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.

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.

Showed to my friends as their first exposure to fan edits. They were really impressed.

I was shocked to find myself liking Anakin, his mom (maybe she feels better now that her son isn't annoying), and even Jar Jar. This edit did a great job of fixing these characters.

The only issues my friends had were:
1: Jedi super speed should be removed from the start since Obi Wan fails to use it later when it would have really helped.
2: Scene with kid showing up to tow the Pod Racer looks like unfinished effects and felt out of place.
3: Friend noticed one cut when the combat was going on outside in the city with the droids.

One friend had seen Ep1 last year and was noticing dialogue bits removed and found it much smoother. I asked him if he noticed a large piece missing but he didn't notice the Gungan city missing until 2/3rds of the way through, "guess it was really important... ;) "

The other friend still felt Ep1 was pointless in that not much happens (Sidious gets a bit more power). But with the Anakin changes it is a much better intro to his character, he feels more like a main character.

I had to decide between this, seciors, and L8wrtr Star Wars edits. If anyone else is considering this, here was my reasoning:

Removing Sidious is good idea but I feared it would be too jarring to my friends. This edit does not do that.

This edit removed the idea of the "too old to train" and removed younglings. This is a great edit to make the Jedi not a creepy cult. Also when they talk about fear in this edit you get a sense that it is unreasonable fear / obsessiveness and not just that caring about your family that is wrong.
This edit changed the ending so destroying the drone ship was important.

HAL 9000 has finished edits of Ep2 and Ep3, so that is a benefit of having a continuation of the same ideas.

Ok. So this is really really weird for me to review.

First let me start off with some back story on myself.

I was born in 1991 and grew up on Star Wars. I think I watched Star Wars and Empire about a billion times (My dad didn't have Jedi oddly enough) and would always get the toys and books and things like that. So in 1999 when a new Star Wars film was coming out I completely flipped out! I remember watching it for the first time and loving it to death. I don't know what it was, but I thought it was just a treat to watch. I swear I must have wore my old tape down to near nothing as many times as I've watched it.

Sooooooo. I was very surprised to find a few years later that everyone hated it. I didn't understand why and defended it like it was my child or something. Even years later and after seeing it again when released in 3D, I just loved The Phantom Menace!

So I was very very curious to see what Hal could do to change for the better a film that my childhood self adored. Well Hal, you did one thing for me. You opened my eyes and made me realize the only real reason that I enjoy watching this film.

Pure childhood nostalgia.

-End painfully long back story-

SO! I should start by saying that the video quality was top notch! Everything looked crisp and clear and even the added scenes looked just fine. There were no obvious cuts and everything fit together seamlessly.

Audio was fantastic as well. I really liked the added music to the podrace, but I still can't decide if I like the new music over the silent tension of the original.

I like how taking out the Gungan city in the beginning really made the opening flow better and help you to understand what exactly Qui-Gon and Obi Wan were doing.
Losing the droid dialogue to make them seem more intimidating was a fantastic choice as well!
And all the cheesy/weird dialogue really helped to make the film more coherent.

But at the end of the day I feel like stripping away all of Episode I's goofy antics and fluff really showed me how hollow and frankly terrible this movie really is. It was a drudge to watch, and this is no way due to your edit! Its just that now that the nostalgia goggles are off I realized that there is zero character development and nothing that really keeps you on the edge of your seat. Its like the whole film was made as a spectacle film meant to be viewed with eyes open and ears shut. Its like the film was just a bunch of random scenes mashed together with a cool lightsaber fight at the end with Star Wars slapped onto it.

So at the end of the day I feel this is most definitely the go-to version of Episode I for me, but all the fantastic edits in the world can't really make this a good film. Just a watchable more coherent one.
Props to Hal9000! Fantastic job!

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.