Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace - Faster, More Intense!

EDIT: Updated cutlist and runtime for V2! Available via PM on originaltrilogy.com (I'm octorox with one "x" there) and probably eventually MySpleen
 
This is a fanedit of Star Wars Episode I that I’ve been working on for a while. In truth it is less of a fanedit than a fanedit hybrid, combining some of the best (in my opinion) of Hal9000’s edit, l8wrtr’s edit, and the original Phantom edit. There are a couple of original cuts, but relatively few.
Frankly, there is not much new that can be done with the Phantom Menace (without some serious visual effects work), but no one fanedit has ever fully satisfied me when it comes to this film. I feel they all have their strengths and weaknesses, and I set out to make a cut that curates edits from these various fanedits to match my vision for the film. While some of the cuts were recreated by myself, I confess that most of Hal’s cuts were cribbed directly from the source material: his V6 of Cloak of Deception. Some audio from the original phantom edit was also used. I have put an emphasis on matching the professionalism of these original edits, and I wanted to make the film a suitable replacement for someone who has never seen the Phantom Menace before. I have also done an edit of Episode II and plan to eventually do a similar one for Episode III.
Original Runtime:
2h16m
Fanedit Runtime:
1h44m
Cut List:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/179rtro9Lq-jwlEWSoYkd97yGME7UIMg1-SPRgJ8SDbs/edit?usp=sharing

I fixed the font in your OP. Black text is not readable here.

oops! thanks. I had copied and pasted it from originaltrilogy.com and then changed it to black in order to remove the formatting out of habit.

I like your cut list and look forward to seeing it in action. One quick question though, have you maybe considered doing a color correction on the film? Like, for example, on the federation control ship remove the blue from the walls to give a more OT feel? Just curious.

Some new box art for Episode I and my upcoming Episode II edit. I didn't do the sides or back but someone else is free to do them if they want. Episode III will probably have Obi-Wan:

I don't think I could stomach watching another Prequel edit... But I just wanted to let you know that I think that artwork is beautiful!

ManicGuy1989 said:

I don't think I could stomach watching another Prequel edit... But I just wanted to let you know that I think that artwork is beautiful!

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Thank you! And yes, if you're sick of prequel edits, I honestly doubt mine will change your mind. Sorry!

In other news, I just got a new computer which means I'll have to get everything set up to continue editing, but regardless I think Episode II should still be ready soon-ish.

ManicGuy1989 said:

I don't think I could stomach watching another Prequel edit... But I just wanted to let you know that I think that artwork is beautiful!

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Unfortunately I disagree about the artwork, it looks to me like the selection tool was used on a zoomed out image. If you zoom in, it's very jagged and pixellated. It's also not to my taste (I'm not a fan of the concept) but that part likely can't be fixed. The technical issue(s) can be fixed if the selection tool is used more precisely.

addiesin said:

ManicGuy1989 said:

I don't think I could stomach watching another Prequel edit... But I just wanted to let you know that I think that artwork is beautiful!

Click to expand...

Unfortunately I disagree about the artwork, it looks to me like the selection tool was used on a zoomed out image. If you zoom in, it's very jagged and pixellated. It's also not to my taste (I'm not a fan of the concept) but that part likely can't be fixed. The technical issue(s) can be fixed if the selection tool is used more precisely.

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Honestly I'm no Photoshop pro. I really did them quick and dirty to have something as a cover. Feel free to substitute whatever you want.

Good news! Episode II is done. I still need to make a change list and create a full write-up before I upload but expect to see it up soon.

And Episode II is up on a certain 'Spleen. Here's the full write-up: http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Star-Wars-Episode-II-Attack-of-the-Clones-Sanded-Down/id/49479

I probably won't make a thread until Episode I gets approved.

Is anyone from the academy interested in taking a look at this? I know prequel edits aren't the most exciting thing at this point, but if you need a link, please PM me.

octoroxx said:

Is anyone from the academy interested in taking a look at this? I know prequel edits aren't the most exciting thing at this point, but if you need a link, please PM me.

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Don't worry The Academy has this on the list. Please be patient as there is backlog, we'll get to previewing it as soon as possible. Thanks.

TM2YC said:

octoroxx said:

Is anyone from the academy interested in taking a look at this? I know prequel edits aren't the most exciting thing at this point, but if you need a link, please PM me.

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Don't worry The Academy has this on the list. Please be patient as their is backlog, we'll get to previewing it as soon as possible. Thanks.

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No problem. I understand.

I've just previewed this excellent TPM edit for ifdb The Academy...

@"octoroxx" is open and honest in the cutlist about taking many of the ideas for this edit from other older TPM edits. He's taken the best bits from several edits to create his own "best of" version (plus his own ideas too). I haven't seen some of those edits but wherever the ideas originated, they are very good. I don't think I disagreed with a single change, or wished a further change had been made. In a version of TPM like this with most of Binks gone, pacing quickened and the general awfulness taken out, it's a pretty tolerable experience.

I must say that since 'The Force Awakens' came out, I don't find the film as irritating as I did before. Now we are getting good Star Wars, it's harder to be quite as angry at bad Star Wars. This fanedit version of TPM was almost enjoyable. Great work on the new crawl by the way, it looks very authentic. Now onto the preview...

After a perfect first half, a couple of problems creep in....

