Star Wars: Episode I - Cloak Of Deception

This actually makes Phantom Menace... good? Certainly stronger than the theatrical versions of any post-OT SW film except possibly Rogue One. There's a bit of unevenness with volume levels, but other than that, my only complaint is that there's *still* a bit too much of Jar Jar, and of Jake Lloyd's awful acting (though it may be difficult to remove much more), and it would be very easy to remove the idiotic force-speed scene in the opening scene on the CIS flagship (a force ability that is used once and *never again* and completely undoes most of the suspenseful moments in the... idk, entire franchise galaxy?).

If for no other reason than the *genuinely good* podrace, I strongly recommend giving this a shot, even if you, like myself, have no affection or nostalgia for the original cut of TPM.

This is my first edit of TPM I've seen, so I hesitate to say anything too definite, especially as I've seen the original so many times. I greatly enjoyed having less of Jar Jar, and thought removing the whole sequence with him worked surprisingly well once I got over my surprise at it not being there. I actually missed Anakin's annoying moments, but that is my own preference. Sometimes pacing of the cuts felt a little weird, but frankly no weirder than the original in some places, and obviously vastly improved in the majority on pacing. Greatly enjoyed the experience.

Awesome edit, watched it with my dad recently, never liked the prequels much. Certainly makes the film much more enjoyable!

Overall, this is a good fan edit, in my opinion. First off, I don’t know why, but the graphical quality looks so much better in this so I’m giving visual editing a 10/10. It makes things look so much better. Secondly, I must say I am glad that the annoying Jar Jar parts are out of here, just like most reviewers say. Before I get into the negatives, which there are not a lot, I do wanna say that this fan edit in general makes the movie SO MUCH BETTER.

The negatives are few but the thing I don’t like the most is the less time in the movie. I do like not having the underwater scene but nonetheless, too many scenes, especially in the first third of the movie before Tatooine feel super quick and fast paced. The pacing feels off at the beginning which really lowered my enjoyment and had to hurt the narrative a little.

Other than the weird pacing, the fan film was great and definitely an improvement on the Phantom Menace. I plan on watching HAL9000’s Episodes II and III and making reviews. So far, so good.

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!