Star Wars - Episode I: Return of the Sith: Revisited Edition

For my part, this revisionist take on Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace might be the best version of the film. Right from the new opening crawl, we immediately understand the setting, the stakes, and the players. The recut film moves at a breakneck pace to the point it's occasionally jarring. It's hard to argue with the results, though. With any *other* movie, I'd say this was a problem...but the Phantom Menace really benefits from the adrenaline shot that seciors has given it here. We are on Tatooine by the 15-minute mark!

Almost all the bloat is gone. Most of the best parts are retained and trimmed/recut in places. All the worst parts are cut out where possible. The story beats are light, succinct, and comprehensible on first viewing. Better, seciors' excision of *any* exposition regarding the true mastermind introduces an element of mystery for first-time Star Wars viewers; who was behind the mysterious Sith warrior and why was he assisting the Federation? Something to pay out through subsequent films, of course!

Some debatable decisions: cutting out talk of Anakin's parentage and certainly the 'chosen one' prophecy, but only debatable due to possible continuity issues between different versions of the prequel films. A few deleted scenes are added but one's placement is a little out of context. I think it still works, though.

My opinion is that Hal9000's Phantom Menace fan edit is the best version of the film in the same way that Chris Hartwell's Hobbit edits are the best version of The Hobbit: as a halfway point for theatrical purists. For me though...after my viewing of seciors' edit, it made me wonder if more drastic surgery was *always* required to make this film 'good'.

I had a great time watching 'Return of the Sith'. That's probably the highest praise I can ever give *any* version of The Phantom Menace. Highly Recommended.

Edit: Have watched it again and increased the Narrative score again to a 10 from a 9. Although I never thought of Jar Jar as particularly distracting, I noticed that a side effect of removing most of Jar Jar's scenes/lines means there is no longer any ambiguity on who the main character is (definitely Qui-Gon in this edit). This makes his death at the end of the film a sort of narrative subversion that plays out across the remaining films; really hammers the tragic tone as the Prequels continue (if only he had lived, Anakin wouldn't have turned!). Of course, one can say that this had always been there--but the editing choices here just seem to bring it to focus in a way I had never noticed when watching the film before.

This edit is a treasure. Not to say that I'd put it on the level of 'The Godfather' or anything--just for what it is, it is as close to the best that it can be.

Edit 2:
One last thing I noticed about Jar Jar's dialogue excision. Again, thought Hal9000's approach to editing him to be reasonable (Jar Jar the Everyman stays, Jar Jar the Clown goes)--however, removing most of his dialogue here in Ep. 1 tracks with the *actual* reduced amount of dialogue he has within the next two films. So, oddly enough, it results in a more consistent experience.

A bit of background: I watch all the Star Wars movies once or twice yearly. This time and for the first time I began with The Force Awakens and went from the Rise of Skywalker to the Phantom Menace because I knew from the experience how bad it's to go to the new trilogy after The Return of the Jedi. Just finished watching the Episode I: Return of the Sith and oh boy how good it felt.

Now, I have watched this fanedit once or twice before many years ago and while it was good it never felt quite as good as it did this time. Other than the Podracing sequence it improves the original in every way. The pacing is very good and including some of the deleted scenes adds a nice flavor. The fanedit simply makes Phantom Menace into a very entertaining Star Wars movie.

For me, watching this after the sequel trilogy it's easy to say that Phantom Menace (at least through a good fanedit) is a better movie than any of the sequel trilogy movies. The Force Awakens is still good but it feels pointless to watch it because the trilogy itself is a wreck.

Pros:
- Less of the Gungans. Less of JarJar. Less of the bad CGi overall.
- No more cringy "Yippie" or "Oops" from Anakin. Less bad voice acting overall.
- No Midichlorians! This makes the Force way more like the Original Trilogy.
- More in tone with the OT in terms of humor and droid antics.

Cons:
- The added "deleted scenes" are SD/Low Quality. They do add greatly to the story though!
- The final battle vs Darth Maul is re-cut/changed. The battle itself was the best part of The Phantom Menace.

Conclusion:
THE BEST WAY to watch Episode 1 The Phantom Menace hands down! This edit cuts down nearly all the bad stuff from the original movie. It is and stays the Phantom Menace. You can't change that, but this edit comes as close to perfection for the movie from 1999. If this is your first time seeing TPM, or even if it's your 1000th time, i highly recommend this Edit. It's the best version of the movie. Most people tend to skip TPM on re-watching Star Wars. I say no more! Next time you watch Star Wars, do yourself a favor and watch this!

I truly believe this is the best available version of this movie. As many already know and stated, the acting and actual shots are what they are, making the movie itself almost unbearable for me. Thiis edit however makes it the most fun possible. I did not think it was possible for anyone to make this film entertaining for me one more after all those years. I tried not to think of it as an edit and to enjoy it like this is the cut ment to be and I have to say there is little I would have done differently. Big thanks to seciors and big recommendation to watch for every star wars or edit fan.

Recently I recommended the originalo Star Wars trilogy to a friend who had never seen them, and I sat down to watch the prequels again to see if they warranted a recommendation as well. I was surprised that they were even worse than I remembered them.

Years ago I saw an SD version of TPM by "The Phantom Editor". I thought that it was an intriguing concept, but the low res quality of it put me off and I never really dug any deeper. Last month I dug out that copy of "The Phantom Edit", but was again disappointed. I decided to look for an HD copy, and that's when I stumbled onto FanEdit.org.

Seciors was the first fan edit that I watched here, and he hooked me immediately. The relentless pace of his editing is incredible... this edit makes TPM not only watchable, but actually enjoyable. Almost every transition is flawlessly executed, and I agree with pretty much every trim he made. Jar Jar no longer annoys me in this cut, and I never once felt myself rolling my eyes.

Since watching Seciors Episode I, I think that I've watched three of the other highly rated edits as well. As much as I like them, I keep coming back to Seciors as my favourite. There are really too many good things to say about this cut to list out. What sets him apart in my opinion are his bold editing choices. He's the only one that I've seen that chose to remove Darth Sidious altogether, which really paid off in my opinion. I love not only his editing out the "Chosen One" subplot, but also his clever editing of that entire discussion with Shmi. His restructuring of the final battles come to a much more satisfying conclusion. This edit actually feels like a Star Wars movie.

I only have two suggestions that would make this edit flawless, and both deal with transitions in the last act. The audio transition after Queen Amidala says "everything depends on it" needs tweaking, but that's probably because you couldn't separate her dialogue from the musical queue. I'm not sure what can be done about this, but if you could somehow clean it up the transition would be flawless.

The other suggestion is the end of the "Master and Apprentice" segment. If you could just find a way to extend the beat on Qui-Gon's funeral pyre, the transition would feel more natural. As it was, the transition felt a little abrupt. Again, not sure how this could be achieved with the footage available.

I don't want to sound negative. Seciors edits of Episode I and II have restored my faith in the prequels. If I thought his Episode I edits were bold, wait until you get to Episode II. Who else would have thought to put the end of the movie at the beginning? I can't begin to tell you how brilliant and inspired decision that was.

What I really want to know is, are you working on an edit of Episode III? I hope so, because I'd love to see what you do with it, and I'd love a proper ending to my favourite series of fan edits! My only request is not to add the footage from "The Other Boleyn Girl" that some chose to use. The colour pallets of the two movies couldn't be more different, and although the idea is a good one, the execution is too jarring.

Please do Episode III!