Star Wars - Episode III: Dark Force Rising

In his desperation to save Padmé, where he failed to save his mother, Anakin trusts the only friend he thinks he has, Palpatine. Like so many heroes before him, Anakin brings his own worst nightmares upon himself.

The brilliant reinsertion of Padmé as one of founders of the rebellion, adds a greater depth to her character, as well as her relationship with Anakin. It is only natural, given the previous two films, that Padmé would have doubts about the Republic. Anakin now not only fears Padmé’s death, but also her betrayal.

The Finale is no longer Jedi against Sith, but friend against friend. Obi-wan's goal is not to kill Anakin, but to save him. Obi-wan’s love for Anakin is an erie contrast to Anakin’s hate. The battle is personal, paralleling well with their final duel in A New Hope.

Kerr’s Dark Force Rising takes a good movie and makes it great. It is quick and fast paced, effectively removing or altering much of the unneeded dialogue. My only real complaint–it's a great movie that ends too soon.

DVD was great quality. Editing was smooth but some of the audio felt unbalanced at times. It could have been my 2.0 setup, sometimes the sound would drop down dramatically and then back up like as if the music was cut from the front channels abruptly but kept in the rear.

This was a pretty excellent Episode 3 edit. Only complaint I have is that the first half felt off narratively, it’s mainly a problem of the source movie though.

Emperor reveal was remarkable. That scene is now canon for me. I have officially forgotten how it happened in the theatrical.

A/V Quality - 9
Editing - 10 visual, 8 audio
Narrative - 9
Enjoyment - 9 (original is 6)

Recommended drink: Irish Coffee

Review by geminigod — April 26, 2011 @ 1:54 am

A lot has already been said, but I have a few things to add. 1st, On a separate but related philosophical note, I think it is interesting how fanedits evolve with some popular movies such as this. Editors build on the work previous editors do, which is understandable and mostly fine, however there probably should be some recognition in these situations of those influences that have come before us. Like or hate George Lucas, he deserves credit for his work. Likewise so do other editors that contributed in some indirect or direct way to an individual’s final cut. Fanediting is an odd business, but it is ultimately no different than any other artistic or scientific endeavor, except that of course there won’t be any lawsuits. When I watch Spence’s version of ROTS (or was it HAL9000′s??) he paved the way for how the end anakin obiwan fight scene should play out. Then there was Stankpac’s edit of ROTS that incorporated Spence’s work (who credited him for it), and then proceeded to lay out a bold vision for how the rest of the movie should play out. His work on the opening is particularly noteworthy. But really when you compare Stankpac’s edit with this scene-for-scene, it is clear that Stankpac inspired much of the work presented here. Not saying what Kerr has done here is bad, but I am just saying what noone else has said and give credit where credit is due.

Now, regarding the specifics of new changes Kerr has made, the good news is that I think his additions and changes to scene arrangement did ultimately succeed in his stated primary goal of trying to make Anakin seem like a little less of a tool and more of a victim, so props for that! I am not going to dissect each scene here, but suffice it to say that there were some changes Kerr has made from Stankpac’s version that I liked and some I didn’t like. The one I will mention that most stands out in my mind (probably because it was one of the last) that annoyed me was how Anakin turns off his lightsaber and turns his back on Obiwan. I also preferred Stankpac’s arrangement of the end epilogue sequences, although once again both are very, very similar.

You definitely deserve some credit from an audio editing standpoint. Your tinkering with sound effects and voice over work, did not go unnoticed, and I mostly enjoyed that aspect. On the other hand, your edit is only in 2.0 stereo, which was disappointing for me.

Video resolution/compression quality I thought was quite good for a SL DVD, though it looked as if you were missing a bit of contrast in the whites and blacks? It certainly didn’t look bad, but I can’t help but wonder if a bit of clipping occurred in these ranges at some point in your editing workflow.

Video quality: 8/10
Sound quality: 8/10
Creativity/originality: 6/10
Technical editing work: 9/10