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Star Wars - Episode II: The Republic Divided by L8wrtr

THE REPUBLIC DIVIDED

WARNING MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!!!!

As soon as L8's newly created Opening Crawl appeared, I knew I was in for a good ride!
For everything you need to know or expect from this edit is perfectly symbolized by L8wrtr's new Crawl.
As the original Prequel Crawls are some of the most convoluted, headache inducing, and horribily written prologues
ever to grace the silver screen IMO. But L8 has boiled down the crawl to it's core essence, simplifing and streamlining it
and putting the focus back where it needs to be, on the characters and main plot.

As he did with the Crawl, L8 applied the same concepts to the entire narrative. He has culled away everything that is either a distraction or needlessly complex, and returned the story to being about characters instead of special effects.

He has made Anakin actually fairly likeable in this version (which I thought would be an impossible task) and even tragic.

The romance feels slightly more real and believeable in this version, though both actors still come across at times as stiff and dull, but that is poor direction on Mr. Lucas's part, no fault of L8.

Obiwan and Anakin's relationship has more a Buddy feel to it with the removal of Anakin's constant whining and disrespect.

L8 has wisely and thankfully trimmed most of the big action pieces which were way too long, too loud and honesty, very boring.
Gone are flying R2D2 (YAY!!!) and wardroid C3P0 (BIGGER YAY!!!).

I found myself agreeing with all the cuts and trims, the narrative flows very smoothly and nothing feels missing to me.
Though personally, I miss Yoda's lightsaber duel, but I completely respect why it was cut.

Technically I did not notice any significant audio or video issues. All the cuts are clean, all the transistions are smooth, video quality was excellent and the audio sounded great.

While I am not a Star Wars Fan, and not as familiar with all it's continuity and tiny details of it's Universe, I found this Edit to be fairly entertaining and a definite improvement over the original. Thumbs Up from me!

Great work as always L8!

Looking forward to your version of the final installment of the Prequel Saga!:)
 
Copy pasted form the fanedit page:

"Nothing much to add to the praise: a very good edit of a very weak movie.
To me this edit is at same level of success than Episode 3 by faneditor Kerr
(but also gave me the same feeling that a short edit like this is not “Star Wars canon”, but that’s just me).
I’ll rate this edit a 9/10.

One point was lost because of the following things:
- The end of the crawl have a little transition problem.
- The lenght of the edit. A bit too short for me. But hey, that’s the price to pay.
- I understand the shot of Anakin and Padme “by the fire”, but it felt a bit short.
Maybe just few more seconds would have help to remove the feeling of a “fanedit cut”.
- And last but not least: Padme awaking from her fall at the end and saying “we have to go to that hangar!” (or smething like this).
I never liked this scene. Everyone in the theater laughed when she woke up that fast and start running and, well,
how does she know about “that hangar” anyway?

But those really are minor and personnal points. This edit is the ultimate polishing work of Episode 2 to date."
 
TMBTM said:
-And last but not least: Padme awaking from her fall at the end and saying “we have to go to that hangar!” (or smething like this).
I never liked this scene. Everyone in the theater laughed when she woke up that fast and start running and, well,
how does she know about “that hangar” anyway?
Click to expand...
Natalie's run is so bizarre in that scene. I'm pretty sure I mentioned it in my workprint review, but since L8wrtr obviously hates me...

;)
 
well,
how does she know about “that hangar” anyway?
Click to expand...

How do you know that? I said how do you know that?
Did you read the script? Is that the script lying in the sand here?
-Redlettermedia
 
Well, I did cut her awkward running when her cruiser blows up in the beginning.. do I get at least partial credit for this?

Perhaps when the BD's come out and Frink badgers me into doing them in HD...
 
L8wrtr said:
Well, I did cut her awkward running when her cruiser blows up in the beginning.. do I get at least partial credit for this?
Click to expand...
+1/2
 
Sunarep said:
How do you know that? I said how do you know that?
Did you read the script? Is that the script lying in the sand here?
-Redlettermedia
Click to expand...

