The Phantom Edit

[MSTJedi]

Anyone seen this? If you haven't heard of it, someone took their personal copy of the Phantom Menace and edited it to make it go a little smoother and took out a lot of Jar Jar's more inane moments. He's still there, he's just not near as annoying.

I found a torrent of the DVD version of this, downloaded it, and burned it to disc. Good lord was it hard to find a good link for this thing. Apparently most people who wanted to see this have done so since it's apearance in 2001. I finally find one and it's in a .dmg file, a Mac file type - I have a PC. It took quite a bit of searching to find a program that would convert it and burn it to disc, but I eventually got it done.

I'm very impressed with what this guy did to make the movie better by just doing some editing. There was still nothing that could be done about the stilted acting, though, and I would've cut out the midichlorian explanation and virgin-birth lines. That's just a personal beef of mine, though. Otherwise, very good work.

[Minnesota]

I've heard good things,

hope its worth the hype when I finally get around to seeing it

[MSTJedi]

Just started watching the commentary on the DVD (yes, the guy made his own commentary track). Mostly it's him explaining all the cuts he made in order to make the film less repetitive and make it flow more smoothly. Pretty interesting if you're into film enough to care about story arcs and whatnot.

[Isaac S.]

So what program did you use to convert it?  I never found anything that could actually convert it, so I just deleted the file without ever getting to watch it.  Maybe I can give it another shot if I can find a program that actually does what it's supposed to do.

[Sharktopus]

I'm curious how much he cut from the interminable podrace.

[MSTJedi]

Oh, he did cut the podrace quite a bit.

I used TransMac. It's only good for 30 days because it's a trial, but I doubt I'll ever need it again. You can tell it to burn the image to CD/DVD and the product is a normal DVD with menus and even a couple extra scenes - the waterfall sequence is especially gratifying.

I'm in the process of downloading "The Phantom Editor"'s version of Attack of the Clones right now. Luckily, that's in DVD file mode, so it'll be easy to use DVD Shrink to burn it.

[Johnny_Short_Torso]

I have never been priveleged to see it.. so how long is it after all the editing of the unncessary and expository scenes and dialogue? About 20 minutes I guess?

[MSTJedi]

Not quite that short - in fact, I think 20 minutes is about the amount of time he cut out. It just takes a clunky, childish movie and turns it into something a little more smooth and less pandering.

[pyro]

I have one where the guy cut out a lot of stuff (like as much of Jar Jar and microcondriacs or whatever as possible) but then also added a lot of deleted scenes and to me it seemed sorta clunky still...  would be sorta interested to see this one

[MSTJedi]

I downloaded it by a torrent file. I suggest www.isohunt.com to find it if you want to do it that way. You'd have to download a torrent program first if you don't have one, though. I use BitTorrent myself.

[donmac]

Oh, he did cut the podrace quite a bit.

I used TransMac. It's only good for 30 days because it's a trial, but I doubt I'll ever need it again. You can tell it to burn the image to CD/DVD and the product is a normal DVD with menus and even a couple extra scenes - the waterfall sequence is especially gratifying.

I'm in the process of downloading "The Phantom Editor"'s version of Attack of the Clones right now. Luckily, that's in DVD file mode, so it'll be easy to use DVD Shrink to burn it.

As an owner of the "official" AotC DVD, I'd like to see the Phantom Editor's version.  What do I need to do to see it?

[ChrisHanel]

There's two versions of the Phantom Edit. The more popular version, or "West Coast Version", cut out Jar Jar almost entirely. There was an "East Coast Version" that also circulated but was a bit rougher and not as well made.

I met the guy who did the West Coast version. Quiet guy, but very talented.

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

there is ONE problem with it, even if the movie is improved there is no REAL way i want to be reminded of the original

[donmac]

I've seen the Phantom Editor's "Phantom Edit" ("Episode I.II" version), as well as the (done by someone else) "Phantom Re-Edit" (which even redubbed Jar Jar into a non-annoying alien voice with subtitles that actually made him "smart").  Although both versions definitely improve it, not all of the weaknesses of that original movie are fixable through simply better editing.

But I'd really like to see the Phantom Editor's Attack of the Clones edit called "Attack of the Phantom".  Because I think that movie was potentially fixable through simply better editing (with the exception of some bad acting scenes, that is) due to having a stronger storyline.

[ChrisHanel]

Yeah, I wanna see Attack of the Phantom as well, considering my two biggest complaints are the fact that Episode II should have been Episode I and Anakin's character was never what it needed to be to justify the conflict in the original trilogy. Merging the two films and giving more time to older Anakin than young helps that out (though I don't think the character depth can be solved completely without a massive rewrite.)

-Chris