Did you read about the Spanish Phantom Edit? The idiot cut out the scene where Qui-Gon and Maul are seperated by the energy doors because he said it made the fight more dramatic! That was one of the coolest scenes in the whole film! Qui-Gon gets down and meditates while Maul prowls around like a caged animal. It rocked.
And he cut out the oos and aaahs from Anakin while he was flying the Naboo ship so that it looked like Anakin knew what he was doing. He didn't know what he was doing! That's the whole point of him acting like that when he was flying the ship. He didn't know how to fly it!!!!
Then he completly cut out Jar Jar from the end battle. So Jar Jar just dissapears without an explanation at the end of the film.
I agree with you 100%. That scene was genuis. And it made it more dramatic because when the doors open again, the music stops. Meaning that you just hear the clash of Maul and Qui-Gon's sabres before he dies.
I'm now starting to think that these fan edits are a good idea, because they are going to make people appreciate the real version.
I would even consider going as far as saying that scene was the only one in the entire movie that showed anything even approaching characterisation. But that would horribly unfair and open to abuse.
It's the key scene in the film, IMHO - the Duel of the Fates, as the theme is named, the decisive moment where Anakin's destiny is entirely in the hands QuiGon, ObiWan and Maul. Excellent stuff.
i don't think that fight put anakins fate in the hands of those 3, i suspect anakin would've turned anyway, even with qgj training him. It was probably his destiny. but it was the best scene in the film.
__________________ why would birds want to have sex with bees ??? surely the birds would get stung and the bees would get eaten?
"i don't think that fight put anakins fate in the hands of those 3" =
If Maul hadn't died the Emperor wouldn't have been able to take a new apprentice and Anakin wouldn't have been pursued as a Sith. There's his fate in the hand of the three duellers...
Ironic really, and it makes you wonder if the Emperor sent Maul to his death so that he could approach Anakin...
Nah. I think Anakin was totally unexpected in EVERYONE'S plans. Qui-Gon got the ball, but dropped it. Obi-Wan will do the same; Palpy will be the one who makes it stick.
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"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
Okay, MESA BACK. Thanks for those who stuck up for me in my absence.
I want to clear one thing here, one BIG thing. TPE was NOT, I stress NOT, sold to anyone. This was a disappointed fan who did this in his spare time, sent a copy to Lucas and it ended up somehow on the net.
I have re-edited documentaries of other acclaimed directors myself (WITH their approval) and I know a little about how cutting or re-cutting can actually improve someone's vision. IMHO I think the Phantom Editor did a great job. He cut story redundancy and improved Anakin's character. No more Oopses, "This is not good", Yippee's. We get a confident young pilot with a slightly discernible darkish side to him (they did a hell of a job on the Jedi Council scene).
Now, I'm not saying it's flawless. I have my doubts about certain things that were cut, but on the whole I do think it's a lot better, better overall pace and more to the point. The Bongo scene is cut entirely except for departure and arrival. And since JarJar becomes a side character, the scene looses its relevance and frankly I can't say I miss JarJar. There's a bit of him left, enough to make him a character but enough was removed to make him not so annoying.
The Spanish cut is indeed nonsense. It's one of the best scenes in the film, that with the sliding doors. I do wonder if the timing was correct though, that bothered me a bit. QGJ and Maul get almost entirely to the end from the first time they close while fighting. OB1 runs (!) when the doors open and he doesn't make it to the end. Of course the separation was necessary but it does look a tad awkward.
And mind you, all this guy had was the VHS. I also recut docs from the Master with no additional material. It requires quite a bit of creativity to re-edit that. I mean, you can't make a shot a tad longer. You can't make other transitions like the SW wipes, because the original cuts don't allow enough time for that. So there are a lot of restrictions. Considering that and what could have been done with ALL the material available, I'm sure TPM could have been a lot better. I mean, storywise all the ingredients are there. But which ones are relevant, what is eye candy and how much do you need of either of them.
Queeq, Lucas had the best people working on this film. Everything that was in the film was there for a reason.There were plenty of things I didn't like at first and plenty of things I would have cut. I didn't understand the whole "hand-maiden" thing but now I know about AOTC, I can see why they were there. NOBODY can edit that film any better. Mainly because they don't know why certain decisions were taken.
