Star Wars - Episode I: The Ridiculous Menace

Review by TMBTM — December 24, 2011 @ 6:02 pm

First I was afraid (petrified?) to not like this edit for the same reason some people did not quite like my War of the Stars edit: jarring sound editing at parts. Bad audio cuts, even if obviously intentionals are difficult to handle, even more than bad video cuts. I saw various “in the making” little previews of this edit and I thought: those are fun, but could they stand the long run of a feature movie? I’m glad to say that, to me, the answer is yes.

L8wrtr said pretty much what I think about Ridiculous Menace in his review so I won’t say much more.
There was rarely more than 2 or 3 minutes without a real good laugh, and I have to say that English is not my first language (but if you know those movies you know already pretty much all the lines used here. They are just twisted upside down) and I think I missed a very few amount of jokes.

Some repetitive gags are a bit too long, indeed, (senat and Obi falling from the platforms comes to mind), but I have to say that the pod race was maybe one of the highlight of the edit to me. So I guess humor is a strange thing ;) Many characters motivations are changed in this edit (Qui-Gon on Tatooine was genius) and it really felt like a new ride.

I also think that all the work Frink did on his cutlists for a lot of other prequels fanedits helped him a lot to have in mind all the lines and all the potential ridiculousness of the scenes.

All in all it was a very refreshing way to watch this movie (again…) 9/10 from me.

First I thought about a 8/10 rating because of the audio editing, but really, the amount of laugh during the viewing was too high, it needed an extra point.

PS: please find a way to bring back Rick Olié for the sequel! He was a great help understanding some key scenes ;)

Review by Captain Khajiit — December 24, 2011 @ 5:50 pm

The nature of the edit is sufficiently well established from previous reviews not to need reiterating. In essence, L8wrtr’s thoughts, both positive and negative, mirror my own, though I rather like the podrace. Video and audio quality are good, save where they are not meant to be. The presentation fits the edit well — especially the main menu — though it would be nice to see TV’s Frink have a go at his own cover art at some point.

This receives nine stars out of ten from me too. Well done, Frink!

Review by L8wrtr — December 23, 2011 @ 8:43 pm

The most fanedited movie of them all gets a completely new approach.

At the time of this writing, The Ridiculous Menace is the 16th fanedit of The Phantom Menace that is listed on FE. It is certainly not going to be the last either. But it is the most unique of them all. Where other edits seek to create something better than the original, something that makes it more ‘Star Wars’ in tone, feel and narrative, this edit says “Yippee!!!” and to hell with that.

This edit will not be for everyone. Audiophiles who demand clear and unambiguous sound will cringe at the sometimes choppy dialog with stray and unrelated background elements. If your brain cannot accept this audio aspect, then sadly I have to recommend skipping this. And that’s a shame because this edit stands out as one of the most unique, bold, and entertaining fanedits around. In the pantheon of spectacular Star Wars fanedits, for me this edit has its place up there with The War of the Stars, and A New Hope Revisited.

About the edit itself. What makes this edit a both a joy as well as an amazing achievement is that it is not simply a collection of cheap gags and isolated laughs, strung together against the backdrop of The Phantom Menace. While there certainly are numerous individual jokes, gags and meme-insertions, the true accomplishment of this edit is that Frink has created several new sub-plots and redefined most of the characters. Like a master comedian, Frink consistently introduces something funny, something that by itself is entertaining and funny. Then he builds on it, re-uses the core of the joke, adds to it and then punctuates it later in the edit, where the final joke is not possible or nearly as funny without the build-up beforehand.

To be fair, I do not love everything about this edit. There are some jokes which, like a Saturday Night Live sketch from the 90s, go on far too long. In particular the Pod Race and Senate sequences both come to mind. The jokes in them are good, but the pacing is long and too repetitive, causing the pacing to slow way down. However those hiccups are very few, and even with the slowed down pace, remain funny and entertaining.

As I said before, in the world of Star Wars fanedits, this has a place as one of my absolute favorites. Completely original, bold, ridiculous.

Overall, I cannot recommend this edit enough. The only thing holding it back from a perfect score are the pacing issues. This get’s a 9 out of 10 Yippees!!!!

Review by Rogue-theX — December 23, 2011 @ 4:11 pm

*This rating was given before reviews were required*

Review by Brumous — December 23, 2011 @ 1:15 am

Witness the amazing TV’s Frink as he slices, dices and chops like Bart Simpson with a Ginsu knife. The Ridiculous Menace is a gleeful and manic spoof, a kind of comedic vandalism equivalent to drawing mustaches on somber portraits and throwing cream pies at stuffy politicians. The pomp and dreadful pretentiousness of the original movie is unceremoniously deflated through radical alteration of the personalities and motives of all characters, major and minor. Heroes become cads, villains become clowns, and just about everyone is reduced to a state of doddering cluenessness.

Often the humor builds in layers of ridiculousness until the humor reaches a level of surreality that would do Benny Hill or Monty Python proud. Other jokes fall flat or are obscure, but with the batting average so high and the pace of gags so fast and furious, it just doesn’t matter. This is one funny flick.

The video quality is adequate. Compression makes the focus soft on larger screens but it’s still quite watchable. A number of contributors have pitched in with special effects and those come off well, complementing the hacked and manipulated satiric tone.

The soundtrack has received a massive amount of changes, from new background music to new effects to new dialog. The end credits alone must have 30 different music clips! The detail of audio work goes down to individual inserted words, and this is the one area where technical flaws sometimes get in the way of enjoying the movie. Sometimes the words in a sentence are so mismatched it’s hard to understand what the character is saying. Additional audio processing and pitch shifting might help that out, but that would also mean many more months of work! So, as they say, deal with it.

DVD features are basic, with chapter selections and a few bonuses included to add a few gags. No off-color jokes and thankfully no potty humor, so the disk is suitable for children. Kudos to Frink and his many co-conspirators for assembling the funniest Star Wars Episode One ever. 9.5/10