Star Wars - Episode II: The Republic Divided

this is the best in L8 edits of the Star Wars prequels greatly improving the original. Anakin is less of a sulking teenager and a lot more likeable. the deleted scenes as with EP III are a welcome inclusion as they improve the romance between Anakin and Padame.

as others have said they are some niggling errors that are frustrating. I felt the subtitle to the dying shape shifter (her name I don't know) was too quick, and as another viewer committed a little more detective work by Obi-Wan would have improved the story.

Anakin and Padame seem to know C3-PO rather well considering this character was somewhat shortened in EP 1

the fire place scene really didn't need to be there, without this scenes the balcony scene would have worked as a kind of have they / haven't they slept with one another. as it is it's forcing the issue that they have just slept with one another but it's done in such a clumsy manner

I wondered if the scene between Anakin and Padame after he's returned could have been removed, one of main problems with the prequels is the fact that Padame knows that Anakin is a killer yet she still falls in love with and even marries him. this narrative would have worked well with the viewers knowing what our main character has done while Padame doesn't

the final 30min are fantastic, once again listening to the commentary track you beginning to realise just how much has been cut without ever realizing. bobba fett picking up his dead dad's head would have been a welcome cut.

overall like with all three edits I feel to much has been cut while the other two edits only slightly improved the originals this maybe the version I’ll continue to watch

my original EP II score 6/10
my fanedit EP II score 8/10

STAR WARS EPISODE II: THE REPUBLIC DIVIDED

Incredible. Simply incredible. L8wrtr has managed to turn a bad film into a really good one.

Attack of the Clones kinda sucks. Yeah, I know I’m not really the first person to say it. The acting isn’t great, and the pacing is terrible. L8wrtr has managed to reduce the wooden acting, and most impressively, give the movie a really good pace. My school of thought on Star Wars movies is usually that they NEED to be at least 2 hours long to feel like a SW movie, but L8wrtr has proved me wrong here. Somehow, the shorter length makes it feel even more Star Warsy than before.

Really all the cuts are good. I personally like Obi-Wan and Jango’s fisticuffs, but, well it would really only hurt the pacing of the movie. I use to like the Yoda and Dooku lightsaber battle, until I watched this and realized that there was absolutely no need for it. I think it might have been wise to keep the scene with Dex, as the whole thing with Zam revealing Kamino and then Obi-Wan going there doesn’t play out nearly as well as one might think. I feel like you’re kind of just left wondering what Obi-Wan is doing. I also don’t really like the last scene with Padme’s family, but that might be a personal thing. A big problem though, is the scene by the fire place. It last about 10 seconds, and there is no talking. It’s so short that it’s completely pointless. It really doesn’t do anything except make you think “what was that?” It needs to be either 10 seconds longer, or 10 seconds shorter. The only other big problem is at the end of the scene where Padme talks to Dooku, there’s a subtitle at the end thats there for about half a second. Also, I’m not too crazy about what the Geonosian guy says in the Coliseum, its kind of weird and I think the original dialogue works better. Oh, I almost forgot this little gem: “I truly, deeply love you.” Really not a very good line. It shouldn’t have been in this edit. These might seem like quite a bit of negative, but there’s so much positive that I could spend all day talking about it. These things are really just the only things that keep the edit from being perfect in my opinion. There is just so much brilliance in what L8wrtr has accomplished, but I think most of the other reviews have already covered what makes this edit impressive, or should I say most impressive.

Well anyways, I would give the original AOTC a 6 out of 10. As a movie, I would give the Republic Divided a 8 out of 10. Since this is an edit, and most its problems really can’t be remedied by anyone, I give STAR WARS EPISODE II: THE REPUBLIC DIVIDED 9/10.

Before you kill me for not giving this a good score, just let me explain.
I actually don't mind Episode II. It has many problems, but I can enjoy it for the sum of it's parts. Now, if you had asked me what I thought of this cut about a month ago, I would have said it was the best AOTC edit out there and recommended it without question. But then I had a closer look at The Phantom Editor's cut, and found it made many more creative choices than this. Then I watched Seciors, and saw, again, many more creative choices. Then, finally, I watched Trooperman's workprint edit, and really feel sorry for other edits, because his is so damn good and creative, it blows all other edits out of the water automatically, regardless of how good they are. So anyway, one thing I noticed in L8wrtr's edit was lack of originality. Most cuts here don't radically change up the story, or even the individual scenes themselves. I kind of just felt bored, seeing things taken out, with no re-arranging and dialogue changes.
Aside from lack of creativity, I also think some more cuts should have been made. For example, Zam's description of being a changeling was left in, as was Yoda sensing Anakin's pain. The garage scene is a hard edit to take in. I would either leave it in completely, or cut it out completely. The reason I would leave it all in is because the way L8wrtr edited it, it feels anticlimactic. He just says he killed them calmly and that's it. There's no drama. It feels worse than before.
The video quality was good, not great. It was nowhere near as good as the official Blu-Ray's and suffered from nasty pixelation from time to time.
Audio cuts were sometimes good, but sometimes hard to stomach. The transition between Palpatine's office and the bus landing was sudden. You could hear the audio fade out in the transition to the Dooku deleted scene. The transition between "aggresive negotiations" and the other Jedi was also really rough.
At the end of the day, it is a good edit, but feels like another forgettable cut, with no changes to the overall story. It also is a let down from Shadow of the Sith, my favourite Episode I cut.