00.51.37 - The music change as the Royal Starship leaves Tatooine is substandard compared the good audio edits that preceed it. I can hear another piece of music start, then stop. It's not terrible but could be batter.
00.53.22 - Music goes weird for roughly 8 seconds while the Royal Starship is flying into Coruscant. Like the music is looping, glitching, echoing, or out of phase or something. As this edit is 5.1, maybe one or more of the channels is out of wack with the others?

The first problem I could perhaps let slide but the second is an unintended technical error that needs sorting out. I watched a 1.7gb 720p mp4 version. While it looks good for such a tiny filesize, a size just under 4gb would look a lot better. At this size it's got too much compression and blurriness. octoroxx offered me a 17gb mkv too, so I'm sure it can look better.

So this isn't approved yet but it is very, very close. Those couple of technical tweaks and less compresion and we are there, as the general pattern here is for seemless and well executed edits. I think the fixed version could be many peoples go-to-version of TPM.

(Thread moved back to in-the-works while the fixes are made, thanks)

Thank you for the feedback TM2YC! My creative cloud license has expired so I won't be able to get to those edits right away but I'll submit the updated version when I do.

I've previewed a second version of this edit...

TM2YC said:

00.51.37 - The music change as the Royal Starship leaves Tatooine is substandard compared the good audio edits that preceed it. I can hear another piece of music start, then stop. It's not terrible but could be batter.

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^ This didn't sound any better/different to me. Did you try improving it? Like I say above, it's not terrible but it would be worth at least trying to make it better.

TM2YC said:

00.53.22 - Music goes weird for roughly 8 seconds while the Royal Starship is flying into Coruscant. Like the music is looping, glitching, echoing, or out of phase or something. As this edit is 5.1, maybe one or more of the channels is out of wack with the others?

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^ This error is gone because the cut that caused it has now been removed and more Ric Olie dialogue put back in. Personally I thought the scene was better before, without Ric Olie's exposition ( @"TVs Frink" has ruined "Look over there" for everyone ).

TM2YC said:

I watched a 1.7gb 720p mp4 version. While it looks good for such a tiny filesize, a size just under 4gb would look a lot better. At this size it's got too much compression and blurriness. octoroxx offered me a 17gb mkv too, so I'm sure it can look better.

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The new 4.4gb render I watched does look better. Perhaps not as sharp as it could look but totally watchable.

However, this is still not approved as there is a new rather large technical problem...

00.49.34 - 00.49.56 - There is no sound during this entire Ani/Jinn deleted scene.

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This ^ is the kind of thing an editor should be spotting themselves. It's easy to miss small mistakes with our finished fanedits, we've all done it (me included) but something like this shows you did not take the time/care to watch your own edit before uploading it and sending me the link.

I didn't watch the rest of the edit. Please fix the above mistake, re-watch it yourself to check it's okay first and then send me another version and I'll watch that. Take your time, there is no rush . Thanks.

Yikes! It turns out this was actually a problem with the alternate "no added music" audio track on Hal's edit, which I used with his permission as a source for this edit. In the previous encode I gave you, I was using the track from his version 4.0. For this encode, I swapped it out with the 4.1 version, thinking I wouldn't need to preview, since the timecode is the same (no video edits). While this version is supposed to fix a minor problem with the rear surround channels, it actually introduced the major problem that you heard, which is that audio just cuts out during certain scenes.

I rewatched the whole edit to find those scenes and have fixed them. I'm uploading a fixed version now.

As for your other comments:

I can't hear the sloppiness you're talking about with that first audio edit. That's also a bit that's lifted straight from Hal's edit with his permission, and I'm not sure that I'd be able to do a better job than him there, because I can't even hear the problem. If it's acceptable to the academy I will probably leave that as is unless I hear more comments to the same effect.

The Olie scene I could go either way on: originally I felt the same as you, but the more I think about it, the more it seems natural for him to overexplain things in a friendly way to the frightened and overwhelmed little kid from a backwater planet. I agree the performance is hammy, but that is a problem endemic to the entire film, not just this moment. Reverting this to Hal's cut of the scene (the current version) fixes the audio problem anyway so I'm happy with it.

As for the quality, this film wasn't such a looker on Blu to begin with, and I think the grain layer Hal added combined with the re-encoding process at a smaller filesize is wreaking a bit of havoc. I'm going to upload one more version that's a slightly larger file size and with the borders cut off so more bitrate is dedicated to the picture.

Thanks again for all your work to help me get this approved @"TM2YC"

Not to pick on you, but

octoroxx said:

thinking I wouldn't need to preview

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is never true. You should always watch the version yourself that you expect others to take the time to watch, whether it's a preview, Academy review or fanedit release.

I have no idea but the weirdest stuff can go sideways even on stuff you didn't touch. I still can't explain how the last 8 minutes of my Ex Machina source file magically had framerate issues during renders, but it did no matter how many times I ripped the blu-ray. I know it's like the 20th time you've probably seen your edit, but it still holds true. Take it from someone who changed a minor thing in the beginning, did a half-assed check and then had to rush fix it and put out a V2.

I watched a third 1080p 5.42gb version and that all sounds and looks good from start to finish. So this approved!



Like I said above in the first preview... this is a solid edit of TPM that I'm sure would please many people, looking for an edit that removes 99% of the guff. It leaves very few of the bad moments intact, even if the underlying movie is still TPM . I haven't seen all the edits of TPM to compare but I'd bet this was one of the better ones.

Thanks.

Thread moved.