Pokematic Review's Star Wars Episode 2.1 Attack of the Phantom

If it's not a good game or catholic...who do you call?...why Pokematic "hi."

So the phantom editor strikes back, and re-edited Star Wars Episode 2 Attack of the Clones, this time called Episode II.I Attack of the Phantom. I already watched and reviewed Episode I.II The Phantom Edit (readable here), and I decided to watch and review The Phantom Editor's second work, Attack of the Phantom. First I want to tell the story of finding a stream of it. It's pretty easy to find a download of the DVD files, but I don't want to download things because I'm paranoid when it comes to downloads from less than reputable websites; plus I didn't want to make a DVD, so I wanted to find a stream. With The Phantom Edit I found it easily on multiple different streaming sites (probably because it's rather famous), but it was much harder finding Attack of the Phantom (probably because it's significantly less famous). I eventually found it on Youtube, but it's blocked in the US for copyright reasons. However, that's promising because it wasn't "removed for copyright reasons." Plus, I have a youtube unblocker because I enjoy occasionally watching Todd in the Shadows and many of his videos are blocked in the US. However, my standard youtube unblocker was having a lot of trouble with this video, because after about 3 minutes the webpage would crash. This required me to install another youtube unblocker, and this one lets you try out different proxy domains from 64 different regions. After about 5 minutes of scrolling through regions, I eventually found a region that works. As far as youtube is concerned, I'm watching it from Vienna, Austria. I'll provide full directions at the end of the review if you're interested.

Before I review this fan edit, I have to talk about the original. Unlike many people, I like Attack of the Clones. The prequel trilogy were the first Star Wars movies I saw in theaters. It was the trilogy that had all the toys that I played with since everything wasn't a sought after collectors item. On long car trips I always did a star wars marathon in number order, so I always saw episode 1 and many times episode 2. I've seen episode 1 so many times I can quote the entire movie from memory, and while I'm not AS good with episode 2, I know most of it from memory. Sure, the prequels are a bit hokey, but I love that hokeyness. I didn't want to watch Attack of the Phantom because I wanted to see "what it could/should of been," but because I was curious as to how this fan interpretation would be. I would also like to note that I will be making MANY comparisons to The Phantom Edit and my thoughts on it, so be sure to watch it and/or read my review of it first, otherwise you will be lost.

Now onto the review. So what is Episode II.I Attack of the Phantom? It is a fan edit of Star Wars Episode 2 Attack of the Clones that aims to remove what made the prequels "bad," restore select deleted scenes to improve story, and make them more faithful to the original trilogy. In The Phantom Edit this included removing the "roger roger" and all of Jar Jar's non-essential to the plot dialogue while restoring scenes like Qui-Gon being chased by Darth Maul's probe droid to explain why he and Anikin are running. In The Phantom Edit, there was a lot of goofy that could be cut, and a lot of scenes were restored. In Attack of the Phantom though, there are a lot of things cut, but not a lot is restored. I also want to note that the original Attack of the Clones is considerably less goofy than Phantom Menace to begin with. Like, Phantom Menace was "lets make a movie specifically for the kids" (and I love it for that), but Attack of the Clones was "OK, now that we have that out of our system, lets make something a little more for the teens and adults." This didn't leave much in the way of "goofy" to cut out, so we were left with sub-plots and non-essential action to be cut, and honestly, I feel it REALLY suffers for it.

"But Wait, this is supposed to make the movie more faithful to the original trilogy by removing all the crap and restoring the good deleted scenes" you might be saying. How can that be bad? Well, let me start out with the scenes that were restored; or more accurately, singular SCENE. Yeah, unlike Phantom Edit, Attack of the Phantom only restores one scene, and that's Anikin and Padme visiting Padme's family. In this we see that Padme does have a family, and it's actually rather normal; She has a sister and both parents. Her sister mistakes Anikin for her boyfriend and Padme quickly responds with "he's not my boyfriend...he's my bodyguard," and of course her parents are concerned for her safety. I like this because:
A) it really humanizes Padme
B) it adds to the complexity of Anikin and Padme's relationship
C) it really juxtaposes Anikin's lack of traditional family and Padme's loving family
D) we see Anikin kind of jealous of Padme and her family
and E) it gives a little more context as to why Padme would be safe hiding out on Naboo as opposed to "oh it's where I once ruled, and my friends and I used to go to this lake house on breaks."
This addition was very welcomed, and is probably the best part of this edit.