Exactly what came to mind when I read that.
 
Um.. Anakin spoke to her with the Force? (looks around for straws)
 
This gets 9 out of 10 from me! Fantastic editing L8!
 
My Review:

I came to this edit with some serious reservations I can’t lie about that. Out of all of the Star Wars prequel trilogy this film is in my opinion by far the worst. The story is cluttered and convoluted, the acting is stiff and often painful, the action is often plodding and tedious, the writing horrendous, and worst of all transgressions the movie is just plain overlong and boring. And of course the godawful goofy humor of The Phantom Menace is magnified here and prevalent through out. What’s happening in this movie is massively important to the story as a whole, yet everything feels like filler and padding and by about the one and a half hour mark with just under an hour to go the film begins, in my opinion, to become a serious chore to get through. So needless to say polishing this turd, with some admittedly interesting ideas going on beneath all the problems, would be a hard task for any editor…And one I think L8wrtr proved he was up to with this edit.



Before I get into anything about the film itself I’ll talk just briefly about the video and audio quality. It’s in my opinion about as good as it gets. I noticed no discernible difference between the quality of this edit and my standard DVD of the original film. The picture was crisp and flowed smoothly, and I noticed no audio problems at all. There may be some minor details and flaws that I missed while watching, I’m the first to admit that the technical aspects are not something I’m always the most observant of, but to my eye and ear everything was in place.



Now the film itself. What L8’s done here is nothing short of spectacular in my opinion. Others have mentioned it so I’m not breaking any new ground when I say that it’s truly mind blowing that one can remove so much of this movie and still have a well paced, coherent narrative. The amazement is only increased when one realizes just how much more coherent and well told the narrative actually is without all the excised material. The story as told now is fast paced, interesting, exciting, and best of all fun to watch unfold, with some clever and subtle additions sprinkled in – most specifically in regards to the Kenobi/Kamino plotline – to ensure that things make sense. A big improvement on that ground alone.



But it’s the character work that really shines here for me. I finally like the characters, and believe the journey they take in this movie. Anakin in the original film is whiny, arrogant, and very very annoying. Worst of all his leering and undisguised lust over Padme is creepy at best. That’s not helped by Padme’s inexplicable refusal of her feelings, constantly leading Anakin on only to pull back at the last minute…I am not sure why Lucas felt it was necessary to make their romance so chaste in this film. Perhaps he felt he needed to hit audiences on the head with the “forbidden” nature of it all. The result simply made the romance entirely unbelievable. Instead L8 gives us a blossoming romance that grows, for both parties, as the film goes on lending weight and credibility to the whole thing that wasn’t there before and thus providing a much more satisfactory experience. Now and then it doesn’t work as well as I would have liked, unfortunately, especially the moment on Naboo with the two of them in Padme’s chambers. It’s there because it has to be but with the cuts made it’s now so brief that it becomes jarring. An obvious edit, unfortunately, instead of a seamless one. But given how well the rest of it now works I’m willing to overlook that minor flaw.



AS for Anakin and Obi-Wan Kenobi, I was glad to see their constant bickering and sniping at each other gone. It’s subtly done and goes very far in letting me like the characters, as they now seem to like each other.
The numerous positives of this edit I could go on all day about, but that’s not helpful, that’s just slobbering all over a film. Praise without criticism is not constructive and with that in mind I want to focus on some of the negatives now. Unfortunately this movie is still this movie. No matter how much you fix it it still has it’s problems that can’t be solved. The work done on the factory sequence, and those who have seen the movie will know what I’m talking about, is nothing short of fantastic…but in the end the sequence is still inherently stupid and there’s no getting around that. And personally I thought the continuity problem of Anakin suddenly being without lightsaber without explanation was a little jarring in that it called attention to the editing. I was suddenly painfully aware that there were things missing. I will admit though this may be the best you could ever do with the sequence, as it really can’t be removed, and I commend that.


