plus the “…aggressive negotiations” dialogue. Inserting humour into a life and death battle only serves to lessen the impact of the sequence, and detracts from the overall movie.
- The colour of Ki-Adi-Mundi’s Lightsaber has been corrected. In the film, it went from blue, to green, then back to blue. Now it stays blue the whole time.
- Relocated and trimmed many scenes during this battle, which entailed adding in new SFX in some shots.
- Removed Yoda saying “Concentrate all your fire on the nearest starship”. The Jedi have been thrown into this conflict, so it doesn’t make sense for them to be giving military commands at this stage. Also, Yoda giving commands makes the clones seem rather inept, and incapable of doing anything themselves.
- Relocated the scene of Padme waking up and speaking with the Clone Trooper, so that there were no interruptions during the Jedi & Sith duels.
- Relocated, trimmed and altered some scenes in the Jedi & Sith duels, so that they could play out in full with no interruptions. I’ve also removed a duplicate shot during the duel between Anakin and Dooku, as well as the excessive amount of talking during the duels. It’s a life-and-death situation; there’s no time to stand around talking!
- Anakin & Dooku: trimmed their duel to improve the pacing, especially the repetitive back-and-forth shots of their faces when they’re doing nothing but swinging their Lightsabers around.
- Yoda and Dooku: I have restructured and trimmed their duel, removed a lot of the talking, and removed their Lightsaber duel. Having three duels in a row (Obi-Wan & Dooku, Anakin & Dooku, then Yoda and Dooku) was a bit excessive.
- For the shot of Dooku getting into his starship, I removed his Lightsaber.
- Added in a “Fan-edited by Phase3” title card, as well as a section thanking various people during the end credits.
