by Phantom Editor
The phantom editor strikes again! Don’t miss the brilliant commentary. This is a very interesting and professionally edited take on ATTACK OF THE CLONES.

member ratings: (36 votes, average: 9.61 out of 10, rated)  Loading ...

original film name: Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones
new film name : Attack of the phantom

film studio name : Lucasarts
edit crew name : Mike Nichols (The Phantom Editor)

Date Original Film Was Released : 2002
Date Edit Was Released : 2003

Original Runtime : 142 min
New Runtime : 104 min

Amount of time Cut/Added : 38 min cut

Cuts removed/added/extended :
lots and lots of cuts and tweaks.

Conceptual improvements/advancements of edit over original:
“As before, I do not wish this to be viewed as an attack on the motion picture
industry, an allegiance with motion picture piracy or even an attack on artist’s
right.

My “proactive criticism” is aimed only at one filmmaker – George Lucas.

For years Mr Lucas practiced the re-editing of other director’s works as an act
of “proactive criticism” suggesting changes where he felt the director had gone
off page from the original storytelling …

…And he did so by re-editing his own version of the director’s film. Hmmmm …
Sound familiar?

So please let the entire contents of the DVD serve as my proactive criticism of
where I feel George Lucas has gone off page – not only with the storytelling
integrity of this film, but the integrity of a beloved piece of film history.

Note: no profit is generated from the creation of this DVD … And let’s keep it
that way!

-the phantom editor”

DVD Details:
Video Attributes:

• Video compression mode: MPEG-2
• TV system: 525/60 (NTSC)
• Aspect Ratio: 16:9
• Display Mode: Only Letterbox
• Source picture resolution: 720×480 (525/60)
• Frame Rate: 30.00
• Source picture letterboxed: Not letterboxed
• Bitrate: 2.46Mbps

Audio Attributes:

• Audio Coding mode: Dolby Digital
• Sampling Rate: 48kHz
• Number of Audio channels: 2
• Bitrate: 192 Kbps
• Number of Audio streams: 2

Number of Subtitles: 2

104 minutes
editor commentary
animated menus
Single Layer

Preview: (courtesy of Darth Mojo)

comments and contributions:

The Phantom Editor Strikes Again
Attack of the Phantom

Written by Joshua Griffin
Published on April 29, 2005

“This is an amazing DVD. Technically sound. Dolby digital. Commentary track and
“infinifilm” extras. Even some scene changes and rotoscoping – WAY more advanced
than the Episode I cut, which was essentially a cut of the film that lasted
maybe an hour. Clearly there was a lot of thought put into this edited version
of Lucas’ film. This isn’t just cutting out characters he didn’t like, but
really looking at the psychology of the characters and the telling of the core
story. The audience seems to be his primary concern. I think it you watched it,
you might be surprised at some of the insights the Phantom makes on the film. It
is easy to criticize Star Wars films. It is another thing altogether to recut
the entire movie.

He starts out by deleting Captain Typho’s “I think we’re safe” line from the
beginning of the film. The Phantom calls it an Friday the 13th moment. If you
click the phantom logo that pops up, you can hear an expanded commentary with
clips from the horror movies as well.

If you remember the Phantom Edit of Episode I, it was most memorable for
removing Jar Jar from the film. Well, this isn’t simply cutting a character from
the film. Jar Jar is in the film! But several of his scenes are cut down to
remove his dialogue, to make the audience feel that he has grown up. “Use him
with value” and to help the audience “feel he is intelligent” and that he knows
what he is doing.

There were a series of cuts soon after, like Anakin nose dive in chase scene and
his weird laughing, the irreverent power couplings scene and other awkward humor
lines. In one instance the Phantom even moved ambience sound to rear channels in
night club scene.
One of the most aggressive cuts was the entire Kamino dart subplot – all of the
robot analysis scenes are cut along with Dexter Jettster because a simple
“Kamino system” line has been added to the Zam Wessel death scene.

He also chose to cut the Yoda and the Younglings scene out of the film, feeling
it hurt the Obi-Wan character.

The Phantom even worked in deleted scenes, particularly some of Mace on the Jedi
council hanger and Anakin visiting the home of Padme. In the director’s
commentary audio track you hear him explain the changes and defend his actions.
He also added in a sad moment of Anakin when Padme says “he’s not my boyfriend.”

Another aggressive cut was the Jango Fett/Obi-Wan fight. Now it is down to a
teaser to build up the event later in the film. At one interesting point in the
DVD, he laments the Separatists not becoming the start of the Rebellion. When
Dooku comes into the shackled Obi-Wan, it would have been great if the Count
talked about the eventual Empire and the was essentially the Father of the Rebel
Alliance. He was ahead of his time, perhaps falsely motivated, but in the end
was correct.

He talks about the sound design being flawed, like when Anakin and Padme are
entering the Genosian the audience can hear the enemies before the Jedi senses
it. He changes the sound design so that the Jedi reveals to the audience the
problem. He also added in new sound effects and reedited the droid sequence
entirely. He didn’t like the R2-D2 jets but in the end couldn’t get away from
them. He felt it was a problem for Lucas, so he invented a new tool for R2 to
have. Why doesn’t he have them later in the Classic films?

One change I really did like was the fact that the Phantom redid the subtitles
in places – the best one being the Death Star cameo. He took away the “duh”
moment for the audience, as if you couldn’t see it was the Death Star in the
earlier two shots.

In the end, the Phantom Editor makes some great points and defends them well in
the commentary. Some people just whine about not liking the films, and this guy
takes a step at trying his best to “correct” them. Regardless of your opinion of
the second prequel, you owe it to yourself to track down this DVD and see for
yourself all of the changes and weigh in if indeed it does improve the movie.

Interesting idea, and very well executed.”

ENJOY!

Complete script transcribed by TV’s Frink -> DOWNLOAD SCRIPT HERE

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Images:

cover art by Rikter (download here):

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