Star Wars 30's Silent Edition Part 1 - Dusty Version

Best Ever

I loved this edit. As a huge fan of silent film, this edit married two of my favorite things: Star Wars and Silent serial adventure movies. I loved the narrative, the three movies really felt like one film - in the style of the silent serial Les Vampires from 1915. There were really smart editing choices that were made available due to the silent nature of the project, but my one disappointment is that Battle of the Heroes was not used to accompany the fight between Anakin and ObiWan. But that's a small quible. The film was excellent.

I have never enjoyed the Star Wars Pre-Quals in any form they have been released in, and believe i've tried very hard to enjoy them. There is just so much horribleness in them that finding the fun in them is dam near impossible.

However, thanks to some INCREDIBLE editing and a simply inspired concept I can now enjoy the entire saga by watching the Pre-Quals in this brilliant fan edit.

So much care has gone into making this a wonderful experience and it's the small touches that really set it off. I fell in love instantly when you start to notice the Film Tinting used to give a characteristic color scheme to each scene. Making Tatooine in Sepia while putting Naboo into a pale green just really sold the whole idea.

I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, this edit is just amazing and it has now become tradition for me to watch it every year on May the 4th.

Fantastic idea, pretty good execution.

Star Wars was designed partly in imitation of old space opera serials, and Lucas has always been primarily a visual storyteller (hence the lack of concern with good dialogue) influenced by silent film (watch Metropolis), so it makes perfect sense to make this into a silent serial.

Things I loved:
-It looks fantastic: reduced frame rate, dust and scratches, etc. Very fun.
-It's under an hour, which makes this an easy watch and easy to sell friends on.
-The editing decisions were overall excellent.
-It's amazing how fond I am of some of the characters when I don't have to hear them talking.
-Some of the dialogue cards are absolutely hilarious.
-I just love silent films: You can talk with people the whole time while you watch them.

Things I didn't love:
-The typeface on the dialogue cards looks terrible.
-The opening crawl had some weird pixelization.
-Reduced frame rate takes its toll on lightsaber battles.

Review by ThrowgnCpr — April 21, 2009 @ 6:21 pm

I really wanted to get into this, but just couldn’t. I found the concept fascinating. However, after popping the disc into my player, I didn’t last long. I think the combination of the uber-modern look and feel of the prequels didn’t feel right in this format. Also, I found the dialogue cards to be a bit much. I was working to read the cards quickly enough to keep pace with the edit. I think an edit more focused on the action and elements to tell the story, and less on the actual dialogue would have been more successful. Kudos to TMBTM for giving this a go. It just wasn’t for me at all. People seem to be enjoying this though, so maybe others can get a good experience here. Though I can’t really recommend this to anyone based on my experience.