Now to talk about the things that were removed. I'll first start with sub-plots and exposition, and work my way down from "glad it's gone" to "why was this removed?" I'll start off by saying "there is no 'glad this was gone.'" As mentioned earlier, I like Attack of the Clones as is. There's not really anything in them that I wish George Lucas did without. In Phantom Menace there were a couple of things that left me confused and Phantom Edit removed them. This time however, there wasn't any of that, so the best I can start out with is "I didn't miss that." The only thing that really constitutes "I didn't miss that" is about half of the Anikin-Padme relationship development. In this cut pretty much all the scenes of Anikin and Padme falling in love and talking about their forbidden love is gone. The only thing remaining are some kisses and a couple of hints at them falling in love. The scene with them playing in the field is gone. The dinner scene is gone. The whole scene about their love being forbidden and "wish away all my feelings" is gone, as well as the "I shouldn't have done that" aftermath of the first kiss is gone (it transitions from them making out right to Kamino). Of the relationship development things, I don't miss all the "teen romance novel" scenes of them falling in love, like dinner or playing in the field. That stuff, yeah, we can do without. It doesn't add a WHOLE lot of development to Anikin's and Padme's characters, and is just kind of "teen romance novel." While I don't think it's great that it's gone, I don't really miss it as we already get that they're falling in love with the whole kisses thing.

With this in mind, I do kind of wish that the other half of the romance development was left in, mainly the forbidden love. Like most people, I don't fully understand why Jedi can't love. I guess it has something to do with loyalty to the Jedi brotherhood and being able to self sacrifice since they have no other ties to the world, but it still feels a little strange. That's why I suspect the phantom editor cut it. However, it's still important. Durring most of the forbidden love scenes, we really see how this is tearing Anikin in 2; 1 part loyal to the Jedi, and 1 part loyal to his Worldly ties. It really demonstrates why it was such a problem for him to be trained so old. In Star Wars expanded explanation books I read as a kid, younglings are taken to the Jedi temple at age 3, before they develop close bonds with family and potential relationships. However, since Anikin was 9 he already had a bond with his mother and was crushing on Padme. In Episode 2 we really explore these feelings and see how it is pulling Anikin to the dark side. However, with the forbidden love scenes cut, we don't see how these feelings are hurting Anikin. We still get some of that with his mother later on, but it's not really enough for me.

Another bit that was cut was some explanation of the events between episode 1 and 2 particularly with Padme and how she went from queen to senator. This I am divided on. I fully understand why this was cut from a fan edit perspective. The whole "queens are elected" thing is confusing the first couple times around, and only recently did I fully understand the whole "padme was really the queen in episode 1 but this time she ran for senate after stepping down," so it makes sense to gloss over that as much as possible in a fan edit; but if you're a dedicated fan, it will make sense after watching it enough times and it will add to the experience. At least, it did mine. I do wish that George Lucas explained it better, but it does make sense. I miss it but I completely understand why it was cut.

That's it for "kind of miss," now it's time for "just plain miss." Since I'm still on the subject. I want to talk more about Shmi Skywalker, Anikin's mom. One scene that's missing is Anikin having the nightmare. In the original we see Anikin in bed dreaming about his mom, and we get the impression that it's a bad dream because of the panicked "no! no! mom no!" I miss this scene. Sure, we still have the whole "Anikin meditating the next morning" scene where he discusses it with Padme, but we don't get the feeling of pain. With movie story telling there's the saying "show don't tell," where because this is a visual medium, it's better for the audience to see what you want them to see instead of telling them what you want them to see. While we don't see the actual dream, the actual dream isn't what's important; rather, it's how it's hurting Anikin. Sure, there's some exposition of the dream, but it also shows Anikin's trust of Padme by opening up to her like that. By removing the dream scene, we're just kind of left with "tell don't show," and it hurt's Anikin's character.

On a related note, Cleat Lars's eulogy at Shmi's funeral was removed. This I miss, because it added more to Shmi's character than just "Anikin's mom." This shows that her death affected more than just Anikin, and it was nice to hear about her. I can see why it was cut since it was not very essential to our main characters, but it added an extra layer to the universe.

