Hey, I’ve grown more and more disenchanted with the prequels over time, but especially since the Episode 1 re-release from a while back. Still, I think the prequels have several redeeming virtues. Specifically, the music and the visuals.
Related to that, I’m starting to think the prequels work best only in vague, abstract terms. Any attempt to define the trilogy’s back story is ultimately destined for disappointment, I think.
Because of this stuff, and because Lucas has said again and again, that his films work best as “silent films” where the music and the visuals carry the majority of the story, I thought it might be worthwhile to throw prequel footage together set to music but with all other sound stripped out. The results have been kind of interesting. The themes and story points come across as clearly as they can under the circumstances but it’s been really amazing to watch the movies without getting bogged down in George’s trademark overly lyrical dialogue, his boner for deleting all exposition from his scripts, midichlorians, Jar Jar, all that stuff.
It doesn’t work perfectly for all of the movies (especially significant chunks of Attack of the Clones) but it’s better than I would’ve thought at first blush. But this isn’t really a “fan edit” in my mind. Still, were I to toss this stuff on YouTube or Vimeo, would any of you be the least bit interested?
Also, I realize other people have done “silent movie” editions as well. But I think they mostly combined all three prequels into one movie and they also went for some kind of black and white approach. What I’ve done is stick with the original DVD video but only put in music. So this is slightly different from what those other editors are up to.