Review Detail

My family asked to watch this one after seeing some clips of ebumms' work on YouTube.

The audio work in particular is amazing in this edit. Considering how difficult it is for other editors to separate dialogue from music and sound effects in most movies in general, and considering that Star Wars is notoriously difficult to edit on this point, it's astonishing how seamlessly ebumms removes annoying moments. To take just one example, watch how Jar Jar's noises are removed when he dives into the water. So many of his edits are subtle that I had to look at the cutlist just to find out what was missing. I haven't had to do that since Adywan's ANH, which is quite a compliment.

For me, it's hard to cut too much out of "The Phantom Menace." I edited a version a while back (since lost) that whittled the movie down to 80 minutes without losing anything important (IMO). For a younger family member watching this, though - someone who grew up watching TPM on VHS over and over again, and knows every moment much better than I do - too many cuts actually end up being distracting. He loved this minimalist edit, and he says it's now his go-to version. If you're coming from the same background as him, you'll likely agree. And kudos again to ebumms for his masterful editing!