Star Wars - Episode III: Dawn of the Empire

Wow.

I have always had a soft spot for the prequel trilogy (don’t kill me!) and especially for Revenge of the Sith. But that didn’t mean I thought the films were great, far from it; but what I saw were epic films. Films with a massive scope. Films with massive amounts of characters and settings. Film with (believe it or not) complex and intriguing plots. Revenge of the Sith delivered the most on these aspects.

Unfortunately, ROTS also featured a few other common aspects of the PT: bad dialogue, acting, and humor. These things have ALWAYS made me cringe.

Well, guess what? No more! In Dawn of the Empire, they’re gone. These things are excised, and they are excised with great skill. The excision is so successful that, even though I have seen ROTS an innumerable amount of times, I completely forgot where these cringeworthy parts were, and if they ever even existed. There are some transitions that feel a little awkward but they are very easily overlooked.

But to talk as if this is all L8wrtr has done is to ignore his greatest achievement: the re-crafting of Anakin Skywalker’s fall to the dark side. His re-ordering is nothing short of brilliant. I don’t know how I can explain this other than to say: It really works now. His fall is organic, gradual, and, most importantly, believable.

The opening is notable as well. All I could think of while watching it is: quick, and seamless. Quick is exactly what the opening always needed to be, and seamless is what the other fan edits of the opening haven’t exactly been; because when I say seamless, I mean perfect.

I only have a few qualms with this edit, and they all have to deal with the ending:
1. Padme doesn’t name the newborns. I don’t really mind this, but it means that this edit is meant to be watched as part of a 4-5-6-1-2-3 order, which, again, I don’t mind. In any other order, it’s just a little confusing, because it’s never explicably stated in this edit that the second baby is Leia. If you watch in chronological order, you know the whole time Luke has a sibling, but whether or not you know it’s Leia depends on how well you were able to pay attention and deduce from this edit. It doesn’t really work for a Machete order because, like chronological, the viewer may or may not know the other baby is Leia.
2. Removing the final scenes on Tantive IV. This creates two plot holes in the saga – force ghosts and C-3PO’s memory, and it means, because Yoda hasn’t said what he’ll do, there must be a…
3. Yoda lands on Dagobah scene. I don’t dislike this scene, I just prefer the film to end with the Skywalker family – Vader on the Star Destroyer, Leia on Alderaan, and Luke on Tatooine.
4. The final scenes seem to almost go too fast.

Just to be absolutely clear, though, the ending still works. As does everything in this edit. Everything works so well that I think if I were to give Dawn of the Empire a rating as a movie, I would give it a 9 out of 10. As a fan edit, I have to say it is with out a doubt an improvement over the original. A few months back I said, based on how the edit was shaping up, that this was “already my preferred version of ROTS.” Now that I’ve seen it, I can honestly say that my mind hasn’t changed. Because of that, I give STAR WARS EPISODE III: DAWN OF THE EMPIRE 10/10

Would probably give this a slight edge over HAL9000's edit of ep III as this has the Yoda Palpatine fight. Again this didn't feel like a fanedit at all and is better than the theatrical cut.

I always enjoyed Episode III the most of the prequels, and L8wrtr's edit made it even better in my eyes.

L8's prequel edits are my go to version, Episode III is the one the needed the least tweaking; and that tweaking is flawlessly implemented in here. Tighter dialogue, abbreviated scenes that still retain the better parts of the plot and remove the bad acting as much as possible.

Another masterful release, highly recommended.

while i chose Seciors edit for Ep. 1 and TM2YC edit for Ep. 2, you have absolutely nailed it with this Ep. 3 fanedit IMHO. I would specifically like to complement your simplification and verbiage removal at the end of this Ep. III, the removal of the speaking parts made it much more emotionally relevant for me...
As others have stated, your move of the opera scene to earlier in the movie really set the tone more effectively than the original.
I spent alot of time searching out the best episode III fanedit, and you came through with flying colors...
Salud!