Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace (Lone Gungan Edition)

Review by geminigod — April 26, 2011 @ 12:51 am

Sorry, but I just can’t give this edit quite the same overall props that everyone else is. I can give you a 10/10 for your creative vision, but this plays out like a rough preliminary cut. There are major sound, video, and technical editing problems that make this movie barely watchable for me in its present form. It got better once we get to tatooine, but I almost stopped watching during the first 30 minutes due to the technical issues related to the re-scoring, sound equalization issues, low video quality, jump cuts, poor story tracking cuts, etc.

That said, I do think that if you get the right tools and take the time to tinker around with this, your technical skills may catch up to your creative skills and result in a finished product that could stand on a video shelf with the originals and some of the other great star wars edits. I really do hope you do this, or work with another editor to help try to bring your vision to life, because I really do think it could be great.

If I stumble across some appropriate footage that you could plant for Naboo being terrorized, I will let you know. It was a good idea, but the BSG footage just doesn’t work, and the music certainly doesn’t work!

Lastly, my two cents on the whole virgin birth thing is that it is crazy to keep it, but that’s just my opinion. I thought that was the one edit that everyone could agree on, but I have never before heard this theory that somehow the Emperor genetically manipulated and apparently conducted some sort of in vitro fertilization on Anakin’s mom. Not sure where this theory came from, but it sounds like a giant stretch that I can’t buy into for more than a nanosecond before I scratch my head and say, “What?!” Where is that referenced? What evidence? If that were the case, why would the Emperor allow the mom to be a slave on Tatooine? Considering it was pure coincidence that Quigon even stumbled upon Anakin, how can this be rationalized as part of the Emperor’s plan? Why would the Emperor not have been training him from birth? Why does the Emperor act surprised regarding Anakin at the end? Rubbish.

Rating-wise, if I keep it simple with 3 categories: an average of 3/10 video, 2/10 audio, 10/10 creativity = 5/10.

Review by Waslah — April 7, 2011 @ 2:14 pm

I took a look at this film just the other day and decided I would share my thoughts.

The Edit is very very well done. I don’t remember any hard cutting, or jumping around, or any of the various strange visual deals you get from many fan edits. On the other hand, I did think that some of it while very well done made for a film that moved just a little bit too fast. By cutting so much out the pacing does seem to become very very frantic in some cases. Some minor changes here and there might fix that.

The new invasion of Naboo is excellently done, and really adds weight to an otherwise danger-less film and I greatly appreciated that. Many of my problems with Episode 1 is that at no point did I ever feel like any of the characters were ever truly in any danger, and that just saps the excitement right out of a film like this. What’s done here, by eliminating the heavy handed and out of place humor that often overtook Lucas’ original version of the movie, goes a long way towards making me care about the situation and the characters in them. A massive improvement in my opinion.

Touching upon the footage of the “Nabooians” fleeing the droid army and federation invasion…it does feel out of place. I might suggest perhaps you could look at something like Star Trek Insurrection which may have something that at least looks a little closer to the Star Wars universe to take from that wouldn’t feel so out of place.

The audio work is my one big problem with this film. It may just be a technical problem on my end but it did often feel like the dialogue and sound F/X were very quiet while the music itself was incredibly overwhelming and often drown out said dialogue and sound F/X. There were also moments where the dialogue did not line up with the video, giving that rubbery dub look when some of the characters spoke. While this only happened now and then it did happen on occasion and I did find it slightly annoying.

The whole concept though, with Jar Jar being the only Gungan, and the re-dubbing of the Nemodians and Jar Jar, is a brilliant one and actually made me like both much much more. The trade federation is finally a villain I can take seriously and Jar Jar is now a character that I enjoy watching and feels a lot more in line with tone of the original trilogy.

Overall I’d say this plays a lot like a rough draft to a great story. There’s a lot of brilliant ideas at play here, and with some tightening up it could be a version of Phantom Menace that I’d happily place into a regular viewing rotation.

7/10

Review by CK1 — April 5, 2011 @ 5:06 am

I just finished “The Phantom Menace: Lone Gungan Edition” and am happy to be the first to comment. I understand if people haven’t quite worked up the motivation to watch yet another Episode 1 edit, but I would encourage them to do so.

I feel that Yads is too modest about the extent of his cutlist, and I’m more than happy to brag up this edit. First of all, I have seen several of the episode 1 edits out there in search of something worthy of being labeled as a Star Wars movie: I think I just found it.

- Your redubbing of the audio and captions for Jar Jar and the Nemodians worked perfectly. The Nemodians are no longer bumbling puppets but are competent antagonists for the film. Your new captions help make their presence in the movie and their relationship to Sidious make sense! Likewise, you turned Jar Jar into an actual character rather than an abomination. He has a small role, but it doesn’t feel like he has been excised. Nothing is missed; he has a part in the film and plays it well. That alone makes this worth watching.

- Your retooling of the film made for a much faster paced story, and this is by far the best version of the podrace that I have seen. About halfway through the edit, you find yourself thinking, “Holy crap, I’m actually interested in what’s happening!” A new experience for episode 1, in my opinion.

- Your decision to completely remove all other Gungans was very bold, and it played out perfectly. Any flack given for Boss Nass being present at the end won’t fly, as there are several no-name characters hanging out at Quigon’s funeral, and he looks nothing like Jar Jar.

- The lack of C-3PO took out needless fluff that broke down pacing and believability of the original, and he was not missed at all.

- You’re treatment of the battle droids was very good. Why Lucas ever thought people would program battle droids to be worthless cowards I’ll never know; thankfully you’ve cleared this up completely.

- Having the freed pilots immediately attack the Federation made the escape from Naboo much more interesting and even suspenseful. It’s amazing how true the old saying ‘less is more’ rings true for your entire edit.

- Having Anikan stay in the cockpit, only helping out by destroying the droidekas, was an incredible improvement. Having the culminating action only divided between the lightsaber battle and the attempt to capture the Viceroy played out far better than the original.

In way of critique, I have only a few things which kept this from being the perfect Ep. 1 edit.
- First, the audio didn’t quite line up during the majority of the movie. Whether this was a technical problem on my end or the result of a bummer download, I’m not sure.

- While you’re idea of adding scenes of suffering/scared civilians on Naboo was very good, I’m afraid it just didn’t play out for me. The clothing they wear is too familiar (baseball caps and plaid button ups) and felt out of place. Also, there was a problem with spacial recognition – I couldn’t tell where they were supposed to be in relation to the attacking army. Great idea, but difficult for obvious reasons. That being said, your rearrangement of the invasion was excellent, and made it feel like a world completely overwhelmed by force, with little ability to fight back. That alone created sympathy for the Naboo folk.

- Two other things you could remove to make this edit perfect: Drop Anikan’s mom’s mention of the virgin birth. Save that for the Lord Jesus and let Anikan be the product of a drifter if need be. No need to mention it. Just don’t have Quigon ask about the father and jump in to her asking ‘Can you help him?’ Also, drop the midichlorian talk and this just became the perfect Episode 1 edit.

If anyone is on the fence about checking this one out, do yourself a favor and download it. It’s a small file, and downloads quickly. See if you agree that this is one of the best (if not the best) Episode 1 edit out there. [Yes, I've seen the Phantom Edit, which is wonderful, but it doesn't go far enough in its cuts as he couldn't have known that Lucas would fail to make any of that garbage make sense in the next two]. Even if my small suggestions remain in the film, I look forward to adding the DVD version of this to my collection and using the original as a coaster.