Hal 9000

Would Dooku’s double be on your list too?

I’d certainly be interested in seeing the end results! Appreciate thinking of me, so I’d say let me know please.

^ It’d be a version to show that factors in having to sell itself to existing fans of the original prequels.

Yeah, we’re out on a limb with this idea. It’s probably better for me to leave things as they are! Or possibly redo just the alternate version of LOE.

I think I’m just forgetting the guideline that the only judgement to care about is that of a hypothetical audience who hasn’t seen the original.

For a super canon-friendly, maximalist edit of ROTS, here’s a new change list. Not a replacement for LOE, but a new edit. Here’s what do undo.

Use Sir Ridley’s crawl, but use original ROTS title.

Put back line “this is where the fun begins.”

Attempt removing “my powers have doubled since we last met” line.

Use the following order of scenes for the second act of the movie:

• Anakin and Padme reunite; pregnancy revealed
• Grievous arrives on Utapau
• Balcony scene (“love has blinded you”)
• Nightmare (ends as Anakin walks off, Padme remains asleep)
• “I sense a plot to destroy the Jedi” deleted scene
• Obi-Wan telling Anakin that Palpatine requests his presence
• Opera of Squid Lake
• Yoda’s counseling session
• Palpatine appoints Anakin to Council
• Council unhappy about this
• Bail’s apartment deleted scene
• Obi-Wan asking Anakin to spy on Palpatine
• Jedi traffic scene
• Padme and Anakin “you’re sounding like a Separatist”
• Kashyyyk battle
• 3PO serving drinks political deleted scene
• Anakin and Obi-Wan farewell, Obi-Wan heads to Utapau
• Second nightmare with Obi—Wan, “I feel lost” (cuts out before mention of Anakin’s nightmares)
• Petition of Two Thousand deleted scene
• Obi-Wan arrives on Utapau

During the opera scene, put back reference to midichlorians.

Put back “I’ve been trained… by Count Dooku.”

Put back Palpatine’s voiceover as Anakin waits in the Council room, talking about Padme.

Reinstate youngling slaughter… maaaybe blend the Sith and normal saber ignition sounds like TFA does (see when Finn lights up on Maz’s planet)

Put back Obi-Wan and Yoda fighting to reenter the Temple.

Put back Kenobi and Yoda planning to destroy the Sith.

Keep trims to Obi-Wan and Padme, but add back in “killing younglings.”

Redo Anakin’s and Padme’s conversation on Mustafar based on what makes sense now.

Reinstate Yoda duel, minding saber ignition sounds for consistency, and referring to L8wrtr’s version.

Put back dialogue about the ‘high ground’ at the end of the duel. (Put back some of this, possibly removing just that line.)

Film ends similarly to the theatrical, of course. Vader can still have his Russian yell, but Padme dies and we see her funeral, etc.

Try to keep the new shots that remove the droids from the twins’ birth. Oh well if it’s not possible. Can’t remember what all shots there are.

Add Jar Jar accompanying Kenobi to deliver Luke to the Lars homestead, and have him get farted on by the eopie while Kenobi turns back to leave.

For a super canon-friendly, maximalist edit of AOTC, here’s a new change list. Not a replacement for TAS, but a new edit. Here’s what do undo.

Use Sir Ridley’s new title crawl, but with the original AOTC title.

Go ahead and let the camera pan up after the crawl.

Put back Anakin losing his saber and being (more gently?) reprimanded for it. And conversation entering the bar.

Put back in more of Anakin griping, hopefully it works to imply he walked back across the room. We’ll see, err on side of leaving it removed. Keep Anakin talking about Obi-Wan not letting him move on, but not “it’s worse” and after.

Anakin can mention attachment being forbidden.

Yoda and younglings instead of Mace on platform deleted scene.

Put back little description of Boba Fett.

Put back Obi-Wan and Jango’s dialogue, including name drop of Darth Tyranus.

When Obi-Wan reports to Yoda and Windu, put back Mace asking about the assassination of Amidala.

