Review Detail
9.2 60 10
(Updated: August 25, 2012)
Enjoyment
8.0
It’s been a very long while since I’ve watched TPM. This was the first Star Wars film I saw in theaters when I was eight, so it holds a lot of nostalgia for me. Maybe that’s why I never viewed this, or any of the other prequels for that matter, as the steaming pile of poo others do. I tend not to drink the Kool-Aid, so I was never really interested in Star Wars fanedits beyond Adywan’s Revisted and TMBTM’s War of the Stars. I saw the cutlist for this, and decided why not? I was a bit hesitant to see so much cut, but I dove in to see how it turned out.
And it turned out really well.
Throughout the duration of the running time, I hardly noticed things that had been taken out. Generally, this happens for two reasons: the first being that you’ve seen the movie so many times (especially if you’re watching your own edit) that no matter what you’ll always notice the changes. The second reason is that there was an issue with the editing that made the cut noticeable. The former was the case most of the time watching this, while the latter occurred a few times as well. Since I want to heap some praise on this, I’ll get the bad stuff out of the way now.
The biggest time I noticed cuts were during scenes where audio was altered (yes, that was most of it. Bear with me). The most noticeable audio alteration was the removal of battle droid voices. While technically well done, the few instances where voices were cut the droids were still acting as though they were speaking, mainly in the Trade ship at the beginning and then later in the hangar. I was also slightly torn on the wipe from “It’s working!” to Maul’s ship arriving. It seemed rather sudden, but for story reasons, in removing midichlorians, it was necessary.
Okay, enough negativity. Now for the good stuff.
As I said, most of the fat has been trimmed off so well I didn’t even notice it was gone. Basically, everything that was cut. Perfect, except for what was noted above. And while I enjoyed the Greedo scene, its placement was odd. It’s supposed to take place after the podrace and, while it worked to get around the Sebulba subplot, it creates the question of “cheated at what? wtf is he talking about?” A small quibble that is soon forgotten at any rate. The following scene at the dinner table was very, very well edited. Another scene I hardly noticed had been altered. I could list everything that had been changed that I only noticed well after the fact, but I plan on going outside at some point.
Audio was great. No hard cuts (there was one fade during the intro of the podrace I’m unsure about. That may have been in the original version. I’ll check later, which means I won’t). I don’t have a 5.1 setup, but I’ll assume the mix was good. Video I’m torn on. I haven’t watched TPM on the new TV since it came into the house two years ago, so I can’t say if the quality was the same as the commercial DVD. It was very good, certainly not unwatchable. I suppose that’s on me to get a DL version and plonk for the discs. I haven’t yet listened to the commentary, so I can’t comment (see what I did there?) on it yet. But the thought counts, so yay!
All-in-all, this is my replacement of Episode I, hands down. Great effort, great editing choices, excellent execution.
8/10
And it turned out really well.
Throughout the duration of the running time, I hardly noticed things that had been taken out. Generally, this happens for two reasons: the first being that you’ve seen the movie so many times (especially if you’re watching your own edit) that no matter what you’ll always notice the changes. The second reason is that there was an issue with the editing that made the cut noticeable. The former was the case most of the time watching this, while the latter occurred a few times as well. Since I want to heap some praise on this, I’ll get the bad stuff out of the way now.
The biggest time I noticed cuts were during scenes where audio was altered (yes, that was most of it. Bear with me). The most noticeable audio alteration was the removal of battle droid voices. While technically well done, the few instances where voices were cut the droids were still acting as though they were speaking, mainly in the Trade ship at the beginning and then later in the hangar. I was also slightly torn on the wipe from “It’s working!” to Maul’s ship arriving. It seemed rather sudden, but for story reasons, in removing midichlorians, it was necessary.
Okay, enough negativity. Now for the good stuff.
As I said, most of the fat has been trimmed off so well I didn’t even notice it was gone. Basically, everything that was cut. Perfect, except for what was noted above. And while I enjoyed the Greedo scene, its placement was odd. It’s supposed to take place after the podrace and, while it worked to get around the Sebulba subplot, it creates the question of “cheated at what? wtf is he talking about?” A small quibble that is soon forgotten at any rate. The following scene at the dinner table was very, very well edited. Another scene I hardly noticed had been altered. I could list everything that had been changed that I only noticed well after the fact, but I plan on going outside at some point.
Audio was great. No hard cuts (there was one fade during the intro of the podrace I’m unsure about. That may have been in the original version. I’ll check later, which means I won’t). I don’t have a 5.1 setup, but I’ll assume the mix was good. Video I’m torn on. I haven’t watched TPM on the new TV since it came into the house two years ago, so I can’t say if the quality was the same as the commercial DVD. It was very good, certainly not unwatchable. I suppose that’s on me to get a DL version and plonk for the discs. I haven’t yet listened to the commentary, so I can’t comment (see what I did there?) on it yet. But the thought counts, so yay!
All-in-all, this is my replacement of Episode I, hands down. Great effort, great editing choices, excellent execution.
8/10
A