IFDB Review: (Old) Star Wars - Episode II: Attack of the Clones (9000 Saga):

I convinced my friends to watch a Star Wars marathon with me and then spent a lot of time determining the edits we'd watch. I decided on Machete Order, with Harmy's DeSpecialized Editions for the Original Trilogy and Hal 9000's edits of Episodes II and III. Within the first 5 minutes of Episode II, they were clapping and enjoying themselves far more than they thought they would. With a runtime of 1 hour and 48 minutes, this may not seem like a lot gets cut or changed until you watch it. Many one-liners, awkward phrasings, and too-long conversations get cut in half and put back together seamlessly or just plain left out. Some highlights: Jar Jar and some other bit characters have massively reduced roles. Obi Wan's investigation that leads him to the clones is less clunky because there are fewer steps along the way. Anakin and Padme's relationship is basically a highlights reel, but it plays out so much better than the original; the wedding at the end of the movie is touching. Anakin and Padme's confrontation of Dooku is straightforward and there is no bizarre machine shop scene where R2D2 flies all over the place. The edit: Seamless. Music and audio played over everything just fine - no choppy bits anywhere. Visuals were great as well, with some clever filters to fix up colors in many areas. Some good side-wipes were used to eliminate certain characters from scenes, these sorts of edits were only noticeable if you're familiar with the original cut. One issue: The scene at the end of the movie with Dooku and Palpatine was left in. Our group tends to like the theory that Dooku became a separatist because he discovered the truth about Palpatine and doesn't know who he can trust on the council, so that scene burst our bubble. I loved it, and would eagerly watch it again.

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