Maybe work harder to have only R2 leave the ship on Geonosis and save the day, as at least one other edit has done. Ideally not flying, though, as it’d be the only time in the films.

Put back the crowdpleasing saber duel with Yoda.

Sidious can address Dooku as ‘Tyrannus.’

For a super canon-friendly, maximalist edit of TPM, here’s a new change list. Not a replacement for COD, but a new edit. Here’s what do undo.

Use Sir Ridley’s crawl but stick with original TPM title.

Put back the battle droid dialogue to one other, starting when they talk before going into where the Jedi are. (Can still remove “destroy what’s left of them”, but keep “roger roger”)

Put back viceroy line about needing approval from the Senate, but leave out Amidala mentioning a trade boycott

Have them go underwater to Otah Gunga, but trim it up however you can. Only use the first part of the submarine trip.

Put back the scene descending the steps inside the palace discussing political exposition.

Put back jar jar in the droid bay, but ideally remove “how wude.” (If you can remove all three of its instances, great, otherwise leave 2.)

Make sure to include “sitting ducks.” But can still trim up Ric being so delighted by that little droid.

Put back line, “No more commands from her highness today.”

Could put back some of Jar Jar’s handful of, “Muy muy” lines.

Put back the midichlorian intro scene at nighttime as his blood is analyzed, but trim to remove a number and mention of Yoda. See Phantom Edit.

Put back Jar Jar’s grin after Qui-Gon tosses the chance cube.

Recreate the theatrical version of the engine startup sequence for the most part, but still remove “me no watchin’”

Put back Anakin’s “yes!” after Qui-Gon says “these are yours”

Put back “you mean I get to come with you in your starship?”

If any cuts remain to the farewell to Schmi, undo them.

Put back Anakin’s line, “Qui-Gon, sir, wait, I’m tired!”

Put back Qui-Gon’s line, “Tell them to take off!”

Put back scene on Naboo where the Viceroy sits on his walking throne, originally removed because it references the underwater trip to Otah Gungah.

Put back dialogue about Anakin being too old to be trained. (Obi-Wan and Mace each say this.)

Add back in conversation about midichlorians.

Put back scene where Obi-Wan apologizes to Qui-Gon and Jar Jar emerges from the swamp. Be sure to remove added line over shot of company approaching gungans.

Put back whole scene between the Naboo and Boss Nass, including Jar Jar’s hesitancy and cowering.

Revise Jar Jar’s antics throughout the battle. (Keep it as is, but put back “steady, steady” line, “ouch time.” Also, when retreating, imply he’s riding away on the animal and is shot off and lands onto the tank, using a boomer.)

Make it so Anakin still promises Qui-Gon he’ll hide in the cockpit. Make sure to include line referencing this. He can still look like there’s no autopilot.

Put back full death of Qui-Gon scene and follow up conversation with Yoda.

In the next three posts, I will outline ideas about what could be changed or reinstated compared to COD, TAS, and LOE for a set of complimentary/alternative presentations of the films that seek to play as nicely as possibly with other media and maybe even to a mixed crowd laced with people who already love the original films. I’m not committing to doing this, but I might want to while I still have access to FCP7!

Sending!

The human-like species most of the main characters are ages more quickly than we do.

Well, I do make ProRes output available, so it ought to be simple enough to splice in the original opening shots of each one if one is so inclined.

Y’know, the re-titling is something I probably wouldn’t do if I were approaching these edits for the firs time right here and now. They started out firmly rooted in the mid-2000s “fan edit the prequels” tradition sparked by The Phantom Edit. And I’ve softened them quite a bit compared to V1 in 2014.

I could make a more deliberately conservative cut that sort of straddles the difference, not to replace but to be there as an alternative. They could use the criteria of, “Your mom who has seen these movies a bunch of times may not even realize anything is different.”

The Phantom Menace - Symbiant
Attack of the Clones - Forbidden
Revenge of the Sith - Betrayed

Eh, probably not. Other such edits are already out there.

Hit me up, sounds interesting!

V5 has been fixed and reuploaded, as I had messed up the flipped shots when DJ escapes the cell. Same planes as always.

