Synopsis:

A radical attempt to turn the Biggest Disappointment In Cinema History into a dramatic, coherent, emotionally engaging adventure movie.

Intentions:

1) To colour correct it in a way that evokes the original Star Wars 2) To redub Jar Jar and the Trade Federation; in the process I aim to make Jar Jar an amusing, slightly cowardly and selfish character, and the Trade Federation more menacing and less cowardly 3) Jar Jar is the only Gungan in this edit; thus, as well as no Otoh Gunga sequence and Droid vs Gungan battle there is no space battle, as that directly relates to the Droid/Gungan sequence 4) To re-score much of the film 5) No C-3P0

Change List:

I won’t do a complete cut list now because (to be frank) there are hundreds of changes, but here’s the major stuff: - The Trade Federation invasion sequence has been changed, it now includes moments from the Droid/Gungan battle, as well as clips from Terminator Salvation, Star Trek First Contact and Star Trek Insurrection, to create a greater sense of the suffering to the people, and threat of the invading army - Jar Jar owns the Sub, he tells the Jedi that he’s parked it at the bottom of the lake/ocean - There’s a brief scene in the Sub where Jar Jar instructs the Jedi that the best idea is get off-world ASAP - When Obi Wan frees the pilots they rush to their ships and take off immediately to attack the Federation (if your country/planet has been invaded why would you not attack them the first chance you get?); so the Queen’s ship getting off Naboo is interspersed with clips from the space battle - Sebulba threatening Jar Jar is removed, replaced by: - The Anakin fighting Greedo scene - The pod race is scored throughout - Qui Gon lightsabering the probe droid is added - Jar Jar informs the Queen that she needs to fight back, leading to her decision to go back to Naboo - All mentions of midichlorians and virgin births have been removed - The parade scene is excised – the film ends on Palpatine’s face.

Additional Notes:

With the benefit of hindsight, The Phantom Menace is the most coherent, most Star Warsy prequel. I get the sense that Lucas made the film he wanted to make, without cowing to the perceived wishes of the fans (see: Yoda’s lightsaber fights in the sequels), or being straight-jacketed by the need to tie everything to the OT (see: everything in Revenge of the Sith). It also benefits enormously from being largely shot on actual locations, which gives TPM a verisimilitude sadly lacking in the other prequels. A further benefit is Liam Neeson, who gives the most rounded, humane prequel performance. Unfortunately there’s a lot of problems too: the film suffers a near total lack of tension, has horrible acting, dire scripting and a plethora of cartoon characters. By cutting much of the first 30 minutes, primarily by cutting the Gungan City sequence, and by adding shots of the Naboo populace being terrorised, some drama is added to the start of the film. By turning Jar Jar from a cartoon rabbit into a selfish, sarcastic comedy sidekick he becomes a bearable part of the film. By cutting as much unncecessary exposition and as much lousy of the acting as I could, hopefully the decent moments work a lot better now.

Other Sources:

Special Thanks:

Sunarep Oztog Rogue-theX Mike Nichols JasonN