Review Detail
8.3 8 10
Overall rating
9.0
Audio/Video Quality
9.0
Audio Editing
9.0
Visual Editing
9.0
Narrative
9.0
Enjoyment
9.0
This is an INCREDIBLE fan edit--perhaps the creme-da-la-creme of Phantom Menace edits.
It's difficult to pick a clear TPM FE "winner" because each edit has its own intentions and each that I've seen has been skillfully executed and most have achieved their stated goals, but given that my desire in a Phantom Menace movie matches very closely to TM2YC's stated goals, I cannot help but vote this so very highly.
TM2YC's goals were to:
- Create a movie that is enjoyable, without moments where you cringe.
- Add depth and clarity to the characters.
- Keep the length up--a Hollywood movie should be 1.5 - 2 hours long.
All of these goals were achieved, admirably. The Portuguese soundtrack was used to obscure bad dialog, and the associated subtitling allowed the movie to go "off script" where needed to clean up a lot of problems and add interest and depth to the characters. A lot of deleted scenes were introduced and the quality of the upconversion is astounding. Some of the edits (trims, cuts, transitions) are amazing. There is an edit during the Gungan / Droid fight that is so seamless, and so craftily fixes a certain unbearable issue in the original movie, that I was floored at the solution that TM2YC employed. I watched the entire movie and actually forgot what a train wreck the original was...I was pulled into the movie and found myself enjoying it. If I had to create a time capsule for future generations, this edit of the Phantom Menace is the one I'd probably drop in.
No review is complete without attempting to lend some critique to the FE. This is quite difficult, in this case, but I'll try and mention a few things so as to have performed my duty in providing feedback to the editor.
- Portuguese works really well...unless you're a Portuguese. But that's an intrinsic problem with the use-an-alternate-soundtrack approach to "alien-izing" and subtitling the CGI characters.
- I think, perhaps, the pod race may have been a minute or two longer than I prefer. It's a great bit of movie-making--probably Lucas' showpiece of the movie--but there's a "diminishing returns" aspect of having the pod race go on for so long. Maybe the deleted scenes could have been trimmed a tad.
- Of course their will /always/ be differences in opinion with regards to where exactly to cut and splice. During the course of watching this FE, there were a handful of moments where I thought that I would have made a mildly different modification. They were few and far between.
An astounding accomplishment. I burned this onto a dual-layer DVD for a friend and told him, "Watch this. This is NOT the prequel(s) that you remember. You'll enjoy this." And that is the essence of a perfect Star Wars prequel fan edit.
It's difficult to pick a clear TPM FE "winner" because each edit has its own intentions and each that I've seen has been skillfully executed and most have achieved their stated goals, but given that my desire in a Phantom Menace movie matches very closely to TM2YC's stated goals, I cannot help but vote this so very highly.
TM2YC's goals were to:
- Create a movie that is enjoyable, without moments where you cringe.
- Add depth and clarity to the characters.
- Keep the length up--a Hollywood movie should be 1.5 - 2 hours long.
All of these goals were achieved, admirably. The Portuguese soundtrack was used to obscure bad dialog, and the associated subtitling allowed the movie to go "off script" where needed to clean up a lot of problems and add interest and depth to the characters. A lot of deleted scenes were introduced and the quality of the upconversion is astounding. Some of the edits (trims, cuts, transitions) are amazing. There is an edit during the Gungan / Droid fight that is so seamless, and so craftily fixes a certain unbearable issue in the original movie, that I was floored at the solution that TM2YC employed. I watched the entire movie and actually forgot what a train wreck the original was...I was pulled into the movie and found myself enjoying it. If I had to create a time capsule for future generations, this edit of the Phantom Menace is the one I'd probably drop in.
No review is complete without attempting to lend some critique to the FE. This is quite difficult, in this case, but I'll try and mention a few things so as to have performed my duty in providing feedback to the editor.
- Portuguese works really well...unless you're a Portuguese. But that's an intrinsic problem with the use-an-alternate-soundtrack approach to "alien-izing" and subtitling the CGI characters.
- I think, perhaps, the pod race may have been a minute or two longer than I prefer. It's a great bit of movie-making--probably Lucas' showpiece of the movie--but there's a "diminishing returns" aspect of having the pod race go on for so long. Maybe the deleted scenes could have been trimmed a tad.
- Of course their will /always/ be differences in opinion with regards to where exactly to cut and splice. During the course of watching this FE, there were a handful of moments where I thought that I would have made a mildly different modification. They were few and far between.
An astounding accomplishment. I burned this onto a dual-layer DVD for a friend and told him, "Watch this. This is NOT the prequel(s) that you remember. You'll enjoy this." And that is the essence of a perfect Star Wars prequel fan edit.
User Review
Do you recommend this edit?
Yes
Format Watched?
Blu-Ray
M