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Star Wars > Star Wars – Episode I – The Phantom Menace – (1999 movie) >

(on Wikipedia)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120915/
https://starwarsfans.fandom.com/wiki/The_Phantom_Edit
(website, archive)

The Trade Federation blockades a peaceful planet, and decisive action is required to bring political and military strength to bear.

An astonishing improvement on the original. Even though it’s lower visual quality than it’s original can be, it’s worth a watch. Very highly recommended especially to fans of the original trilogy who were disappointed by this new trilogy.

• Properly titled Star Wars Episode I.II: The Phantom Edit
• Trailer for the original

• The Nice Jedi – Trailer

  • by Imperator Cuts
• This is an edit of Star Wars – Episode I – The Phantom Menace – (1999 movie)

• Download from archive.org

Star Wars:

1. Star Wars Episode I.II – The Phantom Edit – (2000 movie)

   • There was a Star Wars Episode I.I – The Phantom Edit (notice the I.I) which was an early VHS-only release with a longer running length. This DVD release removed two additional scenes.
   • Star Wars – Episode I – The Phantom Menace – (1999 movie)

2. Star Wars II.I – Attack of the Phantom – (2001 movie) instead.

   • Star Wars – Episode II – Attack of the Clones – (2002 movie)

3. Star Wars – Episode III – Revenge of the Sith – (2005 movie) to watch immediately afterward.

Flag	Flag, closeup

• 2023-04-06
• 2021-08-24
• 2019-12-23
• 2016-03-29

• Likely watched before; no notes were taken.

2021-08-24 ∞

• 0:45 — Reading.
• 2:15 — How old is that pilot?
• 5:45 — How did they lose the transmission?
• 9:15 — I would think they’d bomb the military structures and descend on their cities directly.
• 10:00 — Why would the Jedi be running with the crowd in open air, especially since it’s so easy for them to duck under one of them or maybe step to the side.
• 12:45 — They’re awfully dry, and they’re not even leaving wet footprints.
• 15:00 — I wonder how confused people would be if they hadn’t seen earlier movies to know what the “Jedi mind trick” is.
• 20:00 — Did the ship even have shields?
• 21:00 — The shields didn’t turn out to be useful at all.. they became powered all for nothing.
• 22:30 — Since when are droids to be commended?
• 29:45 — The other dude also didn’t pay for that.
• 30:45 — You’d think they’d have public shelters for these sandstorms.
• 40:30 — So why would Jar Jar know anything about anything about hard tech? His people are all about soft tech.
• 42:00 — He’s been lying several times so far..
• 45:15 — He didn’t get his chance die back.
• 50:00 — On the left is Willow.
• 53:15 — There’s only one universe. That’s the uni.
• 57:15 — I think the kids were supposed to be high-fiveing or something.
• 1:00:30 — I thought his dream was to visit all the stars..
• 1:01:00 — Once he gets back to civilization, he could trivially get the money together to come back and purchase his mother and free her. After all, her son was responsible for helping the whole damned queen of a planet.
• 1:04:00 — Or maybe turn and blast the Sith? Or is the ship completely unarmed?
• 1:08:30 — Why would Anakin go with them?
• 1:25:15 — Don’t they have image stabilization on that holo projection?
• 1:32:00 — That helmet wouldn’t fit him; why put it on?
• 1:39:45 — That door slammed down too fast.
• 1:41:15 — The lip syncing was off.

• 1:41:30 — Come on, how come there’s some little-yet-critical thing.

Still a decent move.

2019-12-23 ∞

I don’t know if this is another source or not, but I’m going to watch this again.

• 0:00 — The main DVD menu is fullscreen. :(

• 0:30 — The initial music before the title seems wrong.

• 7:00 — Oh god I always hated the voice of that one masked operator.

• 12:00 — How handy that they have breathers.

  • I suppose it’s justified, maybe, since they’re really small and the planet does have a lot of water.
• 12:45 — Their robes don’t appear particularly wet any more.
• 17:00 — That appears to be a rather visible parking spot..
• 17:30 — They’re definitely dry now.
• 22:30 — This attitude with the droid does continue a theme of treating them with empathy.
• 23:45 — Bringing a native of Naboo directly links them back there. It’s a piece of information that’s too easily gleaned.
• 26:00 — So was he born somewhere else?
• 27:15 — Why would they believe that guy is telling the truth about nobody else having a hyperdrive?
• 39:30 — So he’s Jesus. Right.
• 43:00 — So the Sith tracked them there, but by tracing what transmission?
• 47:30 — I didn’t realize there might be a Skywalker emblem on that flag.
• 50:00 — Oh my god, on the left is the actor who starred in Willow – (1988 movie)!
• 53:30 — What universe you’re from? There’s only one. That’s the “uni” in universe.
• 1:00:30 — This is bad parenting. He’s too young to give consent.
• 1:01:15 — Would everything they own including the protocol droid and the money from the pod be enough to free her, especially given how poor her owner now is?
• 1:04:15 — Did they already repair the ship?
• 1:04:45 — Anakin doesn’t know about the queen.
• 1:21:30 — Why wouldn’t they be engaged while in orbit? There were enough ships to shoot at them on the way off of the planet in the first place.

• 1:28:15 — Wilhelm scream

  • As it turns out, it’s actually by Ben Burtt. [ 1 ]
• 1:30:30 — Assuming where the chancellor is? They didn’t learn ahead of time.
• 1:33:30 — I’ll just assume the auto-pilot is grouping the ship in a formation with the others.
• 1:38:00 — We’ve established they have cannons in their bays.
• 1:42:00 — Why ever was there only one command ship for all their armies? They had many before.

• 1:54:00 — I like how it ends with a bandaid symbol.

