How Star Wars was saved in the edit

jjdebenedictis

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I've mentioned this before on AW, but I saw Attack of the Clones twice in theatres, with the second viewing being in IMAX.

That movie had some great action scenes at the end of it, but a lot of the middle of the film was ruined by the retch-inducing bad dialogue, a leaden romance between Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala, and a lot of bloat caused by too many pretty-but-useless scenes.

But here's the thing: IMAX film projectors couldn't physically fit a film reel as large as Attack of the Clones had. So the IMAX version of the film was just a little shorter than the regular theatre version. I got to see the shorter version after having seen the longer one.

Whoever edited that shorter version together turned a clunky film into a wonderful action flick; that one should have been the version put into wide release. The saccharine scenes were gone, the bad dialogue disappeared, and the pacing improved.

And do you know what was most surprising? Suddenly the romance worked. By having the characters say less, by leaving out the ponderous declarations of adoration and all the silly scenes where they picnicked together, it became much more believable that these two young people had fallen in love.

So it was more than just the original Star Wars movie that was saved by editing. Unfortunately, very few people got to see the well-edited version of Attack of the Clones.
 

Mary Love

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So it was more than just the original Star Wars movie that was saved by editing. Unfortunately, very few people got to see the well-edited version of Attack of the Clones.

Interesting. I just told to my brother this morning that we should see that movie again; it's been a long while. Now I can't remember which version I watched, but I'll be looking for the IMAX one--thanks!
 

sideshowdarb

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AOTC has aged the worst of all the SW films. At the time, it was a nice tonic to TPM with the snappier banter and whiz-bang panache of the OT. Otherwise, it's structurally a disaster. Not to derail the thread. Editing is a major element of any film, and certainly fiction as well.
 

Frankie007

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I've mentioned this before on AW, but I saw Attack of the Clones twice in theatres, with the second viewing being in IMAX.

That movie had some great action scenes at the end of it, but a lot of the middle of the film was ruined by the retch-inducing bad dialogue, a leaden romance between Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala, and a lot of bloat caused by too many pretty-but-useless scenes.

But here's the thing: IMAX film projectors couldn't physically fit a film reel as large as Attack of the Clones had. So the IMAX version of the film was just a little shorter than the regular theatre version. I got to see the shorter version after having seen the longer one.

Whoever edited that shorter version together turned a clunky film into a wonderful action flick; that one should have been the version put into wide release. The saccharine scenes were gone, the bad dialogue disappeared, and the pacing improved.

And do you know what was most surprising? Suddenly the romance worked. By having the characters say less, by leaving out the ponderous declarations of adoration and all the silly scenes where they picnicked together, it became much more believable that these two young people had fallen in love.

So it was more than just the original Star Wars movie that was saved by editing. Unfortunately, very few people got to see the well-edited version of Attack of the Clones.

i'm still like "wha" about the whole Anakin ages 10 years but padme didn't age even a day!