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I've just come across this article on the fan-edit of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, details of which can be found here. First, the edit's effect on Episode I itself: quote:Twenty minutes have been cut from the original 133, and as a result the film is tighter and faster. Jar-Jar, who has been demoted to an almost silent supporting role, is actually enjoyable. (A different "Phantom Edit" has dubbed over Jar-Jar with an alien voice, giving him subtitled dialogue that turns the gibbering idiot into a wise sage, spouting pearls like "Children and fools ask more questions" and "Pride can blind you from the truth.") Likewise, young Anakin -- whose shouts of "Yahoo!" and "Whoopee!" made many "Star Wars" fans grimace -- is a thoughtful, much quieter protagonist.
Although entire extraneous sequences are missing (the journey to and from Jar-Jar's underwater home have been sliced), most of the changes are simply felt rather than individually noticed, as is the case with any good edit. The Phantom Editor has smartly taken advantage of Lucas' trademark "wipes" (a scene transition that scoots a new scene in from one edge of the screen to the other) to duck out of scenes early. And secondly, this general quote struck me as being important:
quote:With its obvious parallels to the Napster debate, the shifting of power from the filmmakers to the fans is both disturbing and exciting. It is disturbing because there will no longer be any sort of quality control, aside from the natural assumption that the best "fan edits" will be the ones that get passed around the most. We may have 100 different versions of the next "Star Wars," and 95 of them will be sub-par.
What's exciting is that one or two of these versions will not only be reedits but reimaginings, radically changing the narrative through unexpected audio and visual juxtapositions. The possibilities are endless -- indeed, "Battlefield Earth" may be a much better picture when reedited into a 15-minute experimental short film. In the upcoming years we will be privileged to witness, essentially, critics making movies, which we haven't seen in abundance since French New Wavers like Godard and Truffaut decided that the best response to a film was making another filmHas technology reached the point now whereby film can be subject to the same slice-&-dice as the written word? What are the ramifications of this sort of reappropriation of previously untouchable work (after all - who's going to reedit Welles? Or Hitchcock? Me?) for a fan's purposes? How will this affect filmmakers - if at all?
My thoughts aren't quite clear on this as yet, but I thought that given the level of interest here in fanfic, slash and general queering of texts, that this could be an interesting pathway to explore. This could well be made into a roving thread, if there's enough interest...
Thoughts?
[ 29-11-2001: Message edited by: The Return Of Rothkoid ] |
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