Now it's time for the "I wish this wasn't removed" parts. These are mainly concerned with Obi-Wan. First I want to talk about the removal of the space battle between Obi-Wan and Jango. On the surface all this is is a space battle that looks cool. Removing a cool space battle is bad enough from a visual appeal perspective, but the battle highlights Obi-Wan's ingenuity and piloting skills as it shows him faking out these tracking missiles and sneakily following Jango even though Jango knows there's a tracking device on his ship. It really adds to Obi-Wan's character, and makes the movie more visually appealing. I can almost see why it was cut, but I don't think it should have been.

Then there's the Kamino toxic dart sub-plot that was cut. Now instead of being shot by a toxic dart that leads Obi-Wan Kamino, the assassin just says "Kamino System." One could argue that it's a slow plot development, but it REALLY adds to Obi-Wan's character. First and foremost, we see that there's more to him than just a "stick in the mud" jedi. He has a good friend, Dex, that is a bit of an expert in the universe. In a deleted scene we see Obi-Wan with the dart being analyzed by the Jedi temple robots, but nothing is coming up, so he goes to his friend that knows a lot of things and maybe he would recognize it. It really shows his logical skills and that he has friends outside of the Jedi (there is no way that this greasy diner owner is a Jedi, so he has to be a friend). Then there's the whole "OK, so the planet should be here, but it isn't. What is going on?" eventually leading to him asking Yoda and the younglings. Sure, it MIGHT be a bit out of logical character for Obi-Wan to think that a kid could think of something that he couldn't, but it also shows the dangers of putting too much faith in knowledge vs wisdom, and that maybe sometimes the crazy answer is the right answer. It's a pretty major development point, and Obi-Wan feels a lot less flushed out because of it. I REALLY wish that this was left in, and maybe had that deleted scene restored. A LOT was lost by removing this.

Then there's also the removal of Jar Jar saying "lets give Palpatine the power to have an army." We still get Palpatine accepting the power, but we have no idea where the power came from. We still have the scene of the senators saying "we don't have anyone to call the vote to give him power," and the scene where he gets the power, but we don't know who called it. I think this was related to trying to remove Jar Jar as much as possible. Well, his removal here created a major plot hole. This should have stayed. Everything else is minor in the grand scheme of things since the movie is still coherent. But this, this makes a giant plot hole. Like, you can feel that something is missing. If it was Jar Jar saying "...that's why meesa vote to give mui mui reserve power to the supreme chancellor;" it could have been edited to be "...vote to give reserve power to the supreme chancellor." And correct me if I'm wrong, but I think fans were perfectly OK with having Jar Jar be the one that ultimately screwed up the universe. He was already the most hated character in the franchise, so what's having him give Palpatine the power he needs to destroy the galaxy?

Alright, I've covered all the major plot points. Now I'm going to talk about the "removal of small goofy bits." But first, I must give credit at leaving in "wanna buy some death sticks?" That scene was perfect and had every right to be in there, and I'm glad it was respected. However, many other things were not so lucky. For example, Mace Windu no longer says "this party's over." I get it, it doesn't add anything to the story, or the character, and may seem out of place for a Jedi to be so snarky. HOWEVER, Mace Windu is played by SAMUEL L MO-FO JACKSON! It's out of character for him to NOT say something like that. Then during the failed execution scene, there's no "you call this a diplomatic solution? No, I call it aggressive negotiation." Sure, the context for the term "aggressive negotiation" is gone since the "play in the field" scene is gone, but it was so hilarious. There's also the removal of the battle droids freaking out saying "UH OH! ROGER ROGER!" when the giant mantas thing is about to kill Obi-Wan. It's strangely silent, like something is supposed to be said there. It's already been established that these things talk, and their gestures look like they're saying something, but they aren't. Another jarring omission is Duku saying "but our skills with a light saber" after saying "this won't be settled with our knowledge of the force" during the Yoda fight. What is that supposed to add? It sounds like an incomplete thought. It doesn't give any context for why they're suddenly light saber battling. It's not goofy, it sounds like something a villain would say to taunt the good guy. I don't get it. He also removes the whole "Anikin losing his light saber, again" thing. While it is treated like a gag and doesn't add to the story (he still gets it destroyed in the factory but doesn't say "not again!"), it adds to the character of "Anikin is a teen and not completely responsible." All the removal of the gags and stuff really takes away from the movie. Sure, episode 1 had probably too many and was "overspiced," so removing them left some good flavor; but episode 2 had the right amount of joke spice, so removing it was either jarring at worst and bland at best. I could go on with the minor removals, but that would be overkill.

