Star Wars - Episode III: Revenge of the Sith [Special Edition]

I recently revisited the prequels to see if I could find versions that would at least make me want to acknowledge more than the OT. While these movies have always been pretty terrible to me, I always believed AotC was the only one beyond saving. After watching a few of the more highly rated versions of Ep3, this is my favorite. There are things I prefer in other versions (most of it has to do with deeper cuts), but overall this one has the best edits IMO. I know some prefer these movies to stay closer to the typical two hour length of most SW movies, but I much prefer the deeper cuts. And, as I said, I think a few more things could be cut. Mostly little trims, but one thing, in particular, occurred to me. Has anyone ever tried to edit the Order 66 scene to remove Yoda's use of the lightsaber? I would prefer a PT that does not have Yoda even owning a lightsaber. My thought would be to edit his reactions to the other Jedi slayings so it is obvious he knows he needs to get out of there. Utilize the footage of the Wookies carrying him off and remove the troopers ever even approaching him. I would NOT, however, acknowledge that one of the wookies is Chewbacca. This is a small quibble though. One other thing I noticed is I would have left in the Emperor on Mustafar. It seems a little abrupt that all of the sudden Anakin is being brought to Coruscant by the Emperor.I'm not sure if you can use the Emperor on the senate platform sensing Anakin is in trouble without running into trouble with the removed Sidious/Yoda duel (which I'm very glad to see gone). Overall this is my favorite. I suspect it isn't getting as much attention as other edits due to it not being available in HD. I would love to see a version 3.3 with just a few more tweaks and in HD. Nice work!

Review by geminigod — June 26, 2010 @ 7:09 pm

flyboy707 hit it on the head pretty well. I too have watched all or the vast majority of the ROTS edits on this site, to the point where it began to get exhausting. I kept waiting for somebody to get this movie right so I could complete my Star Wars collection. Editors like Spence and JasonN would get certain aspects right but drop the ball in other scenes.

This edit, I believe is as close to perfect as this movie can get. It is a solid, clean edit with no technical problems to speak of (I have watched it twice and watched carefully). The audio and video quality is as good as it gets. But more importantly it takes Lucas’s vision and executes the truest representation of what I believe to be the intended goals of the movie with the footage available to work with.

There are many noteworthy scenes that are much improved from other edits I have seen. The ending is the most fundamental and striking improvement, but there are many more subtle alterations that are brilliant. The Mace-Palpatine fight improved, the Obi-Grevious fight improved, the Anakin-Dooku fight improved. More important though perhaps than any of these major changes is the subtle change in my perception of the characters and story. For the first time ever watching this movie I found myself caring and believing what I was seeing. For the first time ever I was actually able to suspend my disbelief just enough to possibly believe that the Jedi could be perceived as the traitors and that Anakin could turn to the dark side. This change in my perception was unexpected and wonderful.

As it goes in Hollywood, so it goes with Fanedits. There are many people who have mastered the technical aspects of making cinema but so very few who have mastered the art of good storytelling.

Excellent work Stankpac, and thankyou for giving me a version that I can happily put in between the Phantom Edits and Adywan’s Revisited.

This edit is my cannon for Episode III, I wasnt a fan with any of the prequals but ROTS was just ok, this edit now makes it very watchable.

I tend to overlook non HD edits but this is well worth a watch and introduces newer generations to the original trilogy saga very well, it even includes an alternate opening from the cartoon Clone Wars as one of the extras!. You can actually forget about Episodes I & II as they really not needed to understand whats going on with this film.

Some of the cuts are a bit sharp but the best thing is that theres ALOT of cuts to really bring down the runtime, less IS better when approaching an edit for this film, and lets be honest do we really need to watch ANY prequals in shiny HD ?

Review from 29 October 2010

Superb, Stankpac, superb. Watched it last night an *really enjoyed* it! Yes, a prequel film, that I enjoyed! Superb editing decisions throughout. Well done.
Technically, most cuts were seamless. There were a couple of times that I thought “hmm, that was a bit abrupt” (when someone opened their mouth to say something, and then we cut away) – but very few noticeable cuts.
Deleted scenes were brilliant – showed Anakins and Padmes separate lives, pulling them in different directions, which made the ending inevitable.
I would have liked slightly more exposition from Palpatine, working on Anakins fears – but, in the end, not entirely necessary (although for a non-SW audience, perhaps necessary?).
I may have more comments when I watch it again, but now I would say it is a *huge* improvement over the original film.

Technical editing 9/9.5 out of 10
Story editing 10/10
Menu 5/10 Menu is fantastic, brilliantly presented, but utterly ruined by the menu movie of Yoda dancing with the troopers. Totally ruins the mood of the film immediately. :-(
Overall film: I rate Ep3 about a 5 or 6, so this edit would be a 7 or 8 as a standalone movie release.

But this is fanedit.org, not imdb, so I’ll give a final rating on the fanedit, not the movie.

9 out of 10 (docked a point for the menu and a couple of obvious cuts – I’ll list them when I watch it again)
SUPERB!

Review by havok1977 - July 15, 2010 @ 12:07 am

*This rating was given before reviews were required*