Topher Grace Screens Star Wars Prequel Re-edit

silentbrad writes "/Film (as well as IGN and A.V. Club) reports about Topher Grace's fan re-edit of the Star Wars prequel trilogy into a single, 85-minute film titled Star Wars: Episode III.5: The Editor Strikes Back.' Quoting /Film: 'His idea was to edit the Star Wars prequels into one movie, as they would provide him a lot of footage to work with. He used footage from all three prequels, a couple cuts from the original trilogy, some music from The Clone Wars television series, and even a dialogue bit from Anthony Daniels' (C-3PO) audio book recordings. He even created a new opening text crawl to set up his version of the story.' It continues with what stayed and what was cut. It's just too bad it was a one-time-only screening."

Comments

What, no torrent?

[bill_mcgonigle]

He also seems to want to favor storytelling over merchandising, which is a strange and unusual concept.

Should do that with Matrix 2 and 3

[cpu6502]

Separate, boring they are.

Together, one good movie it would be.

Re:Should do that with Matrix 2 and 3

[demonbug]

Separate, boring they are.

Together, one good movie it would be.

Nah, just cut all three movies together as one. I think the best cut would be about 136 minutes long.

Re:Should do that with Matrix 2 and 3

[Rizimar]

I'm not sure that editing them down to one movie would even save the sequels. Though, if you want more of The Matrix, The Animatrix has some really good short animations surrounding that universe.

Re:Should do that with Matrix 2 and 3

[Picass0]

Nothing can save that sugar-coated ending on the park bench with the Oracle and the children and the sunset.... It's like someone stole the movie I was watching and slipped in Micheal Jackson's 'Moonwalker' movie.

Matrix 2 and 3 are better forgotten. The first movie stands better alone.

Re:Should do that with Matrix 2 and 3

[BlackSnake112]

http://xkcd.com/566/

the last 4 frames.

Re:Should do that with Matrix 2 and 3

[Wraithlyn]

To be fair, the original script had them using humans as CPUs, tapping their brains for processing power... which is at least plausible. Some genius decided this was too complicated for American audiences to understand and thus it was switched to the "humans as power generators" nonsense.

So I just tell myself that's what the machines are REALLY using the humans for, and the "humans as batteries" crap is just Morpheus's woefully ignorant pet theory. It kinda works if you squint real hard.

Re:Should do that with Matrix 2 and 3

[hairyfeet]

The ONLY way the Matrix trilogy could be saved is if the fan theory was true and Neo never left the Matrix. then instead of some lame electro jesus it would be a royal mindfuck where the machines, realizing that a percentage would never accept the construct, created a much worse "real world" to give them something they could believe.

Can you imagine if one of the machines popped into Zion at the end of the third and simply told them" you are suffering and living like this because this is what you wanted. You poisoned the planet so badly during the war it is simply unfit for life. We first tried to give you paradise, that failed. We then tried to give you the height of your civilization, but you rejected it, so we had only the choice of creating this "hell world" or killing you and we chose what we thought would be more humane. sorry if it doesn't make you happy but this is all you would accept, a world of suffering".

Now THAT would have been a truly awesome ending that would have left you seriously wondering about big questions like whether man could accept a true paradise. as for the prequels? I'd say Plinkett nailed it and anybody who hasn't watched these videos really needs to. he points out thing I never noticed...but my brain did, like how lazy Lucas had gotten with the "over over two shot" like on soap operas, just so he could do everything in front of green screens. he points out in great detail the incredible fail that is the prequels, how they even butcher their own mythology just so Lucas can throw more shit at the screen and do more CGI. BTW watch his review of the last indy flick and you'll find out how big a hack Lucas really is. Did you know he wanted to set indy 3 in a fricking haunted house? You listen to what his original ideas for indy and Star Wars were and you think "ZOMFG, what is he insane?" and then you realize the ONLY reason he ever made anything good was people willing to stand up and say "George that just doesn't work" but now he's so rich nobody will stand up to him and this is what happens.

Re:Should do that with Matrix 2 and 3

[Canazza]

There were lots of good "Bits" of 2 and 3. Like the first Smith fight in the park, or the highway chase, or the zion fight. The Hovercraft race-against-time chase down the narrow passage. The Merovingian scenes. They had the potential to be really good. But for some reason they weren't.

