I have 35-40 figures, plus the following ships/sets:
Millenium Falcon
AT-AT
Transporter
Slave 1
AT-ST
Land Speeder
Speeder Bike
Sy Snootles and the Rebo Band
Ewok Glider
I've been trying to get the Dusty editions from FanEdit for a week now and so far have downloaded 4MB out of 8GB!
This can't be normal can it?
Well it's the best of the ones I list it with, but still not as good as any of the four best ones.
Pre-JJ there are really only two very good Trek Movies and Search for Spock is average at best. As a Trek fan I'll watch any of the movies if they're on TV because even The Final Frontier has redeeming elements, but as a movie fan I can't even begin to defend most of them.
I'm a huge Star Trek fan going back 30 years, and I honestly think Star Trek fans in general have given JJ too hard a time over ST and STID.
The biggest criticism seems to be that there's too much crash bang wallop and not enough moral introspection and ethical debate. The problem with that is that all the best Trek films (II, IV, VI, VIII) have been action oriented, and (with the exception of Nemesis) all the worst ones (I, III, V, VII, IX) have been the character pieces.
Leave the ethical debates for TV episodes, but when you're doing a blockbuster movie I want to see where all the money has gone. Not only has JJ done this with both of his Trek movies, but there has also been nice chemistry between the characters.
Of all the directors currently active, I think only Chris Nolan would have been a better choice (and I don't think they could have gotten him anyway as I don't think he'll want to commit to something like this after Batman).
There is a torrented copy of the PAL version available. No need for newsgroup access.
I watched this back to back with the radical re-edit, so I apologise if I confuse any of the alterations here.
First off - very good job. It speaks volumes that a film can have its running time halved and feel like nothing much is missing - indeed, if anything I think you could have been even harsher with the cuts made. The pacing seemed about right and the cut improved the overall impression of Anakin greatly, especially during the pod race and the final attack on the control ship.
Things I would have tweaked further (had I the technical capabilities):
(1) I'd have given Nute Gunray and co a dubbing, and tweaked their dialogue a little, and I'd have done the same with what was left of Jar-Jar. Their accents are awful so it would be fixing two problems at once giving them alien dialogue. I'd also try to lose the "are you brainless" line from Qui-Gon. It seems totally out of character (the same applies to the "another pathetic life form comment from Kenobi).
(2) I'd have ditched the "are you an angel" conversation Anakin has with Padme. I'd have also dumped the line about "mom, you always say the biggest problem in the universe is...". It's dreadful and would be easy to cut.
(3) I'd have switched in the CGI Yoda, replacing the puppet.
(4) I'd have dumped the bit where they use grappling hooks.
(5) I'd have left at least some of the Qui-Gon funeral footage in.
One drawback of cutting the whole Gungan part in the battle out is that you can't really leave in the final celebration scene, which I always thought was quite a nice mirror image of the ending of ANH (AOTC does the same in mirroring TESB).
As I said initially though, the cut was remarkably well done, and a lot of the editing decisions clearly aren't black and white. The more of these fan edits I'm watching (I think I've seen five or six of TPM now) the more I'm beginning to realise just how poor a movie it is. The fact that you can produce something remotely watchable from the original mess of a film is a credit to you.
Thanks for making it available. :)
Thanks for the recommendations deepanddark20.
I feel exactly the same way as you about the Q2 edits. While I give him a lot of credit for his inventiveness regarding some of his switches, he makes some big decisions that I really don't like (i.e. Cutting the Yoda/Dooku confrontation means you lose arguably the best two minutes of the movie).
Thanks. :)
Nightstalker said it was up on myspleen on Friday night, but there is no one seeding it.
Is there any chance of someone who has the full file seeding this on myspleen?
Up until recently I didn't even know about the fan restorations of the original trilogy, and as a result I'd pretty much stopped watching Star Wars (I have a couple of box sets on VHS (1995 OOT and 1997 Special Editions), but don't have a VHS video hooked up any more). The one exception I made was when a group of us watched all six films back to back over one weekend, and we just used the standard (special edition) DVDs. Last week I bit the bullet and joined here, after seeing it mentioned on the Machete order blog post. Harmy's 2.1 version of ANH left me with a massive grin on my face and I've watched it twice since getting it.
So new list:
Episode I: The Phantom Edit. Don't know who cut this version together, but it minimises the cringeworthy humour and severely restricts Jar-Jar's screen time.
Episode II: I don't really watch this, so am in the market for a recommendation regarding a fan cut. I hate the way the romance is handled but for the most part find the action sequences fairly well done, if a little long. The whole subplot involving C3P0's head getting attached to the battle droid is awful, and if this was entirely cut would be good (in fact, dropping almost all the "humour" in the movie would be a good thing). With that in mind, any recommendations?
Episode III: I'm in pretty much the same boat here as Episode II. I definitely want all the lightsaber battles left in (I know a lot don't like the Palpatine/Yoda fight, but I actually prefer it to Anakin/Kenobi). My main problem with the movie is how overlong it is. Once again, any recommendations for a fan edit that sounds like it fits the bill?
Episode IV: Harmy's Despecialised Edition 2.1. I watched the original version of this soooo many times (it's probably the movie I've watched more than any other). Watching this version was like meeting an old friend you haven't seen in years. Magnificent.
Episodes V and VI: I'll be going with Harmy's versions of these too. I've watched a few sections of Empire (haven't got Jedi yet) and once again, all those nostalgic feelings came flooding back.