Star Wars: Episode I - Cloak Of Deception

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.

This is my favorite of the Episode I edits with the exception of the pod race sequence. I think it works much better without the added score. Much of the Death Star battle in ANH is scoreless as is the speeder chase in ROTJ, so the lack of music is totally in line with the OT. Other than that I'm glad to see some of the whimsy kept and keeping JarJar as an anchor for the audience while subduing his insanity rather than just axing him altogether.

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.

While I admire the ambition to rework TPM so significantly, sadly I don't think this works very well.

Quite a lot of times, the rhythm and pacing of the editing is off with scenes feeling rushed or jumpy.
Some edits make little narrative sense (Jar Jar tagging along for no reason and Gungans appearing out of nowhere via jarring (pun intended) voice over, which must be the only use of it in SW outside of Force voices, being the worst offenders I think). Others, while trying to get at something interesting, just feel chaotic (the final battle).
Music editing also needed more work between the newly created transitions as cues often sound just faded at random points with no regards to phrasing.

That said, I counted ca. 20 smaller trims that work very well and would certainly find their place in a perfect edit.
I just don't think it's technically possible to fulfill the ambitions of this edit with materials available commercially to fans and not throw the whole rhythm of the edit off.