PM sent

Yeah, I feel like the emergent aspects of removing the youngling stuff from the PT holds its own weight over and against what is needed to interpret Kenobi.

I bet Reva’s stuff could be edited a bit just to remove the explicit depiction of Anakin killing kids right then and there, making it a bit more general than that. She was betrayed by Anakin as well as the rest of the Jedi, and that was traumatizing. Who knows? Not yet at least.

In light of the unfolding ‘Kenobi’ series, I feel it’s worth having a conversation about younglings in these Hal9000 fan edits of the prequel films. (Incredibly minor spoiler for Kenobi: it involves referencing youngling Jedi.)

My saga fan edits operate on two levels, as I see it. The first is in relation to the known-quantity ‘saga’ films in isolation. The second is to hopefully play nicely overall with other, non-saga material. Sometimes things removed from my edits will be referenced in a book or a comic, and most often this introduces only mild contradictions as most of the removed content can still be thought of as occurring when other material establishes it to the hypothetical reader who only has my fan edits for those films. This is all well and good for books, comics, and animation, though it hits a bit differently when it comes to new live-action content closely tied into the saga.

My prequel edits do not explicitly remove the possibility of children Jedi trainees being present at the Coruscant temple, though they do away with much of what builds it up. In Ep1, we hear Qui-Gon say Anakin would have been identified “early” had he been born in the Republic, though we do not hear anything about Anakin being explicitly “too old” to begin training. In Ep2, we do not see Yoda and the younglings. In Ep3, Anakin is not explicitly shown to kill children, and this does not factor into Obi-Wan or Padme’s reactions.

Attack of the Phantom, the 2002 edit from The Phantom Editor, also removed Yoda and the younglings, as he felt the scene hurt Obi-Wan’s character. I agree with this decision. My edit of Ep3 depicts Anakin’s turn to the dark side as a bit more gradual, betraying the Jedi ostensibly as a shift in political allegiance. This is different from the original, in which the focal point for Obi-Wan and Padme is that Anakin slaughtered children, seemingly as his initial actions after switching sides. These are the substantial gains that come with omitting younglings being shown or discussed onscreen in the prequels.

In the new Kenobi show, (very minor spoilers) we are reminded in no uncertain terms that Anakin slaughtered younglings during his march of the Temple. Nothing in my edits of the prequels make this impossible, and it could be taken by a viewer as a new revelation perhaps. Nothing save for a sequel-sequel trilogy can impact the first level of operating within a coherent episodic saga, though this does put some strain on cooperating with new live-action material. It contradicts only the implication that editing gives us for Anakin in Ep3.

I havne’t made plans to modify this substantially, although I would imagine making two small changes to Ep1 and Ep2 in the event I find myself reissuing it anyway. Those being to reinstate the explicit idea Anakin is “too old,” and Anakin explicitly mentioning that attachment is forbidden for Jedi.

Not at all!

Cloud City’s intro has a female vocal, yeah. ROTJ has choral as Luke gets aggressive on Vader.

They’re two cuts of the same movie, but I think either maintains good continuity with Rey Nobody.

Legendary borrows some of the more subtle Palpatine things, but nothing explicit. The most explicit is probably hearing palatine laugh as Luke looks into Kylo’s mind during the flashback, but I would’ve interpreted that figuratively had the original been like that.

Add to the chorus of Jedi spirits encouraging Rey to stand in TROS Palpatine’s call from the ROTS trailer to “Rise.”

EDIT: oops, sorry, was mistaken

Framed portrait hanging in the Death Star conference room?

You’d think so, but it doesn’t end up working in practice to keep Rey’s parents as nobodies AND have Ochi seeking her. Because her parents then become noble in shielding her, which begs the question as to why.

I could certainly see excising this episode almost entirely if 3 and 5 bridge well, if you’re trying to cram things into a ~2 hour movie. And that’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it.

It’s not gonna be as seamless as the main version but it really comes close to working. Closer than I’d have guessed. There’s still some weird things, like how Ochi is just some random dumbass now.