Star Wars: Episode III - Labyrinth Of Evil

As I continue my search for the prefect prequel edits, I was happy to come across this excellent effort by Hal 9000.

Hal cuts down a great deal of the movie, which is very welcome. In my experience, I've never seen an edit that I thought cut too much. His reshuffling of scenes and his use of a deleted scene is quite effective.

Although I wouldn't make this choice myself, I love Hal's gutsy use of a scene from a different Natalie Portman movie to imply that Padme lived and raised Leia. I understand that his goal was to make the lines in RotJ make sense, about Leia remembering her mother but Luke not remembering her. Unfortunately, there's no explanation as to why Padme would raise Leia but abandon Luke. Mind you, no explanation is possible with the available footage. The script would have to be rewritten from scratch to accommodate this, so what could any editor do? So, again, even though I wouldn't do it myself, I'm glad that such an edit exists, both for the uniqueness of it and for those who choose it as the way to fix the PT's inconsistencies with the OT.

The video and sound quality are excellent, and the editing is seamless. I can see why this edit ranks so highly among Star Wars edits. It's definitely one of the best of the bunch!

This is both the strongest and weakest of Hal9000's prequel edits in that he absolutely elevates core of the film by making Anakin & Padme's arcs work so much better, but his cuts to the first and third act are too extreme, which robs the film of a lot of its fun and spectacle.

oh my god this is so good. hals pacing is incredible, perfectly cutting through this story (that originally was bloated not just on a scene to scene basis but in the construction of individual scenes themselves). this is all the more impressive because of the integration of the deleted padmé subplot: singlehandedly making her an actual character in this movie. excellent stuff.

anakin is excellent (at least compared to the dire straits of his official counterpart). the love angle never worked, and the emphasis put on anakins militarism, distrust of institutions, and reliance on the emperor as a paternal figure makes for a much stronger narrative. this edit gives up the ghost on anakin being a misunderstood tragic hero: he is a power hungry, distrusting, and selfish. somehow he still emerges as more likeable than in the original by making him more confident and more emotionally reserved.

my biggest gripe is the removal of the banter between obi-wan and anakin on the invisible hand. mcgregor & christensen have really nice chemistry here, and the prequels need to grab every instance of anakin & obi-wan being friends with both hands imo. i know hal wants to maintain continuity with obi-wan not knowing r2, but the price is too high here. as it stands i still feel like its ridiculous to think that obi-wan doesnt recognise r2 in iv. i have no issue with reading it that hes hesitant to bring luke into danger and just playing dumb. after all, this is the "vader betrayed and murdered your father" guy.

i also wish that more couldve been done to trim the utapau section: it really does feel like spinning gears, and is the only place where this edit started to lose my interest. its very likely nothing more could be done, but i can keep wishing.

i watched these in machete order, and the padme-lives edit is particularly strong for massaging the continuity issue that becomes apparent when you watch vi right after iii. neeson's voice cameo makes machete order more problematic for this edit, but its a minor sticking point, and i cant in good faith say that hal shouldnt have fixed the theatrical cut's baffling decision to have yoda learn about force ghosts offscreen.

excellent work hal. this is a towering achievement, and my definitive episode iii.

Wow, I love this edit. I've always had concerns regarding RotS lack of continuity with the OT, and this edit goes a long way in fixing those issues. There are some great adjustments, all round.

Not only does Padme have a stronger character arc, thanks to re-insertion of deleted scenes, but she also survives the movie. Yoda no longer jumps around like a demented frog. He does one acrobatic defensive move, but that's it. There is even a clever cameo from Qui-Gon!

Well done HAL9000. This will be THE fanedit of March 2014 for good reason.

I have been a Star Wars fan, and obsessive, for as long as I can remember. Despite the glaring flaws inherent within the prequel trilogy I have still seen each of them more times than I care to count and this edit far surpasses the highest hopes I had for it.

All three prequels have been missing a subtlety that HAL 9000's 'Labyrinth of Evil' perfectly captures. I write this review without seeing either of the other '9000 series' edits (although look forward to seeing the other two) and when reviewing this final entry the main point I need to get across is that we finally get to see the descent and fall of Anakin that we have always wanted. Thanks to some seamless and intelligent editing we are given an autonomous protagonist that wrestles with his feelings, duty and fear of loss without any support system to help. With Obi-Wan pursuing Grievous Anakin must wrestle with his fear that he may loose Padme as he lost his mother, as well as his growing disillusionment with the Jedi order, alone. The manipulation by Palpatine is done subtly using Anakin's vulnerability and fear to lead him to dependency. Due to the subtlety with which this is done you get much more of a sense of Anakin's inner turmoil and as such his fall is both much clearer and emotionally impacting. Anakin's political allegiances also come after this dependency is established as oppose to before which really serves well to emphasise that his choices were motivated by his fear of loosing Padme above all else.

As well as Anakin's descent we also get to see the political aspects of the prequel trilogy finally take an intriguing and important shape. Before this edit I didn't have much time for this aspect of the trilogy but I can now see it's value a lot clearer. Not only does it serve to show Palpatine's masterful deception and grand scheme but it also adds a great deal of depth to the role of Padme. She too is made more autonomous within this edit and now appears more dimensional instead of merely being presented as Anakin's love interest.

Obviously as a die hard fan there are some things that I missed and some things that I wish weren't there but they're not worth mentioning as overall the narrative of 'Revenge of the Sith' is now made more compelling, the motivations of the characters and the inner turmoil they struggle with is now captivating and the pace keeps your attention firmly on the screen.

There were some slight changes made to the narrative and I have to say that I love that somebody finally fixed the plot hole with Leia remembering Padme! The Qui-gon voice over was brilliant (no idea where that came from...?) and the omission of the Sidious/Yoda duel worked incredibly well!

And easy ten stars from me and I will be looking forward to any fanedit's from HAL 9000 in the future.