Star Wars Episode II: Shroud of the Dark Side - An Attack of the Clones Fanedit by DsqrD Studio
User reviews
This brings me to why I'm torn about the edit. I took one point off of a perfect score... even though I REALLY wanted to give it a 10/10. My hope is that DDS might go back and make two tiny tweaks that are stopping this behemoth of a fan edit from being absolutely stellar. So, before I get to my criticisms, I just want to say in plain english: I LOVE this edit and it is my FAVORITE presentation of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones.
Also, a HUGE hats off to his efforts on restoring and upscaling the deleted scenes. I have seen others try and incorporate these same scenes to much less success in terms of them feeling seamless. Absolutely amazing wizardry.
Okay, on to the small things that broke my heart lol.
1. Musical transitions - (Timeline marks 32:31 & 50:44) Across the Stars is such a beautiful, iconic, and recognizable theme. And in these two transitions the musical fade out occurs BEFORE the chord finishes, interrupting the musical flow of the film. The audience is WAITING painfully for that theme to terminate its melodic and romantic voice... but we cut ABRUPTLY away from it. It is jarring and feels a bit like cinematic blue balls (pardon the crude analogy). The abruptness of it SCREAMS that something unnatural has occurred and pulls the viewer RIGHT out of this amazing experience that has been crafted. DDS has rescued the romance of this film... and then... with these TOO abrupt transitions... proceeds to shake it roughly as it is trying to be delicate. The ONLY reason I am so hard on this... is because of how much I love the edit. I want this to be my official go to, the one I show my kids when they are old enough, but these musical ouchies are just very painful.
2. - (Timeline mark - 52:45) I personally prefer Anakin having the nightmare about Shmi and not implying any kind of sexual foray between the two yet, but that's just down to my taste. The editor made a creative decision and I respect that entirely. That being said, there is a choice here I cannot figure out. We cut to Anakin standing in meditation looking out at the sunrise... and we hear a disconnected Anakin voice say: "We could keep it a secret." This is immediately followed by Shmi's pained voice that Anakin is perceiving, and then we go to Padme talking about Anakin's dream the night before. I have no idea what I am supposed to be getting from this. Is Anakin talking to Padme from the balcony while she's in the room saying, "We could keep it a secret"? Is he remembering Shmi's pained voice from his nightmare? Is he, RIGHT then, hearing her again? My brain just cannot put these pieces together within the time I'm given to do so and with the information I am being presented. I know this wasn't the intent, but it almost feels like Anakin's disembodied line and his mom's screams are somehow supposed to be connected... and it feels very weird. This one moment feels like a tiny little mustache on a massive and beautiful Mona Lisa. At the very least, I am hoping that DDS can help me understand the intention here. But honestly, I would love him the go back and just take a look at this moment from the audience's perspective and consider making a change that streamlines this scene. Even something as simple as taking the "We could keep it a secret" line out would immensely help the whole thing.
I hope none of this comes across as disrespectful. It is in no way intended to be. I love this edit and I really respect the vision of DDS. These are two little places where I strongly feel this work could be improved significantly.
Cheers to the editor. I cannot wait to see what you tackle next.
User Review
Hey there! Thanks for watching and for reviewing! I appreciate the high praise and the constructive criticism!
I'm delighted to announce that after recently discovering a way to master the edit in Dolby Vision and with 7.1 Dolby audio, I actually am working on fixing a few more things in the edit (primarily audio transitions that bother me and recolors to get rid of blue screen and green screen spill in several scenes). One of those things is the audio transition at 32:31. In fact, I just reworked it yesterday morning to add a few more frames worth of audio before transitioning to the Jedi hangar. There isn't much extra to work with, as that audio drastically transitions to another scene in the "theatrical" cut.
Unfortunately, the moment at 50:44 abruptly cuts off in the "theatrical" cut too, when Padme decides that she shouldn't be kissing Anakin. There's no alternate footage to extend the kiss, or the music. I tried to avoid using the mp3 of "Across the Stars," as I've found the soundtrack versions of the music not to be masteree in quite the same way as the movie versions. But... I might experiment with this and see if I can make it work.
Regarding the lines from Padme and Shmi, I actually didn't have them in the original version of this edit (I've updated the edit several times since its initial positing on this site). My original thought was not to to add the "keep it a secret" line and simply allow the audience to discover that they kept it a secret in Episode III when Anakin declares that he doesn't care if people know they're married. But then I thought that I'd streamlined the love story so much that it no longer honored GL's intentions. Plus, the secret love is very much a cause of Anakin's fall. So is the turmoil with his mother, which is why I added that line back. Together, the lines are supposed to show the things that are weighing on him as he's looking into the dawn. Admittedly, I didn't 100% feel that I made the audio effects work well enough to make those lines sound like echoing memories. And I've debated whether to remove them again.
It makes minimal cuts, yet achieves at removing some wooden dialogue and achieves the goal of vastly improving the romantic subplot.
Also top marks for upscaling the deleted scenes, I have never seen them look so clear and crisp before!
User Review
As for the movie itself: I really like the use of subtitles that allows the audience to understand that Syfo-Dias was the one who secretly ordered the army with knowledge of the senate. This was a simple, but clever solution to a glaring plot hole. I also found it crafty using telepathy having Obi-Wan to communicate with Yoda. These two edits are unique to all fan edits of this movie that I am aware of. Simple, but clever.
This edit also succeeded in a way similar to many others in trimming/cutting dialogue that really makes you cringe - particularly from Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Padme. This makes them more likeable as opposed to the original version.
I did not agree with all the changes made. For example, I like some of the Yoda scenes that were removed (training younglings and sensing Anakin's pain). I also would not have removed the lines from the Lars family. Overall, this is me nitpicking - the overall edit is great and I would recommend people to watch it.
My overall ratings should indicate I agreed with 95-100% of the edits. The differences had to do with personal taste, but those differences do not alter the movie in a significant way anyway. I will leave the review here because I do believe reviews should be short, sweet, and right to the point.
Great job the editor here.
User Review
There are places where the audio volume bounces around a bit--some of this is just mixing between cut footage, but a few points seemed off without any reason, possibly to cover musical cues. Listening on a full speaker setup made these jumps in volume a little jarring, but only once or twice.
The battle sequence at the end drags a bit, and there are still issues with the source material that can't quite be solved. My partner found it frustrating that the Jedi just went along with this sudden clone army that appears: "Why are they agreeing to use it and lead it?" And they also found it annoying that all the Jedi just show up on Geonosis to get themselves shot. These are not things that can be corrected by the edit, they're pretty endemic to the source.
Despite these quibbles, however, this feels like the film we all wanted. It's pure gold. Highly recommend.
User Review
Just wanted to mention that I discovered that many of the audio issues were due to a render error in Adobe Premiere/Media Encoder. I believe they've been fixed now. I've also gone back to tweak some audio levels in the deleted scenes and redone footage that I added to hopefully create a much more seamless experience.