Star Wars: Episode I - Cloak Of Deception

I'll just recycle my review of Hal9000's Episode II edit since I watched them back-to-back and found them to be equally impressive and enjoyable.

At last, I can finally enjoy the prequels! Years after giving up hope of finding prequel edits that I could really enjoy, Hal9000's Episode I edit has done it!

I watched so many fanedits of Episodes I & II that left me wishing I could get my time refunded (nothing against the faneditors, just the material). I recently realized I had been taking the wrong approach by looking for an edit that removed all of the elements that I disliked, as edits that took that approach never seemed to have enough material left to craft what felt like a full film. Hal9000's edit is more reserved cut-wise and seems to try to include as much as possible to give the film enough content and weight to flow smoothly and feel like a complete film. Somehow Hal9000 was able to include much more of the film than I would have though possible while still (mostly) avoiding the frequent criticisms of the film like bad writing, acting, attempts at humor, etc. and the quality of the edit is top-notch.

There were at most a couple of instances where I felt like a transition wasn't quite flawless, either visually or audibly, but it may just have been a result of knowing the original too well or watching too many fanedits. Regardless, they were the most minor of issues, and I can't even recall which scenes were involved because I was just so surprised by how much I was enjoying myself watching this film!

Hal9000 has elevated this film to a place I never though possible: a worthy companion to the original trilogy!

All of the prequel edits by HAL9000 are brilliantly done and my favorite of those that I've seen. This honestly beats out every other cut of these movies by far.

That said, this is my least favorite edit by HAL9000, but I don't think that's really his fault. This movie had major issues that needed to be fixed, mostly with Jar Jar and Anakin. Jar Jar is reworked to be an every-man character thrown into situations he never dreamed of and doesn't understand. This does wonders to cut down on his obnoxious character, but he is still overly silly in places. The deleted scenes added in help tie parts of the movie together better, but they are still visually jarring from the finished cut, not HAL9000's fault and I think they are necessary, but it is still unfortunate that these are the best versions of these scenes. In later edits, the added scenes feel a bit more cohesive to me. The Gungan aid at the end feels less natural than in the original, but I think this is worth it to remove some of the worst scenes in the original cut. Overall, I still recommend this edit and will be watching and showing it to others for a long time, but I feel it's the weakest of the bunch.

This edit greatly improved this movie, it went from being a pile of garbage that I hated to a movie that I can enjoy. Sure it is not perfect, Jar Jar is still in here but most of his scenes were he is being annoying are cut. There is only one Jar Jar scene that I think could've have been cut but wasn't which is when he zaps his tongue in the pod. The video quality was great as well, how ever in one or two scenes it did seem to notice a small dip in quality. The narrative was improved as well by cutting out unnecessary dialogue and some scenes in general. However at the end of the film it might confuse new viewers where Padmé gets help from the Gungans, this is my only complaint with the narrative and it is minor. The editing was very well done it did not seem as if I was watching a fan edit. However this edit can only do so much in fixing this movie, for example the acting is still not so great and the cgi was not that well. This along with Jar Jar is why I gave it a 9 not a 10.

This edit actually allows me to enjoy this movie, something that I could only do to make fun of in the past. This is how I will be watching the Phantom Menace from now on.

First of all I'd like to say that TPM was always my least favorite Star Wars movie, so it was the one I was looking for a fanedit the most. Lukcily it's probably the most fanedited movie of all time so that wasn't too hard. What WAS hard, however, was finding the right cut. And Hal's "Cloak Of Deception" fills those shoes nicely.

Most prequel fanedits end up taking away too much for my taste, which hurts them both narratively and technically. Hal's V5 doesn't suffer with said problems: nothing is taken out of the movie without a purpose, and 99% of the cuts were incredibly seamless, not giving away that you're watching a fanedit. Therefore, technically it's an almost perfect fanedit.

Most of what was cut here is what originally was the first act of TPM. That way, the trip to Naboo serves only to kickstart the journey of our heroes in a somewhat similar way to the first sequence in the original Star Wars, or the first sequence in a James Bond movie. It also gets us to Anakin much faster, but the edit doesn't go out of its way to make him the protagonist. The film's still much tighter and more focused though, so there's definitely a lot of improvement to his character and to how he relates to others. Qui-Gon's still the main protagonist I'd say, but the movie's not as convoluted and complicated like it was originally, which in other words mean the plot was vastly improved.

However, two moments that still take me out of the movie come to mind, but they're extremely minor: the exclusion of Gunga City, and the added deleted scene "Dawn Before the Race". The deleted scene's issue is quality, as it's clearly SD quality alongside a very high quality 1080p video for the rest of the edit, but it's not that big of a deal. It's probably not as much of an issue with the more compressed versions too. I would, however, prefer something like L8wrtr's version of the scene that this deleted scene is substituting. But it's fine. The exclusion of Gunga City doesn't hurt the narrative in any way, mind you, the only very minor complaint I have of it is that it's the only time where something was cut and I was able to notice. Maybe it's becasue I knew what was going to happen beforehand, but there's still room from improvement there.

Overall though, Cloak Of Deception clocks in at 1h49min, which is appropriate to me. Many fanedits end at something below 1h40, and I feel like pace in those cuts is just too fast. Hal's never gets boring at any moment, cuts out everything cheesy and stupid, while still maintaining the TPM spirit, but only the good stuff. I'd change almost nothing from this, and it's definitely replaced the original when I rewatch the PT. Strongly recommend.

I really enjoyed watching this edit, didn't hate the episode I original as all others because it was the first movie I saw and I entered the star wars universe through this movie.
But this edit removes some of the childish and annoying things and makes the movie flow more gentle across without removing the story.
This is my favorite way of watching episode I as of now.