Well the Trinitron
delay went from a few days to a few weeks. Rather than
curse the fates that made Charlotte pass out in the
shower and smack her head really bad (she's fine, just
drugged - I'll go into it in part 2 of the
chronicles), I tried to make the setback a positive.
In fact, it seems recently, that all negative karma is
losing to my power of reversal. As my dad always sad:
"You seem to fall into shit, and turn it to gold quite
easily". Well since I fall into my
FAIR SHARE of shit in life, I guess that's
good.
So I'm toolin'
around online and I read of The Phantom Edit.
Some guy edited Star Wars and made Jar-Jar less
annoying, Anakin less annoying, and he is distributing
this puppy. I look on Ebay, and no one has 'em up yet.
Oooh...could be an opportunity for some money on my
end. Well, my first impression was that he simply
edited out Jar-Jar. Only later, did I realize that he
just changed his voice and took out some of the
stupider scenes. Apparently because it was
"impossible" to take him completely out since he's in
so many scenes.
Bullshit.
Hostly folks, this
may be the most satisfying project I've ever
completed. In 21 hours of work I turned Star Wars
Episode I , into the movie we all wanted to see in
1999. It was one of the most challenging editing feats
imaginable, 'cause that freakin' bastard is standing
next to everyone CONSTANTLY. So to the Star Wars
junkies out there here's what I did:
First off, my love
for Jar-Jar is well documented:
So this by all
means was a labor of love. But of course he was not
the only thing wrong with the movie. There's easily 3
major problems that pissed off all true
fans:
1.
Jar-Jar
2. Anakin being
incredibly annoying
3.
Midichlorians
Well Anakin was
relatively easy. Taking out lines such as:
"Let's try spinning! That's a good trick! Ahhhhhh!"
(Lucas, how could you even type that?), that was
simple. I mean he still needed to be a kid, and
kids can say some stupid things, but Lucas just wrote
Anakin so poorly that some lines actually HURT when
they were said. So I cut-him down to size a bit, and
he comes off being a bit more with it, but still a
kid.
The midichlorians
were a whole different story. I struggled with this a
bunch. First of all, how stupid was this plot-line?
Somehow we never hear of this in episodes 4, 5, and
6...but they are this major point in "Jedi-land" for
Episode 1? Well it was this reasoning that eventually
made me leave them IN. Now hear me out...Lucas has to
tackle this puppy in Episode 2. He took such time to
introduce it, I pray he explains why they are never
spoken of in 4, 5, or 6. If I took it all out, and
then it's brought up again in 2, that'll make my edit
suck. So just deal with the midichlorians for now. And
pray next summer he makes it all good.
And of course
Jar-Jar. Well this is where my edit just shines.
Absolutely glows. You never hear Jar-Jar. You never
see Jar-Jar. Jar-Jar is not in this movie. Yet somehow
the story isn't interrupted. Now if that isn't a
glaring deficiency in scriptwriting, I don't know what
is. If you can take out an entire main character, and
it doesn't effect the plot, that character doesn't
belong in your movie. Now the gungans on the other
hand ARE necessary as they get Qui-gon and Obi-wan off
the planet at the beginning, and then help fight the
droids at the end. So it was pretty tricky to
incorporate them without Jar-Jar. Basically,
I show them going underwater in the beginning to
escape the droids, and they know there's a village
down there. They don't need Jar-Jar to tell them that.
That always bugged me about the original...this was a
secret underwater city? HOW? You mean in the hundreds
of years it took to build this city - NO ONE ever
saw it? (sigh)...so it was no problem for me to have
them swim to it KNOWING it was there. They then asked
Boss Nass for help with the Naboo, he declines and
then with some Jedi trickery they get a transport out
of there. Which they take to get to the queen. It's
all good.
Of course, if you
remember the movie, Jar-Jar really is in every
freakin' scene. How the hell do I show them in
the "transport" without him being there? Well,
there's just enough to do it. It does shorten the
scene quite a bit, but that's a good thing. LOL. But
know this: I never ZOOMED in on one side of the
screen to avoid Jar-Jar. Every single shot, is
untouched. Just simply re-edited. I did have to take
certain shots from other parts of the scene, and
re-arrange them. Great example is at Anakin's house at
the dinner table. I basically re-did EVERYTHING.
Grabbed all the shots of each person looking at
someone. And then inserted them when I needed
them. The result is quite stunning. Of course the
MUSIC in the background is a problem, but that's what
being a good editor is all about. I guarantee you, if
you know someone who has NEVER seen Star Wars, you can
show them this movie, and they'll never know what's
missing.
So
much so I'm a bit unsure on what this
entry's video should be. You won't notice
anything! But an edit I made at the
end of the film, was perhaps my favorite.
Making Episode 1 a bit of a cliff hanger
without the "heart warming"
MUPPETS ending that was in the
theater. I like this
version
much better than the dancing
gungans...tell me what you
think.
Another plus is it
takes a movie that was 2 hours and 15 minutes, and
makes it a wonderful 100 minutes. A bit under
actually. It zooms along, and tells a good story. And
isn't that what we all wanted 2 years ago? You know
the "ethics" of all this is coming up in the press,
and I gotta say: Lucas deserves this. This should
be a nice dose of reality for him. People love his
characters and "epic" story so much, that when he gave
us the DRIVEL that was Episode 1...we're doing
anything to keep our spirit for Star Wars in tact. I
didn't make this to get rich, I did it to have my own
version of The Phantom Menace that I
WANTED TO SEE. I realize that the rest
of the world would probably like to see it too, but
I'm not goin' up against GEORGE LUCAS for this.
LOL. I'm not that stupid. It does suck, because this
could've easily kept our heads above water
financially. But I can make more money off my talents,
than exploiting the shortcomings of George's writing
and editing skills.
You know it's
really sad. It's what happens when someone gets so
big, that no one can tell them anything.
I guarantee people working with Lucas saw how bad
Episode 1 was becoming, but no one could say shit.
That sucks. I hope in 30 years, I'm just as
"coachable" as I am today. Even if you don't take the
advice - you HAVE to listen. You have to have someone
who's opinion you value, that you listen to
unabashedly. But Lucas obviously didn't have that. He
was much more interested in selling action figures
than writing a compelling script.
I'll stop now. I'm
probably not helping my legal standing by slamming
Lucas. But I'm highly proud of the editing job, and
feel strongly that true fans of Star Wars deserve to
see what could've been...and now is: The Phantom
Edit.
