Star Wars: Attack of the Clones ‘Sanded Down’ (TPM Extension)
DISCLAIMER: This is an extension and modification of Octorox’s Attack of the Clones ‘Sanded Down’ edit, which is reflected in the title and artwork. While he wasn’t involved in the creation of this version, I have his permission to share it with you.
Introduction
Hello there,
This edit builds on another already great version of AotC, with the goal of turning it into the starting point for the prequels — essentially allowing you to skip Episode I (TPM) entirely. To achieve this, I placed the Darth Maul fight from TPM and a scene from Kenobi before the Star Wars text crawl. Beyond that, I made only a few minor adjustments like reintroducing some scenes I felt were missing from the original edit. Here is a video showing some of the highlights incl. the new opening scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPzEN3col-E
I’m happy to hear about your thoughts and feedback in the comments. For pure link requests, please send me a PM.
Intention
My vision for the prequels is for them to be entirely centered around the clone wars era. My version of the prequels consists of the Clone Wars TV Show (my preferred viewing) bookended by two movies: This one and my other edit The Clone Wars x Revenge of the Sith.
AotC is a good starting point. However, by not watching TPM, you would miss the cool fight scene with Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, and Darth Maul. Also, Anakin and Obi-Wan’s character introduction in AotC is very weak. To solve both things, I had the idea to begin with the Darth Maul fight. At the end of that sequence, Obi-Wan promises Qui-Gon that he will train ‘the boy’. The next scene is from the Kenobi series and shows Obi-Wan and Anakin starting a training session. By adding these scenes, we achieve so much in so little time: From the perspective of a person that has only watched the Original Trilogy before we see that the Jedi are at the height of their power, conveyed through the fast-paced lightsaber fight; we see Darth Maul, learning that the Jedi have enemies using the Dark Side; we see the maneuver that Obi-Wan pulls off to defeat Maul (mirroring what Anakin would later try to do in RotS); we also learn that there is a boy who is the chosen one and who will bring balance, and that Obi-Wan promises to train him. The next scene conveys that he kept his promise and we see this ‘chosen one’, and it is apparent that this is none other than Anakin Skywalker aka Darth Vader. The short conversation between Anakin and Obi-Wan also establishes their relationship quite nicely.
I guess you already know that AotC is very flawed and there are countless edits that address these flaws. The reason I went with Octorox’s Sanded Down, is that it is my favorite since it combines some of the best ideas from other edits.
Special Thanks
Of course, big thanks to Octorox for his Sanded Down edit and also the creators of the edits that his was based on (namely The Approaching Storm by Hal9000 and The Republic Divided by L8wrtr).
Additional Info
- 1080p (~4GB)
- Runtime: ~110 min
Changes
The following is a list of changes made to Star Wars: Attack of the Clones ‘Sanded Down’. I don’t know about all the changes in itself but you can read more about it here. Generally speaking though, it improves the pacing by cutting a lot of scenes and dialogue, adds deleted scenes, makes Anakin less creepy, the romance more believable, and Obi-Wan’s road to Kamino more straightforward.
- Added two scenes after “A long time ago in a galaxy far far away …”
- The first scene is the Dath Maul fight from Episode I (copied from The Phantom Edit)
- The second scene is from the Kenobi show where he begins a training session with Anakin (de-aged).
- The Star Wars title crawl appears right after their lightsabers clash
- Re-inserted the scene where Anakin grieves for his mother’s death and tells Padmé that he killed
the Tusken Raiders. The scene was trimmed, so that Anakin’s statements don’t come off as too extreme. No more talk of “slaughtering them like animals” and “Not just the men …”. I felt this scene was necessary, to get a glimpse into his dark side and to see how affected he is by his mother’s death.
- Re-inserted a trimmed version of Anakin and Padmé’s droid-factory scene (copied from L8wrtr). This improves the pacing and makes Padmé’s love confession later more believable since Anakin has basically just saved her life for the second time.
- Moved the original creator’s production tag to the end (removing it did not feel right to me)
My other edits
