Octorox

This is the canon hand-wave explanation:
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Old_Republic
The Galactic Republic in its current form existed for 1000 years but there was an older Republic that existed for many years before that. The Jedi preceded the Galactic Republic and protected the Old Republic as well. The birth of the Galactic Repblic seems to coincide closely with the relative disappearance of the Sith.

EDIT: I think this sounds good

Episode I
THE PHANTOM MENACE

For almost a thousand years the
knights of the Jedi Order have
protected the Galactic Republic
Now, after a millennia of peace,
dark forces conspire in the shadows
of the galaxy.

Attempting the seize the
Abundant resources of the
Planet Naboo, the nefarious
TRADE FEDERATION has
surrounded the planet with a
blockade of deadly warships.

With the newly crowned Queen
desperate for help, the Supreme
Chancellor has secretly
dispatched two Jedi Knights to
settle the conflict.

I would like to add something that mentions that the Chancellor is sort of in a tenuous place and is fearing the crisis blowing up could be the final straw that ends his political career, but there’s only so much space.

EDIT: Thanks for the offer Hal, but I think I’m going to create the crawl myself. I’m going to use the Star Wars TSG program for Mac.

Hal 9000 said:

I can whip up a custom crawl for you if you’d like.

Really? That would be great!

I’ve decided I want to keep the original title of the film, and just make some minor alterations to your crawl accordingly, so it would be:

Episode I
THE PHANTOM MENACE

For a thousand years the
knights of the Jedi Order have
protected the Galactic Republic
Now, after a millennia of peace, sinister
forces conspire in the shadows of
the galaxy.

And then the rest can be identical to yours. I’ve elected to go for years instead of generations because I’d like to preserve the canon separation between the Old Republic and the Galactic Republic, since I’d generally like for this to be compatible with new canon material.

Masking out the object becomes harder then, and might be beyond the scope of these edits.

Hal 9000 said:

Not a problem. I really don’t remember if I said this before, but please be mindful to avoid confusion if you keep the opening crawl of either edit, including its title.

I’d like to model the crawl on yours, but I don’t won’t to keep the title, specifically for that reason. I’m going to try to create a custom crawl. For credits Ill likely splice in the blu-ray credits and not include any fan edit credits, but credit all the fan editors who’s work I cribbed from on the forum threads and in the download location.

It will be up on Myspleen soon. I just need to tweak a few things and assemble a cutlist. I will move the discussion into my own thread when that happens since I don’t want to clog up Hal’s.

I prefer the death star to coruscant in that scene personally. Them staring at coruscant never made much sense to me, and the “small universe” stuff doesn’t bother me as much as some people.

Sure thing. http://www.jwfan.com/?p=3417
The cue is Clone Army Revealed (1:55), and on the soundtrack album it’s Track 9, from 1:28 to the end. If you A/B the two tracks you can tell it’s a new recording with slight differences. I was first clued into this by listening to a podcast called “Star Wars Oxygen”, which is a about the music of Star Wars and one of the hosts is David W. Collins who was a sound designer at LucasArts in the video game division.

The interesting thing about The Trade Federation music during the Scene where Obi-Wan sees the clones on kamino, is that it was a new recording scored by John Williams specifically for the moment. I’ve heard the argument that the use of the theme is actually an intentional way of keying us into the fact that the clones and the droids are essentially two sides of the same coin, both ultimately puppet armies created by palpatine, and I quite like that reasoning.

All of these JarJar scenes I left in. The only JarJar I cut was a few lines here and there, particularly the “This sun is doing murder on meesa skin” line which always irritated me. JarJar+Sebulba scene is still in (with a slight trim), droid nose joke is still in exactly as Hal has it, and the scene with Padme early on is still in. I agree with Hal that these scenes are important to the story, even if the character of JarJar never leaves a good impression.

I’ll compile one when I put it up. But to sum it up I’d say that the basic flow is Hal’s with a lot of extra dialogue nips and tucks from L8wrtrs. Use of JarJar is kind of at a happy medium between the two edits but I agree with Hal’s general philosophy that if he’s present throughout the majority of the movie he should at least have something to do. I’ve removed the “morning of the race” deleted scene and readded the cut-down version of the “working on the pod” scene from l8wrtr’s edit. In fact, the only deleted scene in this version is the scene of Qui-Gon cutting down the probe droid. I’ve also removed the visual of the podrace announcers Fode and Beed, but you still hear both of their voices, which is another compromise between the two edits. I would say that’s the general philosophy of this hybrid. I think l8wrtr is sometimes a little overzealous with his cuts to the point where it can hurt the pacing of the film and character development, but on the other hand Hal’s is too conservative for my tastes and leaves a lot of cringey dialogue, despite some brilliant ideas like cutting the trip to Otoh Gunga completely. This is just an attempt to find a happy medium between the two that suits my personal tastes.