Commentary ∞

• 0:30 — Oh, so this is an improved version of the VHS version. I would have liked to collect the VHS version.
• 1:00 — Created with a Macintosh G4[doesn’t exist] 400MhZ 128MB RAM and 40GB hard drive.

• 1:45 —

  • Illustrator for the typesetting
  • After Effects for the scroll
  • Frames per second discussion
• 4:15 — Into the scene late, and out of the scene early to keep audience attention.

• 5:15 — AC3 (AC-3 algorithm)

  • Oh wow, replacing dialog.
• 6:00 — Final Cut Pro 3
• 6:30 — Removed the “roger roger” which was stuck on the VHS
• 9:45 — The editor recognizes that this is not a kids movie.
• 10:30 — Jar Jar was intentionally left in. Of course he ought to be.
• 12:00 — Lucas used to focus on the story first and effects later, but this movie had a lot of stupid moments which were useful only to showcase Jar Jar.

• 15:00 — The underwater/core scene was removed because Jar Jar is useless.

  • I would also argue that it was an intuition of the editor’s to remove that whole scene because it’s just showcasing effects.
• 16:30 — Talks about him modifying things to create his own seamless wipes.
• 19:15 — I now notice the droid legs balancing around; pointless nonsense.
• 27:15 — Adobe Photoshop

• 34:30 — The woman titled “The Surgeon” is also something which Joss Whedon is known for.

  • Jaws (film)
• 38:30 — Ben-Hur (1959 film)
• 42:00 — Wow, the cloned-Jedi idea would have been awesome to pursue.

• 49:30 —

  • Cathy, who he went to film school with
  • Shawn
  • Tod
  • Tod’s wife Jen
  • Aaron
  • Mitch
  • James
• 50:15 — I did notice he joins the race very quickly.
• 51:15 — I don’t see why the sand people would be funny.
• 54:30 — Roger Ebert
• 55:45 — He made a Commodore VIC-20 game that won a Revenge of the Jedi poster.
• 56:00 — Ben Burtt

• 56:30 —

  • Steven Spielberg
  • John Hughes (filmmaker) ?

• 57:30 — Easter Egg: A film that he made while attending film school, for the Conan O’Brien show which contains him and Elizabeth Nuchico(?)

  • See VTS_17_1.VOB
• 58:30 — NSYNC
• 1:06:15 — Lucas being the caliber that he is using that necklace in the next movie.. I don’t even remember it.
• 1:39:00 — Oh, I didn’t notice Natalie Portman slipping there.

• 1:45:30 — re. match cutting. During the corpse-burning scene, if you hit the enter button on your remote it will take you to a side-by-side comparison of 1:46:00.

  • It’s not available in the special features section of this DVD!
  • In VLC it’s a hidden spot near the bottom-right.
• 1:47:15 — I always thought “the master” comment leading to the focus of the one guy was way too heavy-handed.

• 1:49:30 —

  • Memento – (2000 movie)
  • Chris Nolan
• 1:50:45 — He makes a joke about maybe Apple giving him some recognition over all the press surrounding his edition which mentioned Adobe After Effects and Adobe Final Cut Pro being used on Apple hardware.

• 1:41:00 —

  • Robert Rodriguez
  • El Mariachi – (1992 movie)
  • Rebel Without a Crew – (1995 book)

• 1:54:30 — People who were blamed for The Phantom Edit, who he apologizes to:

  • Sofia Coppola
  • Nicolas Cage
  • David Fincher
  • Quentin Tarantino
  • Henry Winkler
  • Kevin Smith
• 1:54:45 — Mike J.

• Ends with a little “it’s over, go home, geeze.”

Other DVD secrets ∞

• VTS_10_1.VOB — How wude!
• VTS_14_1.VOB — Is that a bit from Memento – (2000 movie)?

• VTS_17_1.VOB — Scene from Mike, on Conan.

  • This was referenced in the commentary at 57:30.

• VTS_23_1.VOB — Kevin Smith and other characters from his universe commenting on The Phantom Edit.

2016-03-29 ∞

• 4:15 — Their hats look .. hilarious.

• 5:15 — Get confirmation from the droid inside. Don’t believe the droid. Wait a half an hour. Confirm they’re dead. Roll credits.

  • Perfectly legal.
• 6:45 — What force power lets him make his light sabre get.. hotter?
• 23:15 — Attract attention? With a ship like that? Yeah, better hope you’re landing really far out of town.
• 25:30 — “Let me take that back” doesn’t make sense to me..
• 26:45 — That’s a good idea. Trade in the hot-but-broken ship for a busted-but-working one, and you get to hide better.
• 27:15 — Jedi Mind tricks won’t work on space Jews.
• 28:30 — You have a druid.
• 37:00 — Is that the broken ship you were trying to buy parts for?
• 39:30 — Rape? It was rape, right?
• 42:30 — It’s over 9000!
• 45:30 — So what’s-his-face understands blue guy?
• 53:30 — There are other universes?
• 1:00:45 — No, the choice is not his alone. He’s not a consenting adult. Be a proper parent, the choice is his parent’s.
• 1:14:00 — So dude has gone against the council befoore?
• 1:20:00 — I hope their ship got repaired.
• 1:21:45 — So when exiting there was a blockade, but entering is easy now..
• 1:33:15 — Why would an auto-pilot take them there?
• 1:35:45 — So what exactly is the point of those energy walls?
• 1:38:30 — I would have been digging holes to ruin the laser wall projectors.

• 1:39:30 — What happened to the shield-projecting Sonic the Hedgehog bots?

Footnotes

1. Unless there’s some other faux-Wilhelm scream I missed. [ ↩ ]