Star Wars: Episode II - The Approaching Storm

It's been a couple of years since I saw this fanedit. I won't see it again anytime soon but I still remember it quite well. Here's a pros/cons list I made for myself after I saw it:

+ Good image quality
+ Better Obi Wan - Anakin dialogue
+ Yoda more serious
+ Droid Factory scene cut
+ Younglings were cut

+- Padme family scene
+- Obi Wan humor scaled down

- No Yoda lightsaber fight
- Anakin telling Padme that he killed the Tusken Raiders was cut

---------------

I did enjoy the fanedit quite a lot. I always kinda liked the Yoda VS Dooku lightsaber duel but I understand perfectly why it was cut out. Unfortunately HAL 9000 took out one of my favorite moments of the movie too, and that's the one when Anakin tells Padme about killing the Tusken Raiders. I always felt it's a very nice portration of Anakin starting to shift to the Dark Side.

Though I consider Labyrinth of Evil to be the best movie in Hal9000's prequel trilogy, I consider this to be his greatest achievement with the prequels. Attack of the Clones is by and far, my least favorite Star Wars movie. It dissapoints basically throughout the entire runtime. At least the Phantom Menace had Qui-Gon, the pod race, and Duel of the Fates. But boy oh boy did Hal improve the hell out of this film. First things first, the BEST thing about his edit is how much he improves the character of Anakin. No longer is he a whiny and unlikable protagonist. In The Approaching Storm Anakin is a honorable and compassionate person who you come to care for. The relationship between him and Obi-Wan is improved a ton. Hal accomplishes this by trimming all the bickering between the two. And the romance is soooooo much better. I can't say enough how much better it is. It used to be so cringeworthy but with the addition of some deleted scenes, the removal of entire scenes, and narrative restructuring, the romance is now believable and well executed. Everything just works so much better in this version of the film. I give this fanedit the HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION.

This is another masterful edit and like HAL9000's TPM, the definitive edit of AotC. What I like best about it is that it ruthlessly cuts out Anakin's whininess, which is absolutely necessary because what the PT failed to do, but needed to do, was make Anakin look like a badass (rather than a baby), but who struggled to deal with loss (again, not a baby). Since the PT is ultimately about Anakin being lured to the dark side, and this edit does the best job of not making Anakin look like a sniveling little weenie, that makes The Approaching Storm the superior effort.

I used to like Q2's edit of Ep. II the best, but in the end, I think he's a little too liberal with his cuts. I also don't agree with the over all philosophy behind his edits. However, I am torn on who handled Anakin and Padme's romance better. Q2 saved their first kiss until near the end, whereas HAL9000 had them kiss somewhere in the middle. I think Q2's approach is believable, even preferable, given that Anakin, as a Jedi, is forbidden from having a romantic relationship with her, so they would only give in when they believed they are about to die. The placement of HAL9000's kiss is also awkward, and it's immediately obvious that filters have been used to make it look like nighttime.

Some other nitpicks is that I know that casual fans of Star Wars generally like it when Yoda uses his lightsaber, and I don't know why hardcore fans have a problem with it. Yes, I've heard the reasons, but Yoda is a Jedi, which means he owns and knows how to wield a lightsaber. It only makes sense that he would use it from time to time, so what's the problem here? I also think Obi Wan's fight with Jango Fett with some of the kicks, etc., looks silly and could have used a trim. Other than that, this is a great edit.

I really enjoyed this one, however a few scenes might have been cut to short, they kinda got rid of the yoda fight which might have been somewhat cheese, but it was still fun to watch. this guy did amazing edits tho and much credit is due!

Overall, this was a very masterful edit of one of my least favorite movies of all time, making it very watchable, and in fact, rather enjoyable. I felt like this was the first time I actually bought the whole relationship with Padme and it didn't feel forced at all. Amazing! The only story bit that seemed weird was Padme and Anakin coming to rescue Obi-wan. I liked the idea of cutting the "adventure scene" here, but without it, it all felt really... rushed... how did Dooku know they were there, how did they know where to go to see Dooku, why were they prisoners AFTER that? etc. Great idea, and probably the best that could be done with what was available, but I think I would have rather kept the other scene.

The editing seems really well done, as nothing seemed out of place or weird, and the sound was good. I did have one quibble with the otherwise masterful editing apparent on this movie: during the fight with Dooku there is like a frame or two of Anakin injured that flashes up on the screen right before it transitions to Padme (1:33:48) which I'm guessing is where that section of film originally lived before it got moved to a little while later. It may have been intentional, but it didn't seem it to me. It also seemed to be the exact same footage, which makes me think it was an error.

Altogether though, this was a fantastic edit that easily replaces the original in my opinion, and so far a great prequel trilogy from Hal9000!