Hey Hal, I just completed an edit for my own personal viewing that mixes and matches changes from your and L8wrtr’s edit (with a little bit from the Phantom Editor as well). I used your edit as the primary video source and spliced in bits from L8wrtr’s edit where needed (with a little grain and color correction to match it). Would you be opposed to me uploading this to Myspleen or elsewhere? With proper credit given of course.

If Schorman’s versions aren’t ready, KK650’s are a nice alternative. They are sourced from the Blu-Ray, but with DVD-esque color. It means you get also get the benefit of extra moss in that one shot of the hut on Kashyyyk in Revenge of the Sith (such a big deal I know) and the theatrical wipe in ROTS as well.

Hey, does anyone still have their copy of this from when I had uploaded it to Myspleen? My hard drive crashed and I lost the original file. This edit was never really ready for prime time but there were a few sequences I wanted to go back and look at for reference.

1.) The Empire Strikes Back
2.) Star Wars/A New Hope
3.) The Force Awakens
4.) Return of the Jedi
5.) Revenge of the Sith
6.) The Phantom Menace
7.) Attack of the Clones

The Force Awakens is still pretty new so its placement is shaky. Could end up being swapped with ROTJ.

My main hope for ROTJ:R is to please not include any significant cuts. ROTJ is the weakest of the OT, yes. However, it still holds a place in many of our hearts. I want ROTJ:R to continue to be “What the special editions should have been”.

Yeah, it’s just a rumor. I think it’s pretty unlikely, since writer/director Rian Johnson has been on record disparagingly calling the Special Editions the “90s cartoon versions”. If Hayden did have a role, for all we know it could be the kind of “role” Ewan MacGregor had in the Force Awakens, i.e. a short voiceover clip in a force vision scene that is barely audible. ROTJ:R likely won’t release until Episode VIII anyway, so I don’t think we need to talk about this until then.

EDIT: What I’d rather talk about is the displays on the Falcon. TFA has the classic old-school displays with the arrows indicating enemy targets, so I’m wondering if this is something that will be “Revisited” in ANH:R HD. I also think some of the graphics, including the binocular graphics, look a little too pristine in light of what ESB:R and TFA have presented us with. I’d like to see if Ady could find a happy medium between the original graphics and the spruced up versions in ANH:R.

Hal 9000 said:

The dialogue for the love pledge scene isn’t an a la carte thing for me because of the music. In V1-V3 I left in some terrible dialogue in the name of preserving the production value. For V4, I gave the scene a fresh attempt, and I think this combination of lines works better than the older configuration while having the music work perfectly.
Removing the creep line would really mean cutting the whole exchange, and I’d like to keep Anakin’s hesitancy about what he’s doing. Maybe look up Richard Cheese’s cover of Creep to take your mind off it. The Approaching Storm, if it had been what was released theatrically, would still not have been known for good dialogue.

I’d remove the whole exchange myself but I understand your reasons now. Thanks for the explanation.

Minor request, would you be willing to remove the line “This creep is gonna end up deep fried”. That line has always bothered me. Also can you explain the motivation for the “I’ve been dying each day since you came back into life” line? I don’t even understand what that’s supposed to mean, especially in the context of this edit.

Regardless, they overcomplicate things. Maybe they’re not as iredeemable as some make them out to be (I’ve heard they’re used well in the book Darth Plagueis), but it just feels cleaner to leave them out since they’re essentially a non-sequitir.

How would I go about trying to use that? Explain to me like I’m five.

The only really canon things about Plagueis are that he was Palpatine’s master who was allegedly killed in his sleep by Palpatine himself, and that he did research into the force to create, manipulate and extend life. It’s heavily implied that he was sort of Anakin’s surrogate force father but that is no way confirmed in canon. Even his EU appearance and species is not Disney official canon. To be honest the story of Plagueis is one of the best things from the prequels so I’d be pretty happy honestly if they brought him in, as long as midichlorians are never mentioned (which I don’t think JJ would do in a million years judging by his comments)

Is this even remotely possible? I’m interested in any information anyone might have on this.

I don’t understand the obsession with making the prequels “tolerable”. Try to make them something you can enjoy or just don’t edit them at all. If you just hate everything about them and editing is just a matter of pruning out the most objectionable things to create something overall only tolerable, then I don’t understand the point of the exercise. Personally, I think there’s something that works about these films underneath a lot of stuff that doesn’t work, or else i wouldn’t bother investing in the prequel fanedit community.

The line as it is doesn’t really bother me in that context. First of all there’s a similar line in the PT “Thousands of senators are under the control of a Sith Lord named Darth Sidious” and also because it’s not really that odd to include a title in a name e.g. the sentence “One of the leaders of the Rebellion is named Admiral Ackbar”

Hmm, well Ilum is canon according to Clone Wars so that makes a lot of sense.