TheTome

Well let me start off by saying I’ve been watching a lot of different edits around here and I’ve been impressed. However I’ve found that most of the prequel fan-edits seemed to have one feature missing that a different had. Example, I love Attack of the Phantom, but its hard to place in the middle of my DVD shelf because the opening credits are a disclaimer as opposed to background info (something Episode II direly needs). Also, it still has R2D2 flying (though I realize this may end up being impossible to remove), something that doesn’t mix with the other five. My vision is to create a version of the prequel trilogy that would flow naturally into the classic trilogy both visually and conceptually.
 

Changes so far…
 

Episode I (95%)

Major Changes:
-Minimizing of Jar Jar Binks.
-Removal of Midichlorians.
-Removal of most of the droids voices.
-Completely restyled the pod race to remove announcers and keep the tension and realism up.
-Major Rearranging to the Final Battle

Minor Changes:
-Removed “The ambassadors wish to board at once” scene
-Reorganized the revealing of Ota Gunga so it takes a little longer for the Jedi to get there, hopefully making it more mysterious.
-Cut the dialog between Qui Gon and that governer guy re-telling us what we just saw.
-Trimming of some redundant dialog.
-Minor scene reorganization.
-Tightened up the escape from Naboo Sequence.
-Minor reworking of the opening crawl.
 

Episode II (60%)

Major Changes:

• Complete re-edit of the Droid Factory sequence. Sequence is about 3 minutes shorter, and R2 no longer has jets!

Minor Changes:

• Trimmed Obi-Wan and Anakin’s opening elevator scene.
• Minor trimming of Anakin’s dialogue to make him less annoying.
• Minor trimming of Anakin and Padme’s scenes together.
• Major trimming of Jar Jar
• Lengthened the Kamino fly-in sequence to slow down the pacing and create a better sense of awe surrounding the water planet.
   

Episode III (50%)

Major Changes:
-Trimmed and re-edited opening space battle to create a faster pace and higher tension. This includes:

• Trimming the opening long shot and inter-cutting dialog.
• Increasing Musical Presence.
• Removing both the Missile Sequence and the Buzz Droids.
• Obi-Wan now gets shot by enemy fighters.
• Obi-Wan and R2 no longer leap out of their ships.
• Overall Runtime changed from 7min to 3min30sec.
• Removed R2 using his jets.
• Inserted scene with them planning to attack Grievous and take over the ship.
• Grievous’ voice has been replaced by the voice from the Clone Wars series. (I never like how he was such a talkative fool in ROTS)
• No Midichlorians!
• Removed little random goofy lines for the droids, aliens, etc. Droids no longer moan in pain after being cut in half.

Minor Changes:

• Removed First elevator sequence by adding in new shots of the space battle before cutting to them exiting the elevator at the observation tower (think ROTJ Battle Cuts)
• Added music to the first half of the Dooku fight, and tightened the editing slightly.
• Removed Second Elevator scene.
• Removed the Ray Shields.
• You don’t see Grievous until they enter the Bridge
• Tightened up the battle on the Bridge
• Removed most of the dialog from the balcony scene. (Think Attack of the Phantom’s removal of the “I hate sand” lines)
• Removed most of Boga’s Barks and replaced them with his heavy breathing so he’s not as annoying.
• Tightened up the Grievous Battle a bit
• Palpatine now talks more about the mystery of the force, and less about the Darkside, making his offers sound much more tempting both in his office and while at the opera.
• Drastically Shortened Anakin’s discovery of Palpatine being a Sith Lord. Palpatine no longer constantly mentions Padme, and Anakin is no longer so bloody slow on the uptake.
• Changed some of the music before and after Anakin chops of Windu’s hand in an attempt to increase the emotional impact and tie it into the classic trilogy better.
• Reorganized Order 66 so all the Jedi die at once.
• Removed Palpatine’s voice over during Anikan’s period of decision.
• Trimmed Anikan’s scene with the “younglings” to make the cut more powerful.

So far thats about it. Future plans include killing some of the saturation. Hiding the fact Vader and Anakin are the same person, removing refrences to Leia. Hinting that Padme didn’t die until later, giving the whole scene in ROTJ where Leia claims to have known her real mother some credibility in the storyline. Whatever else I can think of. I’m hoping to be able to upload some footage from my first draft soon, but for now I’m just looking for ideas on how to improve my project, etc.

I look forward to working with everybody!
Cheers,

TheTome