One of my biggest problems is the transitional sequence from the lightsaber duel with Dooku to Padme on the ground being roused by the soldier. That is an absolutely atrocious sequence, and in my opinion should have just been outright removed. I tested it today and it is possible. Yes Padme seems to appear later out of nowhere when her ship reaches the hanger as Dooku is making his escape, but I personally would have preferred that minor hiccup to the massive hiccup that is that scene.



Another moment, just as personal preference, that I would have liked to see removed was the Jango/Kenobi dogfight in the asteroid field. I’ve always hated it. Here it’s much quicker and done in a jiffy, without Bobba’s obnoxious “Get him dad! Get him! FIIIIRE!” nonsense and that made it much more enjoyable to a certain extent. But for my money action should always be in service of the story, and there was no reason for that dogfight to exist other than to have a cool F/X sequence, and for that reason I would have liked to have seen it excised entirely.



In conclusion, this edit is not without some minor flaws but is nonetheless an incredibly enjoyable version of the film, well paced, and smart and subtle with it’s editing. Clearly L8wrtr understands the importance of pace and narrative very well, and his edits highlight that fact to great effect. He has taken a film which is in it’s original form an exercise in excess and tedium and makes it a fast and tightly edited adventure without any pretensions about what exactly it is. Kudos to L8wrtr for the obvious work he put into this, as it’s now most definitely my default version of the film easily replacing the original and becoming my personal official edition.
8 out of 10 stars.
 
I think that if you wanted to get this across, maybe having Anikan shout "PADME!" when she starts to wake up (audio taken from when she first falls out. Of course, this will obviously 'cause anyone who watched Transformers to have memories of "BUMBLEBEEEE!" and
OPTIMUUUUUUS!" crawling back. But still, I think that would be a good way to fill in that little plot hole.
 
I think this may be the best edit I've seen of Episode 2, good job. Will you be recording an audio commentary for this like you did for Episode 1?? I enjoyed the one you did for that one.
 
thanks Jamie! I'm glad it delivered.

I am indeed very slooooowly working on a commentary for this which will be released as part of the DL DVD which will also include the deleted scene's section. In some ways the deleted scenes say far more than my commentary. Anyhow, thank you for the compliment and hopefully Dawn of the Empire will deliver as well.
 
What's the status on the dual layer version? Should I just throw in the towel and download the single layer version?
 
Give into it Kolpitz. You know you want to. I've downloaded Adywan's ANH:R SL and DL. I've downloaded SotS in DL straight-away (apparently my timing was impeccable), and I also downloaded TRD SL. I have this unnerving habit of being incredibly impatient when it comes to films :)
 
I'd second it. Give into it. I've downloaded ANH:R SL and SOTS SL and TRD SL. which I'll be downloading the DL of TRD when its available, cause I'm interested in hearing the commentary.
 
Give me one more week, if not by then, I say yeah, what they said.
I think I had hit a serious wall and haven't been able to make this happen, but I now have a fire to finish III, and this is standing in the way. Give me one more week.. ;)
 
Watched this today, you rectified all the issues I had with the WIP, all two of them ;)

This is now my go to version, thanks.
 
A wall, huh? That's got to hurt! :lol:
I really got to start watching SotS and TRD so I can get reviews up.
But I'm also dying to finish MoT an move on to other things. Decisions, decisions! :)
 

IT'S BEEN DONE! I just completed the audio commentary. I have to put it into the timeline, create an alternate audio and make sure that the background isn't too loud which was probably the biggest complaint about my Episode I edit.

I need to confirm that everything lines up, export the combined audio and then burn the DVD, do a QA test, which means the DL DVD should be uploaded by end of the week.

so THANK YOU to everyone who was so patient for the DVD-9. Now.. let the Dawn of the Empire begin!
 
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