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

I am absolutely blown away with this edit. The Phantom Menace sucked, and Seciors has improved it so much that I finally enjoyed it. Everything was great, especially how he deleted the whole Gungan city sequence. I am surprised how it worked, even though Jar Jar is with the Jedi for no reason, it still worked. I highly recommend this edit, as it's my go-to edit of Episode I.

This is now up there with L8WRTR's trilogy. Very impressive. In fact, though I prefer his episode II to yours, I'd say you've got the better episode I. Just so well paced. It made for an easy, entertaining watch that I didn't begin to zone out of. Even with the best Episode I edits, I often have a hard time keeping my mind on the movie for the duration. You have managed to keep my interest focused squarely on the movie.

The obscuring of Palpatine's true identity was a choice I thought I might have a problem with going in, but it turned out to be an improvement. Still not sure why people have a problem with the "Darth" title, it's used all over the expanded universe, hardly exclusive to the prequels.

Cutting out the entire visit to the Gungan city was bold, and brilliant. It wasn't missed at all. I think you've handled Jar Jar as well as can be done, without perhaps altering his voice in a manner similar to JMB's deepening of Katie Holmes' voice in the Batman Begins Dark Cut. Anything to make him sound less like a Jamaican Elmo.

I personally feel Qui-Gon Jinn's funeral makes for a better ending point than the parade, but that didn't lessen my enjoyment of this remarkable edit. You should be very proud of what you've achieved with this. You've made Star Wars Episode I a movie I can watch all the way through and actually enjoy. Thank you!

Way, way better than the original. It was actually enjoyable! Thanks and keep up the good work!

(I apologize for making so much of this review about myself, but I just didn't know how else to get my point across.)

I was huge Star Wars fan as a kid, but when The Phantom Menace came out, it was "just another movie". Maybe I was a little disappointed, but it was no big deal to me. I think I only saw it twice. Once when it was in theatres and again when it was on TV for the first time. All I ever saw of it since were the Red Letter Media reviews, which I think are brillant.

After watching SECIORS' fanedit, I thought I needed to see the original again though, so I'd be able to actually judge what he did. In doing so I realized, that I loved all of SECIORS' editing choices and that he did an impressive and flawless job in reducing the film to its core. I also realized that most of the hate TPM is getting nowadays is totally justified. What a godawful movie the original is.

Although I always considered myself a movie geek, it was only over the past ten years that I started focusing on things like storytelling, character arcs, character motivations, pacing, expositional dialogue, directorial choices, etc. I believe TPM fails on all accounts. (I also feel like even stating that I'm aware of the fact, that there is nothing that hasn't been said about TPM, is a cliché.) In my opinion the movie doesn't even work, if you look at it as a film purely aimed at kids, due to all the political crap, the pseudo-philosophical nonsense and the overlong action sequences.

Having said that, I think this is exactly why SECIORS' edit succeeds. Halfway through his version I stopped overanalyzing everything and just let my seven-year-old self take over, and looked at it on a scene by scene basis, enjoying the spectacle, just like I saw Return of the Jedi for the first time. (I loved the Ewoks, for chrissake!)

SECIORS turned a bloated mess into the entertaining and easily digestable kid's movie Lucas probably wanted it to be in the first place. My initial thoughts were, that this edit must be every parent's dream come true. Finally parents can watch TPM in less than 90 minutes and without having their ADD kids go bonkers before the third act starts. I actually suggested calling it "The Parent's Edit", but SECIORS decided against it. Whatever!

:-)

I don't know too much about the technical side of video editing, so I'll give it all 10's there, since I didn't see or hear any flaws. I also thought the narrative worked perfectly fine, despite the fact, that 50 minutes (!) were cut.

I'm torn when it comes to enjoyment though. I didn't really enjoy the movie, I enjoyed figuring out the amount of work and thought that was put into this edit. I think this is the best version possible, although I probably should check out some of the other TPM fanedits to properly comment on that. Unfortunately I can't do that right now. It's just not physically possible, at least within the next couple of months. I'm still recovering, you know?

:-)

On a sidenote: I think the obsession faneditors have with TPM is fascinating and I'd love to read you guys discuss this topic in the forums. This is going to sound brutal, I'm afraid, but I think even the best edit is just damage control. Like …, you can get Daft Punk or Moby or Four Tet or whoever to remix Rebecca Black's Friday, but it's still an embarrassingly bad song, and listening to the remixes is something you do out of curiousity, because you respect the DJs, but it's still rather unlikely, that you'll put it on your playlist, no matter how impressive their work is. Right?

Right?!

Again: I loved SECIORS work. If I had kids, THIS is the version I'd want them to see. I just think the original movie is beyond salvageable.

(EDITED: Now, that's what I call a great poster!)

This is one of my favorite fanedits of Episode I, and the main reason is the pacing. This thing just barrels along, with smart choices to the action to make it more lively and exciting. Of all the edits of Ep. I I've seen, this one feels the most like a "Star Wars" movie.

My favorite little edit is the way the Anakin/Greedo deleted scene is cleverly and seamlessly incorporated. A fantastic use of that sequence.

My only complaint would be that the speed sometimes feels a little too break neck. Tatooine especially suffers from this, as I feel like a little more time taken here would help us get to know the characters. But if the material wasn't there, I'd rather it went by quickly like this anyway.

There were a couple of slightly odd Audio cuts and transitions. Nothing was particularly wrong with the cut, but it would sometimes very clearly start or end a piece of music at a point that wasn't the natural conclusion. No biggie, especially since Star Wars movies are so difficult to edit sound wise.

Overall a fantastic edit that's well worth your time!