The Phantom Menace - A "Good Enough" HD Reconstruction (Released)

The goal of this fanedit is to be a sort of quick and dirty HD Theatrical Version of the Phantom Menace, done with similar methods to Harmy or the D+ projects, but less meticulously and painstakingly accurate. Something that’s good enough for someone who just wants the movie.

There’s a few minor changes that are still in this, but only the stuff that’s not particularly noticeable.

There’s plenty of TPM restoration projects that are nearing completion now in 2021, which will render this project obsolete very soon. This project was only ever really meant to tide us over until those are done.

Basically what I did in this project is that I took Schormann’s Preservation of the 2001 HDTV version of the Phantom Menace, plopped it into Sony Vegas, matched it roughly to Adywan’s (SD) Reconstruction of the theatrical movie… and also edited out the ugly as hell subtitles burned into Schormann’s Preservation and replaced them with ones that look kind of like the font in the Original Trilogy and the new movies, using Blu Ray footage (which doesn’t have burned in subtitles).

Screenshot:

PM me for a download link.

I’ve been working on a v2 that fixes some technical errors, but I have to start over from scratch since I’ve lost the files from the original project. But that’s probably for the best.

Faithwyn said:

Good for you, I look forward to seeing this!

I find that hard to believe…

I want to have this downloaded though, it’s quite important. But I doubt I’ll ever watch it.

There’s a theatrical bootleg that can be used as a reference for subtitle timing and positioning, too.

trillary dump said:

Just PM’d. Im glad this is being done! There is a 35mm scan of this being done so it could be used for reference for the subtitle timing and could be used to restore the shots only found on VHS/Laserdisc (i.e. removing the bridge and replacing the Twileks in the Senate scene)

I might redo this when that comes out, but if they just release that reconstruction as a reconstruction, and not just a 35mm scan, that reconstruction would probably be better, and if so, I might not.

jedit: Also for the shots that you used the blu ray footage, did you recrop the frame to match the HDTV? (the frame of the blu ray shows about 9% more)

Yes, but Sony Vegas is a little finicky, so it’s not 100% perfect. But it’s not noticeable, so no biggie.

ChainsawAsh said:

There’s a theatrical bootleg that can be used as a reference for subtitle timing and positioning, too.

I might look into this, but I don’t know if I have the time to invest into a full-scale reconstruction.

Additionally, the better, higher bitrate second version is in the process of being uploaded right now. It should be available by tomorrow morning (EST)!

There was an issue with the audio being out of sync that was on Schorman’s HDTV preservation, so it carried over to this. A fixed version is now on the Spleen.

ZaneFlare92 said:

You have the bridge that was added to the 2001 dvd, Just after the queen leaves back from Naboo following the shot of the palace. The Original theatrical didn’t have the shot the cgi bridge to the left where the river is. Also certain shots of the Podrace sequences look soft and I can understand you taking the route you did but maybe you didn’t know. Being you want to make this a HD Preservation, the digital movie collection has the original podrace sequence in full hd . So you can have that one crowd shot on and Watto yelling Subulba in HD and not a upscale. Also what kind of audio did you use out of curiosity. There’s nothing bad about it I was just curious if you went with the DTS track that’s available ?

at which store can one purchase the digital movie collection with extras that provides a download file?

ZaneFlare92 said:

You have the bridge that was added to the 2001 dvd, Just after the queen leaves back from Naboo following the shot of the palace. The Original theatrical didn’t have the shot the cgi bridge to the left where the river is. Also certain shots of the Podrace sequences look soft and I can understand you taking the route you did but maybe you didn’t know. Being you want to make this a HD Preservation, the digital movie collection has the original podrace sequence in full hd . So you can have that one crowd shot on and Watto yelling Subulba in HD and not a upscale. Also what kind of audio did you use out of curiosity. There’s nothing bad about it I was just curious if you went with the DTS track that’s available ?

I didn’t use the DTS track, I just used the audio from Schorman’s HDTV Preservation and adywan’s DVD. I’m probably going to make another version with that, and the HD podrace (if I can get it, because I don’t have the Digital Collection or any money to get it lol) and fixed bridge. I didn’t know the bridge was a thing, so I didn’t even make any change from the HDTV.

Forgive me for living up to my username but what does “PM-ing you” mean and how do I do it? I would like a download link.

PM-ing means sending a Private Message, although they’re really called Private Topics now.

Click on the user’s name, which will take you to their user page. On that page, you’ll see a link that says Start A Private Topic - click on that and you’ll be composing a PM to send to the user.

Thank you, I saw that but wasn’t sure it was the same thing. Thanks for the tip!

Link sent in PM.

SparkySywer said:

ZaneFlare92 said:

You have the bridge that was added to the 2001 dvd, Just after the queen leaves back from Naboo following the shot of the palace. The Original theatrical didn’t have the shot the cgi bridge to the left where the river is. Also certain shots of the Podrace sequences look soft and I can understand you taking the route you did but maybe you didn’t know. Being you want to make this a HD Preservation, the digital movie collection has the original podrace sequence in full hd . So you can have that one crowd shot on and Watto yelling Subulba in HD and not a upscale. Also what kind of audio did you use out of curiosity. There’s nothing bad about it I was just curious if you went with the DTS track that’s available ?

I didn’t use the DTS track, I just used the audio from Schorman’s HDTV Preservation and adywan’s DVD. I’m probably going to make another version with that, and the HD podrace (if I can get it, because I don’t have the Digital Collection or any money to get it lol) and fixed bridge. I didn’t know the bridge was a thing, so I didn’t even make any change from the HDTV.

It’s not easy to keep up with Lucas’s changes. Thanks for attempting this SparkySywar and hooking us up with links. Theres great videos on all the changes made you can watch on youtube to get you up to speed on this if need be. I noticed that when Subulba insults Anikan before the race in theatres the subtitles say “Skywalker” ater he says “You’re bantha fodder!” even though it doesn’t sound like he says it.

I think most hate CGI yoda and this fixes that in HD 😃 and is better than a “Good Enough” attempt for me.

Can I have a link to this one? Thank you for your work!

DylanValenti said:

BenSlzak said:

Can I have a link to this one? Thank you for your work!

A 4K99 preview was just released on the Star Wars trilogy forums so, if you wanna look over there, there’s a better version of the theatrical cut now!

Thank you for the heads up!