Review Detail

********** This Review Contains Spoilers ************

Let’s get the important stuff out of the way first. DOTE is by far the best Episode III edit I’ve ever seen! It works on every level and turns this movie into one of the best Star Wars films hands down. The movie did such an amazing job of making Anikan a powerful decisive leader, it almost made Hayden Christensen seem like a good actor. I was shocked by much I really believed that he was becoming Lord Vader, and that his beliefs and ideals were turning him to the dark side as much as his anger and jealousy. L8WRTR’s vision of this movie is stunning to behold and a must have for anyone’s SW collection.

From the very beginning it was clear that this movie was going to focus as much screen time as possible to making Anikan’s turn to the dark side believable, which is the way it should have always been conceived. The initial confrontation between Dooku and Anikan really sets the tone by having him furiously avenge his fallen master. It would have been only that much sweeter if Anikan had yelled something along the lines of “no, Master” out of concern after Dooku collapses the platform onto Obi Wan.

The fight editing was superb, one of my favorite parts was Palpatine’s quick transition into what I’ll call his ‘Sith Form’ during his confrontation with Mace Windu. I thought you did an amazing job with the Palpatine Yoda fight, I don’t care what anyone says, this scene needs to be included for Yoda to have any kind of resolution. The only thing I would have done differently here was to cut the lightsaber section just a tad more so that as the senate platform rises the viewer never sees the fight from a close up angle. Otherwise I thought Yoda’s defeat and subsequent exile was terrific. I felt Obi Wan and Anikan’s fight could be shortened a bit more. Some of the scenes where they are wrestling early on just seem unnecessary and the fight is plenty long without it. Anikan’s shocking defeat at the end works so much better now. I thought that was an amazing cut!

All of the sequences leading to the birth of the rebellion are extremely well executed. A common criticism of the prequel trilogy is that they focus too much on politics, and I used to agree with that. However the way you’ve focused these scenes and removed the filler has made the political half of this movie extremely engaging. It’s important in this film to make the viewer care about what is happening on the political side because if they don’t, then Anikan’s turn and the setup for “A New Hope” doesn’t work at all.

The rest of this review is going to be nit picky, but these are just my opinions and it should be stated again that this movie is amazing on every level.

The scenes following Order 66 that show all the major players moving into position for the finale seemed a bit rushed. I don’t exactly recall how it played out in the original film, but there were just too many cuts all happening too quickly for my taste.

The birthing scene I also thought was extremely well done, I just wish you had excluded Senator Organa’s scene with Leia at the end. It is too much of a spoiler if you watch the movies in the order intended, but it works just fine if you watch the movies in Machete Order. If you leave this scene out it almost makes it seem like just the one child survived, but since that is never stated it makes it a great surprise for ROTJ.

I happily give this film a 10 out of 10. This is a great triumph of the Fanedit community and I encourage everyone who has been looking for a “definitive version” to dive into this film just one more time.