Before I end I want to talk about the removal of the alien language subtitles. I'm not opposed to removing the original subtitles and adding your own. That's the entire premise of the "anti-cheese" edit of episode 1 (an edit I plan on watching and probably reviewing soon). However, with this the phantom editor just removes the subtitles leaving us to guess what they're saying. Since I've seen Episode 2 so many times, I know the subtitles, so it's not like it's "sparing me the bad" at all, and all it does is confuse people. Plus, the subtitles weren't that bad anyways. I don't get at all why those were removed.


All in all, I didn't like this. It took away far to much and didn't add enough back. It also removed a lot of what made episode 2 good in the first place. Then again, I like episode 2. Maybe if I didn't like it I would like this fan edit better, but from my perspective it just wasn't that good. I kind of want to make a DVD of it now, because that has the phantom editor commentary of why the edits were made, and maybe it would explain what I'm missing and why the edits were justified. I can understand why they were for Episode 1, but I can't really for Episode 2. But, whatever. Anyways, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

How To Watch

So you want to watch Attack of the Phantom without downloading it. I'm just like you, I don't want to download it either. If you search for it you will find it on youtube. Lucky for us, it's not a dead link because the video is now removed for copyright reasons. Unlucky for us, it's block in your country. But lucky for us, plug-ins for this problem exist.

What you'll need.

Mozilla Firefox
Youtube Unblock (available here)
An email address you don't mind using to sign-up with Youtube Unblock
And the Youtube Stream (available here)

Here are the steps.

1. Install the Youtube Unblock add-on. I tried my normal youtube unblocker and the webpage crashed. I found Youtube Unblock to work
2. Sign-up for Youtube Unblock. I used my throw away email address to sign up. There's no confirmation email, so it's pretty immediate.
3. Go to the youtube stream of Attack of the Phantom.
4. Click on the Youtube Unblock icon in the corner of your firefox window.
5. Set your country to Vienna, Austria. This will change your proxy setting to one out of Vienna, Austria for your web browser, not just your Youtube tab.
6. Enjoy Attack of the Phantom
7.  At the end of the movie, sign out of Youtube Unblock to set your proxy back to your original proxy.

Note: This add-on appears to only give you a 2 day free trial. You will only need it for one day. Feel free to try other youtube unblockers for other web browsers.
Since this add-on is readily available through firefox, it appears to be legal. However, I cannot be held responsible for any problems this may cause you. Use at your own discretion. Later.

Pokematic Reviews Star Wars Episode 1.2, The Phantom Edit

Just so you know, this is the edit that I watched. I've heard that there are many fan edits of episode 1 called "The Phantom Edit" and as the years go on it's gets harder and harder to know what is the original edit. I'm pretty sure that this isn't the original edit, but it's the first stream I found, it does pretty much everything I heard the other edits do, and therefore I'm going with this one.


Now, without further ado, lets get to this review.

If it's not a good game or Catholic...who do you call?...why Pokematic "hi."

Now as I mentioned in my Episode 1 3D review, I love Episode 1. I don't care what the critics say. Sure, it's probably the weakest of the series, as of right now (can't say for certain with the new movies coming out), but dammit I love episode 1. As I said with one of my film friends, all the other star wars movies are "Jedi fighting wars and fighting and their primary goal is to stop the sith whereas episode 1 is a little more in line with what the jedi actually do, and that's help settle disputes between planets, nations, and generally keep the peace." Mace Windu said it himself in episode 2 "we're keepers of the peace, not soldiers," and as Qui-Gon said in episode 1, "I can protect you, I can't fight a war for you," but in all the subsequent star wars movies, the opposite is kind of what happens; the jedi lead armies of clones to fight the separatists and their droid armies in the clone wars and Luke along with the rest of the Rebels fight a war with the Empire. These jedi do a lot of fighting of wars and acting as soldiers from what I see. You may find episode 1 boring, but at least it's pretty in line with what the jedi are supposed to do.