Lucas was editing this film with the other two in mind. A guy editing TPM in his house doesn't. Therefore he just edits it to HIS liking.
Making Anakin more confident is a perfect example. In TPM Anakin didn't know how to fly the ship, that's why he was so nervous and erratic. If he was confident then you'd have to ask "How does he know how to fly the ship?".
Giving him more darkness is another bad idea. In TPM Anakin doesn't have any REAL darkness in him. Not more than anyone else anyway. As Qui-Gon says "He gives without any thought of reward". He's meant to be the perfect little kid. Nothing bad happens to him in TPM so why would he have darkness and anger?
He's just left his mother but she's still alive. He has NO reason to be angry.
You say that you didn't miss Jar Jar. That's fine. But he will be in AOTC and Ep3. Isn't that going to seem strange when in the Phantom Edit he is reduced to a minor character? Jar Jar will have an important part to play in the next two films whether you like him or not.
I only saw the PE once but all I did was want to watch the real version, because in my opinion the Phantom Edit misses the point completly.
Maybe he had the best people working for him, but TPM is definately NOT the best of all four SW films. So that didn't do the trick.
Of course people can edit it better. Everything can always be done better.
Mind you, a first cut usually amounts to about3-4 hours. So they cut a lot. And sometimes you "mean" to say stuff, but if it doesn't work out well in the down cut version, you might consider dropping it all together. That's the "kill your darlings" principle.
And I don't think the TPE is affecting the story of the next two. Anakin is still Anakin. JarJar is still JarJar but a bit more a credible character to become Senator. I doubt we'll see the goober fish and the sando aquamonster again, so no loss there. He just made a better pace, and this guy is a great SW fan with the OT imprinted in his brain. His work showed he knows his stuff, it was NOT amateur work.
OB1 quote from ANH: "When I met your father, he was an insecure, fumbling boy who did his first steps in flying, who just had some beginner's luck." OOOOPPPPSSSS. No that's not it, it's: "When I met your father, he WAS ALREADY A GREAT PILOT!!!!!!!!!!!" The TP editor made OB1 be correct.
He just knows how to fly a ship, he was the ONLY human to fly a pod racer, he picks up stuff easily and Olie told him how a space ship works. ("You catch on pretty quick.") Anakin is special at piloting and in the Force. TPM failed to show that.
And the TPE did not show "more darkness", it showed a bit more how the seeds of his darkness were sown. 1. By leaving his mother (fear of loosing her etc.) 2. By being treated insensitively by the JC. This is where the seeds for his anger are sown. It has to happen sometime. And it's not so direct, no so explicit, it's just vaguely there.
Not important, minor. Everyone has said that so far, JarJar has a minor role. Much like Chewie, he wasn't an indepth character, but he was always there. Same with JarJar, he's there, but he's a minor character, so that ties in nicely with episode 2. What of all the things cut from JarJar do we really need to see or know for his functioning as a senator? That he's no longer a fumbling idiot? If he isn't that so much in the first place, then there is no problem either.
I never said it was but how can anyone edit the film better than the man who made it? He knows exaclty why everything was the way it was. A fan in his house editing doesn't.
Better for you. Not better for the story.
But they're not the Anakin and Jar Jar that Lucas wrote. Who knows what Jar Jar will be like in AOTC? Maybe he will be a really really bad Senator. He might mess it up completly. A tradgedy might happen because of him. It's not likely but if it does happen then it makes changing him in TPM pointless. Lucas knows why Jar Jar and Anakin were like that, this guy doesn't.
I don't know why people didn't like this sequence. I thought it looked amazing. And it was there to show why the Gungans had this army. They lived in a very dangerous enviroment. Lucas confirmed this in one of the TPM books. Take this scene out and you have to ask why the Gungans had an army?
At NO point in TPM was Anakin ANY of these things. He flew the ship didn't he? By the time he is flying out of the Control Ship he knows EXACTLY what he is doing. Of course at first he didn't know what to do but would anybody? He still refused to go back when R2 suggested it and wasn't insecure or scared at any point during the battle.
