Star Wars: Episode I - Cloak Of Deception

Very well done edit. You forget you are actually watching an edit except when the deleted scenes are added because they're so low res but that's it.
I don't necessarily agree with all the cuts but they work very well. The ending battles / climax are particularly improved. Can't wait to see v4.

Other than the original Phantom Edit, this is the first TPM edit I've watched...and I dug it!

Started strong and finished strong. The middle was hit/miss for me. There were certainly parts cut that I would've liked to remain and parts that remained that I would've liked to go...but I imagine that's how it is with any fan edit of a movie you're a fan of. I definitely missed the trip to Otoh Gunga though it was interesting to see an attempt at making the Jedi appear to know where they were going.

My favorite edit (decision and execution) was Anakin intentionally taking a ship to join the fight. I don't know if that concept originated with this edit (as there are so many) but it was just brilliant!

On to watch your versions of Episodes II & III...

This isn't the first edit of The Phantom Menace I've seen, and it probably won't be the last. Unfortunately there's only so much you can do with the film, and it still will never match the greatness of the original trilogy. A lot of Episode I edits take out the same stuff, I don't think there are any that retain all of Jar Jar hijinks or Anakin's oops's. But, of course, there are little ways edits can be different. I don't know if HAL9000 had any original ideas, so to speak, for his edit, but I do know that he has made a concoction that is, nonetheless, unlike another.

The obvious question is whether that is the best concoction. I'm inclined to say no, but I'm not sure. It might be the best there is so far, though. One of HAL's goals was to make the edit feel like it could be a real movie. Much of the issues that plague other edits are the pacings of scenes: they go by so fast that they have no room to breath. The next best EpI edit is L8wrtr's. His edit moves at a breakneck speed, and it's a lot of fun, while still keeping a good sense of the essence of the movie. But it almost moves too fast. Other edits are even worse on this front. HAL mostly avoids this, save for the first fifth. I do like what he's done with the first act - in the original film it takes what seems like forever for the story to finally get moving, which happens when they get to Tatooine. HAL gets them there in under twenty minutes. It's a double edged sword, really. It's great that the film no longer has a slow start, but now it almost has too fast a start. Once the action starts, the audience doesn't get a chance to breath for a long while. But there wasn't much HAL could do about this, and, honestly, I prefer how he's done it to how other editors have.

The rest of the edit is solid. I noticed most of the cuts, but this was mainly because of my familiarity with both the film and the soundtrack. For a new viewer, I'm sure most, if not all, would be invisible. There were some things I wished HAL had left out, and some things I wished he kept in, but this is his edit after all. I quite enjoy the pod race as is in the original, but I can't fault him for trimming it, and I will admit it is wonderfully paced here. I'm not a fan of the inclusion of the Shadows of the Empire soundtrack, as I just don't think it sounds like anything else in the film, but again, his choice. I do appreciate the instances where deleted scenes were added back in, in the pod race and elsewhere. I like that HAL tried to keep this close to two hours. Edits that are an hour and a half or even shorter just don't feel like Star Wars to me.

Well, maybe I should wrap this up now, I've said quite a bit. Honestly, there's not much special here. I feel kind mean saying that, but I think it's okay, I explain. I do recommend this edit. It's not radically different from others. But it does fit with HAL's Episode II and III edits. I've viewed the work prints for both (as I did this one), and they might be my favorite edits of their respective movies. Episode II I know I particularly enjoyed (weird sentence, right?). Anyway, I hope to see the completed versions of those soon. Then I'll have a prequel trilogy that I can almost feel happy about.

I have many a big complaints about Phantom Menace, and was quite pleased this edit tries to fix the majority of them.

Bringing so an incredibly mediocre film in my opinion into a pretty enjoyable one. You can't make miracles with just editing, some flaws are rooted in the script and acting itself, but the effort here is commendable, the editing is nice and tidy, probably unnoticeable for a first time viewer.

The silly scenes were heavily cut, the boring and unnecessary ones are gone too and the movie seriously benefits from not being so long.

Star Wars: Episode I - Cloak of Deception is a commendable improvement of a very flawed film.
Admittedly it has been about a year since I watched The Phantom Menace, and while I definitely recognized some scenes that were cut, there may have been other scenes that were cut that I missed. The scenes that I know for a fact were cut were executed flawlessly and seamlessly, so props to Hal for that.
I will say though, if I have any criticism, it was that there was one particular scene added to the film, a short deleted scene, that I feel could've stayed out as it makes Darth Maul's espionage skills seem rather lacking.
Overall this was a very enjoyable cut of the film that I feel drastically improves some of the flaws of the original, which I while I don't hate, was never my favorite by any means.