Saro49

Hey Hal, I finally watched my first fanedit last night which was your Cloak of Deception. I loved it but I thought you might be interested in some feedback from someone who has never actually seen the Phantom Menace.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been showing my housemate the entire saga; we had watched A New Hope to the Last Jedi and decided to go back and watch the prequels. Now to preface my housemate enjoyed all the original and sequel movies but he’s hardly a die hard fan. He forgets characters, gets bored at certain moments and will lose track of certain details that hardcore fans take for granted. So it really is saying something that he found Cloak of Deception to be just a really good movie all round. I did tell him it was a fanedit but when it finished he could not work out how anything had been cut or changed. He found the plot clipped along really nicely and all the characters were quite likeable; hell, he even found Jake Lloyd a decent actor.

For my part I was pretty stunned by how much I enjoyed it. I have a lot of nostalgic appreciation for the prequels anyway but there shortcomings are always pretty glaring when I actually watch them beginning to end. I really feel like you’ve just edited the film not in an attempt to create something that doesn’t exist or salvage a failed film (even if some people feel that way) but have done what any good editor does; simply cut the raw material into the most enjoyable, clear and dramatic version possible. Fantastic work.