In that scene Anakin was confident, excited, eager and flew into the battle without really thinking about it. All things that lead to his downfall.
In the "Making Of TPM" book there is a pretty big section about Lucas writing the script and one of the things he keeps going on about is that he had to make it beleivable that a 9 year old kid could fly the ship.
That's why he gave him R2 and the auto pilot. That's why the scenes with Ric Ollie were added at one of the pick-up shoots. And that's why he he made Anakin not able to fly at first. But by the end of the battle Anakin has complete control over that ship. Showing what a great pilot he was.
Are you saying that because he's Anakin Skywalker he should just have to look at a ship and know how to fly it?
Being the only one who finished the pod-race at only 9 years old proves that Obi-Wans statement in the OT was correct.
His darkness is vaguely there in TPM and it's far more subtle than the PE. In TPM it's the other characters who sense the danger which makes it much more dramatic than Anakin showing it. Anakin has no idea what leaving his mother behind will do to him. As he says "What does that have to do with anything?".He's going on this great journey and has NO idea what lies ahead. That makes it much more dramatic than if he was already scared and angry in TPM. We know what's going to happen, the other characters in TPM know what's going to happen but Anakin doesn't. That's brilliant. I can't really remember specific scenes in the PE that made it more obvious than the real TPM?
The Phantom Edit misses the point because it changed some characters and made some things less important than it should be. TPM is Very subtle but the PE seemed to be more direct and I thought it made it more for kids. But some of the cuts were okay. Like Tarpals proding Jar Jar with the stick and saying "how rude". I didn't miss things like that but I still think it's pointless.
Looks like we disagree on many counts. You think some things are extremely important of which I wonder if they are at all. And I agree that TPM is very subtle, in fact a bit too subtle for my taste. Let me tell you why. Here in Holland SW is not a big thing. the movie did well but it's not huge or anything. Almost everyone I knopw who saw the film (all non-SW fans) had one reply after seeing it: the story was very shallow, but there are some great scenes and effects!
Now what does that mean? I disagreed with them on the story being shallow, it's one of the most complex stories of all films so far. But it's told with so much subtlety that few people see what happening. We are all well introduced to all the ins and outs of the story, we know what it's about, we know how it all fits (for the most part). But an average viewer DOESN'T and that's one of my main problems with TPM. The story is told so subtly that most of it is not grasped, doesn't help people to feel for the characters (SW fans excluded) and that is why I think the story is fine, but not the way TPM tells it. IMHO the TPE achieves better results.
A few things about the fish scene:
1. yes it did look great, nice eyecandy
2. the same things happens twice: big fish eaten by bigger fish
3. it doesn't mean anything really
4. Why would one need to explain WHY a people have an army?(and where do blue bouncing balls come into play when it comes to fighting aqua sandomonsters?) I would think that if you have an army, you have something to defend against, whatever it is. If this enemy does not have a vital part in the story, who cares. Hitchcocking rule applies here: don't explain too much, it's boring. And this scene is redundant in that sense, IMHO OC.
The Gungans have an army to defend against the sea monsters?
(Qucik attack of common sense- their weaponry did seem designed to work on land, though...)
But WOW! There should have been a sequence where Otoh Gunga was attacked by the big fish things! And Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon could have aided the defence and thereby earned the confidence of the Gungans. This could have replaced the bongo sequence (while being just as impressive) and also provided a bit of variety from the continuous battle-droid slicing we had in the film (I remember thinking after 20 minutes first time I watched- Ok! I get the point! The Jedi are better...).
Well, just an idea. But I think it would have been cool.
I'm still not sure where I stand on this (having still not seen it), however, I am not sure if we can make a blanket declaration that it is impossible to improve someone's work just because you don't know the full vision of it. As anyone who works in movies or books should know, some dispassionate objectivty can do a piece real favours.
I will certainly give TPE, if I ever see it, every chance to prove itself and not dislike it just because GL did not do it.
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"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
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Sep 2nd, 2001 05:35 PM
