Bingowings said:
Dialogue free versions of these films would be the Holy Grail for fan editors, but despite bold claims by certain people, it's possibly impossible without all the original audio source material (and then still hard work).
It would make the ambitions of contributors to this thread much more easy to realise.
I just want one that has no voices for Gungans or the Neamodians, because they're the ones who I'm interested in dubbing over. I certainly appreciate some people's devotion in wanting to dub over the entire cast, but for my own personal tastes, I think there is such a thing as going too far.
With my edit, I enjoy the prequels enough that I can respect the story that George Lucas was trying to tell, even though there are certain aspects of if that I dislike (namely, the acting and some of the characters like Jar Jar). Would I have written a drastically different movie? Probably, but then again I would have probably done parts of Lord of the Rings differently, too.
At the end of the day, in my cuts Jar Jar would still be the fool (although hopefully, actually entertaining and somewhat likable), Anakin would still have lots of angst issues, and Yoda would still kick a lot of ass with a lightsaber. The parts that really make me cringe are Jar Jar's voice and some of Hayden's acting and dialogue with Natalie, but these things aren't too difficult to tweak without drastically altering the storyline. Probably the most bold change I would make is to change Count Dooku from being a Sith to being just a rogue Jedi, and hence I would change the color of his lightsaber, but on a technical level it's not that big of a challenge.
I understand that there are plenty of people who have no love for the prequels whatsoever, so for them they are just raw footage in a canister waiting to be edited into something resembling a Star Wars prequel. If that helps them enjoy the Saga more, then more power to 'em. For me though, the movies that came out will always be Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith, and thus the edits I make will be altered versions of those films as opposed to new movies using the same footage.
Ultimately, there are different kinds of cuts for different people. Some people cut because they like a film, and they just want to be able to like it more without some annoyances getting in the way, while with others they make drastic re-imaginings of the films because they hated the original, and are trying to make the film that they wanted to see. There's certainly enough room for both approaches. I just happen to fall into the former category when it comes to the Star Wars prequels, and I feel like a more subtle approach usually yields much more convincing results.
