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.

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!

Pros:

A. The pod race was quite exciting, not sure what edits were made here, but it seemed better than I remembered from the theatrical release.
B. Young Anakin cringe was kept to a minimum and Jar Jar never got the chance to upset me while still having a quirky personality.
C. Cut small problems that then get solved moments later as they aren't suspenseful during repeat viewings thereby making them pointless.
From a technical stand point this was an impressive fanedit, visual quality was astounding and there were no dodgy frames/cuts, no audio blips or glaring sudden musical cues. The deleted scenes that were incorporated back into the movie added to the experience and development of characters.

Cons:

A. The film has been cut down to a mere 78 minutes excluding credits - there are no brakes here, the movie shares the necessary information then moves on. The end result is a nice action piece where you don't really care about the characters/events too much. It feels more like a recap than immersion into a living breathing world.
B. The final battle and Sith duel seemed cut down a fair bit - slightly disappointing as its one of the more interesting parts of the movie.
C. Cut nearly every character exchange not essential to the plot - this severely affects the character development of Qui-gon and Obi-wan, most of the other characters get developed effectively.

Final thoughts:

Ultimately, Phantom Menace is a hard movie to save, but the editor cut a little too much here, leaving bare bones dialogue which made the film feel like an empty shell. A great version if you're marathoning the films and needed to get this one out of the way fast.

My first review :) a star wars movie has to be at least 90 minutes in my opinion considering the lengths of the originals but I will say that this edit totally made the unwatchable watchable to me. And not just watchable but enjoyable and even awesome!! Also the DVD slipcase for the non revisited edition is cooler so hopefully I can download a high quality copy of this earlier one someday.

After reading about all the Star Wars fanedits and ended up downloading this and L8wrter's editions, his are great too but I like how Seciors stays true to the originals without the fancy logos and menus and focuses more on the film and the story which is what I want to see (as a former Star Wars kid!). Can't stress enough how I feel these versions are the versions that should have been released in the theater!
Now I'm about to review the Army of the Republic too

Last year I attempted to make my own edit of the Star Wars prequels, albeit with limited skill and very basic software. I eventually disregarded my own efforts and began a search for a more professional edit, eventually settling on Q2’s ‘Fall of the Jedi’ trilogy, which was very skilfully edited. However, what Seciors has done here is a lot closer to what I originally imagined for my own edit.

Despite the fact that I hold Q2’s work in high regard, I struggled with a couple of the bigger editing choices – mainly the concept of an un-named background extra destroying the Federation ship at the end of the movie. On the other hand, I agree with all of Secior’s major choices here.

Additionally, the re-integration of up-rezzed versions of my favourite deleted scenes (Greedo, farewell to Jira) and very clever removal of Jar Jar from a couple of scenes (balcony fall, Anakin/Padme heart-to-heart) brought a smile to my face! Although, there is a (slight and unavoidable) noticeable difference in picture quality between the up-rezzed deleted scenes and the rest of the movie.

I really appreciate the fact that a number of the less desirable characters (Jar Jar, C-3PO, etc) are minimised, rather than eliminated. I’ve seen a number of edits which have attempted to remove them completely from the movie, with varying degrees of success. Instead, Seciors has managed to reduce (rather than remove) their impact on the movie, whilst still allowing them have a proper introduction and moment to shine.

The only character who falls foul of the editing process is Boss Nass. With the removal of the underwater city scene and editing of his initial conversation with Padme, he fails to get a proper introduction. Instead, he unceremoniously pops up from nowhere. But this is a minor issue, and is not enough to pull me out of the movie.

The overall effect of this edit is to provide a much faster paced version of the movie, with a more comprehensible story (no more taxes, treaties, midichlorians, etc) and understandable villain (the Federation). At the same time, Seciors has managed to improve on the mystery of the Sith, by removing Sidious and the unsubtle hints that Palpatine is the master dark lord - including the horrendous close-up during Qui Gon’s pyre scene.

All-in-all, this is my favourite edit of TPM and is now my ‘go to’ version. I’m greatly looking forward to Seciors’s take on RotS!

NOTE: This review is based on a pre-release MKV version of the edit that Seciors kindly made available to me prior to its official release. I believe the only difference between the two was an issue that was resolved with the surround sound.