The problem is that they spent *far* too long on these bits with nothing to break them up. If they weren't fighting for ages, they were talking your ears off. I remember feeling like my eyes were about to start bleeding during that first Smith fight (partly due to the bad CGI). The Zion fight focused on the mech walkers too much and not enough on the foot soldiers, or the drama behind it. It was all action, for the full duration.

The fight scenes were all fighting, and no plot progression, and plot progression happened in massive info dumps.

Remember in the first film where Neo first takes on two agents on top of the building? That was an awesome scene and lasted one minute. It progressed the plot by making you realise Neo IS the One, and it was pretty awesome to watch. The climactic lobby fight scene was 3 minutes long and showed what exactly was possible in the Matrix. The subway fight was 4 and showed Neo going toe-to-toe with Smith for the first time. Between each of these was somewhat of a breather to let the audience relax. The film was well paced between fights and dialogue.

Now take Reloaded. The mid-film vs Smith scene in lasted over five minutes, was mostly blurry, bad CGI and did sod all to move the plot forward. The Architect on the other hand was EIGHT minutes long, 'moving the plot forward' is an understatement, as it pretty much WAS the plot, and such a large dump of information was boring as fuck. If they weren't relentlessly chaining fights they were droning on and on incessantly.

Re:Should do that with Matrix 2 and 3

[Endo13]

I just mentally change everything as if the script had stuck with humans as CPUs. Picture Morpheus holding an Intel chip instad of a Duracel, and it all works out and makes so much more sense.

Not all the plot holes go away, but a lot of them do. (For example, why the Agents can't just break rules in the Matrix willy-nilly however they please, but rather must stick to bending them.)

Re:Should do that with Matrix 2 and 3

[godel_56]

Really? Humans as 'batteries' makes sense? Not merely sucking out energy of those living, but actively feeding and breeding them?

"Lisa, in this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!"

Re:Should do that with Matrix 2 and 3

[DragonWriter]

I just mentally change everything as if the script had stuck with humans as CPUs. Picture Morpheus holding an Intel chip instad of a Duracel, and it all works out and makes so much more sense.

Or you can just imagine that the script stuck with humans as CPUs but still has Morpheus holding a battery and saying exactly what he said about the machines using humans for energy, but that Morpheus is a religious fanatic successfully deceived by misleading propaganda spread by the machines as part of a system of control...

Which, even though it may not ever be stated on screen to be the explanation for that particular statement by Morpheus, is actually entirely consistent with the rest of the series.

You just have to drop the idea of Morpheus as a completely reliable narrator, which, is a pretty unjustified idea to start with.

Star Wars: The Editor Does His Job

[Chris Burke]

Without Being Prevented From Doing So By Lucas

would have been the name of the Star Wars movie about an alternate reality where the prequels were substantially better.

Interesting concept...

[Oswald McWeany]

Interesting concept... could never happen for legal reasons... but I'd be intrigued if people could "cut n' paste" scenes from OTHER films into a meaningfull order to make it look like another star wars film.

For example- Take Ford from the Tom Clancy Films- and Indiana Jones; cut and paste them together- with a few special affects and make it look like episode 7.

C3P0 could be in episode 7- just rip scenes of Rex from "Yo Gabba Gabba". Mark Hamil has been in so many block buster films since Star Wars- should be easy to get footage of him to use.

Re:Make something new

[Chris Burke]

The goal wasn't to make the prequels not suck. He's learning about editing film, and used the prequels as a medium to do so (and probably make a great test case to show both the potential and limitations of post-production editing).

Calculus and science are great, but I don't think everyone should do that and nobody should do art. Once you accept that the entire concept of movies aren't pointless, then learning about editing is a useful skill.

Re:So what's the point of telling us?

[PCM2]

Why can't he release a detailed list of every edit he made (allowing someone else with a nonlinear editing suite, lots of time on his hands, and fewer qualms about BitTorrent to piece it together)? Surely he kept records, if he's studying to be an editor?

Re:Machete needs a fan edit

[PCM2]

Yeah. That movie would have been better if it was about the length of a trailer inserted into the middle of another movie.