Another thing is that Star Wars has kind of always been "fun for the whole family." The kids like all the sci-fi fantasy action along with all the "wizard" things that the characters do while the teens and adults enjoy the great characters and...well most of the same things the kids like. Episode 1 however really tried to be distinct for all audiences. It had little Anikin, Jar Jar, and much of the same "wizard" sci-fi fantasy of the original but on a grander scale and a far more complex story and elements for the adults. Unfortunately, I'm 1 of 8 people that actually appreciates the immature kid stuff and the mature story elements. Everyone else didn't like that. And that's where the phantom edit comes in.

What does the phantom edit hope to accomplish? It hopes to tone down the kid pandering and "mature story elements" with creative editing and cuts. Does it succeed? Yes. Most definitely yes. It removes as much of the "annoying kids stuff and political adult stuff" as possible in hopes of making a movie that's more consistent with the tone and story style of the original trilogy. And here's the thing, it does a really good job at that. Many times it feels like a completely different movie. In addition to the removal of "the annoying kids stuff and political adult stuff," this particular cut restores many of the deleted scenes. The restoration of the deleted scenes is crucial to the story this edit wishes to tell.

So is this cut better than the original? It's hard to tell. Every review and comment and the like I've read has been positive. In general people really like these recuts. Sure, every recut is going to be different, like apparently one cut redubs Jar-Jar's dialog with alien language and subtitles with "far less annoying and wise sage advice," and I'm sure other cuts didn't include the deleted scenes, and other cuts ACTUALLY LEAVE IN THE BIG CLIMACTIC ENDING, but they all basically follow the same premise of "remove the annoying kid stuff and political adult stuff." Yeah, the cut I watched ended right as Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon were getting ready to fight Darth Maul. But anyways, they all end up telling a similar, recut story.

So what did I think of this? Honestly, I'm mixed. I really liked seeing the deleted scenes. They explain why Qui-Gon and Anikin are running when they get to the ship and why they come riding in on those things when Anikin is getting ready to race his pod. The pacing is also much faster. 10 minutes in I was like "we're already at this point? Wow." Is that good or bad, I don't know. It got rid of some of the redundancies and made the flow a little better, but it got rid of the pauses some characters took between lines of dialogue, making things seem a little rushed. Also, some lines were completely removed or reorded, some crucial some not. It was just a little jarring to me since I know the entire movie line for line. I tried doing what I did in the 3D rerelease where I said every line of dialogue as it was said, but I soon found out that would be impossible since the timing and dialogue was completely different. Good, bad, I don't know, just really different. One removed scene that just REALLY got to me though was the removal of the scene where the other slave kids are taunting Anikin about his pod. For me at least, that scene is just so crucial to who Anikin is as a character. It shows us that this junk yard slave is really just a kid. I'm not sure if we could really call them his friends because they are kind of jerks to him, but he doesn't tell them to get lost at the first sight of them so they aren't his enemies. I get that "it's annoying kid stuff," but it was just so crucial to Anikin. They also get rid of so much of Jar Jars dialog. Jar Jar is like my favorite character of the entire Star Wars franchise. Meesa love Jahr Jahr. Jahr Jahr makah meesa laugh so hard. Teysa gettin rid of Jahr Jahr, meesa no liken dat. Yeah, I love Jar Jar. I think he's hilarious. To just get rid of my favorite character, well that hurts.

So what's my verdict? Well if you like the original trilogy but didn't like episode 1, give this a shot. People say it's leagues better. Me on the other hand, it's different. It does follow the tone of the original trilogy better and is faster paced, plus it resorts the deleted scenes, but it removes a lot of the things I liked about Episode 1 and it just isn't the same movie I loved as a kid and still love to this day. Should every star wars fan see it, probably. If you see a good cut, you'll probably enjoy yourself, but I can't guarantee that you'll think it's better than the original. It sure is different though. Well this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

PS: I was going to watch the thief and the cobbler the recobbled cut and do a fan edit double feature, but I just got tired and didn't feel like watching that fan edit tonight. Maybe tomorrow.