Star Wars: Episode I - Cloak Of Deception

HAL9000 gives us a bit of a "best of" hybrid fanedit, in that he utilizes what he felt were the best changes made by previous faneditors (including his own set of edits years ago). Most Episode 1 edits are around 90 minutes, and some may say that's "too short for a Star Wars movie". If you're in that camp, this one should be right up your alley, as it's a nice and trim 1 hour 45 minutes. Everybody has their own fixed ideas about what should be left on the cutting room floor in terms of the prequels, but HAL has managed to bring a nice balance here. Not my absolute favorite Phantom Menace fanedit, but by no means a bad edit. Bonus points for audio commentary.

Pretty good edit. Personally, I prefer Seciors' Return of the Sith, but this is still one of the best Star Wars edits.

The Audio/ -Video quality was good, so was the editing. The story was of course MUCH better than the original, which is expected. Personally, I found Jar Jar still kinda annoying. Even though the original was far too annoying than this.

I definitely enjoyed this and I recommend it to any SW fan. While, like I said, I prefer Seciors', this is still a great fanedit.

Wow. This really is a piece of art. The edit is well paced, seamless and more importantly.... enjoyable. Thank's for this edit HAL, I no longer have to watch the original release as this is now my go-to version of the film.

Having watched other edits, the difficult part is getting the opening correctly paced. Other versions are far to fast, but you've managed to pitch it perfectly. It doesn't feel rushed, the Gungan homeworld has been removed and the Neimodians are more of a threat. Outstanding.

The rest of the film is just as good. The podrace is excellent, Jar Jar's annoyance is reduced and I like your version of Anakin much better than the original. My one critiscism is that C3PO is kept in the film, but that is more of a personal choice.

Technically the edit is almost seamless, even for someone who has watched TPM numerous times. There were a couple of places in which there was some drop-off in the sound, but they are minor and didn't distract me from the film.

A must see edit. I can't wait to watch your versions of EpII and EPIII.

I've long been waiting to find prequel edits that I felt could sit side by side with the Original Trilogy. I'm not knocking other edits...its just, as was mentioned in another review, they move along at BREAKNECK speed and don't feel like a Star Wars movie. Having read the cuts in HAL9000's list as well as seeing his run time, I was intrigued. Plus, having to do a lot of re-scoring on my own edits, I wanted to see how he did the Pod Race scene. I'm very glad that I did.

My wife and I had a date night and curled up to check this movie out. Neither of us have seen Episode 1 in years, and we thoroughly enjoyed this edit. Some high points for me were the mentioned Pod Race scene, the evolution of Jar Jar from a character I hated to an almost relate able character, and most of all, Anakin!

In this edit, Anakin is thoughtful, heroic, and takes action on his own. It falls MUCH more in line with the description Kenobi gave in Episode IV than what we actually got in the prequels. I couldn't stand Jar Jar OR Anakin when I first saw Episode 1 (Yippie!!!!) but, as I told my wife when the movie ended, I honestly liked him in this on and was intrigued to see where his story goes. In this, HAL9000 accomplished an almost impossible feat.

I highly recommend this edit. As many have said, Episode 1 has been edited ad nauseam but for what I was looking for in the Prequels, this will certainly sit on the shelf next to the Original Trilogy....I am very much looking forward to seeing what HAL9000 can do to salvage Episode II.

I watched HAL's Ep I last night, expecting an improvement on L8wrtr's because other reviewers have compared the two and come to that conclusion. Not so IMO.

JarJar Binks and his silliness is in there a lot more than in L8wrtr's. So minus there. I liked that L8wrtr added the Anakin fight scene. HAL added the atrocious deleted scene "Padme gives Anakin a blankie on Tatooine" instead. Bad unfinished visual effect and doesn't add up for the narrative, IMO.

HAL eliminating the entire Gungan city sequence works flawlessly so I like that better than L8wrtr who kept some of it in.

While an interesting idea, I think John Williams' original score for the race works better than the editor using the trench run music from Ep IV.

Visually the movie looks great (at 20GB it better) and the editing is good. It is better than the theatrical release.

But L8wrtr's version is better and my go-to version at this point, for this movie. I will still check out HAL's Ep II and III.